POOR SCHMUCK, RICH PRICK - WHATEVER

Seinfeld & Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Larry David becomes a radical environmentalist. Video.

By Waylon on Sep 20, 2008 inin blog, sustainability |

I’m a huge Larry David/Curb Your Enthusiasm fan (haven’t seen it? Rent it!).

The following soliloquy might be funny, but it’s also profound: we only start caring about the Earth when the impact of our un-environmental habits hit home…When it effects your lunch. The moon? Fuggedaboudit. Sunsets, flowers? Who needs ‘em?

Video:

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Undermining McCain Campaign Attack, Republicans Back Obama‘s Version of Meeting With Iraqi Leaders

September 19, 2008 1:06 PM

Earlier this week, the campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., seized upon a column in the New York Post that described Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as having urged Iraqi leaders in a private meeting to delay coming to an agreement with the Bush administration on the status of U.S. troops.

"Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a drawdown of the American military presence," Post columnist Amir Taheri wrote, quoting Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, who told the Post that Obama, during his meeting with Iraqi leaders in July, "asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the U.S. elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington."

The charge -- that Obama asked the Iraqis to delay signing off on a "Status of Forces Agreement," thus delaying U.S. troop withdrawal and interfering in U.S. foreign policy -- has been picked up on the Internet, talk radio and by Republicans, including the McCain campaign, which seized on the story as possible evidence of duplicity.

The Obama campaign said that the Post report consisted of "outright distortions."

Lending significant credence to Obama's response is the fact that -- though it's absent from the Post story and other retellings -- in addition to Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, this July meeting was also attended by Bush administration officials, such as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and the Baghdad embassy's legislative affairs advisor Rich Haughton, as well as a Republican senator, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

Attendees of the meeting back Obama's account, including not just Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., but Hagel, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffers from both parties. Officials of the Bush administration who were briefed on the meeting by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad also support Obama's account and dispute the Post story and McCain attack.

The Post story is "absolutely not true," Hagel spokesman Mike Buttry told ABC News.

"Barack Obama has never urged a delay in negotiations," said Obama campaign national security spokesperson Wendy Morigi, "nor has he urged a delay in immediately beginning a responsible drawdown of our combat brigades."

Buttry said that Hagel agrees with Obama's account of the meeting: Obama began the meeting with al-Maliki by asserting that the United States speaks with one foreign policy voice, and that voice belongs to the Bush administration.

A Bush administration official with knowledge of the meeting says that, during the meeting, Obama stressed to al-Maliki that he would not interfere with President Bush's negotiations concerning the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, and that he supports the Bush administration's position on the need to negotiate, as soon as possible, the Status of Forces Agreement, which deals with, among other matters, U.S. troops having immunity from local prosecution.

Obama did assert at the meeting with the Iraqis that he agrees with those -– including Hagel and Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- who advocate congressional review of the Strategic Framework Agreement being worked out between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government, including the Iraqi parliament.

The Strategic Framework Agreement is a document that generally describes what the relationship between the two countries should look like over time.

According to one person present at the meeting, Obama told al-Maliki that the American people wouldn't understand why the Iraqi parliament would get to have a say on the Strategic Framework Agreement, but the U.S. Congress would not, especially since Bush is only months from leaving the White House, regardless of whether Obama or McCain succeeds him.

Morigi said in a statement that "Barack Obama has consistently called for any Strategic Framework Agreement to be submitted to the U.S. Congress so that the American people have the same opportunity for review as the Iraqi parliament."

It’s possible, Obama advisers believe, that either Zebari or Taheri confused the Strategic Framework Agreement -- which Obama feels should be reviewed by Congress -- with the Status of Forces Agreement, which Obama says the Bush administration should negotiate with the Iraqis as soon as possible.

Two officials of the Bush administration say that if Obama had done what the Post story asserted –- which they believe to be untrue -– Crocker and embassy officials attending the meeting would have ensured that the Bush administration heard about it immediately. If such an incident occurred in front of officials of the Bush administration, it would have constituted a foreign policy breach and would have been front-page huge news; it would not have leaked out two months later in an op-ed column.

Nonetheless, based on nothing more than the Post report, McCain senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann issued a statement earlier this week, expressing outrage.

“It should be concerning to all that (Obama) reportedly urged that the democratically-elected Iraqi government listen to him rather than the U.S. administration in power,” Scheunemann said, apparently not having talked to anyone with knowledge about the meeting in the Bush administration, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Hagel, or any Republican staffers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“If news reports are accurate, this is an egregious act of political interference by a presidential candidate seeking political advantage overseas,” Scheunemann continued. “Sen. Obama needs to reveal what he said to Iraq's foreign minister during their closed door meeting. The charge that he sought to delay the withdrawal of Americans from Iraq raises serious questions about Sen. Obama's judgment, and it demands an explanation.”

