NRDC Recycling Tips July 31, 2008March 11, 2017 But first, an enigma: Through what principle of agronomics are red and yellow peppers two or three times as expensive as green peppers? Can anyone tell me? Are red and yellow dyes that much more expensive than green? The main costs of the peppers are identical: the cost of packing and shipping them to the store, the cost of store labor for stocking them, the store’s rent and utilities. Is it that the red and yellow peppers grow only at the very top of the pepper tree and are thus an order of magnitude more difficult and dangerous to pick? I need to know! And now . . . THE MULTIPLICATION GAME In terms of stuff (yesterday’s video), one looks for ways to live lighter on the land. And in terms of the Bush economy, one looks to economize. (A grand eight years for the rich and powerful, yes, but a time when – since the year 2000, NBC Nightly News reports – middle class families have seen their income drop by $1,175 while life’s necessities keep getting more expensive – gasoline up $2,200 a year, health insurance up $363, food up $220, the average yearly mortgage payment up $1,729.) A psychological trick that may help if you don’t do it already: multiply whatever little thing you’re buying by 365, if you buy it every day. It’s not a $4 Starbucks – it’s a $1,460 annual Starbucks habit. (Sorry, Starbucks; I love you!) Brewing coffee at home – toss in a little cinnamon or hot chocolate mix – and taking it with you in a go cup, which you can then use for your free office coffee instead of Styrofoam cups, saves you $1,000 a year. It’s not a 75-cent bottle of water twice a day, it’s a $547 annual water bill. Yet just as $220 Johnny Walker Blue bottles are auspiciously refilled with Glenlivet at one fifth the price (I poured a Blue aficionado three unlabeled jiggers, one Blue, two Glenlivet, and watched happily as he couldn’t tell them apart), so the water bottle may be refilled – free – with delicious chilled tapwater, saving $527 a year and the need for 730 petroleum-based plastic bottles (of the 30-odd billion Americans throw out each year). And don’t even get me started on cigarettes. Paper towels? Have you people not heard of a sponge? Beef? Have you people not heard of pork? Pork? Have you not heard of chicken? Chicken? Have you not heard of eggplant parmigian? The further down the food chain you go, and the less processing went into making it, the less resources were required – and, often, the less it costs and the better it is for you. Most of you know at least much about all this as I do, and most of you know I’m not proposing you never have a Starbucks or a burger. But I am proposing you ask the chef at your next BBQ for an Andy Burger. Just once, at least. Try it! (An Andy Burger is a fully loaded cheeseburger, with lettuce, tomato, and pickle on a grilled bun – hold the burger. Slather on the ketchup. The grill marks impart that beefy aroma, and ketchup is the main point of a burger anyway . . . I’m telling you, it’s every bit as good as the traditional burger but less expensive, lighter on the land, healthier, and much easier on the cow.) RECYCLING 101 Good tips from the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Stuff July 30, 2008January 4, 2017 Your comments on yesterday‘s wind-power clip tomorrow (or soon). Today, The Story of Stuff, if you haven’t already seen it . . . a life-changing 20 minutes. Don’t be put off by how simplistic and one-sided it may seem, how left-leaning (if you yourself happen to lean right), or the possibility that some of the numbers used are at the high ends of their range. (Chances are that whatever may be exaggerated now will soon be accurate if we don’t act.) There is much good to be said of the modern corporate world, free trade, and the like. You won’t see it said here. But if you care about your kids’ future, you’ll watch it anyway – and get them to watch it. At the very least, you will learn things. I did. Did you know that for every garbage can of stuff we put out at the curb, 70 cans of garbage had to be disposed of to make the stuff that became your one garbage can of stuff?
The Answer, My Friend? July 29, 2008March 11, 2017 THE PICKENS PLAN We import 70% of our oil up from 24% just 38 years ago. Another 38 years and we’ll be importing well over 100%. (Insert tragicomic smiley face here.) The annual cost is $700 billion – over 10 years = $7 trillion. We are going broke fast. There are solutions. Take four and a half minutes to watch one of them.
