It's like playing the telephone game!

So the nutty left has taken this document:

EPA FY 2007 LIBRARY PLAN

...which explains how more and more people are accessing EPA data via electronic means and how reducing the cost of physical materials and personnel would be sensible, and via a series of subtle (and not-so-subtle changes), gone from this:

EPA BEGINS CLOSING LIBRARIES BEFORE CONGRESS ACTS ON PLAN — End of Public Access to Technical Holdings as Original Collections Shuttered

To this:

The reactionary campaign against knowledge and information is reaching frightening new heights.

The Environmental Protection Agency has been ordered by the White House to "shut down libraries, end public access to research materials and box up unique collections on the assumption that Congress will not reverse President Bush’s proposed budget reductions." Fifteen states will lose library service immediately, the rest will follow, and the public is to be turned away as soon as possible.

And finally, to this:

EPA has been ordered by W.H. to close all libraries to the public

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What better way to assuage "them" than to remove more of our freedoms?

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our Libraries are treasures at least they aren't burning the records... yet. what are you doing for your local library?

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If the f***ers can't BURN BOOKS, they will BAN THEM instead. They've got to be stopped.

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I had to click on the link to make sure this wasn't a parody I kept waiting for the punchline but there was none. I can't believe how bad things have gotten in just 6 short years.

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The Republican party is insane. Criminally insane.

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Are these PUBLIC libraries? I have read this over and over and don't understand. PUBLIC libraries? Closing? Don't fundies use libraries too? When the hell are the people going to wake up. Maybe not. Maybe not until some liberating army comes to save us? And where will they come from? Weren't WE the LIBERATORS?

Even after Huff-n-Puff made a slight change to the entry (inserting the clarifying "[its]" before the word "libraries"), the DU crowd is still going on the belief that this is about public libraries! Even if they realize their mistake, they will still believe that this is some horrible act of censorship by the Bush Administration instead of a reasonable cost-effective action.

Huff-n-Puff and DU both have it wrong. First of all, it's simply ridiculous and silly to think that President Bush ordered the closure of all public libraries. But you know how rumors are. They start and the people who believe them unquestioningly find it hard to admit they are wrong.

Second, this action simply does not affect the availability of EPA information. The Bush Administration isn't shutting down the EPA or censoring their information. All this is doing is shifting tax-dollars to where they are actually being used. Access of the physical libraries has fallen off while electronic access has grown. This order is perfectly reasonable and cost-effective, and is not any vast right-wing conspiracy to limit people's access to EPA information.

Silly, silly far-left loons.