Life in OUR America, Volume 2, The Livyjr Files Options

[Livyjr]

Ruth Conniff questioning Sen. Boxer, The Progressive July 2005

Q: What makes you stay hopeful that you can make change?

Barbara Boxer:

I’m an optimist, and I think you have to be an optimist to be in politics.

And the thing is, it’s all about growing up.

The day you realize you’re a grownup is the day you realize that you have to do something.

When we’re kids, we don’t have to do anything.

Then all of a sudden you realize, if I want this to be better, I’ve got to do something.

Every American at some point has got to make the connection between their own hopes and dreams and who is elected to office.

It’s essential.

It’s very easy to pull the covers up over your head and say, “I can’t handle it."

"Too much.”

But we just have to handle it and we have to accept that it’s our job.

Each of us.

Nobody is going to take care of it.

Barbara Boxer is not going to make it all better.

It’s got to be everybody.

Everybody in the progressive community.

Everybody has to take part.

[Livyjr]

Top Ten Bush Goals For His Second Term

10. Fewer idiotic remarks; more hilarious pratfalls.

9. Add mother Barbara to Mount Rushmore.

8. Combine Nebraska and Kansas into new state: Nebransas.

7. Spice up boring state dinners with tasty fish sticks!

6. Improve communication skills from poor to fair.

5. Catch up on his "Smokey And The Bandit" collection.

4. Get Ray Stevens to write some funny lyrics for "Hail To The Chief"

3. Ride every roller coaster in the country.

2. Install remote-activated button in Oval Office so he can blow stuff up right from his desk!

1. Begin vote-rigging process for Jeb's White House run in 2008.

[jeffmoskin]

I don't like them French, what with them eating snails and frogs, oh, oookey, but these Dixie Chicks, well, they're downright subversive, you know, and ....

Vive La France!

France Will Get Fusion Reactor To Seek a Future Energy Source
By CRAIG S. SMITH

PARIS, June 28 - An international consortium announced Tuesday that France would be the site of the world's first large-scale, sustainable nuclear fusion reactor, an estimated $10 billion project that many scientists see as crucial to solving the world's future energy needs.

"It is a great success for France, for Europe and for all the partners in ITER," President Jacques Chirac said in a statement released after the six-member consortium of the United States, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and the European Union chose the country as the site for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.

Japan, which had lobbied hard for the project, dropped out of the bidding in the last few days and ceded to France. The consortium agreed in Moscow to build the project at Cadarache in southern France.

Nuclear fusion is the process by which atomic nuclei are forced together, releasing huge amounts of energy, as with the sun or a hydrogen bomb. The process has long been studied as a potential energy source that would be far cleaner than burning fossil fuels or even nuclear fission, which is used in nuclear reactors today but produces dangerous radioactive waste.

While the physics of nuclear fusion have long been understood, the engineering required to control the process remains difficult.

The logistics of coordinating construction in a six-member consortium has presented an even bigger challenge. The project was started in 1988 but bogged down in bickering over where the reactor's design team would be based. A compromise split the team between Japan, Germany and the United States, but the consortium struggled over where the reactor would be built.

Canada, Spain, France and Japan were originally in contention for the reactor site, but a December 2003 ministerial meeting to pick a winner ended in a deadlock, with the United States, Japan and South Korea backing the Japanese site and the other three consortium members pushing for the site in France.

Recently, Japan agreed to relinquish its bid in return for the consortium's commitment to build a $1 billion materials testing center there.

The consortium also promised that any subsequent fusion reactor built by the consortium would be built in Japan. It is a significant concession, because the first reactor is only a demonstration plant meant to prove that fusion can be harnessed as an economically viable energy source. A second reactor would probably be a prototype meant for commercial power generation.

With the agreement, the consortium can now proceed with the drafting of a deal on the construction and operation of the reactor. ITER officials said they hoped that the accord would be signed by the end of the year, allowing work on the reactor to begin next year and ground to be broken at the Cadarache site in 2008. Current plans foresee the reactor operating in 2016.

Construction of the reactor is estimated to cost $5 billion, with its operation costing another estimated $5 billion over 20 years, according to ITER. The host country is expected to cover half of those costs, with the other five partners each paying 10 percent. Those numbers are based on current dollars, however, meaning the actual cost of the reactor will be much higher by the time it is completed.

Many experts also predict that construction could take much longer than now foreseen given the difficulty of coordinating multiple suppliers of costly and highly technical components in many countries. The agreement leaves open the possibility that still more countries may take part in the project. India, for example, has expressed interest.

The final agreement is expected to include provisions that would require consortium members that cause delays to pay compensation.

The fusion project has stirred controversy since it was first proposed in the 1980's, with many scientists arguing that such "big science" will rob financing from the "little science" of individual researchers who have often produced the world's most striking scientific breakthroughs.

But criticism has been drowned out by the growing recognition of fusion's potential as a solution to the world's looming energy crisis.

"We all know oil and gas depletion will start in 2030 or 2035," said Peter Haug, secretary general of the European Nuclear Society.

He said most experts agreed that because of technical difficulties, renewable energy sources like wind or solar power would never provide more than 15 or 20 percent of the world's energy needs. There is enough coal in the earth to keep the world running for centuries, but at an unacceptable environmental cost. As oil and gas fields peter out, Mr. Haug and others say, the world will be forced to turn to nuclear energy.

"We don't think fusion will remove fission from the production scheme," Mr. Haug said. "But it will probably be used along with fission because of the growing energy needs of man."

Still, few scientists expect a fusion reactor to generate commercially viable electricity before mid-century, if by then.

In principle, using fusion to produce energy is easy: take hydrogen atoms and press them together to form helium. The helium is a bit lighter than its constituent hydrogen pieces, and by Einstein's E=mc2 equation, that tiny change in mass results in a large release of energy.

At the center of the sun, where temperatures reach nearly 30 million degrees Fahrenheit and hydrogen atoms are pushed together at ultra-high pressures, fusion generates light and heat. But turning fusion into a viable source of energy requires figuring out how to recreate on Earth the conditions at the sun's heart.

Instead of ordinary hydrogen, fusion reactors use heavier versions, known as deuterium and tritium, that fuse together more easily. Experimental fusion reactors have been able to heat gases to temperatures of hundreds of millions of degrees. The harder task, however, is confining the hot gas.

ITER follows the same approach used by most large-scale fusion experiments since the 1970's, using doughnut-shaped magnetic fields to confine the gas, but it will be the first large enough to explore how well fusion reactions can be sustained.

In order to succeed, the ITER project must demonstrate that it can create a fuel cycle in the reactor that will produce excess tritium, the reactor's fuel, from a "blanket" of lithium lining the reactor chamber. As neutrons thrown off from the fusion reaction strike lithium atoms, they produce tritium. But in order for the reactor to be viable, consortium officials say, the reactor must produce more tritium than it consumes.

Even fusion proponents concede that the process is decades away from practical use. A timeline published on ITER's Web site foresees a larger demonstration project that would begin operating around 2030. A commercial fusion reactor would follow around 2050.

ITER's interim leader, Yasuo Shimomura, said the project's next step would be to appoint a director general who could start the complicated procurement process.

