I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. - Thomas Jefferson

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

At the risk of turning this into a sports blog—it’s not even college football season!—I have to recommend Joe Posnanski’s recollection of Rulon Gardner’s triumph at the 2000 Sydney Games for a mental health break.  Joe is one of the best sports writers and bloggers in the nation.  Money quote:

The first question came, and it was something like: “So, did you think you had it in you to beat the great and unbeatable Russian?”

And Rulon Gardner said: “Well, when I was growing, I used to wrestle cows on our dairy farm …”

Um. Yeah, Guy wrestled cows. Seriously, sportswriters, you DREAM of moments like this. I mean that literally. You go to sleep after having interviewed another boring golfer who started playing because his Dad was a member of the local country club or some bland pitcher who was the star of his high school team, got drafted high, got paid a sweet signing bonus, played two years in the minors and then got called to the show — and you DREAM about an American farm kid who wrestled cows and ended up winning a gold medal by beating an invincible Russian.

This is the reason that I love the Olympics.  As much as I hate it when NBC or whoever tries to cheese it up with their story about some rower who was almost eaten by a tiger during a volcanic eruption whose kid has epilepsy instead showing the freaking events, I love watching these guys surface every four years.  I was at the 1996 games in Atlanta.  There’s nothing like it.

Monday, May 12, 2008

While we’re all in the heated debate about how torturous torture is (I know, the topic is torture) John over at shield, reminds us why there are no black and white solutions. (much to our dismay, we cannot wrap this so neatly with a liberal solution)

Abdallah Saleh Ali Al Ajmi was a Kuwaiti citizen who deserted from the Kuwaiti army to join Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. He was captured there in 2002 and held in Guantanamo Bay until November 2005, when he was released after numerous appeals by high-powered attorneys, as well as Al-Ajmi’s continued insistence of his innocence. He was handed over to Kuwaiti authorities, and put on trial. There he was free on bail until his acquittal in July 2006, where he was freed for good. There is a big gap in reporting on what happened after that, but sometime between July 2006 and April 2008 he crossed the border into Iraq, and was one of four suicide bombers that carried out attacks in Mosul, killing nine people.

Are we interested to find out more yet? We’ve already got the makings for a textbook ‘skerry brown terrist’ smear, but a few things happened that deserve pause. The ‘terrist’ was apparently read his Miranda, given a trial (yes, the word ‘speedy’ does not need to be debated), and properly released to his country of origin. However, when the system fell apart at the seams, I wonder, do any of us have an answer for what to do with a shitbag such as this?

This is the Achilles heel (pun intended) of the “who cries for the jihadi” cause. They never seem to let us down by getting right back to what they do best after they lie and pander to leftists, just like the Al Quaeda “useful idiot” training manual tells them to. For now, let’s just keep sifting through some evidence about this lovely chap. John points out that the NYT was all over this.

I think it’s important to keep this in mind the next time someone cries about all the “innocents” being held at Gitmo. For a very recent example, people like Nicholas Kristoff at the New York Times: (emphasis mine)
My Sunday column is about the remaining 270 prisoners at Guantanamo, which is a national disgrace. One reason is simply the injustice of keeping innocent people in abusive conditions — a far harsher regime than that faced by convicted murderers in the United States.

We’ve heard this one before. The simple fact of the matter is that this guy was given his trial, declared his innocence, was released to Kuwait and marched right back onto the path of martyrdom. This is undeniable. It simply happened this way. I don’t think this is an isolated case. Even the “victim” of Guantanamo abuse himself proclaimed his innocence when in court:

I never meant harm to anybody. I never attacked anybody. I don’t have a grudge against the Americans. It is up to you. You are the president [of the panel] and you will do whatever you wish.

Well, pitiful pearl ended up doing exactly what he meant to do probably his entire adult life. He loaded himself up with weapons and targeted the innocent people of Iraq. All the while having gone through our entire process of legal exoneration. This doesn’t make me believe that these detainees should be held infinitely, but it does touch on a point I think John touches on nicely.

