popular logistics

With gasoline prices between $3.38 and $4.06 per gallon, and electricity increasing 15% per year and therefore doubling every 5 years, energy is a major issue in the 2008 presidential election.

As President, McCain would focus on coal, oil, and nuclear power. Obama would focus on wind and solar, requiring U. S. utilities to get 25% of their electricity from solar and wind by 2025. McCain would require 20% by 2030. He would also reduce the “red tape” to speed construction of power plants and would build 45 nuclear plants by 2030, at which time he would be 94. Obama, who will be 69 in 2030, is concerned about the radioactive waste problem and other challenges of nuclear power. It does not seem likely that he will call for the construction of 45 new nuclear plants in the next 22 years.

McCain would give the oil companies $34 to $55 Billion over the next five years in subsidies and tax breaks (click here). He also spoke about giving drivers a $30 tax break this past summer. However, the money “given” to the drivers would have been made up in other taxes. Obama would give tax payers a $1,000 tax rebate based on a taxing “windfall” profits of the oil companies over the next 5 years.

McCain proposed a $300 million prize to the auto company that develops a next-generation car battery and would commit $2 billion annually to “clean-coal.” Obama would invest $150 billion over 10 years on low-carbon energy sources, double R&D spending on biomass, solar and wind resources; accelerate commercialization of plug-in hybrids, invest in low-emissions coal plants.

The U S Supreme Court ruled, in 2007, that the under the terms of the Clean Air Act, the EPA must regulate Carbon Dioxide. McCain favors a cap-and-trade CO2 approach. He sponsored a bill in 2007 to cut emissions by 30 percent by 2050. Obama would cut carbon dioxide emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.

Popular Logistics prefers that we accept Al Gore’s challenge: 100% Clean and Green by 2018. The details of the McCain and Obama positions, compiled by Ayesha Rascoe and Chris Baltimore, from their web-sites Reuters and the International Herald Tribune and Friends of the Earth, are below.

Senator McCain, during a recent New Orleans press availablility, said that he

“supported every investigation” into the government’s role regarding the hurricane, when in fact he twice voted against an independent commission.”

From “Katrina Kerfuffle,” on FactCheck.org .

Notwithstanding the merits of the the votes in question - it’s hard to have a national discussion about important issues - such as what the lessons learned from Katrina might be - when United States senators lie, are uninformed, or misinformed, about their own voting records.

Elisabeth Bumiller reports in the Times that Senator McCain has not only described the Administration’s reponse to Katrina a ‘disgraceful,’ but that he also believed that the President was directly responsible.

Asked at an outdoor news conference if he traced the failure of leadership straight to the top, Mr. McCain, who has vowed to campaign with President Bush, said, emphatically, “yes.”

Before his news conference, Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, spent about half an hour on a walking tour of rubble and still-dilapidated houses in the Lower Ninth Ward, all recorded by two packed, slow-moving flatbed trucks of reporters and camera crews who rumbled just ahead of the candidate and his wife, Cindy.

At least one resident was disturbed by all the media attention, particularly by the lack of seats for local residents at Mr. McCain’s 20-minute news conference. “We need to have an opportunity to have a meaningful dialogue,” said Mary Fontenot, who is with All Congregations Together, a church group working to rebuilding New Orleans. “Twenty minutes out on the lawn does not suffice, with a designated seating for traveling journalists.”

Elisabeth Bumiller, “McCain Criticizes Katrina Response as ‘Disgraceful’ “- The New York Times

Via Buzzflash.

(Note - this blog is generally more about Policy than Politics. However, the two are inseparable, and people who would make and enforce Policy, i.e., Presidents of the United States, must understand Politics.)

Interview of the Vice President by Martha Raddatz, ABC News

Shangri-La’s Barr Al Jissah Resort & Spa

Muscat, Oman

10:20 A.M. (Local)

Q Mr. Vice President, I want to start with a speech Barack Obama gave. I doubt you’ve seen the entire speech, but he denounced comments by Reverend Wright, but he didn’t distance himself completely. Do you think he did the right thing?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Martha, one of the things I’ve avoided so far is getting in the middle of the Democratic presidential primary process. And I think I’ll stay there.

Q But it was an important speech.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It was an important speech, …

Click here for the full transcript, on ‘WhiteHouse.gov’

Governor Mike Huckabee has come to the defense of Senator Obama and Reverend Jeremiah Wright:

“As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say ‘That’s a terrible statement!’ … I grew up in a very segregated South. And I think that you have to cut some slack — and I’m gonna be probably the only conservative in America who’s gonna say something like this, but I’m just tellin’ you — we’ve gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names…”

Read the rest on Ben Smith’s Blog at Politico. Thanks to Ghost in the Machine.

