"Patronizing" ad from Republican incumbent Senator Norm Coleman
Former entertainer Al Franken: Is he "serious"?
We're on a visit to my home state and it's hard to miss the politics. While recent polling has both Maine and Minnesota "likely GOP" in the senate contests, it appears there is a much more vigorous campaign already going on out here.
Just a couple of observations. The huge problem for Franken is that he is still trying to convince people he's "serious." That's deadly at this point, I would think.
Coleman, for his part, has pounced. The campaign as far as he's concerned is all about the quality of Franken as a real Minnesota human being. Franken is disqualified on the basis of some tax irregularities and off-color satire he'd written years ago. But the ad! I agree with the Air America people that it's patronizing. Any decent Minnesotan should be offended and it should backfire on Coleman. If the ad doesn't backfire, Minnesotans will for six more years have the senator they deserve.
Franken's videos have real issues in them. I think they're pretty good. More HERE.
Pepper-growing weather has really set in. It's warm, humid, and rainy. Yesterday storms dumping up to 10 cm swung through New England. Here, we had several pretty vigorous showers, but our total has been only about 3 cm. Still, that has made the garden extremely happy. Everything is zooming. Even the Brandywine tomatoes started very late from seed now look very strong and likely to succeed. Cucumbers are about to come in like gangbusters.
First I should tell you that the thought of winter scares me to death this year. Our little house uses 650 gallons of heating oil even with the significant conservation measures we took last year. I considered purchasing a wood pellet stove a few weeks ago, but decided against it when it appeared that both the equipment and pellet supply had evaporated due to a mad rush from people in the same fix.
Today the BDN ran three interesting pieces onwood pellets. One contained news of an oil-dealer-sponsored study concluding that wood pellets are "more polluting" than oil heating systems. (I guess the wood pellets have frightened our friendly oil dealers.)
I'll set the pollution issue aside for now, and just give a couple of thoughts about the story headlined "Don't panic: Popular pellets plentiful." This is an interesting headline, because just about every quote in the actual story suggests exactly the opposite:
In the short term, the demand for pellets is like a gold rush
we could sell more pellets than we are making
people are panicking and hoarding both stoves and pellets
people are unnecessarily buying enough pellets for two to three years
The retailers are panicked and are overbuying
We can’t even begin to scratch the surface of the demand
Firms in the United Kingdom are already sourcing wood pellets in Maine
homeowners are unable to obtain pellet stoves because manufacturers did not increase production fast enough
Bell said his company sells only to retailers and "we are very, very busy. We aren’t taking on any new customers."
If you have a pellet stove and you don't have pellets, maybe you should think about panicking?
I would only consider putting in a pellet unit if I could at the same time stockpile about 5 tons, enough for perhaps a bit more than a year.
UPDATE (Fri., noon): Please post your wood pellet reports below in comments. One very interesting item on supply experience is already there. ...
Posted by The Owl on Jul 24 at 13:49. Filed under: Energy
Imagine my surprise at about 7:50 am when the power winked off. As far as I can remember, we haven't had a significant outage for 18 months. I come to find out this one was a doozy:
Power Restored To Most Of Bangor Area
Strong Storms Knocked Power Out
POSTED: 10:56 am EDT July 24, 2008
UPDATED: 11:13 am EDT July 24, 2008
BANGOR, Maine -- Power is restored to most of Bangor Hydro-Electric's service area after eastern Maine was left in the dark Thursday morning due to a suspected lightning strike as strong thunderstorms rumbled across the state.
More severe thunderstorms were predicted for later in the day in much of Maine.
More than 118,000 customers lost their electricity shortly before 8 a.m., but Bangor Hydro spokeswoman Susan Faloon said the total was trimmed to just under 1,300 in scattered areas within two hours. ...
What I want to know is how storm effects caused such a widespread outage. This recalls the August 14, 2003 East Coast blackout: a relatively small storm effect cascades through an entire grid.
People should understand that our energy systems are more fragile than they appear to be.
Posted by The Owl on Jul 24 at 13:12. Filed under: Energy
Just a few days ago from a (broken) link at Counterpunch I discovered the incredible Pinky Show. The latest one posted, linked directly from the above graphic, features Pinky's discussion of recent American polling on attitudes about Iraq followed by a moving, disturbing, and deeply insightful talk by blogger and AFSC Iraq program coordinator, Raed Jarrar.
