Dingel's tax-and-spend attitudes

If you have not gone to www.vote-smart.org, you should. This is a great site which details the votes and positions of the various members of Congress. For instance, I have been reading through the positions of my Congressional Representative, John Dingel. A few items caught my attention. Rep. Dingel wants to increase spending in defense, education, environment, homeland security, international aid, law enforcement, medical research, national parks, public health, scientific research, transportation, and emergency preparedness. Of these, he wants to "greatly increase" funding for education, environment, homeland security, law enforcement, medical research, national parks, public health services, scientific research, and emergency preparedness.

How would he pay for this? First off, he supports a personal income tax increase which would, by his accounting, generate $63 billion this year. For taxes, he wants to eliminate taxes for those families making under $25,000 a year - not a difficult position considering that families making under $25,000 a year pay almost no taxes as it is thanks to President Bush's recent tax cuts - but increase personal income taxes on families making over $150,000 a year. He also wants to increase taxes on alcohol, capital gains, cigarettes, corporations, and inheritances. In other words, he wants to increase nearly every tax that the government charges except, apparently, gasoline taxes - which is odd considering his recent positions on carbon taxes.

Quote of the Day

"Not Only Are We Going to Reach Land, We're Going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and We're Going to California and Texas and New York! And We're Going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan! And Then We're Going to Washington D.C.! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!"

- James Taranto in Best of the Web yesterday, regarding the formation of Hurricane Dean

Levin still trying to snatch defeat from success

Carl Levin is apparently on his way to Iraq to tell Iraqi lawmakers that despite military successes in Iraq, he wants the U.S. out of the country immediately. Desperate to get the U.S. out of Iraq, regardless of the cost to the Iraqi people or the military gains that the U.S. has achieved, Sen. Levin realizes that success in Iraq will severely hurt his chances at reelection next year. The gall of his statements, implicitly acknowledging that the military situation is going very well, is just shocking. Here, in his own words:

"I'm going to try to see if we can't shift the attention of the American people from the report on the political situation since everybody acknowledges that it's the failure of the political arena and the political areas that are the cause of the ongoing violence in Iraq."

So, his argument goes like this: we're doing a good job making areas safe for Iraqi civilians and the Iraqi and international workers who are building essential infrastructure but we should abandon those efforts, allow Iraqis to suffer genocide and ethnic cleansing while giving Al Qaeda and various insurgent and ethnic groups a free hand to attack civilians. Nice. Not quite Barak Obama levels (genocide is an acceptable result of pulling American troops out of Iraq) or even Chris Dodd levels (ethnic cleansing should be actively pursued by the U.S. government to precipitate the withdrawal of American troops) but still galling nonetheless.

Senator Carl Levin to Tell Iraqi Lawmakers to Count U.S. Out of Civil War
Fox News

WASHINGTON - The chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services committee said he was leaving Wednesday for Iraq to tell its leaders that they must accept responsibility for their country.

"Folks, if you want a civil war in this country, that's your choice. Count us out of your civil war. We've been here four-and-a-half years," Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan told reporters Wednesday during a stop at Michigan's statehouse.

Levin's comments came as the death toll rose to 250 following a spate of four homicide truck bombings in northwestern Iraq Tuesday, underscoring the difficulties in curtailing the steady stream of shooting and bombings that have become the soundtrack to Iraq's reconstruction efforts.

With Americans increasingly frustrated about the mounting U.S. deaths there, the U.S. Congress is awaiting a pivotal assessment due in September by Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus amid a fierce debate over whether to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

Quote of the Day

“I believe the intent of the movie is to alarm people into being more skeptical of their government. It had the opposite effect on me. It made me happy to think there might be a plan. If the war on terror is real, it scares the shit out of me. But if, as the movie claims, it’s entirely manufactured, and the war in Iraq is meant to be a permanent conflict to sell weapons and control oil – that is much less scary. It means the war will stay where it is and no one will ‘follow me home.’"

“It also means the nuclear bomb ambitions of Iran are a lie. That’s one less thing to worry about. All I have to do is stay out of the National Guard and invest my money in defense contractors and I’ll be safe and happy. Those shadowy rich guys are doing a great job!”

