The Case For Clinton

Obama makes it:

"If you believe that these are problems that are incremental in nature, that really you just have to do a tweak here and a tweak there, and that our big problem has been that George Bush has just been a poor manager of government, then I think that Hillary’s arguments are persuasive."

I put it this way:

The paradox is that Hillary makes far more sense if you believe that times are actually pretty good. If you believe that America’s current crisis is not a deep one, if you think that pragmatism alone will be enough to navigate a world on the verge of even more religious warfare, if you believe that today’s ideological polarization is not dangerous, and that what appears dark today is an illusion fostered by the lingering trauma of the Bush presidency, then the argument for Obama is not that strong. Clinton will do.

I think America’s current moment requires something other than more polarization and fearful pragmatism.

Fundamentalism Watch

Some creationists are protesting a museum in Kenya that will display some blasphemous bones:

Bishop Boniface Adoyo, the head of the 35 Kenyan evangelical denominations, is leading opposition to the exhibition. “I do not dispute that as humans we have a history, but my family most certainly did not descend from the apes,” he said. The bishop was invited to view the new Human Origins gallery before it opened this month, and said that he would call on his flock to demonstrate outside the museum if evolution was described as anything other than merely a theory.

The Base vs Romney

Romneymandelnganafpgetty

Maybe Hewitt should have thought of this before injecting theology into politics years ago:

"I have voted for the Republican candidate in every presidential election to date (I’m currently 41 years of age), but will not vote for Romney if he is the nominee. Mormons embrace the blasphemous notion that each of them (if deemed worthy enough) can, one day, become god of his own planet…As an evangelical Christian, I would have no trouble voting for a Catholic or a Jewish candidate, and would even consider voting for an atheist, but can and will never vote for someone whose ambitions include becoming god," – Mike Butz, emailing Fox News.

Amy King: "You’d better believe that I refuse to vote for a man without the personal character to withdraw from a racist, sexist organization, and I’m very nervous about turning over the most powerful office in the world to a man who thinks he’s going to become a god and collect trophy wives in the Celestial Kingdom."

I think theoconservatism is busy refuting itself. It seems to me a shame that a largely competent, decent, Rockefeller Republican like Mitt Romney should be a victim of the party the Christianists have constructed. Compared with Giuliani, he is a blast of adulthood.

(Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty.)

Genomics to The Rescue?

I’m not opposed to cap-and-trade emissions controls, and was touting them over two decades ago to Margaret Thatcher’s think-tank. But a serious carbon tax seems to me the only way to create the incentives for the private sector to solve or at least treat our ruinous oil-addiction. In that vein, here’s some encouraging news:

J. Craig Venter says he expects biology to largely replace what has been created by the oil industry. If anyone can comfortably make a statement like that to a room full of venture capitalists, it’s Venter. The genomics guru, who has had his own genome sequenced and has a new memoir out he’s looking to plug, detailed his vision for “designing and synthesizing life” and its applications for energy to a group of VCs down on Sand Hill Road on Tuesday.

Venter explained his genome sequencing work, which has been his focus for the past 15 years, as “bringing biology into a digital world.” He previously jump-started the race to produce the first full transcription of a human genome, and his team is now close to creating the first new artificial life form by building a synthetic chromosome and inserting it into a living bacterial cell.

How does all this apply to clean tech? Venter’s startup, Synthetic Genomics, is commercializing the research to create biofuels, which Venter says are far better — more energy-efficient, more hardy, and easier to blend in the existing fuel system — than traditional biofuels ethanol and butanol.

More here.

Gingrich Goes Green

And the enviro-left blows a gasket. It seems to me that if environmentalists actually care about the planet, they should be engaging in dialogue with those who want to do the same thing, even if they differ on policy. Here you have an impeccably credentialed conservative puling the GOP to a more eco-friendly position. And they can’t hurl enough vitriol in his direction.