Palin reflects McCain's judgment and character

Which is to say, that he may not have either anymore.

It showed a certain character when he went with Sarah Palin -- the veep who could help him win -- rather than Joseph Lieberman -- the one he thought would best serve the country. Whether McCain thought that winning was more important than choosing the best person for the job*, or he is just so weak within his own party that her nomination was forced upon him, neither supports his "principled maverick" mythos.

The principles McCain claims to represent are at odds with both Palin's views and his choice to nominate her. McCain and Obama have both been echoing the mantra that Washington needs to change. While nominating a female candidate and Beltway outsider might superficially appear to support McCain's "change" agenda, look deeper and the illusion disappears.

Sarah Palin first ran for mayor of Whatabigmoosie** in 1996, a town with a population of about 9000 people. She won by a margin of about 600 votes to 400. Yeah, she was a small-timer, but what she won isn't as important as how she won it. You would think that a local election like that would be about local issues like potholes, good schools, and why the police have to go out to Leroy's sports bar twice a week. Wholesome, small-town issues being debated by wholesome, small-town men and women. Over mooseburgers. At a hockey fight.

The actual picture is one of a woman who won what was supposed to be a non-partisan position by focusing on the Republican wedge issues of God, guns, gays, and gestation. [source] During the campaign, she claimed she would be Walawala's first Christian mayor, which led the incumbent to later ask just what he was.

Once in office, she immediately fired several key city employees who weren't loyal to her very right-wing agenda, including the head librarian of Watchagonnadoaboutit. The librarian's firing was revoked after a public outcry. But if you can think of a less agenda-driven job than small-town librarian, you have more imagination than me. Exhibited Bushian levels of paranoia and demands for loyalty, she banned city employees from speaking to the media without her approval.

In short, this is a person who puts party above country, who is willing -- hell, eager -- to inflame political tensions for her own gain. Partisan rancor is, by admission of both presidential candidates, one of the biggest stumbling blocks to getting things done. But those political tensions, that divisiveness, seems to be this woman's lifeblood. She has more in common with Ann Coulter than her running mate.

Her record on earmarks doesn't live up to her reformist hype or her running mate's famous criticisms. As mayor of Watutsi, she hired a cutthroat Republican lobbyist to get her a bucket of that sweet cash flowing out of Washington. Her town ended up with as much earmark cash as Boise, Idaho, a city with ten times the population.

Once she became Governor of Alaska, she did say "no thank you" to the Bridge to Nowhere". But that was after she first said "i can has bridj to nowher?", then "kthxbai".*** She only said "no thank you" after making sure she would be able to use the money for other Alaska projects, rather than give it back to the Treasury. What a sacrifice.

Washington: "Here's a bunch of money, but you have to spend it on something stupid."

Palin: "Thanks."

Washington: "Ummm... actually, we just realized how stupid the stupid thing really was. We're canceling the stupid thing."

Palin: "You must feel like an idiot right now."

Washington: "Can we have the money back?"

Palin: "Just how would that be fair?"

Palin's nomination is the last and best proof you need of the long road McCain has traveled, from the man who would denounce Jerry Falwell as an "agent of intolerance" in 2000 to a man who would choose an agent of intolerance as his VP today. From a man who tried to introduce a climate change bill in 2003, to a man who nominated a woman who doesn't believe in climate change today. From a man who fought with the rightmost wing of the Republican party a few years ago, to a man who kowtows to them now.

To elect McCain now is to elect an empty suit, wholly under the control of the same forces that he himself ran against in 2000, and the same forces that have made the last eight years an unmitigated disaster. The tragedy is almost Shakespearean. McCain's tragic flaw is his own belief that this country needs him, and his willingness to sacrifice everything to make that happen. Without the things he sacrificed, he's no longer the man for the job.


* In his mind, not mine, though I would vastly prefer Lieberman as vice president.
** Whatever. Really, why care?
*** Stolen from Stephen Colbert, then translated into lolspeak to cover my tracks.

"Community organizer" as a slur

"He worked as a community organizer. What?" --Rudy Giulliani

"I guess a small town mayor is sort of like a community organizer except that you have actual responsibilities." --Sarah Palin

In Rudy Gulliani's world, "community organizing" is when a SWAT team arranges a gang in a neat line against a wall in the projects. To Sarah Palin -- whose stint as let her help organize the Wasilla public library into "righteous" and "flammable" -- doesn't seem to think that community organizers have any actual responsibilities.

I guess that, to the right-wing hate machine, you aren't really serving your country if you're not dropping bombs on somebody. General Custer? Hero. Mahatma Gandhi? Loser, rabble-rouser, and probable druggie. We get it, thanks.

