U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Paterson will be a strong governor from an environmental standpoint, but he's no Arnold Schwarzenegger, according to an analysis of his record by Jerome Woody. [grist.org]

Last night, the E.P.A. announced "a modest tightening" of its smog standard, despite the unanimous call of the agency's scientists to adopt a more protective standard. [The New York Times]  read more »

A reader caught this interesting part of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's dissenting opinion from the court's decision to push the Bush administration EPA to monitor gasses that affect global warming.

"Not only is EPA's interpretation reasonable, it is far more plausible than the Court's alternative. As the Court correctly points out, 'all airborne compounds of whatever stripe,' ...would qualify as"physical, chemical, . . . substance[s] or matter which [are] emitted indoor otherwise ente[r] the ambient air." It follows that everything airborne, from Frisbees to flatulence, qualifies as an 'air pollutant.' This reading of the statute defies common sense."

-- Azi Paybarah

The New York Press a couple of weeks ago had a brief story about a new counter-terror strategy: taking down all the street signs. An NYPD spokesman was quoted saying, "Street-sign removal is an effective security option with a proven track record. It's the same thing the English did in London during the Blitz. They removed the street signs to confuse German paratroopers, and it worked."

It was, you may have gathered, a joke.

But apparently, some in the federal government didn't quite figure that out. The paper's editor, Harry Siegel, got a call from an EPA official the other day, who was looking for a contact at the police department to talk about the new plans.

Siegel sympathizes this week:  read more »

"It's been tough all around, we suppose, since the NYPD switched to that unlisted number."