The Republicans are just all burned up, hotter than global warming, that environmentalists thought up a good idea to make our economy run more efficiently and cleanly, and made it work. The hybrid car is an expression of environmentalism moving America forward, and the Republicans were caught just sitting on their rear ends next to their Lincoln Town Cars, saying that everything should continue to be done the old way.
So, now, the Republicans are trying to show that they can do something new: New offshore oil drilling!
The trouble is that this new offshore oil drilling is kind of like new Tide, now with extra cleaning power - it isn’t really new at all. It’s just the same old thing.
The old offshore oil drilling was dirty and inefficient and vulnerable to hurricanes. The new offshore drilling would be dirty and inefficient and vulnerable to hurricanes. The old offshore drilling couldn’t keep pace with our energy needs. The new offshore drilling wouldn’t keep pace with our energy needs either.
This offshore drilling plan is the last gasp of a dinosaur economy of rusted industrialism. What we need is a new vision that can do better than offshore drilling. More of the same will just bring us more of the same, and more of the same means more failure.
I’ve seen a lot of political expression this year, but I’ve never seen anything quite so goofy as the styleboard over at Kaboodle that shows a variety of campaign gear for Barack Obama - stickers, buttons and t-shirts for the presidential candidate. It’s kind of like the bulletin board of a teenage political junkie.
Could you put together a better political bulletin board?
I never thought I would see the day, but I can’t say that I blame them: Progressives Against Obama is organizing online.
They’re against the decision by Barack Obama to vote for the FISA Amendments Act, which includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications corporations that broke the law to help Bush spy on millions of Americans, and extends those Bush spy programs into the next presidency, legalizing Big Brother government snooping into our private lives.
There’s a lot more that the Progressives Against Obama group is protesting in Obama’s campaign than just FISA. There’s Barack Obama’s weakening position on ending the American occupation of Iraq, for one thing. Then there’s the Obama plan to expand Bush’s corrupt faith-based religious patronage program. Barack Obama has a bit of a problem with homophobia as well, opposing full equal marriage rights and using homophobic preachers like Donnie McClurkin. Then there’s the pro-death-penalty, pro-gun nonsense coming from the Obama campaign.
Take a look around, if you’re feeling burned and betrayed by Obama, as many progressive Americans are.
One of the saddest things to see as the American military occupation of Iraq has continued is that resistance to it has faltered. Once strong antiwar protests have faltered, from the exhaustion of compassion and the feeling that nothing anybody does will make a difference.
For that reason, when antiwar protests are now organized, they’re all the more worth paying attention to. In two days, on May 16th, there will be a nationwide Iraq Moratorium.
What does that mean? It just means that people across America will be protesting against the occupation of Iraq.
Go to the Iraq Moratorium web site. Check to see if there’s a protest near you. If there is, and you can do anything to make it, be there.
Tomorrow is the Pennsylvania Democratic presidential primary, and so things are getting pretty desperate for supporters of Hillary Clinton. Desperate too, are the attempts by supporters of Republican John McCain to somehow find a way destroy the widespread popular support that has grown around the presidential campaign of Barack Obama.
Far out! Only, it turns out that the same Christian missionary also says that public education, and even the National Football League, are part of an international satanic plot.
Oops. It turns out that Loren Davis isn’t so credible.
What’s more, it seems that Loren Davis has said that 5 pointed stars are symbols of Satan. Guess which campaign has a 5 pointed star as the central element of its candidate’s logo? It isn’t Barack Obama. It’s John McCain.
Oops again. According to the wacko logic of Loren Davis Ministries, John McCain is a satanist.
Last year, America was shocked by the disclosure that clothes at Gap Kids had been made by children in India working in conditions that were essentially equivalent to slavery. As a result, many Americans have decided that they ethically cannot buy any clothes made in sweatshops outside of the United States.
Barack Obama opposes this outsourcing of American jobs to overseas sweatshops as well, and has laid down plans for ending special tax breaks to encourage corporations to use these unethical foreign sources of labor.
So, it would be a mistake for you to go and buy a foreign-made sweatshop shirt supporting Barack Obama. Buy an Obama Shirt from Skreened instead. The shirts on Skreened are all made in the USA by American Apparel, and sold and shipped from Columbus, Ohio.
Support the most ethical candidate with the most ethical t-shirt.
This is about the most hilarious, and the most serious, idea that I’ve seen in a long, long time.
A week ago, George W. Bush admitted that he approved of a special meeting of members of his cabinet, including the Vice President, to identify specific torture techniques that American agents could use.
This was two years before Abu Ghraib torture was revealed. There is now a direct line between George W. Bush and Abu Ghraib torture. George W. Bush has openly admitted to this, now.
Has CNN reported one word about this news? No. They’re spending more time on Britney Spears, putting up a special poll asking their viewers to say, “Britney Spears: Is She America’s Most Important Cultural Figure?”
