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.

McCain: Straight Talk On The Economy? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVVIw7oZEyk

June 28, 2008 - Posted by Amanda Marcotte on 11:06 AM •

"I’ve been suspicious from the beginning about the existence of ”PUMAs": Female Clinton supporters who are so bitter about her loss that they will throw equal pay, reproductive rights, the environment, and a chance at peace under the bus to get their revenge by voting for McCain.  I’m skeptical even though they show up in comment threads all over the internet, claiming they’re real.  I’m skeptical even though they wrote Rebecca Traister letters claiming that they exist. I believe that the Republicans are cheerful rat-fuckers and therefore would not hesitate to set up a secretive operation of people running around claiming to be Clinton voters who are voting for McCain to keep the legend of the PUMAs alive.  If you can convince people that there are PUMAs, then you accomplish two giant goals for the McCain campaign:

1) Creating the illusion that McCain is moderate enough to attract the votes of feminist Clinton supporters and
2) Reinforcing the narrative about how feminists are just hysterical bitches with no common sense who subsist on outrage, can’t act in their own self-interest because of their feminine-addled brains, and can safely be ignored. 

My suspicions grew.  Commenters claiming to be PUMAs don’t seem to have much history of commenting on other things at blogs.  The supposed “outraged feminists” in pieces like the one Jesse covered this morning don’t exist---if there’s so much outrage, how come the journalists chronicling it can’t get one real world feminist to sign her name onto the outrage?  There’s a lot of speculation, but no quotes.

And then there’s the PUMAs, an acronym from the name of a PAC that formed after Clinton quit to supposedly stand up against the meanie sexist Democratic infrastructure.  It didn’t take much work for me to discover who started this PAC:

With her name and her zip code, all it took was a quick jaunt to Open Secrets to find out her campaign donation history:
“>

That’s the only donation listed.  So, not much of a Clinton fan but appears to be big on McCain. 

The past couple of weeks have been especially difficult when it comes to McCain flip-flops.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15924.html

* McCain supported the drilling moratorium; now he's against it.

* McCain strongly opposes a windfall-tax on oil company profits. Three weeks earlier, he was perfectly comfortable with the idea.

* McCain thought Bush's warrantless-wiretap program circumvented the law; now he believes the opposite.

* McCain defended "privatizing" Social Security. Now he says he's against privatization (though he actually still supports it.)

Wait, I'm not done with the last two weeks yet...

How many of you have actually read through John McCain's issues? 

Here's where he stands on Roe v Wade, Protecting Marriage and Promoting Adoption from his  Human Dignity and the Sancitity of Life page.

Overturning Roe v. Wade

John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench.

Constitutional balance would be restored by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, returning the abortion question to the individual states. The difficult issue of abortion should not be decided by judicial fiat.

However, the reversal of Roe v. Wade represents only one step in the long path toward ending abortion. Once the question is returned to the states, the fight for life will be one of courage and compassion - the courage of a pregnant mother to bring her child into the world and the compassion of civil society to meet her needs and those of her newborn baby. The pro-life movement has done tremendous work in building and reinforcing the infrastructure of civil society by strengthening faith-based, community, and neighborhood organizations that provide critical services to pregnant mothers in need. This work must continue and government must find new ways to empower and strengthen these armies of compassion. These important groups can help build the consensus necessary to end abortion at the state level. As John McCain has publicly noted, "At its core, abortion is a human tragedy. To effect meaningful change, we must engage the debate at a human level."

Protecting Marriage

As president, John McCain would nominate judges who understand that the role of the Court is not to subvert the rights of the people by legislating from the bench. Critical to Constitutional balance is ensuring that, where state and local governments do act to preserve the traditional family, the Courts must not overstep their authority and thwart the Constitutional right of the people to decide this question.

The family represents the foundation of Western Civilization and civil society and John McCain believes the institution of marriage is a union between one man and one woman. It is only this definition that sufficiently recognizes the vital and unique role played by mothers and fathers in the raising of children, and the role of the family in shaping, stabilizing, and strengthening communities and our nation.

As with most issues vital to the preservation and health of civil society, the basic responsibility for preserving and strengthening the family should reside at the level of government closest to the people. In their wisdom, the Founding Fathers reserved for the States the authority and responsibility to protect and strengthen the vital institutions of our civil society. They did so to ensure that the voices of America's families could not be ignored by an indifferent national government or suffocated through filibusters and clever legislative maneuvering in Congress.

 Promoting Adoption

In 1993, John McCain and his wife, Cindy, adopted a little girl from Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh. She has been a blessing to the McCain family and helped make adoption advocacy a personal issue for the Senator.

The McCain family experience is not unique; millions of families have had their lives transformed by the adoption of a child. As president, motivated by his personal experience, John McCain will seek ways to promote adoption as a first option for women struggling with a crisis pregnancy. In the past, he cosponsored legislation to prohibit discrimination against families with adopted children, to provide adoption education, and to permit tax deductions for qualified adoption expenses, as well as to remove barriers to interracial and inter-ethnic adoptions.

If you haven't found this place it's worth some good laughs. It's called Women for McCain. From what I can see it's for all those P.U.M.A.

There is SO much to read and see on this site I couldn't make up my mind what to post about so I went with their main page post of