Category Archives: Energy Party

Tom Friedman’s back, and he’s going to bat for the Energy Party!

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Tom Friedman is finally back after a four-month, book-writing sabbatical. The NYT said he’d be back in April, and he just barely made it! (Now I can stop fielding those phone calls from readers wanting to know what happened to him. Here’s a recording of one of those. )

And he’s coming out swinging… and best of all, he’s coming out swinging on behalf of the Energy Party (whether he knows it or not). His first column is headlined, "Dumb as We Wanna Be," and you’ll see it on our op-ed page tomorrow. An excerpt:

    It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country.
    When the summer is over, we will have increased our debt to China, increased our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased our contribution to global warming for our kids to inherit…

Go get ’em, Tom! That’s a very fine leadoff hit. Coming up to bat next, on the same op-ed page, will be Robert Samuelson, and he’ll bring Friedman around to score. His piece, succinctly headlined "Start Drilling," is the rhetorical equivalent of a hard line drive down the opposite-field line:

    What to do about oil? First it went from $60 to $80 a barrel, then from $80 to $100 and now to $120. Perhaps we can persuade OPEC to raise production, as some senators suggest; but this seems unlikely. The truth is that we’re almost powerless to influence today’s prices. We are because we didn’t take sensible actions 10 or 20 years ago. If we persist, we will be even worse off in a decade or two. The first thing to do: Start drilling.
    It may surprise Americans to discover that the United States is the third-largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. We could be producing more, but Congress has put large areas of potential supply off-limits. These include the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and parts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. By government estimates, these areas may contain 25 billion to 30 billion barrels of oil (against about 30 billion barrels of proven U.S. reserves today) and 80 trillion cubic feet or more of natural gas (compared with about 200 tcf of proven reserves)….

Not start drilling as a substitute for conservation or the search for new fuels (as the ideologues of the right would have it, and the ideologues of the left deplore), but in addition to. Like I said, this is straight out of the Energy Party playbook (yeah, I know this started as a baseball metaphor, not football, but bear with me).

To reduce dependence on tyrannical foreign sources, to help out Mother Nature, to keep our economy healthy, to stoke innovation, to win the War on Terror, and make us healthier, wealthier and wiser, we should adopt the entire Energy Party platform. We should, among other things I’m forgetting at the moment:

  • Increase CAFE standards further — much further.
  • Raise the tax on gasoline, NOT reduce it, so that we’ll suppress demand, which will reduce upward pressure on prices, and we’ll be paying the higher amounts to ourselves rather than America-haters in Russia, Iran, Venezuela and yes, Saudi Arabia.
  • Use the proceeds for a Manhattan Project or Apollo Project (or whatever
    else kind of project we choose, as long as we understand that it’s the
    moral equivalent of war) to develop new technologies — hydrogen, solar, wind, geothermal, what have you — and shifting the mass of the resources to the most promising ones as they emerge.
  • Reduce highway speed limits to 55 mph, to conserve fuel and save lives (OK, Samuel? I mentioned it.) And oh, yeah — enforce the speed limits. The fines will pay for the additional cops.
  • Drill in ANWR, off the coasts, and anywhere else we can do so in reasonable safety. (Yes, we can.)
  • Increase the availability of mass transit (and if you can swing it, I’d appreciate some light rail; I love the stuff).
  • Fine, jail or ostracize anyone who drives an SUV without a compelling reason to do so. Possible propaganda poster: ""Hummers are Osama’s Panzer Corps."

And so forth and so on.

My point is, no more fooling around. It’s way past time to get serious about this stuff, and stop playing little pandering games. Let’s show a little hustle out there. And no dumb mistakes running the bases out there, fellas…

P.S. — The name of the book Mr. Friedman’s been writing, which will come out in August, is Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution — and How It Can Renew America. So yeah, he’s got an economic stake in these concepts. Well, more power to him. There’s money to be made in doing the smart thing, and to the extent he can persuade us to move in that direction, he deserves to get his taste.Just to help him out, here’s video of him talking about these ideas. Here’s a link to his recent magazine piece on the subject.

A Grownup Party forum

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As I mentioned back here, sometimes I call the UnParty the Energy Party (depending on the subject at hand), and once or twice I’ve referred to the Grownup Party. That kicked off a discussion that I think has a certain relevance to some of the philosophical friction that vexes us these days. Here’s the discussion:

Doug, I give you credit for being a consistent anarchist…but don’t you support parental "authority"?

Posted by: Randy E | Apr 30, 2008 9:17:05 AM

Not coercive authority… I should be able to influence my children
through my words and actions, not by threats or intimidation.

I want a government based on ethics, productivity, and fairness.   We have a government based on lies, inefficiency, and
greed.   

Posted by: Doug Ross | Apr 30, 2008 9:48:46 AM

Actually, whenever I have disputes with libertarians, I do so as a
parent. I’m in my 32nd year of being a parent. I have five kids and
three grandchildren, and my worldview is that of a parent. Whenever I
hear people standing up for their "right" to do something stupid — such as not wear motorcycle helmets on the public roads — I hear the voice of a child. By now, it’s sort of hard-wired into me.

Lots of people look at laws in terms of "what this means to me" in
terms of "what I get to do" or "what gets done to me." I tend to look
at society as a whole and think, Is this a good idea overall? or Does this make society safer, or healthier, or wealthier? or Is this the logical way for society to function?

I don’t think, Do I want to pay this tax? or Do I think I should have to buckle my seat belt?
To me, those are unacceptably self-centered questions. This makes for
profound disagreements, because the basic cognitive processes, the
entire perspective going in, is very, very different.

Posted by: Brad Warthen | Apr 30, 2008 9:52:30 AM

Brad,

You may not understand this but my view on society is the same as
yours: Is this a good idea overall? Does this make society safer, or
healthier, or wealthier? Is this the logical way for society to
function?

And then I examine the issue using my own personal experience as
reference. Take taxes for example… I look at the issue logically
based on the taxes I pay and conclude that a) the system is illogical
b) the use of tax dollars is inefficient and c) the tax burden is
unfairly applied.
I don’t want MY taxes to be lower, I want EVERYONE’s taxes to be
lower… because I believe our economy would be far better off for
EVERYONE if we had less government. The same logic applies to my views
on Social Security, healthcare, education, etc.

Your world view is what gives us the government we have today. One
where we citizens pay people to sit around making crucial decisions
like: when can we sell beer and wine on Sunday? what time does a store
need to open on Sunday? what tax breaks does a newspaper deserve that
other companies do not? should we give people age 785 and over a 1/2%
sales tax break? how much of the taxpayers’ money should we give to the
Okra Strut? and on and on it goes. Completely wasted effort… I want
to see that abolished for EVERYONE’s benefit, not my own.

Big government types are worse than selfish – they take what isn’t theirs.

Posted by: Doug Ross | Apr 30, 2008 10:52:03 AM

And I see those as unrelated questions, not in terms of some sort of
overriding conflict between "government" and… what — "ungovernment?"
But you’re right in that government in one sense or another is involved
in all those decisions. What I wonder about is what you see as the
alternative.