The consortium has already spent $700 million on scale models of the reactor's major components, and "in this sense, there is no fundamental technical problem," Dr. Shimomura said in a phone call from ITER's offices in Garching, Germany. "But the machine is very complicated, and the procurement will be done between six parties, and this is not a small experimental device, it is a real nuclear device, so quality control will be very important."

In the meantime, the fusion project means money for the industries and scientific sectors contributing to it. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin of France said it would create 4,000 jobs and bolster research and development there.

"It's brings us great joy and great pride," said Pascale Amenc Antoni, director of the French Atomic Energy Commission's Cadarache Center, where the reactor will be built. She said it also recognized the work the center has already carried out at its nuclear fusion research facility.

Kenneth Chang contributed reporting from New York for this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/29/internat...agewanted=print

At least the French produce 80 percent of their electricity from nuclear power. And they are looking to the future.

Un bon idee, n'est ce pas?

[Livyjr]

Vive La France!

France Will Get Fusion Reactor To Seek a Future Energy Source
By CRAIG S. SMITH

PARIS, June 28 - An international consortium announced Tuesday that France would be the site of the world's first large-scale, sustainable nuclear fusion reactor, an estimated $10 billion project that many scientists see as crucial to solving the world's future energy needs.

"It is a great success for France, for Europe and for all the partners in ITER," President Jacques Chirac said in a statement released after the six-member consortium of the United States, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and the European Union chose the country as the site for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.

Interesting, as always, jeffmoskin!

And just this morning, on the radio, I heard some "chat" about what must be this same project!

My engineer's "ears" perked up when I heard the word "theorectically ..." used by the newsreader.

In theory, which is science, everything is possible, except bumblebees flying, of course, because everyone knows they are aerodynamically unstable, but outside of them, of course, in theory, everything is possible!

Then enters in reality, and thermodynamics, and actuality can be a far different thing, and engineers are supposed to know that difference, which is at the heart and soul of engineering licensing examinations!

FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS: You can't get something for nothing!

SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS: You can't break even!

[Livyjr]

"New York governor fears anti-globalization crusaders gaining ground"

Wednesday June 01, 2005

By PHIL COUVRETTE

Associated Press Writer

MONTREAL (AP) New York Gov. George Pataki warned Wednesday that anti-globalization efforts were gaining ground, citing the stunning rejection of the EU constitution by the French and Dutch and the reluctance of many in the U.S. Congress to approve a free-trade pact with Central America.

"There is a growing sentiment against the free market, open economies and more globalization of the world's economy,'' Pataki said in a speech at the International Economic Forum of the Americas.

"We saw what might be an element of that in France when the French people voted down ratification of the European Union constitution.''

Pataki also said he was doubtful that Congress would approve the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA.

"I'm not sure he'll get it through Congress,'' Pataki said of President Bush, "because there are those who are saying we have to protect the industries that are here as opposed to opening up markets both ways."

"I think that is completely wrong.''

Many Democrats complain the agreement lacks labor and environmental protections to stop abuses of workers in poor, low-wage Central America.

"AP: U.S. Blocked Release of CAFTA Reports"

By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer

Wed Jun 29, 2:09 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The Labor Department worked for more than a year to maintain secrecy for studies that were critical of working conditions in Central America, the region the Bush administration wants in a new trade pact.

The contractor hired by the department in 2002 to conduct the studies has become a major opponent of the administration's proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA.

The government-paid studies concluded that countries proposed for free-trade status have poor working environments and fail to protect workers' rights.

The department dismissed the conclusions as inaccurate and biased, according to government and contractor documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

The Senate Finance Committee, which approved the agreement by a voice vote Wednesday, sent it to the full Senate for consideration this week or after the Independence Day recess.

The contractor is the International Labor Rights Fund.

In a summary of its findings, the organization wrote, "In practice, labor laws on the books in Central America are not sufficient to deter employers from violations, as actual sanctions for violations of the law are weak or nonexistent."

The conclusions contrast with the administration's arguments that Central American countries have made enough progress on such issues to warrant the free-trade deal.

The administration and its congressional supporters say eliminating trade barriers for U.S. products would open new markets in Central American for U.S. farmers and manufacturers.

Critics say the deal would allow serious labor violations to continue in the countries covered by the pact — Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.

Hoping to lure enough Democratic votes to win passages, U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman this month promised to spend money and arrange an international conference to ensure "the best agreement ever negotiated by the United States on labor rights."

Behind the scenes, the Labor Department began as early as spring 2004 to block public release of the country-by-country reports.

The department instructed its contractor to remove the reports from its Web site, ordered it to retrieve paper copies before they became public, banned release of new information from the reports, and even told the contractor it could not discuss the studies with outsiders.

The department has now worked out a deal with the contractor to make the reports public, provided there is no mention of the federal agency or government funding.

At the same time, the administration began a pre-emptive campaign to undercut the study's conclusions.

Used as talking points by trade-pact supporters, a Labor Department document accuses the contractor of writing a report filled with "unsubstantiated" statements and "biased attacks, not the facts."

The contractor's deputy director, Bama Athreya, blamed U.S. Trade Representative officials for circulating the document and citing passages that won't be included in the final versions of the reports.

One lawmaker said he was shocked that a federal agency charged with protecting the rights of Americans workers would go to such lengths to block the public from seeing its own contractor's concerns before Congress votes on the agreement.

"You would think if any agency in our government would care about this, it would be the Labor Department," Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said.

Dirk Fillpot, spokesman for the Labor Department's Bureau of International Labor Affairs, said the agency and an independent evaluator concluded the contractor "failed to meet the academic rigor expected to fulfill its contract" and the relationship was terminated June 10.

The competitively bid contract totaled $937,000.

Fillpot said $250,000 will be refunded to the Treasury.

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, who supports the trade agreement, said he is familiar with drafts of the reports and believes they will be "widely dismissed as a fraud."

He accused the contractor of producing "a propaganda piece" and concealing "its rabid anti-CAFTA bias."

Athreya, the contractor official, has testified in Congress against the agreement.

The group's Internet site has a link to a coalition trying to defeat the pact.

Some of the studies came within a whisker of widespread release in March 2004, when the labor-rights group posted them briefly on its Internet site.

The Labor Department quickly and successfully demanded the reports be removed on grounds they were not approved by the agency.

Officials also demanded the group retrieve a limited number of paper copies that were distributed at a hearing of a Latin American human rights body.

Shortly after that incident, Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., began a yearlong effort to pry the studies from the department through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The department rejected his request until two months ago, when Levin received — and released — early drafts of the reports.
___

On the net:

Read related documents at http://wid.ap.org/documents/cafta/index.html

International Labor Rights Fund: http://www.laborrights.org/

Labor Department: http://www.dol.gov/

[Livyjr]

FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS: You can't get something for nothing!

SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS: You can't break even!

Entropy, jeffmoskin!

Entropy!

That old bug-a-boo, entropy!

Disroder increases as a function of the intensity of the effort being made to achieve something, like a nuclear source of power to fuel an already entropic life style, and we engineers, who are now little more than a pack of whores, well, what we are supposed to do is to bow down to consumerism, and to do that, we are to pretend that there is no entropy!

