Thought it was too late for the Bush administration to do more damage? Think again. They just sentenced the polar bear to death.

The provision of the [Endangered Species Act] that the department is using to lighten the regulatory burden that the listing imposes on the oil and gas industry — known as a 4(d) rule — was designed to permit flexibility in the management of threatened species, as long as the chances of conservation of the species would be enhanced, or at least not diminished.

Kassie Siegel, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of three groups that originally sued to have the polar bear listed as threatened, said Wednesday that the decision was an acknowledgement of “global warming’s urgency,” but that it fell short of helping the polar bear.

“The administration acknowledges the bear is in need of intensive care,” Ms. Siegel said. “The listing lets the bear into the hospital, but then the 4(d) rule says the bear’s insurance doesn’t cover the necessary treatments.”

Polar Bear is Made a Protected Species [NY Times]

It is a sad testimony to our modern times that strangers and professional acquaintances are often the only people around to attend to or witness one’s death. So it was with DC Madam who spoke with her building manager before her fated trip to Tarpon Springs, FL where she was discovered by her mother last week hanging in her shed next to her trailer home.

The building manager at DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey’s Orlando condominium told WESH-TV in Orlando on May 2 that he “strongly believes Palfrey’s death was not a suicide.” In fact, Palfrey was asking about making sure her condominium fees were kept up to date while she was serving her 6-year federal sentence for running an escort service - not the sign of a woman ready to check out of this life.

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This morning, in the midst of penning what was probably an sharply crafted, intelligently argued but head-explodingly off-base column, William F. Buckley, Jr., a founding father of the modern conservative movement, was called to join his compatriots Joe McCarthy, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan in that great No-Jews-No-Blacks-Men-Only Country Club in the sky.

Buckley deeply understood the power of the idea whose time has come and, admirably true to form, Buckley has kicked off as the movement he built begins to crumble and rot at it’s very foundation. He couldn’t have chosen a more approproate time to go, lest he had chosen, say, sometime in the 1930s.

Please voice your sorrows in the comments and may you find comfort in the shared grief of your peers.

William F. Buckley, Jr. is Dead at 82 [New York Times]