BREVITAS

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ECO CLIPS

DAILY GREEN - South Carolina may be experiencing the worst drought the
region has seen since long before anyone thought to call the place
Carolina. According to tree ring data, the drought plaguing the region
is at least on par with anything experienced in the past 800 years, Ryan
Boyles, North Carolina's state climatologist, told the News & Observer.
The drought is at least the worst on record, and statistics have been
kept for 113 years. . . Whether or not the drought, in absolute terms,
is worse than one a decade ago, or a century ago, it is likely to have a
greater impact because the state's population has increased, so there is
a greater demand for water.

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/
south-carolina-drought-47022505


PR WATCH - "For more than seven months, the nation's top public health
agency has blocked the publication of an exhaustive federal study of
environmental hazards in the eight Great Lakes states, reportedly
because it contains such potentially 'alarming information' as evidence
of elevated infant mortality and cancer rates," reports Sheila Kaplan.
The 400-page study, undertaken by a division of the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention in cooperation with the government of
Canada, "warns that more than nine million people who live in the more
than two dozen 'areas of concern' -- including such major metropolitan
areas as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee -- may face elevated
health risks from being exposed to dioxin, PCBs, pesticides, lead,
mercury, or six other hazardous pollutants." Canadian biologist Michael
Gilbertson, who was involved in reviewing the study, said it has been
suppressed because it suggests that vulnerable populations have been
harmed by industrial pollutants.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/GreatLakes/index.htm

DAILY GREEN - British Columbia residents will pay North America's first
tax on carbon starting in July, but it won't cost them a dime. That, at
least, is how the provincial Canadian government has designed the tax,
which will rise incrementally until 2012. It starts at about 9 cents per
gallon of gas, and ending at about 27 cents. But the $1.85 billion
annual tax is about influencing behavior, not generating revenue for the
government. Income and corporate taxes are to be adjusted to save people
about as much as the carbon tax will cost them, and low-income residents
will get $100 each, plus $30 per child. By inflating the price of
high-carbon activities, people will presumably choose alternatives, and
reshaping the market in the process.

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/carbon-tax-47022407


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OUTLYING PRECINCTS

CNN - In an interview with CNN, Nader accused Illinois Sen. Barack Obama
of name-calling and challenged him to "address the issues.". . . "Above
all, explain why you don't come down hard on the economic crimes against
minorities in city ghettos: payday loans, predatory lending, rent-to-own
rackets, landlord abuses, lead contamination, asbestos," Nader said.
"There's an unseemly silence by you, Barack -- a community organizer in
poor areas in Chicago many years ago -- on this issue," he said. Nader
called Sen. Hillary Clinton the Democrat "most loved by big business,"
referencing a Fortune magazine article from last year.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/25/nader/index.html?eref=rss_topstories


POLITICO - For all the positive press Barack Obama receives, as he
moves closer to clinching the Democratic nomination he is establishing
himself as the candidate who keeps the most distance from the national
media. Reporters covering Obama can no longer move freely among the
thousands of zealous supporters at his events - unless the reporter
receives a staff escort through the security gates. (In one city, that
meant using a port-o-potty outside because the route to the indoor
plumbing ran through the crowd.) And the traveling press corps has been
shut out of monitoring Obama's satellite interviews with local media
outlets, which is a normal practice on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's
campaign. On top of that, the traveling media has been tussling with
Obama aides to keep conversations with the candidate on his campaign
plane on the record. In any other campaign year, the media strategy
might not raise eyebrows since it is standard practice for a
front-runner. But this is a year when the likely Republican nominee,
Sen. John McCain, has set a new standard for press accessibility,
creating a potentially stark general election contrast between a
reticent Democrat and the most accessible GOP nominee in decades.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8685.html

