According to this story, the Bush administration wants emergency information to pass through a political clearinghouse before a federal agency releases it:

Under a new proposal, the White House would decide what and when the public would be told about an outbreak of mad cow disease, an anthrax release, a nuclear plant accident or any other crisis.
The White House Office Management and Budget is trying to gain final control over release of emergency declarations from the federal agencies responsible for public health, safety and the environment.
. . .
On Friday, a nonpartisan group of 20 former top agency officials sent a letter to the OMB asking the White House watchdog agency to withdraw its proposal, saying it “could damage the federal system for protecting public health and the environment.”
One of the signers, David Michaels, said: “It goes beyond just having the White House involved in picking industry favorites to evaluate government science. Under this proposal, the carefully crafted process used by the government to notify the public of an imminent danger is going to first have to be signed off by someone weighing the political hazards.”
Michaels, a former assistant secretary for environment, safety and health at the Department of Energy, is now a research professor at George Washington University’s School of Public Health. He added: “OMB is not a science agency. The ramifications of it attempting to insert itself into a time-proven system of having the most knowledgeable scientists available evaluate proposed policy or regulations is a disaster in the making.”

Michaels sounds a little skeptical, doesn’t he? I can’t imagine why. The administration has demonstrated that it will freely disseminate health and safety information in the president’s public interest. Just look how well it kept people abreast of health hazards at ground zero following 9/11.
Via Blah3.com.

. . . by using a recess appointment to install a civil rights opponent to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

I’ve had news channels for the past hour or so and all they are showing is the Santa Maria courthouse doors and losers Michael Jackson supporters milling around in the street, gabbing over their invitations to Neverland.
Funny how when there are “real” public issues, such as government abuses, they don’t usually draw demonstrators or extended media coverage.
Life in celebrity-struck America.
UPDATE: Departing Jackson motorcade requires a small army of security personnel and policeman (who should out on the beat) to clear the roadway of idiots fans mobbing the road. A real circus.
UPDATE: Jackson SUV speeds to ranch for party with fans.
UPDATE: Jackson SUV passes several cars and trucks on highway. Developing . . . .

Who could have ever imagined this?

As an example of private industry’s hunger for a Mars mission, Steve Streich, a veteran Halliburton scientific adviser, was among the authors of an article in Oil & Gas Journal in 2000 titled “Drilling Technology for Mars Research Useful for Oil, Gas Industries.” The article called a Mars exploration program “an unprecedented opportunity for both investigating the possibility of life on Mars and for improving our abilities to support oil and gas demands on Earth,” because technology developed for the mission could be used on this planet.
. . .
Halliburton’s interest in Mars was first pointed out yesterday by the Progress Report, a daily publication of the liberal Center for American Progress. Administration officials scoffed at the idea that Halliburton had anything to do with the development of the space policy, which was headed by Bush’s domestic policy adviser, Margaret Spellings, and Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security adviser. Another administration official said Cheney did not take a lead role in the interagency work on the space policy but gauged support on Capitol Hill and served in an advisory capacity.
An industry official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the oil and gas industry, including Halliburton, would benefit considerably from technology that was developed for drilling on Mars, including the tools, the miniaturization, the drilling mechanism, the robotic systems and the control systems.

Drilling for oil on Mars–seems I’ve heard of just about everything now.

In a dramatic development, industry may finally be finding a voice in Bush administration policy. The World Health Organization is in the process of adopting guidelines based on the connection between bad diet, obesity, and disease. Simple enough, right?
Not exactly.
According to the food industry-directed U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there is no such thing as a bad diet:

here is, says the letter signed by William R Steiger, special assistant to the secretary for international affairs, “an unsubstantiated focus on ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods, and a conclusion that specific foods are linked to non-communicable diseases and obesity (eg energy-dense foods, high/added sugar foods and drinks, meats, certain types of fats and oils and higher fat dairy products).
“The US government favours dietary guidance that focuses on the total diet, promotes the view that all foods can be a part of a healthy and balanced diet, and supports personal responsibility to choose a diet conducive to individual energy balance, weight control and health.”
Critics said these were the arguments continually cited by the food industry: that all food is good in moderation and that exercise matters at least as much as diet.

Of course. Junk foods don’t contribute to weight gain, there’s no obesity problem in America, and I’m blogging aboard the Mars rover.

Commercial Alert, a US-based non-profit organisation, condemned the US government for attempting to “head off” the WHO initiative.
Gary Ruskin, its executive director said: “The Bush administration is putting the interests of the junk food industry ahead of the health of people–including children–on a global scale.
“The administration’s arguments border on the ludicrous. Does anyone outside the administration and the junk food industry truly doubt that the consumption and marketing of high-calorie junk food plays a role in obesity and other chronic diseases?
“Why would this administration–or any administration–invoke the moral authority of the United States on behalf of the junk food and the obesity lobby?
“If the Bush administration is successful in halting the WHO’s initiative, in the long term it could potentially cost millions of lives in terms of needless deaths due to obesity, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases.”

The Bush administration favoring industry interests over public health? Never.