• BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Martian soil ‘could support life’
  space asparagus

• YouTube – Conyers and Yoo: “The Games That Are Being Played”

• Oklahoma’s painful car culture
• A pig survives quake and a happy ending is promised — china.org.cn
  hero pig
• Coco Wang Earthquake Comics

Robert Rapier explains why the “windfall-profits” tax is a bad idea.  Taxing the gas companies is as much of a joke as eliminating the gas tax.  It’s just not the case that taxes play a significant role in gas prices one way or the other.

Unfortunately, the Democrats, including Obama, are on the wrong side of this issue.  The Republicans oppose it, though their own ideas about opening up every wilderness area for drilling would be equally ineffective at reducing gas prices.

Our entire approach to energy policy is fundamentally childish.  Rather than face the difficult truth that gas is only going to get more expensive (even if production hasn’t peaked, demand from China and India will always be ready to swallow any increase in supply), they still pretend it’s just a matter of sweeping aside the greedy corporations or hippie environmentalists.

To survive in a time of expensive fossil fuels, we have to change our way of life.  The government could play a positive role here, by investing in mass transit infrastructure and promoting fuel-efficiency and denser city planning.  But it won’t happen if we waste all our breath yelling at scapegoats.

Tags: Energy, energy & environment, oil, politics

• Son of GOP nominee throws hat into ring for Staten Island’s seat
• Plants Found to Show Preferences for Their Relatives – NYTimes.com

• Hillary: Time To “Write The Next Chapter In America’s Story”
  a good speech

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnBjTKny_zE]

Tags: inhofe, Oklahoma, politics, veterans

The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton

This is a very insightful and well-written look at the Clinton presidency.  It falls flat in a few places, especially when he tries to talk about events in 2000-2001 under Bush (it was published in 2002).  But where he has the greater perspective of history, Klein does a great job of showing how Bill Clinton’s unique personality, talents, and flaws played out in his administration.

More importantly, we can see the political beginnings of issues like NAFTA and universal health care and people like Hillary Clinton and Mark Penn that have reemerged so prominently this year.  Knowing what’s happened since then gives the book an extra layer of meaning and enjoyment.  Klein also demonstrates the Clintons’ ability to weather scandals and Republican attacks through sheer persistence and a bunker mentality.  This may go a long way to explaining why Hillary is still in the race today.

Tags: Bill Clinton, books, clinton, hillary clinton, politics

Andrew Sullivan:

The speech tonight was a remarkable one for a candidate who has lost the nomination, though not remarkable for a Clinton. It was an assertion that she had won the nomination and a refusal to concede anything to her opponent. Classless, graceless, shameless, relentless. Pure Clinton.

I’ve tried to give Clinton the benefit of the doubt until recently, but Sullivan is spot on. That she thinks she can blackmail her way into the Vice Presidency is exactly why she should not get it.

Tags: clinton, obama, politics

• POUPEES VIANDES – a set on Flickr
  aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
• a sports parable
  funny