Since everything is possible in theory, and because people want everything, regardless, then give it to them, and don't start making excuses like entropy!

There is no Joule heating!

That is a lie cooked up by "enviros" who want everyone to have to live in caves.

No "I squared x R losses" in electric transmission lines!

No, no, no, it just does not happen!

There is no waste heat coming out of nuclear reactors that is heating up portions of Lake Ontario to 75 degress Fahrenheit, or more!

Oh, no, no, no, no, no!

There are not tons and tons of heated water vapor coming out of nuclear power station cooling towers on a daily basis and carrying up into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, where it does not belong, and where that water vapor is "unstable", which means that it is subject to both condensation, and gravity, and like the rock I threw up in the air, all those years ago, it is actually coming back down, so watch your eye, sonny boy!

"Oh, no, Livyjr, as engineers, it is our sacred duty to give things to people that they want, and it is not up to us to aseess such things as environmental harm caused by our own negligence!"

"That, Livyjr, is why we have politicians, here in OUR America, to make those decisions for us!"

"We are here to do what we are told!"

And so it is ....

And now, we have succeeded in two things, which are leading to a third, which is a concomitant of the first two:

a) We have built the world's biggest pyramid;

b) We have built the world's biggest pyramid upside down, so that ours stands on its point; and

c) Pyramids built to stand on their points are inherently unstable, and so come crashing down!

And what is the solution when you are beset by entropy?

Yes, folks, that's right - go faster still, because, there is no entropy!

It's all a lie!

How do I know?

I got it straight from a REPUBLICAN lawyer myself, and since they are the real "scientific" experts .....

[Livyjr]

And what is the solution when you are beset by entropy?

Yes, folks, that's right - go faster still, because, there is no entropy!

It's all a lie!

How do I know?

I got it straight from a REPUBLICAN lawyer myself, and since they are the real "scientific" experts .....

"Storm Expert: Hurricane Danger on the Rise"

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jun 29, 6:24 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Hurricane activity has increased and is likely to remain high for a decade or more, the head of the National Hurricane Center said Wednesday.

From the 1970s to the mid-1990s the number of hurricanes was low, Max Mayfield told the Senate Commerce Science and Transportation Committee, but now frequency is increasing "and this period of heightened activity could last another 10 to 20 years."

Memories are still fresh of the four hurricanes that battered Florida last year.

Forecasters predict 13 named storms, including seven hurricanes, could possibly threaten the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts this year.

Indeed, Tropical Depression Bret is currently producing heavy rains in Mexico.

Mayfield said the cyclic increase in tropical storms is made more dangerous because of the growth in coastal populations in recent years.

An estimated 85 percent of coastal residents have never experienced a major hurricane, he said.

Mayfield said that even though forecasts and warnings have improved lately, being safe from such storms also requires personal responsibility.

"It really doesn't matter if you make a perfect forecast — if you don't get people to listen to you it's all for nothing," he said.

People in coastal areas need to have a plan and need to know where the nearest shelter is and what the evacuation plans are for their area, he said.

Asbury H. Sallenger of the U.S. Geological Survey added that the lack of experience with storms in recent years has resulted in construction of buildings that may not be able to stand up to them.

He pointed out the collapse of a five-story building in Orange Beach, Ala., when it was undermined by Hurricane Ivan.

Of special concern are the Florida Keys and New Orleans, where many people live in low-lying or below-sea-level areas that cannot be easily evacuated, Mayfield said.

"You need to make friends in high places."

"The problem is, neither of these areas have high places," he said.

Asked about the possibility of vertical evacuation in high-rise buildings in New Orleans, Mayfield said it is a refuge of last resort if people can't be evacuated.

After a major storm the power will be out, the water will be out and emergency personnel won't be able to care for thousands of people stuck in high rises, he said.

Overall, hurricanes claim 20 lives and cause $5.1 billion in damage in the average year.

Those figures can jump many times in the event of a major storm like Andrew or Hugo.

Dennis McCarthy, director of the office of climate, water and weather services, told the committee that in a typical year there are 1,300 tornadoes in the United States, killing 58 people and causing $1.1 billion in damage.

Floods account for $5.2 billion in damage and 80 deaths, he said, while lightning adds 53 fatalities annually.

A recent study indicated that modern Doppler radar has sharply reduced the tornado death toll.

McCarthy said the Weather Service is currently investigating radar improvements that could make forecasts even better.
___

On the Net:

National Weather Service: http://www.nws.noaa.gov

National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

U.S. Geological Survey: http://www.usgs.gov

[jeffmoskin]

Entropy, jeffmoskin!

Entropy!

That old bug-a-boo, entropy!

Disroder increases as a function of the intensity of the effort being made to achieve something, like a nuclear source of power to fuel an already entropic life style, and we engineers, who are now little more than a pack of whores, well, what we are supposed to do is to bow down to consumerism, and to do that, we are to pretend that there is no entropy!

Since everything is possible in theory, and because people want everything, regardless, then give it to them, and don't start making excuses like entropy!

There is no Joule heating!

That is a lie cooked up by "enviros" who want everyone to have to live in caves.

No "I squared x R losses" in electric transmission lines!

No, no, no, it just does not happen!

There is no waste heat coming out of nuclear reactors that is heating up portions of Lake Ontario to 75 degress Fahrenheit, or more!

Oh, no, no, no, no, no!

There are not tons and tons of heated water vapor coming out of nuclear power station cooling towers on a daily basis and carrying up into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, where it does not belong, and where that water vapor is "unstable", which means that it is subject to both condensation, and gravity, and like the rock I threw up in the air, all those years ago, it is actually coming back down, so watch your eye, sonny boy!

Ah well, as we all know there is no "perfect" energy source. Early man discovered fire, and as we all know the burning of wood has some enviromental side effects to the atmosphere. Also, the Brits completely denuded their forests in the middle ages. If some smart bloke had not discovered that peat could be a substitute, the entire island could have been decimated.

We might not even be here. Or we might be Indians. Hmmm. Interesting.

Burning wood is better than freezing to death
Peat is better than wood
Coal is better than peat
Oil is better than coal
Gas is better than oil
Fission is better than gas
Fusion will be better than fission.


There, jeffmoskin's hierarchy of energy choices.


All have drawbacks; the laws of thermodynamics cannot be bought off by O J's lawyers. However, with 6 million souls on the planet, and with energy a necessity for personal lifestyle improvement, we are between Iraq and a hard place.

