How could a person who has never heard of redbull seriously think they are aware enough to run the country? I just can’t believe it to be true. I heard about redbull 15 years ago and stopped drinking it over 5 years ago because I believe it to be pretty hard on the system. How can this be true?

In an ambitious move, a California utility plans to create a massive, distributed “powerplant” by installing a total of 2 square miles of solar cells on the roofs of businesses. Southern California Edison plans to install 250 megawatts’ worth of solar power, generating enough electricity to power 162,000 homes.

Green Wombat reports:

It’s a potentially game-changing move, one that could lower the cost of solar cells as manufacturers ramp up production to meet the utility’s schedule of installing a megawatt-a-week of arrays until it reaches the 250-megawatt target. That alone is more than United States’ entire production of solar cells in 2006 and will generate as much electricity as a small coal-fired power plant, albeit with no greenhouse gas emissions.

The $875 million initiative also marks the first big foray into so-called distributed energy by a major utility. Instead of building a centralized power station and the expensive transmission system needed to transmit electricity to the power grid, Edison will connect clusters of solar arrays into existing neighborhood circuits. A significant hurdle for the massive megawatt solar power plants planned for California’s Mojave Desert is the need in some cases to build multi billion-dollar transmission systems through environmentally sensitive lands to bring the electricity to coastal metropolises.

The initiative will work like this: Edison will lease the warehouse rooftop space from building owners in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The utility will outsource the installation, and retain ownership of the solar cells.

This plan will be exciting if it is achieved, and it will become a model for other utilities to follow.

Via: Green Wombat

Wind power is breaking new records in Spain, accounting for just over 40 percent of all electricity consumed during a brief period last weekend. As heavy winds lashed Spain on Saturday evening wind parks generated 9,862 megawatts of power which translated to 40.8 percent of total consumption. Between Friday and Sunday wind power accounted for an average of 28 percent of all electricity demand in Spain. Spain’s wind power generation equaled that of hydropower for the first time in 2007.

In July the government approved legislation that will allow offshore wind parks to be set up along the nation’s vast coastline in an effort to boost the use of renewable energy sources. While more expensive than land-based wind farms, offshore wind parks can take advantage of stronger, steadier coastal breezes.

Spain, which along with Germany and Denmark, is among the three biggest producers of wind power in the 27-nation European Union, is aiming to triple the amount of energy it derives from renewable sources by 2020.

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Snooping at the passport records of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain by the government a private company contracted by the government is a big deal, but it’s the kind of thing that some politicians are pushing to make easier and more widespread. How? With “Real ID” — the national ID card program that, once upon a time, was the kind of thing that Republicans and Democrats opposed, but now is the greatest new Big Brother kool-ade flavor favored by Republican politicians and neoconservative “thinkers.”

From Ars Technica, we get the quote of the week:

As I’ve reported previously, the major problem with Real ID is that local DMV and law enforcement officials will have access to an unprecedented amount of sensitive information on anyone with a Real ID—scanned copies of any documents used to establish identity, like birth certificates, bank statements, pay stubs, property tax bills, and so on, not to mention driving histories from other states. Now imagine all of that data in the hands of a crooked sheriff who’s fighting off a reformist challenger in a hotly contested election. Do you really want to live in that world?

No.

And maybe we should add to the scenario Jon Stokes paints: private companies contracted by governments. After all, the passport breaches were not done by government employees, they were perpetrated by private individuals working for a private corporation.

In this day and age where our government “outsources” (read: privatizes) so much of its own business, from school lunches to prisons to heavily armed mercenaries in Iraq, where is the line drawn on privacy in a Real ID world?

Time was that this was a country of people free to live their own lives. Now we have a government that seems bent on controlling and tracking us in all we do, as though we were guilty until proven innocent.

The tipping point for this political agenda was 9/11, when foreign nationals already on CIA watch lists managed to sneak in and skyjack their way into murderous infamy. The Bush Administration, with general Republican enthusiasm, reacted by pushing for radical new powers to spy not on foreign threats, but on Americans — none of whom had anything to do with 9/11.

The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

-1984, by George Orwell (Chapter 1)

Greg Mitchell tries to claim in Editor & Publisher that many major papers five years ago were in fact against the war on Iraq.

You may be surprised to learn that, precisely five years ago, at least one-third of the top newspapers in this country came out against President Bush taking us to war at that time. Many of the papers may have fumbled the WMD coverage, and only timidly raised questions about the need for war, but when push came to shove five years ago they wanted to wait longer to move against Saddam, or not move at all….

