A Message For Senator Alexander

Hey Lamar! Your call for 100 new nuclear power plants is stupid.

Says Lamar:

Why are we ignoring the cheap energy solution to global warming which is nuclear power?" Alexander asked a hearing of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), of which he is a member.

He said, "Over the next 20 years, if we really want to deal with global warming, we really only have one option and that is to double the number of nuclear power plants. There is no technological way to obtain a large amount of cheap, reliable, clean electricity other than nuclear power."

One keeps hearing how “cheap” nuclear energy is, which I find incredibly dishonest. If it were so cheap, there would be nuclear power plants all over the place. There are not. Lamar is doing some funny math.

There are a slew of government subsidies to the nuclear power industry, stuff that green energy producers (or any industry, for that matter) would give their eye-teeth to have. For example, we have the Price Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act , in which the government indemnifies the nuclear industry in the event of an accident. Boy, Big Pharma would kill for one of those. And we have the Dept. of Energy’s Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, in which the government pays for building and securing long term storage of nuclear waste. Man, the chemical industry is pea-green with envy over that one!

And by the way: what about all of that nuclear waste, Lamar? That stuff which is lethal for hundreds of years? That doesn’t sound so clean or cheap to me. Where are we going to put it all? At taxpayer expense, no less?

What about the pollution caused by uranium mines, Lamar? What, you never heard of the polluted well water in New Mexico and poisoned waters of Lake Ontario? Who pays for that?

What about the fact that so much nuclear fuel comes from Central Asia and Africa? So we’d be trading a Middle Eastern energy source for an African one? Trading being nice to Saudi Arabia to sucking up to Uzbekistan? Not sure that helps our energy security, buddy. They boil people alive there.

This is just so typical of our politicians today: spit out some bumper sticker nonsense they’ve dreamed up (“cheap, reliable, clean electricity!”) and don’t even bother to see if it’s true. Do you think uranium pellets grow on trees?

Dumbass.

The Sierra Club’s Carl Pope has more about Lamar’s boneheaded idea:

It appears that what is envisaged is that the taxpayers actually pay for building these plants -- but not that the taxpayers would ever be repaid from the sales of electricity. No, the profits from this investment would flow to shareholders in big utility and nuclear companies. This is not even a bailout -- I guess you could call it a bail-forward. And it would be very expensive.

This is your typical wingnut welfare program. Get the government (that’s you and me, folks) to pay for the infrastructure, and make sure we keep on paying while wealthy investors reap the profits. While you’re at it, by all means make sure there are tax cuts for the wealthy to ensure that the true beneficiaries never repay the government (you and me) for our initial investment.

It’s a classic example of nationalize the costs, privatize the profits. Furthermore:

Even the Business Round Table, in its recent study calling for major policy initiatives in the climate arena, conceded that in the absence of much larger subsidies than are currently available to nuclear, the most we can realistically expect is to replace the existing fleet of nuclear power plants as they are retired -- nuclear simply is not going to be a bigger part of our energy future unless we just keep throwing more money at it.

So, even 100 new nuclear plants won't be enough to replace the dirty coal plants as Lamar envisions.

Don’t want.

America The Awkward

I’m so glad we have an African-American president and gay marriage in five (or is it six?) states and all of the other things that prove America has moved past its historic squeamishness of all things non-white, non-straight and non-male.

That means we can ignore people like the Family Action Council of Tennessee’s David Fowler, who objects to a proposed ordinance that would protect Metro Nashville GLBT employees from discrimination on the grounds that it would be “awkward”:

Asked about the unintended consequences, he said passage of a bill would lead to lawsuits and confusion and awkward situations, citing a recent publicized case in Maine in which a transgender student who was biologically a boy was allowed to use the girls restroom.

For the perfect takedown of this idiocy, read Aunt B. I just loved the whole “awkward situations” thing, though. Heavens, we can’t have that. Let’s make sure gays, lesbians and transgendered folks continue to face job discrimination because to do otherwise would be, ahem, “awkward.”

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia we have inner city kids barred from a private swimming pool because of “complexion” issues:

Creative Steps Day Camp paid The Valley Swim Club more than $1900 for one day of swimming a week, but after the first day, the money was quickly refunded and the campers were told not to return.

At first there was no explanation, but some of the campers recalled overhearing comments about the color of their skin while at the club.

Then the swim club president John Duesler issued this statement: "There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club."

Yes, well, if you take a look at the club’s website, the patrons are all of a certain, shall we say, complexion. I imagine having all of those brown inner city kids in the pool would be very awkward, indeed.