Basically, we have this thing called a civilization. But even in the
most chaotic, anarchic situations, certain arrangements arise among
human beings that determine how they are going to live together (or NOT
live together). Such things seem unavoidable in a group of any sort of
social animals. With gorillas, you have a whole network of decisions
and arrangements that tend to be built around the overriding question
of, "Who gets to be the alpha male?"

Things get more complicated with humans because we are a verbalizing
race, and think in symbols and abstractions that can’t be communicated
without language. But everywhere that there are two or more humans
together, some sort of arrangement or agreement has to be arrived at in
terms of how to interact and arrange things, from the ownership of
property to acceptable behavior.

In the closest thing to a state of nature — a place where
government has utterly collapsed, such as in Somalia; or a place where
conventional government is not recognized as legitimate, such as Sicily
over the centuries — you have something closer to the "alpha male"
model found among other creatures. In Somalia, it’s warlords. In Sicily
(and sometimes among transplanted communities of Sicilians) you have a
system of bosses and underbosses who hold power through the most
elemental system of violence-backed "respect."

Now THAT is a system in which somebody is, as you say, taking what isn’t theirs.

Actually, through much of human history, the warlord model has held
sway, in such disparate settings as pre-communist China and Europe
during the middle ages. Europeans called it feudalism. Under such a
system, wealth that is coerced from weaker members of the society is
used in such capital projects as building fortresses for the warlords.
What you don’t see in a system such as that is a system of roads. For
such infrastructure as that, which might economically benefit the
society more broadly, there has to be a different governing system. For
well over 1,000 years, Europeans continued to use roads the Romans had
built because that was the last time there was a broad government with
an overarching concept of acting on behalf of something broader — in
that case, an empire in which the rule of law was only helpful if you
were a Roman.

You saw some city-states rise up in Italy, and bands of city states
along the Baltic and in other regions, in which councils and other
decision-making bodies created infrastructure and regulations that
facilitated commerce that created wealth for a somewhat larger group.

Anyway, to speed ahead… in this country we came up with
representative democracy as a means for a free people to work out
questions of how they would arrange themselves socially and make the
decisions that WILL BE MADE one way or another among any group of
humans. Once everyone gets a voice like that, all sorts of questions
will come up: Do we need a new road? OK, how will we pay for it? Some
people will not want to see alcohol sold at all, others will have an
opposite view. Perhaps for a time, the community will strike a
compromise: OK, we’ll allow alcohol to be sold in our community, but
not on Sunday, because there is a critical mass in the community that
finds such activities on a Sunday beyond the pale, and those who don’t
feel that way go along to get what they want on the other six days.

Of course, laws governing alcohol get far more complicated than
that, with debates over where to draw the lines in terms of operating a
car on the PUBLIC roads after drinking, whether minors can drink or
even hang out in drinking establishments, and so forth. And all of
these are legitimate areas for regulation as long as we, acting through
this system of representative democracy, decide they ARE legitimate
areas for such.

Government, and politics, are in our system the proper place for deciding where all those lines are.

In our constitutional system, we have in writing certain guarantees
to prevent a government answering to a majority doesn’t trample certain
fundamental rights (life, liberty, and such) of any individuals,
including those in political minorities. This does not, of course, mean
that individuals can blow off the more general will. You can’t commit
murder just because it’s in keeping with your personal value system.
Nor can you take your neighbor’s car without his permission, or poison
his cat, or engage in insider trading, or sell beer in a community that
has legitimately (acting through the proper processes) decided to make
that illegal.

This is a great system; it beats the hell out of doing things
according to the whim of the local warlord. And everyone —
libertarians, authoritarians, Christians, Wiccans, what have you — get
to make their case in the public square.

Some libertarians, unfortunately, seem to regard the political and
governmental decisions that THEY DISAGREE WITH — a tax they don’t want
to pay, for instance — as being illegitimate. But they aren’t.

Each and every one of us accepts losing political arguments, and
submitting to the resulting regulations or laws or lack thereof — as
the price of living in this (I would argue) highly enlightened system
of making social decisions. We accept it rather than go live in a place
where only brute force counts.

That doesn’t mean we don’t make our case for the next election, and so forth.

Is anything I’m saying here making sense to you?

Posted by: Brad Warthen | Apr 30, 2008 11:51:33 AM

Also, Brad, your view of government is what gets us things like rebate checks to stimulate the economy and gas tax holidays.   

McCain claims both of those are great ideas designed to help
everybody out when, in reality, he supports them for purely selfish
reasons – to dupe voters so he can get elected President. He hasn’t got
the guts to tell the truth. His own personal ambition means more to him
than the truth. Guess he’d make a good libertarian, huh?

Posted by: Doug Ross | Apr 30, 2008 11:56:27 AM

You can’t commit murder just because it’s in keeping with your
personal value system. Nor can you take your neighbor’s car without his
permission, or poison his cat, or engage in insider trading, or sell
beer in a community that has legitimately (acting through the proper
processes) decided to make that illegal.
-Brad

Murder or killing the neighbor’s cat are issues not in dispute by
anyone, libertarians or otherwise. Those are acts that clearly affect
other people and clearly must involve intervention by the government.
Doug nor anyone else has suggested the legalization of murder. Clearly
that is the mother of all non-sequetors.

But selling or buying beer on Sunday is completely different. That
is a decision which rightly belongs in a class of activities that can
and should best be handled by individuals without interference from the
government because it has no affect on others. That is true regardless
of who has their say in the public square. If I want to buy beer on
Sunday that is a decision that should be made on the basis of my own
conscience, religious views and other factors that only I can evaluate.
It’s no one else’s business if I buy beer on Sunday. Same with video
poker, pot smoking, what I do with my own body – including who I sleep
with. It’s no one’s damn business, period.

Let’s try another example that perhaps Brad can understand. What if
some religious extremist came to power and, with the help of Congress,
decided that only their religion could be exercised. The majority of
the people agree. The folks from the banned religions had their say in
the public square but were overruled. Brad could no longer attend the
Catholic Church he’s been a member of for decades.

Or, let’s say that all movies that depict the political process in
an unflattering light must now be banned. The Manchurian Candidate can
not be shown any longer as a result.

Or, perhaps hitting close to home, what if the only newspaper
allowed is the one run by the government. Even though The State has run
editorials oppossing this the law passes anyway. The day after the law
passes the government troops occupy The State paper’s operation and
begin publishing their own spin on the world.

According to Brad’s world view all of these events are a legitimate intrusion into the way people conduct their lives. 

Posted by: bud | Apr 30, 2008 12:51:57 PM

Right, Bud. I don’t want all government abolished, just some of it.
I don’t want to abolish all taxes, just some of them. I don’t want to
repeal all laws, just those that intrude on personal rights.

The whole drug issue is a perfect example. Nobody should ever go to
jail for using drugs unless they end up doing some harm to another
person. We have a society filled with people popping anti-depressants
and sleeping pills, abusing alcohol, etc. and yet we have law
enforcement people spending time and resources making sure adults don’t
smoke a joint. This is a case where the moral minority in power feels a
need to enforce its will upon people.

