Take Time to Talk about the Environment

Often times, amidst political scandals and the high school-esque drama of presidential contenders, we forget about things that matter most...

Has anybody else been paying attention to the environment lately? I recall hearing this story from a couple of days ago about the drinking water in D.C. that has been contaminated with prescription medication, and now this story comes in about the EPA loosening its restrictions on smog. And who might we have to thank for this? Who do you think? The Master Chimp himself. WAPO originally broke this story, which paints yet another disturbing picture of the Shrub Administration's involvement in environmental matters.

Check out this quote from the article:

"Never before has a president personally intervened at the 11th hour, exercising political power at the expense of the law and science, to force EPA to accept weaker air quality standards than the agency chief's expert scientific judgment had led him to adopt," said John Walke, clean air director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private advocacy group. "It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference."

This just goes to show that the country allows this nutjob get away with everything, and that those who refuse to agree are either going to be removed or are forced to comply. Perhaps Curious George plans on moving to the moon with his family. That could be the only explanation. Otherwise, in good conscience, how can anyone cause harm to the planet their children and grandchildren hope to inherit in the very near future? It's truly disturbing. This is just perpetuating the Shrub Admin's brainwashing Americans into believing that global warming does not exist and that everything is, and will continue to be, okay.

I think that the Dubya Dubya Three Administration needs to watch "The Lorax"



What's fascinating to me is the fact that the EPA is not making a big stink about it. This is what they originally said about the stronger smog standards just two days ago.

Now read today's press release:

Statement by the U.S. EPA Press Secretary, Jonathan Shradar

Release date: 03/14/2008

Contact Information: Jonathan Shradar, (202) 564-4355 / shradar.jonathan@epa.gov

(Washington, D.C. – March 14, 2008) This week, EPA met its requirements under the Clean Air Act and signed the most stringent 8-hour standard ever for ozone, revising the standards for the first time in more than a decade. The agency based the changes on the full breadth of the most recent scientific evidence about the effects of ozone, the primary component of smog.

The ozone standard preferred by the President and ultimately chosen by the Agency is as stringent as the other option the Agency had considered. The same level of protection is provided by the chosen standard; only the format of the selected standard is different.

EPA’s ozone rule this week is consistent with the Clinton Administration’s policy. In fact, EPA followed what Clinton’s EPA Administrator (Carol Browner) did by choosing a secondary standard identical – in form and level – to the primary standard.

EPA is unaware of either Paul Clement or anyone else in the Solicitor General’s office ever stating or advising that “the rules contradicted the EPA’s past submissions to the Supreme Court” as the Washington Post article today asserts.

Bottom line -- America’s air is cleaner today than it was a generation ago and the rule EPA signed this week is the most stringent 8-hour standard ever for ozone.

I'd like to hear some comments about this. I think we're going to hear more about this over the next few hours, as the story broke this morning.

Immigration Battle in Prince William County, VA

Let's talk about illegal immigration for a moment...

So, in Prince William County, VA, law enforcement officials are cracking down on Latino soccer leagues that they feel may be harboring illegal immigrants. The new immigration law calls for increased attention to illegal immigration in the county. This WAPO article tells the story of soccer leagues in this county and the effect the new law has had on not just the leagues, but the families involved.

While I consider myself to be a somewhat sympathetic person at times, I can't be in this instance. I'm trying to understand if I'm supposed to feel sorry after reading this article, but sadly, I don't.

I'd like to open up a dialog on this topic to see how everyone else feels about this article.

Is There a Black Dr. Evil?

I must have missed this article by Eugene Robinson last Tuesday...

It's an interesting thought: Black politicians spending a summer at a genius boot camp to develop ideas of world domination.

While he's obviously poking fun at Geraldo Rivera, it did get me thinking. I'll tell you what: I'll sign up for the camp this summer, and report back to base camp (A.K.A. blogger.com). I have to Google the location, but I'm sure it's nowhere near Camp David or Crawford, TX...

"Journalists are a Buncha Meanies!" --- Bill Clinton

Okay, he didn't actually say that, but he might as well have...

I love reading Eugene Robinson's articles in the WAPO. They're insightful and oftentimes hilarious. In this article from last week (hey, I'm trying to play catch-up here), he discusses the male Clinton's allegations that the American media is vilifying his "wife," while glorifying Barack Obama.

In "The Clintons' Beef With the Media," Robinson writes,

"'The political press has avowedly played a role in this election. I've never seen this before,' the former president said. 'They've been active participants in this election. . . . But I don't want to talk about the press. I want to talk about the people. That's what's wrong with this election, people trying to take this election away from the people.'

