The Pentagon’s public relations machine is working overtime these days trying to sell a theme of "progress" in Afghanistan to push back against calls to end the war. The message machine behind this push is gargantuan, costing $547 million and employing more than 27,000 people. But, as our latest Rethink Afghanistan video shows, all that [...]

On Gulf cleanup: instead of ICE raids, we need to ensure that all oil spill cleanup workers and volunteers have protective equipment. We need to make sure the cleanup efforts have proper expertise and leadership behind them. We need to get our priorities straight. Just what is going on?

Philippe Cousteau, Jr. and Sam Champion went on a dive into the Gulf of Mexico, and the video was shown on Good Morning America. The dispersant being used by BP is very toxic and banned by the UK and Brazil. The toxic soup is below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.

David Roberts flagged this exceptionally bad NYT article which attacks Vice President Gore for… putting his money where is mouth is. He summarizes:

Professional Gore haters, who make their living peddling lies, cast an absurd charge against Gore. The charge goes in the headline. It goes in the first paragraphs of the story. Then in paragraph 32 it’s revealed that the charge is baseless. And John Broder wasn’t embarrassed to have this appear under his byline.

Oh, and to state the obvious: even if it were true, nobody but a professional Gore hater could possibly find anything wrong with someone investing in the very solutions they say are necessary to save the world. The non-Gore-demented might even find that a perfectly predictable way for a capitalist to respond.

I wonder how John Broder covered the release of the Pickens Plan, which advocates federal policies designed to drastically increase the amount of natural gas used as transportation fuel. Boone Pickens, of course, is the founder of the Orwellian Clean Energy Fuels Corporation, which is the largest provider of natural gas for transportation in the country. Did Mr. Broder point out this apparent conflict of interest?

Following up on my previous note to the authors of Superfreakonomics, I’d like to add this addendum: “When you find yourself employing the same tactics as the Chamber of Commerce to defend your views on climate change, you should probably re-evaluate your entire strategy.”

First, the never-ending saga of the Chamber of Commerce’s identity crisis on climate change continues, with the Chamber beginning to go on the offensive. On Tuesday they filed a Digital Millenium Copyright Act notice with the Internet Service Provider of the Yes Men — the activists that assisted the Chamber in making an utter fool of itself on Monday. This essentially strong-armed the Yes Men’s small ISP into shutting down the websites of hundreds of businesses and organizations, for fear of facing the legal wrath of the Chamber. That doesn’t seem very business friendly to me.