Sarah Palin requisitioned quite a bit of money for Alaska's aerial shooting of wolves program.  According to the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, she is an enemy to animals there.

Let me count a few ways 

1.  CONSERVATIVES ARE UNION BUSTERS

They don’t like to see workers get paid decent wages because this decreases the size of their dividends.

Reagan’s first act of any consequence as President of the United States was to bust a union.  In August of 1981, Reagan held a press conference in the White House Rose Garden, where he stated that if the air traffic controllers "do not report for work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated". On August 5, Reagan fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored his order to return to work, busting the union. 

President Bush issued an executive order in 2001 dissolving the labor-management partnership council created by President Clinton in 1993.The order revokes Executive Order 12871, which created the National Partnership Council and required agencies to establish individual partnership councils and increase union involvement in agency decision-making. 

On October 3, 2006 , the working world became a great deal more difficult for nurses, and it may get worse very soon some 8 million more workers. They are losing the right to be represented by labor unions and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits, and safer working conditions.  Workers’ rights were severely curtailed by the very group of people charged with protecting America’s workforce from assault, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).  

(Proudly cross-posted at Clintonistas for Obama)

I live in Orange County, CA. I'm used to seeing scary Republicans that care nothing about environmental justice. But of all the crazy Republicans here, none can be crazier than "Crazy Dana" Rohrabacher. He's consistently voted against the best interests of our people and our planet, and it's time we do something about this. That's why I'm so glad to see some good friends of ours take real action for real change.

Follow me after the flip for the details...

WASHINGTON — With six months left in office, the Bush administration moved Tuesday to accelerate oil-shale development across the Rocky Mountain West.

Shale deposits in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming could provide 800 billion barrels of oil, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said, enough to meet U.S. demand at current levels "for 110 years."

"We need to be doing more to develop our own energy here at home," Kempthorne said. "Public lands have a significant role to play in meeting our domestic energy needs."

Tuesday's release of draft rules for shale exploration by the Bureau of Land Management was the latest shot in the growing battle of politicians pointing fingers over $4-per-gallon gas and oil as high as $147 per barrel.

Oil shale, along with drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, is part of the solution, Republicans say.

Democrats counter that none of those actions would lower energy costs in the short term and that more must be done to develop alternative energy. In the case of shale, some argue, too many uncertainties exist to move forward aggressively.

"The administration is trying to set the stage for a last-minute fire sale of commercial oil-shale leases in western Colorado, despite the fact that we are still years away from knowing if the technologies for developing oil shale on a commercial scale are even viable," said Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar.

In a conference call with reporters, Kempthorne said it would be 2015 before shale development produced oil. Even so, he said, that could affect gas prices by signaling to the futures market that the U.S. is ramping up domestic production.

For now, the Interior Department is limited in what it can do. Language inserted in a spending bill by Salazar bars the department from issuing final rules on oil-shale development. That moratorium expires Oct. 1. Kempthorne and Republicans want to prevent Salazar from extending that through 2009.

Kempthorne said he plans to move swiftly if given an opening.

Issuing the preliminary regulations started the clock on the final regulations, which could be published in about two months if the moratorium dies.

Environmental groups that oppose oil-shale development said the 235- page BLM document with preliminary rules is unnecessary. In it, the BLM states that "currently, there is no oil-shale industry and the oil-shale extractive technology is still in its rudimentary stages."

 Per Gore's office:

The speech will offer a new way of thinking about our energy production and consumption and a new sense of what is possible when we choose to work together. It will propose a means of tapping America's innovative skills to build a more secure energy future.

Who: Former Vice President Al Gore

What: A discussion on the future of America's energy needs

Where: D.A.R. Constitution Hall ­ 1776 D St., NW, Washington, DC

When: Thursday, July 17 at 12:00 p.m. EDT:

July 1, 2008 - By MATT GOURAS , Associated Press Writer,

(AP) -- Some of the most prized land in the northern Rocky Mountains is being protected from development in a conservation land deal hailed as the largest of its kind in U.S. history.