Posted by: Doug Ross | Apr 30, 2008 1:27:26 PM

Actually, bud, what you just said is completely inconsistent with what I wrote. So this is a non-argument.

And Doug, come on: When a majority wants cocaine to be legal
(again), it will be. I direct you to the Volstead Act and the
Eighteenth Amendment, which were followed by the 21st Amendment…

A lot of people (primarily libertarians) point to Prohibition as
evidence that such things "don’t work." Nonsense. Prohibition went away
for the same reason it came in– the prevailing political will of the
time, acting with sufficient force to change the constitution (which is
what would be necessary for bud’s farcical scenario to work, and good
luck that that one, by the way).

In other words, "Prohibition doesn’t work" only makes sense when you say, "Prohibition doesn’t work if we don’t want it."

Doug is using the reasoning of the child — someone OUT THERE is
imposing something on my in contradiction of my sovereign will. With
the child, it’s the parent; with Doug, it’s this alleged "minority in
power."

I don’t look at the world that way, because I am not alienated from
the American political system. Therefore I can say WE decide something,
whether it was my idea or not. I don’t see the decision-making
apparatus as being something OUT THERE.

Posted by: Brad Warthen | Apr 30, 2008 1:43:56 PM

Anyway, I decided to create the separate post to call more attention to the exchange.

Hillary joins McCain in pandering on gas tax; Obama stands up to them both

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This has been a busy day and I’m just getting around to some basic things now. But I couldn’t let the day pass without noting how right Obama is about this:

Obama says rivals Clinton, McCain pandering on gas tax
By MIKE GLOVER and BETH FOUHY
Associated Press Writers
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Democrat Barack Obama dismissed his rivals’ calls for national gas tax holiday as a political ploy that won’t help struggling consumers. Hillary Rodham Clinton said his stance shows he’s out of touch with the economic realities faced by ordinary citizens.
    Clinton and certain Republican presidential nominee John McCain are calling for a holiday on collecting the federal gas tax "to get them through an election," Obama said at a campaign rally before more than 2,000 cheering backers a week before crucial primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. "The easiest thing in the world for a politician to do is tell you exactly what you want to hear."
    Clinton, who toured the Miller Veneers wood manufacturing company in Indianapolis, said "there are a lot of people in Indiana who would really benefit from a gas tax holiday.
    "That might not mean much to my opponent, but I think it means a lot to people who are struggling here, people who commute a long way to work, farmers and truckers," Clinton said. She has called for a windfall tax on oil companies to pay for a gas tax holiday.
    "Senator Obama won’t provide relief, while Senator McCain won’t pay for it," Clinton said. "I’m the only candidate who will provide immediate relief at the pump, with a plan."
    With his comments, Obama continued a running dispute over whether ending collection of the gas tax is the quickest and best way to help consumers. Leading in delegates and the popular vote, Obama in recent days has focused on McCain, but he broadened that criticism Tuesday to include Democrat Clinton.
    "Now the two Washington candidates in the race have decided to do something different," said Obama. "John McCain started it, he made the proposal, and then Hillary Clinton said ‘me too.’"
    The plan would suspend collecting the 18.4 cent federal gas tax 24.4 cent diesel tax for the summer.
    He said drying up gas tax collections would batter highway construction, costing North Carolina up to 7,000 jobs, while saving consumers little.
    "We’re arguing over a gimmick that would save you half a tank of gas over the course of the entire summer so that everyone in Washington can pat themselves on the back and say they did something," said Obama.
    "Well, let me tell you, this isn’t an idea designed to get you through the summer, it’s designed to get them through an election," said Obama. He said his call for middle-class tax cuts would be far more beneficial than suspending gas tax collections.
    Obama took a different view on the issue when he was an Illinois legislator, voting at least three times in favor of temporarily lifting the state’s 5 percent sales tax on gasoline.
    The tax holiday was finally approved during a special session in June of 2000, when Illinois motorists were furious that gas prices had just topped $2 a gallon in Chicago.
    During one debate, he joked that he wanted signs on gas pumps in his district to say, "Senator Obama reduced your gasoline prices."
    But the impact of the tax holiday was never clear. A government study could not determine how much of the savings was passed on to motorists. Many lawmakers said their constituents didn’t seem to have benefited. They also worried the tax break was pushing the state budget out of balance.
    When legislation was introduced to eliminate the tax permanently, Obama voted "no." The effort failed, and the sales tax was allowed to take effect again.
    Responding to Obama’s criticism, McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said the Illinois senator "does not understand the effect of gas prices on the economy. Senator Obama voted for a gas tax reduction before he opposed it."
    Bounds was deliberately echoing one of Democrat John Kerry’s most troublesome missteps of the 2004 presidential campaign. Kerry said of funding for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."
    Obama and Clinton both opened their campaign day in North Carolina. Clinton toured a research facility and collected the prized endorsement of Gov. Mike Easley.
    "It’s time for somebody to be in the White House who understands the challenges we face in this country," said Easley, in announcing his backing of Clinton. She then promptly headed for a string of events in Indiana.
    "The governor and I have something in common – we think results matter," said Clinton.
    Easley is popular with white, working-class voters that have formed the base for Clinton’s success in recent primaries.
    Clinton also collected an endorsement from Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, who praised "her support in rural America, her commitment to national security and her dedication to our men and women in uniform."
    Skelton, a conservative Democrat who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, was among a half-dozen Democratic House members called to meet with Clinton after she won the Pennsylvania primary last week.
    While Obama is favored in North Carolina, the race in Indiana is very tight, and Obama was heading there Wednesday.
    Obama collected endorsements of his own during the day: In Kentucky, Rep. Ben Chandler, son of former Gov. A.B. "Happy" Chandler, gave Obama his backing ahead of that state’s May 20 primary, and in Iowa, Democratic National Committee member Richard Machacek – a supporter of former Sen. John Edwards before he dropped out of the presidential race – switched his support to Obama.
    Interest in the two primaries next week has been high. Officials in Indiana said nearly 90,000 people have cast early ballots, far outpacing absentee turnout in 2004.
    At stake Tuesday are 115 delegates in North Carolina, and 72 in Indiana.
Beth Fouhy reported from Indianapolis. Associated Press writers Christopher Wills in Springfield, Ill., and Sam Hananel in Washington contributed to this report.

Obama’s the only one acting like a responsible grownup here. He’s also the only one speaking up for Energy Party values.

What McCain and Clinton are both doing on this is appalling. They’re treating us like two-year-olds, and proposing to act in direct opposition to the nation’s interests.

‘I thought I told you kids to keep your toys out of the parking lot…’

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So I’m rolling along through a parking lot today, and I think I see a space, but when I get to it, a portion of it — a small portion, but enough to constitute an obstruction — is occupied by this little yellow thing.

Being the founder of the Energy Party, you’d think I would be charmed by such an itty-bitty vehicle. But then I read that the "smart" car doesn’t get in-town mileage as good as that of the much-bigger Prius (at least, that’s what Wikipedia said; still looking for a better source on that). Therefore I don’t think the party should endorse something that would be this appallingly unsafe on American roads (on account of the ridiculous monstrosities that predominate there), given the small tradeoff in fuel efficiency.

