Month: July 2008

by Chris Bodenner

Kottke has all the details.

by Chris Bodenner
Pointing to a Charlie Rose interview with environmentalist Amory Lovins, founder of the Rocky Mtn Institute, a reader writes:

The biggest reason why adding production capacity in ANWR is pointless is not the difficulty of drilling, or the relatively small additional reserves, but of protecting the Alaska pipeline, which is pretty much the biggest, softest terrorist target in the US.  All you have to do is blow it up in one place during the winter and it’s all f*cked.  The oil runs hot through the insulated pipeline, so if you break it in winter, you’ll get "a 800-mile-long chapstick" (or something to that effect). It’s already been attacked numerous times, by disgruntled employees and drunks.

By Patrick Appel
Artist Jason Salavon averages photographs:

…each of these works utilizes 100 unique commemorative photographs culled from the internet. The final compositions are arrived at using both the mean and the median, splitting the difference between a specific norm and an ideal one.

The average of every 1990s Playbody centerfold after the jump (very safe for work):

Sydney, Australia, 9 am.

By Patrick Appel
Howell Raines largely blames the oil companies for $4 an $5 gasoline:

Oil-friendly members of Congress like to blame environmental regulation for the lack of refinery capacity. But the oil companies themselves choked supply by closing more than half of their 300 U.S. refineries in the past 25 years…Studies by Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a respected, oil-friendly consulting firm, indicate that even if all environmental regulations were removed from refinery construction, few would probably be built right away because of a 75 percent rise in construction costs since 2000, largely driven by the increased fuel cost of transporting building materials.

By Patrick Appel Ben Smith’s analysis:

It’s almost a convention of politics that when a politician says he was misquoted, but doesn’t detail the misquote or offer an alternative, he’s really saying he wishes he hadn’t said what he did, or that he needs to issue a pro-forma denial to please someone.

The Iraqi Prime Minister’s vague denial seems to fall in that category.

The fact that it arrived to the American press via CENTCOM, seems to support that. It came, as Mike Allen notes, 18 hours later, and at 1:30 a.m. Eastern, a little late for Sunday papers; his staff also seems, Spiegel reports, not to have contested Iraqi reporting of the quote, even in the "government-affiliated" Iraqi press.

The notion this was a misquote also bumps up against Spiegel’s standing by its reporting, and providing a long, detailed transcript.

….while there’s been some suggestion that Maliki was playing domestic politics, this seems like the opposite. (Who plays domestic politics in the pages of Spiegel?) Maliki is playing international politics, American politics even. While some may object to that, it may be a sign that he intends to be a player in the American election from now until November, and realizes how much more leverage he has now on the next president’s stance toward his country than he will after our election.

by Chris Bodenner
Here’s how a Newsweek reporter began his interview with actress Gillian Anderson:

I’ve got to confess. I don’t know anything about "The X-Files."
OK.                      

Why is it such a big deal?             
Ohmygod. You’re not going to do this to me, are you? Tell me you’re not going to do this. Oh come on! … Hire somebody that knows enough that we don’t have to explain this again.

I saw the last movie, but I didn’t watch all nine seasons.             
I mean, nobody did. Did they? …

The rest is light on content and heavy on cringe:

Like where [have you invested]?
London, California, Canada. There’s another country that I’ve just added that I’m not going to talk about because it’s private. So that’s four continents.

California and Canada are on the same continent.
It doesn’t sound so special, then. Never mind.
…
A journalist said interviewing you is like wrestling a crocodile.
What does that mean? I have no idea.

By Jessie Roberts

Apparently, Nevada Republicans are having some trouble with the nomination process…

Instead, the party’s executive board, in a private conference call July 25, would decide who from Nevada will attend the Republican National Convention to formally nominate U.S. Sen. John McCain.

The state party abruptly ended its state convention in April to head off a delegation of Ron Paul supporters who had captured control of the proceedings and appeared on track to elect a majority slate to the Sept. 1-4 national convention.

Party officials planned to reconvene on July 26. But only about 300 delegates sent in RSVPs, well short of the 675 needed for a quorum.

Progressive blog Bleeding Heartland speculates:

Nevada is in my opinion the state most likely to go Democratic thanks to Libertarian presidential candidate and former Republican Congressman Bob Barr. Not only are there huge numbers of Ron Paul supporters who don’t back McCain, there is a relevant history. The Libertarian vote in the 1998 Senate race was large enough to hand a narrow victory to Democrat Harry Reid.

(H/T: Random Thoughts From Reno, via Angry Bear)

By Patrick Appel
Spiegel isn’t backing down:

The New York Times pointed out that al-Dabbagh’s statement "did not address a specific error." CBS likewise expressed disbelief pointing out that Maliki mentions a timeframe for withdrawal three times in the interview and then asks, "how likely is it that SPIEGEL mistranslated three separate comments? Matthew Yglesias, a blogger for the Atlantic Monthly, was astonished by "how little effort was made" to make the Baghdad denial convincing. And the influential blog IraqSlogger also pointed out the lack of specifics in the government statement.

SPIEGEL sticks to its version of the conversation.

by Chris Bodenner
McCain and Clinton’s pander-rific gas-tax holiday dies in Congress.  But now lawmakers are talking about raising the price of fuel by 10 cents, in order to replenish the Highway Trust Fund.  Regardless of the policy merits, do Democrats really want to hand the GOP that political bludgeon for the fall?

Ed Morrissey notes that in the transportation bill last year, "over $8 billion got spent on earmarks — the same amount that Congress says will be the shortfall this year for transportation needs, and the deficit they need to erase by raising the gas tax." Pork-busting McCain couldn’t ask for a better talking point.