“The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate,”

The bill is estimated to be formally brought to the Senate as late as January 2010.

“Good morning Mr. President, You’ve just won a Nobel Peace Prize.”

He was awarded for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,”the nomination Committee said.

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said in its citation. “His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”

This award comes less than nine months after Obama became the first African-American President.

Obama said he was “surprised and deeply humbled.”

“I accept this award as a call to action,” Obama said in a statement made Friday morning. “This award is not merely about my efforts,  it’s about the courageous efforts from people all around the world.”

We’ll post a longer story later. In the meantime, read the full Post article here and the article we ran about this earlier in the year here.

The EMU office appears to be one of 740 nationwide offices the postal service is considering closing because of declining mail volume. The names of those locations still have not been disclosed publicly or to the American Postal Workers’ Union. However, a letter sent by postal service District Manager Kim Anderson to the Eugene APWU branch suggests that the University post office is among the 740:

Dear Mr. Kubli:

This letter is to inform you that the Postal Service will conduct a discontinuance study on University Station in Eugene, Oregon.

We are considering consolidating or discontinuing operations due to declining mail volume and window operations from Postal Service and facilities. As a result, employees working in those facilities might be reassigned pursuant to the provisions of Article 12.

Our study will consider many factors including the impact on savings, customer access, environmental impact, real estate values, and the long-teerm needs of service. We will advise you further when a determination is reached.

Kim Anderson

The WOPR has been a constant source of upheaval in local environmental, political and biologist groups, due to the BLM’s violation of the Endangered Species Act in the establishment of the plan. The BLM avoided consult from federal biologists on the effects the logging could potentially have on endangered species in the area, such as the northern spotted owl and local salmon.

The decision to cancel the WOPR was backed by numerous studies concluding not only that native animals were at risk by the logging, but that continued destruction of the forests would contaminate surrounding waterways and increase carbon outputs, leading to global warming.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the administrations change in plans.

“Today we are taking action to reform the Department of Interior and correct mistakes by correcting legal shortcuts the late administration made at the end of its tenure,”

he said Thursday.

While this reversal is a success for the Northwest’s environment and ecosystem, Tom Partin, president of the American Forest Resource Council, added that the cancellation will have an inevitably negative effect on the economy in timber-dependent communities. At 12.1 percent, Oregon’s unemployment rate is among the highest nationwide.

Nonetheless, canceling the WOPR is a big step in the Obama administration, highly respected by environmental advocates  nationwide.

“Instead of a sea of stumps, we will now have healthy forests, healthy streams and salmon, and a rebounding economy,”

said Kristen Boyles, an attorney with Earthjustice. “We’re grateful that our citizens’ legal challenge could stop this plan until the Obama administration was in place to listen to the people and follow America’s environmental laws.”

• Reduction in payments on federal student loans based on the borrower’s income based on calculations explained here.
• A 1.2 percent drop in interest rates on the government’s largest student loan program, the Stafford loan, which will go from 6.8 to 5.6 on loans made between Wednesday and July 1, 2010. The reduction is part of a long-term plan that will lower interest rates to 3.4 by mid-2011.
• The plans are meant to work in conjunction with a 2007 plan that will forgive student loans for people in public service (that is, in professions defined here) starting in 2017.

The Washington Post and the Associated Press also have stories.

Hey Stupid Fly Catcher Obama! Stop talking about Iran and telling to your dogs (UK, France, Germany) to talk about Iran and Iran Election. Keep working on your fucked country and try to solve economic crysis in your hungry country! Iran’s election doesn’t have problem and Moosavi with his tiny brain will be in jail in near future, so don’t pay your time and money for him and for his fans. 70-80% of Iranian people hate Moosavi nowadays… We never cheated in elections and even Moosavi knows that. So stop this stupid things! OK???? 

OUS spokesperson Di Saunders told the Chronicle of Higher Education she didn’t know why OUS’ page was targeted.

“People can’t be tricked into fixing health care.” If you want to bring the country together, he continues, you have to aim for 70 votes and the kind of bipartisan strength that the Healthy Americans Act has with 14 senators sponsoring the bill.

Worth noting, as shown by data tallied by blogger Nate Silver, is that Wyden has received $674,117 in campaign contributions from the health care industry, 3.7 percent of his total campaign funding, which is a higher portion than about three fourths of the Senate. Only nine Democrats get a higher percentage of campaign money from health industry groups.

“Senators whom the health care industry seems most inclined to give money to are not necessarily those who are complete deadweight on the issue,” Silver writes. “Rather, it’s those like Enzi and Conrad who are pushing solutions which are invariably described as bipartisan but which are in fact likely to lock in an industry-friendly plan.” Note the headline of Levy’s editorial: “Wyden’s Third Way,” and the piece’s emphasis on its bipartisan support

The plan is drawing fire, though, from labor unions. A political action committee paid for the following television ad opposing Wyden’s bill and in favor of Obama’s plan: