Supreme Court Declines to Hear Atlantic Yards Challenge In an unsurprising move, the U.S. Supreme Court today denied the petition to grant a hearing to 11 property owners and tenants opposed to the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. The plaintiffs had turned to the High Court after a lower federal court dismissed their challenge to the state's use of eminent domain for the mega development in Prospect Heights. Lacking avenues in the federal courts, Atlantic Yards opponents now plan to take their lawsuit to state court, where in a long-shot effort, they will argue that the use of eminent domain for the $4 billion project violates the law of New York because the state government is attempting to seize their private property not for the public good, but for the private benefit of the developer, Forest City Ratner Companies....
Pentagon Fights EPA On Pollution Cleanup The Defense Department, the nation's biggest polluter, is resisting orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up Fort Meade and two other military bases where the EPA says dumped chemicals pose "imminent and substantial" dangers to public health and the environment. The Pentagon has also declined to sign agreements required by law that cover 12 other military sites on the Superfund list of the most polluted places in the country. The contracts would spell out a remediation plan, set schedules, and allow the EPA to oversee the work and assess penalties if milestones are missed. The actions are part of a standoff between the Pentagon and environmental regulators that has been building during the Bush administration, leaving the EPA in a legal limbo as it addresses growing concerns about contaminants on military bases that are seeping into drinking water aquifers and soil. Under executive branch policy, the EPA will not sue the Pentagon, as it would a private polluter. Although the law gives final say to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson in cleanup disputes with other federal agencies, the Pentagon refuses to recognize that provision. Military officials wrote to the Justice Department last month to challenge EPA's authority to issue the orders and asked the Office of Management and Budget to intervene. Experts in environmental law said the Pentagon's stand is unprecedented....Notice under their "policy", they will sue you or me but not their fellow feds. Another example we are not all equal before the law.
Western guvs discuss balancing energy, wildlife Governors from several Western states voted Sunday to form a council that will study ways to protect wildlife habitat in the face of ever-increasing demand for energy development in their region. The governors were attending the first day of the annual Western Governors' Association conference, held this year in the valley of Jackson Hole in Wyoming's northwestern corner. The task of the Western Wildlife Habitat Council will be to identify key wildlife corridors and habitats for animals such as pronghorn antelope, sage grouse and bear. It is also considering the potential impact of energy development — both in the form of oil and gas drilling and new construction of solar and wind generation plants — as well as the matter of infrastructure for the rising population in the region and the effects of climate change. Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, chairman of the association's board of directors, has stressed the preservation of wildlife habitat, particularly to protect hunting, as his state enjoys the benefits of wealthy coal and natural gas reserves. Along with gathering a foundation of information on wildlife habitats, Western states and the federal government should cooperate to make sure energy developers follow through with mitigating habitat disruption, he said....
This summer may see first ice-free North Pole There's a 50-50 chance that the North Pole will be ice-free this summer, which would be a first in recorded history, a leading ice scientist says. The weather and ocean conditions in the next couple of weeks will determine how much of the sea ice will melt, and early signs are not good, said Mark Serreze. He's a senior researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colo. The chances for a total meltdown at the pole are higher than ever because the layer of ice coating the sea is thinner than ever, he said. "A large area at the North Pole and surrounding the North Pole is first-year ice," Serreze said. "That's the stuff that tends to melt out in the summer because it's thin." Preliminary February and March data from a NASA satellite shows that the circle of ice surrounding the North Pole is "considerably thinner" than scientists have seen during the five years the satellite has been taking pictures, NASA ice scientist Jay Zwally said Friday. He thinks there is slightly less than a 50-50 chance the North Pole will be ice-free. Last year was a record year for ice melt all over the Arctic and the ice band surrounding the North Pole is even thinner now....
Animal rights group turns its fire on celebrity meat-eaters Animal rights protesters have launched a series of angry campaigns against A-list carnivores. They are shifting their focus from celebrities who wear fur to others who encourage the "exploitation" of animals by eating them. In its latest campaign, Peta – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which became infamous for dousing fur-wearers in red paint – has launched an attack on the singer Jessica Simpson. Ms Simpson was singled out for ridicule after she was spotted wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan "Real Girls Eat Meat", believed to be a light-hearted dig at her boyfriend Tony Romo's vegetarian ex-girlfriend, Carrie Underwood. Alistair Currie, a spokesman for Peta, said: "Jessica Simpson might have a right to wear what she wants, but she doesn't have a right to eat what she wants – eating meat is about suffering and death. Some people feel like they are standing up against a tide of political correctness when they make a statement like this – what she is really doing is standing up for the status quo." The animal rights group doctored a photo of Ms Simpson to read "Only Stupid Girls Eat Meat", and listed "five reasons only stupid girls eat meat"....
Cowboy Church Ministers To Western Culture Worshippers - dressed in western boots, blue jeans, casual shirts and T's - perch on red and yellow metal folding chairs in a metal-clad building cooled by box fans and a slow breeze. An iron welcome sign behind the singers depicts a barbed wire fence, a horse and a rider who has apparently dismounted to kneel before a cross. A hay bale and a cross fashioned from horseshoes also grace the rustic tableau. The music, backed by guitars and a fiddle, features country stylings of familiar tunes - "Victory in Jesus," "Because He Lives," and "Turn Your Radio On." The special this Father's Day is a rendition of "My Front Porch Looking In." Welcome to Sunday night worship - cowboy style. Cross Brand Cowboy Church seeks to reach a wide range of people - from rodeo cowboys to people who simply have an affinity for western heritage, said Tim Wallace, the congregation's pastor. It's no stretch for Wallace, wearing a plaid shirt, jeans and a cowboy hat, to feel at home with those audiences....
How the Comanche won the west By the start of the 19th century, the Comanche tribe of Native Americans had come to dominate all the southern plains of the present-day United States. Comanche power stretched from the western frontier of French-controlled Louisiana to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and from the waters of the Arkansas River to the northern provinces of Spanish-controlled Mexico. The region today includes most of Texas and Oklahoma, and all of New Mexico and the trans-Rio Grande down to Durango. So vast was the territory and so complete the sway that Pekka Hamalainen, in this scholarly and eye-opening book, asserts that Comanche dominance deserves to be called an empire. Not an empire in the classic, Western meaning of the word, with a central metropolis and demarcated frontiers, but an empire in the sense of hegemony. The tribe developed a military, economic and cultural cohesion that rivalled the French and Spanish presence in North America and overwhelmed the many other Indian tribes in the region. Only in the third quarter of the century, when the post-Civil War United States began its real push into the plains, did Comanche pre-eminence fall apart. But for more than 100 years, the Comanche were the 800-pound gorilla of the American West. In the early 1700s, this small nomadic tribe migrated out of the mountainous Great Basin and into the southern plains. Rarely have a people and an ecology been so perfectly matched. The plains were a vast ocean of grasslands, especially shortgrass, with a long growing season and comparatively mild winters. The region was home to perhaps a million wild horses and it touched the northern frontier of Spanish New Mexico where wild and domesticated horses could be easily traded. In a few brief years, the Comanche emerged as prodigious equestrians, and the horse became both the reason and the vehicle for Comanche expansion....