Owner: Sustainable Middle Class URL:http://blog.sustainablemiddleclass.com Join Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:16:48 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Vibrant economy, equal opportunity, environmental quality, sustainability, stewardship, renewable energy, freedom, and more. Site statistics:Click here
Obama and McCain Differ on Yucca Mountain 2008-08-15 19:27:09 One of the strongly contrasting views held by Obama
and McCain
relates to the proposed Yucca Mountain
nuclear waste disposal site in Nye County, Nevada. Obama opposes the site, McCain wants it open.
An excellent paper is available on this topic entitled How Safe is Yucca Mountain? by Dr. Thomas B. Cochran. In the paper, [...]
Peggy Lee and Dave Barbour 2008-08-09 20:52:33 Pour yourself a highball and relax. Peggy
Lee with husband guitarist Dave Barbour. Barbour was alcoholic, an occupational hazard. They split after nine years. Peggy Lee went on to marry three more times.
Ethanol Wins: EPA Turns Back Texas Beef Lobby 2008-08-07 20:59:49 Texas Governor Rick Perry intervened on behalf of the Texas beef lobby to reduce the amount of fuel ethanol sold in Texas. The beef lobby believes ethanol is driving up the price of corn and raising the cost of cattle feed, and, therefore, what they have to charge for their beef. According to MarketWatch:
Gov. Perry [...] Read more:Texas
Big Government and Nuclear Power: Made for Each Other 2008-08-05 22:25:47 Dr. Thomas B. Cochran, Ph.D., Senior Scientist and Director of the Nuclear
Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, summarizes the unique aspect of nuclear power and its dependence on government programs:
Commercial nuclear power has unique risks and the liability for these risks has been transferred to the government:
• Nuclear is the only existing [...] Read more:Government
, Big Government
McCain Blows Oil Smoke 2008-08-02 13:06:29 Oil oil companies already have lease access to 68 million acres of land on and off shore, but John McCain
wants them to have more. Should they get it?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s blog The Gavel offers the following (and more) from its “Fact Sheet:”
· The fact is there are 68 million acres onshore and offshore [...] Read more:Smoke
THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy 2008-07-26 17:29:41 I’ve not read anything quite like this book by Cormac McCarthy
. It won a Pulitzer Prize and was featured in Oprah’s Book Club. I’m a bit late catching up on the latest buzz and maybe most folks have already read it.
Global warming would be a picnic at the beach compared to a nuclear winter. [...]
LCV Endorses Obama, Blasts McCain 2008-07-25 19:50:39 The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) has endorsed Senator Obama
for President. According to the LCV Congressional Scorecard, Obama has a lifetime score of 86% agreement on energy and environment votes, compared to 24% for McCain
.
Earlier this year, the LCV gave McCain a zero for the 2007 session. In this post, I [...]
The Carbon-Free, Nuclear-Free Energy Roadmap 2008-07-21 23:59:57 The Institute for Energy
and Environmental Research (IEER) has published a book called Carbon
-Free and Nuclear
-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy by Arjun Makhijani. It’s available as a free download at the IEER website. A four-page summary (pdf) lays out the basic rationale for going carbon and nuclear free:
1. Severe climate change, caused mainly [...]
News Hour Misrepresented Gore’s Clean Energy Recommendations 2008-07-19 00:34:22 During the news summary on Thursday July 17, 2008, Jim Lehrer misrepresented Al Gore’s recommendations for developing cleaner energy sources. Lehrer said this:
“Former Vice President Al Gore challenged the nation today to turn to clean sources of power within ten years. He said the U.S. should switch from oil and gas to generate electricity and [...] Read more:Energy
, Clean
June Stagflation Index Dives Deep 2008-07-17 21:04:20 The June Simplified Stagflation Index
(SFI) fell to -77, down from a revised -26 in May.