I don’t support keeping prisoners in Guantanamo forever. But I am fed up with limousine liberals and ivory-tower academics who are so easily duped by Al-Qaeda (yet again). As a result of this mistake, several innocent people are now dead. Think about that.

Totally agree. The burden of blame is now on the “who cries for the jihadi” crowd, because the pressure to ruch this guy through the system is squarely placed on the influence of pressure to usher these people through the system regardless of guilt/innocence. Very rarely do we argue the relevance of the evidence against the detained. What we almost always argue is whether the terms and conditions of thier detention chimes with the rights granted to American citizens. the simple answer on both sides is that neither shows enough compassion for the detainee, but when we have examples like our recently deceased asshat to point to there isn’t really much open for debate. We simply let them out where they gleefully kill themselves (odd that a man presumed “tortured” and offended had absolutely no problem taking his own life at the expense of truly innocent people) or keep them detained. Detained and alive, against the will of the “who cries for the jihadi” crowd. Much like a mental patient on suicide watch, one has to wonder on which side “compassion” rests.

Update by Lee: Basically there’s a point where your safety and your integrity intersect.  There’s very little crime here in China.  Women cansafely walk down dark alleys at night.  Sure, you don’t have any rights whatsoever, but hey, at least everyone is safe.  The same goes for the terror issue.  Sure, we could simply lock up everyone we think might be a terrorist because, y’know, they might get back out and become a suicide bomber.  But then we’d be just like China. 

(Insert obligatory Ben Franklin quote about liberty and safety.)

How far are we willing to shit all over what America purports to stand for in order to bolster the illusion of our safety?
How many innocent lives are we willing to destroy to “keep us safe” from drug dealers?
How many rules and regulations are we supposed to live under to “keep us safe” from transfats or cigarettes?

It’s the Laffer Curve in action.  Eventually we hit a point of diminishing returns.  This is a worst-case scenario used to justify draconian actions by the state.  It’s like whenever you hear about a rape committed by an illegal immigrant.  People say, “See?  We need tighter border security!” The fact that most rapes aren’t committed by illegal immigrants isn’t the issue.  Or when you hear about a child abduction by a stranger.  “See?  We need more laws to protect children!” The fact that the vast majority of child abductions are committed by someone in the child’s own family, again, does not matter. 

It’s rank hysteria.  So, how much of a totalitarian society are you willing to enact in order to protect the free society you claim to want to live in?

I’ve been following the NBA Playoffs pretty closely, and I am very impressed with how the series is shaping up in both conferences. Even though I live in Los Angeles I am a huge Lebron James fan. It was a little difficult to watch the first two games of the Celtics series, because the Celtics did an amazing job of shutting Lebron down. They paired him up with bigger men, and forced him to take difficult shots. Lebron also suffered from pretty dismal shooting percentages of around 22 percent series to date with the Celtics.

Tonight he made a show of force, travelling inside of the paint and dunks on Garnett so hard it was demoralizing. I love watching this guy play, and at 6’9” going up and over a 7 footer with power and poise to spare is immortalizing in the playoffs. Those are the kinds of plays that kids dream of suiting up for thier conference games. Pulling the game winner out with some smart plays on top of this are just some of the reasons I think this kid can get Jordan status.

I often fight with my co-workers who say Lebron is overrated. I think he is a little streaky when it comes to shooting percentages, but I have to admit I officially became a fan (and bought his jersey, the fiscal symbol of fan support) last year when he single handedly (yes, I mean all by himself. he didn’t even have Ben Wallace last year) brought the mighty Detroit Pistons down. It was a series of bad luck when the Cavs faced off with the Spurs, but the series delivered some highlights, and glimmers of hope for the fledgling star.

I think the Celtics are overrated, and they are playing a game too slow to exploit Pierce. I also feel that the Hawks series exposed some major weaknesses in the Boston hype. I think that the Cavs will take Boston at home if not for both, at least for one and march back home for the series. If Orlando can hold out and squeeze a couple more games out of Detroit, Lebron can clean them up real quick to move to the championship.