Smart Financial Advice Stop! Fief! July 28, 2008March 11, 2017 ICH BIN . . . Thorsten Kril: ‘I did watch Obama’s speech, and what strikes me most about it is the lack of ego. The speech was so in tune with today’s world, and it wasn’t about him at all. Over the last few weeks this guy has totally won me over. I never thought I’d switch sides, but Obama will be so great for our country.’ Dan: ‘Come on Andy, even though this is your little fiefdom try to use common sense. How many of the European crowds who turned out for Obama vote in our elections? If I were a foreign national, I’d be for Obama, too.’ ☞ Not sure I see Dan’s point. Mine was just that much of the world yearns for an American leader who can make them proud to be our friend again. And having much of the world like and admire us again would be good for business, good for our national security, and good for our ability to help lead the world through the challenging decades ahead. SMART ECONOMIC ADVISORS So we know at least one of Senator McCain’s key economic advisors – former Senator all-Enron-roads-lead-to Phil Gramm (who recently said the squeeze Americans feel is psychological and that we’re whiners). This was the guy whom McCain, admittedly weak on economic matters, most heavily relied on to structure his economic plan. Who are Obama’s top economic advisors? Obama was the full hour with Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press yesterday, and mentioned that he’d be meeting with his economic advisory team today. This team includes former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, a personal hero of mine; the most highly respected businessman in the world, Warren Buffett; former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers; Google CEO Eric Schmidt; and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. These are exactly the right kinds of people to be listening to. And how great to have the prospect of a president who listens. And who – unlike his opponent – knows how to get on the Internet. Not that the next President will lack for tech support. Just that it would be nice if a leader for the 21st century were computer literate. SMARTEST FINANCIAL ADVICE EVER? Here‘s the best money advice these 40 people – ranging from mutual fund managers to Dilbert’s creator Scott Adams – ever got. Some of the nuggets underwhelm, but I love this one, about avoiding debt, pretty much disagree with this one (‘Don’t Save Too Much’), live by this one (minimize your transaction costs), said ‘ouch’ to this one, and actually made it all the way through to this last one, the brilliance of which I can only barely begin to describe. Tomorrow: Take Four and a Half Minutes to Watch the Pickens Plan
From Kabul to Kansas McCain's Egregious Comment July 25, 2008March 11, 2017 Did you watch Obama’s speech in Berlin today? I did – along with 200,000 cheering Germans (versus 120,000 who turned out for Kennedy’s “Ich Bin Ein Berliner” and 40,000 who turned out for Reagan’s “Tear Down That Wall”). The world YEARNS for a leader like this . . . and giving the world the hope that it yearns for will be immensely good for American security, American prosperity, America’s standing in the world, and America’s pride. If the last eight years have shown anything, it’s that whom we elect President matters. Consider these two contrasting columns: OBAMA IN KABUL Obama’s Overseas Success: What’s His Secret? By M.J. Rosenberg July 23, 2008 I think I have read every word Barack Obama uttered on his visits to Israel and Palestine and I’m struck by his ability to navigate this tricky issue with such dexterity. After all, everybody is just waiting for him to trip up on the Arab-Israeli issue. Joe Lieberman, the Israeli media, the right-wing pro-Israel organizations are just waiting to pounce on some misstep. It didn’t happen, just as it didn’t happen in Afghanistan or Iraq. And here’s why. He knows his stuff. I worked on Capitol Hill for 20 years and I can tell the difference between a staff driven politician and one who knows what he’s talking about. The staff driven pol (McCain is an example) is always capable of the big blunder. He does not mix up Shiites and Sunnis because he “misspoke;” he really doesn’t know the difference. Same on the economy, he studies a memo and works to assimilate it. But there is no depth. The sad fact is that most of our politicians are like that. On the Arab-Israeli issue, all they know is that they need to sound pro-Israel. So they end up mouthing the most superficial pieties. They are afraid to talk about the Palestinians because they might say the wrong thing. They