Dump Duhbya

No Difference? Part 1

ABQjournal: Campaign Issues 2004: Candidates Differ on Energy Production, Efficiency By Tania Soussan, Journal Staff Writer

Listen to President George Bush and Sen. John Kerry talk about energy issues and you might wonder what the difference is between the two candidates.

Both presidential candidates are pledging to tackle America’s dependence on foreign oil, reduce gasoline prices and expand domestic oil and natural gas production without harming the environment. …

But the candidates do part ways.

Bush is putting a heavier emphasis on increased domestic production, and a cornerstone of his plan to get more oil flowing is opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other federal land in the West to drilling. …

Kerry has been a vocal opponent of ANWR development in Alaska and once threatened a Senate filibuster on the issue.

Kerry’s energy plan focuses on dramatic improvements in fuel efficiency, clean fuels and renewable energy— including ambitious goals of 20 percent of fuels from clean sources and 20 percent of energy from renewables like wind and solar by 2020— with the help of billions of federal dollars.

“There is no way possible for our nation to drill its way out of this predicament,” Kerry said May 25 in Portland, Ore. “We have to invent our way out of this predicament.”

Bush proposes more modest investments and does not support large increases in fuel-efficiency standards. He has not set a renewable energy production target. And he blames Congress for stalling progress on his initiatives by not passing an energy bill. [mjh: Republicans control Congress] …

Kerry’s energy plan calls for a major reduction in the amount of gasoline used in America— both by improving vehicle fuel efficiency and by dramatically increasing the use of alternative fuels. …

Bush also wants to increase gasoline supplies by expanding oil refinery capacity with the help of changes in Clean Air Act regulations, now tied up in court challenges, that would allow refineries to upgrade without being forced to install new pollution controls but also without increasing emissions.

Theirs

Crow is Delicious, even cold

mjh’s Blog:

Journal Watch

I’m still waiting for the editorial demanding Bush pay for the repairs. mjh [9/1]

Las Cruces Runway Needs Presidential Fix ABQjournal Opinion [9/4]

The buck-

passing has already started. The Bush-Cheney campaign directed questions to Andrews Air Force Base, which directed questions to the

Presidential Airlift Group. A spokesman at the Air Mobility Command, which oversees Andrews AFB, had no knowledge of the incident and

could not comment.

Runway 4/22 is shut down until repairs can be made. The repairs, of course, can’t be made until someone coughs up

the cash.

If personnel delegated by the campaign to handle its logistics ignored the city’s warning about runway capabilities, that

“someone” should be the Bush-Cheney campaign.

Election

Schwarzenliar

CNN.com – Historians dispute Schwarzenegger’s

convention comments – Sep 3, 2004

In his convention address, Schwarzenegger also said: “As a kid, I saw the Socialist country that

Austria became after the Soviets left” in 1955 and Austria regained its independence.

But Martin Polaschek, a law history scholar and

vice rector of Graz University, told Kurier that Austria was governed by coalition governments, including the conservative People’s

Party and the Social Democratic Party. Between 1945 and 1970, all the nation’s chancellors were conservatives — not Socialists.

What’s more, when Schwarzenegger left in 1968, Austria was run by a conservative government headed by People’s Party

Chancellor Josef Klaus, a staunch Roman Catholic and a sharp critic of both the Socialists and the Communists ruling in countries across

the Iron Curtain.

Schwarzenegger “confuses a free country with a Socialist one,” said Polaschek.

Election

Colossal, mammoth, elephantine hypocrisy

Why Democrats shouldn’t be scared By Michael Moore,

USATODAY.com

Exactly what moment was it during the convention that convinced them that the Republicans had now “connected” with the

majority of Americans and that it was all over? Arnold praising Richard Nixon? Ooooh, that’s a real crowd-pleaser. Elizabeth Dole

decrying the removal of the Ten Commandments from a courthouse wall in Alabama? Yes, that’s a big topic of conversation in the

unemployment line in Akron, Ohio. Georgia Sen. Miller, a Democratic turncoat, looking like Freddy Krueger at an all-girls camp? His

speech — and the look on what you could see of his strangely lit face — was enough for parents to send small children to their

bedrooms.

My friends — and I include all Democrats, independents and recovering Republicans in this salutation — do not be afraid.

Yes, the Bush Republicans huff and they puff, but they blow their own house down.

As many polls confirm, a majority of your fellow

Americans believe in your agenda. They want stronger environmental laws, are strong supporters of women’s rights, favor gun control and

want the war in Iraq to end. …

And there were the Band-Aids. The worst display of how out of touch the Republicans are was those

Purple Heart Band-Aids the delegates wore to mock Kerry over his war wounds, which, for them, did not spill the required amount of

blood.

What they didn’t seem to get is that watching at home might have been millions of war veterans feeling that they were being

ridiculed by a bunch of rich Republicans who would never send their own offspring to die in Fallujah or Danang.

Everyone at the top of the Bush adminstration except the absent Colin Powell actively avoided Vietnam. Hey, I was

certainly thinking about Canada when my number was drawn. But I’m not pounding a podium today saying you didn’t bleed enough and you

are weak. Colossal, mammoth, elephantine hypocrisy. mjh

Dump Duhbya

Freedom of Assembly

Christian Science Monitor Blog | Notebook: At the Conventions

On the last night of the Republican National Convention, I left Madison Square Garden and went outside to gauge the mood on the streets. It was easy to see that the tension from Tuesday night had returned.

As I walked just outside the Garden, a police captain with a bullhorn started yelling at a group of about five protesters, and told them that if they wanted to protest, they had to go to the designated protest area on 9th Ave. Four of them started to move in the direction indicated, but one of the protesters started to walk in the other direction. [It’s important to note here that lots of other people were moving in the same “other” direction at the same time.] The police captain yelled even more at the young man. Then the police captain roughly pushed a barricade out of the way and moved aggresively towards the young man.

Suddenly 50 other cops appeared out of nowhere. The young protester had literally not moved an inch since the captain had yelled at him the second time. He hadn’t raised his hands, or made ANY kind of threatening gesture. It was totally the reaction of the police captain that the police themselves had reacted to. You would have thought the young man had pulled a rocket-propelled grenade from his backpack.

The young man just smiled, shrugged and moved in the direction that the captain had indicated. He probably didn’t need to aggravate the police in the first place, but the reaction to his decision to “disperse” in the wrong direction was, in my view, WAY out of proportion.

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams