No handouts!

Anyone else notice that, for all the Republicans' talk that the Dems are pushing for total socialism and welfare, and that we have to teach people to stand up on their own, it's the Dems who are putting forth the self-made men? Look at the last Republican and Democratic Presidents, and the current two candidates:

Repubs:
Bush = trust-fund baby that benefitted from all of Daddy's wealth, not very smart academically (look at how he got into Harvard/Yale, and his grades while there)

McCain = all his wealth comes from his wife, never held a real job outside military/politics, and was near the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy

Dems:
Bill Clinton = he and Hillary were not born into wealth, and were not even that wealthy when leaving the White House. Most of it has come from their work since then. He was a Rhodes Scholar.

Obama = again, not born into wealth at all, and all riches have come from own hard work. Very intelligent (wrote his own books! Unlike McCain…), going to Harvard Law School on scholarships, where he served as president of the Law Review. Taught constitutional law from '92 to '04 (think he knows a little something about the Constitution?).

Let's have the Republicans tell us more about making things happen for ourselves….

John McRoosevelt

"We’re now in a ridiculous period in which politicians are concerned about appearing too well-spoken and too intellectual — elitist — as if mangling the language while downing a shot and slurping from a mug of beer were sure signs of fitness for high office."

 

It must have been nice, back in the day, to have some politicians (both parties) who actually had scruples.  Can you imagine a candidate giving back a donation these days (not counting when there's scandal attached to the donor)??  It'd never happen....

 

-R

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August 19, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

A World of Difference

By BOB HERBERT

Presidential elections always have their share of foolishness, hypocrisy and, let’s say, elasticity when it comes to facts.

This is what comes to mind whenever I hear John McCain and other Republicans reverentially invoking the name of Theodore Roosevelt. Senator McCain will tell you outright: “I am a Teddy Roosevelt Republican.”

That’s about as elastic as the facts can get. In June, Mr. McCain (“We’re gonna drill here! We’re gonna drill now!”) got a big boost in donations from oil industry executives after he reversed course and came out strongly in favor of offshore drilling. A Washington Post headline pointedly said: “Industry Gushed Money After Reversal on Drilling.”

To put it mildly, that was not very Rooseveltian. Around the same time that the McCain campaign was pocketing its oil industry windfall, the historian Douglas Brinkley was poring over letters in which Roosevelt, running for his first full term as president in 1904, was indignantly ordering his campaign to return a $100,000 contribution from the Standard Oil Company.

In a letter to his campaign manager, dated Oct. 26, 1904, Roosevelt said: “I must ask you to direct that the money be returned to them forthwith.” As Roosevelt saw it: “We cannot under any circumstances afford to take a contribution which can be even improperly construed as putting us under an improper obligation.”

That kind of thinking is long gone, from both parties. Barack Obama, as well as Senator McCain, has taken contributions from oil industry executives. But what is telling about this particular difference between Teddy Roosevelt and John McCain is that it is so illustrative of what Roosevelt was really about, and how fundamentally different that was from what Senator McCain and the latter-day Republican Party is about.

“The truth of the matter is that Roosevelt today would be on the left,” said Mr. Brinkley, who is writing a biography of the former president titled “The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt’s and the Crusade for America.”

Roosevelt believed passionately in regulating industry and curbing the excesses of the great corporations. He favored the imposition of an inheritance tax and fought his party’s increasing tendency to cater to the very wealthy. And, of course, he was a ferocious protector of the environment.

Roosevelt was known as the “trust-buster,” but it was in the area of environmental conservation that he really made his mark. Mr. Brinkley, in a draft preface to the biography, tells how a number of bird species in the U.S. were headed for extinction as the 20th century approached, in large part because of the popularity of feathered hats for women.

By 1886, when the Audubon Society was founded, more than five million birds a year were being slaughtered to satisfy the millinery trade. The feather boom was especially big in Florida. Egrets, herons — just piles and piles of birds were being destroyed, many of them by men with semiautomatic weapons.

Roosevelt was outraged that what he termed “the despoilers” were threatening to ruin the bird populations along the Florida coasts. Having already championed the preservation of what became Yellowstone National Park, Roosevelt designated Pelican Island, which had a once-thriving bird population off the east central coast of Florida, as the nation’s first federal bird reservation.

The move was a tremendous success. Pelican Island became the first unit of the National Wildlife Refuge System of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “By 2003,” Mr. Brinkley wrote, “when Pelican Island celebrated its centennial, the U.S. National Wildlife Refuge System comprised over 540 wildlife refuges on more than 95 million acres.”