What actually demands an explanation is why the McCain campaign was so willing to give credence to such a questionable story with such tremendous international implications without first talking to Republicans present at Obama’s meeting with al-Maliki, who back Obama’s version of the meeting and completely dismiss the Post column as untrue.

-- Jake Tapper and Kirit Radia

AARON SORKIN TELLS OBAMA TO GET A LITTLE ANGRIER

Here's a brilliant excerpt from Maureen Dowd's column this morning in the New York Times. She spoke to Aaron Sorkin and got him to give his account of a Jed Bartlett moment with Barack. Interesting that I posted an earlier scene from West Wing only yesterday.

OBAMA: The problem is we can’t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?

BARTLET: Well ... let me think. ...We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know ... I’m a little angry.

OBAMA: What would you do?

BARTLET: GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

THIS IS WHERE WE WIN

On the Road: Durango/Cortez, Colorado

“In the whole eastern dark wall of the Divide this night there was silence and the whisper of the wind, except in the ravine where we roared; and on the other side of the Divide was the great Western Slope, and the big plateau that went to Steamboat Springs, and dropped and led you to the Colorado desert and the Utah desert; all in darkness now as we fumed and screamed in our mountain nook, mad drunken Americans in the mighty land.”

– Jack Kerouac, “On the Road”



Al Gore and John Kerry did not have field operations in Durango, Colorado. Barack Obama is here -- in force.

SECRET BASES IN IRAQ BEING NEGOTIATED

NEWSFLASH

Former Iraq Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi has told Iranian news sources that the U.S. is trying to engineer a deal with the Iraqi government to allow "secret bases."

From the Middle East Times:

Former Iraqi Deputy Premier Ahmad Chalabi told Iranian state-owned media Friday the United States is seeking to establish secret military bases in Iraq.

In an interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency, Chalabi, once a Washington favorite, said U.S. officials are trying to inject agreements for secret bases in Iraq as part of the long-term security contract slated to govern U.S.-Iraqi relations when the U.N. mandate there expires at the end of this year.

"Within the framework of the security pact, the United States does not wish to merely have open military bases (in Iraq), rather secret military bases (there)," he said.

He said negotiations on the deal were ongoing following the acceptance of a formal draft agreement in August but noted there were still contentious issues surrounding legal authority over U.S. military forces and the use of Iraq as a staging ground for the broader counter-terrorism effort.

I am inclined to think Chalabi is telling the truth this time. But I would like to know what his neoconservative friends like Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and Fouad Ajami think of Chalabi's chit-chats with Iran.

Steve Clemens, TheWashingtonNote.com

www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2008/09/chalabi_us_want/

WE CAN'T DRILL OUR WAY OUT OF THIS MESS

BY: ROBERT REDFORD

Robert Redford is an actor, director, and environmentalist and a trustee of NRDC.

Seldom do politics get this cynical. Seldom is the real pain of real people so cravenly exploited. Many of our fellow Americans now choose between buying gas to get to work and buying food to feed their families. Meanwhile, President Bush is trading on that desperation to peddle a lie: that sacrificing our coastlines and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to Big Oil will solve our problems at the pump. He's already lifted the executive ban on drilling off our coasts and challenged Congress to do the same. The president knows very well that we cannot drill our way to lower gas prices. We cannot for the simple reason that America has only 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. The rate at which we extract that small share is all but meaningless to the vast world oil market where we buy and sell the stuff like everyone else.

Nevertheless, the president and his allies in Congress point their fingers at environmentalists because it distracts attention from an extremely inconvenient truth: that the Bush-Cheney energy policy, drafted in secret by industry insiders, is what got us to where we are today. That policy consisted of giving away millions of acres of pristine public lands so that oil and gas companies could expand drilling. And what is the result? Sky-high gas prices, record oil and gas profits, more global warming pollution, and zero progress toward the new energy economy that is our only salvation.

We know how to solve our energy problems and to fight global warming -- all we lack is honest, bold leadership. We had better find that leadership quickly, and not just for the sake of bringing down energy prices, but because it's essential to keep our whole economy competitive in a world rapidly moving beyond the dirty fuels of the past. The first step is making a real investment in energy efficiency. New fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks enacted last December are a small step in the right direction, but we can go much further. In fact, if we could get the average American car running at 40 miles per gallon, we could save more than 20 billion barrels of oil, which is more than the oil companies could ever get out of all of the protected offshore areas combined. If President Bush actually wanted to end our addiction to oil, he would commit right now to make that happen.

