Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor

….oil, that is.

Today’s Deseret News reports that 13 Utah permits issued without public comment, as part of an aggressive push by the Bush administration to open more public land to oil and gas production.

BLM deputy director Jim Hughes stated “We don’t think there will be any environmental degradation,” Hughes said. “It’s basically going into areas where you’ve already got stuff happening, where you’ve got existing NEPA work that had been completed. We think in many cases this is just duplicative work.”

Uh, that makes it o.k., then.

But Dave Alberswerth, public lands director for The Wilderness Society, states, “They have to have a fairly recent analysis of the impacts before they can apply these categorical exclusions. If they’re planning to improperly apply these exemptions . . . in places where there are old land-use plans that are out of date, then they are asking for legal trouble.”

A southwest regional representative for the Sierra Club, said it’s “absurd to suggest that we need to weaken environmental oversight to help the industry. Where you have land that ought to be protected, (drilling) it is the difference between the Garden of Eden and the post apocalypse.”

There is no mention of the support or lack thereof by our public officials of this issue in this article. I’m fairly certain, however, that Orrin Hatch is a proponent of drilling for oil in Utah.

The top headline in the online version of the Salt Lake Tribune reports thatBush is most popular in Utah, according to a recent poll. While 60 percent of Utahns (according to the poll)”approves” of Bush, most Americans do not, with only 38 percent approval. (NOTE: The SurveyUSA poll questioned 600 adults in each state. Conducted Friday through Sunday, it has a margin of error in Utah of plus or minus 4 percent.)

“The people of Utah have a long-term vision of what this president stands for,” said Ron Fox, who was the vice chairman of Bush’s 2004 campaign effort in Utah. “The people of Utah understand the president’s agenda and his focus, the necessity of a war on terror.”

“The people of Utah”? Wait a minute. I am a “people of Utah” and I don’t like being included in that statement above. Perhaps Mr. Fox was misquoted and he really said “many people in Utah”.

Rep. Pat Jones (D) stated, In looking at the long-term, I can say that most people’s lives are not better today than they were before his administration.”
She attributed Utah’s high marks for Bush to the state’s heavy Republican tilt and the relatively low number of minority residents.

Jones also stated that many Utahns do not understand the long term impact of the nation’s budget deficit.

Meanwhile, in Utah:

Ken Sain reported a few days ago that Elaine Brown, Green mayoral candidate in Brunswick, Georgia, had been kicked off the ballot by a judge there for “not meeting the residency requirement” or “for not properly registering to vote.”

Brown isn’t giving up.

To a small crowd that gathered in support of Brown yesterday, she stated, “I am the people’s candidate, I’m going to stay the people’s candidate, and on Nov. 8 I’m going to be the people’s mayor.”

Brown plans to appeal the decision and stated “It’s going to be harder for me because I don’t have the money for a lawyer, but I know I have the law on my side.”

As rumors fly, one could only wish…..

From the Guardian

Top five

1 Noam Chomsky linguistics expert and critic of US foreign policy

2 Umberto Eco writer and academic

3 Richard Dawkins Oxford professor of public understanding of science

4 Vaclav Havel playwright and leader of Czech velvet revolution

5 Christopher Hitchens journalist, author, pro-Iraq war polemicist

These were sent to me by a fellow Green recently. The first one is in the body of this post. Subsequent cartoons are in the replies.

Big Brother Interactive

Are we surprised?

This NY Times article reports that the vote totals are under question in 12 Shiite and Kurdish provinces.

Jen’s Green Journal has a comprehensive personal account of theGreen Party of Utah 2004 split.
It’s fairly factual. I have commented on part 6.

Mother Jones has a commentary,The Fallen Legion, containing a list of all the folks felt to be “casualties” of the Bush Adminstration. Some of the 35 listed casualties include people like Richard Clarke and Karen Kwiatkowski.