More than 300,000 acres of critical habitat for threatened and endangered animals, including grizzly bears and lynx, will be transferred to public ownership in a $500 million deal with Plum Creek Timber. A ceremony was held Monday in Kalispell to sign the agreement.

Plum Creek Timber is turning over about a quarter of its Montana holdings in a deal backed by the federal government, which is pitching in $250 million, said U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.

The land includes huge parcels in the scenic Swan Valley north of Missoula, and near the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area. The Nature Conservancy and The Trust for Public Land said the land will be managed as a working forest with places of harvestable timber.

The deal, which involves the equivalent of 500 square miles, spans a region known as the Crown of the Continent, a place environmentalists say is one of the most intact ecosystems remaining in the country. The government is expected to eventually take ownership of a majority of the land.

In recent years Plum Creek has drawn the ire of environmentalists for selling off its land to private developers, sometimes turning forests into subdivisions. Critics have argued private owners were developing the land too quickly, closing off traditional access for locals and closing down logging.

Conservation groups said they will make sure the land remains open for recreational activities such as hunting and snowmobiling. Timber harvested on the land will still feed lumber mills owned by Plum Creek for at least the next 15 years, according to the arrangement.

MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK, Colo.—Environmentalists and some civic leaders are protesting proposed changes to the federal clean air law that they say will worsen pollution in several Western national parks, including Mesa Verde National Park.

Advocacy groups held news conferences at the southwest Colorado park and three others Wednesday to call on the Bush administration to abandon the change being considered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA has proposed changing the way the impact of a new pollution source on a park is calculated by looking at annual averages, rather than peak periods, of pollution.

"Mesa Verde sits at 7,000 feet, where the air is supposed to be clear and the skies blue, but we're already seeing the effects of ozone and haze because of the intensity of energy development in the Four Corners," said Jodi Foran, president of the League of Women Voters of Montezuma County.

The National Parks Conservation Association, San Juan Citizens Alliance and other groups contend the rule change is meant to make it easier to build coal-fired power plants near parks.

Mike Eisenfeld, the New Mexico energy coordinator for the San Juan Citizens Alliance, said the news conference was his first visit to Mesa Verde in two years.

"I was shocked. The visibility up there has decreased significantly since I was there last," Eisenfeld said.

He blamed the Four Corners Power Plant and San Juan Generating Station, both coal-fired plants in the area, for worsening air quality. Eisenfeld said he believes pollution would increase if the Desert Rock coal-fired plant is built as planned 45 miles to the south.

Mary Uhl, air quality division bureau chief at the New Mexico Environment Department, warned during a recent meeting in Durango that smog levels in Mesa Verde could exceed federal limits this summer.

Navajo Nation's Dine Power Authority and Houston-based Sithe Global Power want to build the $3 billion Desert Rock plant, which could produce electricity for up to 1.5 million homes in cities across the Southwest.

Under the federal Clean Air Act, national parks and other certain federal lands are considered "Class 1" air-quality zones, meaning they have the highest level of protection. Opponents say the proposed changes would permit more pollution by changing how and when pollution is measured, eliminating shorter-term monitoring periods intended to chart sharp rises.

Environmental groups point to another change that would no longer include some existing pollution sources when considering development of new ones.

Staffers in several EPA regional offices across the country and U.S. senators, include Colorado Democrat Ken Salazar, have criticized the proposals.

Jeff Holmstead, head of the environmental strategies group at Bracewell & Giuliani, the law firm that represents Sithe Global and the Desert Rock project, said environmentalists are focusing on worst-case scenarios. He was in charge of the EPA's air pollution control office when the proposed changes were drafted in 2005.

"What the EPA is saying now is, 'Let's use the appropriate tools, but not raise the highest hurdles we can,'" Holmstead said. "The environmental community wants it to be this way because it gives them leverage; it makes it easier to stop an individual project because otherwise it will foul the air in our national parks. But it's just not true."

