What else is going on?

<Dick Vitale>
The TOURNAMENT, baby!
</Dick Vitale>

I was really surprised when Olberman indicated there were only about 100 protesters outside Terri Schiavo's hospice. The SCLM and MSM made it seem like thousands were protesting. Ahhhh...the joys of living in fake news land.

I have tired of the ideological divide being played to the hilt. If the Democratic Party ever expects to regain its footing in government, both local and national, it needs to be seen as the party of action that produces results that UNDISPUTEDLY improve people's lives.

I would start by enacting energy policy at the local and state level. If the "blue states" (notably NY, IL, MD) and large Democratic municipalities (DC, San Francisco) were to aggressively enact programs with the stated objective of independence from fossil fuels, I believe many Americans would see these as examples of progress on a number of fronts (economic, environmental, and decreased reliance on foreign energy). I would start with the installation of solar systems on all government buildings and provide tax incentives to home owners to install alternative energy systems.

As China and the Third World move rapidly into their Industrial Ages and begin to bid up the prices of the world's limited supply of oil, energy policy will take center stage. (In fact, I wonder if American companies drilling in ANWR wouldn't sell that oil outside the US if they could make more that way...) Democrats need to have a better solution for the masses. Showing them that renewable alternative energy sources actually work will demonstrate to the American people that the Democrats are not simply the "no" party and have good ideas that will benefit all Americans over the long term.

The TOURNAMENT, baby!

Arizona taking out Illinois with UNC going all the way is my only remaining hope. 75% of the pool has Illinois taking it.

Go Sundevils!

Go Tarheels!

Momma needs a new pair a shoes!

News from Denver's Grifter in Chief™ tour:
Bush won't let dissenters into SS meeting: "you've been id'd."

Bush's respect for free speech and willingness to listen to people's ideas? Nope, audience members didn't get a chance to ask questions.

Don't forget: There is No Crisis in Social Security. But Medicare, Fuhgeddabouddit.

Thanks to Bob for comments that make some intelligent sense. Any democrats that would push for alternative energy would receive my support 100%. What better way to fight terrorism and improve the situations for many. No need to invade for energy if you have alternative sources. Then we could spend money on the folks that really need it. One problem, it makes to much sense for politicians to grapple with.

Somehow, it's no problem selling the American public on $200 Billion or more to kill people to control oil, but we can't spend significant money to get to the point where you don't need the oil at all.

Well, Matt, that's because the technology that exists to produce energy isn't popular: Nuclear.

At least it's not popular here. China is building nuke plants. So, when the oil runs out, at least they'll still have power. France, too.

Well, Matt, that's because the technology that exists to produce energy isn't popular: Nuclear.

You bet. We should only focus on non-renewable energy sources that a corporation has to mine and refine so that they can then hold us hostage to high energy prices.

Anything renewable or from wind and the sun has got to be bad. Either that, or you sound like a broken record. I'll choose the latter.

Great Op-Ed here about the "Era of Exploitation"..it's not just about the tragic Schiavo story.

oh yeah and muck...ummm North Korea has nuclear power plants too...they sold some material to our "allies" Pakistan... but hushup, we all know what they did with the material (and then we lied about it to our other allies) and even their technological expertise in this area...et tu Khan?(Ok I know it is really A.Q. Khan)

Anway we can send a man to the moon, can invent and build the internets,can invent and build robots that perform total hip surgeries on people, can clone animals, but you mean to tell me we can't invent (with government funded or tax incentivized investment) any new technology in the area of energy conservation measures or alternative energy sources....suuuuurrrrre and I got me some waterfront property I want to sell ye in Florida. I say make it a priority ASAP. There have been many ideas out there but often times the patents are bought up by Big Energy to "supress" these inventions.

There is more than nukes that can be developed. Solar, however, as it exists today, just takes up too much real estate and is too expensive to be practical for a mass conversion. The solar power on gov. buildings really wouldn't help much. The roof of the building wouldn't be big enough, in most cases, to meet the building's needs. We do need to keep building solar plants so that we can improve the technology. I think that the government needs to seriously address alternative fuel research, not just provide token grants to look like we're doing something...