I’m also hoping that the Hornets can knock San Antonio out of the box which will pave the way for a more exciting competitor out of the west. To be honest, I hate watching San Antonio play, but they have a formula for success. I don’t think that the Lakers or Utah quite frankly have enough of the goods to push through the seasoned vets. It’s going to take a couple of years before the Spurs are placed out of contention for the title.

These are just some of my thoughts on the playoffs, and to hint at the outcomes I’ll put my bid on the table. I think that on the east the Cavaliers will dominate, due largely to the talent of Lebron James. I feel like the West has already been predicted, and it’s not so fun. I really hoped Pheonix could’ve run through San Antonio, but seeing they didn’t made me a firm believer that the Spurs are probably marching right back into the winners circle. I certainly don’t hold much hope for the Lakers to do so because they can’t really make it through the Jazz. the Jazz are a good team, but not a great one. they heavily rely on home court to generate their victories, but are no match for the Spurs either.

I think the championships come down to the Cavs and the Spurs in a repeat performance. the Cavs have built thier team for a return to this match up, and we’ll see how strategic the decisions were. For now, all I can do is hope that Lebron and his team have learned from last year, and some of the veteran add ons can bring experience to the table, as in Ben Wallace’s experience dealing with the Spurs from his days in Detroit. I feel like the spurs are going to win again, but I’ll leave myself the out by saying that Cavs 2.0 hasn’t been really tested by the Spurs yet.

Think I’m right? (Kudos for anyone who guesses the title of the post)

A few weeks ago, I said that an Obama candidacy would be good for conservatives because we would have to fight on ideas.  Today, George Will illustrates the point with a wonderful series of questions for Barack:

Michelle, who was born in 1964, says that most Americans’ lives have “gotten progressively worse since I was a little girl.” Since 1960, real per capita income has increased 143 percent, life expectancy has increased by seven years, infant mortality has declined 74 percent, deaths from heart disease have been halved, childhood leukemia has stopped being a death sentence, depression has become a treatable disease, air and water pollution have been drastically reduced, the number of women earning a bachelor’s degree has more than doubled, the rate of homeownership has increased 10.2 percent, the size of the average American home has doubled, the percentage of homes with air conditioning has risen from 12 to 77, the portion of Americans who own shares of stock has quintupled … Has your wife perhaps missed some pertinent developments in this country that she calls “just downright mean”?

OK, that’s a bit unfair asking a man to disagree with his wife, even she is a dingbat.  How about this:

You favor eliminating the cap on earnings subject to the 12.4 percent Social Security tax, which now covers only the first $102,000. A Chicago police officer married to a Chicago public-school teacher, each with 20 years on the job, have a household income of $147,501, so you would take another $5,642 from them. Are they undertaxed? Are they rich

Which you would rather hear the answer to?  Those question?  Or whether Jeremiah Wright loves America?

Is there hope for the future of the party?  Maybe.  The last month has seen a lot of talk about Bobby Jindal, the bright young governor of Louisiana.

One interesting thing I learned is just how far Jindal has come in fighting Louisiana’s institutional problems. Bush detractors get mad when I say this, but it really is true that the total ineptitude of the state and local governments was a major reason that things went so tragically wrong during Katrina. FEMA is a small agency with a few thousand employees; it is a funding mechanism for recovery efforts, not some sort of Super EMT Squad. FEMA does well in states that have competent and responsive government agencies, and not so well in places that don’t. (The staggering incompetence of rebuilding efforts is another rant--but also, a symptom of broader government problems rather than necessarily something specific to FEMA. But then as I say, that’s another rant.)

With a river of federal money flowing in, Louisiana, which used to be stuck at the bottom of state corruption indices, could have gone back to business as usual while the politicians and the powers that be diverted a few rivulets to their own use. Instead, Jindal and the legislature passed anti-corruption laws that in a surprising turn of events actually seem to have done something about corruption--suddenly the state is getting the best scores in the country. They pushed through disclosure rules for all government officials--state and local, appointed and elected. He got a law passed that forbid legislators from doing business with the state. And he took on a tax and regulatory structure that had been built around the notion that companies couldn’t go anywhere, and could hence be bled dry.