Instead, he remains committed to looking back to an era that got us into trouble in the first place. This at a time when every other sector in our society is looking forward, seizing opportunities and pulsing with good old American ingenuity, resulting in new and innovative solutions to these challenges. With intelligent policies, we could get plug-in hybrids, electric cars and new, clean biofuels to market faster. A 2007 report from NRDC and the Electric Power Research Institute predicts that plug-in hybrids could cut U.S. oil consumption by up to 4 million barrels a day by mid-century, while reducing global warming pollution at the same time. That would be like taking more than 82 million cars off the road.

With intelligent policies, we could clean up the power grid that charges those plug-in hybrids, replacing filthy coal and nuclear power, with its dangerous waste and considerable safety problems, with energy from the wind and the sun, and from advanced biofuels. Just look at what California has been able to do in the realm of solar power and energy efficiency in such a short time. Those same intelligent policies would also bring a flood of investments in clean-energy projects from Wall Street -- investments that now stay out of the energy markets because Washington has been unwilling to commit to a clean-energy future for America.

Let's not kid ourselves. We won't see intelligent energy policies suddenly emerge from this administration in its waning days. But Congress now has a monumental choice to make. If they give the president what he wants by opening our coasts to drilling, they'll be deepening our addiction to oil for another generation. They'll be handing the president's disastrous energy policy not just a third term but the equivalent of five or six more terms. America can't afford to double-down on the energy fiasco of the Bush presidency. After a few more years of this, our economy will be in a shambles and global warming will be unstoppable. We can choose a better future, but we've got to do it quickly, and each of us must play a part.

Obama Fires Back Against McCain's 'Sad' Attacks

Here's video of Barack Obama responding to McCain's attacks from earlier this morning. Obama says it's clear that McCain is "a little panicked right now" and that instead of offering real solutions, McCain "seems to be willing to say anything or do anything or change any position or violate any principle to try and win this election."

YouTube link

WHEN AMERICA DID THINGS RIGHT

Today's issue is not space exploration. The issue today that will determine our future is Energy. Yet the stakes are just as high as they were when Kennedy gave this speech in Houston; in fact, they're much higher.

America can lead or follow. If we lead, we win. If we follow, we're irrelevant.

OBAMA VS. MCCAIN IN THE MIDST OF A MELTDOWN

A TV MOMENT WHEN OUR JAWS DROPPED

Bible Forbids Homosexuality? My favorite West Wing scene ever.

By Waylon on Sep 19, 2008 | 0 Comments

Martin Sheen, President in the 2000-2007 George ‘W’ alternate universe, takes on a “Doctor” that closely resembles hard-right radio personal Dr. Laura.

“I like how you call homosexuality an abomination.” I don’t call homosexuality an abomination, the Bible does.” Wanna hear President Bartlett’s Biblical-based comeback. Warning: you might have to sell your daughter, forbid football, stone farmers and burn yo’momma. …VIDEO: Read the rest

OBAMA WILL CHANGE THE COUNTRY

A solid 4 minute presentation by Obama. He's moved toward a more detailed style in the past week and all polls suggest it's working...it was working even to prior to the Wall Street meltdown.

Worth a look. My prediction is that he makes a major economic speech within the next 30 days. He knows he has to do that to "close the deal."

THERE'S AN OIL SLICK ON OUR HOUSE

Big Oil Allies in Congress Vote Against Energy Solutions 61 Times

Oil Addiction Continues Thanks to Consistent No Votes

WASHINGTON, DC (September 8, 2008) -- An analysis of Congressional votes that would have brought America closer to energy independence reveals that Congressmen who consistently aligned themselves with Big Oil voted 61 times this year against bills that would have greatly reduced America’s addiction to oil.

Chief among these proposals were bills that would have increased production of clean energy, allowed Americans to use energy smarter, and pushed all electric utilities to make a significant portion of their electricity from clean energy, a requirement that is proving successful now in more than 25 states.

“The real story is that these people are making political hay with Americans’ pain at the pump. They’ve voted against the real solutions to high gas prices and tried to kill other bills that would have put us on the path to the clean energy future,” NRDC’s Legislative Director Karen Wayland said. “Everyone knows oil is going to run out, we can never drill enough to meet our demand. Many of these proposals would have satisfied our energy needs with supplies that will never run out, like wind and solar, and allowed us to break the oil addiction that is costing us dearly.”