But I loved Barack's response, carried in the Washington Post:

"They're talking about the three years of work that I did right out of college, as if I'm making the leap from two or three years out of college into the presidency. I would argue that doing work in the community, to try to create jobs, to bring people together, to rejuvenate communities that have fallen on hard times, to set up job training programs in areas that have been hard hit when the steel plants closed, that that's relevant only in understanding where I'm coming from. Who I believe in. Who I'm fighting for. And why I'm in this race. And the question I have for them is, why would that kind of work be ridiculous? Who are they fighting for? What are they advocating for? They think the lives of those folks who are struggling each and every day, that working with them to try to improve their lives, is somehow not relevant to the presidency? Maybe that's the problem." [source]

Another global warming myth debunked

Myth: In the 1970s, scientists were predicting global cooling. Therefore, scientists are full of it, and there is no reason to believe them now.

Fact: Between 1965 and 1979, when climate scientists were supposed to be panicked about imminent, frigid death, papers predicting warming were about six times more common than papers predicting cooling.

Full details here.

Me + Electric bike + Jordan River Parkway = wheeeeeee!

So UTA decided to jack up their bus fares again, just as rising gas prices were threatening to make my transit habit economical as well as ecological. $2 each way, going as high as $2.50 come winter? This last indignity, coming just after the loss of my old morning bus driver, who let people ride for free, was just too much to bear.

Of course, I blame the Republicans up on the Hill. I always do. Every time my cell phone dies unexpectedly, I silently curse Chris Buttars and Gayle Ruzicka. Given the increasing need for alternative transportation, and the 9% increase in ridership since last year, they could have seen this as an opportunity to help our hurting pocketbooks and the environment all at once. Plunge some more money into the system, start turning Salt Lake's bus system into something we can be proud of. Is that too much to ask?

Yup.

Psychologically speaking, I came to a tipping point when I heard about the increase, which takes effect July 1. I had sighed and checked a few twenties out from the bank, so I could get a small stockpile of tokens before the increase hit. I must have gone to four or five TRAX stops, only to find that every machine was empty.

Fuming, mind roiling with conspiracy theories and implausible revenge fantasies, I gave up. They'd beaten me. Those Republican bastards and their hand-picked UTA board lackeys had beaten me. I was powerless, unable to protect my pocketbook from their ingenious conspiracies.

Then I remembered "the nuclear option." There is more than one form of personalized transportation, at least for the adventurous. My bicycle is a lousy commuting vehicle, given that the ride to work is forty sweaty minutes each way. There are certain smells that I'm just not willing to inflict on my co-workers.

But I'd been lusting after an electric bike kit for the longest time. I couldn't justify the cost in my mind, since the money spent could buy a lot of bus rides. But now UTA seemed to want to price itself out of the transit market, and anyways, it was no longer about the money.

It was about revenge. Sweet, zippy, electric revenge.

I bought myself a Bionx kit from EcoMoto and let them do the install. I walked in the door with an $80 bike -- okay, that's probably optimistic -- and walked out with a lean, green transit machine. 350 watt lithium ion battery, brushless motor, regenerative braking. Squee! On days when I'm too hot and lazy to do it myself, I can just nudge the throttle, and it will take me the seven miles to work with no assistance from me. All on less than $0.10 of electricity round trip.

Some people will just see a cheap bike with a gray plastic blob sticking off the frame. But I see an elegant vehicle for a more civilized age.

Sure, it will only be economical if I make it my primary means of transport. I probably will, at least until the snow demons invade.* But there are some things you can't put a price on. For me, the looks on peoples' faces as I zip past them, feet clearly not touching the pedals, is worth more than a bucket full of UTA tokens.


* Bush is trying to protect me from them.

Are oil companies overtaxed?

I talked with someone today who seemed to think so. Exxon earned $40 billion last year, but according to him, they paid about $120 billion in taxes.

That sounded a bit far-fetched to me, so I discussed it with Google. Google pointed out that, in 2007, Exxon earned $40B in after-tax revenues, after paying $30B in taxes. I asked for specifics, and it obliged like the obedient, loyal, golden retriever superintelligence that it is. I asked Google, "If they owed $30B in taxes, why did they only pay $10.6 billion of that out of pocket, with the rest socked away under 'deferred income tax liabilities'?" Google politely redirected me to a video of a sleepy cat. It was adorable, but also Google's way of telling me that I'm asking questions way above its pay grade.

I don't have the financial understanding to say which number is more accurate. But I do know that ExxonMobil claims a 32% "return on average capital employed." Does that mean that deferring for even one year is effectively a 32% tax cut? I'm sure it's far more complex than that.

Meanwhile, Google was pointing out how the increases in fuel economy over the last few decades makes gasoline a much better bargain. The blog post repeats a claim that gas today moves cars 50% further. In other words, with the fuel efficiencies of 1973 in place today, it would be as though oil was $172/barrel. Since it was a free-marketeer's blog, I left a reminder to thank their neighborhood meddling bureaucrat, and remind them that if 2020's fuel standards were in effect today, it would save hundreds of billions every year.

