Coming up tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on Newsradio 710-KIRO:
7PM: Is our food supply safe?
The FDA now blames melamine, a chemical found in plastic, as the poison that has tainted wheat gluten in dozens of brands of dog and cat food. But could this poisoned gluten also have entered the human food supply?
8PM: TBA
9PM: TBA
Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).
Oh no, let’s ban plastic!
Melamine is not known to be toxic in humans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine
However:
The New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets is standing by its finding of aminopterin,the reasoning being that melamine would not provide the toxicity. Officials in the US state of New York identified aminopterin as the contaminant that caused the sicknesses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine
If any lefty uses Corelle Dinnerware, you better listen to your leader, Voice of Chalk Scratching. Your dinner is not safe.
“7PM: Is our food supply safe?”
No. Do you even need to ask? And don’t even THINK about whether Bush’s FDA is letting drug companies flood the market with unproven and unsafe drugs. (Hint: Don’t let your doctor prescribe ANYTHING approved after Dec. 2000.)
“But could this poisoned gluten also have entered the human food supply?”
If it didn’t, something else did (or will).
Seriously, folks, the best thing you can say about Republicans is they’re incompetent — which tends to limit how much damage they can do.
8:00 Slot – Can someone please pass me the Pork Please!
9:00 Slot – Could I have some seconds on that Pork Please!
It is kind of an Emergennnnnncy
“Republicans Fear 2008 Meltdown
“By: Jonathan Martin and Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei
“March 30, 2007 09:06 AM EST
“Republicans across the country are warning that increasing public discontent toward President Bush, the Iraq war and the GOP brand … threatens to send the party’s 2008 campaign … into a tailspin. …
“Some of the party’s top recruits in key races from Colorado to Florida are refusing to run for Congress. … Overall Republican fundraising is down sharply ….
“Polling data released this month confirm what GOP officials are picking up anecdotally: Swing voters are swinging away from Republicans at high velocity. Most alarming to GOP strategists is a new survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center that found 50 percent of those interviewed consider themselves a Democrat or leaning that way; only 35 percent tilt Republican. …
“Some experienced GOP campaign strategists believe that there is virtually no chance that a Republican can succeed Bush if his approval ratings remain mired in the 30s. … To make matters worse … Republicans on the Hill — already frustrated at what they perceive as White House indifference to lawmakers’ political problems — are less inclined to defend Bush from attacks.
“This painful cycle has some high-level Republicans braced for the likelihood that last fall’s rout, in which Democrats won the House and the Senate, may be a prelude to a 2008 knockout that would leave the GOP without control of Congress or the White House ….
“To underscore how tough things are for the GOP, Bill Pascoe, a Chicago-based Republican consultant with Urquhart Media, said ‘there are Republican consultants scouting state legislators for 2014. That’s how far the long-range planning is going.’ Why 2014? Because that would be the second midterm of a Democratic president.
“Political fortunes, of course, can change rapidly based on events and the candidates picked for the presidential ticket. Yet even the most relentlessly optimistic of Republicans sound skeptical. ….
“Already, there are … troubling trends on the money front, according to GOP fundraisers and Federal Election Commission documents. First, corporate PACs gave almost 60 percent of their money to Democrats in the first two months this year, a striking shift away from Republicans …. Republicans snagged about two-thirds of corporate PAC money over the previous four years. Overall GOP fundraising for the three major campaign committees was also down during January and February. … At the same time, Democratic fundraising surged ….
“Even in a neutral political environment, 2008 would be a very tough year for Republicans, especially in the Senate. Simply put, the Republicans are defending more seats than the Democrats — 21 Republican seats are up this cycle, while only 12 Democrats plan to seek reelection. So the playing field automatically is in the Democrats’ favor. Only one of those Democrats … is likely to face a serious challenge …. Republicans could face a tough challenge in New Hampshire, Minnesota, Maine and Oregon ….
“The Senate outlook could get worse for the GOP in coming months. Party officials said they are concerned Sens. Pat Roberts (Kan.), Pete V. Domenici (N.M.) and John Warner (Va.) all might retire. In all three states, Democrats could pick up seats that have been securely in GOP hands for years. ….
“Republicans are also having trouble landing the strongest candidates in key House races. In Florida’s 22nd Congressional District, for instance, the top three prospects have all refused overtures to challenge first-term Rep. Ron Klein, a top GOP target. In New York’s 19th District, the GOP is having trouble luring a blue-chip candidate to challenge Rep. John Hall in the Republican-tilting district.
“Josh Kraushaar, Patrick O’Connor and Kenneth P. Vogel contributed to this report.”