- Scott Adams, referring to Zeitergeist, a movie about the U.S. government conspiracies to conquer the Middle East

Tropical Storm Erin

There's a new tropical storm, Erin, which just formed in the Caribbean and it looks to be heading right toward the Texas / Mexico border. This shouldn’t be a big one considering how close to land it formed and will probably downgrade to a depression in the next day or so. Still, it’s always worth being careful as even a tropical storm can be deadly.

Tropical Storm Dean is the potentially more dangerous one. It still looks to become a hurricane in the next day or so right in time to hit Puerto Rico. It looks to be aiming a little south of Florida, but once it clears Cuba there’s no real way to tell where it’s going or how fast. Either way, if you live in the Gulf Coast, be careful, particularly if you’re in Puerto Rico.

Good thing the UFOA was there to comment

In an article from the AP, Libby Quaid does a great job digging up quotes about Rudy Giuliani. A quick phone call to the UFOA - a union group which has a long-standing pro-Democrat and anti-Republican stances - and she got the two quotes she needed for her article. Nice work!

Giuliani: I Misspoke About Ground Zero
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said Friday that he misspoke when he said he spent as much time, if not more, at ground zero exposed to the same health risks as workers combing the site after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"I think I could have said it better," he told nationally syndicated radio host Mike Gallagher. "You know, what I was saying was, 'I'm there with you.'"

The former New York mayor struck a nerve with firefighters and police officers when he said Thursday in Cincinnati that he was at ground zero "as often, if not more, than most of the workers."

"I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them," he told reporters at a Los Angeles Dodgers-Cincinnati Reds baseball game.

Fire and police officials responded angrily, saying Giuliani did not do the same work as those involved in the rescue, recovery and cleanup from the 2001 terrorist attacks, which left many workers sick and injured.

"I have a real problem with that statement," said Battalion Chief John McDonnell, head of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association in New York. "I think he's really grasping and trying to justify his previous attempts to portray himself as the hero of 9/11."

Must Read

Hitch nails another one...this is a must-read.

Fighting the "Real" Fight
Salon

Over the past few months, I have been debating Roman Catholics who differ from their Eastern Orthodox brethren on the nature of the Trinity, Protestants who are willing to quarrel bitterly with one another about election and predestination, with Jews who cannot concur about a covenant with God, and with Muslims who harbor bitter disagreements over the discrepant interpretations of the Quran. Arcane as these disputes may seem, and as much as I relish seeing the faithful fight among themselves, the believers are models of lucidity when compared to the hair-splitting secularists who cannot accept that al-Qaida in Mesopotamia is a branch of al-Qaida itself.

Objections to this self-evident fact take one of two forms. It is argued, first, that there was no such organization before the coalition intervention in Iraq. It is argued, second, that the character of the gang itself is somewhat autonomous from, and even independent of, the original group proclaimed by Osama Bin Laden. These objections sometimes, but not always, amount to the suggestion that the "real" fight against al-Qaida is, or should be, not in Iraq but in Afghanistan. (I say "not always," because many of those who argue the difference are openly hostile to the presence of NATO forces in Afghanistan as well as to the presence of coalition soldiers in Iraq.)

The facts as we have them are not at all friendly to this view of the situation, whether it be the "hard" view that al-Qaida terrorism is a "resistance" to Western imperialism or the "soft" view that we have only created the monster in Iraq by intervening there.

Tropical Storm Dean

Looks like the fourth Atlantic tropical storm has formed, Tropical Storm Dean. The NHC is predicting it might become a Category 2 hurricane when it gets to Puerto Rico. It’s possible that it might swing north to hit Florida. This would be the year’s first hurricane. At this time last year, which was historically a low year despite pre-season warnings that it would be historically very high, there had been three tropical storms. This year is, again, predicted to be a historically high season, primarily due to the Atlantic Multidecadal Cycle wherein warm water in the Atlantic Ocean travels in a large band over decades.

This isn't required

It's sad to see Rudy Giuliani betray his moderate roots while trying to, apparently, imitate Mitt Romney. I’m just hoping that this is a bit of political posturing, which I was really hoping Mayor Giuliani would be above. We’ll see how it goes. He’s still the most pro-choice of the group but these sorts of statements are troublesome.

