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Al Gore told NPR this week that the typhoon in Burma "might be associated with continued global warming." The Cato Institute's Indur Goklany wonders how this can be possible, since sea-surface temperatures in the Bay of Bengal before the storm hit were about the same as they were at the same time last year, and were actually cooler than in 2005. So how can one say that warming contributed...Posted 02:53 PM to Environment & Energy | Comments(0) | Share this post A report last week from MIT's Technology Review points out that we've been experiencing a severe silicon drought in the US since 2005. Capacity to extract and produce silicon, long used for semiconductors and in microtechnology, has not kept pace with the increasing demand--especially for the type of silicon used in solar panels. So even as support for generating solar power has lifted the...Posted 11:45 AM to Environment & Energy | Comments(2) | Share this post He's going to veto the farm bill:"At a time of record farm income, Congress decided to further increase subsidy rates, qualify more people for taxpayer support and move programs toward more government control," Schafer told reporters today. "The president will veto this bill." ...Bush had also asked for a $200,000 cap on payments to farm owners. The bill ends payments to individuals...Posted 09:12 PM to Environment & Energy | Comments(9) | Share this post It's tempting to agree with Bob Kagan--that the 21st century will indeed be just like the 19th. Yet there's (at least) one crucial difference: Following J.A. Hobson's analysis, 19th century imperialism was largely driven by a quest for new markets, while 21st century "imperialism" is mostly driven by a quest for security of supply, in order to up the living standards...Posted 03:26 PM to Environment & Energy | Comments(3) | Share this post Lest anyone think that Isabella Rossellini's foray into zoophilia for the cover image of our environmental issue was a one-time deal, check out this year's Sundance Film Festival, which features a series of short "Green Pornos" directed, written by, and starring the most genetically perfect human being on the planet (thanks to MoJo for the link).
The films feature...Posted 02:38 PM to Environment & Energy | Comments(11) | Share this post Usually, when anyone claims to have a simple, elegant solution to the problem of runaway greenhouse-gas emissions that doesn't require a massive restructuring of the world's energy policies, well, I narrow my eyes and keep a hand on my wallet. But New Scientist has a story that sounds... well, let's just call it "eyebrow raising." Ning Zeng, a climatologist at the University ...Posted 01:11 PM to Environment & Energy | Comments(16) | Share this post In other cool animal news, a group of scientists in New Zealand have released more information about that colossal squid carcass they've been studying for the past year. The 32-foot-long squid has eyes about the size of beachballs, and may not even be full-grown—it's possibly even just 2/3 the size of a mature adult. Very few people have ever seen a colossal squid alive, and only...Posted 03:32 PM to Environment & Energy | Comments(19) | Share this post Judy Pasternak had a good piece in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday taking a closer look at the rapid proliferation of uranium-mining claims on the fringes of Grand Canyon National Park. The number of claims within five miles of the park has soared from just 10 in January 2003 to more than 1,100 now, with most of the new claims on the Kaibab Plateau north of the canyon. Pasternak highlights the dilemma...Posted 01:55 PM to Environment & Energy | Comments(8) | Share this post I can't say for certain what role The Wall Street Journal's in-house conservatives played in this incident, recounted by one of the paper's news editors, but there are at least a couple important insights here:
The other night, the phrase "global warming" drew our attention. Its use as a "stated fact" in a commentary piece seemed loaded, and we decided to edit it...Posted 01:45 PM to Environment & Energy | Comments(13) | Share this post
Because she's a dominant hermaphrodite with the social intelligence of a primate, that's why. Smithsonian magazine has up an amazing piece about spotted hyenas in Kenya, detailing their matriarchical clannish society and bizarre private parts (hyenas were long thought to have witch-like powers, including the ability to change gender at will to foil predators—in fact, female hyenas have extremely...Posted 12:30 PM to Environment & Energy | Comments(5) | Share this post This probably isn't the first thing anyone wants to see looming over their house:
That's from this Reuters slideshow of last Friday's eruption of Mount Chaiten in Chile, a volcano that was long believed to be inactive.
--Bradford PlumerPosted 11:55 AM to Environment & Energy | Comments(4) | Share this post Guess it's not just American politicians calling for a gas-tax holiday: Now the New Zealand government is going to hold off on adding liquid fuels to its national cap-and-trade system for two years, to temper rising gas prices (the cap would've boosted gas prices up to 30 cents/gallon). New Zealand's Greens are enraged, although the prime minister insists that high oil prices are doing...Posted 11:32 AM to Environment & Energy | Comments(3) | Share this post
For those who don't always check the front page, I have a web-only column on Hillary Clinton's turn to conservative populism.
