Because she's real about Global Warming. From Ben Smith:
"The politics of global warming got very concrete, and oddly difficult, in a meeting with local environmentalists in the coastal town of McClellanville today, where Elizabeth Edwards raised in passing the importance of relying on locally-grown fruit.
"We've been moving back to 'buy local,'" Mrs. Edwards said, outlining a trade policy that "acknowledges the carbon footprint" of transporting fruit.
"I live in North Carolina. I'll probably never eat a tangerine again," she said, speaking of a time when the fruit is reaches the price that it "needs" to be.
Edwards had talked about "sacrifice," at the meeting, but Elizabeth's suggestion illustrated just how difficult it is to sell the specifics of sacrifice.
Asked about her comment immediately after the event, John Edwards avoided the question twice, then said he isn't sure.
"Would I add to the price of food?" he asked. "I'd have to think about that."
"UPDATE: Just to be clear, he's not talking about a food tax. The basic point is that any plan that imposes new costs on carbon emissions is going to make anything that's transported long distances with fossil fuels cost more. It is, in a way, a moment of clarity in this debate."
'Sacrifice' is a key word that no one on the left or the environmental lobby wants to bring up. If you truly want to clean up the environment and wean American off of fossil fuels (a goal that is becoming vital, especially in terms of our Middle East problems) then there must be a sacrifice made in terms of either a carbon tax, gas tax, or luxury tax. And the only way it can be done is if the top makes this a vitally important issue. It is possible for a country to get their population to sacrifice but only if they can make the case that the sacrifice means something that will benefit the population. So far the Democrats have been woefully inadequate doing this.
Hat Tip: AYCE
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Look...
...yeah, yeah these dudes go to prostitutes, but personally I'm not going to waggle my fingers at them for something natural and which should probably be legal. I think it's pathetic. But what really disgusts me is their choice of prostitutes (don't walk away Mr. Hugh Grant). I mean look at this chick? You're telling me you couldn't find someone better than this? She looks like Riddick Bowe.
Yet another waste of taxpayer funds...
The Future is Here
Iraq Vet gets bionic arm:
"The prosthetic hand is made of semi-translucent plastics. Five individual motors power the fingers, allowing the person to grasp round objects. The hand's gestures are made possible through electrode plates that detect electrical signals generated in the remaining muscles in the amputated limb.
The i-LIMB can be covered with flexible material to mimic the look of human skin, called cosmesis."
The i-LIMB can be covered with flexible material to mimic the look of human skin, called cosmesis."
Thursday, July 19, 2007
The Understatement of the Year
From this AP article:
"BAGHDAD (AP) -- Sunni lawmakers ended their five-week boycott of parliament Thursday, raising hopes the factious assembly can make progress on benchmark legislation demanded by Washington. The U.S. said two American soldiers have been charged with killing an Iraqi."
Further accenting the irony of the last statement the next paragraph goes off on another tangent:
"Also Thursday, the U.S. command announced the deaths of five American soldiers. Four soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter were killed Wednesday in a roadside bombing in east Baghdad and one soldier was killed Friday by small arms fire near Rusdi Mulla, just to the southwest of the city."
I'll let you guys figure this one out.
"BAGHDAD (AP) -- Sunni lawmakers ended their five-week boycott of parliament Thursday, raising hopes the factious assembly can make progress on benchmark legislation demanded by Washington. The U.S. said two American soldiers have been charged with killing an Iraqi."
Further accenting the irony of the last statement the next paragraph goes off on another tangent:
"Also Thursday, the U.S. command announced the deaths of five American soldiers. Four soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter were killed Wednesday in a roadside bombing in east Baghdad and one soldier was killed Friday by small arms fire near Rusdi Mulla, just to the southwest of the city."
I'll let you guys figure this one out.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Coulda Been a Contender: Presidential Underdogs
New commentary on Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Mike Gravel on who they are and why they won't win, over at Allhiphop.com.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Gravel Back In...
...the HRC debate. From Sully:
"The largest gay money group, the Human Rights Campaign, has now backed down from excluding one of the few Democrats to support gay and lesbian equality forthrightly, Mike Gravel, from their Democratic debate. Here's an email they sent yesterday to a complaining member:
"Thank you for taking the time to express your views regarding Senator Gravel and the Presidential Forum on Logo Television. It is a welcome sign to see members of our community so engaged in following the 2008 Presidential campaign and the platform of the various candidates. The goal for the forum has always been to provide our community with a chance to hear from the candidates on issues most important to GLBT Americans.
Although we stand by the notion that having a criteria for candidates is important for a political forum, we also heard an enthusiastic response from a portion of the community who wanted to hear from Senator Gravel. Therefore we extended an invitation for him to participate in this year's forum. It is also worth noting that HRC's original decision is not unique or completely without precedent. Senator Gravel was also not extended an invitation to the CNN Presidential debates but petitioned the decision and was consequently invited by CNN.
""Although we stand by the notion that having a criteria for candidates is important for a political forum..." A criteria? And what exactly was the unmentionable criterion? Money. The main focus of the Human Rights Campaign."
Pretty much.
"The largest gay money group, the Human Rights Campaign, has now backed down from excluding one of the few Democrats to support gay and lesbian equality forthrightly, Mike Gravel, from their Democratic debate. Here's an email they sent yesterday to a complaining member:
"Thank you for taking the time to express your views regarding Senator Gravel and the Presidential Forum on Logo Television. It is a welcome sign to see members of our community so engaged in following the 2008 Presidential campaign and the platform of the various candidates. The goal for the forum has always been to provide our community with a chance to hear from the candidates on issues most important to GLBT Americans.
Although we stand by the notion that having a criteria for candidates is important for a political forum, we also heard an enthusiastic response from a portion of the community who wanted to hear from Senator Gravel. Therefore we extended an invitation for him to participate in this year's forum. It is also worth noting that HRC's original decision is not unique or completely without precedent. Senator Gravel was also not extended an invitation to the CNN Presidential debates but petitioned the decision and was consequently invited by CNN.
""Although we stand by the notion that having a criteria for candidates is important for a political forum..." A criteria? And what exactly was the unmentionable criterion? Money. The main focus of the Human Rights Campaign."
Pretty much.
Friday, July 13, 2007
You Opened Yourselves Up to it...
...Republicans, and now you pay the price for being 'good bushies':
DETROIT (AP) - Presidential hopeful Barack Obama drew the loudest cheers of the eight Democratic candidates at a civil rights forum Thursday as he assailed the Bush administration's record on race relations...
"Obama derided President Bush's commutation of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison term, noting black men routinely serve time.
"We know we have more work to do when Scooter Libby gets no prison time and a 21-year-old honor student, who hadn't even committed a felony, gets 10 years in prison," Obama said.
Aides said Obama was referring to Genarlow Wilson, a Georgia man serving a 10-year prison sentence for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. A judge last month ordered Wilson to be freed, but prosecutors are blocking the order."
Go ahead try to wave that one away as "black paranoia".
On a more somber not Clinton and Edwards got caught in a not so appealing light:
"After the forum, Fox News microphones picked up Clinton and Edwards discussing their desire to limit future joint appearances to exclude some rivals lower in the crowded field. "We should try to have a more serious and a smaller group," Edwards said.
"Clinton agreed. "We've got to cut the number. ... They're not serious," she said, then thanked Obama and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich as they walked by. Turning back to Edwards, she added that she thought their campaigns had already tried to limit the debates and "we've gotta get back to it.""
Why am I not surprised that Fox News caught that. Still, while I understand Clinton and Edwards' frustration at the 8 person format, it looks very elitist to try to keep the stage to themselves, especially when guys like Gravel and Kucinich speak so much truth to power.
Hat Tip: Sully
DETROIT (AP) - Presidential hopeful Barack Obama drew the loudest cheers of the eight Democratic candidates at a civil rights forum Thursday as he assailed the Bush administration's record on race relations...
"Obama derided President Bush's commutation of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison term, noting black men routinely serve time.
"We know we have more work to do when Scooter Libby gets no prison time and a 21-year-old honor student, who hadn't even committed a felony, gets 10 years in prison," Obama said.
Aides said Obama was referring to Genarlow Wilson, a Georgia man serving a 10-year prison sentence for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. A judge last month ordered Wilson to be freed, but prosecutors are blocking the order."
Go ahead try to wave that one away as "black paranoia".
