Czech President Klaus Whines About ‘Sacrificing Freedom for the Planet’

Who knew that the president of the Czech Republic is just another Republican in the vein of Bush and Cheney? Last week President Vaclav Klaus said he’s ready to debate Al Gore on global warming, but that “he [Gore]’s not too much willing to make such a conversation”. Klaus, if Al Gore gave in to every conservative douche that wanted to debate him about global warming, he’d never have time to eat or sleep. Klaus is pushing the English version of his book, which argues that environmentalism poses a threat to basic human freedoms. Egads.

From The Earth Times:

Klaus was speaking a the National Press Building in Washington to present his new book, Blue Planet in Green Shackles - What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?, before meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney Wednesday.

“My answer is it is our freedom and, I might add, and our prosperity,” he said.

Gore a former US vice president who has become a leading international voice in the cause against global warming, was co-winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Gore’s effort was highlighted by his Oscar winning documentary film An Inconvienent Truth.

Klaus, an economist, said he opposed the “climate alarmism” perpetuated by environmentalism trying to impose their ideals, comparing it to the decades of communist rule he experienced growing up in Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia.

“Like their (communist) predecessors, they will be certain that they have the right to sacrifice man and his freedom to make their idea reality,” he said.

“In the past, it was in the name of the Marxists or of the proletariat - this time, in the name of the planet,” he added.

Klaus is concerned that environmentalism will limit the continued rise of technology and progress. Because, apparently, progress means continuing with unsustainable, selfish, dirty practices that harm the planet and everything on it – including humans. Many conservatives that share Klaus’ viewpoints seem to feel as if progress and pollution-emitting technology are irreversibly linked – as if we can’t continue to move forward in a smarter, more sustainable way.

Klaus believes that the answer isn’t government regulations, but rather allowing the free market to address environmental concerns. Isn’t that just what we need? Let’s allow profit-hungry corporations to make all of the decisions that will determine whether we slow or stop our death march toward the destruction of the planet (the only one we have to live on, in case you forgot), or simply enjoy the sorts of modern money-making luxuries that we’re used to while we’re still around. Who cares about the generations to come?

Where did this idea come from, that we are so entitled to this lifestyle and all that comes with it, including spewing millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere via factories, motor vehicles and other modern inventions? Global warming deniers continue to hide behind the faulty idea that scientific facts about global warming are nothing more than propaganda. They’re trying to turn the ‘greed’ accusation around on environmentalists, claiming that efforts to stop harmful practices is all part of a big conspiracy to take their precious money.

Poor Klaus. Change is scary, I know. You and all the other deniers here in our own country that chant the tired old “you’re taking away our American lifestyle” refrain can’t imagine a world without your coal-fired power plants, SUVs and ridiculously large homes. The thing is, no matter how frightened you are of a society that asks you to go without those things, climate change is much scarier. Perhaps you all just have a death wish: you want to perish clinging tenaciously to your dirty, comforting modern luxuries and leave the consequences for others to deal with. Well, honestly, most of us don’t care if that’s what you do. But we’re not going along with it. Lead, follow or get out of the way.

Link [Earth Times]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Newt Gingrich Claims to be an Environmentalist, Then Backpedals When It’s Inconvenient

It’s way, way too late for Newt Gingrich to get on the good side of liberals. So, when the former Republican congressman did an interview last fall with Salon and tried to paint himself as an environmentalist, it’s unlikely that anyone took him too seriously – aside from the handful of conservatives who may have read the piece and wondered where the hell his ‘green’ streak came from.

From the interview:

“Somebody who believes that the environment is part of our heritage, and we have an absolute obligation to try to maintain it, and develop it, and sustain it. And somebody who has reverence for the extraordinary complexity that God has created in the natural world.”

When speaking to his loyal followers, however, Gingrich goes in another direction entirely. Subscribers to his weekly newsletter received this tired spiel in their inboxes just last week:

For decades left-leaning politicians have advocated higher prices and less energy. They were going to save the environment by punishing Americans into driving less and driving smaller cars. Now their policies have succeeded with a vengeance.

