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Bush Labor Department Hurries to Change Toxic Substance Rules Before Obama Takes Office

White House duck vs. the coal-mine canary.

Calvin Trillin

December 2, 2008

For industry they’re rushing through some rules To ease restraints on using toxic goop And dumping tops of mountains into streams. In every hole, they seek a larger loop.

The ornithologists can tell us that Such actions have a simple explanation: A lame duck, though incapable of flight, Is fully capable of defecation.

Calvin TrillinCalvin Trillin is The Nation’s “deadline poet.”


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