Thoughts from the floor?

Hold your breath

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Selcmap

You probably already saw the news story on the subject of this release from the Southern Environmental Law Center that came in Wednesday, but I thought you might be interested in the graphic above, so I pass it on now.

The SELC’s point is that the EPA’s new standard isn’t stringent enough. That seems like a bit like arguing about the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin from a Columbia standpoint, though: We can’t even meet the lower standard. The release:

South Carolina Upstate and Midlands still plagued by
unhealthy air, according to EPA
EPA’s
new standard fails to adequately protect public health, say environmentalists
and public health professionals

Chapel Hill, NC – New standards released today by the Environmental Protection Agency show most of the South Carolina Upstate and Midlands have unhealthy levels of ozone, including the Florence region, home to a new power plant proposal that will increase the region’s ozone levels. The new standards go further to protect the public’s health from ozone pollution, but fall short of the recommendations of public health professionals and EPA’s own scientists which recommended stronger protections.

“Unfortunately EPA has chosen to bow to political interests over the public’s health by releasing a ozone standard that falls short of the recommendations of  doctors and other public health professionals.  The fact that more cities than ever are being tagged as having unhealthy air should serve as a wake up call to all South Carolinians that this is a widespread and protracted problem,”  said David Farren, senior attorney with the non profit Southern Environmental Law Center.

Under the new standard, Columbia, and Greenville are expected to remain in violation of the federal standard, otherwise known as being in “nonattainment,” while smaller cities such as Chester, Lancaster, Newberry and Seneca will likely be added to the list. These areas will face deadlines to reach the new standard or risk federal sanctions including tighter smokestacks controls and the possible loss of federal highway money. 

“What we’re seeing is that unhealthy air is not just an urban problem,” said Farren. “Even small and mid-sized cities are going to have to tackle their air problems in order to protect the health of their citizens.”

Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA must set air quality standards at levels that protect public health, including sensitive populations, with an adequate margin of safety. In 1997, EPA set the national air quality standard for ozone at 0.08 parts per million (ppm) averaged over an eight hour period. The standard announced today is a slightly more stringent 0.075 ppm. However, in 2006, an EPA panel of scientists and public health experts unanimously recommended strengthening the ozone standard even lower, to within the range of 0.060 to 0.070 ppm, to adequately protect public health.

Power plants are a leading contributor to ozone pollution. In fact, the proposed Pee Dee plant will emit 3500 tons of ozone-forming nitrogen oxides each year under the existing draft air permit.

In addition to coal fired power plants, cars and trucks are among the biggest sources of ozone pollution in the South. To improve air quality, South Carolina must focus on strategies to reduce how much and how far its citizens drive such as investing in transportation alternatives and coordinating transportation and land use planning to reduce sprawl. Recently enacted reform of the state’s transportation department, if faithfully carried out, should aid in this work.

Lobbyists representing the oil, coal, electric power and manufacturing industries lobbied heavily against improved air pollution standards in the weeks leading up to the decision. However, EPA and OMB studies repeatedly show heath care costs and lost productivity far outweigh costs of clean up.

Ozone pollution, also known as smog, is known to trigger asthma attacks, reduce lung capacity, and has even been linked to heart disease and premature death. At its worst on hot, dry weather, ozone pollution causes officials to warn children and the elderly to stay indoors on many summer days. Children, whose respiratory systems are still developing, risk permanent loss of lung capacity through prolonged exposure to polluted air. For senior citizens, the natural decline in lung function that occurs with age is worsened by air pollution.

A bit of perspective on our place in the world, by the numbers

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Energy Party consultant Samuel sent me this, which figures. Samuel is the guy who came up with the idea for the endowed chairs program, which bore impressive fruit yet again this week. He’s still the most enthusiastic cheerleader of that program, even after our governor replaced him on the panel that oversees it:

This video — really, sort of a powerpoint presentation, only on YouTube, is worth watching. There are some figures in it that I find suspect (I’m always that way with attempts to quantify the unknowable, which in this case applies to prediction about the future), but others that are essentially beyond reproach, and ought to make us think.

What they ought to make us think is this: So much of what we base the selection of our next president on — party affiliation, ideological purity, our respective preferences on various cultural attitudes — is wildly irrelevant to the challenges of the world in which this person will attempt to be the leader of the planet’s foremost nation. Foremost nation for now, that is. If we don’t start thinking a lot more pragmatically, it won’t be for long.

Now let us energetically kick the Republicans

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Having just passed on this bit of childish game-playing with our future on the part of the Democrats, I turn around and find the Republicans trying to out-stupid them, and doing a fine job of it, too.

Check out the new GOP propaganda effort, "Democrats’ War on American Jobs."

Some guy name of John Boehner (no, it has an "e" and an "h" in it) is always sending me partisan claptrap like this. But I have to say that with such an over-the-top attack on such mild, inadequate energy legislation, the guy has outdone himself.

Killing our chance for CAFE standards

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House Democrats, in their zeal for gesture over substance, are about to kill any chance of the CAFE increase passing, by chaining it to a tax increase.

Apparently, it would just kill them to see the president actually sign something good into law:

   WASHINGTON (AP) – Defying a threat of a presidential veto, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi intends to push ahead with a $21 billion tax package, including repeal of tax breaks for major oil companies, as part of an energy bill, aides to the speaker said Tuesday.
   Democratic leaders circulated a summary of the legislation that includes the new taxes as well as a requirement for a 40 percent increase in automobile fuel efficiency, a huge increase in the use of ethanol as a motor fuel, and a mandate for utilities to use renewable fuels.
   Republicans earlier this year blocked Senate attempts to pass new energy taxes, contending they would hinder domestic oil and gas production. Democratic supporters of the taxes said that with oil hovering near $90 a barrel and the industry making large profits, the tax breaks aren’t needed.
   The White House has said repeatedly that if the energy legislation singles out the oil companies for new taxes, advisers would recommend that President Bush veto the bill.

Folks, please, let us have the higher fuel standards — please. The country needs this. We can fight about the taxes later.

I don’t think I will ever, ever understand partisans — unless we’re talking UnParty. Or Energy Party. As founder, I promise you, the Energy Party would never thus endanger our chance to make U.S. cars more efficient.

What’s YOUR martial status?

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You know those pop-up ads you get sometimes asking for your opinion? I generally ignore them, using the excuse that I gave at the office.

But yesterday I gave in to one that hit me when I went to the WSJ site to find a link for this post. I thought it would be about some heavy political matter that I might enlarge upon in this forum. And I was right: It wanted to know what kind of SUV I might want to buy (which puts me in mind of one of my favorite Bugs Bunny quotes — "he don’t know me very well, do he?").

I tried to mess with it, to see what would happen. For instance, when it asked, "When thinking of luxury sport utility vehicles, what brand or manufacturer comes to mind FIRST?," I answered, "Unconscionable Waste." But there was no reaction.