Finally, on Fox & Friends we have host Brian Kilmeade going into full meltdown mode as he claims whites marrying non-whites has weakened our gene pool, leading to things like Alzheimer’s. You just can’t make this shit up:

Brian Kilmeade: We keep marrying other species and other ethnics--

Gretchen Carlson: Are you sure you are not suffering from some of the causes of dementia right now?

Brian Kilmeade: The problem is the Swedes have pure genes. They marry other Swedes, that's the rule. Finns marry other Finns; they have a pure society. In America we marry everybody. We will marry Italians and Irish.

Dave Briggs: This study does not apply?

Brian Kilmeade: Does not apply to us.

Italians and Irish as another species? A rule that Swedes can only marry other Swedes? Intermarriage leading to Alzheimer’s?

Is Kilmeade on crack?

Gosh I’m glad we live in a post-racial America, an America where we don’t need things like anti-discrimination laws. To admit otherwise would just be too darned awkward.

Message To Obama

Dear President Obama:


Love, Greenpeace

But Who Will Kill The Icky Spider?

Oh, crap. I spent half the day putting together a post about the mess that is “the death of macho,” conservative author Reihan Salam’s equal-opportunity-offender tome to the global economic crisis and how it will lead to a female-dominated world.

There’s just too much wrong with this article to know where to even start, so I’ve given up. Suffice it to say, Salam relies on a lot of outdated stereotypes about gender roles, cherry-picked statistics and some mighty selective international examples to conclude that men are on the way out and women are ascendent.

You see, the global recession has hit men harder than women, since the job losses have occurred in male-dominated fields like finance, manufacturing and construction. As a result, males worldwide have folded like lawn chairs, ill equipped to handle their newfound irrelevancy.

Men of the world now lie curled in the fetal position, sucking their thumbs, leaving only lesbian women with mustaches to fill the void. Males must adapt to this new world order run by females, he warns, or resist. And resistance means violence, ‘cuz they’re dudes and that’s how they roll.

Okie dokie.

I think I should have stopped reading after the third paragraph when I got to this:

The death throes of macho are easy to find if you know where to look.

Must. not. make. obvious. joke.

Courtney at Feministing has written a good rebuttal to this nonsense:

I don't think anyone can herald the "death of macho," or that men are an "endangered species" (Zincenko), until things actually change. Women still aren't making equal pay for equal work and still are disproportionately targeted with subprime mortgages. As Dana Goldstein reports in "Pink Collar Blues," sixty percent of impoverished children are living in female-headed households. The poverty rate is still higher among women than it is among men of any race. One out of six American women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime.

Not exactly the “women on top” view of the world Salam presents.

Just for kicks I though I'd show everyone Salam's hilarious look at the post-macho world:

Surly, lonely, and hard-drinking men, who feel as though they have been rendered historically obsolete, and who long for lost identities of macho, are already common in ravaged post-industrial landscapes across the world, from America’s Rust Belt to the post-Soviet wreckage of Vladimir Putin’s Russia to the megalopolises of the Middle East. If this recession has any staying power, and most believe it does, the massive psychic trauma will spread like an inkblot.

Uh-oh! EVERYBODY PANIC!!!!

Seriously. I want a job where I can mix some government statistics with my personal social stereotypes, arrive at a dumbass thesis and get paid for it. I don't think macho will ever die because as long as there's testosterone, there's gonna be macho. But if I'm wrong and macho is indeed dead, it's because of the failure of this:

Think about it. It was the ultimate macho moment, and it was a spectacular FAIL.

Macho ain't dead. As Adam Kleinheider found to his horror and disbelief, men are still screwing around on their wives. Gun and ammo sales are up. "The Proposal" is only number four at the box office.

Fear not.

May Not Town

Our short civic nightmare is over:

Matthews moves for indefinite deferral on May Town Center; council approves unanimously

The mister and I visited Bells Bend over the weekend; we took a walk through Bells Bend Park, and I tried to count how many different bird calls I heard.

Years ago a friend and I drove several miles out of our way to take the car ferry across the river at Old Hickory. We knew that the ferry's demise was inevitable, though it would keep operating for several years after our trip. I'm wishing I'd gone back to take it again. I think we were the only car on the ferry; I thought operating that ferry must be a lonely job.

As we walked around on Saturday I snapped this picture, which seems appropriate:

Surreal

Just came from the nail salon, one of those Vietnamese sweatshop-type places. They had the televisions tuned to CNN and the Michael Jackson spectacle. Every single nail technician in the place had their eyes glued to the TV screens. Most of these folks don’t speak English or if they do, it's spotty. Several are newly-arrived in this country. All are from Vietnam, a communist country. And all were deeply mourning the loss of Michael Jackson.

I find that very interesting.

Permanent War Economy Electric Boogaloo

Beating swords into plowshares? Saxby Chambliss isn’t a fan:

An effort by Sen. Saxby Chambliss to force the Pentagon into buying more F-22 fighter jets is reviving tensions between the Georgia Republican and a stalwart in his own party, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).

