my ‘whatever’ of the day

“Ten years ago, that steel was used for making low-efficiency automobiles, so those jobs were part of the dirty economy,” he said. “But now that steel is being used to build wind turbines. So now you can call them green jobs.”

so if you imagine your job having a positive environmental output, you can have a feel-good green-collar job.  and if someone wants to imagine your job having negative environmental output, it’s an evil old dirty job.

whatever.

I wonder what the kind of job the coal-miners had; I mean the coal miners whose coal fired a power plant that provided energy to an incubator that saved the life of a preemie in the NICU at a hospital.  were they in the dirty-coal business, or were they in the baby-saving business?

Green jobs are especially good “because they cannot be easily outsourced, say, to Asia,”

Right, because steel jobs can’t be outsourced to Asia.  They’re green-collar jobs now, right?  Oh what, steel has been largely outsourced overseas?  But, but, how can that be?

whatever.

[quotes from Millions of Jobs of a Different Collar, NYT March 26, 2008]

I bet the Germans have a word for it

I’ve been overcome with this emotion, or sensation, many times.  and due mostly to the election campaign, it’s been happening more frequently.

it’s the urge, when presented with an argument (or reasoning that seems particularly forced)*, to want to go above and beyond the other person’s worst fears — often to the point of absurdity.  it can be summed up by the quote from Fight Club:

“I felt like putting a bullet between the eyes of every Panda that wouldn’t screw to save its species. I wanted to open the dump valves on oil tankers and smother all the French beaches I’d never see. I wanted to breathe smoke.”

actually, it’s more like that quote than I realized — this feeling has recently (and repeatedly) been brought on by people who drone on about not drilling for more offshore oil, and the related argument to not drill in ANWR.

my position on ANWR is that drilling should be permitted.  my understanding is that the footprint for the facilities and environmental impact can be quite small.  I may have been horribly misled by the oil barons, but that’s my angle.  I really don’t wish any harm on the local habitat or animals.

but when I hear extremists go on about the horrible consequences of drilling, of the evil cabals that are orchestrating the arctic’s demise — it makes me want to go up there, pump as much oil out of the ground as quickly and destructively as possible, and just flood the whole 19 million environmentally sensitive acres with 6 to 8 inches of crude.  just to spite them.

thinking globally and acting locally, it was the same reaction when the local radio station used to go on and on about global warming — I swear I would subconsciously reach for the air conditioning and crank it up, accelerating for no apparent reason — but possibly to spite them.

that feeling… I bet the Germans have figured it out, after all the invented schaedenfreud.

if anyone knows the word for it, I’d love to know.

* or really any argument I disagree with, for whatever reason.

8 degrees warmer, and we’re all cannibals…

That’s our fate according to esteem scientist and sociologist, Mr. Ted Turner:

If steps aren’t taken to stem global warming, “We’ll be eight degrees hotter in 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow,” Turner said during a wide-ranging, hour-long interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose that aired Tuesday.

“Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals,” said Turner, 69. “Civilization will have broken down. The few people left will be living in a failed state — like Somalia or Sudan — and living conditions will be intolerable.”

mmmm-kay.  And he says it like it’s a bad thing… do you know it’s only 52 degree today?  Why, 60 and sunny would feel just great — where do I sign up!?

Admitting that he’s “always suffered from foot-in-the-mouth disease,” Turner added, “I’ve gotten a lot better, though. It’s been a long time since anybody caught me saying something stupid.”

Whoa, Ted.  You might want to read the transcript of what you just said two paragraphs ago.

last Clinton thing (tonight)

I know I don’t get a spike in readership when I blog angry stuff about politicians, but I’m dumbfounded by Hillary’s response to Russert’s last question:

MR. RUSSERT: Doris Kearns Goodwin said, “What’s the biggest public adversity a person has ever faced?” What’s yours?

SEN. CLINTON: Well, I think we all know that, we lived through it, didn’t we, and it’s something that was very painful and very hurtful [1].