Churches going green
By ALTHEA PETERSON World Staff Writer
6/28/2008
Last Modified: 6/28/2008
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectID=18&articleID=20080628_18_A10_hREDEF503416
or
http://tinyurl.com/64ymhg

Watch a video of local churches working to conserve energy at http://tulsaworld.com/videos

..From recycling to energy efficiency to remodeling, more churches in the Tulsa area are looking to be leading caretakers of the Earth, said Cheryl Cheadle, the area's coordinator for Blue Thumb, an Oklahoma Conservation educational program.

"It is very easy to live in the situation at hand, when resources are very affordable now," Cheadle said. "Many people are accepting that reality — that our actions have a global impact."  ...

"I think it's a real basis of mindful and spiritual practices of taking care of the plant and taking care of each other," Ihloff said. "We want people to just pick it up one step at a time."

Through these efforts, local churches are creating new meanings for "dominion" and "stewardship" for congregations, Huffstetler said.

"Our concept of creation is that it is a gift, and that we are not the owners," she said. "There's been a misunderstanding of the Biblical word 'dominion,' which is a scriptural word, but we've interpreted it as 'domination.' I think dominion is, again, an aspect of stewardship, of being good stewards, to have a care for the entire creation."

Plus, taking care of the environment just feels good, Cheadle said.

"When you get people working together for the good of the Earth, that's when you make a difference," she said.  ..

-

complete copyrighted story at above link

There is an article on the front page of today's Washington Post stating that McCain wants to "green" the government ("McCain Has Plan to Make Government More Green" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/24/AR2008062401412.html?hpid=topnews). What McCain proposes is easily recognizable as green-washing.

 McCain has proposed several things that are visibly green. However, you have to look at McCain's big picture. When he wants to drill for oil off of our coasts, cut the gas tax to pander to consumers, and increase production of corn-based ethanol (see his most recent energy ad), McCain shows his true stripes.  He also loves nuclear power, which he says is "clean", yet he does not address how to handle the highly radioactive nuclear waste. 

The most telling data is McCain's long-standing, poor environmental voting record. The non-partisans source for this data is the League of Conservation Voters -- check out McCain's meager environmental record here: 

 http://capwiz.com/lcv_stage/bio/keyvotes/?id=192&congress=1102&lvl=C

 McCain loves to talk about his record. Well, here we can see his record: McCain generally ranges under 50% -- a failing grade. 

 John McCain -- an enemy of the environment. 

Once in a while I stumble across a site that is so wonderful and encouraging in terms of what people are doing on the behalf of Democracy, our nation and the world that I want to grab everyone I meet by the lapels and say GO HERE.  Wait until you see all the great things that the people of the USA are doing.

There are signs of poliitical life all over our nation.  People are really standing up and saying no and voting in their state legislatures in support of their no.

The New Rules Project, Designing Rules as if Communiity Matters, is one of these sites.  New Rules is a project of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

I am not a libertarian, but I am a Democrat who agrees with about 50% of what Libertarians advocate while being strongly opposed to the other 50%.  To me most of the information on this site stresses local self-reliance within the context of a government that protects the people and provides oversight.

http://www.newrules.org/index.htm

New Rules is a project of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance

 WHAT IS THE STORY OF STUFF?

 "From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever."

Go here to watch the video if you like:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Please support the California Desert and Mountain Heritage Act (H.R. 3682):

To designate certain Federal lands in Riverside County, California, as wilderness, to designate certain river segments in Riverside County as a wild, scenic, or recreational river, to adjust the boundary of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument, and for other purposes.

Read more about the bill and its status at:
www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h3682/show

You can write your representative at:
Write Your Representative.

Or, you can use the Friends Of The River website to send your message to the Congress.

yay! celebrate and plant a nice tree. or prune the trees you've got!

http://www.arborday.org/index.cfm