I get your point, Legacy, but if you can find me anywhere on this board suggesting that Kyoto should have been the law of the land, and that Bush is an asshole for not signing it, I'd be very, very surprised.

My problem with Bush is that he hasn't said anything like, "Hey, we recognize this is a problem, but let's start working on a real solution, not this country-by-country regulation crap that will never work." He hasn't proposed anything different. He's done nothing.

And Tupa, I think cap and trade is only more politically feasible. I don't think it's a better idea. It's also easier to cheat on a cap and trade system, especially if you had people in power that didn't care to enforce the standards, or allowed the benchmarks to be set at meaningless levels.

After seven years of this crew, I'm convinced that this is precisely the way they'd do this. They'd publicly praise the cap and trade system, then sabotage it in committee. They'd make it so the system didn't catch anyone but the very worst.

But done right, I'd be open to it as well.

I'm telling you -- if there were more people like you in your party we could get this shit done right.

In the end, Gore is right. Why should we be taxing the things we want (labor, income, investment) and not the things we don't want (pollution)?

I wasnt suggesting that anyone here was advocating Kyoto. At least I hope I wasn't.
However, I am implying that the general consensus of the board for characterizing both Gore & Bush regarding climate change can be found in my previous post's quotation marks.

quote:

He hasn't proposed anything different. He's done nothing.

I agree completely. I'm not satisfied with inaction either. At least Gore made a movie. and gained 50 lbs.

I'd prefer Bush hitching his wagon on someone/ a group that has a plan that might actually work rather than see Bush burning the midnight oil working on it.. Same with Gore. I think the problem is "the plan" hasn't been figured out yet.

*edit*
And that Gore has folks fleeced that the midnight oil he's been burning (he hasn't) is carbon neutral.

Oh, everyone interested in moving forward on this issue, Republican and Democrat, is just waiting for a new administration. No one wants to do this now because it won't come out right and it's more hassle than it's worth. I can pretty much guarantee you that you won't see Congress moving on this until after January, 2009.

And I suspect that Bush gave his proposal on it in part because he didn't want to go down in history as the guy who pretended global warming wasn't real. It was just for the record.

(The other part was that the courts are now forcing the government to do something. So that was ...something, according to Bush.)

Aloysius, look -- again with the earmarks.

"Republican John McCain said Wednesday that the bridge collapse in Minnesota that killed 13 people last year would not have happened if Congress had not wasted so much money on pork-barrel spending."

...Huh?

"The bridge in Minneapolis didn't collapse because there wasn't enough money," McCain told reporters while campaigning in Pennsylvania. "The bridge in Minneapolis collapsed because so much money was spent on wasteful, unnecessary pork-barrel projects."

Um, no. It collapsed because of a design flaw.

"Federal investigators cite undersize steel plates as the "critical factor" in the collapse of the bridge. Heavy loads of construction materials on the bridge also contributed to the disaster that injured 145 people on Aug. 1, according to preliminary findings by the National Transportation Safety Board."

But that's okay. Apparently all that stands between America and fiscal solvency is the $16 billion or so we spend on earmarks.

Look, I don't mind him going after earmarks. They're out of control. And it's not like the Democrats did anything about them, despite pledging to. It's a rotten process. But going out on a limb on earmarks isn't really leadership. It's not going to cost you anything.

Of course, there's much, much more waste in the Defense Department budget, the farm bills, the tax code, etc., than you're ever going to find in earmarks. And he won't mention any of that.

So much for straight talk.

Oh, I miss the 2000 version of John McCain...

quote:

Originally posted by heckofajobBrownie:
In the end, Gore is right. Why should we be taxing the things we want (labor, income, investment) and not the things we don't want (pollution)?

Good question. Maybe you should ask the candidates that want to raise payroll, income, and capital gains taxes.

Is the death tax an incentive to live forever?

It's an incentive to hire a really good accountant.

$16 million is the new earmark number. The annual cumulative number for recurring expenses is closer to $60, or so I've read.

BTW, I love that Obama's pandering leads you to praise the opportunity for us all to consider him more pragmatically and less idealistically, but McCain's (during a time when no one is listening and he isnt even really campaigning) really bothers you.

oh, I miss the version of Obama that didnt twist other people's words, bullshit economics to appeal to voters, and promised to run on public funds...(I'd put a year on it, but it was only a few months ago)

Here's a perfect and appropriate news story from today from lovely New England, where winter never dies:

"NStar customers can power homes with wind power

May 1, 2008 11:39 AM

NStar customers willing to pay a premium will soon be able to power their homes with environmentally friendly wind power.

The state Department of Public Utilities last night approved a program, that allows customers to buy half or all of their electricity from wind farms in Maine and upstate New York. Customers who opt for the green power will pay more, $4.25 a month who buy half their electricity from wind farms, $7.25 who want buy it all from these green sources, according to NStar. The program, called NStar Green, is the first of its kind for a Massachusetts utility."

