BABIES GALORE

It looks like all three eggs have hatched now!  At least two have, and the third is working on it.  We have overwhelmed the ISP at EagleCam, but they have another site showing the pictures from the nest.  As well as a lot of other stuff.  Go here and click on the updates, or replays to see the hatchings.  It's totally amazing IMHO.  You have to register at this site to see pictures, but it's free and painless.  There's another dead duck in the nest to feed the Mama who will now be feeding all three chicks.  Who could imagine that eagles started out as tiny balls of fluff?  Not me.

WE HAVE AN EAGLET!!

In the neighborhood of five p.m. this afternoon, the first egg in the Blackwater nest hatched!  Here is a link to the first picture posted of the hatchling from the EagleCam.   On the wretchedly cold and windy day, this new little life has struggled into the world.  The other two should hatch in the next week, they were laid at three day intervals, so maybe that's how they'll hatch too.  I think those of us who've been pacing the halls awaiting this blessed event must all be heaving big sighs of relief.  I can go to bed relieved and happy tonight! 

ONE-BRANCH GOVERNMENT

 

MORE ON MYERS

Re the previous post: the only link I can find in my own blog (and wouldn't it be nice if we could archive our entries by subject matter?  as is possible on some blogs?) is the one from July when he was not approved by the Judicial Committee.  There is one from some time before that with quotes from Myers himself, quotes that would shiver your timbers.  However, here is more information on the man than you ever wanted to get, from Earthjustice.  I particulary recommend the link in the info that follows to "From the mouth and pen of William G. Myers."  Now, in the light of all the opposition to this nomination the first time, why do you supposed GWB nominated him again?  The hearing is tomorrow, by the way.  Get in touch with the committee members early.

P.S. It's tomorrow now, that is to say - it's Tuesday.  And this article I just read in Salon.com helps answer the question I asked last night - why is Myers being put up for the Fed. Bench again?  Silly me.