I noticed that several commentors objected to my statement that the Bush tax cuts caused the middle class to pay a higher share of the federal tax burden. This fact was proven by the Congressional Budget Office in 2004:
The CBO study, due to be released today, found...Posted 03:25 PM to The Plank | Comments(2) | Share this post Brendan Nyhan mulls the future of Jomentum in the Democratic Party:What happens to Joe Lieberman if the Democrats take the White House and
expand their Senate majority to 56 or 57 seats? Despite his support for
McCain, I think Democrats will want his vote on non-war-related issues,
so they'll hold their nose and let him keep his seniority in the
caucus. Others say he'll be stripped of ...Posted 03:16 PM to The Plank | Comments(4) | Share this post
The notion of a Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton "unity ticket" has
been floated quite a bit the last few days. But, seriously, is the idea any
good? We asked a few friends of the magazine to weigh in. Here's David A. Bell, a professor of history at Johns Hopkins University and a contributing editor for The New Republic.10 Reasons for Barack Obama not to pick Hillary...Posted 01:52 PM to The Plank | Comments(6) | Share this post I'm not really sure how else to interpret his column from today, which diagnoses one of Obama's primary handicaps as the following:
The Obama narrative is intellectual and ideological (not social) elitism. Humble roots have never been a guarantee of intellectual humility, especially when a mind comes to flower at Columbia and Harvard. Obama's dismissal of small-town views and values...Posted 01:19 PM to The Plank | Comments(13) | Share this post Crowley has the McCain/O'Reilly transcript where the senator denies voting against Bush in 2000 here. And Mike notes that either McCain or Arianna Huffington is lying. According to Mickey Kaus' math, it is actually now 4 people who say they heard McCain make the comment.Even better than the transcript, however, is the video itself. Not only does McCain make a (Freudian?) slip, but he seems...Posted 12:47 PM to The Plank | Comments(1) | Share this post The group of moderate-to-conservative House Democrats is siding with the GOP in blocking the Iraq–Afghanistan war funding bill because it includes money for Jim Webb's GI bill for soldiers returning from Iraq. This runs afoul of the Blue Dogs' commitment to uphold the Democrats' (increasingly tenuous) pay-as-you-go pledge.In general I tend to be pretty sympathetic to the Blue Dogs' ...Posted 12:43 PM to The Plank | Comments(3) | Share this post The idea of a Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton "unity ticket" has
been floated quite a bit the last few days. But, seriously, is the idea any
good? We asked a few friends of the magazine to weigh in. Here's Michael
Tomasky, editor of Guardian America.
A part of me has lately warmed somewhat to the idea of Barack Obama asking
Hillary Clinton to join him as his running mate. But on ...Posted 09:33 AM to The Plank | Comments(11) | Share this post It's a good thing for Obama that he's pretty much got the nomination in the bag, because I don't think this video is going to get him that many votes (H/t T.P.):--Jason ZengerlePosted 08:55 PM to The Plank | Comments(18) | Share this post The idea of a Barack
Obama-Hillary Clinton "unity ticket" has been floated quite a bit the last few
days. But, seriously, is the idea any good? We asked a few friends of the
magazine to weigh in. Here's Mark Schmitt, senior fellow at the New America
Foundation.
There are fights within the Democratic Party that reflect
deep structural and ideological rifts that, in turn, are...Posted 06:06 PM to The Plank | Comments(31) | Share this post In general, I dig quirky scenes-from-the-trail color. But CNN has a snippet from Obama's press plane so weird and stupid it must be seen to be believed. Titled simply "Obama in jeans," it presumably aims to show us the famously dapper candidate in a dressed-down moment. But you can't see the jeans that well in the grainy footage, and at some point in the 1:01 video (the last quarter...Posted 05:49 PM to The Plank | Comments(13) | Share this post Karl Rove, writing in today's Wall Street Journal:
This will be a very difficult year for Republicans. The economy's shaky state, an unpopular war, and the natural desire for partisan change after eight years of one party in the White House have helped tilt the balance to the Democrats.
