I was going to write about Hillary Clinton tonight, and the not so subtle changes we’re seeing in her campaign strategy now that she’s lost 11 straight primaries to Barack Obama. If people thought that she was shrill and angry before, they didn’t know the half of it. It’s starting to get ugly, and I suspect it’s going to get a lot worse. Right now, it looks like she’s waging a three-pronged offensive. Her people are drawing attention to Obama’s Muslim heritage. (Today images of Obama dressed in the clothes of a Somali elder were leaked to the press.) They’re raising questions about his patriotism. And, when he fights back, they’re attacking him as Rovian. Maybe it’ll work in Ohio and Texas, where Clinton desperately needs to win next week, but her actions are coming across as incredibly desperate to this Midwesterner, and desperation is not an attractive quality in a candidate… But then I found out that CBS has made the first two seasons of the Twilight Zone available online for free. So, I’m taking the night off, and I’m leaving it in your hands… Let’s call this an OPEN THREAD! Anything goes. What do you want to talk about?
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As a lot of folks around the internet are pointing out, Hillary has also worn Muslim dress. I suppose that makes her a risk as well.
CBS has also made Star Trek available online. Just follow that Twilight Zone link for details… You have to sit through commercials, but it’s still pretty cool.
OK, let’s change the subject for a second. What do you guys make of the so-called new evidence that was just released concerning the RFK assassination?
And which was more culturally significant, Star Trek or Twilight Zone?
Damn, that’s a hard question.
Twilight Zone is now free? Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t have spent all that money on DVD’s.
And if you want to know how things are going down in Texas, Obama packed 17,000 into Reunion Arena in Dallas with thousands more turned away while Hillary held a rally in a bank parking lot. Obama will win Texas and probably Ohio too.
Phew! Who cares about Obama and Clinton now that Ralph Nader has entered the race.
He endorsed Edwards, so, I think it follows that Edwards would endorse him.
And, unlike Obama, he’s a real Arab, not a wannabe. (And, unlike remaining candidates, a real liberal.)
If Obama wins, I’m voting for him. If not, it is nice to finally have a backup plan.
Debate tonight on NBC at 9:00. Should be good, if you can pull yourself away from American Idol.
I’m with you, Mark, on the look and sound of desperation. There was a time when I felt Clinton and Obama were similar enough that it didn’t matter who won. Now, however, it’s appearing that she is coming unglued.
Not an attribute I find appealing in a President.
It’s kind of funny how easily that theme of experience is spun into “Washington insider,” while this “lack of experience” attack appeals to those of us who don’t want a Washington insider at the helm. Clinton probably should have spent more time focus-grouping that theme before running with it.
Wish her to the cornfield Billy.
Its good that you turned her into a jack-in-the-box. Real good.
Now wish her into the cornfield.
Lovely way to tie up the threads, Thoreau!
See also:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/25/AR2008022502501_pf.html
One should ask, that with all of her “35+ years of experience in government” … what EXACTLY has she done for the country, besides NOT file divorce as First Lady? What EXACTLY has she accomplished as a “leader”?
Mr. Obama, by contrast, the new kid on the D.C. streets, in Chicago and elsewhere, has accomplished much and he has made a real differenmce to hundreds if not thousands of his constituents/clents. His rhetoric and tone are damn near revelatory.
Words DO matter, Billary … especially those that echo from the White House.
The next thing you know one will be able to watch Judge Judy episodes all day long on youtube.
Yay Twilight Zone!
Boo Hillary!
Hey ol’ fellow readers.
My first question was where to put this comment. Old threads? New Michael Pollan post? Seems best I take advantage of the most recent “open thread” offer.
Before I go on, I’ll offer a summary. If you care about global warming, please read this article in the New Yorker. For those with more time, here’s how I got there.
For the past couple days, my wife, daughter and I have been at one of those hotels with a mini-indoor water park attached. Like our friend Trusty G and Hannah Montana, parenthood places you in places you didn’t expect to be. After a long winter and a month of flu, we were ready to join some old friends in any place that could manufacture spring. It wasn’t without a sense of guilt. Outside our room, I could hear the system that powered the place chugging, puffing and wheezing. As I contemplated our waste for want of off-season water warmth, I also was thinking about how far down we turned the thermostat in our leaky old home to reside in a tiny, well-insulated hotel room for a couple days. The water park seemed wasteful, but the room far more efficient than our own. Were we consuming less or more energy in that setting then our old home? I have no real idea.