pander and pander, knowing that they won’t get into trouble by just sucking up. Not Obama. He is pro-Israel and he supports the two-state solution. He is for keeping Jerusalem undivided but supports resolving Jerusalem’s status in negotiations. He acknowledges the Iranian threat to Israel but does not endorse a military response to deal with it. So what’s Obama’s secret. He’s smart. He reads. He knows his sh*t. And that is why the Republicans who are counting on him to lose this election through some verbal blunder are going to be disappointed. I’m not saying that McCain cannot win. He can. But he’ll have to win it. Obama is not going to hand this election to him by stumbling. I just talked to a friend who saw Obama in Israel. I asked him what his friends in the Israeli media are saying. “What are they saying? They are saying that he’s the next President. And they think he’s the smartest American politician they have seen yet.” Me too. McCAIN IN KANSAS The Egregious John McCain Interview By Robert J. Elisberg John McCain made news last week for an interview with the Kansas City Star, noteworthy for an egregious comment. When asked if his Democratic opponent for president was a Socialist, Sen. McCain — apparently channeling red-baiting of the glorious 1950s — shrugged and said, “I don’t know.” Honest. If Sen. McCain is that unperceptive with a man he works with, why should anyone trust the Republican with total strangers? At least George Bush could look in people’s hearts. On the other hand, if John McCain actually knows that Barack Obama really isn’t a Socialist, well… what does that say about his renowned integrity? It’s a remarkable quote, and understandable why it got all the attention in Dave Helling’s interview. But that wasn’t the egregious comment. Because Sen. McCain continued disingenuously, “All I know is his voting record, and that’s what people usually judge their elected representatives by.” Forgetting for a moment that that’s not remotely true — since people judge their representatives by countless things, like their smile, their lapel pin, their spouse, the crude jokes they tell, whether they’d like to share a beer, and how disingenuous he is — by Mr. McCain’s logic, he might be a Communist mole. Or an escaped ax murderer. Or a mime. Because if all we know for sure about a representative is his voting record, then John McCain, too, could be anything. (While I’m aware there was some satire above, I apologize for suggesting that John McCain could be a mime.) But that wasn’t Sen. McCain’s egregious comment, either. In attempting to smear Sen. Obama with red paint, Mr. McCain commented that his opponent’s voting record “is more to the left than the announced socialist in the United States Senate, Bernie Sanders.” Blanket statements generally play havoc with the full truth — as did John McCain. In fact, checking VoteView, made up of actual political scientists, Sen. Obama is only 10th most liberal – behind, among others…Bernie Sanders. Oops. In Congressional Quarterly, an actual, official record of government, it reported Barack Obama voted with George Bush 40% of the time, putting him in the middle of Democrats. Oops. By the way, the rating John McCain likely refers to is from the National Journal, which doesn’t rank McCain himself — because he missed over half the key votes. Oops. Yet that wasn’t Sen. McCain’s egregious comment, either. Because Dave Helling asks the senator about the Minutemen, a rifle-toting posse pushing for a wall across the U.S.-Mexican border. Since the vigilantes are based in McCain’s home state of Arizona, Helling inquires if they’re a “good thing… do they help in the immigration fight, or not?” After another shrug, John McCain starts in, “I think they are citizens who are entitled to being engaged in the process. They’re obviously very concerned about immigration.” Then again, that also describes the American Nazi Party. And it doesn’t address the question. So, Dave Helling tries again, “Are they helpful?” To which the senator answers, “I think that’s for others to judge.” John McCain is running for president — and he doesn’t think it’s for him to judge what’s helpful dealing with immigration??? He’s supposed to be guiding that very judgment. Not dodging it. Besides, who are these mystical “others” who are entitled to judge, but not the would-be president? Anyway, the Senator continues his answer, “I don’t agree with them. But they certainly are exercising their legal rights as citizens.” Of course, when a 61-year-old librarian, Carol Kreck, was exercising her legal rights by carrying a “Bush=McCain” sign to one of the