Absofuckinglutely genius. Thank you Scott for sharing this gem.
It's like when you and your friends always think about doing a parody of something and sometimes you make a half assed attempt at it, drunk, in your basement, in your parents' house. But when a multi-millionaire who has sold millions and millions of records worldwide antes up, it's another story. And this time, it's comedy gold.
And on top of all the funniness, there's a Ducati up in there!
I don't recall ever seeing her byline before, but this is one hell of a time to notice it. Writer Linda Greenhouse [greenhouse!] reporting for the NY Times Justices Say E.P.A. Has Power to Act on Harmful Gases. It's an incredibly huge decision – split 5 to 4, you guess who voted how – giving the Environmental Protection Agency a whole lot of juice:
In one of its most important environmental decisions in years, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate heat-trapping gases in automobile emissions. The court further ruled that the agency could not sidestep its authority to regulate the greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change unless it could provide a scientific basis for its refusal.
Justice John Paul Stevens writing the majority opinion:
said that by providing nothing more than a "laundry list of reasons not to regulate," the environmental agency had defied the Clean Air Act's "clear statutory command." He said a refusal to regulate could be based only on science and "reasoned justification," adding that while the statute left the central determination to the "judgment" of the agency's administrator, "the use of the word 'judgment' is not a roving license to ignore the statutory text."
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. writing the minority opinion:
argued vigorously in a dissenting opinion that the court never should have reached the merits of the case or addressed the question of the agency's legal obligations.
The WaPo had their own set of writers on the story: Robert Barnes and Juliet Eilperin and they started 'graph three with a quote from the majority opinion:
EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change.
This will prove to be quite interesting for the rest of this administration's term and the next few terms of Congress and the Presidency.
And Bush's stance is to hold firm and not budge one inch:
Bush pointed to his proposal to require cars to burn more gasoline made from home-grown sources like ethanol, and repeated his long-held stance that U.S. action is meaningless without changes by China and India.
"My attitude is that we have laid out a plan that will affect greenhouse gases that come from automobiles by having a mandatory fuel standard," Bush said.
Ah yes, U.S. action would have no effect eh? Even though, if I'm remembering the slide from Al Gore's presentation correctly, we're the #1 polluter in the world? Not to say that India and China aren't doing their part in dirtying the air, but to say that U.S. action would be "meaningless" is a flat out lie [not that he gives a shit].
The Tribune Company, worth approximately $8B was sold for $34/share via what the NY Times referred to as "a combination of savvy dealing and creative financial engineering" — a combination of words, which to me, smell like trouble. The Tribune Company is the parent company of: Newspapers: The LA Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, Newsday, Hoy, AM NY, Hartford Courant, Sun Sentinel. Television: CW 11, WGN. Entertainment: Chicago Cubs.
Reactions from around the way:
And some quick links from Gawker.
Mum's the word here in Philly at PNI other than AP copy.
It's been a rocky road in Philly with the selling/acquisition of papers.
I spotted another one of the cool R2 D2 boxes over at the SE corner of 18th and Walnut Sts.