NATION - Nader's greatest value in any race is -- like Socialist Norman
Thomas in his races against Democratic Franklin Roosevelt -- as a source
of pressure on the Democratic nominee to address fundamental questions
and perhaps to take more progressive stands on a few issues. As in 2000
and 2004, Nader's appeal will be determined in large part by the extent
to which the Democratic candidate is willing to be bold. Obama seems to
understands this. Unlike Gore or Kerry, who never quite got the point of
Nader's runs in 2000 and 2004, the Illinois senator appears to recognize
that it is pointless to grumble about Ralph Nader as a spoiler. Rather,
the point is to be more appealing to progressive voters who might
consider voting Green or independent. "I think the job of the Democratic
Party is to be so compelling that a few percentage [points] of the vote
going to another candidate is not going to make any difference," says
Obama.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=289744

NY TIMES - Mr. Nader said that issues like single-payer health
insurance, labor law reform, the Iraq war and "cracking down on
corporate crime" had been "taken off the table" by the major-party
candidates. He described Mr. Obama as a "person of substance" whose
record, nonetheless, had "not been a challenging one." Mr. Nader also
said ballot access had become a central issue for him. He received 0.3
percent of the nationwide vote in 2004, down from 2.7 percent in 2000 -
a drop caused by being on the ballot in only 34 states, he said. He
recently filed two complaints, in Superior Court in Washington and in
Federal District Court in Virginia, accusing the Democratic National
Committee of conspiring in 2004 to deny him ballot access and prevent
him from running for president. The party sued and challenged the
signatures on his petitions in many states, keeping him off the ballot
in California, Pennsylvania, Ohio and elsewhere.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/us/politics/25nader.html?ex=
1361682000&en=da0384c7e64ff7b5&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss


LA TIMES - Josh Romney, one of former Gov. Mitt Romney's five sons, says
it's "possible" his father may rejoin the race for the White House, as a
vice presidential candidate or as the Republican Party's standard-bearer
if the campaign of Sen. John McCain falters.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/02/romneyback.html

WONKETTE HAS discovered that John McCain would have had to retire from
any of Arizona's courts when he reached the age of 70.

MICHELLE OBAMA'S THESIS
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=42FC5818-3048-5C12-005E33B3C0F4E64B


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FREEDOM BEAR

WIRED - A German art project could help the British avoid the oppressive
proliferation of surveillance cameras in their country. The I-R.A.S.C is
simple, consisting of a circle of infra-red LEDs mounted on a headband.
The infra red is invisible to The Man, but will cause CCTV cameras to
flare out over the face of the wearer, obscuring his identity and making
this the digital equivalent of a hooded sweatshirt. This is not a
production unit, but given that you'd only need a hat, a battery and a
few LEDs, you could easily knock one up in the garage.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/02/cctv-busting-in.html

MUZZLE WATCH - Recently, at MacMaster University in Canada, the phrase
"Israeli Apartheid" was banned from being used on campus. This decisions
was made by the provost office and endorsed (and enforced) by the
student Union.

http://www.muzzlewatch.com/?p=324

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THE MIX

NATIONAL GAY NEWS - Ric Weiland, one of Microsoft's first five
employees, has left tens of millions of dollars of his estate to a fund
to benefit eleven LGBT charities, PageOneQ has learned. The bequest
includes multi-million dollar gifts to Seattle's Pride Foundation,
Lambda Legal, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The bequest, the largest ever in
support of the LGBT movement, will establish a fund at the Pride
Foundation in the amount of $65 million..

http://nationalgaynews.com/content/view/2896/173/

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MONEY & LABOR

CNN - Foreclosure filings nationwide soared 57% in January over the same
month last year - another indication that the nation's housing woes are
deepening.
. . . A study released Tuesday by RealtyTrac, an online marketer of
foreclosure properties, showed that 233,001 homes were affected, 8% more
than in December. Of that total, 45,327 homes were lost to bank
repossessions.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/26/real_estate/foreclosures_rise_again/
?postversion=2008022607


