Archive for February, 2008

02.23
08

GM Vice Chairman: Global Warming “A Total Crock of Shit”

by admin ·

And that’s not even a paraphrase or an exaggeration. Those were the actual words he used to a reporter in Texas. Vice Chairman Bob Lutz has been with in the auto industry for 40 years and joined GM shortly after 2000. Lutz attempted to clarify his remarks in an internet post — and, again, not making this up — titled “Talk About a Crock.” So, not only is global warming a crock of shit, but so is your argument that perhaps he should take the issue more seriously.
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02.22
08

McCain’s Environmental Record for 2007

by admin ·

The League of Conservation Voters just released their scorecards for 2007. John McCain, that moderate, maverick, straight-talking machine scored a whopping zero percent. So, again for those Democrats who think Obama or Hillary will be the end of the party and will thus rather vote for McCain, a “reasonable” conservative, in 2008, remember that there is nothing reasonable about that man. He couldn’t find one pro-environmental bill in all of last year that suited his tastes, which puts him in the same league as ultra-conservatives Trent Lott (R-MS) and John Cornyn (R-TX).
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02.18
08

The Rise of Income Disparity

by admin ·

Harold Meyerson of The American Prospect has a great new piece up regarding the shrinkage of the middle class over the last two decades. His first target is the notion among some that technological advances contributed greatly to the growing disparity between the middle and upper class. By this logic, it was technology that allowed educated workers to be more productive and thusly more valuable than those who worked more labor intensive jobs. Meyerson notes the fallacy of this argument:

In the 1980s, economic inequality in America soared. Many mainstream economists at the time laid the blame on technological change, which enabled better educated Americans to benefit from productivity gains while less educated Americans lagged behind. As Thomas Lemieux, an economist at the University of British Columbia, argues in a paper (“The Changing Nature of Wage Inequality”) issued by the National Bureau of Economic Research last October, that thesis failed to explain why the same rise in inequality wasn’t evident in other advanced economies undergoing analogous technological changes.
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02.17
08

Will Democrats Jump Ship to McCain the So-Called Maverick?

by admin ·

Recently, I’ve been reading a lot of comments by both Obama and Hillary supporters that they would refuse to vote for the other if their candidate failed to get the nomination. I’ve seen such comments here and elsewhere on the internet. There is honestly a segment of voters who would refuse to vote Democratic if they don’t get exactly who they want on the ticket. Most often, this “reasoning” is followed by the statement that they would rather vote for McCain than have to vote for a Democrat they didn’t support in the primaries. This, quite frankly, is beyond asinine. The differences between Obama and Hillary are minimal and are mostly focused on foreign policy. Obama is a bit more diplomatic in his approach. Hillary is slightly more hawkish. Both are far from the rabid lunacy of neo-conservative policy.
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02.16
08

Clinton Opens Fire on Obama

by admin ·

According to CNN, Hillary Clinton’s campaign has opened full fire on the Obama campaign. For once, I think her rhetoric could really damage Obama’s credibility. I’d suggest Obama needs Edwards’ endorsement at this point to help him gain ground in Ohio, which is largely made up of middle-class workers who are largely Clinton supporters. All recent polls have him down by double digits in the Buckeye State. And Clinton has begun to go for the jugular.
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02.16
08

The Irony of Armchair Activism (All Solutions Welcomed)

by admin ·

This isn’t the kind of post I intend to feature on this site much, but I’ve come across a search engine which uses Google for its searches, but donates the profits of its ad results to organizations trying to save the rain forest. Given that most of us already use Google for searching, I think switching over to a Google-based search engine which actually protects the rain forests is a no-brainer. So I’m asking all readers to bookmark Friends Green and use it in the future for all your searching needs. In fact, email your friends about it. Let everyone know. It’s just like using Google, but it helps buy up rain forest land. The only thing they frown on is using automated queries in order to boost search totals, or tricking people into searching through it. If you’re like me the letters “google.com” are deeply ingrained into your muscle memory, but I think its worth fighting through it to save what little rain forest we have left.
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02.16
08

Danish News Stands Up for Free Speech

by admin ·

Denmark ran the comics of Muhammad that caused so much controversy last year. They (Denmark) did this in response to death threats the author of the comic had received recently. As far as I’m concerned: good work Denmark. No country should be bossed around by the fanaticism of a small religious community. Denmark’s population is only 3% Muslim to begin with. You would think they’d have better things to do than pick out comic strips that offend them. Instead of rioting and the killing of at least 50 citizens, they should have simply boycotted the paper.
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02.15
08

Obama vs. Clinton: An Informal Poll

by admin ·

We’re conducting our first unscientific poll of the current status of the two Democratic front-runners. Scroll down a bit, and you’ll find a box wherein you can pledge your support for a specific candidate. This is also a very informal site at this time, so if anyone would care to send a message either in support of or against either of the leading candidates, please email me. My email link is locating at the top left of the page.
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02.15
08

Rep. Markey, Rep. Pickering: Save the Internet!!

by admin ·

“The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn’t understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.”
— Eric Schmidt, CEO Google

I found this quote today while researching for this post. I wanted something that summed up just what it was about the internet that was so valuable; what it was that was so unique and irreplaceable that we must use every resource at our disposal to protect and foster it’s continued growth.
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02.13
08

Obama Should Take Questions

by admin ·

Ezra Klein over at The American Prospect argues that Obama’s refusal to do Q&As is going to hurt his chances down the road. While I don’t see why Obama has any need to debate Clinton given the 22 debates held so far, it’s becoming clear that if he doesn’t start conducting town hall meetings and taking questions from regular voters, the media will decide to harp on that. Obama may be best at lofty rhetoric, but he’s hardly terrible at answering questions, but granting a series of debates to Hillary would frankly be giving her added airtime and credibility that she’s been losing over the last two weeks. As a general rule, a candidate need not share a stage with his opponent when he’s ahead, however, Clinton is doing a good job of hammering this meme and Obama needs to have a plan in place to counteract it.
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