This list of No votes, with links to the final roll call follows:

1. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll527.xml>

2. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll511.xml>

3. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll469.xml>

4. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll448.xml>

5. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll344.xml>

6. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll332.xml>

7. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll467.xml>

8. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll1177.xml>

9. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll527.xml>

10. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll511.xml>

11. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll469.xml>

12. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll448.xml>

13. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll344.xml>

14. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll332.xml>

15. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll467.xml>

16. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll527.xml>

17. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll511.xml>

18. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll469.xml>

19. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll448.xml>

20. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll344.xml>

21. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll467.xml>

22. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll527.xml>

23. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll511.xml>

24. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll469.xml>

25. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll344.xml>

26. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll1177.xml>

27. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll527.xml>

28. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll511.xml>

29. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll469.xml>

30. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll448.xml>

31. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll344.xml>

32. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll332.xml>

33. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll467.xml>

34. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll1177.xml>

35. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll527.xml>

36. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll511.xml>

37. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll469.xml>

38. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll448.xml>

39. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll332.xml>

40. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll467.xml>

41. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll1177.xml>

42. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll527.xml>

43. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll511.xml>

44. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll469.xml>

45. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll448.xml>

46. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll344.xml>

47. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll332.xml>

48. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll1177.xml>

49. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll527.xml>

50. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll511.xml>

51. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll469.xml>

52. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll448.xml>

53. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll344.xml>

54. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll467.xml>

55. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll1177.xml>

56. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll527.xml>

57. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll511.xml>

58. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll469.xml>

59. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll448.xml>

60. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll344.xml>

61. NO <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll467.xml>

These votes include the following bills:

FREE OUR OIL <http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0238>

DRILL ACT <http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0234>

"USE IT OR LOSE IT" <http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0228>

PRICE GOUGING <http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0224>

RENEWABLE ENERGY <http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0206>

NOPEC PRICE FIXING <http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0201>

PUBLIC TRANSIT <http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0229>

ENERGY SECURITY <http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0131>

HR 6578 <http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0238>

HR 6515 <http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0234>

HR 6251 <http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0228>

HR 6346 <http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0224>

HR 6049 <http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0206>

HR 6074 <http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0201>

HR 6052 <http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0229>

HR 6 <http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0131>

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has 1.2 million members and online activists, served from offices in New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Beijing.

HI, YOU'VE REACHED ME ON MY CELL PHONE. I'M VOTING FOR OBAMA

Estimating the Cellphone Effect: 2.2 Points

Mark Blumenthal has a rundown of the pollsters that are including cellphone numbers in their samples. Apparently, Pew, Gallup, USA Today/Gallup (which I consider a separate survey), CBS/NYT and Time/SRBI have been polling cellphones all year. NBC/WSJ, ABC/Washington Post and the AP/GfK poll have also recently initiated the practice. So too does the Field Poll in California, PPIC, also based in California, and Ann Selzer. There may be some others too but those are the ones that I am aware of.

Let's look at the house effects for these polls -- that is, how much the polls have tended to lean toward one candidate or another. These are fairly straightforward to calculate, via the process described here. Essentially, we take the average result from the poll and compare it to other polls of that state (treating the US as a 'state') after adjusting the result based on the national trendline.

Since ABC, NBC/WSJ and AP/GfK all just recently began using cellphones, we will ignore their data for now. We will also throw out the data from three Internet-based pollsters, Zogby Interactive, Economist/YouGov, and Harris Interactive. This leaves us with a control group of 36 pollsters that have conducted at least three general election polls this year, either at the state or national level.

Pollster                 n   Lean
=========                    ====
Selzer                   5   D +7.8
CBS/NYT                 14   D +3.7
Pew                      7   D +3.4
Field Poll               4   D +2.8
Time/SRBI                3   D +2.4
USA Today/Gallup        11   D +0.4

Gallup                 184   R +0.6
PPIC                     4   R +1.3

AVERAGE                      D +2.3

CONTROL GROUP (36 Pollsters) D +0.1

Six of the eight cellphone-friendly pollsters have had a Democratic (Obama) lean, and in several cases it has been substantial. On average, they had a house effect of Obama +2.3. By comparison, the control group had a house effect of Obama +0.1 (**), so this would imply that including a cellphone sample improves Obama's numbers by 2.2 points. (Or, framed more properly, failing to include cellphones hurts Obama's numbers by approximately 2 points).