The very left wing politicians who favored a policy of no oil and gas exploration, no use of coal, no development of nuclear power, and no aggressive development of new technologies are now panic-stricken that their policies of higher prices have led to higher prices.

Let’s ignore, temporarily, the many stupid things Mr. Gingrich said in the above two paragraphs (particularly the ‘punishing Americans’ bit, ugh, are Americans really so entitled?). Rather, the point of this piece is, in what universe is Newt Gingrich an environmentalist, and why can conservatives not see that while they point their fingers at liberal politicians and call them panderers, that their own politicians and figureheads are doing the same, if not worse?

The only place this irreverent political hack is an environmentalist is in Rush Limbaugh’s dreams and maybe in Bizarro World.

Link [Salon] + [Human Events]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Big Shocker: EPA Chairman is Just a White House Puppet

Wow, this is so totally shocking. I mean, who knew that the White House pressures and at times, completely overrides the heads of various government agencies in favor of their own twisted agendas? Who would have thought that the United States government isn’t as democratic as it claims to be? I just fell out of my chair in shock.

From MSNBC:

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency [Stephen Johnson] came under sharp attack at a House hearing Tuesday, with Democratic lawmakers accusing him of repeatedly caving in to White House pressure on environmental issues such as global warming and a recently enacted health standard for smog.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the committee chairman, said depositions provided by senior EPA staff members suggest that Johnson had been overruled or heavily influenced by the White House on recent EPA decisions on the smog standard, its rejected of a waiver for California on global warming regulations, and the EPA ongoing deliberations on whether to regulate carbon dioxide.

“You have essentially become a figurehead,” Waxman told Johnson. “… In each case, you backed down.”

Crazy, man. What are we going to learn next – that our leaders take money from corporations to enact legislation that works in their favor? That they give large government contracts to companies they’re personally associated with, for their own financial gain? My confidence in the dedication of our government to protect and further the interests of the people is truly shaken.

Link [MSNBC]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons & Wikimedia Commons

Caterers Puzzled by Democratic National Convention’s Eco-Menu

Organizers of the Democratic National Convention, to be held in Denver, Colorado, have local caterers stumped. The Denver 2008 Host Committee has asked for things that these folks have never heard of before, and they’re not quite sure how to handle it.

The Denver Post has it:

Fried foods are forbidden at the committee’s 22 or so events, as is liquid served in individual plastic containers. Plates must be reusable, like china, recyclable or compostable. The food should be local, organic or both.

And caterers must provide foods in “at least three of the following five colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white,” garnishes not included, according to a Request for Proposals, or RFP, distributed last week.

“Blue could be a challenge,” joked Ed Janos, owner of Cook’s Fresh Market in Denver. “All I can think of are blueberries.”

Caterers praise the committee and the city for their green ambitions, but some say they’re baffled by parts of the RFP.

“I think it’s a great idea for our community and our environment. The question is, how practical is it?” asks Nick Agro, the owner of Whirled Peas Catering in Commerce City. “We all want to source locally, but we’re in Colorado. The growing season is short. It’s dry here. And I question the feasibility of that.”

The Host Committee also asked for a sustainably grown, naturally dyed red hemp carpet to be rolled out from the street to the front door, 90 white soy pillar candles scented with essential oils, 25 cases of Kabbalah water, 17 vases of organic white lilies, and 5 large crystal goblets filled with only purple organic candy. It also stated that no one was to look Nancy Pelosi in the eye at any time. Those democrats, the’yre such divas.

Link [Denver Post]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Finally, Something the Righties and Lefties All Agree On: McCain Needs to Stop this Environment Crap

It’s not often that liberals and conservatives strongly agree on a subject, even if they have wildly differing reasons for doing so. But after John McCain debuted a line of eco-friendly merchandise on his official website, things heated up all over the blogosphere. McCain’s got people on both sides of the political fence all riled up right now, and it will be interesting to see what it does to his campaign.