Giuliani continues his conservative shift
Boston Globe

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani continues to discard the moderate and liberal positions of his past. The latest is civil unions for same-sex couples, which the Republican presidential candidate has been backing away from in recent months.

A campaign aide told the Globe this weekend that Giuliani favors a much more modest set of rights for gay partners than civil union laws in effect in four states offer.

Giuliani has described himself as a backer of civil unions and is frequently described that way in news reports. But he began distancing himself from civil unions in late April, when his campaign told The New York Sun that New Hampshire's new law goes too far because it is "the equivalent of marriage," which he has always opposed for gays.

Giuliani's aides offered little explanation of what specific rights he would support for same-sex couples.

Way to profit from your relative's murder

It's so nice to see the Goldman and Brown families profiting from the deaths of their family members. They're already dead, why not pimp them out after the fact to make a few bucks?

Oh, I’m sorry, they’re doing this in order to punish O.J. Of course, there’s no word why, if that’s their only goal, they aren’t putting it out on the Internet for free, pricing the book at-cost, or donating all the proceeds to domestic violence shelters or other charities.

Controversial O.J. Simpson Book Will Be Published
ABC News

NEW YORK (Reuters) - O.J. Simpson's hypothetical account of killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson will be printed by a New York publisher, a spokesman for literary agent Sharlene Martin said on Monday.

Martin struck a deal on the controversial book -- a previous print of it was scrapped last year -- on behalf of the family of Ron Goldman, who was murdered along with Brown Simpson at her Los Angeles home in 1994, according to a spokesman.

A federal judge last month gave the rights to the book, entitled "If I Did It," to Goldman's family, who are owed $33.5 million in damages by Simpson.

Simpson was acquitted of criminal murder charges in 1995 but was found liable for the deaths two years later in a civil case brought by the victims' families. The former U.S. football star has vowed to never voluntarily pay damages to the families.

The identity of the publisher is due to be announced on Tuesday, Martin's spokesman said.

"The (Goldman) family and publisher have pledged to leave Simpson's manuscript entirely intact, but they will also add key commentary," Michael Wright, the spokesman for Los Angeles-based Martin, said in a statement. The nature of the commentary was not disclosed.

The Goldman family, the publisher and Martin will contribute portions of the proceeds to the Ron Goldman Foundation for Justice, Wright said.

Under the court agreement, the Goldman's obtained all rights to the book, and to Simpson's name and likeness in connection with it. Simpson will not receive any money.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.-owned publishing house, HarperCollins, printed 400,000 copies of the book but scrapped it in November amid public outrage shortly before its release. Murdoch apologized, and all copies were recalled and destroyed.

Relatives of Simpson's ex-wife had not previously pursued a claim to the book but made an 11th-hour request for up to 40 percent of the proceeds. The claim was denied the court.

But last month's agreement requires the Goldmans to give a court-appointed trustee 10 percent of the first $4 million in gross proceeds and a percentage of all proceeds beyond that. The Brown family will get most of that money.

In an interview last month with Dallas-based Web site Market News First (www.MN1.com ), Simpson said the book was composed by a ghost author and that he reluctantly agreed to include a "night-of-the-crime" account as told by him only after it was agreed to clearly label it as hypothetical.

What was that about Wal-Mart?

In the middle of an AP Business story from Friday:

Foreign-owned stores such as France's Carrefour, Germany's Metro, and America's Wal-Mart cater to slightly more sophisticated tastes, selling crumbly blue cheese, wheels of Gouda, and red-waxed balls of Edam.

It's been a while since I've been to Wal-Mart (my discount shopping is generally done at Meijer or perhaps Target) but apparently they've decided to move in a different direction that I remember.

Milk Prices Rise to Record High
Associated Press

PARIS (AP) - Got milk? Well, you're going to need more cash these days to get it.

Growing appetites for dairy in Asia and limited worldwide supply are among a number of factors driving prices of the dairy drink to record highs.

In China and elsewhere in Asia, chains such as McDonald's and Starbucks are introducing unfamiliar taste buds to cheeseburgers and lattes, increasing the region's demand for dairy.

