Save Ridgewood Reservoir: Error or deception

Save Ridgewood Reservoir: Error or deception

I would urge people to complete the NY Parks Dept survey concerning the Ridgewood Reservoir...I believe the Parks Dept wants to raze this natural area to construct unnecessary sports fields...I feel it's necessary to maintain this valuable birding area and others within the city limits...

Please complete the survey...Thank you...

Register Now for the Jamaica Bay BioBlitz - September 7 - September 8, 2007...

BioBlitz

Gillian Stewart and John Waldman of Queens College, City University of New York (CUNY), along with the National Park Service (NPS) and Jamaica Bay Institute (JBI), are organizing a Bioblitz of Jamaica Bay from 3pm Friday, September 7th through 3pm Saturday, September 8th 2007. Briefly, a Bioblitz is a 24 hour event aimed at cataloguing the diversity of organisms in a particular area. This Bioblitz will be part contest (racing against the 24 hour clock), part educational event, and part scientific endeavor. We hope to increase the public’s awareness of the diversity of their own “backyard,” while highlighting the need to protect sensitive ecosystems like Jamaica Bay.

Find out about Jamaica Bay BioBlitz 2007!

Online Registration page...


The NBA Wizards Magazine on the web- Michael Ruffin and his family participate in the Rock Creek Park Bio Blitz to help raise awareness about some of the United States oldest urban parks. Jumoke Davis reporting.

YouTube - JFK telling us the 911 truth

YouTube - JFK telling us the 911 truth

JFK was prescient in this speech, it could be about the present Bush Administration...

Queens Chronicle - Bible Of Beat Generation Born In Queens by Colin Gustafson...

Queens Chronicle - Bible Of Beat Generation Born In Queens

In the five decades since “On the Road” first appeared in print, Jack Kerouac has proven troublingly elusive for any devotee searching for signs of the writer’s ghost in his old Queens haunts.

The novelist, who penned what would become the bible of the Beat Generation, lived for 12 years in Queens — spending six years with his mother and father in Ozone Park, then another six with his mother in Richmond Hill.

There, he not only wrote long portions of his famed travelogue, he also used Ozone Park — fictionalized as Paterson, N.J. — as the real-world departure point for his cross-country travels with counterculture icon Neal Cassidy (aka Dean Moriarty) in “On the Road.”

The borough is teeming with other reminders of his literary genius. Yet, walk into any Kerouac landmark today, and you’re likely to encounter anything from polite dismissals to blank stares upon mentioning his name.

“You want to know about Kerouac?” asked an employee in the flower shop that sits below the writer’s former Ozone Park apartment. “Plaque’s around the corner,” she said, pointing to the front door, which leads to a small wooden memorial hanging inconspicuously on the side of the building.

At the bar across Crossbay Boulevard, where Kerouac and his father used to drink together, one patron simply shrugged at questions about Kerouac. Another scoffed.

“That’s the type of reaction I just don’t understand,” said writer Patrick Fenton, when asked of Kerouac’s posthumous absence from his old stomping grounds. Fenton was responsible for getting the plaque erected in 1996, after spending years studying Keroauc’s connection to Queens.

“This is where he planned an incredible adventure, where he came up with this great American novel. Now, it’s like some people could care less.”

“A plaque,” he added, “isn’t enough.”

The only fitting memorial for the so-called “Wizard of Ozone Park,” he believes, would be an entire literary trail across Queens, replete with dozens of signposts detailing the real-life experiences Kerouac had at each location and fictionalized in his work.

Where would such a trail start?

Possibly at 133-01 Crossbay Blvd. There, Kerouac penned his first novel, “The Town and the City” in the “cursed kitchen” of his mom’s apartment where, just months before, he had witnessed his father succumb to stomach cancer. The home was also where Kerouac, at age 25, set out for San Francisco, Calif., on the first leg of the classic journey that later became the subject of his novel.

Kerouac lived with his mother, Gabrielle (fictionalized as his aunt in the book), on the second floor of what used to be a drugstore from 1943 to 1949.

Today, the Ozone Park building is home to a flower shop and the Lindenwood Volunteer Ambulance Corps, which occupies the back rooms and top floors. The kitchen where Kerouac stayed up until dawn for weeks, writing “The Town and the City,” is now the emergency call center. The upper left window was his bedroom, and passers-by could often hear piano melodies pouring forth from the jazz-lover’s room on summer nights, according to Fenton.

