At long last, here are Obama’s prom pictures.

(Source: drunkonstephen)

The ultimate test of man’s conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.

motherjones:

mypubliclands:

What does Jurassic Park have to do with public lands? Quite a bit, actually…

Jurassic Park is based on paleontologist’s research analyzing fossils. Our extensive knowledge of dinosaurs wouldn’t be possible without this research, which is conducted by permitted paleontologists and their students. Many of the greatest dinosaur discoveries occur on your public lands in Alaska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana and New Mexico!  For example, just outside Cañon City, Colorado discoveries include the first complete skeleton of Allosaurus, the three most complete Stegosaurus skeletons ever found, as well as the first known remains of dinosaurs like Camarasaurus, Ceratosaurus, and Diplodocus.

Of course, the proper preservation and protection of paleontological resources is a vital component of BLM’s Paleontology program and is the reason that the BLM and Universal Studios created these Public Service Announcements back in 1993.  Students and scientists with BLM permits are making new discoveries every year, many of whom became excited about paleontology because of movies such as Jurassic Park. Join the adventure, click here to learn more about fossils on public lands!

—Kyle Sullivan, BLM Colorado

Watch the original PSAs here:

Jeff Goldblum

Laura Dern

Sam Neill

Michael Crichton

Note: license for footage used in these PSAs granted by Universal Studios in June 1993.

Oh man. Whoever is running the Bureau of Land Management Tumblr is doing it right.

mohandasgandhi:

thewoodquarter:

What a typo.

This is too good not to reblog.

An excerpt from the last speech of Martin Luther King, Jr.  He gave this speech the night before he was murdered, when he was in Memphis to stand in solidarity with striking sanitation workers.  And on this date in 1968, he was assassinated. 

On the Republican side, Iraq was a war of liberation if you ask them in 2013.  On the Republican side, the Iraq war is what kept us safe so we wouldn’t get attacked again like we did on 9/11 if you ask them in 2012. “That smoking gun could have been a mushroom cloud! Thank God we went in!”  They are still there arguing that.  We have been through two presidential election cycles since then.  It is now 10 years after the war and the war is over, and this is still the line at the top-tier of the Republican party — trying to sell us the same lies that got us into that war in the first place.

Rachel Maddow, on what the Republican party still doesn’t understand about the Iraq war.

statedept:

On Tuesday, March 19, 2013, President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Enda Kenny will participate in the Shamrock ceremony in the White House. The ceremony first began in 1952, when the Irish Ambassador sent a box of shamrock to President Truman. Watch the history of the ceremony in this video from U.S. Embassy Dublin.

(Source: youtu.be)

[L]awyers in criminal courts are necessities, not luxuries. The right of one charged with crime to counsel may not be deemed fundamental and essential to fair trials in some countries, but it is in ours. From the very beginning, our state and national constitutions and laws have laid great emphasis on procedural and substantive safeguards designed to assure fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law. This noble ideal cannot be realized if the poor man charged with crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him.

brooklynmutt:

Whoa, Wow and Omg.

In case you missed it: The Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act this week and Justice Scalia referred to the act as a “racial entitlement.” 

kileyrae:

‘Building momentum for regime change’: Rumsfeld’s secret memos

By late November, Rumsfeld was meeting with Gen. Tommy Franks, Centcom commander, to plot the “decapitation” of the Iraqi government, according to the now declassified talking points agenda from the sessions (shown on television for the first time in the documentary). The talking points suggest that Rumsfeld and his team were grappling with a tricky issue: “How [to] start?” the war. In other words, what would the pretext be? Various scenarios were outlined: “US discovers Saddam connection to Sept. 11 attack or to anthrax attacks?” reads one of them. “Dispute over WMD inspections?” reads another. “Start now thinking about inspection demands.”

The documentary Hubris: Selling the Iraq War airs tonight on MSNBC

Two years ago today.

(Source: Gawker)