My favorite part was when it asked, "What is your martial status?" I wanted to answer, "Total readiness, sir! Just let the bloody Hun try to take us on now!" Or maybe, since I was suffering a mild case of indigestion, "Combat ineffective." But that one was multiple-choice, and those weren’t included among the options.

Why don’t candidates ask us for more than our votes?

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By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
    “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win….”
       — John F. Kennedy, 1962

WHAT WOULD we do if one among the horde of candidates seeking to become president of the United States in 2009 challenged us as a nation to do something hard?
    Most Americans alive today can’t remember a president or would-be president doing anything remotely like that. The ones we’re used to are all about what they’re going to do for us, not what we should do for our country. Republicans want to cut our taxes; Democrats want to give us more programs and, to hear them all talk, at no cost to us.
    But I believe that if the cause were worthwhile and the proposal made sense, we’d rise to it. Maybe not all of us, but there’s a critical mass out here who would follow someone courageous enough to ask us to do our part.
    I, for one, am sick of being treated, by people who seek my vote, as some sort of “gimme-gimme” baby, lacking in any sense of responsibility for the world around me. Those of us who are grownups are used to accepting, in our personal lives, challenges that are by no means easy to meet — going to work day after day, paying our bills, raising children. Why would we not understand a president who said, “Here’s a challenge that concerns us all, and here’s what each of us needs to do to rise to it”?
    Young people among us want to pitch in and accomplish difficult things a lot more than we give them credit for. Part of Barack Obama’s appeal among the young is his call to service, his challenge to build a better nation. But unless I’ve missed it, he has not asked us, as a nation, to do anything hard.
    Don’t misunderstand me, as did a colleague who wrote:

    The feeling I get… is that you’re so frustrated that you just want the government to demand SOME SORT OF SACRIFICE, on something, anything. Whether it’s needed or not. Doesn’t really matter what.

    Well, yes and no. Sure, there’s a part of me that just wants to be asked for a change to do something, if only for the novelty: Buy bonds, save scrap metal, whatever.
    But there’s more to it than that. The truth is, our country faces a lot of challenges that demand something or other from all of us, but political “leaders” have a pathological fear of pointing it out to us.
    Back when JFK challenged us to go to the moon because it was hard, we did it — even though there was no practical reason why we needed to do so. Sure, it gave us the creeps to think of “going to sleep by the light of a communist moon,” but it was a symbolic competition, with only marginal applications to the true, deadly competition of the arms race. We couldn’t stand not to be No. 1.
    But today we have very real, very practical challenges that have tangible consequences if we fail to meet them.
    Take just one of them: our dependence on foreign oil.
    Sen. Joe Biden had a great speech a while back about how President Bush missed the golden opportunity to ask us, on Sept. 12, 2001, to do whatever it took to free us from this devil’s bargain whereby we are funding people who want to destroy us and all that we cherish. And yet, his own energy proposals are a tepid combination of expanding alternative fuels (good news to the farmer) and improving fuel efficiency (let’s put the onus on Detroit).
    A broad spectrum of thinkers who are not running for office — from Tom Friedman to Robert Samuelson to Charles Krauthammer — say we must jack up the price of gasoline with a tax increase, to cut demand and fund the search for alternatives. It makes sense. But the next candidate with the guts to ask us to pay more at the pump will be the first.
    My friend Samuel Tenenbaum is on a quixotic quest to build support for restoration of the 55-mph speed limit. It would be hard (for me, anyway), but the benefits are undeniable. It would conserve fuel dramatically, starving petrodictators from Hugo Chavez to Vladimir Putin to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It would save thousands of lives now lost to speed on our highways.
    Samuel pitches his idea to every candidate he can corner. They smile and move away from him as quickly as possible.
    But you know, when I wrote a column a while back proposing the creation of an Energy Party — that would among other things demand that we jack up the gas tax by $2 a gallon (to fund an Apollo-style project on alternatives), institute Samuel’s 55-mph limit, ban SUVs for anyone without a proven “life-or-death need to drive one” and build nuclear power plants as fast as we can — I got a surprising number of positive responses. I think that was less because my respondents thought those were all good ideas. I think they just liked the idea of being asked to do something for a change.
    Energy independence is just the start. Add to it the urgent needs to stop global warming, win the war on terror, make health care affordable while at the same time avoiding the coming entitlements train wreck, and you’ve got a list of things that require a lot more audience involvement — and yes, sacrifice — than our current candidates have been willing to ask us for.
    And while you may not feel the same, I’m dying to be asked. Not because it would be easy, and not even because it would be hard, but because these hard things actually need doing.

Midlands environmentalists gird for battle

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This just in from Bob Wislinski:

Conservation organizations from
across the state will gather in Columbia Thursday, October 25, 11 AM in the SC Wildlife Federation conference room at Middleburg
Office Plaza (Kittrell Bldg. – directions attached)
to announce opposition to Santee Cooper’s proposed coal plant in
Kingsburg.

Several weeks ago, the SC Electric
Cooperatives released new studies showing conservation and renewable energy
savings possible within their systems over the next 10 years. The Electric Coops
are state-owned utility Santee Cooper’s largest customers. Last week and in the
face of mounting criticism of their Pee
Dee coal plant proposal, Santee-Cooper
announced new internal long-term energy conservation programs too.

Yet Santee-Cooper still insists that
its controversial 1320 MW Pee Dee pulverized coal plant is needed.

The
studies by the cooperatives contradict Santee-Cooper’s assertions about the
essential need for the coal plant. This comparative and statistically valid case
against the coal plant has never been publicly presented in this
fashion.

Groups represented at the Conference
will include: Coastal Conservation League, Environmental Defense, Conservation
Voters of South Carolina, SC Sierra Club, SC Wildlife Federation, Southern
Alliance for Clean Energy and Southern
Environmental Law Center.

… which reminds me. The co-ops came in to see us Monday about their studies, and I haven’t posted anything yet, because it was a lot of stuff to digest. I’ll get to it soon.

 

I don’t deserve the credit

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Gas1

After noting that one or two of my correspondents were — and I’m sure they were doing it for convenience’s sake — referring to the gasoline tax hike as "Brad’s taxing scheme," or using similar terms, I thought I’d better set the record straight.

I deserve neither the credit nor the blame. In fact, before I embraced the idea, I went through all the objections that y’all raise — disproportionate burden on the working class, cooling effect on the economy, etc. But I believe this is the best, clearest way to:

  • Spread the burden of fighting terror among ALL of us; it’s obscene that we’re not asked to do a thing beyond being inconvenienced at airports. (And while I worry about the poor as well, it’s interesting that David Brooks seems to think that raising the gas tax is more progressive than the SCHIP program. He must be correlating SUV ownership to wealth, or something.)
  • Cut off funding to some of the worst enemies we have in this world, who are made a little richerGas3
    every time we top off the tank.
  • Push us toward alternative fuels that are not only strategically smarter, in terms of making us less dependent, but much, much friendlier to this endangered orb. It would do this partly by making gasoline less marketable, but it would also…
  • Provide a lucrative new revenue stream to — take your pick — pay for the war, fund our neglected infrastructure, build public transportation (I’ll take light rail, please) and develop better fuels. My pick would be all of the above, if the stream were big enough.