Quoted under Fair Use; for complete article and/or copyright info see http://tinyurl.com/3c2739
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This is consistent with other news reports I’ve seen lately, which say top GOP strategists have already written off the 2008 presidential election. Let’s review a couple of salient points in the above story: (1) Corporate donations have flipped from 2/3rds Republican to 60% Democratic. (2) In 2008, Democrats have only one Senator potentially in danger, whereas Republicans could lose 6 to 8 Senate seats. (3) The GOP’s best potential candidates are saying “no” to party recruiters. In short, these fuckers squandered their seed corn, and are now facing famine.
EXCELLENT ARTICLE ROGER. I AM SO LOVING THIS! WE ARE WINNING!
TYPICALNAZI, PUDDYLIAR, ROBTARD, DOOFUS, ETC:
YOU ARE SUCH LOSERS!!!
THE TALE OF TWO HOMES
Enjoy this one because it is true.
Here’s a tale of two houses. Read the description of each, and then try to guess who its owner must be. Hint: One of the homes was built by one of most hated men alive today. The other belongs to a respected leader in the environmental movement.
Our first home is a great example of conspicuous consumption and wasted resources. It’s a mansion in an upper-class suburb, with just under two dozen rooms and 8 bathrooms. Combined with its guest house, the home consumed 16,000 kWh per month in 2005. Then An Inconvenient Truth came out … so how did this homeowner respond? In 2006 the energy usage rose above 18,000 kWh per month. This is over 20x the national average!
This home consumes more energy in 30 days than most US households do in a year and a half! In total, the owners paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for this estate in 2006.
The owners of the home claim they offset their usage by purchasing carbon credits. If global warming were a religion, this would be like the indulgences paid to the Catholic church before the Reformation. The overly wealthy can pay a small (for them) fine, and then be allowed to break rules (such as saving energy) the common folk are supposed to obey. It may work, but it sets a bad example, and in the end holds poor people to a different, unfair standard. And it does little to stop pollution, because the person paying the carbon credits is only paying an extra fee — they’re not changing their habits.
By most accounts, this home is an example of how people in this climate-aware era SHOULD NOT be living.
Our second home is the polar opposite. Situated on a 1600 acre plot of hot, dry prairie land, it’s a modest home of 4,000 square feet. Below the home is a network of pipes descending 300 feet into the earth, where the dirt and rock keep a constant temperature of 67 degrees. Pumping this water back up into the home helps to cool it during the summer, and to heat it during the winter. It’s a closed network, so the water is simply recycled.
“Passively solar,” the home is positioned to allow for maximum absorption of the sun’s heat in winter. Thanks to the geothermal system, the home operates on a mere 25% of the electricity it might otherwise require. The geothermal system even heats the home’s outdoor pool–so efficiently, in fact, that original plans for additional solar paneling were cancelled.
Various gardens and grounds on the property are irrigated by a greywater system that channels shower, sink, toilet water and rainwater into enormous underground purifying tanks. And as icing on the cake, the walls of the home were built from cheap Luders limestone scrap material, quarried locally, that other homebuilders had thrown away.
And while conservation was kept in mind, these were also practical and financially-advantageous choices, for a hot and relatively-isolated region where water is scarce. Construction of the home started in 1999 and completed in 2001. It was financed privately — no taxpayer dollars were spent in its construction.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a more illustrative model for market-driven sustainability. The home is a green utopia, and is so thoroughly off the grid that the green celebrity blog Ecorazzi and the renewable energy website Off-Grid both recently devoted in-depth profiles to it.
The first property is a mansion in an upscale neighborhood. It consumes over twenty times the amount of energy as the average US household. Clearly, this is someone who does not wish to reduce consumption, or to save energy. It must be owned by an oil executive, or an energy-company tycoon. Or a media mogul. Perhaps the CEO of Halliburton – they’re all supposed to be evil, right?
The second property, on the other hand, is an example of green building and sustainability. It definitely must be owned by a great environmental leader. A rich scientist, perhaps. Or the chairman of the National Resources Defense Council. Or of the EPA. Greenpeace, maybe.
Who’d you pick? You’d be surprised.
The first mansion, guzzling electricity and paying carbon-credit “indulgences” for it, is in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, Tennessee. It belongs to Mr. Al Gore.
The second home, an example of green building and reduced energy consumption, is the western White House in Crawford, Texas . It belongs to President George W Bush.
“The Weight of Wealth”
“by Stirling Newberry
“The neo-conservative era is built on a simple economic theory – that if there is inflation and other dislocation it is because poor people are using too much of a resource, and those same poor people are using government to avoid the natural market consequences of their immoral and profligate behavior ….
