Politics

This is a three and a half minute video of Newt's 3 way strategy to deal with energy. Well, I'm sure it doesn't belong to Newt, but you get the idea. He mentions we have enough coal to put Saudi Arabia to shame and talks about clean coal. I've never heard of this. Anybody have any info on it?? I found it sobering. The left won't like it because he doesn't believe alternative fuels can do anything in one decade. The right won't like it because he doesn't believe oil is the long term solution and he accepts global warming as an issue to be dealt with. In short, he's for releasing our reserves to punish speculators, drilling and searching for oil in th…

Obama is apparently planning to vote for the wiretapping law as it is following the House's passage last week. The Senate is currently debating the bill, which is expected to pass the Senate and be signed by the President. Some interesting commentary from the Obama web site: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/rospars/gGxsZF/commentary This might get under the skin of some of his base, but I think he deserve a lot of credit for a thoughtful and measured position here, as well as a very forthright responsiveness on the subject. No duck-and-cover act here. He lays out exactly what's right and what's wrong about it, what parts of it he's got problems…

Anyone following this (I really haven't)? Is it as big of a landmark as the hype would suggest? As far as its immediate impact in national politics, I did like this nugget from McCain: For Obama's part, he has refrained from taking a position on it, about the ban only saying (in an April debate), "I confess I obviously haven't listened to the briefs and looked at all the evidence." He supports individual (rather than merely collective) rights to bear arms, but also "common sense local laws." He was quick to disavow an aide's claim that he thought the ban was Constitutional.

An interesting New York Times editorial today suggests that perhaps the main reason Obama has been getting so much of its money from small donors is because it just hasn't had time for the big wallets yet. In fact one Obama staffer actually said so: Well they seem to be finding time for them now. The Times piece focuses on a fundraiser in Atlanta last night. http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/obama-campaign-reaps-gilded-haul/ My my. So much for campaign finance reform.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aH0_cYGS8Avc&refer=home America is now the 2nd worst performing country in the G8, after Italy. A weak dollar doesn't bode well for a country with a massive addiction to foreign imports, including oil. I'd attribute this to decades of Milton Friedman-inspired economic policy blowing up in the country's collective face (and that includes such policies introduced by Clinton). Massive deregulation precipitated massive corruption which in turn precipitated massive devaluation. Of course none of this is going to deter free market advocates who think that the economy was overregulated even under Bush.

Couple articles: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-everglades25-2008jun25,0,3721951.story http://in.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idINN2436313220080624?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0 The state of Florida has arranged to buy back 187,000 acres of farmland currently owned by US Sugar corp. It's the biggest restoration purchase in Everglades history and a deal likened by Gov. Charlie Crist as being comparable with the founding of Yellowstone. This story came completely out of the blue. A huge surprise even locally. The land in question is just a few miles from where I live, and my wife and I have spent considerable time wa…

Is it time to throw 'under the bus' under the bus? http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08184/894024-51.stm The Wikipedia entry on the phrase has an amusing sidebar, fleshing out a tidbit from the above article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throw_under_the_bus ROFL! There's also a great example from the same entry: Anyway, the Wikipedia article cites an NPR story saying the phrase has been used in over 400 political stories over the last six months. Time to throw it under the bus!

According to ScienceDaily, Political Participation Is Partially Rooted In Genetic Inheritance. It seems that about 53% of the variation in voter turnout is due to genetics. Two genes in particular seem to account for 10% of the variation. The same genes apply to various social and political behaviors, including going to church. I take this to mean that churchgoers are more likely to vote (this is mentioned in the journal), biasing the results in their favor (interesting side effect). Let me pre-emptively add that you are not controlled by your genes, they just influence your behavior. In this case, many of the genes are linked to fear, trust, and social interactio…

I've added two new sticky threads to the Politics subforum. The first one is an FAQ and a collection of helpful reference links. This is intended as a user-contribution thread, especially with its third purpose, which is to serve as a reference collection for previous discussions on hot-button issues, like abortion, gun-control, etc. That's going to be a moderated thread, so expect your post to be deleted and its content added to a master reference list. The second thread is intended as a rolling collection of interesting reading links. It is entirely user-driven. I'm sure we all read articles around the Web that for whatever reason don't come up in conversatio…

This is quite the juxtaposition: http://youtube.com/watch?v=cDQv5CbhipI I don't support the hecklers, per se, but the response was terribly ironic: As Bush says: "To my fellow citizens to be, we believe in free speech in the United States of America" ...two secret service agents drag off some banner waving hippie who was calling him a war criminal. Yes, we believe in free speech, but step out of line and the man will come and take you away... Well, the crowd certainly ate it up with a spoon. Happy birthday, America!

Apparently President Bush has decided to attend the opening ceremony of the China games. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7488858.stm Makes sense. It's about sport, not politics.