Chambliss won narrow approval at a closed-door Senate Armed Services Committee markup for his amendment authorizing $1.75 billion to purchase seven F-22 Raptors from Georgia-based Lockheed Martin — despite strong objections from McCain, the ranking Republican on the panel, and a veto threat from President Obama.

This is corporate welfare for the war economy in a nutshell. Sen. Saxby Chambliss is trying to force us to spend $1.75 billion -- that’s with a B folks -- on a program the Pentagon doesn’t even want!

The F-22 is obsolete:

It is a cold war relic, designed for defense against the Soviet Union. It has never flown in combat, much less in the wars this country is actually fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But Republicans and a handful of breakaway Democrats in Congress want to stay on the F-22 gravy train :

During the closed markup, Chambliss got support from three other Democrats and one Independent: Sens. Edward Kennedy (Mass.), Robert Byrd (W.Va.) — both voting by proxy — Mark Begich (Alaska) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).

Lieberman supports it because although Lockheed Martin assembles the F-22 in Marietta, Ga., the engines are built by Pratt & Whitney in Connecticut. I’d guess the other Senators have similar jobs incentives for keeping an obsolete fighter jet the Pentagon doesn’t want in production. After all, that is the point: that is why companies like Lockheed Martin spread their production around the country, to maximize their influence in Congress.

And it’s not just jobs: some in Congress have their personal fortunes at stake, too. For example, Rep. Phil Gingrey of Georgia, a vocal F-22 defender, owns stock in Boeing, Lockheed Martin’s partner in the F-22.

I’ve written about this issue before here. It would be nice if we could cut wasteful Pentagon programs that cost in the billions of dollars and transition that money to job-creating programs in the green energy sector, for example, or healthcare reform.

People need jobs. America needs to manufacture things. Would it be so hard to transition away from manufacturing an obsolete fighter jet to making solar panels and wind turbines? Heck, we transitioned from manufacturing consumer goods to manufacturing for war during World War II.

Of course, it doesn’t work that way anymore.

It’s not like the Pentagon has suddenly become all touchy-feely, we-are-the-worldy, everyone hold hands and sing Kumbaya. They simply wish to cap the F-22 fleet at 187 planes, which should be sufficient. Sec. Gates wants to transition production to the F-35 instead, also made by Lockheed Martin. This isn’t a cut in Pentagon spending at all, it’s just changing to a different kind of fighting weapon. And its controversial because people like Saxby Chambliss want to preserve jobs in their states.

One of these days, maybe a few centuries from now, we’re going to look back on an America that built its economy on war toys at a time when the people needed healthcare and clean energy. And we’re going to wonder what the hell were we thinking?

But for now, the permanent war economy rolls on.

Huzzah.

Your Liberal Media

[UPDATE]:

Joe Klein on the “Real America”:

Sarah Palin's political future will be crippled by her inability to speak to that America, as will the Republican Party's, so long as it scorns diversity and "cosmopolitan" sensibilities--as Rudy Guiliani, of all people, did at the GOP Convention last summer. The attempts to plaster over this glaring deficiency by putting people like Michael Steele and Bobby Jindal front and center are, to coin a phrase, like putting lipstick on a pig.

Indeed. And cosmopolitan urban elites like Mika need to quite apologizing for who they are and where they come from, as if growing up in New York City and Washington D.C. is somehow not “real America.”

-------------------------

Apparently, “real Americans” are those people who agree with Sarah Palin and her “conservative views.”

Those who don’t support Sarah Palin are “elites” who live in liberal cities. Also, too, they are not “real Americans.” And such as.

If this nonsense came from Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Bill O’Reilly it wouldn’t merit a post. But it didn’t.

It came from Mika Emilie Leonia Brzezinski, an expert on “real Americans” by virtue of being the daughter of former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski . Her mother is the grandniece of Czechoslovakian ex-president Edvard Beneš.

I think someone is feeling a little defensive about her pedigree, don't you?

Brzezinski , of course, is co-host of Morning Joe on the “liberal” cable news network MSNBC. And this is why I no longer watch cable news. I thought newsbots like Mika learned their lesson about "real America" during the election. Sadly, no.

Watch and weep:



(h/t, Atrios)

Then & Now

Several folks have asked how Zelda is doing since her mystery accident which left her paralyzed.


Here she is after her surgery. I was able to bring her home last Monday. She was paralyzed for several days, then slowly was able to sit up, move a paw, wag her tail. There have been quite a few accidents in the house, and I have the cleanest floors in the neighborhood because I was mopping them once or twice a day!