Nearly thirty years ago, during an era marked by uncertainties witht the future supply of oil, Jimmy Carter gave a TV speech laying out the facts and telling the truth: here is what he said - - -


Tonight I want to have an unpleasant talk with you about a problem unprecedented in our history. With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes. The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly.
It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century.
We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren.
We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now, we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.
Two days from now, I will present my energy proposals to the Congress. Its members will be my partners and they have already given me a great deal of valuable advice. Many of these proposals will be unpopular. Some will cause you to put up with inconveniences and to make sacrifices.
The most important thing about these proposals is that the alternative may be a national catastrophe. Further delay can affect our strength and our power as a nation.
Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern. This difficult effort will be the "moral equivalent of war" -- except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not destroy.
I know that some of you may doubt that we face real energy shortages. The 1973 gasoline lines are gone, and our homes are warm again. But our energy problem is worse tonight than it was in 1973 or a few weeks ago in the dead of winter. It is worse because more waste has occurred, and more time has passed by without our planning for the future. And it will get worse every day until we act.
The oil and natural gas we rely on for 75 percent of our energy are running out. In spite of increased effort, domestic production has been dropping steadily at about six percent a year. Imports have doubled in the last five years. Our nation's independence of economic and political action is becoming increasingly constrained. Unless profound changes are made to lower oil consumption, we now believe that early in the 1980s the world will be demanding more oil that it can produce.
The world now uses about 60 million barrels of oil a day and demand increases each year about 5 percent. This means that just to stay even we need the production of a new Texas every year, an Alaskan North Slope every nine months, or a new Saudi Arabia every three years. Obviously, this cannot continue.
We must look back in history to understand our energy problem. Twice in the last several hundred years there has been a transition in the way people use energy.
The first was about 200 years ago, away from wood -- which had provided about 90 percent of all fuel -- to coal, which was more efficient. This change became the basis of the Industrial Revolution.
The second change took place in this century, with the growing use of oil and natural gas. They were more convenient and cheaper than coal, and the supply seemed to be almost without limit. They made possible the age of automobile and airplane travel. Nearly everyone who is alive today grew up during this age and we have never known anything different.
Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power.
The world has not prepared for the future. During the 1950s, people used twice as much oil as during the 1940s. During the 1960s, we used twice as much as during the 1950s. And in each of those decades, more oil was consumed than in all of mankind's previous history.
World consumption of oil is still going up. If it were possible to keep it rising during the 1970s and 1980s by 5 percent a year as it has in the past, we could use up all the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade.
I know that many of you have suspected that some supplies of oil and gas are being withheld. You may be right, but suspicions about oil companies cannot change the fact that we are running out of petroleum.
All of us have heard about the large oil fields on Alaska's North Slope. In a few years when the North Slope is producing fully, its total output will be just about equal to two years' increase in our nation's energy demand.
Each new inventory of world oil reserves has been more disturbing than the last. World oil production can probably keep going up for another six or eight years. But some time in the 1980s it can't go up much more. Demand will overtake production. We have no choice about that.
But we do have a choice about how we will spend the next few years. Each American uses the energy equivalent of 60 barrels of oil per person each year. Ours is the most wasteful nation on earth. We waste more energy than we import. With about the same standard of living, we use twice as much energy per person as do other countries like Germany, Japan and Sweden.
One choice is to continue doing what we have been doing before. We can drift along for a few more years.
Our consumption of oil would keep going up every year. Our cars would continue to be too large and inefficient. Three-quarters of them would continue to carry only one person -- the driver -- while our public transportation system continues to decline. We can delay insulating our houses, and they will continue to lose about 50 percent of their heat in waste.
We can continue using scarce oil and natural to generate electricity, and continue wasting two-thirds of their fuel value in the process.
If we do not act, then by 1985 we will be using 33 percent more energy than we do today.
We can't substantially increase our domestic production, so we would need to import twice as much oil as we do now. Supplies will be uncertain. The cost will keep going up. Six years ago, we paid $3.7 billion for imported oil. Last year we spent $37 billion -- nearly ten times as much -- and this year we may spend over $45 billion.
Unless we act, we will spend more than $550 billion for imported oil by 1985 -- more than $2,500 a year for every man, woman, and child in America. Along with that money we will continue losing American jobs and becoming increasingly vulnerable to supply interruptions.
Now we have a choice. But if we wait, we will live in fear of embargoes. We could endanger our freedom as a sovereign nation to act in foreign affairs. Within ten years we would not be able to import enough oil -- from any country, at any acceptable price.
If we wait, and do not act, then our factories will not be able to keep our people on the job with reduced supplies of fuel. Too few of our utilities will have switched to coal, our most abundant energy source.
We will not be ready to keep our transportation system running with smaller, more efficient cars and a better network of buses, trains and public transportation.
We will feel mounting pressure to plunder the environment. We will have a crash program to build more nuclear plants, strip-mine and burn more coal, and drill more offshore wells than we will need if we begin to conserve now. Inflation will soar, production will go down, people will lose their jobs. Intense competition will build up among nations and among the different regions within our own country.
If we fail to act soon, we will face an economic, social and political crisis that will threaten our free institutions.
But we still have another choice. We can begin to prepare right now. We can decide to act while there is time.
That is the concept of the energy policy we will present on Wednesday. Our national energy plan is based on ten fundamental principles.
The first principle is that we can have an effective and comprehensive energy policy only if the government takes responsibility for it and if the people understand the seriousness of the challenge and are willing to make sacrifices.
The second principle is that healthy economic growth must continue. Only by saving energy can we maintain our standard of living and keep our people at work. An effective conservation program will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
The third principle is that we must protect the environment. Our energy problems have the same cause as our environmental problems -- wasteful use of resources. Conservation helps us solve both at once.
The fourth principle is that we must reduce our vulnerability to potentially devastating embargoes. We can protect ourselves from uncertain supplies by reducing our demand for oil, making the most of our abundant resources such as coal, and developing a strategic petroleum reserve.
The fifth principle is that we must be fair. Our solutions must ask equal sacrifices from every region, every class of people, every interest group. Industry will have to do its part to conserve, just as the consumers will. The energy producers deserve fair treatment, but we will not let the oil companies profiteer.
The sixth principle, and the cornerstone of our policy, is to reduce the demand through conservation. Our emphasis on conservation is a clear difference between this plan and others which merely encouraged crash production efforts. Conservation is the quickest, cheapest, most practical source of energy. Conservation is the only way we can buy a barrel of oil for a few dollars. It costs about $13 to waste it.
The seventh principle is that prices should generally reflect the true replacement costs of energy. We are only cheating ourselves if we make energy artificially cheap and use more than we can really afford.
The eighth principle is that government policies must be predictable and certain. Both consumers and producers need policies they can count on so they can plan ahead. This is one reason I am working with the Congress to create a new Department of Energy, to replace more than 50 different agencies that now have some control over energy.
The ninth principle is that we must conserve the fuels that are scarcest and make the most of those that are more plentiful. We can't continue to use oil and gas for 75 percent of our consumption when they make up seven percent of our domestic reserves. We need to shift to plentiful coal while taking care to protect the environment, and to apply stricter safety standards to nuclear energy.
The tenth principle is that we must start now to develop the new, unconventional sources of energy we will rely on in the next century.
These ten principles have guided the development of the policy I would describe to you and the Congress on Wednesday.
Our energy plan will also include a number of specific goals, to measure our progress toward a stable energy system.
These are the goals we set for 1985:
--Reduce the annual growth rate in our energy demand to less than two percent.
--Reduce gasoline consumption by ten percent below its current level.
--Cut in half the portion of United States oil which is imported, from a potential level of 16 million barrels to six million barrels a day.
--Establish a strategic petroleum reserve of one billion barrels, more than six months' supply.
--Increase our coal production by about two thirds to more than 1 billion tons a year.
--Insulate 90 percent of American homes and all new buildings.
--Use solar energy in more than two and one-half million houses.
We will monitor our progress toward these goals year by year. Our plan will call for stricter conservation measures if we fall behind.
I cant tell you that these measures will be easy, nor will they be popular. But I think most of you realize that a policy which does not ask for changes or sacrifices would not be an effective policy.
This plan is essential to protect our jobs, our environment, our standard of living, and our future.
Whether this plan truly makes a difference will be decided not here in Washington, but in every town and every factory, in every home an don every highway and every farm.
I believe this can be a positive challenge. There is something especially American in the kinds of changes we have to make. We have been proud, through our history of being efficient people.
We have been proud of our leadership in the world. Now we have a chance again to give the world a positive example.
And we have been proud of our vision of the future. We have always wanted to give our children and grandchildren a world richer in possibilities than we've had. They are the ones we must provide for now. They are the ones who will suffer most if we don't act.
I've given you some of the principles of the plan.
I am sure each of you will find something you don't like about the specifics of our proposal. It will demand that we make sacrifices and changes in our lives. To some degree, the sacrifices will be painful -- but so is any meaningful sacrifice. It will lead to some higher costs, and to some greater inconveniences for everyone.
But the sacrifices will be gradual, realistic and necessary. Above all, they will be fair. No one will gain an unfair advantage through this plan. No one will be asked to bear an unfair burden. We will monitor the accuracy of data from the oil and natural gas companies, so that we will know their true production, supplies, reserves, and profits.
The citizens who insist on driving large, unnecessarily powerful cars must expect to pay more for that luxury.
We can be sure that all the special interest groups in the country will attack the part of this plan that affects them directly. They will say that sacrifice is fine, as long as other people do it, but that their sacrifice is unreasonable, or unfair, or harmful to the country. If they succeed, then the burden on the ordinary citizen, who is not organized into an interest group, would be crushing.
There should be only one test for this program: whether it will help our country.
Other generation of Americans have faced and mastered great challenges. I have faith that meeting this challenge will make our own lives even richer. If you will join me so that we can work together with patriotism and courage, we will again prove that our great nation can lead the world into an age of peace, independence and freedom.
Jimmy Carter, "The President's Proposed Energy Policy." 18 April 1977. Vital Speeches of the Day, Vol. XXXXIII, No. 14, May 1, 1977, pp. 418-420.