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HEADLINES OF THE DAY

OBAMA; BUM WRAP - NY Post on photo of Obama in African garb

MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR DEVAL PATRICK RULES OUT SERVING IN OBAMA CABINET,
ALREADY COMFORTABLE AS HIS SPEECH WRITER - Fark

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BOTTOMS UP

TO UNITED STUDENTS AGAINST SWEATSHOPS which is celebrating its tenth
anniversary. A decade ago, students started organizing to confront
sweatshop abuses in factories around the world where the clothes on
their campuses were made. At the time, major clothing brands insisted
that they had no responsibility for the working conditions at the
factories and that the very locations of the factories were trade
secrets. With the support of unions, NGOs, and other allies, United
Students Against Sweatshops was formed and the fight against
campus-sponsored abusive working conditions was on. USAS has helped win
worker victories around the world. Garment worker unions have won
campaigns with USAS support. Major brands can no longer hide their
relationships to factories and have disclosed their locations after USAS
pressure. In 2005, USAS launched the Designated Suppliers Program to
stop the brands from abandoning unionized factories. USAS has held
campus contractors responsible and has leveraged student power to
support farm workers in North Carolina, Coca-Cola bottling and canning
workers in Colombia.
http://www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org//index.php?option=com_
content&task=view&id=218&Itemid=9


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FURTHERMORE. . . .

PHILIP GIRALDI, ANTIWAR- As bad as the past eight years have been, it
may be fruitful to remember what U.S. national security policy was like
under Bill Clinton, as it is very possible that Washington will soon be
returning to that gold standard for underachievement. Under Bill, Serbia
was bombed in 1999, killing more than 500 civilians in support of no
identifiable U.S. national interest. The result of that bombing and its
aftermath has been the forceful and quite likely illegal creation of
Kosovo, a predominantly Muslim state in the heart of Europe that harbors
more than its share of terrorists, drug dealers, and weapons smugglers.
Clinton also arranged for a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant to be attacked
to turn the public's attention away from the stains on a blue dress. He
vetoed several plans to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and instead
pulverized a number of Afghan mud huts with cruise missiles at a half
million dollars a pop after two U.S. embassies and the Khobar Towers
were blown up by terrorists. If Hillary Clinton is campaigning on Bill
Clinton's record, and she is, there is not a whole lot to celebrate
except for the fact that Bill did not invade Iraq (though he did think
about it, according to his secretary of state).

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/giraldi.php?articleid=12418

GOVERNING - The Super Bowl ended more than 520 hours ago, and
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has still has not made good on his bet
with New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer: "Governor Eliot Spitzer's office says
it has not received the two-dozen dinners from Legal Sea Foods and
several pints of Brigham's ice cream." Outrage! (Maybe Patrick's been
too busy giving stuff away to other people.)

http://governing.typepad.com/13thfloor/2008/02/deval-patrick-d.html

'60 MINUTES' REVEALS DETAILS OF ROVE-BACKED JAILING OF DEMOCRATIC
GOVERNOR
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3870545n

ORIGINS OF 'REASONABLE DOUBT'
http://hnn.us/articles/47018.html

MICROSOFT'S COVERT TAKEOVER OF LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WEBSITE
http://www.librarything.com/thingology/2008/02/
taxation-without-web-presentation.php


CLINTON ACCIDENTALLY ADMITS PLAN FOR CO-PRESIDENCY
http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=53014

2008 ELECTION RETURNS ACCIDENTALLY LEAKED
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/diebold_accidentally_
leaks?utm_source=onion_rss_daily


ABOUT 20 PHOTOS FEATURING Mr. Jackson adorn each of a pair of display
boards at the entrances to the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building. Here's
the slide show

http://www.dallasnews.com/video/index.html?nvid=220840

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FIELD NOTES

WEDNESDAY NIGHT PBS will be showing the documentary, "Pete Seeger: The
Power of Song," as part of its American Masters series.

http://www.kcet.org/programs/online-magazine/index.php?pID=3


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