While Americans overwhelmingly believe the war was a "mistake," they are still bathed in misinformation about its consequences. For example, over 60% of Americans today believe the invasion and occupation has been a good thing for the Iraqi people. Many think that Iraqis should be grateful to the U.S., despite the fact that hundreds of thousands have been killed, millions displaced, and the country's infrastructure destroyed while the Bush administration and American corporations act to carve up Iraq's resources for their own benefit.
Pinky posits that it's corporate media and politicians who promulgate the misfeeds on Iraq. The wall of nebulous obfuscation prevents most Americans from processing the horrors the U.S. has inflicted upon Iraq. It's damned disheartening that so many people won't turn off their televisions, quiet the dissonant voice, and find places like Pinky to get some real information.
Posted by The Owl on Jul 24 at 12:48. Filed under: Iraq
President Bush (Sept. 6, 2006): I want to be absolutely clear with our people and the world, the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws, and it’s against our values. I have not authorized it, and I will not authorize it.
We conclude that, given the clear differences in definition, the UK can no longer rely on US assurances that it does not use torture, and we recommend that the Government does not rely on such assurances in the future. We also recommend that the Government should immediately carry out an exhaustive analysis of current US interrogation techniques on the basis of such information as is publicly available or which can be supplied by the US.
A question I have is the same as one a commenter suggests at the Balkinization blog where I linked to for the item on this report: Why the hell is the U.S. Congress not uncovering the fact that Bush statements on U.S. torture practice are false and unreliable? Why does the job fall to the U.K. Parliament? It's a damn shameful situation.
Posted by The Owl on Jul 21 at 15:23. Filed under: Torture
Four-masted schooner Margaret Todd, a regular sight in the harbor
In the park at Bar Harbor
We went to Bar Harbor Thursday for a talk on climate change. The talk didn't happen, but we had fun anyway. About the talk by U Maine professor Paul Mayewski, it's supposedly rescheduled for next Thursday July 24 at the Whale Museum on West Street, 7pm. No publicity has gotten out so far about this change. I hope people find out about it.
Neither the speaker in the audio clip below nor the author of this blog is the author of THIS BOOK.
I'm just sort of pondering all this. How do you feel today? If you want to, leave a comment. Also, if anyone requests the source of this clip, I will provide it in comments.
He's right. "The future of human civilization is at stake." We must think big on energy.
I wrote this in a private list a few days ago:
The Owl: The oil price is inflating at a 100% rate. That can't go on for long before a lot of people really start getting hurt. It's a F---ING EMERGENCY! Big, bold, massive solutions are needed, both short and long term.
FOR GOD SAKE, the DEMOCRATS just passed $165 billion for war. How much do you think it would take to give 4 kilowatts of photovoltaics to every household in America? $3 trillion. You could probably do that with plenty of extra money left to jumpstart a plug-in hybrid industry. In 20 years the transport fleet could run 40-60% on solar energy and only need a gallon of gas for every 200 vehicle-miles. Sounds expensive, but that's the overall cost of just Iraq and they're doing that.
The Democrats still aren't thinking big enough. But that might change.
I hope so, but I remain skeptical despite some signs that Obama may be starting to "get it." I cited THIS recent swing state ad attacking the Republican drilling bromide, released by the Obama campaign ten days ago.
My problem with Obama is stuff like these quotes from his energy issue page:
Foreign Oil: America's 20-million-barrel-a-day oil habit costs our economy $1.4 billion a day, and $500 billion in 2006 alone. Every single hour, we spend $41 million on foreign oil. ...
[Obama would] Invest in a Clean Energy Future
Invest $150 Billion over 10 Years in Clean Energy: Obama will invest $150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote development of commercial-scale renewable energy, invest in low-emissions coal plants, and begin the transition to a new digital electricity grid. A principal focus of this fund will be devoted to ensuring that technologies that are developed in the U.S. are rapidly commercialized in the U.S. and deployed around the globe. ...
Sounds good, eh? WELL LOOK AT THE NUMBERS! Obama is a PIKER! He correctly gives the scale of the current foreign oil bill (inflating at a 100% rate), then gives and absolutely puny number for alternatives investment in response, $15 billion per year, not even ten days of the nation's gasoline bill, now almost $2 billion per day.
Al Gore's figure, on the other hand, "$3 TRILLION", well, that's my idea too of the scale of investment needed. (Note- I'm extremely wary of "biofuels" and "low-emissions coal plants", but those critiques will be for other posts.)
So, thanks, Al Gore, for giving some profile to the "energy tsunami" that a recent letter from of "27 former Cabinet members, White House aides and lawmakers" called the situation. I hate to agree with any panel that had Henry Kissinger as a member. But I do have to. It IS that serious.