The difference is statistically significant at the 95 percent confidence level. Perhaps not coincidentally, Gallup, Pew and ABC/WaPo have each found a cellphone effect of between 1-3 points when they have conducted experiments involving polling with and without a cellphone supplement.

A difference of 2 points may not be a big deal in certain survey applications such as market research, but in polling a tight presidential race it makes a big difference. If I re-run today's numbers but add 2.2 points to Obama's margin in each non-cellphone poll, his win percentage shoots up from 71.5 percent to 78.5 percent, and he goes from 303.1 electoral votes to 318.5. (The difference would be more pronounced still if Obama hadn't already moved ahead of McCain by a decent margin on our projections).

NOWTOPIA

Building an Anti-Economy

by Chris Carlsson

Published in the September/October 2008 issue of Orion magazine

EVEN WHILE CAPITALISM continues its inexorable push to corral every square inch of the globe into its logic of money and markets, new practices are emerging that redefine politics and open up spaces of unpredictability. Instead of traditional political forms like unions or parties, people are coming together in practical projects, from urban gardening in vacant lots to the suddenly ubiquitous do-it-yourself bike shops. More and more people, recognizing the degradation inherent in business relations, are creating networks of activity that refuse the measurement of money. They depend instead on sharing skills and technological know-how within new communities, such as the biofuels co-ops that have proliferated in many cities. Networks have grown, thanks to the spread of the Internet and other telecommunications techologies, and new kinds of “families” based on shared values, alternative living arrangements, and non-economic relationships are growing within the old society.

Collectively, I call these projects “Nowtopia.” Rarely do the individual participants conceive of them in political terms; day-to-day issues about how we live, what we do, how we define and meet our needs tend to be understood as outside politics. But all Nowtopian activities are profoundly political.

The Nowtopian movement embodies a growing minority seeking emancipation from the treadmill of consumerism and overwork. Acting locally in the face of unfolding global catastrophes, friends and neighbors are redesigning many of the crucial technological foundations of modern life, like food and transportation. These redesigns are worked out through garage and backyard research-and-development programs among friends using the detritus of modern life. Our contemporary commons takes the shape of discarded bicycles and leftover deep-fryer oil, of vacant lots and open bandwidth. “Really, really free markets,” anti-commodities, and free services are imaginative products of an anti-economy provisionally under construction by freely cooperative and inventive people. They aren’t waiting for an institutional change from on high but are building the new world in the shell of the old.

These practices require sharing and mutual aid and constitute the beginnings of new kinds of communities. Because these people are engaged in creative appropriation of technologies to purposes of their own design and choice, these activities embody the (partial) transcendence of the wage-labor prison by workers who have better things to do than their jobs. They are tinkerers working in the waste streams and open spaces of late capitalism, conjuring new practices while redefining life’s purpose.

Efforts to create islands of utopia have always flourished on the margins of capitalist society, but never to the extent that a radically different way of living has been able to supplant market society’s daily life. Nowtopians, and anyone determined to free themselves from the constraints of economically defined life, face the same historic limits that have beset all previous efforts to escape. Can the emerging patterns resist the co-optation and reintegration that have absorbed past self-emancipatory movements? The new apparatus of global production helps speed up the extension of market society, but it inevitably also speeds the spread of social opposition, the sharing of experiments and alternatives. Our moment in history is at least as exhilarating as it is daunting.

NOW WE'RE TALKING

Vermont Candidate Backs Prosecution of President Bush For Murder

by Dan Barlow

BURLINGTON - Charlotte Dennett, the Progressive Party candidate for Vermont attorney general, said Thursday that if elected she would prosecute President Bush for murder.

Vincent Bugliosi, left, speaks at a news conference in Burlington, Vt., Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008. Bugliosi, the author of the book, "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder." was in Vermont to support the candidacy of Progressive candidate for attorney general of Vermont, Charlotte Dennett, right.(AP Photo/Toby Talbot)

Dennett, an attorney from Cambridge challenging incumbent Democrat William Sorrell, was joined by Vincent Bugliosi, a famed prosecutor who took on Charles Manson in the early 1970s, at a press conference in downtown Burlington.

As Vermont attorney general, Dennett said she would appoint Bugliosi, who published a book this year called "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder," as a special prosecutor to hold Bush accountable for deaths stemming from the Iraq war.

Dennett said Vermont is the ideal state to bring murder charges against Bush, since the state has carried the country's highest per capita deaths of soldiers in the war. It is also home to nearly 40 communities that moved to impeach the president last year.