Did we listen? No

Did we re-elect him? No

We elected a B- movie actor instead, with GHWB as his "spook" aide to handle the dirty work.

"What ye sow also shall ye reap."

This post has been edited by jeffmoskin: Jun 30 2005, 08:07 AM

[Livyjr]

Ah well, as we all know there is no "perfect" energy source.

Early man discovered fire, and as we all know the burning of wood has some enviromental side effects to the atmosphere.

Also, the Brits completely denuded their forests in the middle ages.

If some smart bloke had not discovered that peat could be a substitute, the entire island could have been decimated.

We might not even be here.

Or we might be Indians.

Hmmm.

Interesting.

"What ye sow also shall ye reap."

I grew up with wood and coal, and now, I am back to wood, and I should make a place to store coal, and then I will burn that, as well!

Over the years, I have been making "Pollards" out of my cherry, maple and oak trees, which is where you cut down a big tree, and then, shape the stump so that it grows sprouts, which become trees, themselves, and where you had one tree, off that same stump, you now have four trees!

And I live pretty simple!

When I am not in a room, I don't leave the lights on, and I don't have the outside of my house all lit up like a movie matinee, either, and so .....

[Livyjr]

And speaking of George W. Bush, the REPUBLICANS, knee-jerking, incompetence and entropy, all in the same sentence, jeffmoskin ......

"Army recruits shortfall blamed on Iraq war critics

By Vicki Allen

31 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Several Senate Republicans denounced other lawmakers and the news media on Thursday for unfavorable depictions of the Iraq war and the Pentagon urged members of Congress to talk up military service to help ease a recruiting shortfall.

Families are discouraging young men and women from enlisting "because of all the negative media that's out there," Sen. James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, said at a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Inhofe also said that other senators' criticism of the war contributed to the propaganda of U.S. enemies.

He did not name the senators.

Army Chief of Staff Peter Schoomaker urged members of Congress to use "your considerable influence to explain to the American people and to those that are influencers out there how important it is for our young people to serve this nation at a time like this."

The Army on Wednesday said it was 14 percent, or about 7,800 recruits, behind its year-to-date recruitment target even though it exceeded its monthly target in June.

With extended deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, recruiting also is down for the National Guard and the Reserves.

"With the deluge of negative news that we get daily, it's just amazing to me that anybody would want to sign up," said Sen. Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican.

Facing flagging support for the Iraq war that has killed about 1,750 U.S. forces, President Bush in a speech on Tuesday acknowledged the nation's doubts about the strategy but insisted the operation was worthwhile and portrayed Iraq as a key battlefield against terrorists.

Bush himself made a pitch for military service.

"We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves."

"Those who serve today are taking their rightful place among the greatest generations that have worn our nation's uniform," he said.

While Bush has rejected calls for a timetable to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner, the committee chairman, pressed the Pentagon to declassify information on progress of training Iraq's forces, considered a key indicator of when U.S. forces can return home.

"The American taxpayer put a tremendous investment in that retraining and the equipping," Warner said.

With that information, he said, "We can better translate where we are in terms of hopefully providing them (Iraqis) with trained individuals and equipment to eventually replace our forces."

Democrats questioned the Pentagon officials on how the Iraq war has strained the military's readiness for other potential conflicts and on delays in providing troops with adequate armor against car bombs and other explosives.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, said while Bush urged Americans "to raise flags" in honor of U.S. troops in Iraq, the president did not assure troops "they will have the equipment they need to fight the war, and he should have."

Schoomaker acknowledged up to 25 percent of the Humvees in Iraq still had the low grade of protective armor, but he said all should be equipped with higher grade armor in September.

He also agreed that in some cases the level of readiness of units was below desired levels because of the strain of the Iraq conflict and the Army's efforts to streamline its operations.

In his testimony, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Michael Hagee said readiness for battalion and squadron-sized Marine units had dropped by 40 percent because of the priority put on sustaining units in Iraq at the expense of the units that had rotated out of the war.

[Livyjr]

Washington Gazette

FAIR AND BALANCED SPIN INSIDE THE BELTWAY

"Bush Twins Vow Support Of Military Recruitment Goals"

By John F. Youmans

As the Bush twins don their new camouflaged military uniforms, they have declared they will do everything possible to assist military recruiters reach their plummeting recruitment goals.

"It's the least we can do," one of the twins said.

"We believe in Shared Sacrifice."

"It is the responsibility of everyone to support this war to defend our country from terrorists."

When asked if they would be going to Iraq, both twins shrieked, "Lord no!"

"We haven't signed up."

"We are going to help others who are less fortunate to sign up."

With this effort by the Bush twins, Army recruiting goals are sure to surge soon.

“We will even pick up volunteers in our limo, complete with Secret Service agents, to transport volunteers to the recruiting stations,” the twins promised.