When the presumptive Republican presidential nominee started making claims about what he would do as President to help the environment, many of us liberals weren’t pleased. To anyone who wonders why we’d be anything less than thrilled about the fact that the man on the other side of the ring is professing his supposed commitment to the environment, Energy Smart sums up the general sentiment:

There are some things that fall beyond satire.

Who do they think they’re kidding? Rebranding McCain as Mr. Environment? Rebranding the Republican Party as the Eco-Friendly choice? The McCain campaign must have a real disdain for the intellect of the American voting public.

While John McCain at least has a foot in reality, as he recognizes that Global Warming is real (unlike the majority of the Republican Party, which continues to reject reality), his “solutions” remained half-baked, half-measures.

Now that McCain has introduced a line of eco-friendly gear on his website, he’s being hit even harder with criticism. After his adviser Kevin Hassett wrote an op-ed opposing the designation of polar bears as endangered because of what it would mean for oil drilling in Alaska, Gristmill wonders,

If McCain’s advisers are already pushing for Bush-administration-style policies on issues like the polar bear, how credible are his claims this week that he’s not Bush when it comes to the environment? All the eco-swag in the world can’t make up for policies that continue to prioritize industry interests over the planet.

Another reason why Democrats and other liberals aren’t happy about McCain’s pandering is the fact that his record shows that he’s all talk and no action on environment. The Democratic Party spells it out here.

Commenters on blogs like the New York Times’ ‘The Caucus’ point out the hypocrisy:

“When he comes out with “green” flip flops I might be able to stop laughing long enough to forget his voting record on the environment! NOT! – Posted by JanK”

“WOW! Now I sure want to vote for John McCain! He is so eco-friendly making cotton bags to shops with while riding around in his wifes private jet!!!! — Posted by Shawn”

And then, there’s the conservative reaction.

I usually stay away from conservative media for a reason: reading just a few lines of their bullshit makes me start to feel like a homicidal maniac. I literally feel my blood pressure rising. I start to get a crazy look in my eye. It’s not good. But as the posts started streaming in from right-wing blogs about the McCain campaign’s sudden focus on the environment, I couldn’t ignore them.

Conservatives are pissed. Most of them weren’t crazy about McCain to begin with, but this whole environmentalism thing has their panties in a wad like never before. The Business and Media Institute quotes Rush Limbaugh:

“The troubling thing here, Senator McCain, is I’m mapping out plans here to try to persuade Republicans to eventually cross over to vote for you and this is not making it any easier,” conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said on his May 12 show. “At some point Republicans are going to have to decide whether to cross the aisle and vote for McCain. Clearly, he’s rolling the dice in thinking that the ‘green’ community and the independents and the yutes out there will buy into this global warming business and think he’s different than the average conservative Republican and that will stand him in good stead.”

Heidi Harris, a radio talk show host in Las Vegas, isn’t happy about it either. She rails incredulously, with her Midwestern Mom hair quivering as she speaks, about how the U.S. might as well not even try to cap their emissions since businesses will just send their factories off to China. Let’s not even go there, because that’s a whole different topic. The point is, she wants you all to know how absolutely disgusted she is as a conservative that John McCain is focused on climate change. Watch the video on the Business and Media Institute website and you’ll see what I mean.

Andy Aplikowski of True North needed to knock a few back to deal with the news that McCain is selling ‘eco-friendly merchandise’ on his official website.

Cease and desist on all this Global Warming BS that warms the heart of Al Gore. If we can just stop the Republican officer holders and politicians from speaking in support of it we could easily cut half the so-called human caused global warming gases being emitted from the steaming piles of rhetoric they spew daily in the hopes of pandering for votes based on junk science funded by anti-American billionaires who loathe everything the Republican party is supposed to stand for.

And finally, I leave you with a quote that made me spit my coffee all over my laptop screen. Thank you, Andy Aplikowski, for this unintentional bit of much-needed humor on this dreary day:

Sticking your finger in the eye of conservatives is never a good idea if you are the Republican candidate for President, but waging an all out war on capitalism and promoting the junk science designed to end the American way of life [emphasis mine] is a colossal electoral failure waiting to happen.

