Walking, Riding Bikes - Too Wacky For Republicans

Are Republicans afraid to step out of their SUVs to take a walk or *gasp* ride a bike? It sounds like a silly stereotype but the National Republican Congressional Committee recently released a video against Democratic nominee Kathy Dahlkemper with just that message.

Dahlkemper, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Phil English to represent Pennsylvania’s 3rd District, is quoted in the video as saying Americans should “walk places” and “ride their bikes”. Apparently, that’s supposed to be a bad thing. Of course those activities seem pretty normal to us but that probably makes us “wacky” too.

Democrats Totally Puss Out on Offshore Drilling Ban

Well, it happened: in the midst of election season, during the double-whammy of an energy crisis and a financial collapse, the Democrats have let go of the reigns on an extremely important environmental issue: offshore drilling.  They’ve been railing against letting the 26-year-old ban expire all year, and when it came down to it, they gave in to pressure from Republicans.  Nice job.

From The Guardian:

Although the drilling debate dominated the campaign dialog for much of last month, the McCain camp had little to say when Democrats announced late yesterday that their plan to fund the government until next spring would let the drilling ban expire.

That silence is proof of the financial markets’ sudden rise to the top of the US political agenda, as well as a recent decline in fuel prices.

A few Democrats from coastal states, however, openly lamented their party’s decision to give ground in the face of a White House veto threat on the funding plan.

“I think it’s awful. This battle is not over,” California senator Dianne Feinstein, an ardent opponent of coastal drilling, said. “We will come back and fight another day, that’s for sure.”

Part of the problem is, undoubtedly, a false perception among the public that offshore drilling will ease the energy crisis, which many believe would in turn help lessen the blow from the current meltdown in the financial markets.  Unfortunately, the idea that offshore drilling will have any impact at all on the energy market for at least 10 years is about as realistic as believing that Santa Claus really does drop down millions of chimneys on one night, or that John McCain would be a good president.

The Sierra Club, at least, is holding on to a sliver of hope: they released a memo to reporters that relayed their belief that a new president could turn this thing around, saying, “The moratorium could very well be restored by a new Congress and president who understand that more offshore drilling will do nothing to lower gas prices or solve our energy crisis”.

Link [The Guardian] via [Truthdig]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Obama On The Environment & Energy: It’s (Mostly) Good News

It’s not flashy, but it’s important. Watch this video to hear what Barack Obama has to say about energy and the environment.

He’s wrong about corn based ethanol being a necessary part of the solution- we need to stop turning food crops into fuel full stop.

Other than that, and his stated favor of bullshit “clean coal”, Obama is pretty solid on the environment. It’s going to be a good atmosphere to be an eco-entrepreneur in, that’s for damn sure. We could just turn this thing around.