There’s the rub. On past posts, I’ve questioned whether it’s better to garden or plant trees, can food or buy cans, drive 30 miles to support local co-op farms or drive 5 miles to buy mass produced produce. My instinct is always to go local, but, truth is, I have no real idea.
Last night, I was laying on the bathroom floor in the aforementioned hotel (trying not to wake sleeping family) and reading the aforementioned New Yorker article. There’s many quotes I’d like to entice you all with, but, let’s do with, according to the article, it’s as good, carbon output wise, to buy fries from McDonald’s as it is to boil and make mashed potatoes at home if you don’t put a lid on the pot.
To paraphrase my old posts, it’s nice to want/try to do good. But, I’d want the science reassuring me I’m doing actual good as opposed to just assuming I’m doing good. The article suggests that our intuitions are often wrong. Locally grown produce may produce more carbon, if, say, our locality requires more water/energy to produce a particular item than a far away location. To quote the subtitle of the article, “In measuring carbon emissions, it’s easy to confuse morality and science.”
So, I’m offering this to ya’ll for two reasons:
-I value your collective insight, and wonder what you think of the article.
-And, I think, if we really want to get serious about reducing global warming, we need the research of folks brighter and better equipped than I to give us a rational route. There’s gotta be a lot of folks out there looking for a dissertation, and a lotta doctors looking for their next project. We need to folks to analyze, compare, contrast … and publish.
Do I waste more at a modern water park or at home with an old water heater? Do I do more harm cutting down branches to grow my garden or buying canned tomatoes. I really, really, want to know.
My bias: It’s beyond time to get serious about global warming. And, getting serious means going beyond our assumptions and getting some hard evidence to guide us. I want carbon labels I can trust.
Any thoughts? Love you all.
OEC,
I hear you. We absolutely need careful analysis and recommendations about the carbon “neutrality” of all our endeavors, energy use wise. These issues have more octopi than a spider has legs.
Another example: The debate over which takes more energy to produce, plastic or paper (bags).
There are two major reasons for our research and subsidizing of ethanol production (well besides the obvious corporate agriculture lobbying dollars lining our politician’s pockets). One is to make our country less dependent on foreign oil. Second is to reduce green house gases.
There is debate over whether ethanol production yields more useable energy than it takes to produce. While I am inclined, at present, to believe the folks who say ethanol IS energy positive; still, the margins are slim. Other problems with ethanol, as a major energy source, include pollution from fertilizer run-off and the displacement of food production acreage to energy producing acreage.
With regard to ethanol and shale and sand oil deposits, the REAL issue is coming up with high-energy-density fuels for transportation systems. With this as the recognized issue, the question should become less about energy neutrality and more about abundance and efficiency in producing transportation fuel. [See my post a couple days ago about using nuclear power to extract oil from sands in Canada.]
THEN the problem of global warming and CO2 production can be address from a different perspective: how to provide CO2 negative or neutral energy to the world for non-transportation uses. To this end, I truly wonder if burning switch grass in a converted coal fired plant might not extract more energy from that switch grass than conversion of it to ethanol. Solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, and hydro power are the other major sources we can look to for meeting our energy needs.
Of course there is also the energy use efficiency half of the equation: get more work out of a unit of energy.
I don’t know if I believe all this stuff about Hillary getting desperate. I think the media is spinning it that way and we as a hungry hating society love to see someone slammed. It is not too difficult to agree that the media has been really “Down with Clinton!” and super nice to Obama. I think a lot of people have been lead down the Obama path due to the media and how they are portraying Clinton as mean and desperate. I think that she hasn’t always been perfect, but what have we seen of Obama to know if he is going to make the right decisions? Over half of his time as a senator has been running for president. I don’t know if hope is going to always save the day. I am really worried about the economy and I don’t know if Obama knows a damn thing about getting us back on track with that. At least when Bill was in office, the economy was good for working folk. I think Clinton has a better shot at fixing the economy faster.
As much as people may not like Clinton, does it really matter if we think our president is someone we’d like if we met them at a BBQ? I’d be nice. I’d probably like Obama better if I met him at a BBQ than Clinton, but being likable isn’t what this is all about. It’s about delivering what we need. We need a better economy, health care for all, to end this war and make peace with our allies and enemies. Either candidate can say what they want, but saying you can deliver and actually delivering is what i am worried about with Obama.