"Lots of Vermonters feel very frustrated that the impeachment efforts did not go anywhere," she said. "This is another avenue for us."

Bugliosi, a 74-year-old Los Angeles resident and author of the famed "Helter Skelter" book about his prosecution of Manson, called Dennett a "valiant and patriotic woman" willing to put her reputation on the line to bring to justice what he sees as one of the worst criminal acts in recent history.

He told a small crowd gathered in downtown Burlington on Thursday morning that his book clearly lays out evidence showing that Bush and his administration misled the American people and the U.S. Congress into war in 2003.

"George Bush and his people have gotten away with thousands and thousands of murders," Bugliosi said, citing both American and Iraqi deaths in the five-year-old war. "We, the American people, cannot let him get away with this."

Bugliosi said any state attorney general or local district attorney can bring criminal charges against Bush once he leaves office early next year. He said Vermont could take on the soon-to-be ex-president by bringing conspiracy to murder charges against him, using his own public statements during the build-up to the Iraq war as evidence.

"Bush and his administration deliberately told lies to deceive people and get the support of the country behind the war," he said. "That information went out through the media and was heard by residents of the state of Vermont."

Sorrell said Thursday that promises to prosecute Bush for murder makes "good political sound bites," but said he does not believe he - or any other local or state prosecutor - has that authority.

To bring about a murder or conspiracy to murder charge against Bush, the actual crime - the death of an individual - would need to take place within his jurisdiction, Sorrell said, which in this case is the Green Mountain State.

"And if I remember correctly, Vermont is still the only state George Bush has not visited while president," Sorrell said.

Dennett said she read "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder" earlier this year and was interested in pursuing Bugliosi's notion that local prosecutors could bring criminal charges against the president.

She was put in touch with him through a friend who has a mutual publicist with Bugliosi. Within a half hour, the two were on the phone discussing the possibility of prosecuting Bush once he leaves office, she explained.

"Right away I felt a real rapport with him," she said.

But Dennett said she is not a single-issue candidate, adding that she is also interested in issues surrounding the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon and its proposal to extend its operating license beyond 2012.

When asked by a reporter if she thinks she has a chance against Sorrell, a well-entrenched incumbent, Dennett said she thinks the Democrat is a "nice man," but that her push to hold Bush accountable for the deaths in Iraq will "strike a chord" with Vermonters.

"I think I will have a groundswell of support," she said.

The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 4.

© 2008 Rutland Herald

DOES MCCAIN HAVE ALZHEIMERS?

You decide.

SPIRIT MINUTE

There are really only two conditions of the human mind: Very, very happy. Or about to become very, very happy.

Which are you today?

Best,
Chillin'

RISING EVER HIGHER

This just in: With a steady hand, Obama is growing his lead in the national polls. As of this moment (8:09a.m.), O has increased his lead in the realclearpolitics national average to 2.1 over McCain. The race now stands at 47.3 to 45.2. In even better news, he's increased his average lead in Colorado to 2.5 over McCain and his Michigan numbers are shooting up. See earlier post - The Battle for Boulder - trying to make some sense of the battleground states. All roads lead to a Rocky Mountain High.

Election 2008	Obama	McCain	Spread
RCP National Average	47.3	45.2	Obama +2.1
Favorable Ratings	+17.3	+16.3	Obama +1.0
Intrade Market Odds	49.0	49.0	-
Electoral College	Obama	McCain	Spread
RCP Electoral Count	202	216	McCain +14
No Toss Up States	273	265	Obama +8
Battleground States	Obama	McCain	Spread
Michigan	47.3	45.0	Obama +2.3
Ohio	45.1	46.6	McCain +1.5
Pennsylvania	46.8	45.5	Obama +1.3
Virginia	45.4	47.7	McCain +2.3
Colorado	47.3	44.8	Obama +2.5
Florida	44.4	48.9	McCain +4.5

Chillin' Today

A CHILLING PROSPECT...A VIEW FROM FIVETHIRTYEIGHT.COM

12th Amendment Update: Tie Probability Continues to Increase

The latest in our occasional series informing you about the country's worst nightmare: a 269-269 Electoral College tie...

As you may have noticed from our scenario chart, the probability of a tie has increased dramatically in recent days and now stands at 3.2 percent. This is partly because, as we draw closer to election day with the race remaining tight, the probability of any one candidate running away with the election diminishes -- meaning that all "close" electoral permutations, including ties, become more likely.

I FEEL BETTER NOW

Bush Emerges From The White House... For A Minute

THE BATTLE FOR BOULDER

What's the Top Electoral College State This Year?