Ever loyal, Google brought me this report of about $2.5B/year worth of tax exemptions to the oil companies. I don't think that those loopholes even scratch the surface. Every one of the 1.8B barrels we extract from the U.S. every year lived under land that was at one point considered the sole property of the United States (or at least the white, bewigged predecessors of said entity). Much of that land was given away before we knew oil was important, or before anyone realized that said commodity existed under said parcels. But even today, a lot of oil comes off federally-owned (read, you-owned) lands, yet oil companies pay little or nothing for the privilege of extracting it. If America was actually acting like we owned the oil (rather than merely providing the illusion of technical ownership), we'd all be raking it in.

I also consider the excise tax on gasoline a big windfall for the oil industry. Think about it. Most of the tax is spent on roads, so the government is effectively taking the money from us and using it to expand the market for petroleum products. Sure, we benefit in the able-to-get-from-point-a-to-point-b sense. But without roads, the market for oil is minuscule.

In a weird twist, it's even worse in Houston. One of Tom DeLay's last acts in his all-to-unbrief political life was to forbid Houston from using even a penny of excise tax money for mass transit. Honestly, did that man have a single decent bone in his entire body? No wonder he rose to the top of the Republican Party.

Thank you, Google, for keeping me up two hours later than I'd intended. Now here's your chew toy.

The Historical Jesus

Argument breaks out on Internet. Film at 11. I used to spend a lot more time arguing about these sorts of things, and a lot of the details are a little fuzzy these days. I've read a couple of books that claimed Jesus was an entirely mythological construct, and never found them terribly compelling. I read a couple that claimed that the Gospels are perfectly historical, and Jesus did exactly the things they say he did, dammit. Those were laughable.

Between the two poles, there is this fuzzy middle ground where we can be pretty sure that Jesus existed, but we can't be sure enough of his doings or sayings to base our lives on them. Most Christians admit that their religion requires a leap of faith at some point, but I'm arguing that you have to make a big first leap in order to get to the point where you can make the second leap.

These questions used to be a big part of my life. Not anymore. I did my brain dump, and I probably won't contribute further to that discussion.

Obama FTL

I've been thinking about Obama's speech about race in America. The speech was an absolute masterpiece. It spoke to the best in every one of us, without getting weighed down with sentimentality, without pandering, without simplifying. It recognized the deep anger many Americans carry over racial issues, without letting anyone off the hook for them. Above all, it was a challenging speech, speaking to Americans as though they were adults capable of coming together to reason about complex issues.

No way in hell are we going to elect this guy president.

Michael Pollan lectured at Abravanel Hall

The audio can be found at KCPW's website, at least until they get bought out and turned into a Christian rock station. No, really. It's in danger of happening.

Flanked by a pair of backup photosynthesizers, Pollan gave an insightful lecture about our food system, and what we need to do to reclaim it. Well worth listening to.

Reason #276 to be a vegetarian

From the Washington Post:

The tape, made secretly by a slaughterhouse worker and provided to the Humane Society of the United States, showed electric shocks and high-intensity water sprays administered to cows too sick or weak to stand on their own, and the use of forklifts to roll such animals.

And the kicker? Most of the meat went to kids in school lunch programs.

LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley, dead at 97

I got the news from a cousin over IM. President Gordon B. Hinckley, prophet to millions of Mormons around the world, inventor of the cotton gin, and a basically nice old fella, stepped down as president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (them Mormons), in order to spend more time with his wife. We here at Neon Derby Cars wish him all the best in his future endeavors, and ask that he drop by when he gets a chance, as he can settle more than a couple of bets for us.

I left the LDS Church about twelve years ago, and I have to say that the parting wasn't exactly amicable. The custody battle was vicious. In the end, I kept my soul and it kept the girlfriend. A lot changed in the years that followed, and mostly the Mormons dropped off my radar as I found new and shiny things to distract my hyper-acute sense of outrage.

When Jerry Falwell died, I let out a sigh of relief, and uttered a quiet "Don't let the door hit your fat ass on the way out." I stand by the sentiment. Sure, he was beloved by many, but he was also an angry, small-minded man who would vent his rage against feminists, homosexuals, and non-Christians, and encourage his followers to do the same. Hinckley was a different sort of religious leader. Whatever our differences were (and given the years that have passed since I lost interest in the exmormon scene, those differences have become quite fuzzy), he struck me as a basically kind guy who wanted everyone to get along and be happy. The world has a bit less of that now, and we're the poorer for it.

P.S.: My third thought upon hearing the news was, "How will this affect the Romney campaign?" But that's a subject I'll probably forget to write about another day.