TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
FACEBOOK: Green News Report
VIA SMART PHONE: Stitcher Radio!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Romney mocks climate change, while Obama doesn't, as the Democratic National Convention gets underway; Energy company CEO pushes for a price on carbon(!); Midwest drought now coming for your popcorn; PLUS: Speaking of 'popping' - Hurricane Isaac recovery, now with dead rats! ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Summer of Fire 2012: new fires prompt evacuations in NE, CA; Organics no healthier than conventional foods - if you don't count pesticides and antibiotic-resistant superbugs; Israel solar industry struggling; Arctic ice melt: 1st sailboat in the Arctic Ocean; Shell gets a pass, clears another hurdle to Arctic drilling; Methane now contaminating PA water supplies; Study: humanity set to blow past 2 degrees Celisus warming ... PLUS: Labor Day 2040: Endless Summer ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Last week, as Tropical Storm Isaac was barreling towards Tampa, I posited that since Republicans "didn't get the message back in 2008" when Hurricane Gustav slammed into Louisiana on the first day of the RNC, cancelling the first day of their convention that year, it was a clear sign that "God hates the Republican National Convention".

Now that the first day of the RNC has once again been cancelled in 2012, thanks to what our own Desi Doyen dubbed "Tropical Storm Irony" during last Thursday's Green News Report, I've had time to rethink my feelings on this.

While the track for Isaac has moved to the west, and Tampa is no longer under Tropical Storm Warnings or Watches (though a Tornado Warning has just been issued for the area), I may have underestimated God's love for the RNC.

The storm, expected to turn into a hurricane in the next few hours, has already had an arguably positive effect on the RNC, as Donald Trump's appearance has now reportedly been cancelled given the shortened schedule to make up for the loss of the first day. That can only be good news for Republicans, frankly.

Also, with the new track predicted for Isaac, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) has also announced he's no longer planning to go. Another plus for the RNC! God may be saving them from themselves, it seems.

On the other hand...Isaac is now gaining strength and is said to be on a straight track towards New Orleans on Wednesday, as Veep pick Ryan was to give his address to the RNC, and as Mitt and friends were planning to party hardy with their best tea-bag laden hats and otherwise prepare for the balloons to drop in Tampa on Thursday night. Isaac now seems to be following in Katrina's footsteps, almost seven years to the day after that deadly storm struck, the levees failed the next day, and thousands were killed, even as Karl Rove was glad-handing fans in Crawford, TX at the same moment an entire American city was being wiped out.

Similar scenes would make for rather unseemly split-screens on network television those nights, to say the least. Might Isaac end up cancelling the entire convention this year? And would that be a good or bad thing for the 2012 crop of Republicans?

Final conclusion: God works in mysterious ways. Stay safe, NOLA!...

Apparently, they didn't get the message back in 2008, but, obviously, God hates the Republican National Convention...

Tropical Storm Isaac is now on track to hit Tampa on Monday, the first day of the 2012 RNC.

"We're prepared for it, we've trained for it, we have contingency plan after contingency plan," Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn told CNN. But if the weather gets ugly, he says, "human safety, human life trumps politics."

You'll recall that the first day of the 2008 RNC in Minneapolis-St. Paul was all but scotched when Hurricane Gustav barreled through the Gulf to hit Louisiana, as the GOP was still particularly sensitive to George W. Bush's Katrina disaster just a few years earlier.

This time, God appears to be taking no chances, and is sending his wrath straight towards the site of the convention itself. At least that's what Jerry Falwell told me from the grave.

TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
VIA SMART PHONE: Stitcher Radio!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Fire at Chevron's residential refinery near SF; Extreme heat fuels deadly wildfires in OK; Extreme storms shut down Lollapalooza; Score one for endangered species: Gibson Guitars pays up; PLUS: Extreme weather and historic heat waves said directly linked to global warming ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Ocean acidification could disrupt marine food chains; Keystone XL threatens aquifer that irrigates central US; Proposed NV water pipeline raises fears of new 'Dust Bowl'; Roosevelt's Badlands Ranch faces oil industry threat; Obama Admin abandons 2C commitment; The Devil's Rig: how wind energy powered 17th century empire; NREL: Solar has most renewable energy potential; Baltimore pays $3.7m for lead paint poisoning ... PLUS: IEA Bombshell: Global Warming May Lead To ‘Miami Beach In Boston’ ... and much, MUCH more! ...

TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
VIA SMART PHONE: Stitcher Radio!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Fox 'News' wants to abolish FEMA, but VT's Emergency Management team --- and even NJ Gov. Chris Christie(!) --- beg to differ; Talking energy innovation in Vegas; PLUS: Now even Snooki gets it! Well...um...sort of... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Letter from a Utah jail: Tim DeChristopher speaks; Solar setback: Solyndra files for bankruptcy; ConocoPhillips says 'virtually all' of China spill cleared; Germany sets renewables record; Oil shale mining would suck the West dry: report; Panel confirms fix was in at Japan's nuclear public meetings; Australia to get its first utility-scale solar plant; Attack of the Monsanto Superinsects; The greenest building on Earth; Rising Biomass Demand Could Drive Land Grabs: Report; Exxon Reaches Arctic Oil Deal With Russians; San Bruno Pipeline Explosion: 'A Failure of the Entire System' ... PLUS: NSFW: Don Cheadle IS Captain Planet! ...

TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
VIA SMART PHONE: Stitcher Radio!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane Irene Special Report: Assessing the damage, and the response; Catastrophic flooding in VT; Rightwing's nutty response to disaster (We're talking to you, Howard Kurtz, George Will, Eric Cantor & Ron Paul!); PLUS: Making the link with climate change - the corporate media won't do it, so we will ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Despite protests, Keystone oil sands pipeline moves one step closer to approval; NASA's Hansen: We Will Continue To Fight Tar Sands Pipeline; Climate scientist vindicated again; Koch Industries fighting against tougher national security rules on chemical plants; Calfornia's 'solar highways' faces regulatory speed bumps; Reversible OLED Solar building tiles light the night; Powering your car with old newspapers?; Wind Power Gains As Gear Improves; More oil drilling in Obama era than Bush era; Earthquake may have exceeded VA nuclear plant's safeguards; Source of Gulf oil sheen near BP oil well is unclear; After Recall, Egg Farms Rack Up Violations; UN warns new mutant strain of bird flu on the rise; Monsanto GMO corn losing bug resistance ... PLUS: Republicans Against Science ...

Guest blogged by Desi Doyen

Today marks the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina slamming into the Gulf Coast at New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 29th, 2005. What the Category 3 hurricane did not destroy, the man-made disaster finished off, drowning much of the beloved city, killing over 1800 people, and displacing over a million more, many permanently.

There are many ways to look at what happened five years ago today and in the horrifying days and weeks that followed. There are successes and plenty of failures to document for history. There are surely lessons to be learned, but have we even come close to learning the most important one?...

Tale of @TheBradBlog's tweets from this morning...

11:23am PT:

11:23am PT:

11:25am PT:

11:25am PT:

11:26am PT:

11:26am PT:

11:29am PT:

And now, some of the replies from the "conservatives" who quickly responded to the above --- kept below the fold since their responses are so very "conservative" and classy!...

Can't believe Andrew Breitbart and the heroic citizen watchdogs fighting against bloated government corruption at BigGovernment.com haven't said a word about this yet! Perhaps James O'Keefe is not donning his pimp costume even now, for some "undercover journalism" to shut these corrupt, tax-payer robbing bastards down once and for all! And prostitution foe "Patterico" is sharpening his poison pen of the people even as we speak!

I can't deny it any longer. These are, after all, the most outrageous examples of ACORN corruption yet! And apparently it wasn't just a few low level employees this time, but system corruption said to go to the very top of the organization, resulting in the defrauding of millions, if not billions of tax-payer dollars! It's now clearer than ever that all of their federal funding must be denied once and for all! Get this...

Financial Times:

News Hounds:

FOXNews.com reports: "Mindful of the pitfalls of hosting cocktail parties while Gulf Coast residents are being evacuated, John McCain’s campaign suggested Thursday that Republicans could postpone their upcoming national convention in St. Paul if Tropical Storm Gustav makes landfall over the weekend."

“McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said delaying the start time is a possibility.

"Senator McCain has always been sensitive to national crises — in the 2000 race, he postponed his announcement because of the situation in the Balkans, and we are monitoring the situation very closely,” Bounds said."

Ah, but he partied down with his pal the prez in 2005 as Katrina was drowning a thousand Americans and their pets in their homes.

O'Reilly uses every bully-boy, tough-guy, strong-arm tactic in his thuggish satchel. McClellan didn't blink. To his credit, he's standing by his book. All. of. it. In fact, the deer-in-the-headlights glaze he had for years at the WH press podium seems now to be entirely gone. We're impressed.

Here's O'Reilly's complete, three-segment, testosterone-amped, failed attempt to take down McClellan on tonight's O'Reilly Factor...

BTW, some on the supposedly-Progressive side --- such as the folks at MoveOn and other friends of ours --- have condemned McClellan for not speaking up sooner and for "profiting from lying to the public" during his time at the White House. While we understand that general impulse, we think the knee-jerk reaction may be a mistake. McClellan himself said last Sunday on Meet The Press that he hopes others will step forward to do as he did. So do we.

He's taken a huge hit from "his own" side by coming out as he has in a rather extraordinary and unprecedented way. His realizations, late in coming or otherwise, seem to be quite legit, heartfelt and rather courageous. It seems to us we should be more interested in making those who might do the same feel safe to do so, rather than kick them from all sides. Just our .02.

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

What follows is a short compilation of video footage I took when visiting New Orleans earlier this month. While some parts of the city have made significant progress, the poorer and lower situated areas like the Lower 9th Ward remain devastated. Yet, the most difficult part for me was not viewing the destruction but witnessing the lack of activity, building, people, hope. All were conspicuously absent. Hence the final clip taken from the Convention Center just after Katrina of the stranded masses chanting for help. Although 20 months have passed since those desperate cries, it seems we are still waiting for someone to hear them.

The music is "Monday Night In New Orleans" by Kermit Ruffins (and The Barbeque Swingers) who, for my money, is the best living musician in the city.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

I have three Katrina-related items for you, from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Greg Palast, respectively.

NYT: Bush Cites Progress in Gulf Coast Visit