I have some disagreements with Jindal, most notably his support of creationism in schools.  But what he’s doing in Louisiana is miraculous—the kind of house-cleaning conservatives and libertarians have always wanted.

The best thing about a Democratic victory this November might be that it kills off the old guard and puts the party in the hands of people like Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin (whom I blogged about a few months ago).  It can’t happen fast enough.

I wonder if this is a bad omen:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Adult entertainment publisher Playboy Enterprises Inc posted a quarterly loss on Tuesday because of weaker publishing and domestic television revenue and forecast more trouble during the year, pushing its shares down 8 percent.

The worse-than-expected results illustrate the trouble that Playboy and other publishers and television companies face as more people get their entertainment online, and often for free.

Its results also show that, at least for Playboy, licensing its bunny ears brand and bachelor lifestyle cachet is proving a more resilient business than the magazine that created them.

“Our publishing and domestic entertainment businesses continue to face unprecedented change in the way consumers access and use media content,” Chief Executive Christie Hefner said in a statement accompanying the quarterly results.

It’s tough to be a traditional pimp these days…

Considering how down in the dumps they are these days, maybe this isn’t too surprising:

We knew the National Republican Congressional Committee, its chair Tom Cole, and House minority leader John Boehner were not enjoying Congress like they used to when they had control back in 2006.

And their get-up-and-go had diminished to procedural games and time chewing motions to adjourn. Their gloom was so bad last week, the caucus by and large voted against Motherhood, as the WaPo reported.

Nonetheless, we were alarmed by the slogan for the minority caucus’s re-branding campaign, for it directly--though probably inadvertently--addresses the depressed opportunities House Republicans might be feeling of late.

In the New York Times article, House G.O.P. Adopts Change Theme, we learn:

It looks like Republicans will counter the Democratic push for change from the years of the Bush administration with their own pledge to deliver, drum roll please, “the change you deserve.” The first element of the party agenda developed over the past few months by the leadership and select party members will focus on family issues.

“Through our “Change You Deserve” message and through our “American Families Agenda,” House Republicans will continue our efforts to speak directly to an American public looking for leaders who will offer real solutions for the challenges they confront every day,” said the memo prepared for lawmakers.

We think the slogan will only heighten the public’s perception that the House Republican caucus needs help. After all, Americans have heard that slogan time and again.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t pimped for political discourse, but to market an anti-depressant.

According to Wikipedia, the prescription drug “Venlafaxine is used primarily for the treatment of depression, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and panic disorder in adults.”

The brand name version, Effexor, is sold by Wyeth, which marketed it using the slogan, “The Change You Deserve™.”

Well, if I were a Republican Congresscritter I know I’d be depressed.

Remember, this is what some Fundamentalists really believe.

Some U.S. Christians are not reconciled to McCain’s candidacy but instead regard the prospective presidency of Barack Obama in the nature of a biblical plague visited upon a sinful people. These militants look at former Baptist preacher Huckabee as “God’s candidate” for president in 2012. Whether they can be written off as merely a troublesome fringe group depends on Huckabee’s course.

Huckabee’s announced support of McCain is unequivocal, and he is regarded in the McCain camp as a friend and ally. But credible activists are spreading the word that Huckabee secretly allies himself with the bitter-end opposition. That hardly seems possible considering his public backing, but critics of Huckabee’s 10 years as governor of Arkansas say he is all too capable of playing a double game.

McCain and Huckabee were friendly rivals in this year’s Republican competition, sharing contempt for Mitt Romney. Indeed, McCain would not be where he is today had Huckabee not mobilized born-again voters to upset Romney in the Iowa caucuses. All of Romney’s efforts to overtake McCain in conservative Southern state primaries were stifled by Huckabee’s success in those contests. Huckabee quickly endorsed McCain once he clinched the nomination. They bonded publicly in Little Rock on April 24 during McCain’s tour.