June 30, 2005

"For First Time in Months, Army Meets Its Recruiting Goal"

By ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, June 29 - For the first time since January, the Army met its recruiting goal this month, but it still faces what some senior Army officials say is a nearly insurmountable hurdle to meet the service's annual quota.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a public forum at the Pentagon on Wednesday that the Army exceeded its June goal, but he gave no details.

Senior Army officials said in interviews earlier in the day that the Army exceeded the quota of 5,650 recruits by about 500 people.

The Army Reserve also made its first monthly goal since last December, the officials said.

That still leaves the active-duty Army about 7,800 recruits behind schedule to send 80,000 enlistees to boot camp with only three months to go in the recruiting year that ends on Sept. 30.

The Army has not missed its annual enlistment quota since 1999, when a strong economy made recruiters' lives miserable.

Army officials publicly insist that they can still reach their annual goal, especially with hundreds of new recruiters on the street for the peak summer recruiting month, armed with big enlistment bonuses and greater leeway to recruit more high-school dropouts and lower-achieving applicants.

But privately, senior Army officials voiced skepticism on Wednesday that the Army could make up the deficit.

"If you ask people point-blank, we just don't have enough time left to make it," said an Army official who has been briefed on the June figures, but who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the Pentagon does not plan to release them publicly until early July.

Another senior Army officer, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said, "If we make it, it'll be by the skin of our teeth."

Recruiting woes plaguing the Army and the Marine Corps, partly over parental concerns about the war in Iraq, have raised such concern among members of Congress that the Senate Armed Services Committee has summoned General Myers and the chiefs of the Army and the Marines to testify on Thursday.

Of the 139,000 troops in Iraq, the Army provides about 105,000 and the Marines about 22,000.

"We face a challenge in recruiting right now, especially for the ground forces like the Army and the Marine Corps," Gen. Peter Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told the committee at a separate hearing Wednesday on his nomination to succeed General Myers as chairman.

For example, Marine recruiters are spending an average of 12 hours per recruit they enlist, up from about 3 hours a year or so ago, Marine officials say.

General Pace noted that while recruiting numbers were down, re-enlistments are above averages in past years, making up some of the gap.

"Those within uniform serving this country get it," General Pace said.

In his nationally televised speech on Tuesday night, President Bush ended his address with a recruiting pitch.

"I thank those of you who have re-enlisted in an hour when your country needs you," Mr. Bush said.

"And to those watching tonight who are considering a military career, there is no higher calling than service in our armed forces."

[Livyjr]

June 30, 2005

"For First Time in Months, Army Meets Its Recruiting Goal"

By ERIC SCHMITT

"And to those watching tonight who are considering a military career, there is no higher calling than service in our armed forces."

Then why didn't Dick Cheney or Karl Rove ever serve then, Mr. Bush?

Analysis

"Bush Words Reflect Public Opinion Strategy"

By Peter Baker and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 30, 2005; Page A01

When President Bush confidently predicts victory in Iraq and admits no mistakes, admirers see steely resolve and critics see exasperating stubbornness.

But the president's full-speed-ahead message articulated in this week's prime-time address also reflects a purposeful strategy based on extensive study of public opinion about how to maintain support for a costly and problem-plagued military mission.

The White House recently brought onto its staff one of the nation's top academic experts on public opinion during wartime, whose studies are now helping Bush craft his message two years into a war with no easy end in sight.

Behind the president's speech is a conviction among White House officials that the battle for public opinion on Iraq hinges on their success in convincing Americans that, whatever their views of going to war in the first place, the conflict there must and can be won.

"There's going to be an appetite by some to relitigate past decisions," said White House counselor Dan Bartlett.

But the studies consulted by the White House show that in the long run public support for war is "mostly linked to whether you think you can prevail," he added, which is one reason it is important for Bush to explain "why he thinks it's working and why he thinks it'll win."

For Bush, Bartlett emphasized, the public rhetoric matches the private conviction that his strategy will succeed.

But it also leaves Bush in the difficult position of balancing confidence and credibility.

The more optimism Bush expresses, the more criticism he draws from Congress and commentators that he is not facing the reality of a tenacious insurgency that, according to U.S. military commanders, remains as potent today as six months ago.

Bush has never been one to dwell publicly on past miscalculations in Iraq, on such issues as weapons of mass destruction, the reception forecast for invading U.S. troops and the durability of the armed resistance after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

As he continues to tout progress in the face of near-daily car bombings, critics say, his standing with the public will continue to slip.

"Unless they're more candid with the American people, there's no reason to think the drift in public opinion is going to turn around," said P.J. Crowley of the Center for American Progress, a retired Air Force colonel who was a national security aide in the Clinton White House.

Bush adversaries insisted yesterday that they remain no less committed to victory and denied engaging in defeatism.

"I really do think it's winnable, but you've got to keep the American people following with you," Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said in an interview.

"That's why I urged them to give the speech."

"He told us the why."

"He didn't tell us the how."

"Business as usual won't get us there."

"I think he has to change some policy or alter some policy."

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who has also been highly critical of Bush's handling of the war effort, rushed out a statement after Tuesday night's speech asserting his own confidence in victory.

"I have had differences with the administration over the planning and execution of our postwar policy in Iraq," he said.

"However, we all are working toward finding a way to succeed in Iraq."

At stake is the ability to sustain a war that so far has claimed the lives of nearly 1,750 U.S. troops and that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has predicted could last years.

The Bush team is acutely aware that public support remains critical for the long-term viability of such a venture, and in the face of sagging polls in recent weeks it has determined to refocus energy on shoring up popular opinion.

In shaping their message, White House officials have drawn on the work of Duke University political scientists Peter D. Feaver and Christopher F. Gelpi, who have examined public opinion on Iraq and previous conflicts.

Feaver, who served on the staff of the National Security Council in the early years of the Clinton administration, joined the Bush NSC staff about a month ago as special adviser for strategic planning and institutional reform.

Feaver and Gelpi categorized people on the basis of two questions: "Was the decision to go to war in Iraq right or wrong?" and "Can the United States ultimately win?"

In their analysis, the key issue now is how people feel about the prospect of winning.

They concluded that many of the questions asked in public opinion polls -- such as whether going to war was worth it and whether casualties are at an unacceptable level -- are far less relevant now in gauging public tolerance or patience for the road ahead than the question of whether people believe the war is winnable.

"The most important single factor in determining public support for a war is the perception that the mission will succeed," Gelpi said in an interview yesterday.

Key Bush advisers think the general public has considerable patience for keeping U.S. forces in Iraq, but they are mindful that opinion leaders, including members of Congress, high-profile analysts, editorial writers and columnists, are more pessimistic on that question.

And they acknowledge that images of mayhem that people see from Iraq create doubt about the prospects for success.

In studying past wars, they have drawn lessons different from the conventional wisdom.

Bush advisers challenge the widespread view that public opinion turned sour on the Vietnam War because of mounting casualties that were beamed into living rooms every night.

Instead, Bush advisers have concluded that public opinion shifted after opinion leaders signaled that they no longer believed the United States could win in Vietnam.

