Robert Redford takes on the Pebble Mine in Alaska.

I know that we are a little irritated at the Huffington Post, but this article written by Robert Redford is required reading for anybody who loves Alaska, and every other wonderous, magical  place on our planet:

Imagine a pit two miles wide by 2,000 feet deep, and an underground mine a mile deep. This gargantuan gold and copper operation would produce an estimated 10 billion tons of contaminated waste -- 3,000 pounds for every man, woman and child on Earth.

Massive earthen dams -- some taller than the Three Gorges Dam in China -- would be constructed to hold back that waste forever. Now imagine all this in an active earthquake zone at the headwaters of the largest sockeye salmon runs in the world. The threat to Bristol Bay just below is unimaginable.

No wonder the Pebble Mine is opposed by nearly 80 percent of Bristol Bay residents. The growing coalition to stop this disaster-in-the-making is led by Native village corporations, associations and tribes from around Bristol Bay. They've partnered with commercial and recreational fishermen, sportsmen and conservation groups to protect the thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars that come from Bristol Bay's renewable economic engine: wild salmon.

Anglo American's history is littered with one pollution disaster after another: from Zimbabwe to Ireland to Nevada. Rio Tinto has left a trail of toxic contamination that spans the globe: from Indonesia to Bolivia to Utah. Do you trust these companies to take a catastrophic risk with one of our last and greatest wild places?

Mr. Redford also provides this link to a petition that I am asking all of you to please sign in order to protect this sparkling jewel of Alaska  from becoming a toilet filled with contaminated industrial sludge.

It will only take a moment, and afterward you will not only have the satisfaction of protecting such a gorgeous place, but you will have the added satisfaction of knowing that you have helped to sabotage yet another of Sarah Palin's carefully laid plans to ravage our pristine landscape.

Robert Redford gives Sarah Palin a compliment. At least I think that's what he did.

From Mediaite:

The interview was for Aol’s PopEater and the comments in question came as the discussion turned to Redford’s great film Quiz Show (if you haven’t seen that one, you’re missing out) about the quiz show scandals of the 1950s. Here’s what he had to say and how it got back to Mama Grizzlie:

“REDFORD: I felt like in that moment in history the quiz shows and the scandal that came, at that moment entertainment got exposed but academia got exposed, the corruption. The sad thing is it didn’t hurt entertainment, it hurt academia.

POPEATER: Well I find it sad that Sarah Palin insinuates that higher education is elitist. I can’t work that one out.

REDFORD: Well, I can because the country is made up of three categories. Traditionalists, cultural creative people and the moderns. The moderns are the hi-tech Silicon Valley people. The traditionalists on the lower end of it are the people who don’t want change, they’re afraid of change therefore they have anger. The fear card is a very big powerful card and when you have people afraid of change; they’ll do anything to prevent it. They’re doing it because they’re limited, frightened of people who are not as limited. I think Sarah Palin, part of her strength is how limited she is.”

So essentially Redford is saying that Palin is popular with stupid people because they are not intimidated by her intelligence.

You know now that I think about it, I am pretty sure that was NOT a compliment.  But since Palin is so stupid she will probably take it as one.

(P.S. I liked Quiz Show, but I am a much bigger fan of The Sting, The Last Castle, All the President's Men, The Candidate, the Natural, and of course my favorite, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The man is a national treasure.)