I did not arrive there by myself. I was influenced by an array of other writers, who have hit this theme again and again over the last couple of years.

To answer the question asked by Jimmy Rabbite of prospective band members in "The Commitments," here are my influences, and links to their works:

Robert J. Samuelson
As the economist in the bunch, he presents the idea most credibly, thoroughly and convincingly. If a guy like Samuelson were against the idea, I’d be worried. His being for it gives me confidence in something that I arrive at in a more intuitive manner.

  • An Oil Habit America Cannot Break — October 18, 2006 —…Our main energy problem is our huge dependence on imported oil. For years, some remedies have been obvious: Tax oil heavily to spur Americans to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles and to drive a bit less, raise sharply the government’s fuel economy standards so those vehicles are available, and allow more oil and gas drilling. In recent years, we’ve done none of these things. It’s doubtful we will anytime soon…
  • Greenhouse Guessing — November 10, 2006 — …In rich democracies, policies that might curb greenhouse gases require politicians and the public to act in exceptionallyGas2
    "enlightened" (read: "unrealistic") ways. They have to accept "pain" now for benefits that won’t materialize for decades, probably after they’re dead. For example, we could adopt a steep gasoline tax and much tougher fuel economy standards for vehicles. In time, that might limit emissions (personally, I favor this on national security grounds). Absent some crisis, politicians usually won’t impose — and the public won’t accept — burdens without corresponding benefits…
  • Seven Tough Choices We Will Not Make — January 17, 2007 — …Enact an energy tax equivalent to $2 a gallon on gasoline — introduced over six years, or about 33 cents annually. The purpose: to increase tax revenue and induce Americans to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles….
  • Blindness on Biofuels — January 24, 2007 — …The great danger of the biofuels craze is that it will divert us from stronger steps to limit dependence on foreign oil: higher fuel taxes to prod Americans to buy more gasoline-efficient vehicles and tougher federal fuel economy standards to force auto companies to produce them. True, Bush supports tougher — but unspecified — fuel economy standards. But the implied increase above today’s 27.5 miles per gallon for cars is modest, because the administration expects gasoline savings from biofuels to be triple those from higher fuel economy standards….
  • A Full Tank of Hypocrisy — May 30, 2007 — …Today’s higher gasoline prices mostly reflect supply and demand. "Holiday travelers ignoring fuel costs," headlined USA Today before the Memorial Day weekend. Gasoline demand is up almost 2 percent from 2006 levels. Meanwhile, gasoline supplies have tightened. More refineries than usual shut this spring for repairs — some outages planned, some not (from accidents or dangerous conditions). In April and May, refineries normally operate well above 90 percent of capacity; in 2007, the operating rate was about 89 percent. Imports also declined for many reasons: higher demand in Europe; refinery problems in Venezuela; more gasoline demand from Nigeria. It’s true that oil companies will reap eye-popping profits from high prices. Still, the logic that steep prices, imposed by the market or by taxes, will encourage energy conservation is irrefutable. At the least, high prices would curb the growth of greenhouse gases and oil imports….
  • Prius Politics — July 25, 2007 — …But we’ve got to start somewhere

Of COURSE we should pay for the war

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Only the hyperpartisans of Washington could screw up an issue this badly.

First, opponents of the Iraq war put up a proposal to raise a tax to pay for the war — but they don’t really mean it. Suggesting the tax is just their way of making a point:

WASHINGTON — Three senior House Democrats, seeking to highlight the costs of the Iraq war, proposed a U.S. income tax surcharge Tuesday to finance the approximately $150 billion (€105.8 billion) spent annually on operations in Iraq.
    The plan’s sponsors acknowledged the tax measure is unlikely to pass, but Democrats have been seeking in recent weeks to contrast the approximately $190 billion (€134.1 billion) cost of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars with the $23 billion (€16.2 billion) increase that Democrats want in domestic programs…

Then, being the way they are, Republicans rise to the bait of condemning the tax:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   CONTACT: ROB GODFREY
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2007
Clyburn and Spratt must condemn Democrat bully and his dangerous war tax
Dawson calls Democrat plan disgraceful, dangerous
COLUMBIA, S.C.
– The South Carolina Republican Party today called on Jim Clyburn and
John Spratt to condemn the disgraceful and dangerous tactics of their
colleague, U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee
Chairman David Obey, who threatened to raise taxes by as much as 15 percent unless President Bush begins a precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.  (Associated Press, 10/2/2007)…

And I am left disgusted, as usual, with both parties.

The Democrats disgust me because of their assumption that, if we had to pay for it, we would not support maintaining our commitment in Iraq. This is based in the same kind of contempt for citizens (particularly those who disagree on issues) that leads anti-war people to call for a draft — not because they think people should share in the sacrifice, but because they believe that if asked to share, no one would support the war. Such an assumption turns my stomach.

The Republicans disgust me because they exceed the Democrats’ hopes by reacting with supreme irresponsibility — they are too childish to want to pay for anything.

Of course we should pay for the war, whatever it costs. And public education. And infrastructure. And research into alternative fuels. And all sorts of things that are worth rolling up our sleeves, like grownups, to address together, as a civilized country.

Neither political party believes that you or I have the courage, commitment or sense of responsibility to embrace both a goal and the cost of achieving the goal. And because of that, both parties deserve nothing from us but our contempt.

You know about the UnParty and the Energy Party. As I cast about in my never-ending quest to figure out what we need in this country, yet another one keeps suggesting itself: The Grownup Party. Anybody interested?

Up where that ol’ demon lives

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A reader, apparently doubting the Energy Party axiom that sharply increasing the price of gasoline via a tax increase would lower consumption, defund our enemies, clean our air, prevent catastrophic climate change and help the Cubs win the World Series, raised this point on my last post:

Hasn’t the price of gas gone up about $1 over the past 2-3 years?
People were saying in 2005 that a $1 increase in the gas tax would
reduce consumption. Did it?

Posted by: Gary | Oct 9, 2007 1:39:59 PM

Yes, it did (go up a dollar) and no it didn’t (depress demand). But I believe that’s because the price was so low to start with — near historic lows, adjusted for inflation.

I’m sort of reminded of one of my favorite books and movies, "The Right Stuff." The filmmakers had the brilliant stroke of having Levon Helm narrate the film, enabling him to say such things as (and you have to hear it in that gravelly Arkansas accent):

There was a demon that lived in the air. They said whoever challenged
him would die. Their controls would freeze up, their planes would
buffet wildly, and they would disintegrate. The demon lived at Mach 1
on the meter, seven hundred and fifty miles an hour, where the air
could no longer move out of the way. He lived behind a barrier through
which they said no man could ever pass. They called it the sound
barrier.

Well, as it turned out that, to paraphrase Sam Shepard as Yeager, the damned thing didn’t even exist. At least, it didn’t exist in the sense of being something that would rip your ears off if you tried to go through it. So test pilots kept pushing the limit back. When Scott Crossfield actually passed Mach 2, Jack Ridley (also portrayed by Levon Helm), assures Yeager et al. that there are still frontiers to be challenged:

The real test wasn’t Mach 2. That demon lives at about 2.3 on your machmeter.