Priceless.

Photo credit: Flickr user soggydan

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.

If McCain Wins, What Happens in Iraq? “100 Years” a Frightening Prospect

At a town meeting in New Hampshire this election season, John McCain made a rather startling statement: when asked about how long he thought troops should stay in Iraq, he said it would be fine with him if troops remained for “maybe 100” years.

From MSNBC:

First, if McCain doesn’t envision a 100-year American front-line combat presence in Iraq, how long is he willing to keep U.S. forces in that role? So far, all he has said is that the United States should withdraw only if it concludes that the Iraq mission is unachievable or when it has achieved success, which he defines as the establishment of “a peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state.”

McCain hasn’t said how long he would keep fighting to reach that demanding goal. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of McCain’s closest Senate allies, recently said he thinks that McCain would maintain current U.S. troop levels in Iraq through his entire four-year presidential term if military commanders recommended that course to maintain stability there.

Since his original declaration, McCain has repeatedly insisted he doesn’t foresee a century of American combat in Iraq but rather a military presence “after the war is over,” as the United States has maintained in Germany, Japan, and South Korea.

As Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dead points out, we’re not exactly welcome in Iraq. They don’t want us there. People in the region don’t want us there. Why would they? We’ve destroyed a culture. We’ve killed hundreds of thousands (some put the figure at over a million) of their people, most of whom were innocent bystanders. We’re responsible for so much death and destruction. The danger to our troops isn’t going to magically disappear – people are angry, and rightfully so.

Hopefully statements like this will help prevent this guy from becoming president. Plenty of people are against the war in Iraq, but considering the ongoing battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the race and gender issues in play and the usual spate of conservative ‘value voting’ i.e. gays, guns & God, is it enough?

Link [MSNBC]
Photo credit: Flickr user sskennel

ZapRoot: Deadly Quiet Hybrids, Stupid Politicians, Towel 2.0, and Swag

ZapRoot 035 in short: silent hybrids could be slightly more dangerous to a miniscule number of blind people, so of course some stupid politician wants to require carmakers to install noisemakers in their cars; Pategonia has a new site that lets you track the entire lifecycle of shirts they sell; Zaproot is looking for Green Earth Day Videos and is giving away swag to the ones they like best, some guy has created the Towel 2.0; ReadyMade is going digital (about fifty years late eh?); and Green Energy Wastebusters are saving people money off their energy biill and using cool ass tools and gadgets doing it.

College Students Amped Up the Eco-Activism on Earth Day

The Earth Day Network accomplished one big goal last Tuesday: flooding the congressional switchboard with calls from people who wanted to encourage lawmakers to enact eco-friendly measures. With the help of 1,000 college students at 1,000 campuses nationwide, the Earth Day Network made sure that our nation’s leaders heard the voices of people who care about the planet. From the Washington Times:

“We’re really excited about this because Congress keeps saying they don’t hear from the American public on climate change,” said Kathleen Rogers, president of Earth Day Network, which bills itself as an eco-activism group connecting some 17,000 organizations in 174 countries. “The [presidential] candidates are not being asked about climate change. Climate change is the biggest threat to humanity that we’ve ever faced.” Rogers said she wasn’t worried about the switchboard being overwhelmed by the calls. She said she was assured by the office handling congressional calls that staff could handle 1.3 million calls during a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. period. “They’re very, very competent, and they’re ready. We’re gong to help them as much as we can in advance,” Rogers said. “Our intention is really, really not to shut them down. If things went nuts, which we don’t expect them to, their operators are dreamboats. They consider their jobs part of the democratic process. If there’d be any problems, it’d be with the phone lines, not with the switchboard.”

Historically, college students have always been known for doing everything a little more vibrantly than the rest of the population, from activism to drunken debauchery, but lately it seems like more and more people are working hard to instigate change, and are more dedicated than ever. Keep it up, college students! God knows America needs your enthusiasm. Link [Washington Times] Photo credit: Flickr user GirlReporter

Big Brother Says: The Planet is A-OK! Go Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Destruction!