MR. RUSSERT: What did you learn from it?

SEN. CLINTON: Well, you know, first of all, it is who I am as a person. I believe that you have to withstand whatever problems come your way. You have to make the decisions that are best for you. You’re going to get a lot of advice coming from many different quarters to do things that don’t feel right to you, that don’t reflect who you are and what your values are. So you have to be grounded in who you are and what you believe. And you’re not always going to make the right decisions, but you have to be guided by what you think is important, and that’s what I’ve done.

So she didn’t answer either question.  I thought she answered the first (Monica-gate), but if that was so painful and hurtful then why wouldn’t it be Gennifer Flowers or Paula Jones?  Why would any one of those betrayals be a greater public adversity than the other?

Maybe because of that whole impeachment thing.  But she only stated that it was “very painful and very hurtful”; she didn’t say who she felt hurt by — her husband, or the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy?  Neither answer makes me very comfortable; if its the former, then why wouldn’t she leave him or put him in his place?  If it’s the latter, then she’s ignoring the actions of her husband and is just mad at his enemies.  And her whole second answer is a non-answer if I ever heard/read one.

I know, I know; it doesn’t matter what she says, I’m going to oppose it and probably get really angry in the process.  But I’m not all wrong, am I?

Hillary on subprime ‘crisis’: “everybody bears some responsibility”

on Meet the Press:

MR. RUSSERT: But, Senator, many people opted for those cheaper mortgages. They could’ve had a fixed mortgage at a higher rate, but they opted for a cheaper one. Should they not bear some responsibility?

SEN. CLINTON: Well, Tim, I think all of us should[1]. But I’d say three things about that. The bankers, the mortgage lenders, the brokers, all bear a lot of the responsibility, because many of the practices that were followed were just downright predatory and fraudulent. There is no doubt about that[2]. I started talking about this last March. A lot of people got into subprime loans who frankly could’ve been in a conventional fixed-rate loan. They were basically told that this was a better opportunity for them. Should they take responsibility? Yes, but [3] look at what will happen if we continue this cascade of foreclosures. Housing values are down. They’re down 6 percent[4]. That’s over $1.3 trillion in housing values in the last year. So everybody bears some responsibility[5].

[1] I, for one, bear no responsibility for any part of the subprime mortgage crisis, and I call shenanigans on Hillary Clinton for implying that I do.  If anyone can prove otherwise, have at it.

[2] I think there is plenty of doubt in her claim that practices were predatory and fraudulent; sure, some may have been predatory, and some fraudulent, but I doubt that many were both.  If they were fraudulent, borrowers should have no problem demonstrating as much and get back their losses plus damages.

[3] this “yes, but” clause is mixing issues; the state of nationwide housing values has no bearing on personal responsibility.  Should I stop paying my car loan because the price of gas is over $3?  Right.

[4] housing was a bubble anyhow, and the dramatic drops are more a function of that bubble than of 0.3% of houses being foreclosed (not that the foreclosures help the situation).

[5] Again, I refute this claim on it’s face, and object to any responsibility that Hillary is trying to project on me or my family.  It doesn’t take a village to screw up a home loan.

straight talk on energy independence

A pleasant surprise from the Washington Post:

the idea that the United States, the world’s single largest energy consumer, can be independent of the $5 trillion-per-year energy business — the world’s single biggest industry — is ludicrous on its face. The push for energy independence is based on a series of false premises.

They identified five myths about energy independence:

1. Energy independence will reduce or eliminate terrorism.
2. A big push for alternative fuels will break our oil addiction.
3. Energy independence will let America choke off the flow of money to nasty countries.
4. Energy independence will mean reform in the Muslim world.
5. Energy independence will mean a more secure U.S. energy supply.

And the said the same thing I always say:

Remember, the two largest suppliers of crude to the U.S. market are Canada and Mexico

Whole article here.

liberties lost

Radley Balko serves up his annual list of predictions . Please go read them now.