So it is that I find myself saying that ol’ demon that’ll kill the SUV wasn’t really to be found at $3 a gallon. That demon lives more at about $4 or $5 on your gas pump.

Kidding aside, I think an immediate, all-at-once increase of a dollar or even two — something that can only be achieved with a tax increase — would have a shock effect that gradual increase would not. The debate leading up to such an increase would be filled with such emotion, such doomsday moaning and crying, that when it actually happened, it would have a tremendous psychological effect.

Admittedly, that effect might wear off if that was then the permanent price, as others have suggested and I have endorsed. But even if consumption crept back up, less of the money would be going to the petrodictators, and more would be going into paying for research for ways to become independent of those sources for good.

Mercury

Why no one leads on energy

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Check out this detail from a McCain speaking engagement today in Detroit:

   "We can’t keep this level of gas guzzling and make a strong impact on our dependence on foreign oil. It’s a national security issue," McCain said in response to a post-speech question about gas mileage requirements. His remarks were met with silence from a skeptical audience. "I noticed no applause," he said with a chuckle before a few people obliged.

Too often, when those in public life say the things that we Energy partisans take for granted, they are greeted with dead silence, or worse. And not always in Detroit.

Friedman took out his frustration in this regard, quite rightly, on the current president…

    Of course, we can pay for the Iraq war without a tax increase. The question is, can we pay for it and be making the investments in infrastructure, science and education needed to propel our country into the 21st century? Visit Singapore, Japan, Korea, China or parts of Europe today and you’ll discover that the infrastructure in our country is not keeping pace with our peers’.
    We can pay for anything today if we want to stop investing in tomorrow. The president has already slashed the National Institutes of Health research funding the past two years. His 2008 budget wants us to cut money for vocational training, infrastructure and many student aid programs.
    Does the Bush team really believe that if we had a $1-a-gallon gasoline tax — which could reduce our dependence on Middle East oil dictators, and reduce payroll taxes for low-income workers, pay down the deficit and fund the development of renewable energy — we would be worse off as a country?

… but the sad truth is, who is running on a platform that touts the kinds of sacrifices that we really, truly ought to be embracing? No one — at least not to the extent that I believe is called for. And personally, I am more than ready to follow someone who challenges me to ask the question that JFK proposed.

Finally, while we’re on the subject, I hope y’all all saw the piece we ran Monday from the British consul who recently visited:

    The recent meeting of Major Economies in Washington showed that
governments around the world have yet to agree whether binding targets
for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (favored by the United
Kingdom and many other countries) present a better way forward than
voluntary goals, the preference of the United States.
    But tackling climate change can bring countries together if we are wise enough not to let it drive us apart.
    The
United Kingdom shares its knowledge and experience with governments
around the world. Last year, the United Kingdom signed a far-reaching
agreement with California on climate change cooperation. Gov. Charlie
Crist enthusiastically supports the new U.K.-Florida Partnership on
Climate Change. And we have been in regular contact with members of
North Carolina’s Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change,
including a visit by parliamentarians from the House of Commons. We
would like to work with South Carolina too, if that would be welcome.

Yes, there are some leaders actually leading on climate change, and on energy independence. But neither Arnold nor Tony nor even Lula is eligible to run for president.

My own libertarian impulse kicks in

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Regulars will know that I seldom find common ground with libertarian sentiment. I have even asked for guidance in helping me understand the "libertarian impulse," because it seems to be an emotion or drive that I utterly lack — possibly some difference in brain chemistry.

When libertarians fulminate about how "high" their taxes are, or fret about their loss of privacy because the government screens telecommunications for signs of terrorist traffic, I am left cold. I simply do not feel whatever it is that gets these folks worked up.

But finally, I can embrace my libertarian brothers, even though, being the rugged individualists that they are, they aren’t into that sort of thing. Perhaps my libertarian sisters will allow it. I’d prefer that anyway.

Where was I? Ah, yes.

When I read about this in yesterday’s WSJ, I was immediately afire with the violation of our fundamental rights. Under the headline "The Right to Dry:A Green Movement Is Roiling America," was a story that stirred me the way (some) libertarians are stirred by the Patriot Act. An excerpt:

    The regulations of the subdivision in which Ms. Taylor lives effectively prohibit outdoor clotheslines. In a move that has torn apart this otherwise tranquil community, the development’s managers have threatened legal action. To the developer and many residents, clotheslines evoke the urban blight they sought to avoid by settling in the Oregon mountains.
    "This bombards the senses," interior designer Joan Grundeman says of her neighbor’s clothesline. "It can’t possibly increase property values and make people think this is a nice neighborhood."
    Ms. Taylor and her supporters argue that clotheslines are one way to fight climate change, using the sun and wind instead of electricity. "Days like this, I can do multiple loads, and within two hours, it’s done," said Ms. Taylor. "It smells good, and it feels different than when it comes out of the dryer."

Amen I say to you, Ms. Taylor! And what, pray tell, could be the objection of her neighbors? A bit of background:

The clothesline was once a ubiquitous part of the residential landscape. But as postwar Americans embraced labor-saving appliances, clotheslines came to be associated with people who couldn’t afford a dryer. Now they are a rarity, purged from the suburban landscape by legally enforceable development restrictions.

I submit that America was a better country when our moms and grandmas decorated our backyards with a hundred highly individualized freedom flags every Monday.

In my own case, it’s not just moms and grandmas. When our older children were small and my wife was at home with them, she used to hang out their little garments in our backyard, and my memory of coming home from the office at lunch time and finding her out there in the sun and the fresh air is a warm and fond one. It was a statement of where we stood with regard to the Earth — we also used real, cotton diapers — but it was also esthetically pleasing. And no static cling.

Since then, we have wasted many a kilowatt/hour on the dryer. It’s a convenience, but one that I don’t feel good about. And you know, as founder of the Energy Party, I think it’s time that we all ran our BVDs up the clothesline pole, and said "Bring ’em on!" They don’t have to salute our undies, but they’d better not try to lower them. I mean… well, you know what I mean.

Before we join the movement at my house, I’ll have to run home and check with the Executive Committee. But whatever she says, it should be our — uh, her — decision, and not that of some busybodies.

How dare anyone suggest that I don’t have the right to do that in my own yard? And for such petty, ugly reasons as not wanting to look like you live next to someone "who couldn’t afford a dryer." That’s disgusting.

And it warms my heart to be with the libertarians for once on a property-rights issue. Normally, they’d be sticking up for the right of the individual property owner to have a factory hog farm, and I’d be for the right of the neighbors not to live next to such, if that’s their decision. I think the property values of the many outweigh the most-profitable use by the one.

But there’s a world of difference, in terms of "harm" done to the neighbor, between a lagoon of hog waste and the colorful display of jogging shorts. And the good done for the environment is reversed in the two instances.