If you’re a conspiracy theorist like (I must admit) I am, this sort of news probably makes you want to build that off-grid cabin in the woods sooner rather than later. Reuters reports that nearly 900 scientists have told the Union of Concerned Scientists about political interference in their environment-related work:

The nonprofit environmental organization said its investigation of EPA was in line with previous probes of other U.S. agencies which found “significant administration manipulation of federal science.”

“Our investigation found an agency in crisis,” said Francesca Grifo of the Union of Concerned Scientists, referring to the Environmental Protection Agency. “Distorting science to accommodate a narrow political agenda threatens our environment, our health and our democracy itself.”

Nearly 100 scientists said the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was the main offender.

One scientist wrote that the OMB and the White House decreased the stringency of proposed regulations for political reasons through hidden influence such as lobbying.

Naturally, the government denies it, saying scientific findings were “balanced with policy concerns.”

This stinks of historical revisionism. When is deception of the people ever okay? I’m waiting for the day the Thought Police start showing up at scientists’ laboratories and homes arresting them for distributing ‘propaganda’ that doesn’t fit in with the contemporary party line.

“War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.” It’s all happening, people, and no, I’m not currently wearing a hat made out of tin foil.

Link [Reuters]

Photo: 1984comic.com

What Would You Buy with the $3 Trillion Spent on the Iraq War?

When all is said and done, the Iraq war will cost America $3 trillion dollars. That’s a figure that’s difficult to fully comprehend, and some may wonder how it was calculated. The Washington Post broke it down:

Some people will scoff at that number, but we’ve done the math. Senior Bush administration aides certainly pooh-poohed worrisome estimates in the run-up to the war. Former White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey reckoned that the conflict would cost $100 billion to $200 billion; Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld later called his estimate “baloney.” Administration officials insisted that the costs would be more like $50 billion to $60 billion. In April 2003, Andrew S. Natsios, the thoughtful head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said on “Nightline” that reconstructing Iraq would cost the American taxpayer just $1.7 billion. Ted Koppel, in disbelief, pressed Natsios on the question, but Natsios stuck to his guns. Others in the administration, such as Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, hoped that U.S. partners would chip in, as they had in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, or that Iraq’s oil would pay for the damages.

The end result of all this wishful thinking? As we approach the fifth anniversary of the invasion, Iraq is not only the second longest war in U.S. history (after Vietnam), it is also the second most costly — surpassed only by World War II.

Why doesn’t the public understand the staggering scale of our expenditures? In part because the administration talks only about the upfront costs, which are mostly handled by emergency appropriations. (Iraq funding is apparently still an emergency five years after the war began.) These costs, by our calculations, are now running at $12 billion a month — $16 billion if you include Afghanistan. By the time you add in the costs hidden in the defense budget, the money we’ll have to spend to help future veterans, and money to refurbish a military whose equipment and materiel have been greatly depleted, the total tab to the federal government will almost surely exceed $1.5 trillion.

Have you ever thought about how much $3 trillion dollars really is? Like, in terms of what else you could buy with that money? Well, 3trillion.org has, and they’ve created an awesome website where you can add hundreds of items to your shopping cart and still not even come close to spending that much.

The concept is simple: you browse their website for items to add to your cart. They can be as large in scale as wind turbines to power all of the United States ($1,000,000,000,000.00), or as small as a copy of the ‘Inconvenient Truth’ DVD ($10.00). You can even buy yourself a boob job, the New York Yankees, a custom rollercoaster or launch your ashes into space. The possibilities are endless, and if you don’t see something you want, you can add it.