Posted by The Owl on Jul 18 at 15:17. Filed under: Energy
Wall Street Socialism Robert L. Borosage - Huffington Post - July 15, 2008
That's right. If the guarantees work, private speculators, having driven the stock down, will clean up on the upside. And the bank's CEO's will continue to pocket the multi-million dollar salaries. Call it Wall Street socialism. Their losses are socialized; their profits are pocketed. You and I will pay for their failures. And if conservatives have their way, their families will pocket their successes, without even having to pay a tax for the transfer of the estates we've helped to create.
When will the public begin to realize that this is how the overlords have operated, well, forever? The Pentagon and the U.S. health care "system" are other prime examples. It's long past time to start questioning market propaganda. At the very least, we need to ask if these rigged systems actually even can be called "markets."
Posted by The Owl on Jul 16 at 14:35. Filed under: Economy
US inflation soars at 26-year high on energy prices AFP, July 16, 2008
Soaring energy costs drove US consumer prices up 1.1 percent in June to an annual pace of 5.0 percent, data showed Wednesday, prompting a central bank warning and rising stagflation concerns.
The monthly advance in the Labor Department's consumer price index (CPI) was the sharpest since June 1982, while a 0.3 percent rise in core CPI excluding energy and food was the strongest since January.
Meanwhile Bernanke is in a box while President Bush tries to help the public breath by reminding us of that wonderful Roosevelt-era Democratic innovation of Federal Deposit Insurance:
BUSH: "My hope is — is that people take a deep breath and realize that their deposits are protected by our government."
Confined by inflation and with energy prices "out of the control of the Federal Reserve", the central bank can't loosen money much more. Can anyone even doubt that we are in the worst episode of energy-driven stagflation since the very early 1980s? No wonder Bush is polling distinctly Carter-like numbers.
Posted by The Owl on Jul 16 at 13:26. Filed under: Economy
The House Judiciary Committee convened to discuss torture on Tuesday. KPFA billed it as a hearing on "the role that Bush Administration lawyers played in creating and implementing interrogation policies that have resulted in the widespread abuse of detainees in US custody." Naturally, it was nearly derailed by constant Republican obstructionism and a very poor, disorganized approach on the part of the Democrats. I'll cite Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison for a horrible performance, at one point called "badgering" by a Republican. Unfortunately, the Republican was right. You can listen HERE and HERE.
Phillipe Sands was attacked by Feith during the hearing, as Feith weaseled around his central role in denying detainees human rights, even though many of them have turned out to be completely innocent with no knowledge of terrorism and simply caught up in American round-ups. Maine Owl has four relevant recent posts:
The obvious obfuscation by Feith and the Republicans now clothed in great concern for international law are striking in light of voluminous evidence of the torture paradigm ushered in by maladjusted characters like Cheney, Addington, and Feith in the wake of 9/11. The books by Sands and a new one, "The Dark Side" by Jane Mayer provide a view of torture planning as it was practiced at the top. (Mayer describes the severe internal penalties for bucking Cheney, going so far to suggest that certain figures chafing under the illegalities not only had their careers ended, but actually feared physical harm!)
A question that has bothered me for a long time is this: Why has such serious lawbreaking proceeded without discernible political opposition? As I said above, the Democrats since taking power have preferred disorganized, ineffective opportunities to posture rather than the impeachment hearing that Bush and Cheney deserve.
Glenn Greenwald addressed this Tuesday evening in "The motivation for blocking investigations into Bush lawbreaking". He writes,
GREENWALD: As we witness not just Republicans, but also Democrats in Congress, acting repeatedly to immunize executive branch lawbreaking and to obstruct investigations, it's vital to keep that fact in mind. With regard to illegal Bush programs of torture and eavesdropping, key Congressional Democrats were contemporaneously briefed on what the administration was doing (albeit, in fairness, often in unspecific ways). The fact that they did nothing to stop that illegality, and often explicitly approved of it, obviously incentivizes them to block any investigations or judicial proceedings into those illegal programs.
Greenwald has much more. But the main point is that Democrats have been compromised by select intelligence committee members who have been privy to and thus implicated in the cover-up of torture and warrantless wiretapping. The result has been passage of immunity provisions in the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the recent FISA revision immunizing telecom companies.
Essential historical background on why Iraqis despise their occupiers
The 1958 Revolution
This is an episode of Twentieth Century history that escapes attention here in America but is essential background if you want to understand what is happening in Iraq. If you can even find reporting these days (total network coverage is minimal), you almost never see a decent story about how Iraqis feel about being occupied.