Rising costs of animal feed, shrinking European production and long- standing drought in Australia and New Zealand, the world's largest milk-exporting region, are also pushing up the price.

Paying more for milk is causing an uproar in Germany, where families consider providing children with an affordable glass of milk a fundamental right. It is also a concern for consumers in the United States and elsewhere in Europe.

Milk prices hit a record last month in the United States, where consumers paid an average $3.80 a gallon, compared to $3.29 in January, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It forecasts prices will remain high throughout the year.

Prices are likely to remain high worldwide until dairy farmers add more cows or shift production to powders, which are more easily traded than the liquid stuff.

International dairy prices increased 46 percent between November 2006 and April 2007, with milk powder prices increasing even faster, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Companies like candy giant Hershey Co. that use dairy for their products are feeling the pinch. But in many parts of the globe, dairy farmers are cheering.

"Global demand has been extraordinary for American dairy products, but global supplies of dairy products have been exceptionally tight," said Michael Marsh, head of the Western United Dairyman trade group in California, the top dairy-producing U.S. state.

"From the American dairy farmers' perspective, you have almost a perfect storm."

It's good that he's politically raw

"We've to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there." - Senator Barack Obama as reported by the AP last night.

I am just afraid that if Sen. Obama was more politically savy, he would have avoided this statement. It's good, however, to see exactly what sort of person he really, truly is and in what esteem he holds the military.

Obama Gets Warning From Voter
The Washington Post

HANOVER, N.H. (AP) - Presidential hopeful Barack Obama was warned by a friendly voter Monday to avoid public spats with his Democratic rivals - but remarks he made later could add fuel to the criticism against him.

Maggie North of Claremont told Obama he risks becoming part of the usual political scene if he keeps being drawn into well-publicized disputes with rivals. He and chief rival Hillary Rodham Clinton have jabbed at each other over foreign policy, the war on terrorism and the use of nuclear weapons.

"You can be it," North said at a small gathering at a Hanover restaurant Monday morning that drew eight people. "But you've got to stop - excuse me for being blunt - you've got to stop getting involved in the way people are fighting each other, chewing you up a little more."

"That's what you do when you run for president," Obama responded, getting a laugh.

But during a later appearance before about 800 people in Nashua, Obama made a comment likely to further the spats he was warned about.

Answering a question on how he would refocus U.S. troops out of Iraq to better fight terrorism, he said, "We've to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there."

Is this a bad thing?

In the BBC, they decry the U.K.'s position as the EU country with the lowest mandated paid leave. This isn't really a new thing, but the story is slightly newsworthy because there has been a change in how the EU measures mandated paid leave - not counting paid holidays and only counting paid discretionary days off. The question, though, is if this is a bad thing?

This should go without saying, but there is a very close relationship between having more days off of work and slower governmental economic growth. Increasing the amount of time people aren’t at work means that the most potent resource we have – labor – is going untapped. Certainly, there needs to be a balance between work and personal life but that balance should be dictated by individual agreements between workers and management, not by interventionist governments.

In Denmark, you can take a day off of work every other week and still have over 3 weeks of paid vacation each year.

UK workers 'get least paid leave'
BBC News

The UK is set to stay at the bottom of the league for holiday entitlement in the European Union even after a rise to 28 days in April 2009, a survey warns.

A change in EU rules means the UK will have to stop including eight public holidays in the EU's 20-day minimum.

But Incomes Data Services says the UK will still lag entitlement elsewhere, which ranges from 28-29 days in the Netherlands to 39.5 days in Denmark.

The TUC says six million workers will benefit from the rise in paid leave.

The UK entitlement will be raised in two stages, initially going up to 24 days from October 2007.

"The new regulations are clearly aimed at preventing the practice of including the current eight bank holidays in the minimum entitlement - whereby some employees effectively got just 12 days' annual leave," said Ken Mulkearn, Editor of IDS Pay Report.

The EU's Working Time Directive gives workers in all member states a minimum of 20 days paid leave.

Despite being bottom of the EU holiday league, the UK is still well ahead of many other developed nations.

In Canada and Japan, workers are guaranteed only 10 days of paid leave per year while the USA does not have any legal minimum for paid leave.