Go… Scoot. I’ll wait…

OK, if you read it and didn’t get it, the list was actual liberties lost and/or ignored during the past year (as evidenced by the hyperlinks in each). One can only imagine what 2008 will really bring.

[update: fixed the link above to “predictions”; it previously pointed to Will Smith: Nazi Sympathizer — just kidding, I read that story with fascination/frustration because I said the same thing a few months back, and nobody understood what I meant either.]

regarding the Peace prize

nuff said.

what is our purpose in Iraq?

full disclosure: I supported going in and taking out Saddam.

but what are we doing now? I don’t buy the idea that we’re stopping terrorists before they attack us on our homeland. if that was the case, we should have Delta-force teams seeking and destroying terrorist cells in Iraq, taking out training camps en mass… I’m sure somebody will tell me that we are doing that, but if that’s true we should be celebrating some victories and demoralizing the enemy.

I know it’s just one man’s opinion, but I don’t believe Al Qaeda is using Iraq as a base of operations and I don’t imagine they’ll swarm in once US troops leave. if they do, our intelligence will detect it (yes, I still believe in our intelligence agencies — I think discrediting US intelligence is part of a disinformation campaign, of sorts), and then we send in the terrorist-sniffing special forces with a clear mission. I thought Pakistan was the terrorist haven right now, and Saudi Arabia always looks shady; so what are we doing in Iraq?

if it’s democracy, I think we’ve done all we can to help them along and now we need to get out of the way. they had elections, they have a government. they need to take over their own security — is it just me or does it seem like none of the Iraqis seem too concerned about it? you see images of their troops, and they’re disorganized and disinterested… they need internal leadership, and that’s something we can’t impose on them.

so when people call for us getting out of Iraq, I have to agree. not quickly, not hastily and certainly not cutting off funding. I’d be happy if someone laid out a 24-month plan to be out; 12-months would be better if it could be accomplished safely. and I don’t want us out because the rest of the world has an opinion about it, or the UN, or Michael Moore — I could care less about any of them.  I don’t think Bush is a war-criminal himself, I don’t think he’s stupid, and I don’t think he was misled or wrong for going into Iraq in the first place.  I just don’t understand or agree with his reasons for continuing to be there;  I just don’t see the viability of the ‘mission’, and it seems like most of America agrees.

[now I’m also willing to concede that if I was in on the President’s security briefings there might be plenty of reason for me to change my mind, but if that’s true the executive branch has to do a better job of selling it to the American public.]

Ted Koppel is wrong on Middle East Oil

I’m only picking on Ted because he said it this morning on Meet the Press (paraphrased):

“We get most of our oil from the Middle East.”

The key words, words he did use, were ‘most’ and ‘Middle East’. And this is just flat wrong.

From the Department of Energy, top five crude oil imports (2006, YTD through Dec):

• 19% Canada
• 17% Mexico
• 15% Saudia Arabia
• 12% Venezuela
• 11% Nigeria

So maybe he meant the Middle East was #1 as a region?

• 36% North America
• 23% Middle East
• 21% Africa
• 16% South America
• 3% Europe and Russia

23% does not represent the ‘most’ of anything. Argue about OPECs power all you want, but you can’t honestly state that we get most of our oil from the Middle East, unless it’s the middle east of Alberta.

Why bother posting about this? Because it’s a damn shame when journalists of Koppel’s caliber say things that are blatantly wrong, and nobody calls them on it. This is one small example, the “indisputable consensus that mankind is responsible for Global Warming” is a bigger example, along the same continuum. As someone who likes to research and think for myself, it’s frightening.

[update:  maybe this problem is disproportionately affecting Sunday morning TV… another example from QandO:
Senator Claire McCaskill:  “The president has cut the budget in Veteran’s Affairs for the past five years.”
FactCheck.org:  VA funding has gone up 27%, and has increased every year.  Veteran’s have not received all the funding they requested, but that’s not a funding cut.]