Happy 4th!
Washington Post:President Barack Obama announced Saturday the awarding of nearly $2 billion for new solar plants that he said will create thousands of jobs and increase the country's use of renewable energy sources.
Obama disclosed the funding in his weekly radio and online address, saying it is part of his plan to bring new industries to the U.S.
Obama disclosed the funding in his weekly radio and online address, saying it is part of his plan to bring new industries to the U.S.
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Michael Steele's comments on Afghanistan remind me of my favorite definition of a gaffe: "saying the truth in the worst way possible."
To whit, Steele said that Afghanistan is a war of Obama's choosing, and that everyone who's occupied Afghanistan has come to grief over it. Now one can quibble a bit over the details of who came to grief and who didn't, but basically he's right. Afghanistan went badly for the Russians and the British, most recently. There's a reason Afghanistan is called the "graveyard of Empires" and if the US isn't careful it'll be the graveyard of the US empire.
Likewise, yes, this is a war of choice for Obama. He could have done his review, said "hey, there are almost no al-Q'aeda fighters in Afghanistan anymore, so we won, let's go home." He could have said "fighting in Afghanistan is seriously destabilizing Pakistan, which is far more important than Afghanistan, so let's go home." He could have said "yes, if we leave, some al-Q'aeda camps might spring up but we can always bomb them and anyway there are plenty of failed states where al-Q'aeda can set up camps and we can't occupy all of them."
Ian then makes a second point I'll bet many of us hadn't considered (again, my emphasis):
Now here's a truth that Steele didn't tell. Obama has to stay in Afghanistan because war spending is one of the only reliable forms of stimulus he has. The economy is in bad shape, and it needs that stimulus. Since he can't get a new large stimulus through Congress that means he MUST keep the Afghan war going if he doesn't want an economic disaster, which would then lead to an electoral disaster. . . . Instead of hiring tens of thousands of teachers, building a high speed rail network across the country, refitting every building to be energy efficient and doing a massive solar and wind build-out to reduce dependence on oil, well, the US would rather turn Afghans and Pakistanis into a fine red mist.
A fine red mist designed to keep the "good guys" in office, as Ian points out.
I hadn't considered our many unfunded permanent wars as stimulus, but that's obviously the case — just as WWII was the stimulus that kicked the U.S. out of the self-imposed 1937 slump. Sad, but true. Good catch.
I hadn't considered our many unfunded permanent wars as stimulus, but that's obviously the case — just as WWII was the stimulus that kicked the U.S. out of the self-imposed 1937 slump. Sad, but true. Good catch.
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McClatchy : Scientists with the University of Southern Mississippi and Tulane University in New Orleans have found droplets of oil in the larvae of blue crabs and fiddler crabs sampled from Louisiana to Pensacola, Fla. The news comes as blobs of oil and tar continue to wash ashore in Mississippi in patches, with crews in chartreuse vests out cleaning beaches all along the coast on Thursday, and as state and federal fisheries from Louisiana to Florida are closed by the BP oil disaster.
"I think we will see this enter the food chain in a lot of ways — for plankton feeders, like menhaden, they are going to just actively take it in," said Harriet Perry, director of the Center for Fisheries Research and Development at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. "Fish are going to feed on (crab larvae). We have also just started seeing it on the fins of small, larval fish — their fins were encased in oil. That limits their mobility, so that makes them easy prey for other species. The oil's going to get into the food chain in a lot of ways."
"I think we will see this enter the food chain in a lot of ways — for plankton feeders, like menhaden, they are going to just actively take it in," said Harriet Perry, director of the Center for Fisheries Research and Development at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. "Fish are going to feed on (crab larvae). We have also just started seeing it on the fins of small, larval fish — their fins were encased in oil. That limits their mobility, so that makes them easy prey for other species. The oil's going to get into the food chain in a lot of ways."
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Keeping up with the Jones Act: Day 75.
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Sam Harris: Why we should ditch religion.
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The United States of Awesome
Nothing says "American Patriot" like a bitchin' mullet, a sword, and the jeans and flag you just used as your fencing opponent.
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Christianity debate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSLkQnCurgs&feature=player_embedded#at=453
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