“There were a lot of brilliant ideas hatched in that room,” he said.

Now, the only visible evidence of such brilliance is the wooden plaque outside.

Across the street is Glen Patrick’s Pub, formerly McNolte’s Tavern, where Kerouac used to spend evenings playing shuffleboard and drinking beer with his father. Old friends recalled how the family would eat Gabrielle’s French-Canadian stew at night. During dinner, the young writer would often run across the street to McNolte’s to have them fill a tea kettle with beer for her. Over drinks, Kerouac would then start reading from his latest manuscripts, Fenton said.

Today, the bar’s only memorial is also a creation of Fenton’s — a framed 1997 Newsday article he wrote, hung on a wall near the back door.

Shortly after his father’s death, Kerouac moved with his mother to 94-21 134th St. in Richmond Hill, where they lived for another five-or-so years.

With no breadwinner in the family, Gabrielle took work at a Brooklyn shoe factory — leaving Kerouac alone to entertain the “wild” writer friends she so often shunned and barred from her old apartment in Ozone Park.

One was Cassidy, who often came to play basketball in a nearby park. The pair could often be seen running down opposite sides of Atlantic Avenue, tossing a ball back and forth, diving into hedges.

Another regular was beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who used to join Kerouac on walks over to the Van Wyck Expressway, where the pair would stare down at the traffic, while discussing each other’s work.

According to Fenton, the author loathed the Van Wyck and often complained to Ginsberg about how it had ruined the neighborhood.

Perhaps that’s why Kerouac chose such an ugly location to set the final farewell between Moriarty and Sal Paradise (the author’s alter-ego).

Moriarty is incoherent and lost when Paradise abruptly leaves him standing near the corner of Atlantic Avenue and the Van Wyck, marking an abrupt end to their deep friendship. “I waved back,” Kerouac wrote. “Suddenly he bent to his life and walked quickly out of sight.”

No marker commemorates that spot, and Fenton believes no other place deserves it more.

“People need to know more about these places,” he said, as he listed the possible benefits of a literary trail. “For people who grew up here, it would be a point of pride. ... If you bring tourists here, it’s a way to make money.

“If you bring high school students and tell them what happened here in the book — and if that inspires just one kid to become a writer, that’s perfect.”

The War as We Saw It - New York Times

The War as We Saw It - New York Times

Op-Ed Contributors

The War as We Saw It

By BUDDHIKA JAYAMAHA, WESLEY D. SMITH, JEREMY ROEBUCK, OMAR MORA, EDWARD SANDMEIER, YANCE T. GRAY and JEREMY A. MURPHY

Published: August 19, 2007

Baghdad

Paul Hoppe

VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.

Similarly, Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al Qaeda.

However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a “time-sensitive target acquisition mission” on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.

Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.

Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful. The morass in the government has fueled impatience and confusion while providing no semblance of security to average Iraqis. Leaders are far from arriving at a lasting political settlement. This should not be surprising, since a lasting political solution will not be possible while the military situation remains in constant flux.

The Iraqi government is run by the main coalition partners of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, with Kurds as minority members. The Shiite clerical establishment formed the alliance to make sure its people did not succumb to the same mistake as in 1920: rebelling against the occupying Western force (then the British) and losing what they believed was their inherent right to rule Iraq as the majority. The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context. They saw in us something useful for the moment.

Now that moment is passing, as the Shiites have achieved what they believe is rightfully theirs. Their next task is to figure out how best to consolidate the gains, because reconciliation without consolidation risks losing it all. Washington’s insistence that the Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made — de-Baathification, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose federalist system of government — places us at cross purposes with the government we have committed to support.

Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict — as we do now — will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.

At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. “Lucky” Iraqis live in gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal.

In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, “We need security, not free food.”

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.

Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.

Voice your opinion about NCLB to members of Congress!