senator’s open meetings, his security detail had her ejected. But still, no, that too wasn’t Sen. McCain’s egregious comment. You see, near the end, John McCain starts to point out issues on which Barack Obama changed his positions. Dave Helling finally interrupts the speech, and in a soft, “Okay, okay, I know, but let’s be honest here a moment” voice, says politely: “You flip-flop a little bit, too. You flip-flop on drilling a little bit. On tax cuts….You were against the tax cuts, now you’re talking about making them permanent. Isn’t there flip-flopping on both sides? To which the engineer of the Straight Talk Express acknowledges — “Actually, no.” “No.” Period. That’s as emphatic as it gets. Never mind that seconds before, he explained changing his position on drilling! Adding, “I haven’t changed my position on any other issue.” Only to then explain – seconds after insisting there’s “No” flip-flopping on his side – that his changed position on tax cuts was because, “We had to restrain spending, that’s the main reason I voted against them.” Here’s a good linguistic tip: just because you have a reason you changed your opinions doesn’t mean you didn’t change your opinions. But “No,” there is no flip-flopping on his side. None. Honestly, there was more flip-flopping in that single answer by John McCain than most people see at the dolphin show at Seaworld. And…even that wasn’t the egregious comment. This was the egregious comment – After Sen. McCain explains his gas tax holiday suggestion, Dave Helling points out, “A lot of experts say this is not a good idea.” And this is how John McCain defends criticism of the detailed facts and specifics of his economic plan: “A lot of experts are driven to work in chauffeured limousines. A lot of experts live in Georgetown and walk to work.” Yipes. I mean…yipes. That may be. But…they’re still experts. And he’s said he’s not. Further, I’ll bet cash money that most economic experts don’t have chauffeured limousines. Name four. Most don’t live in Georgetown, but across America. Though John McCain himself is chauffeured in a limousine.* And again — they…are…experts. Even if they bicycle to work. Of course, sometimes you have to put things in perspective. After all, John McCain’s economic expert was Phil Gramm, who explained there’s only a “mental recession” in our “nation of whiners.” But now he’s been fired, so perhaps Sen. McCain is left without guidance. In the end, it might be hard to say which of these comments is the most egregious. But what’s most noteworthy is not which one — but that all these egregious comments weren’t said over the course of weeks … but in 6 minutes and 7 seconds. *In addition to being chauffeured, John McCain and his wife own nine homes and a private jet. Which is fine. Part of me desperately wishes I owned a private jet. It’s not his extravagant lifestyle I mainly object to, or even his carbon footprint. It’s the deception. Like George W. Bush, he will pretend he is just an ordinary guy – unlike his elitist opponent, the egghead who got good grades, where McCain and Bush ranked – far more affably – at the bottom of the class.
Foreign Affairs Isn’t His Strong Suit, Either (And Math is Apparently Not Mine*) July 24, 2008March 11, 2017 Everyone should be allowed to slip. McCain recently referred to current events in ‘Czechoslovakia’ (which has not been a country since 1993) . . . and also to ‘the Iraq/Pakistan border’ (Iraq and Pakistan do not share a border; a country called Iran separates them – for an amusing map, click here). But that doesn’t mean we can afford a commander in chief who repeatedly confuses whether Iran is predominantly Sunni or Shiia (it’s Shiia) or who needs Senator Lieberman to correct his repeated misstatements about whom Iran is arming (the insurgents, not Al-Qaeda) or who tells Katie Couric yesterday that Obama has it all wrong – ‘the surge’ began ‘the Anbar Awakening’ (Anbar awakened months before the surge was even announced, let alone initiated). If this seems as trivial as that ‘gotcha’ question from 1999, when a reporter asked Texas Governor Bush to name the leaders of India and Pakistan (I mean: who the hell knows stuff like that? and what possible relevance could it have to choosing the next president?), I’d urge you to read this explanation of why it actually does matter. *Tuesday I divided $9 billion by $3 trillion and told you it was ‘three-thousandths of one percent.’ As Greg Stathis kindly pointed out, it is simply ‘three-thousandths’ – or three-tenths of one percent. The point stands – even three-tenths of one percent is tiny – but mea culpa nonetheless.