FORMER INTERIOR SOLICITOR WILLIAM MYERS

• On February 14, 2005, President Bush formally renominated William Myers to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. A Senate Judiciary Committee hearing has been tentatively scheduled for the week of February 28, 2005.
• Interior Solicitor Earl Devaney letter to PEER summarizes a report finding that, as Interior Solicitor, Myers circumvented normal processes and ignored concerns from coworkers in absolving a Wyoming rancher of criminal violations of federal grazing laws (2/10/05)
• Letter to Senators Specter and Leahy from Community Rights Counsel, Earthjustice and PEER, urging them to hold a new hearing on Myers (2/15/05)
• Editorials from the Idaho Statesman, Los Angeles Times, Lewiston [ID] Tribune, New York Times, Arizona Daily Star, and other papers, and Commentary on William Myers' 9th Circuit nomination and renomination &his role as Interior Solicitor
• On July 20, 2004, a 53-44 vote [See vote details] fell seven votes short of the 60 that would be needed to force a vote on Myer's nomination.
• Senators Block Anti-Environmental Judicial Nominee Myers (7/20/04)
• Senators' statements on voting against ending debate over the Myers nomination:
  • Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
  • Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD)
  • Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL)
  • Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI)
  • Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
  • Senator Jim Jeffords (I-VT)
  • Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD)
  • Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
  • Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY)
  • Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR)
• MYERS POST-HEARING: STILL UNFIT TO JUDGE: Analysis of Judicial Nominee's Hearing Record Strengthens Opposition (4/20/04) - 137 kb pdf, and press release
• Earth Day Ad on Myers (4/22/04) - 649 kb pdf
• Widespreadopposition to William Myers nomination from national civil rights, labor, environmental, disabilty, and other groups
• List of more than 180 organizations which have declared formal opposition to Myers' nomination (updated 7/19/04)
• Statement by Earthjustice Executive Director Buck Parker (112 kb pdf) on Senate Judiciary Committee 10-9 vote (4/1/04)
• Senators' statements on voting against the Myers nomination in committee: Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL); Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI); Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA); Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA); Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT); Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY)
• Letter to the Editor of The [University of Denver] Clarion regarding William Myers' 9th Circuit nomination & his role as Interior Solicitor
• Forty-one members of Congress from Ninth Circuit states urge the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject Myers' nomination; read the letter on Rep. George Miller's (D-CA) website
• Congress Daily ads highlighting record opposition to nomination of William Myers to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: 3/24/04 (263 kb pdf) 3/30/04 (169 kb pdf)
• Letters of opposition by:
  • 183 civil rights, disability rights, senior citizens, women's rights, human rights, Native American, planning, and environmental organizations (7/19/2004)
  • 64 civil rights, disability rights, senior citizens, women's rights, human rights, Native American, planning, and environmental organizations
  • Members of the California state legislature
  • 94 professors of law from Ninth Circuit states
  • The Society of American Law Teachers (SALT)(7/19/2004)
  • National Wildlife Federation, the nation's largest conservation organization. This is the first time the NWF has ever opposed a judicial nominee.
  • AFL-CIO; letter to Senators Hatch and Leahy, opposing the Myers nomination
• Myers Caught in Attempt to Give Away Public Lands
  • Los Angeles Times reports: Interior Attorney Pushed Land Deal (3/8/2004)
  • PDF of Myers’ letter to Congressman Doolittle regarding the proposed Yuba River Properties land giveaway
  • PDF of the Interior Department’s March 4, 2004 letter reversing the earlier position advocated by Myers
• Two-page fact sheet on William Myers
• From the mouth and pen of William Myers: read what Myers has said about federal efforts to protect the environment, about environmental groups, and about the Endangered Species and Clean Water Acts
• Fact sheet regarding Myers' opposition to public access to the courts (downloadable PDF)
• Comprehensive analysis of Myers' disturbing environmental record by Community Rights Counsel
  • On Community Rights website (with links to cited documents)
  • Downloadable PDF
• Press release on the League of Conservation Voters inclusion of a judicial nominee vote in their annual Scorecard for the first time
• Press release on opposition to William Myers' nomination by environmental, tribal, and civil rights groups
• National Congress of American Indians resolution and op-ed opposing the lifetime nomination of William Myers (NCAI is the oldest and largest tribal government organization in the U.S., representing more than 250 tribal governments from every region of the country)
• Letter from 23 national groups to the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing any Senate hearing on William Myers' nomination until all issues raised by ethics investigations are fully resolved (10-14-03)
• Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy on environmental and other concerns with Myers' nomination (2/5/04)

NO NO NO! BAD PRESIDENT!

George Bush reminds me a lot of our kitten, Vixen.  She's kind of a teenage kitten now, and extremely determined to do anything we don't want her to do.  She leaps to the countertop - I can gently but firmly take her down, tell her no no no, and two seconds later she's right back there.  She jumps onto the dining room table where Gail and I both keep our Work In Progress for our classes and school activities - I give her a squirt with the spray bottle and say no no no.  She jumps down, but as soon as she thinks I'm not looking, she's right back up there throwing crayons and pens on the floor. Where, by the way, Honey (dog) then eats them.  It's a team act.

Anyway, George Bush.  He is trying to get William Myers approved for the Federal Bench AGAIN.  I have written about this guy a couple of times before here in this blog, and I'm going to see if I can find those links.  The Judiciary Committee turned him down once before. Even if I don't find the links, believe me this is not someone we want as a federal judge, with the ability to influence environmental policy now or ever. Please read this action alert from the League of Conservation Voters, and take action by sending your name on one of these emails to the Judiciary Committee.

Bush is doing the same thing with the ANWR, and I intend to pass along some information about that soon, too.  He just like my wilful kitten, determined to wreak havoc wherever he can.  Telling him no ONCE is just not enough.

  February 28, 2005 Dear Mary Ellen,

President Bush is trying to dismantle our environmental protections by resubmitting activist judges with extremist records for lifetime appointments to the Federal Bench.

Tomorrow, the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on the nomination of William Myers -- a nominee with such an extreme record that he failed to be approved in the last session of Congress. Your action is urgently needed -- if he's confirmed, he'll be undermining environmental laws for decades.

Myers's nomination failed the first time because of his radical record -- tell the Judiciary Committee to turn him down again!

