Just over a week ago, the Cosco Busan container ship collided with the San Francisco Bay Bridge and leaked 58,000 gallons of toxic fuel oil into the Bay. As Plutonium Page diaried here already, the spill is the largest in the Bay since 1996 and poses untold environmental damage to both humans and a perpetually vulnerable ecosystem. Salon.com has a poignant piece up today about why the timing of the disaster -- right in the middle of birds' winter migratory season -- is particularly tragic:

Every fall millions of birds fly south from their summer breeding homes in Alaska's tundra and Canada's boreal forests, bound for the warm climes and plentiful food of South America. Along the way more than 1 million stop, sometimes for the entire winter, in the San Francisco Bay, the largest estuary on the West Coast. This year the birds, some of them not a year old, alighted on the bay, weakened from their long flight, aiming to feed and rest for the long journey ahead, only to find that their sanctuary had become a toxic-tainted stew.

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Facing criticism that he appeared disengaged from the disaster wrought by Hurricane Katrina, President Bush has been looking for opportunities to show his concern. But the White House will take the effort a step further Tuesday, venturing into untested waters by putting the nation's first lady on reality television.

Laura Bush will travel to storm-damaged Biloxi, Miss., to film a spot on the feel-good, wish-granting hit "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." Mrs. Bush sought to be on the program because she shares the "same principles" that the producers hold, her press secretary said.

But wait -- who booked Laura on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition?  You guessed it...

The other bloggers they've hired are mostly conservative and the audience doesn't want to be bothered by politics.  Here's a typical comment from a reader:

"Lynne writes --
It just kills me to watch the news banner rolling across the TV screen reporting deaths in Iraq, murders in Los Angeles, child molestations, etc. etc.  Meanwhile -Charles and Diane are wearing formal evening wear and yucking it up with Wolfgang Puck who is making post Oscar pancakes on GMA.  Does anyone at the networks actually watch these programs? Do they really think we need an update on the number of people killed that day every five minutes?"

And now I've gone and gotten myself into an argument with one of my fellow TV bloggers. More on the flip.

Maybe this isn't such an anti-climactic Tuesday after all?

To my horror, what I came across was the rotting corpse of TV news.  Like a zombie that rises up from the grave, there was John Stossel on 20/20 doing a "Desperate Housewives" tie-in piece.  Flip flip flip.  Is that the smell of human flesh?  Ah, it's Candy Crowley on CNN doing a "report" on "Blogger Moms."  Where is Bruce Campbell when you need him?

After the flip: More Swingers, Zombies, and Bloggers (oh my!)

And, as the LA Times reports today, Arnold Schwarzenegger has now taken a page from their playbook:    

More below.

Full story here.

Nice commentary here.

And an invitation to compare & contrast: Voting Without the Facts.

But we have to look ahead to the future, no matter how dark and uncertain it seems.  Last night's loss only underscores just how much work must still be done.  We must craft a clearer message and we must have better party leaders to communicate that message.  We must fight everywhere all the time, not just in states we think we can win and not just during election years, because the fight is larger than any margin in the Electoral College - it is philosophical.  We must embrace our role as the political and moral opposition to the Right Wing agenda, so that when the Neocons' global house of cards collapses - and there's no question that it will - the American people will have a place to turn.    

In the immediate aftermath, these things should be on our agenda:

Link & more below the fold.