The Economist calls John McCain’s latest television ad “disgraceful.” The spot seeks to equate Obama’s “celebrity” status with that of Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton (it even shows pics of those two) and claims that Obama stands for higher fuel prices simply because he opposes off-shore drilling—the same drilling that every knows will do nothing to change short-term gas prices.
This and it’s not even August!
I heard a great NPR interview this morning with David Quammen, a nature writer and defender (sort of) of mosquitoes.
While acknowledging the utter havoc disease-carrying mosquitoes cause, Quammen notes three things that may make you soften your stance – a little.
Of course, that last point could stand some clarification. We’re currently doing a pretty good job of plowing under the globe’s rainforests, but maybe we can thank the mosquito that we haven’t already decimated them.
I came across this brilliant amalgamation on Sasha Frere-Jones’ blog. To echo Frere-Jones, it really is the perfect timing. It’s also a great song.
Here’s what we know about T. Boone Pickens:
He’s from Texas. He’s a longtime oil man. He has been very involved in Republican politics. He was the money behind the Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry in 2004. He also owns what looks like a Pomeranian.
The very same T. Boone Pickens is now putting $10 billion of his own money toward building the world’s largest wind farm in Texas. What’s more, he’s put forth an audacious plan to wean us from our addiction to foreign oil—almost all oil, actually.
According to Pickens, “the United States is the Saudi Arabia of wind power,” and the sooner we realize it, the sooner we’ll see economic revival in the heartland, where most of our country’s wind potential resides.
Unlike Al, Pickens is motivated less by the fear of climate change than by a distaste for high fuel prices and an addiction to foreign oil—an addiction that harms our economy and holds us hostage to petro-dictatorships in the Middle East. He also knows that drilling our way to oil independence is pure folly:
World oil production peaked in 2005. Despite growing demand and an unprecedented increase in prices, oil production has fallen over the last three years. Oil is getting more expensive to produce, harder to find and there just isn’t enough of it to keep up with demand.
The simple truth is that cheap and easy oil is gone.
In addition to erecting windmills, Pickens’ proposal, which he calls “Pickens Plan,” would have us fuel our cars entirely with natural gas and biofuels. Wind would supply the rest of our energy needs.
In case you haven’t heard, Iran got so busted yesterday when they clumsily photoshopped a picture to make it look like four of their missiles launched when only three left the ground (who’s to say any of them did?). Looking slightly less dumb were the credulous newspapers that plastered the doctored photo on their front pages.
Sensing opportunity, many bloggers took up their mouses and created some truly hilarious parodies, like the one above.
Apropos of nothing … entirely unrelated to the heavy conversation on judicial philosophy in the comments section of the Obama post … here’s a funny video. Yay!