By Stuart Rothenberg

Two months ago in this space, I identified five states that I argued would pick the next president. Tell me how these states -- Ohio, Colorado, Virginia, Nevada and Michigan -- will go in November, I wrote, and I'll tell you who will be our next president ("The Big 5: Picking the States That Will Pick the President").

As the presidential race has developed, those five states seem to hold the same predictive value now that they did then. Sure, there are a handful of additional states that could turn the election to either Democratic Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) or Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) -- New Hampshire, New Mexico, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina -- but the longer the list, the less it tells us about who'll win.

I've become convinced that my initial list of five states probably can be boiled down to just one -- one state that is most likely to determine who will be the next occupant of the White House. And that state is Colorado.

If John McCain carries Colorado in November, I'd expect him to hold onto all of George W. Bush's 2000 states, with the exception of New Hampshire. If he does that, and if Obama holds all of Al Gore's states, plus New Hampshire, McCain would win 274 electoral votes to 264 for Obama.

If Obama carries the state, he has altered the arithmetic of the Electoral College so as to make it difficult for McCain to win.

It's true, of course, that Obama could win Colorado and still lose the election. Republicans continue to look at Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota as possible swing states they could win to offset the loss of Colorado or Virginia. But if there is a single state among this group that is most likely to switch parties and therefore determine the winner of the presidential contest, it now appears to be the Centennial State.

Colorado, which generally has been characterized as a part of the conservative, Republican Mountain West, has voted Republican in nine of the past 10 presidential elections. George W. Bush carried it twice, including by 5 points in 2004.

But recently, the state has been trending Democratic. Democrats won a Senate seat in 2004 with Ken Salazar and the governorship two years later. With Sen. Wayne Allard (R) calling it quits, Democratic Rep. Mark Udall is a slight favorite to win the state's other Senate seat this year. And Democrats now hold majorities in both chambers of the Colorado Legislature.

Until late July, polling in the state showed Obama ahead, from anywhere between 2 and 9 points. But recent polling has been more mixed. Polls have generally shown one candidate or the other ahead by the low single digits, making for a race that looks to be a tossup.

But my confidence in these surveys is not great. A number of the surveys are automated, and some of the internals look more than a little odd. That doesn't mean the results are wrong. It just means that I don't have a great deal of confidence that they are correct.

One of the recent surveys, conducted on Sept. 11 by Insider Advantage, showed Obama up by 3 points. But the survey found McCain getting an unbelievable one-quarter of the African-American vote and Obama winning both men and women by an identical 49 percent to 46 percent margin.

Given the gender gaps everywhere -- with McCain running well ahead of Obama among men nationally, as well as in Colorado surveys conducted by Public Policy Polling (D) and even Rasmussen Reports for Fox News -- it seems unlikely that there would be no gender gap in Colorado. And if McCain wins 25 percent of the black vote anywhere, I'd be stunned.

Still, the state looks to be made for a tight contest. With upscale white voters who would seem likely to prefer Obama, Hispanics, Boulder liberals and plenty of swing suburbanites, Colorado looks like a one-time Republican state where Obama should have appeal.

One of the problems facing Obama is that the Democratic nominee for president has not won more than 47 percent of the vote in the state since 1964, when Colorado went for Lyndon Johnson (D). Bill Clinton carried the state with only 40.1 percent of the vote in a three-way race in 1992, and John Kerry drew 47 percent last time.

Of course, with Bob Barr running as a Libertarian, Cynthia McKinney as a Green and Ralph Nader as an Independent (to say nothing of the 11 other tickets on the ballot in the state), the presidential candidate who carries the state need not win a majority of the total votes cast.

A month from now, the national landscape could look very different. The contest for the White House might have blown wide open. But at this point, with the race looking very tight, Colorado surely is one of the key swing states, and it now looks like the best indicator of how the nation will go.

Stuart Rothenberg is the editor of the The Rothenberg Political Report, and a regular columnist for Roll Call Newspaper.

PALINOSCOPY

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin Wins 2008 Rubber Dodo Award

Palin Has Sought to Remove Endangered Species Act Protection for the Polar Bear, Suppressed and Lied About State Global Warming Studies, and Denied That Global Warming Is Caused by Greenhouse Gas Emissions

TUSCON, Ariz - September 17 - The Center for Biological Diversity today awarded Alaska Governor Sarah Palin the 2008 Rubber Dodo Award. Last year's award, which inaugurated the prize, went to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne for setting a new record in refusing to add imperiled plants and animals to the endangered species list. This year's award goes to Governor Palin for fighting Kempthorne's designation of the polar bear as a threatened species.