If you really want a more realistic/tangible goal for improving the amount of fossil fuel consumed to make electricity... try make it so new construction has to be LEED certified. That would help a lot... For those not familar with the LEED program, I would suggest doing some research at the link above. It is a great program and the LEED buildings already designed have been pretty innovative... For the most part it's been cities and federal agencies that have adopted this requirement.

You can take some action at the local level if your city doesn't require that their own new construction be LEED certified. If they do require LEED cert. push to get them to require Silver or Gold certification. If you have any questions about this program, let me know... I am studying to get certified as a LEED professional.

If solar and wind power plants were as heavily subsidized as nuclear plants, they could make a profit.

I went to the funeral of a 51 year old, happily married, father of three yesterday afternoon. He died suddenly of a heart attack last Saturday. The Catholic priest who led the service used a phrase that struck me as very comforting:

Our religion teaches us that death does not mean the end of life, it only means that life changes.

I wonder why the Catholic monks don't share that tenet of their faith with the Schindlers. (I haven't noticed the Bishop of the Diocese of St. Petersburg in the crowds at the hospice facility, by the way.)

true ann, nukes are pretty expensive to build... I don't think another will be built any time soon in the US however.

There are some profitable wind power plants in TX. They generally cost about twice as much as a GT plant. Nuclear is about 10 times as much to build. And solar is about 20 times as much to build.

CA had some nice subsidies for solar a while back. Some pretty innovative plants got built as a result.

You guys and your alternative energy. How stupid do you have to be to think that we have the technology today to what you'd like to do?

I mean, if we could do it, we would be. We are using alternative energy where we can, but it's just not enough to make much of a difference. We have huge windmill farms where the wind blows, and solar panel farms where the sun shines, already. They're there. Been to Hawaii? Been up near the coastal range, like Fairfield in CA?

Well, when the oil runs out and we're sitting in the dark, China will just send over troops, set up bases, and execute the Sierra Club and those opposing nuclear power anyways. They probably won't sit around and debate it with you guys. Blam. End of debate. Build away.

You know, as someone who grew up down wind of a bunch of refinerys(Texas City, Pasadena, and Deer Park TX)...I gotta go with Muck on the nuclear thing.

I have been an enviormentalist leaning guy all my life, and I always thought the SC was wrong on this one. I like my air nice and clean, and nuclear is one way to get there.

Combined with wind and solar, it could go a long way on making us energy independent.

I think we have to look at everything.

Muck, oil accounts for about 2% of our electricity generation. The big question is how are we going to drive around once oil is gone. And nuclear cars are not an option.

Well Tex, nuclear plants can create hydrogen, which we can then burn in a new fleet of cars.

We burn 20 million barrels of oil a day, and 12 million of that is imported. That needs to change. We produce 8 million a day, but that's topped out and declining. ANWR will help when it comes online, but it'd be nice to get off of oil (and coal) for something cleaner like snarky mentions.

Nuclear is going nowhere. The plants last 30-40 years and then they have to be decomissioned at a cost of tens of billions of dollars, which mostly is spent on getting rid of the nuclear waste that's been generated -- nuclear waste that we haven't got a clue about how to store it somewhere for the millions of years it will be too radioactive to touch. Does it make any sense to leave millions of tons of highly radioactive materials for our great-grandchildren to try to get rid of so we can keep buy a third microwave?

Yucca Mountain? Forget it. Geologically unstable areas are not where you want to put the stuff for a million years.

The cost of decommisioning these dinosaurs will bankrupt us all and the waste problem is insurmountable.

We'd better hope fusion, wind, and solar come to our rescue, because it's not going to be a hundred new Chernobyls.

Muck,

Where does the hydrogen come from for these cars? Electrolysis? Why is alt fuels ok for cars, but not ok for power plants? There is a possibility of making hydrogen power plants in the future with only water as the input. We're not anywhere near that now, but we need to do some reasearch on it. Nuclear really can be messy. I'm not ruling it out. I just think we should look at other options before converting all of our power plants to nuclear power...