Odds and Ends

Hey, you know what's awesome? Air conditioning. Anyway, here's the news...

This bill is likely to be the hot-button (pardon the pun) issue of the week on Capitol Hill: "The Senate began what is expected to be a weeklong, contentious debate Monday over legislation to combat global warming by mandatory reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases." Time magazine's Jay Newton-Small has a decent blog summary of what this bill is all about.

Conservatives, meanwhile, solve climate change by ranting about 'the left'.

On a related note, more proof that the Bush administration interfered with NASA's research on climate change: "'Our investigation,' the [NASA Inspector General] report said, 'found that during the fall of 2004 through early 2006, the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public.'"

The U.N. thinks we should do something about this food crisis: "UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged nations to seize an "historic opportunity to revitalise agriculture" as a way of tackling the food crisis. Mr Ban told a UN-sponsored summit in Rome that food production would have to rise by 50% by 2030 to meet demand."

A new round of polls finds that the majority of Americans do believe that the U.S. President should meet with leaders of countries which are considered our enemies. oMg, APPEAZEMINT!!1

Meanwhile, Syria will be letting U.N. nuclear inspectors take a look around.

Unlike libertarian darling Ron Paul, current Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr is not accepting the support of white supremacist organizations. And that's nice.

Finally, Stephen Colbert delivers a hilarious commencement address at Princeton.