Above the Clouds July 23, 2008March 11, 2017 OPTIMISM II George Hamlett: ‘You’re right, John Mauldin is upbeat. He may be right. Wonder if he’s read the latest from Evans-Pritchard of the Telegraph. He’s not upbeat.’ ☞ Sobering, for sure. One small sample: ‘[The failure of IndyMac Bank] will deplete a tenth of the $53bn reserve of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The FDIC has some 90 ‘troubled’ lenders on watch. IndyMac was not one of them.’ (And note that Mauldin isn’t optimistic in the short run – he says things are worse than they appear.) Don’t sell your RSW. BOREF Bob: ‘Sorry to be the one to inform you Andy. BOREF just lost value because Roche Bay handed over to Advanced Explorations another 20% of their future profits. They are now down to 30% from 50%. They say easy come easy go but so far no come just go :)’ ☞ Well, not exactly. According to the press release, if the deal is consummated, Roche Bay will also get $3.5 million in cash and a further 6 million AXI shares. And AXI only gets to its maximum stake in the project if it meets certain goals. And the AXI deal, as I understand it, only covers Roche Bay’s Eastern deposits. PHONETAG Michael Axelrod: ‘Nice idea but it seems a little pricey at $30 a month. I use lingo which provides universal calling anywhere in the US and Canada for a flat rate. Voice mail is then sent out as an audio file attached to an email. You can keep all your voice mails in a folder and scroll to the one you want to hear. With Lingo you can program your phone system. I have it ring my home phone and my cell phone simultaneously so now I just give out one telephone number. You can also do forwarding and many other things.’ ☞ Okay, but what I loved about phonetag – even though I’m not springing for it myself – is the way it transcribes your voicemails, and with pretty astounding accuracy, given what it has to deal with. (Not every caller speaks clearly; and it must instantly differentiate between a deep-voiced Atlantan and a nine-year-old calling from Bah Hahbuh (a town, with R’s, in Maine.) I like that phonetag would let me tie all my ridiculously-too-numerous phone numbers into a single voicemail account. But, at least so far, I’m just not persuaded it’s worth the setup time or, yes, the $360 a year. (For less than that, ‘You can help an entire community build a future free from poverty.’ But for some, this $360 could enhance productivity by more than enough to pay for itself and help two of those communities. And, of course, it is the kind of luxury that is wonderfully light on the land, requiring no materials or energy to produce, package, ship, and, one day, dispose of.) AN OVERVIEW Jim Hayes: ‘You write, ‘the earth is an island or spaceship.’ There is a movement called the ‘overview effect.’ the book has been out for a while, but a movement is growing. Maybe a consciousness-raising is in order?’ ☞ I’m glad I clicked that link. And though the movement is born of the space program (‘when you go around the Earth in an hour and a half,’ says astronaut Rusty Schweikart, ‘you begin to recognize that your identity is with that whole thing’), its Declaration ends with a quote from Socrates: ‘Humanity must rise above the earth, to the top of the atmosphere and beyond. For only then will we understand the world in which we live.’ And the sooner the better.
McCain Would Raise Your Taxes July 22, 2008March 11, 2017 Well, no, he probably wouldn’t – but at least we honestly admit that. Why must McCain take such a different tack? This is not straight talk, my friends, this is deception and fear-mongering. When he talks about ‘Czechoslovakia’ as if it were still a country, or repeatedly confuses whether Iran is predominantly Shiia or Sunni, he’s not trying to deceive. But on taxes? He knows better, my friends. He is doing just what Bush did: planning to massively favor the rich while trying to make himself out to be the champion of the average guy. Two examples: 1. From factcheck.org: McCain’s Small-Business Bunk He claims 23 million small-business owners would pay higher tax rates under Obama. He’s wrong. The vast majority would see no change, and many would get a cut. . . . 2. The beginning of a letter he just sent me: Dear Friend, I’ve taken the liberty of enclosing a McCain 2008 bumper sticker for you. I’m hoping I can count on you to display your sticker right away as part of our effort to build momentum and excitement across America. Every campaign argues that the differences are great and the stakes high. This time, they are. This election will present Americans with a clear choice between my vision for our country and that of my Democratic opponent, Barack Obama. Senator Obama talks about change. But his idea of change is to raise your taxes . . . The underlining was his, not mine. And because the letter, asking for as little as $25, was a mass mailing, my friends, the straight talk would have been to say, ‘His idea of change is to give average folks a tax cut – but to pay for it not by digging deeper into debt, but, rather, by restoring the tax rates on income above $250,000 to roughly their Clinton/Gore levels.’ The letter goes on to say, ‘Senator Obama, despite being a freshman Senator, has championed a long list of pork-barrel projects for his state – 53 special earmarks totaling $97.4 million.’ Wow. That’s a lot of money. If we assume that every one of those projects was completely worthless (e.g., why does the Red Cross need money for emergency preparedness?), it works out to $9.7 billion a year if ‘everybody did it’ (100 Senators times $97 million). So if McCain killed 100% of such spending, we’d reduce our $3 trillion in Federal spending by three-tenths of one percent! You go, Senator McCain! Way to give it to us straight! Of course, most would agree that some portion of that $97.4 million in spending was worthy. Maybe even all of it. (Here were his 2007 requests – do any of them seem like a Republican Senator’s $398 million ‘bridge to nowhere’ to you?) And others would note that Senator Obama voted for a moratorium on all earmarks. It failed by a wide margin, so Obama chose not to disadvantage the people of his state by ‘unilaterally disarming,’ as it were. But let’s not get into all that. The main point, my friends, is that Senator McCain is trying to deceive average Americans into thinking Obama will raise their taxes . . . and into thinking that cutting Federal spending by three-tenths of one-percent is bold and visionary. AND THAT’S JUST WHAT THEY’RE DOING OFFICIALLY 3. Another posting on Factcheck.org . . . A new e-mail being circulated about Obama’s tax proposals is almost entirely false. Alert readers may already have noted that this chain e-mail does not provide links to any of Obama’s actual proposals or cite any sources for the claims it makes. That is because they are made up. This widely distributed message is so full of misinformation that we find it impossible to believe that it is the result of simple ignorance or carelessness on the part of the writer. Almost nothing it says about Obama’s tax proposals is true. We conclude that this deception is deliberate. . . . ☞ We can do better than this. And, I think, come November 4, we will.