Nevertheless, the word is that some evangelicals dispute Huckabee’s support. One experienced, credible activist in Christian politics who would not let his name be used told me that Huckabee, in personal conversation with him, had embraced the concept that an Obama presidency might be what the American people deserve. That fits what has largely been a fringe position among evangelicals: that the pain of an Obama presidency is in keeping with the Bible’s prophecy.

According to this activist, at the heart of the let-Obama-win movement is longtime Virginia conservative leader Michael Farris—the nation’s leading home-school advocate, who is now chancellor of Patrick Henry College (in Purcellville, Va.) for home-schooled students. Best known politically as the losing Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 1993, Farris is regarded as one of the hardest-edged Christian politicians. He is reported in evangelical circles to promote the biblical justification for an Obama plague-like presidency.

Remember when these goofballs were part of the fringe and had no shot at winning the Presidency?

What American Republicans could learn from Britain’s conservative revival.

The political landscape in America is hardly analogous to that of England. Despite Blair’s public piousness, fealty unto God isn’t a prerequisite for a presumptive prime minister. Nor do issues like abortion, the death penalty, or stem-cell research dominate the political culture. British conservatism is in many important ways distinct from its American cousin. But as many American conservatives have noted—David Frum in his book Comeback and his National Review colleague Jonah Goldberg—America too is becoming more socially tolerant and, if the Republican Party is interested in a successful future, a Cameron-like shift to the center on issues such as gay marriage and the drug war is advisable.

As political scientist Morris Fiorina points out in his book Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America, both residents of red and blue states are “basically centrists”; American’s aren’t “red” or “blue” but various shades of purple. As conservative commenter David Brooks pointed out in 2001, “Although there are some real differences between Red and Blue America, there is no fundamental conflict.”

Pat Buchanan’s declaration at the 1992 Republican convention that there was a “religious war” raging in America, a “war for the soul” of the country, seems preposterous in retrospect. With a strong majority of Americans supporting Roe v. Wade, a clear majority supporting civil unions for gay couples, and the very real possibility of the country electing an African-American president, it’s time for the Republican Party to borrow from the Tories if they want to recapture the center ground.

Since the early 1990’s, much of American conservatism has been focused on social issues. That’s fine, but somewhere along the line that’s all it became about, along with expanding government power and intrusion into peoples’ personal lives. The Brits have had far more experience with ideological nannystating than we have, so their conservatism tends to be, dare I say it, more libertarian in nature. It takes losing your freedoms for people to realize that they were taking them for granted and how important they were. Unfortunately, this is something many social conservatives in this country haven’t yet learned.

You know that Staten Island congressman who got arrested for drunk driving and admitted to having a second family?  Oh, that’s just the beginning:

Vito Fossella built a career as a staunch “family values” pol, polishing his image in his predominantly Catholic district with a string of anti-gay votes.

He even shuns his gay sister, Victoria Fossella, refusing to go to family events if she and her partner attend, a source close to the family said.

His double life is now exposed with the news he has a 3-year-old love child with a divorced Air Force colonel, and critics are calling him a hypocrite.

“Has the Catholic Church now sanctioned adultery?” asked John Adrian, a 64-year-old gay activist on Staten Island.
“That just makes him that more hypocritical.”

As congressman, Fossella voted to prohibit any funding for joint adoptions by gay couples.

He has voted for the Marriage Protection Amendment, a federal prohibition on gay marriage.

He also demanded housing funds be held back from San Francisco unless it repealed its domestic partnership law.

The votes don’t bother me nearly as much as the shunning of the sister, which helps Fossella hit the Moral Turpitude Trifecta.  One thing I like about Dick Cheney, for example, is that for all his questionable behavior and policies, he has never turned on his daughter.  There’s genuine affection when the subject comes up.  I really don’t understand this whole “you’re gay; get out of my life” attitude.

