Tag: energy

This ad comes via Canada. GreenCalgary is running an idle-free campaign with, we could say, a bit of a different twist.

The negative health and environmental impacts of idling have been known for over a decade. Yet, all over the city of Calgary we are leaving our cars running while not in use for an average of 5-10 minutes per car per day. Idling is unnecessary. It wastes fuel, produces more harmful emissions than normal driving, damages engines, and contributes to climate change

Have you seen the new ad narrated by Christopher Miller, Iraq veteran, on why we need clean energy?

The ads feature an Iraq war veteran who was injured six years ago by a roadside bomb. Christopher Miller says that using less oil will take money away from enemies like Iran, which has supplied increasingly destructive roadside bombs to militants in Iraq.

I just saw the ad run during Keith Olbermann’s Countdown and my jaw hit the floor. We need clean energy because buying Iran’s oil funds their supplying IED’s to Iraq? Really?

We all know that we need clean energy and that major energy conglomerates are only willing to support it if they control the new energy, just as they controlled the old energy. This is not debatable.

It is the argument used that is wrong.

Representative Tom Perriello (D-VA-5) was one of the first candidates to make the Energy Smart list.  Yesterday, not for the first time, he provided a clear statement as to why he merited and continues to merit a prominent position in the ‘must support’ list for anyone concerned about fostering a prosperous and secure America future.  

Interviewed by David Roberts, Grist, Perriello spoke strongly about the imperative for better energy policy, including the necessity of putting a price on carbon.  While too many in the Commonwealth are flaunting their anti-science syndrome credentials, Perriello is speaking forthrightly and directly. His narrow victory in 2008 has him in the Republican cross hairs for defeat this November but Perriello doesn’t speak directly — he speaks with great integrity and from principle.   That characteristic, of having the courage of convictions and being able to speak coherently about them, goes a long way with voters who might disagree in a specific case but who respect a clear-speaking politician with principles.  

And, Tom’s words about the Senate-House relationship — his direct and strong words — merit attention, echoing, and applause.

Scott Brown’s victory provides clear lessons for both Democratic Party and Republican Party operatives.  The question: whether these operatives will read the tea leaves correctly or incorrectly and, therefore, what measures they will take walking away from the situation.

Briefly, for the Republican Party, the message is clear: essentially every single seat is up for grabs in this fall’s elections if (a) they have a photogenic candidate, (b) maintain message discipline with truthiness-laden attacks on all policies, (c) avoid mentioning “Bush” (and invoke “Reagan”), and (d) if the Democratic Party “establishment” fails to heed the lessons of Massachusetts.

Now, as in New Jersey and Virginia, much of the Democratic Party knashing of teeth will resolve around Martha Coakley’s failures as a candidate (from failure to take the election seriously to, in the debate, stating that this was “Ted Kennedy’s seat to …).  There is (substantial) truth to these complaints, but this was not the core of what went on in Massachusetts (although, a more robust / stronger campaign and a Brown surge wouldn’t have seriously threatened Coakley).

From this election, many will propagate a message that “Obama is too left” and that “voters think he’s trying to do too much”.  This, however, simply flies in the face of both polling and on-the-ground reality.

He watched her, his chin in his hand. All right, he said. This is the best I can do.

He straightened out his leg and reached into his pocket and drew out a few coins and took one and held it up. He turned it. For her to see the justice of it. He held it between his thumb and forefinger and weighed it and he flipped it spinning in the air and caught it and slapped it down on his wrist. Call it, he said.

She looked at him, at his outheld wrist. What? She said.

Call it.

I wont do it.

Yes you will. Call it

God would not want me to do that.

Of course he would. You should try to save yourself. Call it. This is your last chance.

Heads, she said.

He lifted his hand away. The coin was tails.

I’m sorry.

She didnt answer.

Maybe it’s for the best.

She looked away. You make it like it was the coin. But you’re the one.

It could have gone either way.

The coin didnt have no say. It was just you.

Perhaps. But look at it my way. I got here the same way the coin did.

She sat sobbing softly. She didnt answer.

For things at a common destination there is a common path. Not always easy to see. But there.

Everything I ever thought has turned out different, she said. There aint the least part of my life I could of guessed. Not this, not none of it.

I know.

You wouldnt of let me off noway.

I had no say in the matter. Every moment in your life is a turning and every one a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased. I had no belief in your ability to move a coin to your bidding. How could you? A person’s path through the world seldom changes and even more seldom will it change abruptly. And the shape of your path was visible from the beginning.

She sat sobbing. She shook her head.

Yet even though I could have told you how all of this would end I thought it not too much to ask that you have a final glimpse of hope in the world to lift your heart before the shroud drops, the darkness. Do you see?

Oh God, she said. Oh God.

I’m sorry.

She looked at him a final time. You dont have to, she said. You dont. You dont.

He shook his head. You’re asking that I make myself vulnerable and that I can never do. I have only one way to live. It doesnt allow for special cases. A coin toss perhaps. In this case to small purpose. Most people dont believe that there can be such a person. You can see what a problem that must be for them. How to prevail over that which you refuse to acknowledge the existence of. Do you understand? When I came into your life your life was over. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is the end. You can say that things could have turned out differently. That they could have been some other way. But what does that mean? They are not some other way. They are this way. You’re asking that I second say the world. Do you see?

Yes, she said, sobbing. I do. I truly do.

Good, he said. That’s good. Then he shot her.

To be fair to Anton Chigur, he actually flipped the coin, but I couldn’t otherwise resist the parallel.