Predictably enough, yesterdays’ snow storms prove that Al Gore is fat. Steve Benen has the details. I can’t get enough of this stuff. Here’s question: who is the most serious person who has used a snowstorm to make Al Gore jokes? Has Bobo ever done it, for example?
Archives for October 2011
NFL Open Thread
Your team sucks. Also, this song has been stuck in my head for three days:
The 80’s were great.
Fracking Tensions
It seems fracking is causing all sorts of tension between residents of small communities:
The dispute has pitted neighbor against neighbor, and has often set people who live in suburbs or villages against the farmers and landowners who live outside them. The discord is compounded by hard times on both sides and by communication online giving everyone instant access to limitless information confirming their point of view.
And if gas companies have the power and money, fracking opponents, who are concerned about ecological threats like the possible contamination of drinking water, often have the numbers and the intensity to dominate local discourse. “There’s no arguing with a person who is opposed to hydrofracking,” said Bill Michaels, a councilman in the Town of Otsego, which includes parts of Cooperstown. After waiting to take a position, he eventually supported changes to the town’s land-use law that would prohibit fracking, but he still faces opposition from a slate of antifracking candidates. “There is no debate or conversation,” he added. “This is so important to so many people it’s pretty much hijacked everything else.”
I’ve seen that happen around here. I know one person whose land is surrounded by farmland owned by someone who lives in another state, and that owner decided to cash in and allow fracking. This, of course, has infuriated the homeowner, because she actually has to live there and is infuriated by the destruction of the gas companies and is worried her well water will be poisoned. As it is, there isn’t much she can do, other than pay to have her well water monitored constantly so that if her water does become poisoned, she will have a chain of evidence. That won’t give her clean drinking water, but it will give her a little bit of ammunition to fight the big money lawyers representing the gas companies.
Occupy East and West
Out West, Police arrested protesters in Denver and Portland last night. I didn’t see any mention of serious injuries in either of those local reports.
In the East, a big winter storm hit New York City and OWS is calling for donations of winter clothing.
What’s going on in the occupation in your part of the world?
The Cain Mutiny
Herman Cain and Mitt Romney are essentially tied in today’s Des Moines Register Iowa poll, which is supposedly one of the more well-lubricated weathervanes measuring the fickle caucus-goer/pig farmer demographic. This is interesting because savvy Republican observers have been predicting that Cain’s supposed flip-flop on abortion would sour that group:
Mr. Laudner, the abortion opponent, said the overlapping statements raised alarms. “We’re talking about the well-trained ear of Iowa caucusgoers,” he said. “These people know when you’re pro-life at your core, and when you’re pro-choice, and when you’re trying to have it both ways.”
Herman’s recent clumsy work on abortion was the Republican establishment’s last, best hope, but it isn’t panning out. The difference between Romney’s chronic flip-flops and Herman’s abortion problem is that Herman is on record on abortion from way back, including this example from his campaign for the Republican US Senate primary in 2004:
Cain says his conservative credentials are impeccable. For example, he holds the position that, unless a mother’s life is threatened, all abortions should be illegal _ even if a woman became pregnant through rape or incest.
Cain is raising money and hiring staff:
For months, Cain’s operation in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina has been hustling, but the number of paid staffers has been limited. Now, having raised more than $5 million since the beginning of October, the campaign is stepping up, Block says, hiring experienced strategists, opening more offices, and organizing bus tours.
And the money keeps coming. The campaign has averaged $1.2 million per week since October 1, and over 80 percent of the $5 million raised has come in the form of online donations.
Herman is the perfectly lubed measuring instrument of Tea Party influence in the Republican Party, and he’s surging.
All dressed up for the spooky scene
Sometimes the stuff in National Review is so strange that I don’t know what to make of it. Consider that this article (via), about which British colonialist you should dress as to scare your liberal neighbors, goes on for three pages and lists something like eight (I lost count) possibilities:
So, what better costumes to don for Halloween than those of great British imperialists throughout the centuries? After all, the Spanish considered Sir Francis Drake something of a monster (they called him “the Dragon”), Sir Richard Francis Burton “prided himself,” as the Earl of Dunraven noted, “on looking something like Satan — as indeed, he did,” and the British Empire actually got its start with piracy.
I have nothing to add.
(I am disturbed by the fact that the Halloween song to which the title refers cannot be found any of the internets that I’ve seen. Was it only my school that taught kids this song?)
Former Alltel CEO Makes Odd Connection Between Occupy Wall Street and Rwandan Genocide
Hyperbole much?
Former Alltell CEO Scott Ford gave a speech to the local Chamber of Commerce in Fort Smith, Arkansas during which he drew a comparison between the 99 percent Movement and the Rwandan genocide:
Ford was the featured speaker at the event held in downtown Fort Smith at the Holiday Inn City Center. He shared his journey from Alltel, a company he was president of from 1996 to 2001, to Westrock Coffee and the Rwanda Trading Company.
“There’s a common denominator (with the Occupy Wall Street movement) that I understand. But what they could learn from Rwanda is this: if instead of being angry, they could figure out how the system works and have an economic impact within that system rather than just a political one, they could actually form the world they want to form,” Ford said.
~snip~
Ford shared his journey at the event as well as similarities he sees in Rwanda of 1994 and the Occupy movement that has been the subject of national media attention.