While we purposefully try to stay out of partisan tangles - this one seems potentially incendiary, and nearly entirely manufactured. The opinion of one Jewish man with more family in Israel than in the United States: Reverend Wright is welcome at our house any time, and this doesn’t remotely disqualify Senator Obama, in my view, as a presidential candidate.

We’d like a return to a discussion of the issues on their merits: tax policy, energy policy, Iraq, universal health care, and disaster preparedness. Which, as we keep trying to demonstrate, all overlap.

We The People, In Order To Form A More Perfect Union

Barack Obama, in Philadelphia, PA, Monday, March 18, 2008, excerpts.

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
…
we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

The League of Conservation Voters, LCV, and Move On . Org are asking people to urge TV news reporters to ask the candidates about Global Warming, Climate Change, and Energy. People at LCV and MoveOn have noticed that the candidates were asked about Global Warming six times. They were asked about extra-terrestrials three times. Click here for the Move On page, here for the League of Conservation page.

Move On and LCV have also partnered with local groups like Environment New Jersey in this effort (click here). Popular Logistics endorses this effort. Before reviewing the questions I’d like to ask, I would like to note, for the record, an observation.

The debate Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008, between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, sponsored by CNN, the LA Times, and Politico, and broadcast on CNN, like everything broadcast on CNN, provided opportunities for commercials. The advertisers included the coal industry.

Here are the questions I’d like to ask:

1. Given the urgency of global warming, will you commit to take action on the issue in your first 100 days in office? If yes, what specifically would you do?
2. Will you commit invest in and deploy clean renewable energy technologies, including solar, wind, geothermal, marine current, cogeneration and conservation?
   
3. Will you commit to cutting our use of old fashioned or problemmatic technologies, including coal, oil and nuclear – which are neither clean nor renewable?
4. Will you push a mandatory cap on emissions that achieves at least a 20 percent reduction by the end of next decade?
5. Will you call a major international summit on global warming in your first 60 days and work to sign a new international treaty by the end of your first year?

We want to know where all the candidates stand on global warming, climate change, and energy, and what they would do as President.

We also want to know how CNN can be expected to ask tough questions about energy policy, global warming, and climate change when it relies on advertising revenue from an energy industry which by it’s existence, is triggering global warming and climate change? Should the debates be sponsored by non-commercial interests?

We hold police officers to high standards of conduct - not least being truthful about bad outcomes that arise from their work. Part of the bargain ought to be that, in return, the government be equally frank towards police officers - and a high level of care in training and equipping them.

As a citizen, I think it’s difficult to demand high standards of conduct from the police when their employer - the City - treats them shabbily.

When Officer John M. Kelly crashed his police car during a chase on Staten Island in 2000, thousands of officers attended his funeral, where Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani declared: “John Kelly is a hero. Nobody can take that away.”

Officer Kelly’s wife, Patricia M. Kelly, a police officer herself before retiring in 2000, has been trying for years to show that her husband’s supervisors knowingly sent him on patrol in an unsuitable car, something the department denies.

city lawyers have argued that Officer Kelly caused his own death

Her lawyers have obtained documents showing that highway officers had reported steering problems in the model and a similar one.

In stark contrast to the mayor’s words at the funeral, city lawyers have argued that Officer Kelly caused his own death by driving recklessly and failing to use his seat belt. After years of litigation, Ms. Kelly has been denied in her efforts to question all the officers who had evaluated the cars.

Officer John Kelly patrolled the north shore of Staten Island for an auto larceny unit. He won high marks for his driving skills, vehicle maintenance, career potential and general demeanor.

“Officer Kelly reserves his action until he has assessed the situation completely,” his supervisors wrote in a year-end review for 1999. “He considers all aspects and develops a sound judgment of the situation.”

Still, there was friction between the extended family and the department. Mrs. Kelly’s sister, Virginia Duffy, joined a broad federal lawsuit accusing the department of sexual harassment and retaliation. The city eventually settled those claims for about $1.85 million awarded to six current or former officers.

On the afternoon of July 17, 2000, Officer John Kelly was assigned to patrol for traffic offenders. Alone in his car, an unmarked 1999 Chevy Lumina, he called in the license plate of a passing motorcycle, learned it had been stolen and gave chase. On Gulf Avenue in the Bloomfield section, he veered into a utility pole. Officer Kelly, 31, was pronounced dead within hours.

Rule of Law? Rule of Man? Or Law of the Jungle?

You can take the pulse of a society by it’s infrastructure: it’s roads, schools, hospitals, courts, and leadership.