Well, this is encouraging:

The presidential candidates haven’t discussed the issue in speeches or debates, but medical marijuana advocates regularly questioned them in Iowa and New Hampshire. The most sweeping changes were proposed by second-tier candidates - Democrats Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich and Chris Dodd and Republican Ron Paul called for repealing federal criminal penalties for marijuana - but of the remaining contenders, Obama has been the friendliest to advocates of medical marijuana.

At a November appearance in Audubon, Iowa, Obama recalled that his mother had died of cancer and said he saw no difference between doctor-prescribed morphine and marijuana as pain relievers. He said he would be open to allowing medical use of marijuana, if scientists and doctors concluded it was effective, but only under “strict guidelines,” because he was “concerned about folks just kind of growing their own and saying it’s for medicinal purposes.”

Obama went a step further in an interview in March with the Mail Tribune newspaper in Medford, Ore. While still expressing qualms about patients growing their own supply or getting it from “mom-and-pop stores,” he said it is “entirely appropriate” for a state to legalize the medical use of marijuana, “with the same controls as other drugs prescribed by doctors.”

In response to recent questions from The Chronicle about medical marijuana, Obama’s campaign - the only one of the three contenders to reply - endorsed a hands-off federal policy.

“Voters and legislators in the states - from California to Nevada to Maine - have decided to provide their residents suffering from chronic diseases and serious illnesses like AIDS and cancer with medical marijuana to relieve their pain and suffering,” said campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt.

“Obama supports the rights of states and local governments to make this choice - though he believes medical marijuana should be subject to (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) regulation like other drugs,” LaBolt said. He said the FDA should consider how marijuana is regulated under federal law, while leaving states free to chart their own course.

LaBolt also said Obama would end U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration raids on medical marijuana suppliers in states with their own laws.

McCain and Hillary can’t seem to settle on a position.  And to be fair, Obama waffled a bit on this too in the early going.  But how much does it say about our current state that it takes a Democrat to bring up states’ rights?

I’m not quite drinking this kool-aid yet.  I’ve learned from the GOP that “federalism” is usually a contraction for “we’ll allow the states to do what we approve of”.  But I’m encouraged that the medijuana debate is moving away from shrieking puritanical hysteria.

The Venezuelan Pissant is up to some hijinks:

A cache of controversial computer files closely tying Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez to communist rebels seeking to topple Colombia’s government appear to be authentic, U.S. intelligence officials say.

The trove—found on a dead guerrilla leader’s laptops during a military raid in March—is likely to ratchet up pressure for the U.S. to impose sanctions on one of its most important oil suppliers.

The files that have been made public so far have largely confirmed Mr. Chávez’s well-known sympathy for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. But a review by The Wall Street Journal of more than 100 new files from the computers suggests that Venezuela has broader and deeper ties to the FARC than previously known.

These documents indicate Venezuela appears to be making concrete offers to help arm the rebels, possibly with rocket-propelled grenades and ground-to-air missiles. The files suggest that Venezuela offered the FARC the use of one of its ports to receive arms shipments, and that Venezuela raised the prospect of drawing up a joint security plan with the FARC and sought basic training in guerrilla-warfare techniques.

One of the untold stories of the last five years is the tremendous strides Columbia has made toward squashing FARC and bringing peace to their country.  Columbia has the potential to become one of our strongest allies in Latin America—which is why I get so irritated by the Democrats’ illegal refusal to consider the free trade agreement.

I think Hugo is banking on us not doing anything.  Sanctions against Venezuela would divide South America, stir the oil markets and hurt us economically.  We’ll just have to hope that one of these days he accidentally brutally cuts his head off while combing his hair.

Update: I finally put a pic up in the Yours Truly thread, for those of you want your image of me completely confirmed.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

And now...tree funerals?

Ning Zeng, a climatologist at the University of Maryland, recently published a paper suggesting that if we just buried enough trees underground, we might be able to sequester enough carbon to offset most (or even all) of the world’s fossil-fuel emissions.