The 2008 Rubber Dodo Award goes to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. (For a high-resolution version of this image, click here.)

"Governor Palin has waged a deceptive, dangerous, and costly battle against the polar bear," said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Her position on global warming is so extreme, she makes Dick Cheney look like an Al Gore devotee."

Palin has waged a deceptive public relations campaign, asserting that the polar bear is increasing. But many populations (including Alaska's southern Beaufort Sea) are in decline and two-thirds (including all Alaska bears) are projected to disappear by 2050 by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Palin has repeatedly asserted that Alaska Department of Fish and Game scientists found fatal flaws in the sea ice models used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine the polar bear is threatened. When challenged, Palin refused to release the alleged state review. Independent scientists eventually obtained a summary through the federal Freedom of Information Act, revealing that Palin had lied: The state mammalogists concurred with the Fish and Wildlife Service determination that Arctic sea ice is melting at an extraordinary rate and threatens the polar bear with extinction.

"All global warming deniers are eventually forced to suppress scientific studies, and Palin is no different," said Suckling. "To maintain her ludicrous opposition to protecting the polar bear in the face of massive scientific consensus, Palin stepped over the line to lie about and suppress government science."

Palin has since filed a frivolous lawsuit against the Bush administration to have the threatened listing overturned. Meanwhile, the U.S. Geological Survey announced on September 16th that the 2008 summertime Arctic sea-ice melt was the second greatest on record, nearly matching the extraordinary melt of 2007.

"Palin's insistence that Arctic melting is ‘uncertain' is like someone debating the theory of gravity as they plunge off a cliff," said Suckling. "It's hopeless, reckless, and extremely cynical."

Background

In 1598, Dutch sailors landing on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius discovered a flightless, three-foot-tall, extraordinarily friendly bird. Its original scientific name was Didus ineptus. (Contemporary scientists use the less defamatory Raphus cucullatus.) To the rest of the world, it's the dodo - the most famous extinct species on Earth. It evolved over millions of years with no natural predators and eventually lost the ability to fly, becoming a land-based consumer of fruits, nuts, and berries. Having never known predators, it showed no fear of humans or the menagerie of animals accompanying them to Mauritius.

Its trusting nature led to its rapid extinction. By 1681, the dodo was extinct, having been hunted and out-competed by humans, dogs, cats, rats, macaques, and pigs. Humans logged its forest cover and pigs uprooted and ate much of the understory vegetation.

The origin of the name dodo is unclear. It likely came from the Dutch word dodoor, meaning "sluggard," the Portuguese word doudo, meaning "fool" or "crazy," or the Dutch word dodaars meaning "plump-arse" (that nation's name for the little grebe).

The dodo's reputation as a foolish, ungainly bird derives in part from its friendly naiveté and the very plump captives that were taken on tour across Europe. The animal's reputation was cemented with the 1865 publication of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Based on skeleton reconstructions and the discovery of early drawings, scientists now believe that the dodo was a much sleeker animal than commonly portrayed. The rotund European exhibitions were accidentally produced by overfeeding captive birds.

###

The Center for Biological Diversity is a nonprofit conservation organization with more than 180,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

OBAMA DELIVERS ON DAY 1 OF ECONOMIC CRISIS

Barack's most serious speech on the economy to date.

ELECTION REFLECTIONS

Obama and The Palin Effect

From: Deepak Chopra

Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin’s pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.

She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and exhorting people to obey their worst impulses. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of “the other.” For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don’t want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.)

I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palin’s message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision.

Look at what she stands for:

~ Small town values — a denial of America’s global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.

~ Ignorance of world affairs — a repudiation of the need to repair America’s image abroad.

~ Family values — a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don’t need to be heeded.

~ Rigid stands on guns and abortion — a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.

~ Patriotism — the usual fallback in a failed war.

~ “Reform” — an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn’t fit your ideology.

~ Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities and immigrants, being different from “us” pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat. The radical right marches under the banners of “I’m all right, Jack,” and “Why change? Everything’s OK as it is.” The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness.

Obama’s call for higher ideals in politics can’t be seen in a vacuum. The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow — we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exhausted? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise.

A Chiller's Nightmares

Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following about Sarah Palin:

Drill, Drill, Drill I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.. I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists. But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war. I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.. Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God." Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not. She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes. Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth. Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air. Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be. I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression. If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain. Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?


Eve Ensler September 5, 2008 PS. WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN MC CAIN TURNS HIS BACK ON LADY MACBETH