	Dear Give Kids Good Schools advocate: On July 26, you received news about Public Education Network's (PEN) report of more than three years of public hearings, focus groups and town meetings held across the country regarding the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). PEN collected the opinions of thousands of Americans about how NCLB is affecting their schools and communities. Now, it's your turn. During August, members of Congress are on recess and working in their district offices. If you haven't done so already, this is your opportunity to call, write, or visit your Congressional members' district offices. You are their constituent and they want to hear your opinion. Congress returns September 4 to begin the re-authorization of NCLB. The next several weeks are a crucial time to make your voice heard while the NCLB bill is being drafted. Read PEN's Open to the Public: How Communities, Parents, and Students Assess the Impact of the No Child Left Behind Act. Visit PEN's NCLB Re-authorization section to learn more about the re-authorization process. If you would like to call or visit your members of Congress, feel free to use Public Education Network's talking points. If you would like to write your members of Congress, you can use the Give Kids Good Schools letter template. Do you want to find your elected officials? Click here. Remember Give Kids Good Schools Week is Oct. 15-21. Make sure your members of Congress know that during that week, communities across the country will be talking about education. Thanks for all you do to Give Kids Good Schools! The Give Kids Good Schools Team

Independent (UK)Online Edition: World's birds on death row: Race against time to save 189 species from extinction...

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The biggest and most wide-ranging bird conservation programme the world has ever seen will be launched next week with the aim of saving every one of the planet's critically endangered species from extinction.

The task is urgent. There are now no fewer than 189 birds in this most precipitous category – 51 more than there were just seven years ago. Scientists say that if no action is taken then all of them could be gone within the next 10 years; 15 are already classified as "possibly extinct ".

The death of bird species is now happening faster than at any time in history. Without human interference, the natural rate of loss would be one bird each century. But extinctions are accelerating and running at 50 times that rate. In the past 30 years alone, 21 have gone – three of them since 2000.

BirdLife International, which acts as a scientific and conservation " United Nations" for bird organisations worldwide, now aims to stop the rot. So next week at Birdfair, the three-day festival for British enthusiasts co-organised by the RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts, Birdlife will launch a project to pull each and every one of the 189 species back from the brink.

This danger list includes six owls, three albatrosses, 16 birds of prey, 10 hummingbirds, 17 parrots, four woodpeckers, six ducks and umpteen pigeons, plovers, wrens, warblers, finches, curlews and larks.

Their names are some of the most evocative in the bird world: the gorgeted wood-quail, sapphire-bellied hummingbird, Alagoas foliage-gleaner, Pernambuco pygmy-owl and Iquitos gnatcatcher (some of which have never been photographed), Bulo Burti boubou (a shrike, discovered in Somalia in 1988), the kakapo (the world's only flightless, nocturnal parrot), and the turquoise-throated puffleg, a hummingbird so rare no one has seen it since 1850. There are, happily, no British birds on the list.

BirdLife's project, called "Preventing Extinctions: Saving the World's Most Threatened Birds", will launch what are in effect 189 different races against time.

For each bird there will be a "species guardian", a local body that will work with BirdLife to carry out the conservation. And, for each of the 189 at risk, BirdLife is also seeking a "species champion" – a company, organisation or institution that will "adopt" a threatened bird and provide regular funding.

Donations from individuals are also, of course, very welcome. Some £20,000 is needed to kick-start a protection project for each species of bird, and, to save all 189, BirdLife calculates it will need to raise at least £19m over the next five years.

Dr Mike Rands, chief executive of BirdLife International, told The Independent on Sunday: "Through this innovative approach every single critically endangered bird can be saved from extinction. We know the priority conservation actions needed for each species – what we need now is the support of companies, organisations or even individuals. This is an enormous challenge, but one that we are fully committed to achieving."

TV's Springwatch presenter and wildlife film-maker Simon King said: " This is a exciting and ambitious project and deserves to be supported by every nature lover in the country."

Birdfair, which he, Bill Oddie and tens of thousands of other enthusiasts will attend at Rutland Water next weekend, has singled out four of the most pressing cases as the focus of its fund-raising. The birds' plight illustrates the desperately urgent work that needs to be done. There is the Bengal florican, the world's rarest bustard, now down to fewer than 1,000 in south-east Asia through loss of its wet grassland habitat; the Restinga antwren – a mere 10 square kilometres of its Brazilian beach-scrub habitat remains, and even that's under threat; Belding's yellowthroat, a warbler of Mexican wetlands, now confined through development to just a few marshes; and the Djibouti francolin, which is blighted by habitat loss, climate change and hunting.