You can measure a society’s wealth. But the wealthy are a privileged class. Even in communist China, there are people who push around resources. They don’t use the term wealthy, at least not yet. But what else would you call it?

Looking at politicians, in office and running for office - ask yourself why are they there? Are they dictators, dupes, or democrats? Are they akin to gangsters taking what they can at gunpoint? Are they helping their friends at the expense of everyone else? Or are they building schools and hospitals (because children of the ghettos can grow up to be doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers and accountants).

Will they help everyone to a bigger slice of the pie by the ‘trickle-up theory’ making the pie bigger? Or will they help their friends to a bigger slice of the pie by making your slice of the pie smaller? Is this character a ‘yes-man’ or one who would surround himself or herself with yes-men? Does he/she value dissent? How does he/she react to criticism? Does he/she make decisions based on facts or make up the “facts” based on decisions?

Popular Logistics is combing the candidates’ position papers to compare positions in the following areas:

1. First responders - policy and funding of equipment and training for paid and unpaid, full-time and part-time first responders, and the infrastructure that supports them;
2. Energy policy (conservation, strengthening power grids, renewable energy, emergency power)
3. National Health Insurance. Our position is this - ideology is more or less irrelevant in the face of potential bioterror or WMD attacks; if only because of those circumstances - the entire population needs catastrophic health and disability insurance.

We’re going to do these an issue at a time. That’s for two reasons. Because we’ve got limited resources and would like to report as we have something to report. And because, based on our preliminary research, on issue #1 - it looks like the issue isn’t on anyone’s radar screen.

What do we do next? Solar? Wind? Nuclear? Coal? Oil? Negawatts?

Burning coal and oil create greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Nuclear power produces radioactive waste and a prodigious amount of heat pollution. Nuclear and fossil fuels require mines, mills or wells, and they are really bad for the environment, causing everything from pollution to global warming.

Negawatts makes sense. Hybrid cars get great gas mileage and offer a smooth, quiet, comfort. Every barrel of oil we don’t burn is better for our economy. Every barrel of oil we don’t buy from Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Venezuela is $80 or $90 or $100 that doesn’t go into the hands of people like Achmadinejad, Bandar, or Chavez. That’s good for us and bad for the terrorists.

Solar and Wind are not perfect. People complain that they don’t look pretty. But they create jobs not pollution. They help our national security infrastructure. And they look fine to me. I’d rather see solar panels on my roof and wind turbines on my horizon then global warming and my money going to thugs like Achmadinejad.

Once we inspired the world with hope. The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, these defined the rights of man, all men, and women, and denied the privilege of the self-proclaimed nobility.

Today:
We export food and raw materials.
We import most of our manufactured goods.
We have created a huge private army.
We are in debt up to our eyeballs.
Unlike every other Western country, we don’t provide health care for our citizens.
We teach to the tests, but our education systems are failing. Most, if not all, the Republican Presidential Candidates, and the President, deny scientific theory.
We manufacture less and less.
We don’t do basic research. American companies that still do basic research do it in Asia.
We, who flew to the moon and back, are giving up the space program.
We design less and less.
We are even selling our infrastructure: our roads, highways, and bridges, to the highest bidder.

Once we inspired the world with hope. The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, these defined the rights of man, all men, and women, and denied the privilege of the self-proclaimed nobility.

Now we allow the government to read our mail and listen to our telephone conversations - for our own protection.

Write your Rep in Congress: in the Senate, and the House.

According to Juliet Lapidos, writing on Slate, Viacom may be violating the law by airing Colbert’s showComedy Central while he is running for President.

Maybe Viacom plans to offer Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Giuliani, Huckabee, Kucinich, McCain, Obama, Paul, Richardson, Romney, Thompson, Gore, and other official candidates 20 minutes per night. And I believe that would be a good thing. Maybe they should set up the Comedy Central Candidates Programming network, CCCP-net - All the Candidates - All the Time. Like CSPAN but without the dry boring policy wonk stuff. After all, it is a media circus. It’s not about policy, or national security, its about shameless self-promotion, money, access, and who you are persuaded you would want to have a beer with.

We are choosing a pop-star for President. Too bad Paris and Brittney are under 35 and can’t run.

Who would Jefferson, Madison, and Washington Vote For?

Every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly; and where it fails them, they cry out, “It is a matter of faith, and above reason.”
- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) (Click Here) or (Here)

“A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction.”
- James Madison, the Federalist papers. (Click Here)

“With the radical Right, we have a political faction disguised as a religious sect and the president of the United States is heading it. Bush uses a religious blind faith to hide what is actually an extremist political philosophy with a disdain for social justice that is anything but pious by the standards of any respected faith tradition.”
- Al Gore, The Assault On Reason. (Click Here)