We’re now in a ridiculous period in which politicians are concerned about appearing too well-spoken and too intellectual — elitist — as if mangling the language while downing a shot and slurping from a mug of beer were sure signs of fitness for high office. So it might come as a surprise to some that Senator McCain’s macho hero happened to have been among the first naturalists at Harvard, an inveterate bird-watcher, and a prolific and sensitive writer.

According to Mr. Brinkley: “When writing or lecturing about American birds, Roosevelt often turned downright lyrical, sometimes achieving the level of song.”

The kicker to the story about the contribution from Standard Oil is that despite Roosevelt’s repeated orders, it may not have been returned. Roosevelt went to his grave believing that it had been, but Mr. Brinkley said a later investigation of the campaign’s finances left open the possibility that Roosevelt’s orders may not have been followed.

Roosevelt was a complicated fellow. Progressive in much of his politics and intensely concerned about the long-term welfare of the country and its people, he was also a social Darwinian and a conflict-loving imperialist.

What is not in question is that he was a far, far cry from John McCain and today’s G.O.P.

And Colorado Shall Lead Them...

Xcel fought the 10% mandate really hard a couple years ago, but the measure passed by an overwhelming measure. Ironic how they then met the deadline in less than a couple years, 8 years ahead of schedule, and then themselves pushed for doubling the mandate by 2020. I think a lot of power companies are going to come to find that switching to renewable turns out to just be a prudent business measure. Screw the environment – it saves them money!

-R

From MSNBC.com:

Colorado at crossroads of energy, politics
State has seen strong shift, with wind power gaining acceptance

By Peter Slevin
The Washington Post
updated 8:26 p.m. MT, Sun., Aug. 17, 2008

When Colorado voters were deciding whether to require that 10 percent of the state's electricity come from renewable fuels, the state's largest utility fought the proposal, warning that any shift from coal and natural gas would be costly, uncertain and unwise.

Then a funny thing happened. The ballot initiative passed, and Xcel energy met the requirement eight years ahead of schedule. And at the government's urging, its executives quickly agreed to double the target, to 20 percent.

In Colorado -- a state historically known for natural gas and fights over drilling -- wind and solar power are fast becoming prominent parts of the energy mix. Wind capacity has quadrupled in the past 18 months, according to Gov. Bill Ritter (D), and Xcel has become the largest provider of wind power in the nation.

The politics and economics of energy are shifting here in ways that foretell debates across the country as states create renewable-energy mandates and the federal government moves toward limiting carbon emissions. One advocate calls Colorado "ground zero" for the looming battle over energy.

Despite a continuing boom, oil and gas companies here are on the defensive. They are spending heavily as they try to prevent the repeal of as much as $300 million in annual tax breaks that would be shifted to investment in renewables and other projects.

The industry, already facing a rebellion among some longtime supporters angered by its toll on the environment, also finds itself in a fight against new regulations designed to protect wildlife and public health from the vast expansion in drilling. Beyond the merits, the proposals reflect the strengthened hand of environmentalists and their friends who feel that the fossil-fuel companies have held sway too long.

"Now is a terrific time for renewables to launch. I hope they get all the capital they need, and all the great minds and talent. But I don't want it to come at the expense of the oil and gas industry," said Meg Collins, president of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association. "As goes Colorado, so goes the West, as far as this energy policy debate."

Governor ran on wind
State leaders are thrilled with the economic benefits that have come with the hundreds of new research and manufacturing jobs in pursuit of alternative power. Yet the fledgling renewables industry is also facing challenges, from a desire for tax credits of its own to a need for a stronger transmission grid that will make power more portable.

"The future in Colorado is building wind farms in wheat fields," said Ritter, a former Denver prosecutor, recalling the 2006 campaign pitch that helped carry him into the governor's office. "Quite frankly, it's how we should have been thinking for 10 years."

Ten years ago, Xcel began offering wind-generated electricity, but it was a niche market for eco-conscious customers willing to pay extra. That changed in a significant way after 2004, when Xcel lost the referendum fight.

After legislative efforts failed, proponents of renewable energy turned to the ballot that year. The initiative, Amendment 37, required the state's biggest utilities to generate 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. Advocates found themselves facing off against Xcel, which said it feared for its bottom line.