Other emergency projects will try to save the long-billed apalis (a warbler of central east Africa suffering through destruction of woodland); the dwarf olive ibis (a forest dweller endemic to the west African island of São Tomé, suffering from tree-clearance); the Puerto Rican nightjar (confined to the south-west of the island, under pressure from development and feral cats); the Mindoro bleeding heart (a ground-living pigeon endemic to one Philippine island, it was once common but now nearly all of its wooded habitat is gone); and the white-shouldered ibis (a wetland species of south-east Asia, whose habitat has been wrecked through logging and intensive agriculture).

Some of the birds on the list, such as the black stilt, are now down to just a handful of individuals, while others, including the red-headed vulture, still number in the thousands but have lost nearly 90 per cent of their population in the past 10 years.

There is concern, too, about some long-lived species, such as the three albatrosses on the list and the Philippine eagle, whose young are not surviving to replace the adults who will die out in the next decade or so.

The task is to stop these birds following into oblivion the 72 species that were lost in the 20th century, the most costly era for extinctions in recorded history. Those that will fly no more include the slender-billed grackle, a songbird endemic to Mexico not seen since 1910; the thick-billed ground-dove (1927); robust white-eye (small Australian songbird, 1928); the Hawaiian oo (one of four honey-eaters that became extinct after Europeans arrived, 1934); the red-moustached fruit-dove (1950); laughing owl (1970); the Alaotra grebe (killed off in Madagascan waters by fishing and an introduced carnivorous fish, 1988); and the po'o-uli (a honeycreeper, presumed extinct in Hawaii through habitat destruction and disease-carrying mosquitoes, 2004).

What gives BirdLife hope is some recent successes. In the 10 years between 1994 and 2004, 16 species were saved from extinction, all as a result of targeted conservation. They include the Norfolk Island green parrot, which in the Nineties was down to just four females of breeding age, but which now can boast 200-300 and is rapidly increasing; the Bali starling, which poaching eradicated in the wild but which thanks to captive breeding is now thriving once more; and the Chatham Island taiko, a seabird from the petrel family – it was reduced to just four pairs in 1994 but control of predators has seen it start to recover, with 11 chicks hatching in 2006.

And, in a demonstration of how apparently insuperable obstacles can be overcome, only last week Timor-Leste, formerly the deeply troubled land of East Timor, announced its first national park just five years after gaining independence.

The Nino Konis Santana National Park covers 304,000 acres and includes the territory of the yellow-crested cockatoo, one of the species on BirdLife's list. It continues to be severely threatened by illegal trapping for the exotic bird trade, but the safeguarding of its home is a good omen for the work ahead with the other 188 critically endangered birds.

