"Defeat Bush"

Last night I got a call from the DNC. They were doing the normal round of shilling and I didn't have any money to give to them, like always. But after this phone call I'm not sure I want to give them any more.

The lady who called talked very divisively talked about how Bush wants to bankrupt social security (not how his plan will, but how he wants to). This didn't surprise me at all, I was put off by the parisanship of it all (like always), but then she said something that I hadn't noticed until after I hung up the phone.

"We need your contribution to help defeat Bush."

Not "We need a better plan for social security" or "Help us build a stronger DNC" or even "Help us fund the overhead costs here at the DNC."

The DNC is still stuck in election mode, and it's hurting America.

This is why I hate the two party system. It's us-versus-them, but for the most part both groups of "us" don't matter. Or, more accurately, shouldn't matter but much to the detriment of the American public, do matter.

If there were a viable centrist third party this sort of thing wouldn't happen. When there are two sides it's very easy to get caught up in the us-versus-them mentality, because either we're right or they're wrong. However, with another demention to it, a second "them," it becomes easier to work with someone else who is not within your group. Either you have to form teams to get stuff done (taking the best of winner-take-all and proportional representation) or the us-verus-them strategy becomes irrelevant as it begins to sound paranoid when you say "We are right, it's those other two who are wrong" over and over again.

Celebrate Deliciousness

Happy 43rd birthday, Taco Bell.

Mmm... Capitalism

Can you say irony?

The busiest McDonald's restaurant in the world is not in America but thousands of miles away in Pushkin Square.

(That's in Russia, by the way)

Thomas Friedman Tells It Like It Is

God bless you, Thomas Friedman.

Friedman is my absolute favorite political writer of all time ever. He is able to be critical and constructive at the same time. Show me anyone else anywhere who does both with as little devisive edge as Mr. Friedman.

Read:

On energy, the Bush team's obsession with drilling in the Alaskan wilderness to increase supply is mind-boggling. "I am sure China will be thrilled with the Bush decision to drill in Alaska," said the noted energy economist Philip Verleger Jr. "Oil in Alaska cannot easily or efficiently be shipped to our Gulf Coast refineries. The logical markets are on the West Coast of the United States and in Asia. Consumers in China and Japan, not the U.S., will be the real beneficiaries of any big Alaska find.

"With a big find, China and Japan will be able to increase imports from a dependable supplier - the U.S. - while consumers in the U.S. will still be at the mercy of unreliable suppliers, such as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. It is simple geography. [Also], a big find will lead to lower prices in the short term, promoting more emissions and more warming."

Moreover, focusing exclusively on squeezing out a little more supply will only discourage conservation, Mr. Verleger added, setting the stage for higher prices again in three or four years - "when exhausting oil reserves and burgeoning demand from China and India will drive the price of oil to well above $100 a barrel." That will put even more money in the pockets of some of the world's worst governments.

That's why America urgently needs what I call a "geo-green" strategy, which combines geopolitics with environmentalism. Geo-greenism starts with a $1-per-gallon gasoline tax, which would help close our budget gap and force the U.S. auto industry to convert more of its fleet to hybrid and ethanol technology, thereby reducing the amount of money going to Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Iran for oil. It would also reduce our dependence on China to finance our debt and the chances that we will end up in a global struggle with China for energy.

Wait, What?

A piece in the New York Times today discussed how Bush wants to subvert the negotiation process for rewriting the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to ensure that it excludes any non-nuclear nation (Iran) from enriching uranium for fuel. Quite frankly, I have no problem with this.

True it may be that the Bush administration moves too fast at times, it is also true that Europe (and really, they're the only other ones who matter in any of this) moves too slowly. I do not dispute their right to move slowly; I mean, I'd be very cautious too if I were Europe, wary of anything that looks like it could start a war after 2000 years of being torn up by war, rebuilt, and torn up again. So pretty much, although I hate to do it, I support this mending of the NPT.

Iran's argument for enriching uranium, however, is, on the surface, understandable. Still, I am not convinced. Iran says it needs to enrich uranium for its energy needs. While I understand it can't really use the sea of oil its floating on for its own purposes lest its economy tank, this paragraph from the Times article struck me as... we'll say 'odd':

While Mr. Bush and the director general of the I.A.E.A., Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, have different proposals to deal with the problem, they agree that established nuclear nations should supply fuel to countries that need it. While this would help ensure that no nation could secretly produce bomb-grade fuel, smaller countries say they should not be dependent on the West or international consortiums for a crucial source of energy.

Iran doesn't want to give up its uranium enrichment because it doesn't want the US (or any
"consortiums") to have it by the balls when it comes to energy.

Hmm...

Bush Continues to Baffle Me

I am having a hard time figuring out exactly what Bush is up to when it comes to diplomacy. On the one hand, he seems to be taking exciting steps towards moderate politics. On the other hand, he slapped the international community in its proverbial face.

Now, I am really glad Bush is talking to Europe. This is a big step for him. However, it's such an about-face that I can't help but be suspicious. Doing any reading about the issue, you'll find a definite grey area:

the Europeans had in turn agreed to take the nuclear issue to the United Nations Security Council if negotiations fail.

Who will decide when negotiations have failed? The United States decided when UN weapons inspections had failed in this exact same scenario two years ago, which caused the rift that makes this coming-together of the US and Europe significant.

My feeling is that Bush's appointments speak louder than his psudo-diplomacy in terms of describing his intended foreign policy for the next four years.

Evangelicals Get One Right

This is the perfect example of the fervor of partisan politics overpowering common sense and the common good.

more than 100 leaders will discuss issuing a statement on global warming. The meetings are considered so pivotal that Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, and officials of the Bush administration, who are on opposite sides on how to address global warming, will speak.

The fact that the evangelicals are getting behind environmentalism (finally) is a huge step forward for this cause, which I have always said is very much non-partisan. But the fact that the Right's most powerful chunk had to give the go-ahead in order for this coming together of adversaries is dispicable, because there are no winners when the two sides don't engage each other, only losers. And it's made even more dispicable by the fact that the losers are not contained within America: the entire world loses.

WTF?

Today my tooth ached slightly at the gum line whenever my lip would brush up against it. There was nothing too bothersome about it, because the ache wasn't very strong and when I rubbed it with my finger it didn't hurt. But I still wanted to see what it was.

Once I had the opportunity, I went to the mirror in my bathroom and examined the situation. Apparently a quarter-inch long beard hair I had shaved off had wedged itself between my tooth and my gum.

Seriously, wtf.