ANNUAL LEAVE
Denmark 39.5
Austria 38
Sweden 36
Slovakia 35
Luxembourg 35
France 35
Germany 34-39
Portugal 34
Czech Republic 33
Slovenia 33
Italy 32
Spain 32
Greece 32
Poland 31
Finland 31
Bulgaria 31
Belgium 30
Hungary 30
Romania 30
Ireland 29
Netherlands 28-29
UK 28

It's worked so well so far.

African Union soldiers have done so well stopping the violence in Darfur that AU president Alpha Oumar Konare is making it clear he expects that only African Union soldiers will make up the U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur. I don’t know if this is some sort of “go it alone” statement or a hope that donating troops will mean a UN-based financial windfall for African countries but disengagement of the 1st world in Africa is in no one’s interest. The very best individuals available – which should include very significant numbers of troops from the U.S. – should be the ones doing the job.

Darfur force 'to be all-African'
BBC News

Africa will provide all of the 26,000 peacekeepers to be sent to Sudan's Darfur region, the head of the African Union (AU) has said.

AU chairman Alpha Oumar Konare said enough African troops had been promised for no outside help to be needed but he did not give details.

The UN had expected to call on Asian troops. Critics say Africa lacks enough trained troops for an effective force.

Sudan's government has long opposed the involvement of non-African soldiers.

It only agreed to a joint United Nations-AU force after months of negotiations.

The UN Security Council resolution setting up the force said the troops would be mostly African but they would be under UN command.

Army meeting its recruiting goals

It looks as though the fact that our soldiers are busy fighting the least bloody war in American history isn't dissuading new recruits from joining the Army, which is exceeding its recruiting goals. Added sign-on bonuses are definitely helping, but critics are predictably complaining about them. I don’t see why it is so difficult for some to believe that making the Army financially tenable for more individuals would allow more to join. The current financial structure, where soldiers start out making less than $20,000 a year, makes it impossible for many who have made financial commitments to their families to afford to join up. Adding a signing bonus isn’t bribing these individuals; it’s giving them an opportunity to join up when they wouldn’t have been able to do so before.

Army Signing Bonuses Bring in Recruits
CBS News

New York - Twenty-nine-year-old Joan Marte thinks that now is the right time to join the army.

"I get to travel, basic training sounds like fun," he says.

Yemin Ko, 24, who describes himself as a patriot, is also signing up.

"I wanted to do something important," he says.

The Army needs them both to meet its enlistment goals for this year.

It surpassed its July recruitment targets by more than 200 new soldiers, CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller reports, by adding recruiters — and with an unprecedented incentive: $20,000 signing bonus given to soldiers willing to ship out to basic training within a month.

"The intent of the bonus is to get folks to ship quickly so they can attend basic training and we can meet the end strength the army is required to have," says Lt. Col. Joseph Feliciano.

In New York, recruitment commanders say they're already seeing better numbers this month since the signing bonuses were put on the table. And the army hopes to pump up those numbers by September 30th, the end of the fiscal year.

"Is this what we really want? To bribe people to get them to go and fight an unpopular war?" says Larry Korb, who served as assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan Administration. Korb, who is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, says the new policy will be bad for the army.

"They've already lowered the standards. Last year, when they did meet their recruiting goals, they had lowered the educational and aptitude standards," says Korb.

Tommy Thompson drops out

In a long-overdue announcement, Tommy Thompson dropped out of the running for the Presidency. I can't say that I'm sorry to see him go. While he had a tremendous background, his policies really seemed to be lacking. His long-running desire to impose oil revenue sharing in Iraq based on his simplistic arithmetic really destroyed any chance there existed that I'd personally vote for him. This stance combined with his social conservatism made him an unpalatable candidate in the face of the others running.

Tommy Thompson Drops Presidential Bid
ABC News

Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson said Sunday he is dropping out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination after finishing sixth in an Iowa straw poll.

"I have no regrets about running," he said in a statement released Sunday evening by his campaign.

"I felt my record as Governor of Wisconsin and Secretary of Health and Human Services gave me the experience I needed to serve as president, but I respect the decision of the voters. I am leaving the campaign trail today, but I will not leave the challenges of improving health care and welfare in America."