That subject line ought to raise a few eyebrows around here, but I just live for stories like this! http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/presidentbush/2008/07/bushs-faith-bas.html His position seems to be not that it's a violation of the separation of church and state, but that Bush didn't do ENOUGH of it, and he supported the wrong set of zealots! So, what, we're going to publicly fund "Condoms from Christ" and "Jesus Loves Pregnant Teens" now?

http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=95430 Kucinich has stated, in no uncertain terms, that the Iraq war was about oil, citing secret meetings between the Cheney Energy Task Force and executives from Exxon, Shell and BP:

Firstly, you're mixing quotes from my responses to different people. Secondly, you are reaching with both hands into the assumption bag about my mentality, based on what I've said so far about this matter. It shows you have a rabid response to any kind of inquiry that is at odds with your opinions. And thirdly, despite attempts and entreaties to avoid going off-topic in this thread, you persist in doing so. Let's start another thread or resurrect one of the old WMD threads. Didn't I say that I was arguing against that very point. Oh, yes I did, just a bit earlier, in the first sentence of the last paragraph in post #30. It is an area denial agent, meant to fl…

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2461214.ece Wow look, it's a Milton Friedman protege agreeing with all those long haired Alex Jones worshiping hippie freaks... Worlds are colliding... Perhaps this will even convince those who despite past protestations continue to deny that oil played a major role in the Iraq War (hint hint: Pangloss)

Was recently formed to prevent any sort of telcom immunity as part of the FISA bills: They've received over $325,000 in just a few weeks. I think I'll donate.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1828132020080619 I guess this could be damaging to Obama, but I think it is a wash, as long as it remains true that Obama gets most of his money in small donations. That is public funding in my opinion.

An interesting piece on Bill Moyer's. Full video available at the following: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06272008/watch.html Two decades later, even as the leading scientists in the world have reached a consensus that global warming truly does threaten the planet, Congress still has not passed any law mandating major cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions. So this week, twenty years to the day after his first appearance, Dr. Hansen was back to tell press and politicians of some striking similarities between then and now and one crucial difference. "The difference is that now we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global w…

What is the difference?

Interesting point raised on Meet the Press today. NBC's Chuck Todd was talking about the convention with Tom Brokaw, and the issue of which Clinton would speak at the convention came up. The Obama camp doesn't want Clintons to dominate the convention, so they only want a Clinton-named speaker on one night. Well that has to be Hillary, out of respect for her candidacy and desire for her voters (a quarter of whom currently say they'll be voting for McCain). You only typically have one headliner on an evening, so you'd undermine her by having Bill speak after her. You can have Bill introduce her, but according to Todd there's a whole history there of speaking engag…

Time ran a fascinating piece by Amy Sullivan yesterday about in-fighting in the religious right. One of their more interesting points is that when James Dobson came out slinging mud at Obama this week, there was a backlash within the religious conservative community. One brand new anti-Dobson PAC was created and, low and behold, immediately picked up thousands of dollars in Colorado Springs, the small, overwhelmingly conservative city where Focus on the Family is located! The piece goes on to look at the struggles of political evangelical leaders right now. Rush Limbaugh is no doubt playing this as attributable to "white guilt" and "racial fears". (sig…

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/27/asia/korea.php Looks like some great progress in regards to North Korea. I hope this will eventually encourage Iran to do the same. I think this shows some desperation on the part of North Korea via China and perhaps more flexibility from Bush to get the ball rolling. I have a feeling that our administration bent a little more than they wanted in order to have this done prior to Bush leaving office. The results look good so far though and that is what matters.

Namely Cuba and the Chinese. I'd forgotten all about this story, which came out in early May, but my wife reminded me about it last night. Cuba made a deal with Chinese and Indian companies to drill the same oil that Florida is now considering drilling. In the past Cuba withheld drilling, in part because Florida also promised not to allow it. But they made the first move here, not Florida. The agreement is basically right down the middle of the Florida straight, but that straight is only 80 or so miles across, and the fields surely cross over that boundary down deep. So if they start drilling that oil, they're going to get oil we could have pulled up on our sid…

The Supreme Court snuck in a final ruling at the last minute yesterday, issueing a decision in the case of Davis v Federal Election Commission. Davis, a wealthy New York Democrat, lost a couple of elections in which he spent a great deal of money. He argued against a state law that allowed his opponents, once Davis had put more of his millions into his kitty (information which was exposed to the public as part of this law), to raise money of their own beyond the normal spending limit. He was denied at the district appeals level but appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor. The New York Times has a write-up here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/was…

I'm surprised nobody is talking about this, it's a major issue. We all know what will happen if McCain get elected president; the most liberal justices will be appointed by a pro-life president.