Additional reporting by Rachel Wolff

SOS: species on the BirdLife International list

White-winged guan ¿ Trinidad piping-guan ¿ blue-billed curassow ¿ gorgeted wood-quail ¿ Djibouti francolin ¿ Himalayan quail ¿ crested shelduck ¿ Laysan duck ¿ Campbell Islands teal ¿ pink-headed duck ¿ Madagascar pochard ¿ Brazilian merganser ¿ Amsterdam albatross ¿ waved albatross ¿ Chatham albatross ¿ Galapagos petrel ¿ Jamaica petrel ¿ magenta petrel ¿ Chatham petrel ¿ Fiji petrel ¿ Beck's petrel ¿ Mascarene petrel ¿ Balearic shearwater ¿ Townsend's shearwater ¿ New Zealand storm-petrel ¿ Guadalupe storm-petrel ¿ Alaotra grebe ¿ Junin grebe ¿ white-bellied heron ¿ white-shouldered ibis ¿ giant ibis ¿ northern bald ibis ¿ dwarf olive ibis ¿ Christmas frigatebird ¿ Chatham Islands shag ¿ California condor ¿ white-collared kite ¿ Cuban kite ¿ Madagascar fish-eagle ¿ white-rumped vulture ¿ Indian vulture ¿ slender-billed vulture ¿ red-headed vulture ¿ Ridgway's hawk ¿ Philippine eagle ¿ Bengal florican ¿ New Caledonian rail ¿ Samoan moorhen ¿ Makira moorhen ¿ Siberian crane ¿ black stilt ¿ Javan lapwing ¿ sociable lapwing ¿ St Helena plover ¿ Eskimo curlew ¿ slender-billed curlew ¿ Jerdon's courser ¿ Chinese crested tern ¿ Kittlitz's murrelet ¿ silvery wood-pigeon ¿ blue-eyed ground-dove ¿ purple-winged ground-dove ¿ Grenada dove ¿ Mindoro bleeding-heart ¿ Negros bleeding-heart ¿ Sulu bleeding-heart ¿ Polynesian ground-dove ¿ Negros fruit-dove ¿ Marquesan imperial-pigeon ¿ kakapo ¿ yellow-crested cockatoo ¿ Philippine cockatoo ¿ blue-fronted lorikeet ¿ New Caledonian lorikeet ¿ red-throated lorikeet ¿ Malherbe's parakeet ¿ orange-bellied parrot ¿ night parrot ¿ Lear's macaw ¿ glaucous macaw ¿ spix's macaw ¿ blue-throated macaw ¿ yellow-eared parrot ¿ grey-breasted parakeet ¿ indigo-winged parrot ¿ Puerto Rican amazon ¿ Sumatran ground-cuckoo ¿ black-hooded coucal ¿ Siau scops-owl ¿ Anjouan scops-owl ¿ Moheli scops-owl ¿ Grand Comoro scops-owl ¿ Pernambuco pygmy-owl ¿ forest owlet ¿ Jamaican pauraque ¿ Puerto Rican nightjar ¿ New Caledonian owlet-nightjar ¿ short-crested coquette ¿ sapphire-bellied hummingbird ¿ Honduran emerald ¿ chestnut-bellied hummingbird ¿ purple-backed sunbeam ¿ dusky starfrontlet ¿ Juan Fernandez firecrown ¿ black breasted puffleg ¿ turquoise-throated puffleg ¿ colourful puffleg ¿ Tuamotu kingfisher ¿ Sulu hornbill ¿ rufous-headed hornbill ¿ Okinawa woodpecker ¿ imperial woodpecker ¿ ivory-billed woodpecker ¿ Kaempfer's woodpecker ¿ Gurney's pitta ¿ Araripe manakin ¿ Kinglet calyptura ¿ Minas Gerais tyrannulet ¿ Kaempfer's tody-tyrant ¿ Rondonia bushbird ¿ Rio de Janeiro antwren ¿ Alagoas antwren ¿ Restinga antwren ¿ Stresemann's bristlefront ¿ Bahia tapaculo ¿ Royal cinclodes ¿ Masafuera rayadito ¿ Alagoas foliage-gleaner ¿ Uluguru bush-shrike ¿ Bulo Burti boubou ¿ Sao Tome fiscal ¿ Isabela oriole ¿ Sangihe shrike-thrush ¿ caerulean paradise-flycatcher ¿ Seychelles paradise-flycatcher ¿ Tahiti monarch ¿ Fatuhiva monarch ¿ black-chinned monarch ¿ Banggai crow ¿ white-eyed river-martin ¿ Archer's lark ¿ Raso lark ¿ Taita apalis ¿ long-billed apalis ¿ Liberian greenbul ¿ millerbird ¿ blue-crowned laughingthrush ¿ Mauritius olive white-eye ¿ Rota bridled white-eye ¿ Sangihe white-eye ¿ white-chested white-eye ¿ Faichuk white-eye ¿ golden white-eye ¿ Niceforo's wren ¿ Munchique wood-wren ¿ Iquitos gnatcatcher ¿ Socorro mockingbird ¿ Cozumel rhrasher ¿ Pohnpei starling ¿ Bali starling ¿ olomao ¿ puaiohi ¿ Somali thrush ¿ Taita thrush ¿ Rueck's blue-flycatcher ¿ Cebu flowerpecker ¿ Mauritius fody ¿ Sao Tome grosbeak ¿ Azores bullfinch ¿ Nihoa finch ¿ ou ¿ Maui parrotbill ¿ nukupuu ¿ akikiki ¿ Oahu alauahio ¿ akohekohe ¿ po'o-uli ¿ Bachman's warbler ¿ Belding's yellowthroat ¿ Semper's warbler ¿ Montserrat oriole ¿ Guadalupe junco ¿ hooded seedeater ¿ Entre Rios seedeater ¿ Carrizal blue-black seedeater ¿ mangrove finch ¿ pale-headed brush-finch ¿ cone-billed tanager ¿ cherry-throated tanager