The statement was issued several hours after WITI-TV in Milwaukee reported that Thompson, 65, told one of its reporters he was withdrawing.

"I have very much enjoyed my years in public service and I am comforted by the fact that I think I made a difference for people during that time," Thompson said in the campaign announcement. "I hope to continue working to serve others over the next few years."

The statement said Thompson intends to take some time off before returning to the private sector and his nonprofit work.

He had said before the Iowa event that he would drop out of the race unless he finished first or second.

The statement didn't say whether he would endorse another candidate.

Might have a case...

I'm not normally one to advocate litigation in these sorts of cases and my first instinct is to defiantly ignore the suit as frivolous, but a man who is suing 1-800-Flowers for violating their privacy policy may have a case. While going through a divorce, Leroy Greer sent flowers to the "other woman." 1-800-Flowers sent a thank-you note to their house and when his wife saw it, she called the company, which sent her a copy of the receipt from his purchase to his mistress.

Apparently, the company's privacy policy states that customers can ask the company not to share personal information with third parties and he requested this treatment. Based on this, it looks to be a pretty clear case of breach of contract, which ended up costing him significantly in his divorce.

Married Man Sues Florist for Revealing Affair
ABC News

A married man is suing 1-800-Flowers for $1 million for revealing that he was cheating on his wife.

Leroy Greer said in a lawsuit filed this week in a federal court in Texas that he bought flowers for his girlfriend through 1-800-Flowers. He asked to keep his purchase private.

Greer said he was referred to the company's privacy policy, which states that customers can ask 1-800-Flowers not to share personal information with "third parties."

But, the lawsuit says, 1-800-Flowers sent a thank-you note to his house and his wife saw it. When she called the company, 1-800-Flowers faxed her a copy of the receipt from Greer's secret purchase.

Great idea, except...

Employers appear to be poised to start charging employees more for insurance if they're overweight, providing a financial incentive to improve their health. Sounds like a great idea, except it's illegal to discriminate in employment matters - including compensation - based on weight.

Overweight? Prepare to Pay Up
ABC News

With health-care costs rising, some large employers are taking radical new steps to cut corners. They're charging overweight employees a fee if they don't slim down.

It's a strategy companies have used for years with smokers, which has many people wondering whether these heavy-handed employer tactics are a sign of things to come.

It's not necessarily the wave of the future. While controlling costs is paramount for any business, the happiness and morale of its work force are also quite relevant. There are many people who believe that when employers start requiring weigh-ins and cholesterol checks, they've gone way too far.

So the issues of employee loyalty/satisfaction and privacy concerns, combined with some serious legal challenges, given the protection afforded to employees in the Americans with Disabilities Act — which says that employers can't discriminate on the basis of health — will be cause for concern among employers before they rush out to adopt this stance.

It's no secret that skyrocketing health-care costs are of concern to employers and employees alike. Each of us is paying for it, and our bosses are too. We'd all like to save money. But it's more than just obesity and smoking that contribute to those enormous premiums, which leads to several questions.

How far can — or should — an employer go? Do you penalize an employee with breast cancer because her treatment costs are astronomical? What about someone with a brain tumor or a skin disorder? Do you monitor alcohol intake to determine whether employees are showing up hungover and therefore aren't as productive as sober people?

Jack Abramoff contributions

Jack Abramoff directed lobbying money to the following Michigan Democrats. Why didn't we hear about these?

Democratic Party of Michigan = $23,000

John D. Dingell (D-MI) = $2,000

Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) = at least $6,000

Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) = at least $6,250

All of the above figures are from the FEC.

Way to empathize

So, basically, according to Senator Obama, gays and lesbians who are concerned about the semantics of marraige should get over it because the word "marriage" is just semantics and is irrelevant. As long as civil unions are there, apparently, that should be enough.

Obama argues for civil unions for gays
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - Sen. Barack Obama said Thursday he wanted to tap into the "core decency" of Americans to fight discrimination against gays and lesbians, and argued for civil unions for same-sex couples wouldn't be a "lesser thing" than marriage.