It’s seriously very hard to spend $3 trillion. I still didn’t end up making it all the way; after over an hour on the site my grand total was $2,885,172,839,274.00 for all of the following:

• Universal Health Care for Every American
• Fight AIDS in developing nations
• Search for a cure to cancer
• Switch to solar power (all of America)
• Fund research for alternatives to oil
• National rapid transit system
• Clean up pollution (in major cities)
• Achieve universal literacy
• End hunger and poverty related diseases
• Increase sustainable organic produce in the US
• Finish repairing the damage done by Hurricane Katrina
• Cure a deadly disease
• Sustainable agriculture education, worldwide
• Non-violent leadership training (1 year) for 10 million leaders
• Food, shelter & vet care for unwanted pets
• End animal testing
• K-12 arts and music education
• New clothing, shoes, coats and schools supplies for 10 million children
• Build 100 new schools
• Pay 1,000 teachers’ salaries
• Give all firefighters a raise
• Plant 1,000,000 trees
• National Park Service Annual Budget
• Help rebuild Iraq
• Send Bush to Mars (1 way ticket)

After all that do-good spending, I still had over three billion dollars left over for things like homes for myself and all of my friends and family, organic vegetarian groceries for a year, home brewery equipment, a hammock and the Essential Leonard Cohen CD. You know, after expending so much energy on helping the world, you really want to kick back and relax a little.

It’s staggering to realize how much could have been achieved with that money. Instead of putting it to use actually doing all of the things that we dream about doing to make the world a better place, that money is funding pointless carnage and destruction. The Bush administration wants us to believe that this money was well spent, but we should know otherwise.

Maybe putting a price tag on the steaming bag of shit we’ve been sold as a nation will help people wake up and realize how much this war is affecting the world. If over 1 million dead Iraqis and 4,000 dead Americans isn’t enough for you - not to mention the destabilization of an entire region - perhaps what Americans really need to come to grips with the reality of this situation is to see how that money could have solved all of their complaints. Snowed under by hospital bills? We could have a whole new system in place by now! Nervously living in a region where a natural disaster could easily wipe out your entire community? You could have levees, shelters and emergency backup plans galore!

So please, everyone, buy away. Send $3 trillion gift certificates to everyone you know via the 3trillion.org website and urge them to fantasy-shop to their hearts’ content. The point isn’t gluttony and greed, though by all means have fun shopping: the point is awareness. We as a nation are letting our government get away with this. The power of the people is stronger than we realize, whether it’s put in motion through protests, boycotts, the purchasing decisions we make or simply exercising our rights as citizens of a democratic nation to vote accordingly.

Link [3trillion] + [Washington Post]

Photo Credits: Flickr user FredoAlvarez, Wikimedia Commons + Wikimedia Commons

Seven Years and Tons of Lost Credibility Later: Bush Decides Greenhouses Gasses Need to Be Curbed, Color Us Unimpressed

Am I the only one who could give two shits about Bush’s new plan (just announced today) to curb Greenhouse Gases? That’ll be left to the next President, this guy is just riding out the clock after what will go down as the worst Presidency in history. George Bush is an asshole and we can’t wait for him to move back onto the Ranch and let Obama get to work fixing all his mistakes. Global Warming will be one of them, we don’t need that douche nozzle chiming in now on how important it is to go green. I’d rather hear what Paris Hilton has planned to fight rising CO2 emissions.

The AP has it:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Revising his stance on global warming, President Bush on Wednesday proposed a new target for stopping the growth of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2025.

The president also called for putting the brakes on greenhouse gas emissions from electric power plants within 10 to 15 years.

“To reach our 2025 goal, we will need to more rapidly slow the growth of power sector greenhouse gas emissions so that they peak within 10 to 15 years, and decline thereafter,” Bush said in excerpts of the speech released early by the White House.

“By doing so, we will reduce emission levels in the power sector well below where they were projected to be when we first announced our climate strategy in 2002. There are a number of ways to achieve these reductions, but all responsible approaches depend on accelerating the development and deployment of new technologies.”

Bush was not to outline a specific proposal, but he’ll lay out a strategy for “realistic” emission reduction targets and “principles” he thinks Congress should follow in crafting global warming legislation.

Link [Breitbart]

Photo: Flickr user Tootsfontaine

Gut Buster of the Week: Lindsey Graham Says John McCain Has Done More Than Al Gore for the Environment

 

Michael said it best over at Ecorazzi when he said “Let loose the dogs of absurdity!” upon hearing that Lindsey Graham said that John McCain has done more for the environment than Al Gore. Here’s the exact quote:

“Climate change is the road less traveled but he’s traveled it even more than Al Gore,” Graham said. “Al Gore has talked about it and deserves great recognition but he was around here a long time and never introduced a bill.”

John McCain was given a zero by the League of Conservation Voters, is stupidly pro-war, and is known to be an all around douche nozzle. Al Gore, on the other hand, is our god. He is put above and before all in our pantheon of world savers. As Ecorazzi points out that ThinkProgress points out, Gore was wielding his power in Congress back in the 70s before McCain even ran for office, holding hearings on climate change. He successfully fought off Manbearpig, is raising almost a third of a billion dollars for a global warming ad campaign, and is generally the most recognized ‘”green” person on the planet. I forgive Tipper for her assault on porn and free speech back in the day, but other than that Gore is The Man. The good The Man, not the bad The Man keeping us all down. You know?

Bottom line: John McCain is no friend of the environment, Lindsey Graham is a lying and corrupt blowhard, and the GOP is going to lose by 20 points in November. It’s Obama time baby!

Link [Think Progress] via [Ecorazzi]

Photo: Flickr user Yogi

Ann Coulter’s Girlfriend Thinks of Dumbest Law Ever: Lightbulb Freedom of Choice Act

Pub Note: This isn’t an April Fools Prank. This is real. Really.

Beware!! The hippies are coming and they are killing and eating our unborn babies and taking away even our most basic rights as humans! The right…to choose…incandescent mood-lighting!

Treehugger reports that Minnesota Representative Michelle Bachman wants to fight for her right for lighting. Seriously, this crazy hooker wants to pass a law that would ensure her right to NOT use compact fluorescent bulbs. Although she denies global warming, she also argues that CF bulbs are “more polluting” than regular bulbs because of their minute mercury content. But that doesn’t matter right, because pollution and global warming are just things the pinkos invented for shits and giggles? Seriously, this ass-backwards bitch needs to sit down with Ann Coulter and have a who’s-a-bigger-crackhead competition. Does she seriously have nothing better to do with her time and influence?

A representative of the Natural Resources Defense Council replied that there is 200 times more mercury in each filling of Congresswoman wackypants’ teeth than in one CF bulb. Oooh, Snap!

They can take our lives, but they can never take OUR LLIIIGHTBULBS!

Link [Treehugger]

From The ‘Not An April Fools Prank’ Files: FBI’s #1 Priority is Eco-Terrorism

Great FSM I wish this was an April Fools Day Joke. Fox News and the FBI are teaming up to proclaim eco-terrorism their priority #1. Check it out:

For nearly seven years, the nation has turned its terror focus on Al Qaeda and the hunt for Usama bin Laden. But there is a domestic terror threat that federal officials still consider priority No. 1 — eco-terrorism.

The torching of luxury homes in the swank Seattle suburb of Woodinville earlier this month served as a reminder that the decades-long war with militant environmentalists on American soil has not ended.

“It remains what we would probably consider the No. 1 domestic terrorism threat, because they have successfully continued to conduct different types of attacks in and around the country,” said FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko.

The FBI defines eco-terrorism “as the use or threatened use of violence of a criminal nature against innocent victims or property by an environmentally oriented, subnational group for environmental-political reasons, or aimed at an audience beyond the target, often of a symbolic nature.”

Really!?! With all the crazy shit going on in the world the FBI has the noodles to say that a bunch of grungy dreadies living in a shared house in Eugene, Oregon plotting to burn SUVs is their most pressing priority?

WTF.

Link [Faux Fox News] via [Groovy Green]

Photo credit: Flickr user technicolorcavalry

As The Boos Rained Down: President Bush Throws Out First Pitch in Green(er) Stadium

Michael recently reported that President Bush would throw out the first pitch in the Washington Nationals new green(er) stadium. Here’s video of him running out to a cascade of boos, quickly throwing his pitch (a good one for a throw-out pitch, I’ll give him that), and then retreating to the tunnels.

Our country does like this President.