How 'IoS' readers can help

We are asking every reader to support BirdLife's Preventing Extinctions project in its efforts to protect endangered species. For full details, and to make a donation, visit: www.birdlife.org

Also in this section

• The mystery of Scotland's disappearing common seals
• British livestock at risk from deadly bluetongue virus, scientists warn
• Deadlier than foot and mouth: Outbreak of bluetongue imminent
• The mosquito invasion
• The Big Question: Should we worry about extinctions, or are they just a part of evolution?

NY Times Frank Rich via greenpagan: Shuffling Off to Crawford, 2007 Edition...

greenpagan: Shuffling Off to Crawford, 2007 Edition

THE cases of Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch were ugly enough. So surely someone in the White House might have the good taste to draw the line at exploiting the murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. But nothing is out of bounds for a government that puts the darkest arts of politics and public relations above even the exigencies of war.

As Jane Mayer told the story in last week’s New Yorker, Mariane Pearl was called by Alberto Gonzales with some good news in March: the Justice Department was releasing a transcript in which the long-incarcerated Qaeda thug Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to the beheading of her husband. But there was something off about Mr. Gonzales’s news. It was almost four years old.

Condoleezza Rice had called Ms. Pearl to tell her in confidence about the very same confession back in 2003; it was also reported that year in The Journal and elsewhere. What’s more, the confession was suspect; another terrorist had been convicted in the Pearl case in Pakistan in 2002. There is no known corroborating evidence that Mohammed, the 9/11 ringleader who has taken credit for many horrific crimes while in American custody, was responsible for this particular murder. None of his claims, particularly those possibly coerced by torture, can be taken as gospel solely on our truth-challenged attorney general’s say-so.

Ms. Pearl recognized a publicity ploy when she saw it. And this one wasn’t subtle.

Read more...

Video Surfaces of Cheney, in 1994, Warning That An Invasion of Iraq Would Lead to 'Quagmire'

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Video Surfaces of Cheney, in 1994, Warning That An Invasion of Iraq Would Lead to 'Quagmire'

By E&P Staff

Published: August 12, 2007 10:20 AM ET
NEW YORK It's not the first time that citizen "investigative journalists" have uncovered some embarrassing, or telling, nugget from the past that apparently remained buried for years. But it has happened again with the posting of a now wildly popular video on YouTube that shows Dick Cheney explaining in 1994 that trying to take over Iraq would be a "bad idea" and lead to a "quagmire."

The people who put it up come from a site called Grand Theft Country, the on-screen source appears to be the conservative American Enterprise Institute, and the date on the screen is April 15, 1994. That looks right, by the age of Cheney.

Posted on Friday, it had received over 100,000 hits by this morning, after being widely-linked around the Web. The transcript of this segment is below.

Cheney had helped direct the Gulf War for President George H.W. Bush. That effort was later criticized for not taking Baghdad and officials like Cheney had to explain why not, for years. Some have charged that this led to an overpowering desire to finish the job after Cheney became vice president in 2001.

Here is the transcript.
*

Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved into Baghdad?

A: No.

Q: Why not?

A: Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.

Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it -- eastern Iraq -- the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families -- it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?

Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.

wnyc radio: Blogging the Borough of Dreams

These are three of the blogs I read regularly...

Follow Up: Blogging the Borough of Dreams

Queens bloggers have been overshadowed by their colleagues in Brooklyn. We attempt to remedy the oversight with Meg Cotner of OuterB and Joey in Astoria, Kel Sawyer of The Progressive Southside, and Steve Tiszenkel of Queens Central.

YouTube - Hillary on Education

YouTube - Hillary on Education

YouTube - Hillary: "I'm Your Girl"

YouTube - Hillary: "I'm Your Girl"

Save the Date - Jamaica Bay BioBlitz on September 7th & 8th...

