Cuccinelli: Request for UVA climate docs does not affect academic freedom

In court documents filed this week, Cuccinelli argues that his demand for documents from Mann should be granted because it does not affect academic freedom, and the First Amendment is not a shield against fraud investigations.

The green hard-sell

PROFESSOR Hugh Possingham's idea is simple - it is called the endangered species lottery. First the federal government creams off $20 million from taxes on gambling revenue as a prize. Then the names of Australian endangered species are written on balls and put in a barrel.

On Melbourne Cup day the federal environment minister draws a ball from the barrel live on television just before the big race. Landholders who have populations of the winning species on their property are given a slice of the $20 million pie, with more money apportioned for larger populations.

World Cup Diary June 18: Freakish cold and freakish coincidences

I'd expected the temperature outside to be cold; what I hadn't anticipated was that it would be freezing inside as well. Apparently there's no Afrikaner word for insulation. Or central heating. I spent most of yesterday sitting six inches from the one small heater in the place, wearing T-shirt, shirt, two jumpers and a coat, wrapped in a blanket, with my laptop on my knees as much for warmth as because I had work to do. The locals insist this is an unusual cold snap.

Ghana are based about half an hour's drive away, near Sun City, and their training had to be postponed yesterday morning because of a frozen pitch. A couple of members from the New Zealand backroom staff were heard complaining that their early morning round of golf had been ruined by frost on the tees and greens. This isn't just a non-summer World Cup; this is a really, really cold World Cup.

Matt Ridley's Rational Optimist is telling the rich what they want to hear | George Monbiot | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

When someone explains an inconvenient truth about politics that the business elite reviles, it is immediately taken up and echoed in hundreds of blogs and articles. When, as I have found many times before, you explain an inconvenient truth about neoliberal or anti-environmental ideas, it is met with silence. The media simply looks the other way. There is a massive rightwing echo chamber. Nothing comparable exists on the left.