At a televised forum focusing on gay rights, the Illinois senator was asked to explain how civil unions for same-sex couples could be the equivalent of marriage. He said, "As I've proposed it, it wouldn't be a lesser thing, from my perspective.

"Semantics may be important to some. From my perspective, what I'm interested (in) is making sure that those legal rights are available to people," he said.

"If we have a situation in which civil unions are fully enforced, are widely recognized, people have civil rights under the law, then my sense is that's enormous progress," the Illinois Democrat said.

Obama belongs to the United Church of Christ, which supports gay marriage, but Obama has yet to go that far.

Huh?

From IMDB News:

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio has decided not to campaign for any of the 2008 U.S. presidential candidates, because none of the politicians in the running "inspire" him. The Blood Diamond star, 32, was a staunch advocate of Democratic hopeful Senator John Kerry during 2004's presidential election and even traveled across 14 states to rally support and raise funds for him. But DiCaprio admits the frontrunners for 2008's election - Democratic candidates Senator Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican Ron Paul - have yet to catch his attention with their environmental policies. He says, "I'm still on the fence about it, to tell you the truth. I have yet to hear a candidate that has clearly laid out their environmental policy in a way that is inspiring to me." Referring to Senator Kerry's previous election campaign, DiCaprio adds, "I thought he had an amazing environmental policy. But I have yet to hear a candidate that has compared in that regard. I'm waiting for the right questions to be asked, and for these candidates to give really clear responses to what they're going to do in a tangible way - not a lot of rhetoric. I want to hear hardcore facts."

The question here - whose judgement is it that Ron Paul is in anyway a "frontrunner" for the election? The article presents it as fact. Is it poorly couching DiCaprio's words or is this their statement? How did Ron Paul even enter the discussion?

Volt's most pressing hurdle passed

The battery critical to the Chevrolet Volt looks to be close to testing. The Chevy Volt is General Motors' new plug-in hybrid that runs on an electric motor with a gasoline generator built-in for recharging during long distance driving. At the end of the 90's, GM had introduced the EV1 due to California's Zero Emissions Mandate. The repeal of the mandate, however, combined with an inability to bring price to a reasonable level and a vastly insufficient demand led to its demise, costing GM an estimated $500 million in the process.

The Volt uses what are, basically, giant laptop or cell phone batteries – much more efficient than the rechargeable batteries available in the late 90’s – to store enough energy to allow for a 40 mile trip without having to use the gasoline generator. The 40 mile limit was chosen intentionally as that is the average round-trip commute for American workers. With the generator, the Volt should be able to go over 600 miles on a 12 gallon tank of gas. If trips are kept short, the generator should never have to be used and the Volt can be powered much more efficiently by charging the battery with a connection to your house.

The problem is that the batteries on this scale needed for the Volt have, to this point, never been created. Now, it looks like the battery supplier, A123, is closing in on being ready with the batteries for full-scale testing. This would be a critical step forward, particularly as the main problem with the EV-1 was its ridiculously short battery life.

Still, we’re talking about a new vehicle which is based entirely on a technology which has yet to be proven out. They expect to start selling these some time in late 2010, but don’t be surprised if it is pushed back to 2011 or later. It’s great to see GM back out in front of alternative fuel technology once again. Here’s to hoping that it will work a touch better than last time.

GM: Battery on track for Chevy Volt
Detroit Free Press

TRAVERSE CITY -- General Motors Corp. is growing increasingly confident that battery developers will be able to create a safe, durable and affordable power source that will allow it to begin selling its electrically driven Chevrolet Volt to consumers by the end of 2010.

Speaking before a crowd of more than 1,000 at the Management Briefing Seminars in Traverse City on Thursday, GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz announced that the automaker will develop lithium-ion battery cells with A123Systems Inc. to power its electric-drive vehicles.

Lutz said GM and A123 hope to have the first full lithium-ion battery pack ready for testing in the Volt by mid-October and a battery ready for use in test vehicles -- called mules -- by the end of the year. GM plans to have batteries ready for road testing by next spring.

GM has billed the Volt as a vehicle that will be able to drive at least 40 miles on battery power alone. The version of the Volt shown at the Detroit auto show this year also would have an on-board gasoline-powered engine to recharge the battery for longer drives. Using an initial charge and the generator, GM's aim is to build a vehicle that can drive 640 miles on 12 gallons of gas.