Gee, Karl, any other factors you're leaving out here? Republican scandals and incompetence...Posted 05:24 PM to The Plank | Comments(5) | Share this post ...always have, always will.I saw the Tarantino-scripted, Tony-Scott-directed True Romance twice in theatres, but was one of the few to do so, as the movie made a paltry $11.5 million during its initial release. But it became a cult success on video, especially once Pulp Fiction made Tarantino a household name, and Maxim has gathered the cast and filmmakers for a 15th anniversary testimonial. As is...Posted 04:25 PM to The Plank | Comments(8) | Share this post
A smart friend whose thing is foreign policy emails the following theory:I'm wondering if anyone has thought to compare Hillary's campaign to... the Iraq war. Both were planned with a sense of entitlement. Both assumed a cakewalk, followed by a coronation. In each case that thinking led to similar management and personnel problems. Only late in the game did Bush/Hillary develop a last-ditch...Posted 02:35 PM to The Stump | Comments(4) | Share this post I'm a little late coming to this, but Jonathan Martin had a good piece Monday thinking through how John McCain's age will play in the general. It's especially timely in light of yesterday's "losing his bearings" back-and-forth.
Jonathan writes:
But some Democrats already have explicitly questioned McCain’s fitness to serve at his age, including Rep. John Murtha, ...Posted 02:06 PM to The Stump | Comments(0) | Share this post Jay Cost of Real Clear Politics has an interesting post laying out Hillary's unlikely, but not impossible, path to the nomination. Key grafs:
So, here's my question. What happens to "It's Over" if Clinton pulls a 40-point victory in West Virginia on Tuesday, then follows it up a week later with a 30-point victory in Kentucky? If these states turn out in the same margins that...Posted 12:36 PM to The Stump | Comments(20) | Share this post John McCain is campaigning in New Jersey today (with Joe Lieberman in tow). The state hasn't gone Republican in a presidential race since 1988, but some recent polling has shown McCain slightly ahead of Obama and Clinton in the Garden State. But I'm awfully skeptical that NJ will really be in play this fall. The last few Senate and presidential cycles have brought predictions that Jersey...Posted 11:55 AM to The Stump | Comments(4) | Share this post Despite Arianna's claim, that's what he tells Bill O'Reilly. Transcript comes via a PR firm I assume is promoting her new book: O'REILLY: OK. Arianna Huffington says you didn't vote for Bush in 2000. She's one of these people who is going to come after you.MCCAIN: Yes.O'REILLY: On her website yesterday, somebody blogged that you collaborated with the North Vietnamese...Posted 11:04 AM to The Stump | Comments(11) | Share this post Sounds like a giveaway verbal slip to me. It's hard to believe a practiced pol could be so sloppy. But "I just voted for 'em" doesn't make any sense, it's not a construction anyone would use. Not that Edwards' ability to have a real effect on this race isn't long past. --Michael Crowley Posted 10:15 AM to The Stump | Comments(7) | Share this post Andy Borowitz:Bill Clinton Switches to Obama: Latest Superdelegate Defection for HillarySome people might not be shocked. --Michael CrowleyPosted 10:10 AM to The Stump | Comments(4) | Share this post As long as we're doing what-ifs, John Heilemann has an interesting one in his latest column:
What if Clinton had gone magnanimous on Obama and the Reverend Wright?The GOP strategist Alex Castellanos offers an intriguing theory about how Hillary might have reacted differently, and more effectively, to the issue that threatened to swallow Obama. “After the Reverend Wright controversy...Posted 12:12 AM to The Stump | Comments(21) | Share this post Time's Tumulty on Hillary's five big mistakes is a good read. But let me offer a candidate for number six: Standing by her Iraq vote. Hillary made it clear that, knowing what she knows now, she would not have voted to authorize the war in October 2002. But she never flat-out apologized for her vote. Let's flash back to February 2007:One of the most important decisions that Senator Hillary...Posted 05:13 PM to The Stump | Comments(26) | Share this post Two quick, semi-related thoughts:
1.) On the "white Americans" comment, I 80-percent agree with Mike. Hillary was saying something we've all been preoccupied with for months now. It gets more attention when she says it, but you can't pretend it's never come up in polite company. The problem is the implication that non-white Americans aren't hard-working, which, if you'...Posted 01:57 PM to The Stump | Comments(34) | Share this post It's definitely uncomfortable to hear her say it, but if Hillary thinks white Americans won't elect a black president, is it so transgressive for her to say it out loud? Everyone in politics and media has been having this conversation for more than a year now. If anything it seems better than reliance on cutesy euphemisms like "working class" or "electability." I'm ...Posted 10:40 AM to The Stump | Comments(60) | Share this post Tom DeFrank has something I hadn't heard before:
A top Democratic source with insight into Bill's and Hillary's states of mind says the Clintons are convinced that a Democratic presidency is all but certain no matter how messy the fight for the nomination.
In that scenario - which the Obama side and some Democratic elders worry is wishful thinking at best, delusional at worst - there...Posted 11:41 PM to The Stump | Comments(17) | Share this post
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