“The economic regime which was put in place in the West between 1979 and 1981 had a relatively simple policy regime. …
“The simple theory of the neoconservative age was ‘make the poor pay’. The ur-problem was an out of control mob of ordinary people. … In simple language … what was needed was a source of order and a class of people who enforced that order. … Control of church and oil … turned out to be the political pillars of neo-conservative electoral dominance. … The policy regime rested on simple pillars:
“1. Keep real wages low, this will force ordinary people to make hard trade offs, and the market mechanism will allocate scarce goods. It also makes 2 possible which is…
“2. Keep the global political economy balanced by not allow the oil exporting countries to pile up more money than the national elites of the core industrialized nations. Keeping the poor poor helps in this – because it both contained headline inflation, keeping dollars parked here, and kept demand for oil around the demand for dollars.
“3. Use a bloated military budget to both keep the political support for 1 & 2, and have a body of people able to engage in social, economic and military control when needed.
“The first was accomplished by raising social security taxes and having the fed institute a policy of controlling real wages as the bringer of inflationary pressure. Off shoring added another important tool to this kit.
“The second was accomplished by slashing taxes on the wealthy to keep them even with the petro-elites, and allowing corporate consolidatinon.
“The third was accomplished the most directly – cut domestic spending, which creates a body of urban labor, and raise military spending, which creates a body of exurban labor.
…
“By this construction the mandate of control was linked to a … mythology of rugged individualism. It was, in fact, a very socialized and collective system, filled with bailouts for the elites …. It was also neaderthal in its thinking. … The elites … are not responsible when things go wrong – it is the ordinary people, or their actions, who are ‘always and everywhere’ to blame for any failure or problem. …
“This neoconservative order worked for several reasons. One was that the previous liberal order was not sophisticated enough fast enough to realize what peak oil for the US meant …. The second is that incentives matter – that which is underpriced is overconsumed. However, the most important reason it worked is that the liberal order did not have a counter-proposal. …
“Now, however, the system is unravelling. …”
Quoted under Fair Use; for complete article and/or copyright info see http://tinyurl.com/386vlv
“Rove Knows That Voters Have Short Memories
“by Dave Johnson | Mar 30 2007 – 1:41pm |
“In 2006 people voted against Republicans, not for Democrats. Never forget this. The 2006 election taught Republicans that people vote against headlines about corruption and war. Republicans were being investigated and indicted for corruption so people voted against them.
“So they are taking steps to change the playing field for 2008. This is what the Justice Department scandal is about. The prosecutors who did ‘play ball’ — drop investigations into Republican corruption and investigate ‘administration priorities’ — were allowed to stay and the ones who did their jobs were fired.
“If the Republicans have their way with this — and that means if ANY of the 93 current prosecutors stay in that job — the public will be reading about dozens and dozens of Democrats being investigated and indicted for corruption even though they are completely innocent, while corrupt Republicans will be given a free ride to continue to raid the Treasury …. And if this is what is happening in 2008 the public will vote against Democrats. It’s as simple as that.
“The only way to stop this is to replace all 93 Bush prosecutors with honest people, and clean out the entire Justice Department.
“Meanwhile, the supporting infrastructure that surrounds the Democratic Party — unfunded blogs and poorly-funded progressive organizations and very few poorly-funded think tanks — is still failing to reach out to the general public with reasons to vote for Democrats.”
“About author Dave Johnson is the lead blogger at Seeing the Forest and a Fellow at the Commonweal Institute, where he studies the conservative movement’s network of foundations and think tanks and the extent of their influence on American society.”
Quoted under Fair Use; for complete article and/or copyright info see http://tinyurl.com/27zcys
@8 Things are looking up — even the Republicans think the next president almost certainly will be a black, a woman, or a progressive.
@9 How many kilowatt hours did Bush waste in Iraq, Richard?
ROGER RABBIT RIDDLE
Q: How do you know if you’re in Wonderland?
A: If some joker tells you environmentalists cause global warming, you’re in Wonderland.
Know why wingnuts compare Al Gore’s house with George Bush’s house? Because they don’t dare compare their policies!
Hey Richard – my hero has a bigger house than your hero, neener neener
PelletHead: Nice deflection.
Who is the avowed environmentalist and who is claimed to be against the environment? I realize personal environmental truths are lost on you PelletHead so let’s talk policies!
I don’t know about you but I certainly wouldn’t cry a tear if Puffybutt’s cat food killed him.
I want McCain to take a little walk in some “safe” neighborhood in Baghdad. Perhaps when he is dodging bullets and shrapnel, it may come back to him how little he has travelled from one failed policy (Viet Nam) to another (Iraq).
It was reported that the platoon assigned as security for General Petraeus hurt themselves laughing when McCain’s remarks about Petreaus being able to leave the Green Zone without security were aired.
McCain must enjoy his extended stay on Planet Bush .