Yeah, I know that most of these things involve private property owners’ covenants "freely" entered into, but how many of you really scrutinized your neighborhood’s esoteric rules and regs before buying the house you wanted?

Obama’s right about Pakistan. But who would follow?

24 Replies

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
BARACK OBAMA was right to threaten to invade Pakistan in order to hit al-Qaida, quite literally, where it lives. And as long as we’re on this tack, remind me again why it is that we’re not at war with Iran.
    OK, OK, I know the reasons: Our military is overextended; the American people lack the appetite; the nutball factor is only an inch deep in Iran, and once you get past Ahmadinejad and the more radical mullahs the Iranian people aren’t so bad, but they’d get crazy quick if we attacked, and so forth.
    I can also come up with reasons not to invade Pakistan, or even to talk about invading Pakistan. We’ve heard them often enough. Pakistan is (and say this in reverent tones) a sovereign country; Pervez Musharraf is our “friend”; we need him helping us in the War on Terror; he is already politically weak and this could do him in; he could be replaced by Islamists sufficiently radical that they would actively support Osama bin Laden and friends, rather than merely fail to look aggressively enough to find them; fighting our way into, and seeking a needle in, the towering, rocky haystacks of that region is easier said than done, and on and on.
    But when you get down to it, it all boils down to the reason I mentioned in passing in the first instance — Americans lack the appetite. So with a long line of people vying to be our new commander in chief, it’s helpful when one of them breaks out of the mold of what we might want to hear, and spells out a real challenge before us.
    Most of us believe that the baddest bad guys in this War on Terror have been hiding in, and more relevantly operating from, the remote reaches of western Pakistan ever since they slipped through our fingers in 2001.
    The diplomatic and strategic delicacy that the Bush administration (contrary to its image) has demonstrated with regard to the generalissimo in Pakistan has been something to behold. Now we see this guy we have done so much, by our self-restraint, to build up on the verge of collapse. We could end up with the crazy clerics anyway, or at least a surrender to, or sharing of power with, Benazir Bhutto.
    But even if all the conditions were right abroad — even if the mountains were leveled and a new regime in Islamabad sent our Army an engraved invitation along with Mapquest directions to bin Laden’s cave — we’d still have the problem of American political shyness.
    Same deal with Iran. In the past week a senior U.S. general announced that elite Iranian troops are in Iraq training Shiite militias in how to better kill Americans — and Sunnis, of course.
    So it is that the United States is asking the United Nations to declare the Revolutionary Guard Corps — less a military outfit than a sort of government-sanctioned Mafia family, with huge legit covers in pumping oil, operating ports and manufacturing pharmaceuticals — a terrorist organization.
    What is the response of the Revolutionary Guards to all this? Well, they’re not exactly gluing halos to their turbans. The head of the Guard Corps promised that “America will receive a heavier punch from the guards in the future.”
    General Yahya Rahim Safavi was quoted in an Iranian newspaper as adding, “We will never remain silent in the face of US pressure and we will use our leverage against them.”
    And the United States is engaged in debate with other “civilized” nations over what names we will call these thugs. The world’s strongest nation — its one “indispensable nation,” to quote President Clinton’s secretary of state — ought to be able to work up a more muscular response than that. If we hadn’t gained a recent reputation for shyness, all we’d really have to do with those muscles is flex them.
    The one thing I liked about George W. Bush was that he was able to convince the world’s bad guys (and a lot of our friends, too, but you can’t have everything) that he was crazy enough to cross borders to go after them, if they gave him half an excuse. This worked, as long as the American people were behind him.
    If only the next president were able to project similar willingness to act, and be credible about it. A saber rattled by such a leader can put a stop to much dangerous nonsense in the world.
    But does the will exist in the American electorate? Not now, it doesn’t. When Obama said his tough piece, the nation sort of patted its charismatic prodigy on his head and explained that he was green and untested, and was bound to spout silly things now and then. (Rudy Giuliani, to his credit, said Obama was right. Others tut-tutted over the “rookie mistake.”)
    While we’re thinking about who’s going to lead the United States, maybe we’d better think about whether America will follow a leader who says what ought to be said — whether it’s on Iraq, Pakistan or Iran, or energy policy. Will we follow a president who tells us we should increase the price of gasoline rather than moaning about how “high” it is? How about a president who says we’re going to have to pay more for less in Social Security benefits in the future?
    Winning in Iraq and chasing down bin Laden are not necessarily either/or alternatives. This nation is large enough, rich enough and militarily savvy enough to field a much larger, more versatile force. Can you say “draft”? Well, actually, no — within the context of American politics with a presidential election coming up, you can’t. Not without being hooted down.
    That crowd of candidates is vying to lead a crippled giant. And the giant, sitting there fecklessly munching junk food and watching “reality” TV, can only blame himself for his condition.

There ya go again with the puppy eyes….

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Pup5

Those who know Energy Party Adviser Samuel Tenenbaum realize that the 55-mph speed limit is not the only thing he obsesses about, not by a long shot. For instance, there’s puppies who lack a good home (which is why he and Inez have opened their home to quite a menagerie).

At tremendous personal risk, I daredPup1
today to forward his latest message to my wife, with the subject line "Look at the puppy!" and carefully worded intro,"Samuel passed on this message, with pictures. Not that I would dare suggest anything; I just thought they were cute…"

Basically, I’ve been warned by my better half that if I so much as suggest that we take on another dog, I’ll be looking for a good home for myself.

Anyway, here’s the original message, as forwarded from Samuel. If anyone does have a good home for this mutt, I’ll be glad to pass you back to him, who will pass you back to this lady, who will pass you to the Battistes, I guess. (Animal lovers seem to have more layers of communication than the Mafia.):

My friends Luther and Judy Battiste found this puppy wandering near USC –Pup4
they have tried to find an owner with no success and are looking for a good
home.  They said this is the sweetest puppy, about 7 weeks old and very well
trained already – seems to be housebroken!  They already have 4 dogs and cannot
keep this one, despite getting attached to it – please help find a good home –
you can contact me if you or someone you know is interested.   Please send out
to all your friends.

Julie
Ruff
Special Assistant to the Mayor

Pup4_2

Slap 55 mph on our ‘friends’ the Saudis

21 Replies

My friend and sometime Energy Party think-tanker Samuel Tenenbaum sees justification for a true, enforced, 55-mph speed limit in many things — including this latest outrage from Saudi Arabia: The Jerusalem Post reports that our good friends over at the house of Saud are threatening to confiscate Christian and Jewish tourists’ Bibles.

Quoth Samuel:

Now why are we sending hundred of millions of dollars to them when they have no respect for any of us? Time for 55mph and deny them petrodollars to teach hate, fund terrorists, and deny all of humanity  our equality! Wake up !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let’s stop all the other bromides that much of our establishment is putting out about the war on terror and energy conservation !We are funding our own executioners. Lenin said we would sell the rope that they would hang us with. He is right but he was with the wrong crowd ! Do we have any organization that will stand up? Do we have any leaders out there? Are they so afraid of their own shadow? I am one disgusted human being!

Samuel Tenenbaum

He gets like that, and it’s one of the things I like about the guy.