Impeach!!!

Hillary Clinton Does the Waffle Dance Around Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

The word “jobs” is a magic talisman for politicians. When they want to push a dubious policy, they promise that “jobs” will come of it, and rarely does anyone note that some jobs are not worth having.

West Virginia is having a primary soon, and Hillary Clinton, campaigning there, had the following to say about mountaintop removal mining, a kind of Extreme Coal Mining that does what it says–it removes the mountain to get at the coal. She seems to be okay with it:

I am concerned about it for all the reasons people state, but I think it’s a difficult question because of the conflict between the economic and environmental trade-off that you have here.

I’m not an expert. I don’t know enough to have an independent opinion, but I sure would like people who could be objective, understanding both the economic necessities and environmental damage, to come up with some approach that would enable us to retrieve the coal but would enable us to do it in a way that wouldn’t damage the living standards and the other important qualities associated with people living both under the mountaintop and people who are along the streams.

You know, maybe there is a way to recover those mountaintops once they have been stripped of the coal. You know, I think we’ve got to look at this from a practical perspective.

Meh. Grist does a good job taking this apart. Strip mining for coal in Appalachia was never even good enough to be called a devil’s bargain; the devil got everything, and still does. It’s comparable to burning down your house in order to get a “job” hauling the remains to a dumpster. At the end, Hillary grasps for a tedious old dodge: once the mining is done, we’ll restore the landscape. In my experience of such restoration, the only thing left is rubble and toxins, and the only thing you can grow is noxious weeds.

Link [Gristmill]

The March of Incompetence: Climate Change Denier James Inhofe Also Hates the Troops

Scott Herring is a new writer here at EarthFirst and a published author, blogger, and professor from the University of California, Davis.

The US Senate is an intellectual landfill. Really–I can’t say it too strongly. It seems like the higher you go in the federal government, the more rubbishy things get.

Take Oklahoma Republican Senator and well known Climate Change denier James Inhofe as an example. Inhofe is wildly hawkish, but as the Huffington Post reports,

“he has consistently voted against health care for the troops and their families, against pay protection for reservists, and against an increase in the death gratuity payments (now $12,000) for the families of military personnel killed in battle. And on top of all that Inhofe has also voted consistently against repealing the heinous ‘disabled veterans tax,’ which penalizes disabled veterans who receive both disability pay and retired pay.”

Armies fall apart when the soldiers aren’t treated well. Just a few years ago, the GOP dominated the political world, with majorities seemingly everywhere except the Berkeley city council, and it is now well on its way to being thrown out of power entirely. Republicans won their dominance because people thought they were good on national defense. Their sickly incompetence on this same issue has in turn done them in.

Link [Huffington Post]

Watch Five Hours of Cable News, Get One Minute of Environmental or Science Coverage

We’re pleased to welcome new writer Anders Porter, a blogger, journalist, and Swedish/English translator from California currently living in Sweden. He blogs on his person website at Anders Porter dot com. This is his first post, so feel free to verbally haze his noob ass.

When I think of cable news, I think of broad, fair, and unbiased reporting. (Insert Fox News joke here.)

I take comfort in knowing that when I flip over to my MSNBC or my CNN, that the talking heads are going to take care of me, that they will dish out what I need, spoon feed me with my news food groups, if you know what I mean.

Well, according to the analysis of cable TV news coverage as reported in the 2008 Annual Report on American Journalism, the cable news networks are definitely living up to their promise of feeding their peeps. That is, of course, if you’re the kind of peep that munches on nothing nothing but politics, foreign policy debate and crime. If you’re looking for a little lettuce and tomato, that’s right - coverage of education, science and, oh yeah - THE ENVIRONMENT - then you gonna be sitting in front of that box for a long, long, long, long time. Uh-huh. Long time.

Turns out that during a five hour non-stop cable news marathon, it is likely that you will see 35 minutes about campaigns and elections and 1 minute and 25 seconds about the environment.

Sweeeeet. Nice to know we have our priorities worked out.

Link [2008 Anual Report on American Journalism] Via Framing Science

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