Most devastating to public opinion, the advisers believe, are public signs of doubt or pessimism by a president, whether it was Ronald Reagan after 241 Marines, soldiers and sailors were killed in a barracks bombing in Lebanon in 1983, forcing a U.S. retreat, or Bill Clinton in 1993 when 18 Americans were killed in a bloody battle in Somalia, which eventually led to the U.S. withdrawal there.

The more resolute a commander in chief, the Bush aides said, the more likely the public will see a difficult conflict through to the end.

"We want people to understand the difficult work that's ahead," said a senior administration official who insisted on anonymity to speak more freely.

"We want them to understand there's a political process to which the Iraqis are committed and there's a military process, a security process, to which we, our coalition partners and the Iraqis are committed."

"And that there is progress being made but progress in a time of war is tough."

Bush drew criticism for repeated references to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in explaining the stakes in Iraq, but White House officials see that as a crucial part of setting the context for the battle ahead.

"One challenge we face is that there's a clear pre-9/11 mind-set among many people," another senior official said.

"Thankfully, the president isn't one of them."

"He knows we are at war -- and he's acting like we are at war."

"That's what commanders in chief are supposed to do."

But Gelpi, whose studies with Feaver have helped influence the White House thinking, said he thinks the president did not truly achieve what he needed to with the Tuesday speech.

As Gelpi described it, the American people remained supportive of the Iraq effort despite extensive violence when they saw incremental goals being met -- first the handover of partial sovereignty last summer, and then the democratic elections in January.

Since then, he said, public support has fallen because there are no more intermediary benchmarks.

Bush could have laid some out in his speech short of a timetable for withdrawal, Gelpi said, such as setting targets for how many Iraqi security forces would be trained by certain dates.

That, he said, would give the American public a sense of moving forward as these benchmarks are attained.

"What's important for him now to keep the public with him is to look forward and say we're going to make progress and this is what progress looks like," Gelpi said.

"He may have stemmed the flow for a little bit, but I don't think he's given the public a framework for showing how we're making progress."

[Livyjr]

Analysis

"Bush Words Reflect Public Opinion Strategy"

By Peter Baker and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 30, 2005; Page A01

The White House recently brought onto its staff one of the nation's top academic experts on public opinion during wartime, whose studies are now helping Bush craft his message two years into a war with no easy end in sight.

Behind the president's speech is a conviction among White House officials that the battle for public opinion on Iraq hinges on their success in convincing Americans that, whatever their views of going to war in the first place, the conflict there must and can be won.

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/06/...haney.0626.html

June 26, 2005

"Guest Viewpoint: The party's over for betrayed Republican"

By James Chaney

As of today, after 25 years, I am no longer a Republican.

I take this step with deep regret, and with a deep sense of betrayal.

I still believe in the vast power of markets to inspire ideas, motivate solutions and eliminate waste.

I still believe in international vigilance and a strong defense, because this world will always be home to people who will avidly seek to take or destroy what we have built as a nation.

I still believe in the protection of individuals and businesses from the influence and expense of an over-involved government.

I still believe in the hand-in-hand concepts of separation of church and state and absolute freedom to worship, in the rights of the states to govern themselves without undo federal interference, and in the host of other things that defined me as a Republican.

My problem is this: I believe in principles and ideals which my party has systematically discarded in the last 10 years.

My Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, and George H.W. Bush.

It was a party of honesty and accountability.

It was a party of tolerance, and practicality and honor.

It was a party that faced facts and dealt with reality, and that crafted common-sense solutions to problems based on the facts as they were, not as we wished them to be, or even worse, as we made them up.

It was a party that told the truth, even when the truth came hard.

And now, it is none of those things.

Fifty years from now, the Republican Party of this era will be judged by how we provided for the nation's future on three core issues: how we led the world on the environment, how we minded the business of running our country in such a way that we didn't go bankrupt, and whether we gracefully accepted our place on the world's stage as its only superpower.

Sadly, we have built the foundation for dismal failure on all three counts.

And we've done it in such a way that we shouldn't be surprised if neither the American people nor the world ever trusts us again.

My party has repeatedly ignored, discarded and even invented science to suit its needs, most spectacularly as to global warming.

We have an opportunity and the responsibility to lead the world on this issue, but instead we've chosen greed, shortsightedness and deliberate ignorance.

We have mortgaged the country's fiscal future in a way that no Democratic Congress or administration ever did, and to justify the tax cuts that brought us here, we've simply changed the rules.

I matured as a Republican believing that uncontrolled deficit spending is harmful and irresponsible; I still do.

But the party has yet to explain to me why it's a good thing now, other than to say "... because we say so."

Our greatest failure, though, has been in our role as superpower.

This world needs justice, democracy and compassion, and as the keystone of those things, it needs one thing above all else: truth.

Republican decisions made in 2002 and 2003 have killed almost 2,000 of the most capable patriots our country has to offer - volunteers, every one.

Support for those decisions was gathered through what appeared at the time to be spin and marketing, but which now turns out to have been deliberate planning and falsehood.

The Blair government's internal documentation only confirms what has been suspected for years: Americans are dying every day for Republican lies first crafted in 2002, expanded and embellished upon in 2003, and which continue to this day.

This calculated deception is now burned into the legacy of the party, every bit as much as Reagan's triumph in the Cold War, or Nixon's disgrace over Watergate.

I could go on and on - about how we have compromised our international integrity by sanctioning torture, about how we are systematically dismantling the civil liberties that it took us two centuries to define and preserve, and about how we have substituted bullying, brinksmanship and "staying on message" for real political discourse - but those three issues are enough.

We're poisoning our planet through gluttony and ignorance.

We're teetering on the brink of self-inflicted insolvency.

We're selfishly and needlessly sacrificing the best of a generation.

And we're lying about it.

While it has compiled this record of failure and deception, the party which I'm leaving today has spent its time, energy and political capital trying to save Terri Schiavo, battling the threat of single-sex unions, fighting medical marijuana and physician-assisted suicide, manufacturing political crises over presidential nominees, and selling privatized Social Security to an America that isn't buying.

We fiddle while Rome burns.

Enough is enough.

I quit.

James Chaney is a Eugene attorney who has been in private practice for more than 20 years, and who has been a registered Republican since 1980.

[amy]

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/06/...haney.0626.html

June 26, 2005

"Guest Viewpoint: The party's over for betrayed Republican"

By James Chaney

As of today, after 25 years, I am no longer a Republican.

I take this step with deep regret, and with a deep sense of betrayal.

I still believe in the vast power of markets to inspire ideas, motivate solutions and eliminate waste.

I still believe in international vigilance and a strong defense, because this world will always be

home to people who will avidly seek to take or destroy what we have built as a nation.

I still believe in the protection of individuals and businesses from the influence and expense of an over-involved government.

I still believe in the hand-in-hand concepts of separation of church and state and absolute freedom to worship, in the rights of the states to govern themselves without undo federal interference, and in the host of other things that defined me as a Republican.

My problem is this: I believe in principles and ideals which my party has systematically discarded in the last 10 years.

My Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, and George H.W. Bush.

It was a party of honesty and accountability.

It was a party of tolerance, and practicality and honor.

It was a party that faced facts and dealt with reality, and that crafted common-sense solutions to problems based on the facts as they were, not as we wished them to be, or even worse, as we made them up.

It was a party that told the truth, even when the truth came hard.

And now, it is none of those things.

Fifty years from now, the Republican Party of this era will be judged by how we provided for the nation's future on three core issues: how we led the world on the environment, how we minded the business of running our country in such a way that we didn't go bankrupt, and whether we gracefully accepted our place on the world's stage as its only superpower.

Sadly, we have built the foundation for dismal failure on all three counts.

And we've done it in such a way that we shouldn't be surprised if neither the American people nor the world ever trusts us again.

My party has repeatedly ignored, discarded and even invented science to suit its needs, most spectacularly as to global warming.

We have an opportunity and the responsibility to lead the world on this issue, but instead we've chosen greed, shortsightedness and deliberate ignorance.

We have mortgaged the country's fiscal future in a way that no Democratic Congress or administration ever did, and to justify the tax cuts that brought us here, we've simply changed the rules.

I matured as a Republican believing that uncontrolled deficit spending is harmful and irresponsible; I still do.

But the party has yet to explain to me why it's a good thing now, other than to say "... because we say so."

Our greatest failure, though, has been in our role as superpower.

This world needs justice, democracy and compassion, and as the keystone of those things, it needs one thing above all else: truth.

Republican decisions made in 2002 and 2003 have killed almost 2,000 of the most capable patriots our country has to offer - volunteers, every one.

Support for those decisions was gathered through what appeared at the time to be spin and marketing, but which now turns out to have been deliberate planning and falsehood.

The Blair government's internal documentation only confirms what has been suspected for years: Americans are dying every day for Republican lies first crafted in 2002, expanded and embellished upon in 2003, and which continue to this day.

This calculated deception is now burned into the legacy of the party, every bit as much as Reagan's triumph in the Cold War, or Nixon's disgrace over Watergate.

I could go on and on - about how we have compromised our international integrity by sanctioning torture, about how we are systematically dismantling the civil liberties that it took us two centuries to define and preserve, and about how we have substituted bullying, brinksmanship and "staying on message" for real political discourse - but those three issues are enough.

We're poisoning our planet through gluttony and ignorance.

We're teetering on the brink of self-inflicted insolvency.

We're selfishly and needlessly sacrificing the best of a generation.

And we're lying about it.

While it has compiled this record of failure and deception, the party which I'm leaving today has spent its time, energy and political capital trying to save Terri Schiavo, battling the threat of single-sex unions, fighting medical marijuana and physician-assisted suicide, manufacturing political crises over presidential nominees, and selling privatized Social Security to an America that isn't buying.

We fiddle while Rome burns.

Enough is enough.

I quit.

James Chaney is a Eugene attorney who has been in private practice for more than 20 years, and who has been a registered Republican since 1980.

Well, I would say that James Chaney is correct on every point he makes. I would guess that most voters, regardless of their party affiliation, who really pay attention to what's going on in this
nation, would agree with him. The 2006 and 2008 election results will tell how many voters are really aware of how this administration has/is harming this nation.

[jeffmoskin]

As of today, after 25 years, I am no longer a Republican.

One down, 59,054,086 to go.

[amy]

One down, 59,054,086 to go.

Yikes Jeff, I guess the numbers are scary!

[Livyjr]

Yikes Jeff, I guess the numbers are scary!

I actually was a Republican, myself, although while I was one, I never was religious about being one, as I never saw anything to be religious about!

I actually thought, when I was young, and registered to vote, that you had to be one, or the other, and so, I registered Republican, because of Ike, who made quite an impression on me, when I was young!

And then, some time later, 1986, to be exact, I "met" another crowd who were calling themselved the Republicans, and what these people had running was a protection racket such as would have made the Mafia drool with envy!

When I became absolutely convinced that these people were in fact "THE Republican Party", that is to say, the "political muscle" recognized as such in my county as the "muscle", then I quit that "party" immediately, and have never looked back, since!

I came to realize how holding back your vote from a party and your affiliation weakens that party, much more effectively than any other thing that we citizens can do, here in our America!

Strangle the REPUBLICANS for votes!

Bleed them down, and get them decertified in your town, then your county, then your state!

Give no votes to any Republican for any office in your own elections!

And use logic to convince just one other person to do the same!

Just one!

That is all it takes!

[Livyjr]

Well, we got some real severe weather in the area, and so, I might get cut off at any time, and so ......

From what I hear, out west of here, Amsterdam, just west of Schenectady, well, I guess they got tore up some, and about three inches of rain, which had roads and cars covered to a depth of four feet!

And its only July 1!

Violent weather!

And we are absolutely helpless to do a thing about it, except not have bad feelings towards nothing, or no one, and pray!

[Livyjr]

New York State Thruway closed west of Albany, both lanes, east and west, is what I just heard!

Flooding!

How about that?

This is New York and this stuff never happens here, and so, it is probably just lies invented by enviros who want to attack George W. Bush, George Pataki and Dick Cheney and the REPUBLICANS, politically!

[Livyjr]

"FBI Searches California Congressman's Home"

By SETH HETTENA, Associated press Writer

33 minutes ago

SAN DIEGO - Federal agents on Friday searched the California home of U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, along with the yacht in Washington, D.C., where he has been living, the FBI said.

Agents from the FBI, Internal Revenue Service and the Defense Department's criminal investigative service also searched the Washington offices of a defense firm whose founder bought the congressman's previous home, leading to a federal investigation, said Debra Weierman, a Washington FBI spokeswoman.

Cunningham, 63, has said that he showed poor judgment in selling the house, but he acted honestly and predicted that an investigation would prove that.

On Friday, a Cunningham spokesman said he did not know anything about the raids and referred all inquiries to the congressman's attorney, K. Lee Blalack, who did not immediately return a call for comment.

The former Navy "Top Gun" fighter pilot and eight-term Republican congressman sold his home in November 2003 to Mitchell Wade, a campaign contributor and close friend.

Wade paid $1.7 million for the 3,826-square-foot house in wealthy, seaside Del Mar, just north of San Diego.

He put it back on the market soon after and eventually took a $700,000 loss when he resold it in October 2004.

During that span, home prices in San Diego County rose an average of nearly 25 percent.

Meanwhile, Wade's little-known company, Washington, D.C.-based MZM Inc., was increasing its federal contracting business.

In 2004, MZM tripled its revenue and nearly quadrupled its staff, according to the company's Web site.

Cunningham is a member of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, both of which oversee the kind of classified intelligence work MZM does for the military.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in San Diego is investigating the house sale with help from the FBI.

Earlier this week, Cunningham's office disclosed that a federal grand jury has subpoenaed documents from him, though they declined to elaborate further.

Cunningham has also lived part-time on Wade's boat, docked on the Potomac River.

He has said he agreed to pay dock fees and service and maintenance costs to Wade in lieu of rent to stay there.

Living on Wade's boat without paying would violate congressional ethics rules.

The Defense Department halted orders this month on a five-year contract that provided MZM with $163 million of revenue over its first three years after the department's inspector general found that it did not satisfy rules on competitiveness.

This week, MZM announced that James King, a retired three-star Army general, was taking over as president and chief executive — a role held for years by Wade, who founded the company in 1993.
___

Associated Press Writers Erica Werner and Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this report.