Wait… what? Zeng estimates that, each year, some 60 gigatons of carbon is temporarily sequestered in plant life, which is then continuously returned to the atmosphere when those plants die and decompose. If you could bury, say, a bunch of trees underground before they decompose, that carbon would be stored for a significantly longer period of time—and voila, you’ve pulled it out of the cycle. In theory, you could bury a good portion of the dead trees lying around on forest floors for a massive one-time reduction, and then start (very selectively) thinning out existing forests and entombing some of those trees underground to create a continuous carbon sink. No fancy technology necessary.

Fine, but would this make sense as a policy? Zeng estimates that a “sustainable” harvest of this sort could, potentially, sequester up to 10 gigatons of carbon per year (by comparison, fossil-fuel consumption coughs up about 8 gigatons of carbon per year). Offsetting the world’s manmade emissions would require about 2 million people to get to work—still less than are employed by the U.S. forestry industry alone—and cost about $250 billion per year. Of course, that’s far, far less than the damage that would be caused by unchecked global warming, and less, it seems, than it would cost to pump the carbon captured from coal-burning plants down into disused oil wells and underground caverns—the big idea of the moment.

But that’s just the theory. There are some huge potential problems here. As Zeng himself concedes to New Scientist, burying wood in the wrong types of soil could generate methane—an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. In some areas, termites could start munching on the buried wood and release the carbon back into the atmosphere. Not to mention the fact that you’re taking key nutrients out of the ecosystem. Even worse, clearing dead wood away from forest floors on such a large scale could, if done clumsily, wreak havoc on a number of habitats. That’s probably my biggest worry: This isn’t mass deforestation, but a forest-management scheme of this sort could very easily be abused, and almost certainly would in practice.

I can hear the tree diggers’ excuses now: “We had to destroy the forest in order to save it.”

It’s bad enough when Democrats do it, but thanks to John McCain we’ve now got more Republicans desperate to find an issue that can resonate with voters pandering to the government-controlled energy crowd.

OAK RIDGE - With gasoline rapidly approaching $4 a gallon and the nation’s energy future on shaky ground economically and environmentally, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., called Friday for a five-year project that would revive the urgency of the World War II Manhattan Project and put the United States on a clean path to energy independence.

Alexander delivered his speech at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, one of the original sites in the wartime project that produced the first atomic bombs. He was joined by other members of the Tennessee congressional delegation - U.S. Reps. Bart Gordon, a Democrat who chairs the House Science Committee, and Zach Wamp, one of the senior Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee - and a conference room filled with lab scientists and engineers.

The senior senator from Tennessee, seeking election this year to a second term, didn’t offer a price tag, a detailed legislative package or an exact blueprint for how such a program might work, but he proposed what he termed “seven grand challenges” that need to be addressed over the next five years.

Those challenges:

n Make plug-in hybrid vehicles commonplace, enabling consumers to plug their cars in overnight to take advantage of cheap electric rates when power capacity is under-utilized.

n Make carbon capture and storage a reality for coal-burning power plants.

n Make solar more cost-competitive with the burning of fossil fuels.

n Develop ways to safely process and store nuclear waste.

n Make advanced biofuels cost-competitive with gasoline.

n Make new buildings green buildings, with technologies that conserve power and reduce waste products.

n Accelerate the development of nuclear fusion as an energy source for the future.

Alexander said the solutions to the U.S. - and the world’s - energy problems can’t be accomplished within five years, but urgent projects can help ensure future success.

“It is so important that we act - and that we act quickly,” Wamp said.

Gordon said Alexander’s proposal would obviously be expensive, and he said he’s not sure there’s enough money in the United States to meet all the needs. Some international collaboration would be required, he said.

“It’s clearly going to cost billions of dollars,” he said.

Yeah, and guess who would pick up the tab? Tell me the difference between the two parties, again?

Just a quick note to let you know I’m going to take a little vacacay with the family. I’ll be thinking about all sorts of things I’m sure. There’s a lot going on in the world to say the least. You all be nice to each other. You can never go wrong with that.

See you in a week or so.