The June data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that inflation rose much faster than wages for non-managerial workers in the private sector, who make up about 80% of the American workforce. The key data:
Consumer Price Index (CPI) [...] Read more:Dives
Palin Allegedly Gave Staff a “Sophie’s Choice” 2008-09-15 22:28:50 Working people will get this. It’s a clear example of a pernicious management style that treats staff with contempt.
Will the press have enough time to get the scoop on Sarah Palin before the election? It’s hard to say, but they’re working on it. In this New York Times article, several people familiar with Palin’s management [...] Read more:Allegedly
, Staff
, Sophie
, Choice
GOP Platform Opposes Abortion, No Exceptions 2008-09-14 16:09:29 According to the GOP Platform
plank on abortion, would a woman have to bare the child of her rapist? How about girls, who are reaching puberty at ever-earlier ages: 9, 10, 11 years old? According to Medical News Today, and their understanding of the 2008 GOP Platform, the answer is yes, as follows:
The nonbinding document [...]
For McCain, Will Persistent Lies Work? 2008-09-11 21:18:10 “You must be a great liar and hypocrite.” - Niccolo Machiavelli, from The Prince (Bantam Classics)
Machiavelli, advisor to monarchs 500 years ago, would have no business advising government officials in an open democratic society, but John McCain
’s campaign advisors, former Bush campaign staffers and Karl Rove minions, must think so. Here is an excerpt from [...] Read more:Persistent
McCain’s Irresponsible Choice 2008-09-09 21:50:20 McCain chose Palin to create media buzz.
What sort of expertise would Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska since 2007, bring to the office of Vice President, second highest office in the nation? John McCain is seventy-two. His mother is in her nineties, but his father, with whom McCain most likely shares a closer hormonal and metabolic [...] Read more:Choice
, McCain
GOP Platform Says Ethanol Mandate Must Go 2008-09-07 16:09:44 The Corn Belt won’t be happy about this.
Sarah Palin wasn’t the only surprise to come out of the Republican Convention. One of the planks in the GOP platform would whack the federal ethanol mandate, which calls for 36 billion gallons of U.S. produced ethanol to be blended into the nation’s fuel supply by 2012. This [...] Read more:Platform
An E-Mail from Wasilla 2008-09-06 19:51:45 Anne Kilkenny, a self described “homemaker and education advocate” and resident of Wasilla Alaska, has known Sarah Palin a long time. She “got sideways” with Palin when Palin tried to fire the town librarian.
Anne wrote an email letter to some of her friends and it wasn’t long before it spread all over the internet. [...]
Would Palin Preserve, Protect, and Defend the Constitution? 2008-09-05 19:34:49 Sarah Palin has been accused of abusing the office of mayor. Allegedly, Palin threatened to fire the town librarian who wouldn’t go along with her banning books from the public library. More information is available here.
Which of the Candidates Know the Constitution
?
Here is the U.S Presidential Oath of Office, administered in accordance to Article II, [...] Read more:Preserve
, Protect
Grand Old Machiavellian Party 2008-09-04 19:26:41 To warm up for tonight’s speech by “Prince” John McCain, here’s some “sage advice” and some themes to listen for, courtesy of Niccolo Machiavelli, the Karl Rove of his time nearly 500-years ago. From Machiavelli’s book The Prince (Bantam Classics):
What makes the prince contemptible is being considered changeable, trifling, effeminate, cowardly, or indecis Read more:Grand
, Party
A Proposal to Nationalize Mortgage Lending 2008-09-02 21:10:01 Update September 3
From Bloomberg:
“They should have wiped out the shareholders, nationalized the institutions with legislation that they are to be reconstituted,” Greenspan said in an interview.
“The crisis that engulfed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last month was “the ideal opportunity to come to grips with what is a fundamentally flawed model, which privatizes profits [.. Read more:Proposal
, Mortgage
, Lending
Unions Raise All Boats 2008-09-01 13:05:06 Quote of the Day:
“Don’t be getting down on unions. We don’t get anything until the union gets it first. - Middle manager at a major U.S. corporation.