CNN has failed Americans. So, who will step up and do the tough reporting that CNN refuses to do? Leave it to BNN: The Bathroom News Network. See the video newscast yourself.
Perrspectives offers a great insight into the corporate dysfuntion of the most powerful news media in America.
“The so-called “maverick” John McCain has never been subjected to the inquisitorial equivalent of the rectal probes Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton received last night… Here are 10 debate questions John McCain will never be asked.”
The 10 topics that John McCain will never be called upon in a presidential debate to answer for:
1. The apocalyptic violence of John Hagee, a televangelist associate of John McCain who is helping his campaign
2. McCain’s legendary temper
3. The confusion John McCain has demonstrated about basic facts about Iran and Iraq
4. McCain’s history of extramarital affairs
5. The flip flop on whether Jerry Falwell was an “agent of intolerance”
6. Elitism from John McCain’s wealth
7. Why the flip-flopping by McCain on his religious identity?
8. McCain’s vote in favor of torture as a Senator on multiple occasions
9. Flip flop on Bush’s tax cuts
10. McCain’s own admission that he doesn’t understand economics well
Mind you, I don’t think that all these questions would be appropriate - the question about religion, and the question about extramarital affairs. Still, given that Barack Obama has had to endure of this sort of question, it’s valid to question why the news media has refused to give John McCain the same kind of scrutiny. Thanks to Perrspective for pointing that out.
A new web site has police officers freaking out, issuing statements that it’s making their jobs more dangerous. There’s no evidence for any such thing, of course, but lack of evidence doesn’t stop cops from freaking out every now and then, as they did back in 2006, with the coming of June 6, 2006 (6/6/2006 was supposed by them to be a Devil’s Day when crime would rise, though it never did).
The source of police panic this time is a simple web site: Rate My Cop. The web site allows people to rate individual police officers on a scale of one to five, and leave comments about their professional demeanor.
Some police have complained that such a web site could lead to increased physical attacks against police officers. Others are even calling for special laws to be made to make the site illegal.
Why? There have been no attacks against police officers that can be linked to the site. Rate My Cop just holds police officers accountable to public opinion, for good or for bad.
In an age when police officers are gaining powers to intrude into the private lives of American citizens, a little accountability in the opposite direction is a welcome thing. Cops need to remember that they’re public servants, and ought to be accountable to the people they’re supposed to be serving.
Oh, how twee. The people at Ireland’s Eye have set up a Leprechaun livecam, which they say has been put in a sacred tree that is protected by a fairy. What kind of lazy fairy tries to protect a tree but can’t even keep a webcam from being stuck in the tree’s branches?
Well, there it is nonetheless. Right now, the image that’s being shown is from 1:03 AM Tipperary Time, so it’s not very entertaining. In the day, apparently, you’re able to see some rocks. Gripping stuff.
Yet, many people have submitted sightings of leprechauns on the web cam. Here are some of their comments:
You may not believe me I saw somthing sitting there and then as soon as I saw it, it was gone. My freind saw it as well.
I saw a small figure his apparel was seen easily, the unknown figure was wearing a pointed cap red in colour, a white undershirt and a green vest with green shoes and either brown or olive colour breeches, carrying a cane or something in one hand and a skin pouch filled with some kind of liquid his hair was red or black, quite astonishing really.
i saw a wee leprechaun jumping up and down on his head in the bottom left section of the grass. he was having lots of fun fun fun ! ! !
I saw a pixie type creature wearing what looked like a red and black Bohs scarf.
Little Blue Leprechaun sitting on a stone. There is also a tall spirit with a very clear face standing behind the stones. directly below him, in front of the stones, I can see another face but it is not as clear as the leprechaun or the spirit behind the stones. It is 11:01 pm Tipperary time.
Here’s my submission: I saw a little man in a little car with little Pennsylvania license plates and a little Barack Obama bumper sticker. I could see, given the excellent resolution of the webcam, that the car was a hybrid. Quite astonishing really.
Forget all those ridiculous advertisements for sodas pops that claim to have edge. Nobody’s got the edge on EDGE, a new biodiversity information resources put online by the Zoological Society of London. EDGE stands for Evolutionarily Distinct Globally Endangered, and exists at EdgeOfExistence.Org
None of the human posers you see pouting their way across your TV screen like Zoolander have anything close to the edge of the animals profiled on the EDGE website. EDGE animals are far out, both in terms of their evolutionary adaptations and in terms of being far out on a limb. They’re all in danger of extinction.
Consider the Aye Aye, the skanky lemur that issues a blood-curdling scream in the night, and uses one extremely long, kinky finger to probe for its meals. Or, how about the long-beaked echidna, a mammal that lays eggs? Would a giant salamander as long as a human being interest you?
Check it out, and then get involved, because these animals are too close to the edge for their own good. With climate change on a rampage their little niches may soon be gone forever.