…Once equivocal editorial pages got straight to the point. “This war crowns a period of terrible diplomatic failure,” The New York Times argued, “Washington’s worst in at least a generation. The Bush administration now presides over unprecedented American might. What it risks squandering is not Americans’ power, but an essential part of our glory.”

Other papers were even more blunt. The Sun of Baltimore, consistently one of the most passionate dissenters on the war, began their editorial with the sentence, “This war is wrong. It is wrong as a matter of principle, but, more importantly, it is wrong as a matter of practical policy.”

USA Today asked Bush to finally disclose risks, costs, and democratic government estimates for Iraq while the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wondered “what ‘the peaceful entry’ of 280,000 troops would look like.” The Arizona Republic in Phoenix said that Bush and his “coalition of the willing,” with prodding by the French, “have left the United Nations in tatters.”

Well editorial pages are certainly where people turn to first, right? Never mind the war-fostering headlines on the front pages. Never mind the lazy absence of any meaningful fact-checking on Administration claims.

Never mind ignoring the sometimes massive anti-war demonstrations in New York and elsewhere.

No, the editors clucked and tutted and therefore should get a pass on their crappy coverage.

Any wonder why newspapers are still in trouble and mistrusted by so many?

Send this around. Please.

More at http://www.theuptake.org The UpTake and Salimah Ebrahim interview a family of Korean-Canadians going out to eat with their Austin-residing daughter in Lockhart, Texas. They speak to how electing Obama or Clinton will change the view of the U.S. abroad and how the next President should deal with a possible change in leadership in North Korea.

Author: Veracifier
Keywords: obama hillary clinton texas austin primary caucus
Added: March 3, 2008

February 29. 2008

Author: Veracifier
Keywords: barack obama hillary rodham clinton campaign ad
Added: February 29, 2008

He’s not a natural-born citizen, is he?

McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen” can hold the nation’s highest office.

Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states.

“There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent,” said Sarah Duggin, an associate professor of law at Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. “It is not a slam-dunk situation.”

McCain was born on a military installation in the Canal Zone, where his mother and father, a navy officer, were stationed. His campaign advisers say they are comfortable that McCain meets the requirement and note that the question was researched for his first presidential bid in 1999 and reviewed again this time around.

So maybe it’s a gray area. Isn’t this where the self-proclaimed ’strict constructionists’ get all holier-than-thou and demand that the Constitution be interpreted as narrowly as possible?

True conservatives who actually walk the walk and don’t just talk the talk must proclaim John McCain as not eligible to hold presidential office.

Cue the right-wing hypocrisy….

He’s not a natural-born citizen, is he?

McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen” can hold the nation’s highest office.

Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states.

“There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent,” said Sarah Duggin, an associate professor of law at Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. “It is not a slam-dunk situation.”

McCain was born on a military installation in the Canal Zone, where his mother and father, a navy officer, were stationed. His campaign advisers say they are comfortable that McCain meets the requirement and note that the question was researched for his first presidential bid in 1999 and reviewed again this time around.

So maybe it’s a gray area. Isn’t this where the self-proclaimed ’strict constructionists’ get all holier-than-thou and demand that the Constitution be interpreted as narrowly as possible?

True conservatives who actually walk the walk and don’t just talk the talk must proclaim John McCain as not eligible to hold presidential office.

Cue the right-wing hypocrisy….

Ralph Nader Presidention Race

Nafta Super Highway - Lou Dobbs

NIXON … When it comes to experience, I want you to remember I’ve had 173 meetings with President Eisenhower, and 217 times with the National Security Council. I’ve attended 163 Cabinet meetings. I’ve visited fifty four countries and had discussions with thirty-five presidents, nine prime ministers, two emperors, and the Shah of Iran…

CHOTINER (privately) Jesus Christ, has he told them how many push-ups he can do yet? What the hell happened to him?

In last night’s debate in Austin Texas, Senator Clinton sounded like the scene from the film Nixon.

Don’t get me wrong. I like Hillary, but last night in the Austin debate with Obama, she bombed.

Hillary suffers from the malaise of resume-itis. It’s what books like, “Getting into the Job Market Past 50″ warn us about … we have too much experience, most of which won’t resonate with the young and restless who are interviewing us. Moreover, if she’s got all this experience, “where’s the beef?” It’s all so passive voice, with her, without technically being passive voice. All these things she’s worked on, in, with, and through. To what end?