But the battery cells are considered crucial to developing the plug-in electric vehicles and fuel-cell vehicles that GM, Ford Motor Co., Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. are working on. The big challenge, the automakers say, is developing batteries that are safe, durable and affordable, but also can absorb and deliver power quickly enough for automotive use.

"Breakthrough battery technology will drive future automotive propulsion, and the company that aligns with the best strategic partners will win," Lutz said. "Frankly, I think we're hooking up with the right crew."

Oops!

Why people don't trust Sen. Clinton.

This year: "I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons."

Last year: "I have said publicly no option should be off the table, but I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table."

What do you think her position will be next year? I don't know, either.

Clinton Discussed Use of Nukes Last Year
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, who chastised rival Barak Obama for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons in the war on terror, did just that when asked about Iran a year ago.

"I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table," she said in April 2006.

Her views expressed while she was gearing up for a presidential run stand in conflict with her comments this month regarding Obama, who faced heavy criticism from leaders of both parties, including Clinton, after saying it would be "a profound mistake" to deploy nuclear weapons in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table," he said.

Clinton, who has tried to cast her rival as too inexperienced for the job of commander in chief, said of Obama's stance on Pakistan: "I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons."

But that's exactly what she did in an interview with Bloomberg Television in April 2006. The New York senator, a member of the Armed Services committee, was asked about reports that the Bush administration was considering military intervention—possibly even a nuclear strike—to prevent Iran from escalating its nuclear program.

"I have said publicly no option should be off the table, but I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table," Clinton said. "This administration has been very willing to talk about using nuclear weapons in a way we haven't seen since the dawn of a nuclear age. I think that's a terrible mistake."

Clinton's views on the potential use of nuclear weapons appear to have changed since then.

This is getting ridiculous

This whole move up the primary garbage is getting ridiculous. It's long overdue to have a single, national primary system - perhaps two or three votes narrowing the candidates down from the ten or twelve candidates to 3 or 4 to 2 to 1. This would still allow the field to be narrowed as less capable candidates lose out while allowing new ideas to come through. It would also eliminate the disproportionate power that New Hampshire voters and Iowa caucus-goers enjoy.

First Presidential Votes Might Be Cast in 2007
The Washington Times

The first 2008 presidential votes may be moving into 2007 after all, making a race that has started earlier than ever even more intense.

South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson will announce that he is moving its primary date ahead of Florida's Jan. 29 vote, to reclaim his state party's "first in the South" presidential-nominating banner. But he will do so in New Hampshire, home of the first-in-the-nation primary. And he will be joined by New Hampshire's longtime Secretary of State Bill Gardner, who alone has the power to set that state's date for both parties, now tentatively Jan. 22.

If both were to move their dates up, that likely would force Iowa — always protective of its party caucuses as the first nominating contests of any kind — to consider moving its date from next Jan. 14 into pre-Christmas December.

A prominent South Carolina Republican who spoke with Dawson this week said that both South Carolina's Republicans and New Hampshire would make a change. But another source suggested that only Dawson would announce a change, while New Hampshire's Gardner would appear as a show of support for South Carolina Republicans and remain mum on his plans for now. One reason: The Democratic Party's rules committee meets later this month, and all of this state maneuvering is in violation of both parties' rules. Those rules have sought to prevent the front-loading of presidential nominating contests, but the threatened penalties — forfeiture of convention delegates — have proven weak.

Traditionally New Hampshire and Iowa have coordinated to protect their early-voting status — with the support of the national parties, and presidential candidates eager for their votes — but with each presidential-election cycle, the pressure has grown from other states coveting candidates' attention to them and their issues. By law, Iowa's party caucuses must be eight days before New Hampshire's primaries, and New Hampshire, by law, requires its primaries to be a week before any state's similar contest.

Quote of the Day

"Everybody should go out and buy a gun. I recommend an Uzi. If you don't like guns, then I suggest you buy a pair of guard dogs, preferably a pit bull and a Rottweiler."

- L. Brooks Patterson, County Executive of Oakland County in a Detroit News opinion piece.