That observation fits well with the fact there is no significant story in a major U.S. paper marking the events of that summer one-half century ago. The BBC has an "On this day" item HERE. I'll watch the network news for a story, but I'm not holding my breath.
The prolific author and long-time activist Tariq Ali fills in some of the missing context for the Bush attack, conquest, and occupation in his important 2003 book, "Bush in Babylon", while giving proper respect for the culture and consciousness of the Iraqi people. Ali describes the removal from power of the British-installed imperial monarchist government:
On 14 July 1958 the Free Officers seized power and declared Iraq a Republic. At 6.30 am, the first proclamation was read on Radio Baghdad by Colonel Aref, who informed the country that
"... with the loyal aid of the loyal sons of the people and the national armed forces, we have undertaken to liberate the beloved homeland from the corrupt crew that imperialism installed. Brethren, the army is of you and for you and has carried out what you desired ... your duty is to support it in the wrath that it is pouring on the Rihab Palace and the house of Nuri al-Said. Only by preserving it from the plots of imperialism and its stooges can victory be brought to completion ..."
The military leaders had planned to exile the young king Feisal II, but to arrest and try his uncle, the Crown Prince Abdul-Ilah, and Nuri al-Said for crimes against the people. Plans had been made to carry out the verdicts without delay. Obviously they would have been found guilty and executed, but all this was preempted by a young officer ...
Ali goes on to describe the grisly scenes of the ensuing assassinations of the royal family.
These events precipitated a flurry of tense reaction from Washington. On July 15, 1958, 1,700 Marines of the US Sixth Fleet arrived in Lebanon and two days later 2,000 British paratroopers landed in Amman. Noam Chomsky provided further context with respect to the U.S. national security establishment in a talk on nuclear weapons and U.S. global domination in March 2002 (broadcast on Democracy Now!, archived HERE). Chomsky called 1958 a "critical year" for U.S. imperialism and gave these very illuminating comments about the Iraqi revolution,
CHOMSKY: It was the first year that some country, namely Iraq, had been able to break out of the Anglo-American condominium over the world's energy resources. Iran had tried [in 1953]... but there was a U.S.-British military coup that overthrew it. Iraq actually broke out and it was a huge issue. A big flurry of activity, military forces all over the place, almost came to nuclear weapons ...
[If you look at those records you find that] President Eisenhower, in internal discussion, observed to his staff, his words, "There's a campaign of hatred against us in the Middle East, not by governments, but by the people."
And there was discussion about this [in the National Security Council]. They said [the reason is] there's a perception in the region that the United States is supporting harsh and brutal and corrupt regimes and is blocking democratization and development, and is doing so because of our interest in controlling the oil reserves of the region. And they said it's difficult to counter this perception because it's accurate.
Perhaps the Bush regime attack on and destruction of Iraq could be seen as an attempt to reverse once and for all the 1958 Iraqi "break out of the Anglo-American condominium over the world's energy resources." The "status of forces" and oil contracting plans all reflect such a neo-colonial approach. Certainly, Iraqis are responding by demanding a timetable for U.S. withdrawal and so far resisting the permanent codification of U.S. immunity in their country.
Posted by The Owl on Jul 14 at 10:52. Filed under: Iraq
Maine Owl is always glad to hear from readers. Recently, this comment came in,
Could you do more on the local front like you said when you started The Owl? Maybe instead of so much national, more state/local area issues, Dirigo insurance stuff, energy issues (ie solar, wood, pellets), what the state (our elected officials) are doing or not doing to help the people of Maine for the coming winter.
Also, "more photos".
Thanks so much, reader, for these excellent suggestions. I especially like the note about asking how we are going to deal as a state with the coming winter. There is a paralyzing gloom sinking in already. We know that there will be an emergency.
Our local newspaper, the Bangor Daily News, has had a few stories concerning government response to the fuel crisis and other energy-related matters. From reading them, I'm not sure how hopeful I should be. Here are some of the links:
June 28: A growing passion for pellets (Note: We've heard anecdotal evidence that wood pellet availability is now poor and prices will skyrocket. This story says there are long waits for stoves. This will be investigated in future posts.)
So, thanks reader. Local energy issues have always been a significant interest for me and your request for more coverage is appreciated.
Posted by The Owl on Jul 10 at 22:52. Filed under: Energy
Maine Owl is a comment & nature photography blog. It is written by The Owl, a long-time peace & justice activist now residing in the Bangor, Maine area...