Somewhere in there, if I'm not mistaken, he acknowledged that journalists are people, too, so I guess I should be thankful for that. And I should note that throughout the interview with Washington's WMAL, Bill Clinton was back in loose-cannon mode. He said Hillary Clinton 'has been the underdog ever since Iowa,' which is not true. To support that unsupportable assertion, he implied that the political establishment is opposed to his wife's candidacy, which is not true. And he claimed that 'we've gotten plenty of delegates on a shoestring,' which is true only if you don't count the more than $100 million the Clinton campaign has raised (and mostly spent)."

I have to agree with Robinson, once again. When did Billary become "the underdog?" And who decided that the pol. establishment doesn't support her? And furthermore, who decided that they wanted to hear them b****ing and moaning again (oh, wait, was that sexist?)?

Done with playing catch-up, I think now is the appropriate time to discuss an issue on the cover of today's national papers: Clinton on Obama, Round 3,000.

Okay, so despite the outcome of the last round's bout with Obama that resulted in Bill becoming a total prick in the eyes of the American public and Billary losing several states, the Billary campaign squad (with a handful of substitutes from the last round) decided that it's in their best interest to badmouth Obama for more votes, once again.

Do these people never learn? Give me a flipping break! Now Hillary is accusing Obama of plagiarism and lacking substance. Bah humbug. Maybe she wants Obama to beat her...?

photo http://didactique.files.wordpress.com/2006/09/bill-clinton.jpg

America: A Democrazy or Phobocracy? (or even a Patriarchy?)

I don't know. I'm too scared to think...

Michael Chabon of the Washington Post wrote an interesting article about why he's voting for Obama, and the many self-imposed problems of Americans (and how Obama can help solve them). In "Obama vs. the Phobocracy," Chabon explains why America has become a "phobocracy." I liked this one paragraph in particular:

"The point of Obama's candidacy is that the damaged state of American democracy is not the fault of George W. Bush and his minions, the corporate-controlled media, the insurance industry, the oil industry, lobbyists, terrorists, illegal immigrants or Satan. The point is that this mess is our fault. We let in the serpents and liars, we exchanged shining ideals for a handful of nails and some two-by-fours, and we did it by resorting to the simplest, deepest-seated and readiest method we possess as human beings for trying to make sense of the world: through our fear. America has become a phobocracy."

To be "fair and balanced" (perhaps in response to this season of The Wire), the WAPO editors decided to include an article from a woman who is voting for Clinton. I must say that her lede is great.

"Look, the only people for Hillary Clinton are the Democratic establishment and white women," said Bill Kristol yesterday on Fox News Sunday, one of the many "news" outlets to expose Kristol's reliable sexism. "The Democratic establishment would be crazy to follow an establishment that led it to defeat year after year," Kristol continued in his woolly, repetitive style. "White women are a problem, you know. We all live with that."

Nevertheless, I found this article to be annoying for several reasons. For starters, the writer sounds like she's whining. It's bleeding feminism (whatever), and in one of those annoying, condescending "come join our campus organization if you care about women's issues, and if you don't, you're a pig" manners. I did find some humor in Erica Jong's article (Hillary vs. the Patriarchy), however. Jong is obviously self-medicating in this article, and her defense of Clinton has little to do with her actual political agenda.

Like this line:

"Besides, what does anyone know about anyone else's marriage? As a novelist I understand that I can't even invent the complexities most people live with, the compromises made, the deals negotiated and renegotiated. If it works, let's say hallelujah, rather than pick and quibble. It took me three marriages to find my soul mate. Maybe Hillary was luckier."

She makes it seem as though Hillary Clinton has had such a tough life. Give me a break. "Don't pick on her." "Her husband sucks." "She's really a good person." Blah, blah, blah.

"I'm hardly the only woman who sees my life mirrored in hers. She's always worked twice as hard to get half as far as the men around her. She endured a demanding Republican father she could seldom please and a brilliant, straying husband who played around with bimbos. She was clearly his intellectual soul mate, but the women he chased were dumb and dumber."

"She's had to endure nutcrackers made in her image, insults about the shape of her ankles and nasty cracks from mediocrities in the media like Rush Limbaugh, Chris Matthews and Kristol."

"In the 1990s, when they became "Billary" as president, she gave her all. When the White House beckoned, she was true blue. When he took the hardest job in the world, she helped. And when he rewarded her by letting some tootsie do whatever it was they did in the Oval Office, she got really mad."

"Little by little, she loosened up. She learned how to dress and speak and smile and relax on the podium. I've watched this whole process with immense admiration."

Possibly the most annoying line in the entire article is this:

"Obama is also a token -- of our incomplete progress toward an interracial society. I have nothing against him except his inexperience. Many black voters agree. They understand tokenism and condescension."

If being a black man holding a political office is "tokenism and condescension," do we tell all young black males that they can never become president without being considered a sellout?