Happy Labor Day! Read more:Unions
, Boats
Improve the Bailout Bill, Pass it Soon 2008-09-30 20:58:33 From what I can gather from people who actually know stuff about economics and finance, Martin Wolf, who writes for the Financial Times, is somebody we should listen to. Wolf is not always easy reading (at least for me), but his articles are worth the struggle. In today’s article Wolf wrote:
We are watching the [...] Read more:Improve
Peter Galbraith on the Status of Iraq 2008-09-29 19:20:14 Peter Galbraith, Iraq
expert and Senior Diplomatic Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, has this interesting article offering a contrarian view of The Surge. Here’s an exerpt (the whole thing is good):
We hear again and again from Washington that we have turned a corner in Iraq and are on the path to [...] Read more:Peter
, Status
McCain Doesn’t Understand: Nuclear Power Won’t Solve Global Warming 2008-09-27 20:51:36 But it will cost taxpayers a bundle.
Photo Credit: Firefox_1
In last night’s presidential debate, John McCain
said he would end ethanol subsidies and build 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030. He didn’t mention the massive subsidies directed to nuclear power including federal funding for nuclear research and development, federal loan guarantees for construction, federal responsibility Read more:Understand
, Nuclear
, Solve
, Global
Three Fundamental Questions for Paulson and Congress 2008-09-23 20:23:42 Norton Garfinkle, former economics professor and current chairman of the nonprofit, nonpartisan education and research organization, Future of American Democracy Foundation, has written a highly readible book about the modern American economy.
The American Dream vs. The Gospel of Wealth: The fight for a Productive Middle-Class Economy is written for the citizen reader, has a [...] Read more:Three
, Fundamental
, Paulson
, Congress
Does McCain’s Patriotism Include Fiscal Responsibility? 2008-09-19 14:25:33 Country First! Just don’t raise my taxes! - Essentially the “McCain
Doctrine.”
The Gross National Debt
As the fall political campaign goes forward, we’re likely to hear from Republican supply-siders about how high the taxes are for wealthy Americans. They’ll claim that taxes will need further cutting to keep the economy growing. They like to quote high [...] Read more:Patriotism
, Responsibility
About Spreading the Wealth Around 2008-10-18 16:02:22 A few quotes:
“If you don’t pay the people enough money, they can’t buy the cars.” - Henry Ford
“My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. If you’ve got a plumbing business, you’re gonna be better off if you’ve got a whole bunch of [...] Read more:Wealth
You’re Rich, John McCain. Congratulations. 2008-10-17 21:19:20 Congratulations are in order, Senator, because you from the very start (earlier than that actually), had the brains and determination to pick grandparents who amounted to something. Terrific character judgement on your part, sir, a trait that’s served you well through the years. Grandson of an admiral, son of admiral, you were clearly officer material [...] Read more:McCain
, Congratulations
, John McCain
Palin’s Two-Faced Abortion Problem 2008-10-13 19:55:08 “Alaska has some of the most liberal abortion laws in the country.” - Lisa Myers, MSNBC
Recently, Sarah Palin has been hitting Barack Obama on the isue of abortion, as follows:
The more I hear from Senator Obama, the more I understand why he is so vague and evasive on the subject. Americans need to see [...] Read more:Problem
August Stagflation Index Shows Improvement 2008-10-09 22:50:17 The August
Simplified Stagflation Index
(SFI) was 54, up from -47 in July, an improvement of 101 points. This was good news for those who hung onto their jobs.
The August data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that wages rose faster than inflation for non-managerial workers in the private sector, who make up [...] Read more:Improvement
Seeing Around Corners 2008-10-08 22:11:40 For the most part, last night’s debate between Obama and McCain seemed pretty bland but there was one time near the end when I wanted to stand up and cheer. Senator Obama made the comment “we need to see around corners.” Then, he went on to describe how the Bush administration has been “reactive” to [...] Read more:Seeing
, Corners
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