"We ended up opposing that amendment. In retrospect, I wish we hadn't," said Frank Prager, Xcel's vice president for environmental policy. He said utility companies are inherently conservative, yet find themselves facing a transformation in an industry that, as he put it, has changed little since Thomas Edison's time.

Voters rejected the utility industry's arguments and approved the measure, making Colorado the first state to mandate renewable-energy use at the ballot box. Today, legislatures in more than 25 states have set prescribed levels, known formally as "renewable portfolio standards."

"It was one of those cases where the public was ahead of the politicians," said Tom Plant, Ritter's top energy strategist.

Once Xcel executives began to come to terms with the new rules, they discovered that federal tax credits made wind power affordable, especially in relation to rising natural gas prices. The cost of wind power is relatively constant and provides a hedge against future emissions regulation, such as the cap-and-trade approach favored by presidential candidates Barack Obama (D) and John McCain (R).

"It was good for the system," Xcel's Prager said, referring to the utility's mix of energy sources, "and it was good for the customer."


By the end of 2007, Xcel had met Amendment 37's goal and endorsed Ritter's request to double it to 20 percent by 2020. That measure passed the Colorado legislature easily: With the utility on board and public sentiment clear, the bill collected 50 sponsors in the 65-member House.

Executives at publicly traded Xcel stress their twin desires to make money and to insulate the company from the risks of unproven technology. As Prager put it during an interview in the company's downtown Denver headquarters: "It's absolutely essential that the state offer us something that makes it worth our while to be green."

Amendment 37 allows utilities to collect a fee from customers to invest in renewable fuels; it averages $12.72 a year for a typical homeowner with a monthly bill of $73. When the renewables goal doubled last year, so did the fee. Prager said the fee has provided Xcel $37.6 million between March 2006 and July 2008 for capital investment in wind and solar.

Colorado is adding wind-power capacity at a higher rate than any other state, its hundreds of turbines delivering one gigawatt of generating power at the end of 2007. That is triple the total of 12 months earlier. Six states produce more than one gigawatt with wind, with Texas far in front and California second.

Solar power remains a small part of the equation in Colorado, in part because concentrated solar generation is expensive. Xcel is sponsoring an 80-acre field of photovoltaic panels in the San Luis Valley, a project expected to provide 8.2 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 1,500 homes. But only 4 percent of Xcel's renewable megawattage is required to come from solar.

Meanwhile, Xcel's latest plan, filed with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, calls for retiring two of its aging coal-fired power generators.

"We've reached this critical point where we're seeing the deployment of these technologies accelerate," said John Nielsen, an energy analyst with the nonprofit environmental group Western Resource Advocates. "There was slow progress over the last decade, and you're now seeing this tipping point."

Among the signs is the arrival of Vestas, a Danish wind turbine company, which announced Friday the construction of two more manufacturing plants and 1,350 new jobs, bringing the company's total in Colorado to 2,450. ConocoPhillipss announced this year that it will locate its alternative-fuels research operation in the state. The Colorado-based National Renewable Energy Laboratory is adding 100 jobs.

Colorado's growing political and economic commitment to renewables is causing fear in the oil and gas industry, which is fighting to keep its tax breaks and its influence over state rulemaking.

"We're not feeling very cherished," said Collins, whose oil and gas association represents more than 30 companies. The group objects to an initiative on the ballot in November; it would eliminate the industry's 87.5 percent property tax exemption, estimated to cost the state treasury $230 million to $320 million a year.

If the ballot rule passes, the tax money will be channeled to renewable fuels, wildlife conservation and education. The industry also objects to proposed rules that would require greater public health and environmental protection in areas where drilling takes place.

"It could have been done in a different way, and things wouldn't have gotten so heated," Collins said.

Alice Madden, the Democratic majority leader in the Colorado House, looks at the oil and gas industry today and recalls Xcel before the passage of Amendment 37. She has little sympathy for Collins's arguments, especially at a time when oil and gas profits are soaring.

"It's Chicken Little all over again: 'The sky is going to fall,' " said Madden, who also chairs Western Progress, an advocacy group. "The oil and gas companies see the writing on the wall, the shift to renewables. They want to make as much money as they can, right now."

Looking ahead, supporters of alternative fuels are counting on securing some advantages their fossil-fuel predecessors have enjoyed. One request is the renewal of a federal tax credit set to expire this year. Another, Prager said, is "some clear rules on the national level, especially on climate policy."

With 34,000 active gas wells in Colorado and 28 new permits issued each day, there is no chance that the oil and gas industry will fade away soon. And, as powerfully as the wind blows and the sun shines, the transmission grid for renewable energy is limited and the strength of the current is unsure.