• Myers's professional credentials consist primarily of his service as an advocate for mining, grazing, and other special interests opposed to federal environmental laws that are critically important.
• His lack of sufficient legal credentials caused the American Bar Association to give Myers its lowest passing grade for a nominee.
• He argued to the U.S. Supreme Court that Congress lacks the authority under the U.S. Constitution to extend Clean Water Act protections to certain wetlands and other waters -- a position that is even at odds with the Bush Administration's own Department of Justice.
• His call to elevate property rights to the level of "a fundamental right" under the Constitution would result in striking down many of our nation's important environmental laws as well as many other health and safety regulations.
• As Solicitor at the Department of Interior, Myers showed a disturbing pattern of improper procedures that were rebuked and overturned bycourts and the Interior Department itself.

Write to the Judiciary Committee today and tell them to vote NO on the Myers nomination.

Sincerely,

LCV Policy Team

Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
Paid for by the League of Conservation Voters

The Action Alert is brought to you by:
League of Conservation Voters
1920 L Street, NW, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036
http://www.lcv.org/index.cfm?MX=618&H=1

SCALZI'S WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT

Father Scalzi has mysteriously gone back in time himself, to give us wkend task #12, though last week he was up to #48.  Reads like this: 

Weekend Assignment #12: Thanks to time travel and invisibility, you can be on the spot for any important event of the last 100 years (1905 onward). Which important historical event do you choose? As a twist, if you actually were at an important historical event, you can't pick that one. Why? Because you were there already. What, you want to be there twice? Think of the paradox!

This may be my favorite assignment yet. It's a very interesting thing to think about. In my usual dithering fashion, I have difficulty narrowing this down to one event.  There are two I couldn't miss, given the opportunities.  I don't just want to be a fly on the wall for these events, no - I want to be a full participant.  The first is to protest, picket, and parade with Alice Paul and company, until we get the 19th Amendment passed in 1920. {The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.} Then I want to be in line for the historic moment when the polls opened for women to vote all over this country (15 states, mostly in the West, had already given women the right to vote by the time the 19th was passed), fill in my ballot and drop it in the box.  Just thinking about it I can feel the joy, the pride, the sense of a long battle finally won - don't you know those women partied like crazycakes?????? 

Alice Paul, "Mother of the 19th Amendment.

The second event is the Spanish Civil War, 1936 - I've always daydreamed of being a member of the Lincoln Brigade, the group of Americans who went to join the revolt against fascism, against Franco, fighting against the evil that was soon to engulf much of Europe.  Hiding in caves in the mountains, making guerrilla attacks with my hermanos and hermanas against the Guardia Civil - meeting Federico Garcia Lorca, drinking wine, fighting - even dying - for a cause that was ignored by most of Europe, a lost cause, but one of the most important social movements of the century. It's a purely romantic fantasy, but I've had it since I was a teenager.  Again, not a fly on the wall for this one either.  No, a rifle in my hands, a wineskin on my belt, "¡España!" the last word on my lips. 

Pablo Picasso

SNOW ON THE EAGLE!

Yes, Robin of Midlife Matters just sent me an email saying "Omigosh!  It snowed on the eagle!"  Which lets me know that at least one other journaler is keeping an eye on that nest.  Since the link to the entry about the EagleCam is fixin' to (as we say in Texas) leave the sidebar of most recent ten posts, I'm putting it in here once again.  I check in on them several times a day, I must confess.  The eaglets are due to hatch very soon - I just hope it will be after this snowstorm is out of here.  The current shots of the eagle hunkering over the eggs in a big pile of snow are really rather pathetic.  The note says, though, that the eggs will be okay as long as the eagles stay on them.  Those dear brave determined birds.  I wonder why they haven't learned to put up a thatched roof over the nest? 

Anyway, it's snowing big time on the Delmarva.  I didn't get a snow day, as my classes are in the morning, but I did let my second class out half an hour early, so they could get safely home.  The worst of the storm is supposed to happen this afternoon and evening.  The college did just close, letting G come home for the afternoon. The school districts have been closed all day, no BratClub for me today. So here we both are, snug as bugs in rugs.  Hope everyone else is the same.