Some climate scientists and environmental campaigners said Mr. Cooney's quick shift from the White House to Exxon was evidence of a near-seamless relationship between the Bush administration and the oil industry.



"Perhaps he won't even notice he has changed jobs," said David G. Hawkins, who directs the climate center at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private environmental group.

We need now to reinforce this message and to encourage the US Government to place its military planning within a political framework, partly to forestall the risk that military action is precipitated in an unplanned way by, for example, an incident in the No Fly Zones. This is particularly important for the UK because it is necessary to create the conditions in which we could legally support military action. Otherwise we face the real danger that the US will commit themselves to a course of action which we would find very difficult to support.



[...]



Aside from the existence of a viable military plan we consider the following conditions necessary for military action and UK participation: justification/legal base; an international coalition; a quiescent Israel/Palestine; a positive risk/benefit assessment; and the preparation of domestic opinion.

...we have a ridiculous pep rally like the one on Thursday at the University of Minnesota. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns will, as his press release says, "hold a roundtable discussion regarding the safety of North American beef..." Those invited to participate include USDA officials, producers, packers, and others.



Who are the others? Groups that don't want more testing and don't want the government passing regularions that would make calf feed cleaner and thus slightly more expensive. In fact, consumer groups, organic livestock companies, and beef producers who oppose allowing cows to eat cow blood and slaughterhouse waste will not be allowed to participate.



...American scientists are tracking a mysterious spike in the U.S. of the human form of BSE, known as Creutzfeldt Jakob disease...

A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.



In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved.