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Open Thread

By: Michael D. July 19, 2008 at 4:44 pm

Shit happens on Saturday, too. Do tell.

Filed under: Site Maintenance | Comments (40)

Our Continuing National Disgrace

By: John Cole at 10:34 am

Is our media. Today’s evidence is this Michael Gerson op-ed, in which he opens with a story about the endangered polar bears, threatened by climate change, and informs us that their worst enemy is… environmental activists:

Once, the main threat to these creatures came from hunters who lived in lonely shacks and set traps along the ocean shore. Now a threat comes from an unexpected source: elements of the environmental movement, whose political blindness and ideological baggage may undermine efforts to reduce the role of carbon in the global economy.

***

Some Republicans and conservatives are prone to an ideologically motivated skepticism. On AM talk radio, where scientific standards are not particularly high, the attitude seems to be: “If Al Gore is upset about carbon, we must need more of it.” Gore’s partisan, conspiratorial anger is annoying, yet not particularly relevant to the science of this issue.

This points, however, to a broader problem. Any legislation ambitious enough to cut carbon emissions significantly and encourage new energy technologies will require a broad political and social consensus. Nothing this complex and expensive gets done on a party-line vote. Yet many environmental leaders seem unpracticed at coalition-building. They tend to be conventionally, if not radically, liberal. They sometimes express a deep distrust for capitalism and hostility to the extractive industries. Their political strategy consists mainly of the election of Democrats. Most Republican environmental efforts are quickly pronounced “too little, too late.”

Got it? Environmental activists are to blame for not working enough with the people who oppose them, denounce them, mock them, work openly to sabotage their efforts, and have created a cottage industry creating and spreading pseudo-scientific babble.

What twisted bastard at the Washington Post reviews these op-eds and thinks they are worth printing? What kind of jackass believes the real problem regarding the environment is the environmental movement, and not James Inhofe. This is like blaming doctors for not being willing enough to work with the tobacco industry to prevent cancer.

I don’t know why anyone reads the Washington Post op-ed pages anymore. Just a disgrace.

Filed under: Science and Technology, Assholes | Comments (89)

Open Thread

By: John Cole at 9:33 am

A new record- 5300 comments in the spam filter.

Filed under: Site Maintenance | Comments (28)

Open Thread

By: John Cole July 18, 2008 at 5:59 pm

TGIF.

This page contained an embedded video. Click here to view it.

John +2

Filed under: Site Maintenance | Comments (63)

100% Carbon Free: Is Al Gore Being Realistic

By: Michael D. at 11:01 am

In his speech yesterday, Al Gore set a goal of achieving 100% carbon-free electricity by 2020. Jerome at The Oil Drum has some thoughts on whether or not this is realistic:

The short answer is: while 100% is probably unrealistic, it’s not unreasonable to expect to be able to get pretty close to that number (say, in the 50-90% range) in that timeframe, and it is very likely that it makes a LOT of sense economically.

The goal might be unrealistic, but I think it makes a lot of sense to set goals high. If we set the goal at 100% and achieve 60%, it’s a hell of a lot better than setting the goal at 60% and achieving 40%.

Read the post. It’s a little technical, and it’s a lot to get your head around, but it’s comprehensive and addresses three things:

1) is it technically feasible to build the requisite capacity within 12 years?
2) what will it cost, and what will it mean for power prices?
3) how can the intermittency issue be dealt with?

Update: Jack Cafferty asks:

Is Al Gore’s call for carbon-free electricity in 10 years doable or “ridiculous”?

Best comment:

J, Maryland July 18th, 2008 2:15 pm ET: Ridiculous! Lets not even try…

Filed under: Domestic Affairs | Comments (144)

This Is Underwhelming

By: John Cole at 6:18 am

This line of attack from AP is what I would consider underwhelming:

Although Republican presidential candidate John McCain has called Social Security “a disgrace,” he still cashes his own retirement check every month.

“I’m receiving the benefits, the system is broken and, unfortunately, my children and grandchildren, according to the trustees of the Social Security system, will not have the same benefits the present retirees have,” McCain told reporters Thursday on his campaign bus.

McCain’s 2007 tax return shows Social Security benefits of $23,157 for the year, an average of $1,929.75 a month. He said he started receiving the payments “whenever I was eligible.”

So what? I rail against the government on a daily basis, but I still vote and use public roads. McCain paid into the system, he is entitled to his payments. There is no hypocrisy here.

If you want to focus on McCain and social security, I would point to the fact that he appears to not understand how the system works.

Filed under: Media, Election 2008 | Comments (62)

Remember to Be Very, Very Scared!

By: John Cole at 6:08 am

Fear-mongering to the very end:

European terrorists are trying to enter the United States with European Union passports, and there is no guarantee officials will catch them every time, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday.

Chertoff’s comments on Capitol Hill comes as the country is entering a potentially vulnerable period with the presidential nominating conventions coming up next month; the presidential election in November; and the transition to a new administration in January — all of which may be attractive targets for terrorists.

***

“The terrorists are deliberately focusing on people who have legitimate Western European passports, who don’t appear to have records as terrorists,” Chertoff told lawmakers. “I have a good degree of confidence we can catch people coming in. But I have to tell you … there’s no guarantee. And they are working very hard to slip by us.”

Chertoff also brings up the specter of the old stand-by, the dirty bomb. Really, there is so much gibberish here that it is hard to unpack it all. How we are becoming more “vulnerable” as a nation because of the upcoming conventions is beyond me, but they want you to think we are. Additionally, aren’t we all aware that there always remains the possibility that something will happen?

What, really, is the point of this nonsense other than typical fear-mongering?

Filed under: War on Terror aka GSAVEÂ®, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin. | Comments (40)

The Continuing Joke of CFR

By: John Cole at 6:00 am

And now the Democrats join the Republicans in forming an “independent” group to go after the opposition:

The Democratic National Committee plans to target Republican John McCain and help Democrat Barack Obama with an independent ad campaign run by veteran Democratic strategist Jonathan Prince, Democrats familiar with the decision said Thursday.

By law, the effort would be prohibited from coordinating with either Obama’s presidential campaign or with the DNC. The ads would be financed with party money, however.

The Democrats asked for anonymity because the decision had not yet been formally announced.

Honestly, is there a bigger joke than Campaign Finance reform? If anyone can explain how all this nonsense is preferable to just lifting the restrictions and requiring only immediate disclosure, fill me in. I am all ears.

Filed under: Election 2008 | Comments (18)

The Impact of Ethanol

By: John Cole at 5:27 am

Ethanol mandates are going to turn out to be one of the bigger blunders in recent memory:

Catfish farmers across the South, unable to cope with the soaring cost of corn and soybean feed, are draining their ponds.

“It’s a dead business,” said John Dillard, who pioneered the commercial farming of catfish in the late 1960s. Last year Dillard & Company raised 11 million fish. Next year it will raise none. People can eat imported fish, Mr. Dillard said, just as they use imported oil.

As for his 55 employees? “Those jobs are gone.”

Corn and soybeans have nearly tripled in price in the last two years, for many reasons: harvest shortfalls, increasing demand by the Asian middle class, government mandates for corn to produce ethanol and, most recently, the flooding in the Midwest.

We should start a list of things that Ethanol has impacted.

Filed under: Domestic Affairs | Comments (38)

A Cry for Help

By: John Cole July 17, 2008 at 7:52 pm

For the love of everything Holy, please find something useful for these people to do. They have been at this all damned day. Fix potholes, serve in Iraq, give blood. Anything. I have an old rubiks cube lying around somewhere if that will occupy them.

*** Update ***

Seriously, this from the bottom of the first post I linked, is classic:

The finger pointing about who attended what hearing when seems besides the point anyways.

Both men have been AWOL from their day jobs for most of the past two years while they are running for president.

Any guess why they are finger pointing? Maybe because a certain band of idiots has devoted a large chunk of time and bandwidth covering the “finger pointing?” I dunno. Just a guess.

This will only get worse in August.

Filed under: Media, Election 2008 | Comments (20)

All Preordained

By: John Cole at 4:44 pm

A prisoner in chains:

Impeachment is on the table.

But Congress is not allowed to bite.

The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on one of Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders in the chamber have signaled that they do not want the committee—let alone the full House—to take a vote on impeachment.

How’s that?

The Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the president’s abuses of power—perhaps as soon as next week. Expert witnesses will be called. Kucinich says that a foreign official—who he has not named—is willing to testify regarding presidential wrongdoing. And Judiciary Committee chair John Conyers, the veteran Michigan Democrat who actually believes in presidential accountability but has had a hard time getting other top Democrats to embrace that belief, suggests that the hearing will review evidence of “all the (Bush administration actions) that constitute an imperial presidency.”

But, when all is said and done, the committee is only supposed to “accumulate” the evidence of imperial over-reach, not to act upon it.

If you needed any more evidence that the United States has now reached the point that we are completely unable to govern ourselves, and are, in essence, lurching forward like a drunk with a dysfunctional sense of balance and order, this should be the final clue. This is either an election year stunt and the Bush administration is owed a number of apologies, or the Democratic leadership themselves are complicit, or both. There is no other reasoning for this nonsense. Governments and political parties that engage in this sort of charade do not take themselves seriously, and they most certainly do not take the public seriously.

And why should they? Where is the outrage? Where is Pat Buchanan’s pitchfork brigade? Where is the outcry on the blogs? How can the leadership of an elected party say, with a straight face, that they intend to hold hearings into alleged malfeasance and criminal behavior, but don’t worry, they won’t do anything about it? It is a joke. It is worse than a joke. It is fraud.

Either put an end to this farce, or have faith in the process and act upon the information you find in a manner fitting with the Constitution and the law of the land. Or resign your office and go find employment doing something you are more ably suited to do well. I hear Burger King is hiring cashiers.

Filed under: Democratic Stupidity, Outrage, Assholes | Comments (79)

Voices In My Head

By: John Cole at 3:31 pm

I just finished reading Larison’s remarks on the Larry Hunter piece we linked earlier, and Nancy Pelosi is on my tv screen babbling about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

She seems to be dedicated to fooling people into thinking that releasing some of that oil would matter, and the only thing going through my mind (other than wanting to scream at Pelosi) is that it really says something that the Democratic Party is probably going to win a lot of seats based on the fact that many people have come to the simple judgment that the Democratic candidate is “not completely evil” and “not a total moron.” As one of Larison’s commenters noted, “That Obama isn’t McCain may not make the most compelling blog commentary, but I’m afraid for many of us that truth is compelling enough.”

Feh.

Filed under: Election 2008 | Comments (31)

Greatest Campign Bleg Ever

By: John Cole at 10:42 am

Here. Throw this guy eight bucks.

Filed under: Election 2008 | Comments (62)

Murder By Faint Praise

By: John Cole at 7:46 am

This NY Daily News piece by Larry Hunter is hardly a ringing endorsement of Obama (in fact, it turns the back-handed compliment into high art), but it does go to show how damaged the Republican brand is:

I’m a lifelong Republican – a supply-side conservative. I worked in the Reagan White House. I was the chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for five years. In 1994, I helped write the Republican Contract with America. I served on Bob Dole’s presidential campaign team and was chief economist for Jack Kemp’s Empower America.

This November, I’m voting for Barack Obama.

When I first made this decision, many colleagues were shocked. How could I support a candidate with a domestic policy platform that’s antithetical to almost everything I believe in?

The answer is simple: Unjustified war and unconstitutional abridgment of individual rights vs. ill-conceived tax and economic policies – this is the difference between venial and mortal sins.

***

Or maybe not. But here’s the thing: Even if my hopes on domestic policy are dashed and Obama reveals himself as an unreconstructed, dyed-in-the-wool, big-government liberal, I’m still voting for him.

These past eight years, we have spent over a trillion dollars on foreign soil – and lost countless lives – and done what I consider irreparable damage to our Constitution.

If economic damage from well-intentioned but misbegotten Obama economic schemes is the ransom we must pay him to clean up this foreign policy mess, then so be it. It’s not nearly as costly as enduring four more years of what we suffered the last eight years.

Well played with that permanent Republican majority thing, Mr. Rove.

Filed under: Election 2008 | Comments (85)

Number of the Day: 52

By: John Cole at 7:33 am

Good showing for Obama in June:

Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign raised $52 million in June, his campaign manager said this morning – not quite a record for the high-flying campaign, but close to it. The campaign had raised $55 million in February, during the Democratic primaries.

But it’s still more than twice what Republican rival Sen. John McCain raised during June—$22 million.

Yet the Republican National Committee, which is backing the party’s presidential candidate with its own resources, also had nearly $68 million in the bank – a combined treasury which the Obama campaign was mindful about today in reporting its own June haul.

You know the drill:

Filed under: Election 2008 | Comments (36)

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