Jamaica Bay BioBlitz, September 7^th-8^th, 2007

On behalf of the National Park Service, the Jamaica Bay Institute, and Queens College, CUNY, John Waldman and Gillian Stewart are organizing a Bioblitz of Jamaica Bay from 3pm Friday, September 7^th through 3pm Saturday, September 8^th 2007. Briefly, a Bioblitz is a 24 hour event aimed at cataloging the diversity of organisms in a particular area. This Bioblitz will be part contest (racing against the 24 hour clock), part educational event, and part scientific endeavor. We hope to increase the public awareness of the diversity of their own “backyard,” while highlighting the need to protect sensitive ecosystems like Jamaica Bay.

Details

Place:

Our registration and all public activities will take place at the Visitor Center in the JB Wildlife Refuge (http://www.nps.gov/archive/gate /jbu/jbu_directions_jamaica_bay_wildlife_refuge.htm). Here we will have the scientist tent, keep the tally board, and serve water and refreshments throughout the 24 hours. From here, groups will go out to survey various locations within Jamaica Bay (including wetlands, the Refuge, Floyd Bennett Field, and Fort Tilden)

Time:

To join taxon groups on their surveys, you will need to register and meet your group leader at scheduled times.

To participate in the Family and Public Events, you can come anytime on Saturday the 8^th between 10am and 3pm. There will be events, guided tours, activities, touch tanks, and environmental groups doing outreach.

At 3pm on Saturday we will have closing ceremonies where we will announce the final species count, hear descriptions of interesting findings, and have local celebrities and politicians give short talks about the biodiversity in Jamaica Bay.

Who:

We will have a group of experts in their fields to lead taxon groups, but we are looking for volunteers to help with the surveys and registration, and the public to come and learn, wonder, and enjoy! Saturday will be the day to bring the whole family!

Soon more info will be posted at:

http://nbii-nin.ciesin.columbia.edu/jamaicabay/index.html

Interested? Please contact us at:

JBbioblitz@yahoo.com

Gstewart@qc.cuny.edu

(718) 997-3104

Huffington Post: Romney Speaks Up for Sons' Decisions by Glen Johnson...

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BETTENDORF, Iowa — Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Wednesday defended his five sons' decision not to enlist in the military, saying they're showing their support for the country by "helping me get elected."

Romney, who did not serve in Vietnam due to his Mormon missionary work and a high draft lottery number, was asked the question by an anti-war activist after a speech in which he called for "a surge of support" for U.S. forces in Iraq.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, also saluted a uniformed soldier in the crowd and called for donations to military support organizations. Last week, he donated $25,000 to seven such organizations.

"The good news is that we have a volunteer Army and that's the way we're going to keep it," Romney told some 200 people gathered in an abbey near the Mississippi River that had been converted into a hotel. "My sons are all adults and they've made decisions about their careers and they've chosen not to serve in the military and active duty and I respect their decision in that regard."

He added: "One of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected because they think I'd be a great president."

Romney's five sons range in age from 37 to 26 and have worked as real estate developers, sports marketers and advertising executives. They are now actively campaigning for their father and have a "Five Brothers" blog on Romney's campaign Web site.

Romney noted that his middle son, 36-year-old Josh, was completing a recreational vehicle tour of all 99 Iowa counties on Wednesday and said, "I respect that and respect all those and the way they serve this great country."

The woman who asked the question, Rachel Griffiths, 41, of Milan, Ill., identified herself as a member of Quad City Progressive Action for the Common Good, as well as the sister of an Army major who had served in Iraq.

"Of course not," Griffiths said when asked if she was satisfied with Romney's answer. "He told me the way his son shows support for our military and our nation is to buy a Winnebago and ride across Iowa and help him get elected."

Rival John McCain's son, Jimmy, a 19-year-old Marine, is either in Iraq or is heading there shortly, and another son, Jack, is at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. The Arizona senator is a decorated Vietnam War veteran and former POW.

The town-hall-style meeting was the first of eight events scheduled for Romney just three days before the Iowa Straw Poll, a nonbinding beauty contest among the Republican presidential contenders.

In the days leading up it, Romney is airing a new television ad in the state in which he encourages supporters to attend the event, portrays himself as an outsider to Washington and takes swipes at both Republicans and Democrats there.

"Washington politicians in both parties have proven they can't control spending, and they won't control our borders," Romney says in the ad. "I will, but I need your help to do it."

While former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, who is considering a campaign are not participating, Romney has been actively organizing with the aim of gaining momentum into January's Iowa caucuses, which kick off the presidential nominating process.