"Unlike a coal plant or a gas plant," Prager said, "you can't flip a switch and make the wind blow."


© 2008 The Washington Post Company
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26258096/

Arrogance + Hypocrisy = Irrelevance

I've been thinking more about our declining superpower status, or at least our status as sole superpower. I think more evidence of the phenomenon is our seemingly increasing irrelevance. Once other countries believe they can justifiably ignore you, you're obviously no longer the power player you once were. I give you the following examples:

1.) We vocally condemn China for their human rights violations. At the same, we've basically institutionalized torture at our military prisons. As expected, China tells us to shove it.

2.) We condemn Russia for their overwhelming show of force, invading another sovereign nation (Georgia). Meanwhile, we've entered our sixth year of occupying the sovereign nation whom we invaded with an overwhelming show of force. Russia tells us to shove it.

3.) We tell countries like Iran and North Korea that they should not be arming with nukes or even conventional long-range missiles, that there's no need for them to be stockpiling such devices. At the same time we threaten military action if they don't comply with our demands, thus giving them a reason to feel like they need greater weapons. They tell us to shove it.

I ask you, how could anyone take us seriously? If no one takes us seriously, how are we a superpower?

Friedman on McCain's clean energy record

Yeah, McCain's all about renewable energy.....

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August 13, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Eight Strikes and You’re Out

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

John McCain recently tried to underscore his seriousness about pushing through a new energy policy, with a strong focus on more drilling for oil, by telling a motorcycle convention that Congress needed to come back from vacation immediately and do something about America’s energy crisis. “Tell them to come back and get to work!” McCain bellowed.

Sorry, but I can’t let that one go by. McCain knows why.

It was only five days earlier, on July 30, that the Senate was voting for the eighth time in the past year on a broad, vitally important bill — S. 3335 — that would have extended the investment tax credits for installing solar energy and the production tax credits for building wind turbines and other energy-efficiency systems.

Both the wind and solar industries depend on these credits — which expire in December — to scale their businesses and become competitive with coal, oil and natural gas. Unlike offshore drilling, these credits could have an immediate impact on America’s energy profile.

Senator McCain did not show up for the crucial vote on July 30, and the renewable energy bill was defeated for the eighth time. In fact, John McCain has a perfect record on this renewable energy legislation. He has missed all eight votes over the last year — which effectively counts as a no vote each time. Once, he was even in the Senate and wouldn’t leave his office to vote.

“McCain did not show up on any votes,” said Scott Sklar, president of The Stella Group, which tracks clean-technology legislation. Despite that, McCain’s campaign commercial running during the Olympics shows a bunch of spinning wind turbines — the very wind turbines that he would not cast a vote to subsidize, even though he supports big subsidies for nuclear power.

Barack Obama did not vote on July 30 either — which is equally inexcusable in my book — but he did vote on three previous occasions in favor of the solar and wind credits.

The fact that Congress has failed eight times to renew them is largely because of a hard core of Republican senators who either don’t want to give Democrats such a victory in an election year or simply don’t believe in renewable energy.

What impact does this have? In the solar industry today there is a rush to finish any project that would be up and running by Dec. 31 — when the credits expire — and most everything beyond that is now on hold. Consider the Solana concentrated solar power plant, 70 miles southwest of Phoenix in McCain’s home state. It is the biggest proposed concentrating solar energy project ever. The farsighted local utility is ready to buy its power.

But because of the Senate’s refusal to extend the solar tax credits, “we cannot get our bank financing,” said Fred Morse, a senior adviser for the American operations of Abengoa Solar, which is building the project. “Without the credits, the numbers don’t work.” Some 2,000 construction jobs are on hold.

Roger Efird is president of Suntech America — a major Chinese-owned solar panel maker that actually wants to build a new factory in America. They’ve been scouting the country for sites, and several governors have been courting them. But Efird told me that when the solar credits failed to pass the Senate, his boss told him: “Don’t set up any more meetings with governors. It makes absolutely no sense to do this if we don’t have stability in the incentive programs.”

One of the biggest canards peddled by Big Oil is that, “Sure, we’ll need wind and solar energy, but it’s just not cost effective yet.” They’ve been saying that for 30 years. What these tax credits are designed to do is to stimulate investments by many players in solar and wind so these technologies can quickly move down the learning curve and become competitive with coal and oil — which is why some people are trying to block them.