NStar will begin enrolling customers in NStar Green immediately, with service to begin in July, said spokeswoman Caroline Allen. More information is available on NStar's website, www.nstar.com, or by calling 1-800-592-2000.

NStar, with 1.1 million electric customers in Eastern and Central Massachusetts, proposed the program last summer. The Boston utility signed 10-year contracts with two wind farms to buy a total of 60 megawatts, enough to power about 60,000 homes.

“What makes this program unique is the fact that it’s transparent -- customers know exactly where their renewable energy is being generated," said Thomas J. May, NStar chief executive."


...Okay, right now, this is just going to be done by wealthier people who can afford to do the right thing. But what if getting your power this way was suddenly less expensive than getting it from your local utility? What if, instead of laying out the additional costs, NStar announced that they're green option is cheaper than their traditional variety?

Now who wants it? Everybody. And demand for clean energy goes way up. And investors and businesses will look to match those new consumers with more and more green sources of energy. And thousands and thousands of new jobs are created.

That's the trick. And it's an easy trick to make happen.

quote:

BTW, I love that Obama's pandering leads you to praise the opportunity for us all to consider him more pragmatically and less idealistically, but McCain's (during a time when no one is listening and he isnt even really campaigning) really bothers you.

Fair enough. But the "straight talk" meme has to die.

We would have at least 1 more story like that if big Teddy K wasnt so concerned about young ladies' view of the sunrise over the bow of his yacht.

quote:

Fair enough. But the "straight talk" meme has to die.

I'll throw it into the fire along with the "postpartisan politics" promises.

quote:

Originally posted by heckofajobBrownie:
"Republican John McCain said Wednesday that the bridge collapse in Minnesota that killed 13 people last year would not have happened if Congress had not wasted so much money on pork-barrel spending."

...Huh?

Yep...and I can't imagine that's a politically smart thing to say either.

A much smarter thing would be to propose Congress create a quasi-independent commission that would take care of infrastructural maintenance, kind of like what the BRAC Commission does for military bases.

It'd never get passed, but it would highlight McCain's two biggest positives: his reformist reputation and his military background.

quote:

Of course, there's much, much more waste in the Defense Department budget, the farm bills, the tax code, etc., than you're ever going to find in earmarks. And he won't mention any of that.

Good point. And I think his focus on restraining spending could end up hurting him, even on military affairs.

It looks like the Democrats are trying to tar-and-feather him on the new GI Bill. There's a good article here.

It sounds like this fight could get ugly:

quote:

“There are fundamental differences,” McCain told Politico. “[Webb] creates a new bureaucracy and new rules. His bill offers the same benefits whether you stay three years or longer. We want to have a sliding scale to increase retention. I haven’t been in Washington, but my staff there said that his has not been eager to negotiate.”

“He’s so full of it,” Webb said in response. “I have personally talked to John three times. I made a personal call to [McCain aide] Mark Salter months ago asking that they look at this.”

I can't imagine a better veep option for Obama than Jim Webb...

Oh, now you touched a nerve!

You want to go round and round about Cape Wind, I'm all for it.

I actually don't think that's the right place for a wind farm, especially when you consider the amount of power it would generate, which isn't all that much, and the costs of putting it there.

I know it's a conservative's favorite NIMBY argument. It's like the joy liberals get when an Evangelical pastor gets caught paying gay hookers to **** meth into his ass. Oh, happy day!

But if you look into that proposal as much as I have you'd see that there are lots of legitimate concerns. And yes, some of them are aesthetic. Are those not legitimate? Would you put a wind farm in Yosemite? Of course not. But it's more than that.

And in true New England form, I was for this before I was against it. I liked the idea at first. Not so much now, though I'd love Massachusetts to lead. (Like it always does, right?)

But we are going to lead. We're still going to have green power off the coast of Cape Cod and the Islands. I just think it's going to end up being further out to sea on floating platforms, and it's going to be in the form of two tidal energy/hydroelectric projects off the coast of Martha's Vineyard.

It had over 80% approval ratings in polling. Isnt that how Dems are supposed to decide how to act?

Ha. It ain't 80% where I come from. Which was Tip O'Neill land. And you remember what he said about politics, don't you?

Mark this down: that region will be the first green energy independent part of the country in a generation.

And if we're both still in here arguing about this stuff by then, blow my f'ing brains out.

I thought Leo McGarry said that.

I get so disturbed by this kind of article because I want to read "the note behind the note," as we call it in Hollyweird.

Bush's underlying note is obvious: The boom years for Big Oil are coming to an end, so let's wring out every last penny. As you were... at least until 2025. How'd I do, oil dudes? Heh-heh.

Hell, that's become a national joke. We just wait for him to say it and then we roll our eyes.

But what about this article and its author? What's the real point? "Never mind?" Fiddle while Rome burns? Don't just rearrange the deck chairs... lie down on one? It's this odd, gleeful form of apathy, backed up with numbers that are worse than shaky... they're epileptic.

But people write it, people read it, and a certain percentage take it seriously and find it comforting or reassuring in some way.

I honestly don't get it.