New York Times Blog: A Time of Uncertainty for Republican Candidates in Queens by Jonathan Hicks...

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By now, many New Yorkers have heard of City Councilman Dennis P. Gallagher. For most of his time in the Council, Mr. Gallagher, a Republican from Queens, managed to avoid citywide renown. But he made headlines in the past month, culminating with his indictment last week on 10 counts of rape, criminal sexual acts and assault. Prosecutors say he raped a woman in his campaign office. Mr. Gallagher has denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty.

What fewer New Yorkers know, perhaps, is that Mr. Gallagher was considered one of the stars of the Republican Party in Queens.

And at age 43, the councilman was widely viewed as the heir apparent to State Senator Serphin R. Maltese, an 18-year veteran in Albany. And Republican Party leaders in Queens also considered him as a viable candidate for Queens borough president.

All of that is now in doubt. In pleading not guilty, Mr. Gallagher has said he had consensual sex. Even if he is found not guilty, Mr. Gallagher’s future within the party will probably remain cloudy at best. But if he is convicted, Mr. Gallagher, a married father of two, would be forced to leave office. And that would lead to a special election for the Council seat, which represents a section of Middle Village, Ridgewood and Glendale.

That raises the question: What kind of Republican farm team is there in Queens?

“We have plenty of young people who are out there,” said Philip Ragusa, the chairman of the Republican organization in Queens. “Whether they’re ready to run for office this very minute, I can’t tell you. But we have several people who are interested.”

Indeed, there are several Queens Republicans who say they are considering throwing their hats in the ring, whether for races for the Legislature in 2008 or the City Council the following year.

One, Eric A. Ulrich, has already established a committee and raised money to run for the City Council in 2009 that will be vacated by Joseph P. Addabbo Jr., a Democrat. Mr. Ulrich, 22, once worked as an aide to Councilman Gallagher but left within the last year. “I found that we were cut from two different cloths,” Mr. Ulrich said.

Mr. Ulrich noted that the 32nd Council District, in Ozone Park and Howard Beach, was represented by a Republican, Alfonse Stabile, before Mr. Addabbo’s election in 2001. “And it’s still a viable area for a Republican.”

And closer to Mr. Gallagher’s home base in Middle Village, there are a number of Republicans looking at running for office. One is former City Councilman Thomas V. Ognibene, Mr. Gallagher’s predecessor.

“This was originally the seat that I worked hard too create,” said Mr. Ognibene, 64, who was once the Council’s minority leader. “And I would look at seriously at it again.” He said he was referring to the 2009 race, when Mr. Gallagher is barred by term limits from running for re-election.

There is also Anthony Como, a commissioner with the city’s Board of Elections, who said he is considering running for office again, although he is not certain which office. Mr. Como, 33, ran for an Assembly seat in 2005, losing to Andrew Hevesi.

Running for the Assembly next year for for the City Council seat in 2009 are attractive options, he said. “We have a lot to look forward to in Queens,” Mr. Como said. “And if Giuliani is at the head of the Republican ticket next year, we could do well, locally.”

Another potential candidate is Gabriel Tapalaga, 34, a lawyer in private practice who ran for an Assembly seat in Queens about 10 years ago (he lost to Melinda R. Katz). He is a lawyer in private practice as well as secretary of the Queens Republican Party. He once worked as a prosecutor in the Queens district attorney’s office and as an aide to Mr. Ognibene.

“I’m happy to be viewed as someone who represents the future of the party,” Mr. Tapalaga said.

How successful these prospective candidates might be not certain. The number of Republican-elected officials from Queens has eroded sharply over the last 15 years or so. The borough has no Republicans in the Assembly and only Mr. Gallagher in the Council (State Senators Maltese and Frank Padavan remain in office). Many Democratic leaders in Queens say that the borough is becoming even more Democratic, and that Republicans will probably not fare well in future elections.

Still, there seems to be plenty of energy among Queens Republicans. Mr. Ragusa, the Republican chairman, faces a competitive race for district leader next month. And he will probably be challenged for the party chairmanship by Bart Haggerty, a member of the party’s county committee and the son of onetime Queens Republican chairman, Jack Haggerty.

“There’s no question about it,” Mr. Ragusa said. “There is still a lot of life left in the party in Queens.”