Meanwhile, I have some awesome arm and leg muscles from lifting a 40-lb dog and carrying her outside every hour and a half. Silver linings!

Here she is about five days ago, sitting up but not really ambulatory. Then at the end of last week it’s like her leg muscles suddenly remembered what they are supposed to do. She’s taken a few shaky steps outside, I’ve been able to entice her to try to walk with biscuits and other treats. She actually took about three steps today and stood, shakily. So I’m starting to think the doctor was right when he said she’d be recovered in two to three weeks.

I don’t want her to overdo it, and unfortunately we have hardwood floors in the house, which is hard for her. But we’ll try walking some more outside where the grass is soft and she can dig her claws into the soil and see what happens.

I’m frankly amazed. After seeing her completely paralyzed for so many days, I had little hope that she’d be able to walk, or if so, without some kind of cart or other assistance.

She is truly Zelda the Wonder Dog!

So Much For Country First

I just read the Vanity Fair article on Sarah Palin. Nothing that liberal bloggers and news junkies didn’t already know, of course, save the part about the conservative cruise ship:

Palin had been on the national Republican radar for barely a year, after a cruise ship of conservative columnists, including The Weekly Standard’s William Kristol, had stopped in Juneau in 2007 and had succumbed to her charms when she invited them to the governor’s house for a luncheon of halibut cheeks.

OH. So that’s what you did on your vacation. Hopped off the cruise ship in Juneau, picked up a few knick-knacks for the in-laws, some Inuit trinkets for the kids, and oh by the way, here’s your vice presidential running mate.

Glad to know conservatives take this shit seriously.

And really that’s what continues to surprise/offend me about the whole Sarah Palin narrative. I care less about the gossipy tidbits than the fact that everyone, the writer included, seems to treat Sarah Palin like she’s the star of a Hollywood blockbuster who's being difficult at Cannes. No one seems to realize that a person completely unsuitable for high national office (or even high state office, if you believe half of what’s in the article) was trying to be Vice President of the United States. You know, a heartbeat away from the presidency and all that. They knew she was all wrong, dangerously wrong, and they forged ahead anyway.

In a campaign titled “Country First,” no less. Irony is the first casualty of political ambition, I guess.

I have to wonder, amid all of the last minute scrambling and rescheduling as the seasoned politicos realized that Sarah Palin was not ready to campaign for vice president, did it dawn on anyone that she was not ready to be vice president?

As they toured the country under the slogan “Country First” with the woman they nicknamed “Little Shop of Horrors,” did no one stop to think about, you know, putting country first?

You have to read nearly to the end of the article to get that question answered:

In recent rounds of long conversations, most made it clear that they suffer a kind of survivor’s guilt: they can’t quite believe that for two frantic months last fall, caught in a Bermuda Triangle of a campaign, they worked their tails off to try to elect as vice president of the United States someone who, by mid-October, they believed for certain was nowhere near ready for the job, and might never be. They quietly ponder the nightmare they lived through.

Oh no, you don’t. You DO NOT ask for sympathy. For the love of all that is holy, do you people have any idea of what you were doing? Do you not have a scintilla of perspective?

Survivors guilt, my ass. You people should be on your knees begging America for forgiveness. You almost turned the keys to the White House over to the psychodoodle faction of the Republican Party. You folks in the McCain campaign knew that better than anyone.

This is America we’re talking about here! Country first, remember? Hello?

They all know that if their candidate—a 72-year-old cancer survivor—had won the presidency, the vice-presidency would be in the hands of a woman who lacked the knowledge, the preparation, the aptitude, and the temperament for the job. To ask why none of them dared to just walk away is to ask why Colin Powell did not resign in protest over the Bush administration’s foreign policy, or why none of Bill Clinton’s disillusioned aides resigned after he lied to them about Monica Lewinsky. The question cannot comprehend the intense bonds that the blood sport of modern politics produces.

No, no, no. Getting a blow job is not the same thing as working your butt off to elect someone wholly unsuitable to be president or vice president.

And that is ultimately what scares me about America. The riches of political victory have become so vast that people will tell themselves anything if it means their side will win.

Country First is, after all, just a slogan. Words used in a political pitch, like “good to the last drop” or “breakfast of champions.” Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t.

If Sarah Palin comes back with a 2012 run, there will be people who think she’s fabulous and there will be other people, insider people, who know she lacks “the knowledge, the preparation, the aptitude, and the temperament for the job,” but will work their tails off regardless because no one steps outside the bubble long enough or far enough to realize the implications of what they are doing. They all lack perspective.

And Sarah, well, she might like to think she’s some kind of “outsider” who’s a “maverick” who doesn’t do things the “Washington way” and that might be true to a certain extent, but honey you’re going through the same sausage factory as every other politician. Don’t delude yourself.