As Richard K. Lester, an energy-innovation expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, notes, “The best chance we have — perhaps the only chance” of addressing the combined challenges of energy supply and demand, climate change and energy security “is to accelerate the introduction of new technologies for energy supply and use and deploy them on a very large scale.”

This, he argues, will take more than a Manhattan Project. It will require a fundamental reshaping by government of the prices and regulations and research-and-development budgets that shape the energy market. Without taxing fossil fuels so they become more expensive and giving subsidies to renewable fuels so they become more competitive — and changing regulations so more people and companies have an interest in energy efficiency — we will not get innovation in clean power at the scale we need.

That is what this election should be focusing on. Everything else is just bogus rhetoric designed by cynical candidates who think Americans are so stupid — so bloody stupid — that if you just show them wind turbines in your Olympics ad they’ll actually think you showed up and voted for such renewable power — when you didn’t.

The U.S.'s Self-Inflicted Powerlessness Exposed by Georgian Conflict

Russia is destroying Georgia, our closest ally among the former Soviet republics, and we're powerless to do anything about it. Why? Once again, we can look to Iraq.

Before I go into that explanation, let me first say that, yes, Georgia somewhat brought this upon themselves by first moving into South Ossetia. They had to expect a Russian response, and Russia doesn't play around. Still, the overreaching aggressiveness of Russia's response indicates that they were just waiting for the opportunity to attack and reclaim Georgia as part of their empire. They aren't simply defending South Ossetia, they're invading Georgia.

As I previously stated, Georgia is our closest ally among the former Soviet republics. They have a pro-Western democratic government intent on joining NATO, and are led by a U.S.-educated president. The U.S. has welcomed their alliance, and has typically always backed Georgia in any political differences between Georgia and Russia. We've hoped that their pro-Western democracy would be a model for the other former Soviet republics.

Georgia is now in trouble. They simply don't have the military capability to fend off a Russian invasion. They've now got most of their troops situated around the capital, having already conceded much of the rest of the country to Russian attack. Russia isn't simply attacking strategic military targets either; they're bombing indiscriminately, killing off hundreds of civilians who have nothing to do with this conflict. So why aren't we helping? Simply put, we can't.

Between Afghanistan, and more prominently, Iraq, we simply don't have the manpower to put any kind of real force into Georgia. Our military is already way over-extended. So while W is on the tele offering up all sorts of forceful statements urging Russia to halt its invasion, Russia knows that we cannot back up our words with any action. Without the U.S. leading, the other NATO nations aren't likely to take up the charge. So what's to stop Putin & Co. from their expansion? Who has Georgia's back? Nobody.

We may be witnessing the key event exposing the United States' waning influence as sole superpower in the world. Russia, our former Cold War enemy, is engaging in military aggression against a key ally and we can't respond. We're in a trade deficit with China, and they also are the largest foreign holder of U.S. government debt. We don't have exclusive military might and our economic power is weak. Also, Russia is very rich in oil, and China has a growing thirst for oil as their industrialization and consumerism grows. For each, the United States is becoming less and less of a need.

While Iraq explains our inability to respond militarily right now, what does it have to do with China? We're spending something like $12 billion per month on the Iraq war right now. Do you think that strengthens or weakens the dollar? Creates surpluses or deficits? As the dollar weakens, so grows our trade deficit. As our national debt grows, so grows the opportunity for foreign investors to buy up that debt. Who's on the good side of that trade imbalance and who's buying up that debt? China, China, China.

Russia isn't too worried about Europe forming much of a forceful response to their attack in Georgia without the lead of the United States, as Russia supplies Europe with roughly 45% of their energy (oil) supplies. Europe isn't going to risk losing that. If they do though, Russia likely has a backup ready customer in China, with their ever-growing thirst for oil.

China isn't too worried about all of the United States' tough talk about their human rights violations, lack of stance on Darfur and Iran, their artificial devaluation of the yen, etc., because they quite literally own us. Also, as Russia's economy continues to grow (because of the burgeoning oil revenues and clever embrace of capitalism), not to mention India's, they have ready consumer markets rising up to make up for any decline in U.S. purchasing. Whereas they still need our consumer market, they less and less need to solely rely on it alone.

Militarily weak. Economically weak. The U.S. is definitely losing its superpower status. So where does that leave our allies who have traditionally relied on us when their chips are down? Well, it looks like Georgia is on the verge of finding out.

Where do we go from here?

Here's a nice, feel-good video for you...