Month: September 2008

Steve Rayner outlines his plan to combat climate change:

The only plausible way to curb emissions in the next few decades is to accelerate the development and adoption of low-carbon energy sources. Rather than setting targets for greenhouse gases, we should establish goals for installed technology, beginning with the most energy-intensive sectors, like electricity generation, ground transportation, and cement manufacturing. Similarly, international cooperation on emissions reduction should focus on the handful of countries responsible for the lion’s share of the problem. In the US and elsewhere, R&D funding should be directed toward technologies that otherwise might not come online for up to 20 years. This would fill the gap between the turnaround timeline for venture capital (three to five years) and for basic research (beyond 20 years).

Exactly. Don’t try to control; try to invent!

The AP has a great little investigation into classic small-town mayor special favors when Palin was lording it over Wasilla:

When Palin needed to sell her house during her last year as Wasilla mayor, she got the city to sign off on a special zoning exception – and did so without keeping a promise to remove a potential fire hazard.

She gladly accepted gifts from merchants:

A free "awesome facial" she raved about in a thank-you note to a spa. The "absolutely gorgeous flowers" she received from a welding supply store. Even fresh salmon to take home.

She also stepped in to help friends or neighbors with City Hall dealings. She asked the City Council to add a friend to the list of speakers at a 2002 meeting – and then the friend got up and asked them to give his radio station advertising business.

Guess which one? Conservatives questioning Palin’s heft. The reason of Kathleen Parker is too much for Fox readers to handle, apparently.

Sarah Baxter reports:

Inside John McCain’s campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. “It would be fantastic,” said a McCain insider. “You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week.”

Is this what McCain is now counting on? Shutting down the race in order not to lose it?

Just listen to him go off on Dick Morris about the Obama-McCain first debate. Even Dick Morris has to avoid total self-humiliation in the teeth of his Fox News bosses’ propaganda.

Larison reviews pre-VP Palin interviews and realizes she just wasn’t tested before. You think?

Miami Beach, Florida, 7.10 pm.

A review of the latest poli sci literature.

Blake Hounshell passes along this chart. This is how John McCain believes we are going to get back to fiscal sanity. Kinda similar to his unhinged notion that we can get to energy independence by drilling at home. There’s nothing wrong with cutting pork and off-shore drilling, done responsibly. But if you think these are actual solutions to America’s real fiscal crisis, you really need to find another line of work:

 

Silver reads the first batch of post-debate polling.