I am old enough to remember JFK when he ran against Nixon who had been Vice President under Eisenhower, and thus Nixon campaigned on having more experience than did the challenger, Senator Kennedy. The more Nixon told of his accomplishments, the more satisfied Nixon seemed. Kennedy did not question Nixon’s “resume,” but rather underscored that this was more of the same-old, same-old, whereas we needed a New frontier. He said in the first debate with Nixon, “I am not satisfied …”

This is a great country, but I think it could be a greater country; and this is a powerful country but I think it could be a more powerful country.

I’m not satisfied to have 50 percent of our steel-mill capacity unused.

I’m not satisfied when the United States had last year the lowest rate of economic growth of any major industrialized society in the world–because economic growth means strength and vitality. It means we’re able to sustain our defenses; it means we’re able to meet our commitments abroad.

I’m not satisfied, when we have over $9 billion dollars worth of food, some of it rotting even though there is a hungry world and even though 4 million Americans wait every month for a food package from the Government, which averages 5 cents a day per individual.

I saw cases in West Virginia, here in the United States, where children took home part of their school lunch in order to feed their families because I don’t think we’re meeting our obligations toward these Americans.

I’m not satisfied when the Soviet Union is turning out twice as many scientists and engineers as we are.

I’m not satisfied when many of our teachers are inadequately paid, or when our children go to school part-time shifts. I think we should have an educational system second to none.

I’m not satisfied when I see men like Jimmy Hoffa, in charge of the largest union in the United States, still free.

I’m not satisfied when we are failing to develop the natural resources of the United States to the fullest. Here in the United States, which developed the Tennessee Valley and which built the Grand Coulee and the other dams in the Northwest United States, at the present rate of hydropower production–and that is the hallmark of an industrialized society–the Soviet Union by 1975 will be producing more power than we are.

These are all the things I think in this country that can make our society strong, or can mean that it stands still.

I’m not satisfied until every American enjoys his full constitutional rights. If a Negro baby is born, and this is true also of Puerto Ricans and Mexicans in some of our cities, he has about one-half as much chance to get through high school as a white baby. He has one-third as much chance to get through college as a white student. He has about a third as much chance to be a professional man, and about half as much chance to own a house. He has about four times as much chance that he’ll be out of work in his life as the white baby. I think we can do better. I don’t want the talents of any American to go to waste.

When Hillary cites her resume, she seems satisfied with where things have gone and the implication is that we can expect her to dish up more of the same.

Obama’s supposed inexperience is going for him since he can say that he’s not satisfied, no matter how lofty Hillary’s resume makes her.

But let’s face it, Obama has the power to attract. Again from the film, Nixon, when he speaks of RFK,

Bobby’s got the magic, like a goddamn rock star. They climb all over each other just to touch his clothes!

Obama has that magic. He is not running on his resume. He is running on his vision and frankly he comes off looking more presidential than Senator Clinton.

I could see Hillary as a CEO of one of the Dow Jones Industrials, but not of the United States. She defends her ability to get things done, but what things need doing? A set of programs is not inspiring when there is no vision.

Her high point in the debate was when she did not let go of the topic of health care. Kudos to both candidates, especially Hillary. Her low point was the plagiarism argument against Obama. Hardly presidential.

Hillary does not have a vision. She has facts at her fingertips and plans that are ready to go. Yet, does the United states need a Strategic Planner, or does it need a leader who can rally everyone? Not as long as her resumes lacks real accomplishments.

Hillary does not have the tragic flaws of Nixon, but I close on one last scene fro the film,

PAT: You want them to love you …

NIXON (interjects) No, I don’t. I’m not Jack …

PAT But they never will, Dick. No matter how many elections you win, they never will.

Unlike Nixon, at least the fictional one, Hillary could get to be loved, but she’s got to get away from the resume, and the past, and her satisfaction with things as the were and the looking backward … the question remains, has she run out of time to show us that side?

This is part 1 of the 2008 republican presidential debate held in new hampshire on june 3 2007

This is part 8 of the 2008 democratic presidential debate held in new hampshire on june 3 2007

I found this old recording of the reagan mondale presidential debate of 1984 in kansas city it was t

Cindy McCain, February 19, 2008

Author: Veracifier
Keywords: cindy john mccain presidential spouse proud pride america country michelle obama election08
Added: February 19, 2008

February 19, 2008

Author: Veracifier
Keywords: MIchelle Obama Really Proud Country Barack Democratic President 2008
Added: February 19, 2008