Optimism, Hope, Gore . . . and the Washington Times on McCain July 21, 2008January 4, 2017 OPTIMISM John Mauldin is optimistic. Things are worse than they appear, he makes clear in his current letter, but the world will not end . . . we will get through this . . . and longer-term we can expect astonishing technological progress to lift lots of boats. Indeed, an amazing global bootstrapping is already underway – he cites Goldman Sachs’ estimate that 70 million people will transition from poverty to the middle class every year, for decades. Each of those newly minted consumers will have the means to buy something we make or grow or create – or a share of stock we may need to sell, in our old age, to finance our retirement. I always learn lots from Mauldin’s letters, which are free. HOPE ‘I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope that we don’t have to wait ’til oil and coal run out before we tackle that.’ – Thomas Edison (1847-1931) ☞ And that man invented the light bulb (that should have gone off over a lot more heads these last few decades). GORE Cuddy: ‘From Al Gore’s speech … ‘And by the way, our weather sure is getting strange, isn’t it?’ No informed person would try to use only bits and pieces of this year’s weather to justify his conclusions of long term weather changes. That is just as ridiculous as making fun of the fact that last year one of Al Gore’s speeches on global warming was delivered on the day of record cold temperatures. Most of the hard science points towards the fact that the real weather anomaly has been the lack of climate change experienced in recent human history. Human activity may or may not be responsible for a part of these recent changes but our weather has been subject to fluctuations for as long as the planet has existed, which makes it likely that a natural phenomenon is the trigger. Common sense also dictates that we should do anything reasonable to solve our energy problems now rather than losing our resolve every time the price of oil drops, but I think buying carbon credits and spreading rumors of impending doom without any real science behind it is just a bunch of crap.’ ☞ Always eager for common ground, I am happy wholeheartedly to agree with the portion of your email I have bold-faced. But to focus on one admittedly folksy sentence in Gore’s hugely important call to action strikes me as unproductive. (And by the way – our weather sure IS getting strange, isn’t it? And won’t it strike you as legitimately strange, or at least noteworthy, if the Arctic does disappear a few summers from now? And is it not cause for concern that Greenland’s largest glacier is losing 20 million tons of ice a day?) There’s widespread scientific consensus (albeit not unanimity) that we 6.5 billion humans (inexorably headed to 9 billion, up from 2.5 billion when I was born) – each of them responsible for vastly more toxic pollutants than Earth’s fewer than one billion inhabitants when our young nation was born – are throwing things out of balance. And why is this is even a strange notion? How many people, doing what kinds of things, would it take to foul our nest? Jared Diamond’s Collapse details human extinctions caused – e.g., on Easter Island – by human activity. The Earth is much bigger than Easter Island. But it is an island. Call it a nest or an island – or a spaceship. We are all on it, and only the ostriches, it seems to me, would imagine we are having no impact on the ecosphere. Which is why, at this moment in time, we need sweeping, inspirational leadership for a new day. People like Al Gore and Barack Obama; not George Bush and John McCain. FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES, NO LESS In Friday’s edition of this conservative newspaper: McCain’s Straight Talk spins wheels By Stephen Dinan Washington Times July 18, 2008 From signature issues such as immigration and climate change to tax cuts, the presumed Republican presidential nominee sometimes just seems lost as to his own record and his stance on hot-button social issues. After Mr. McCain said he opposed child adoptions to gay and lesbian couples, his campaign clarified that he wasn’t making policy and would leave the issue to the states. In the past week, the candidate was unable to say whether he thought health care plans that cover drugs to treat impotency also should cover contraceptives. Mr. McCain voted against such a proposal in 2005. For a candidate who delights in telling audiences that it’s time for ‘a little straight talk,’ he has given his opponents chances to question that reputation. The Planned Parenthood Action Fund on Wednesday announced a TV ad campaign showing Mr. McCain’s eight-second pause and his fumble for an answer to the question on coverage for birth control. ‘The problem, said Michael McKenna, a Republican strategist who works on climate change issues, is that Mr. McCain’s campaign doesn’t prepare him well and that he stakes out positions for political reasons. Twice this year, Mr. McCain has said he doesn’t support ‘mandatory’ caps on greenhouse gas emissions, even though that is the crux of his proposal to address climate change. He often uses his proposal as a chief example to differentiate himself from President Bush. Mr. McKenna said it’s impossible to have a cap-and-trade program without mandatory caps. By embracing targets rather than mandatory caps, he said, ‘it sounds like something Bush could have said.’ ‘I would be willing to bet you every dollar I’m going to make this year he could not describe the important parts of his [own] cap-and-trade proposal,’ Mr. McKenna said. ☞ As to his vaunted foreign policy experience, how do we explain his repeatedly mischaracterizing Iran as predominantly Sunni when it is predominantly Shiia? Once is an easy slip – that’s how I’d explain his forgetting Czechoslovakia no longer exists – but over and over again? How do we explain Senator Lieberman’s having to correct him when he repeatedly said Iran was arming Al-Qaeda in Iraq?
The Transformative Decade July 18, 2008March 11, 2017 I had all sorts of other things planned for today – so come back Monday – but what could possibly be as important as yesterday’s speech by Al Gore? A Generational Challenge to Repower America D.A.R. Constitution Hall Washington, D.C. Ladies and gentlemen: There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger. In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes. Those who, for whatever reason, refuse to do their part must either be persuaded to join the effort or asked to step aside. This is such a moment. The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk. And even more – if more should be required – the future of human civilization is at stake. I don’t remember a time in our country when so many things seemed to be going so wrong simultaneously. Our economy is in terrible shape and getting worse, gasoline prices are increasing dramatically, and so are electricity rates. Jobs are being outsourced. Home mortgages are in trouble. Banks, automobile companies and other institutions we depend upon are under growing pressure. Distinguished senior business leaders are telling us that this is just the beginning unless we find the courage to make some major changes quickly. The climate crisis, in particular, is getting a lot worse – much more quickly than predicted. Scientists with access to data from Navy submarines traversing underneath the North polar ice cap have warned that there is now a 75 percent chance that within five years the entire ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months. This will further increase the melting pressure on Greenland. According to experts, the Jakobshavn glacier, one of Greenland’s largest, is moving at a faster rate than ever before, losing 20 million tons of ice every day, equivalent to the amount of water used every year by the residents of New York City. Two major studies from military intelligence experts have warned our leaders about the dangerous national security implications of the climate crisis, including the possibility of hundreds of millions of climate refugees destabilizing nations around the world. Just two days ago, 27 senior statesmen and retired military leaders warned of the national security threat from an ‘energy tsunami’ that would be triggered by a loss of our access to foreign oil. Meanwhile, the war in Iraq continues, and now the war in Afghanistan appears to be getting worse. And by the way, our weather sure is getting strange, isn’t it? There seem to be more tornadoes than in living memory, longer droughts, bigger downpours and record floods. Unprecedented fires are burning in California and elsewhere in the American West. Higher temperatures lead to drier vegetation that makes kindling for mega-fires of the kind that have been raging in Canada, Greece, Russia, China, South America, Australia and Africa. Scientists in the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Science at Tel Aviv University tell us that for every one degree increase in temperature, lightning strikes will go up another 10 percent. And it is lightning, after all, that is principally responsible for igniting the conflagration in California today. Like a lot of people, it seems to me that all these problems are bigger than any of the solutions that have thus far been proposed for them, and that’s been worrying me. I’m convinced that one reason we’ve seemed paralyzed in the face of these crises is our tendency to offer old solutions to each crisis separately – without taking the others into account. And these outdated proposals have not only been ineffective – they almost always make the other crises even worse. Yet when we look at all three of these seemingly intractable challenges at the same time, we can see the common thread running through them, deeply ironic in its simplicity: our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges – the economic, environmental and national security crises. We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change.