On a more somber not Clinton and Edwards got caught in a not so appealing light:
"After the forum, Fox News microphones picked up Clinton and Edwards discussing their desire to limit future joint appearances to exclude some rivals lower in the crowded field. "We should try to have a more serious and a smaller group," Edwards said.
"Clinton agreed. "We've got to cut the number. ... They're not serious," she said, then thanked Obama and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich as they walked by. Turning back to Edwards, she added that she thought their campaigns had already tried to limit the debates and "we've gotta get back to it.""
Why am I not surprised that Fox News caught that. Still, while I understand Clinton and Edwards' frustration at the 8 person format, it looks very elitist to try to keep the stage to themselves, especially when guys like Gravel and Kucinich speak so much truth to power.
Hat Tip: Sully
A Card
Congradulations to Sen. Al D'Amato,You're 70 years old and having your fifth baby by your second wife! By the time they're out of diapers, they'll be old enough to change yours! Good Work!
The Word.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
House Votes To Pull Troops Home
It's about time. But will the Senate agree? Ask Lieberman. And then ask everyone else after the President vetoes. It's getting interesting and ugly.
Juicy Retrospective: The American Dream
A look back at B.I.G.'s seminal work, over at Allhiphop.com.
And Just to Be Fair&Balanced
Yglesias disagrees with my belief of withdrawing US troops from Iraq to Kurdistan:
"There's long been a certain strand of sentiment that we ought to basically withdraw our forces not out of Iraq, but out of Arab Iraq and into Kurdistan. This seems like a seriously bad notion to me; people need to think about how that's going to play in the Arab world. People also need to understand that "Kurdistan" is a contestable concept and that the people running it have a very expansive conception about what Kurdistan is. Having the US military underwrite Kurdish claims to rule over the Mosul region doesn't seem very smart.
"That said, it makes sense to me that people are worried about the prospect of leaving the Kurds to be slaughtered once again. This, however, neglects the basic point that by every estimate I've seen the Kurdish peshmerga are a substantially superior fighting force to anything that exists in Arab Iraq. We don't really need to do anything at all. But if that's not the case (and this is something where, I think, you'd want to get an assessment from MNF-Iraq and not just rely on Google and bloggers) this is a situation where a "training / equipping" mission would make sense, particularly on the equipping front. Leaving Iraq is probably going to entail abandoning a certain amount of military hardware, and one can try to exercise some control over whose hands it falls into."
Damm Yglesias, damn him to hell. My quick rebuttal--it's going to look much worse if we leave the Kurds unprotected after we abandoned them the first time, and while they may have a "superior fighting force to anything that exists in Arab Iraq" so does the US and we're still getting our asses kicked. Chew on that.
Henry Rollins...
...is upset. What a surprise:
"Advice to the celebrity looking for that life-changing PR move to reinvent yourself: DIE!"
It's bitter, it's a rant, it's undoubtably Rollins.
"Advice to the celebrity looking for that life-changing PR move to reinvent yourself: DIE!"
It's bitter, it's a rant, it's undoubtably Rollins.
Quote of the Day
Mike Gravel on Hufpo:
"Obama, Edwards and Clinton at first refused to denounce General Pace's statement that homosexuality is immoral. I immediately called for that homophobe's resignation. Hillary had to be repeatedly pressed before she finally conceded that homosexuality wasn't immoral. I told the press "love between a man and a man or a woman and a woman is beautiful.""
I recently wrote an article (hopefully coming to a monitor near you) about the three candidates for President who have no chance of winning (Paul, Kucinich, Gravel), but who represent some of the best qualities of leadership. Regardless of how this turns out Gravel is aces in my book.
"Obama, Edwards and Clinton at first refused to denounce General Pace's statement that homosexuality is immoral. I immediately called for that homophobe's resignation. Hillary had to be repeatedly pressed before she finally conceded that homosexuality wasn't immoral. I told the press "love between a man and a man or a woman and a woman is beautiful.""
I recently wrote an article (hopefully coming to a monitor near you) about the three candidates for President who have no chance of winning (Paul, Kucinich, Gravel), but who represent some of the best qualities of leadership. Regardless of how this turns out Gravel is aces in my book.
The End is Near
Miers to be found in contempt:
"WASHINGTON (AP) -- A House panel cleared the way Thursday for contempt proceedings against former White House counsel Harriet Miers after she obeyed President Bush and skipped a hearing on the firings of federal prosecutors.
"Addressing the empty chair where Miers had been subpoenaed to testify, Rep. Linda Sanchez ruled out of order Bush's executive privilege claim that his former advisers are immune from being summoned before Congress."
"WASHINGTON (AP) -- A House panel cleared the way Thursday for contempt proceedings against former White House counsel Harriet Miers after she obeyed President Bush and skipped a hearing on the firings of federal prosecutors.
"Addressing the empty chair where Miers had been subpoenaed to testify, Rep. Linda Sanchez ruled out of order Bush's executive privilege claim that his former advisers are immune from being summoned before Congress."
Failure...
Al-Qaida back to pre-9/11 strength:
"WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new threat assessment from U.S. counterterrorism analysts says that al-Qaida has used its safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border to restore its operating capabilities to a level unseen since the months before Sept. 11, 2001.
"A counterterrorism official familiar with a five-page summary of the document - titled "Al-Qaida better positioned to strike the West" - called it a stark appraisal. The analysis will be part of a broader meeting at the White House on Thursday about an upcoming National Intelligence Estimate."
And with this Bush's tenure has become the greatest failure of American history. The country that defeated the British Empire, helped to defeat Nazism, the Soviet Union, and put a man on the Moon, had been thwarted by a pack of thugs hiding in caves in the Middle East. Forget impeachment, these Bush and Co. need to be duck walked out of the White House and given the Fredo treatment.
"WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new threat assessment from U.S. counterterrorism analysts says that al-Qaida has used its safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border to restore its operating capabilities to a level unseen since the months before Sept. 11, 2001.
"A counterterrorism official familiar with a five-page summary of the document - titled "Al-Qaida better positioned to strike the West" - called it a stark appraisal. The analysis will be part of a broader meeting at the White House on Thursday about an upcoming National Intelligence Estimate."
And with this Bush's tenure has become the greatest failure of American history. The country that defeated the British Empire, helped to defeat Nazism, the Soviet Union, and put a man on the Moon, had been thwarted by a pack of thugs hiding in caves in the Middle East. Forget impeachment, these Bush and Co. need to be duck walked out of the White House and given the Fredo treatment.
The Nature of Swift-Boating
Seems to me that the "Swift-boating" attack ads against Giuliani differ from those against Kerry and McCain for one specific reason: where as Kerry and McCain's military service was not the platform for their campaigns (I don't recall them running as "War-heroes" though the press called them such), Giuliani's 9/11 record is the only thing that propelled him into the national spotlight. Furthermore Giuliani himself touts this record as evidence of his leadership ablity. Seems to me these ads are a valid form of criticism.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Maybe Now My Fiance Will Let Me Smoke...
...now that it's been discovered to cut down my chances of Parkinson's by 77%.
I won't hold my breath
I won't hold my breath
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Injustice
For the last week now I haven't been blogging, mostly because the news has made me incredibly cynical and when you get as cynical as I am it becomes impossible to do anything but rant.
And it doesn't get any better.
I'd love to be able to sit down and discuss Bush's commuting of Scooter's sentence without foaming at the mouth, but I can't. I simply can't. How much more of this imperial attitude can we as Americans take before our heads simply explode? Of course, it won't really be that way will it? It never really is. Instead we'll fold up our laptops, put down our pens, and step off our soapboxes. Personally I'm exhausted. I have nothing left to say except groans and moans of anguish. If you want more check out Sully's take, and David Boaz (thru Yglesias) reminds us of some people who really need their sentences commuted. As for me, I'm reading Hobbes and weeping.
And it doesn't get any better.
I'd love to be able to sit down and discuss Bush's commuting of Scooter's sentence without foaming at the mouth, but I can't. I simply can't. How much more of this imperial attitude can we as Americans take before our heads simply explode? Of course, it won't really be that way will it? It never really is. Instead we'll fold up our laptops, put down our pens, and step off our soapboxes. Personally I'm exhausted. I have nothing left to say except groans and moans of anguish. If you want more check out Sully's take, and David Boaz (thru Yglesias) reminds us of some people who really need their sentences commuted. As for me, I'm reading Hobbes and weeping.
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