You are currently browsing the daily archive for November 26, 2008.
The censored version has already been added to OFKR – but for posterity’s sake we had to add this uncut version – of what will be a classic Sarah Palin.
[It’s a comedy!]
Political squabbling over how to store waste could hold back the industry.
US Nuclear Map: Click to Enlarge+
It must be noted that New Zealand derives 10% of its electricity from geothermal energy and they are building more plants – this is just one of the options that could be used to safely replace nuclear. Another crucial thing to note – is that there is not enough nuclear material to supply the all the world’s needs – and it is not a renewable energy source. Obama is right to be sceptical. At the moment a clean nuclear energy is being developed – something called bottling the sun – where a type of hydrogen called tritium is used instead of uranium – in a similar way as the sun burns hydrogen to remain hot. More there is also a high powered laser technology that can be shot at the hydrogen – which could produce abundant energy that could generate electricity. Although these things are in development – geothermal is something that we can do today – instead of sinking a well for oil. We sink a well to go down far enough to where the earth’s temperature is much hotter – water is then pumped down and heated and the hot water that returns can move a turbine, which can then produce the electricity we need. Think – nuclear power – with all its glorious spectacle and promise – is just heating water – we could do the same thing by sending the water down towards the earth’s mantle – and have the water heated there safely cleanly – no one is injured and there is no waste – just plug the hole back up when it longer produces the same amount to heat.
It was one of Barack Obama’s big applause lines. At nearly every campaign stop, the candidate promised to end our dependence on foreign oil and slash carbon emissions 80 percent by midcentury. “I will set a clear goal as president,” he said in his speech accepting the Democratic nomination. “I will tap our natural-gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology and find ways to safely harness nuclear power.” He also promised to back biofuels and wind, water and solar power. The crowd cheered.
Now all he has to do is make good on the promise. But despite all the inspiring talk about windmills and solar panels, it’s difficult to see how Obama will reach that goal without relying, in large part, on nuclear power. Commercial reactors currently provide 20 percent of the nation’s power—but accounts for 70 percent of the country’s emission-free energy. “We cannot get to the reduction of CO2 in a big way without relying on nuclear energy even more than we do today,” says Mujid Kazimi, the director of MIT’s Center for Advanced Nuclear Systems.
So does that mean Obama will become the nation’s cheerleader in chief for nuclear power? Not likely. Obama has been cautious whenever he’s been asked about the issue. In a “Meet the Press” appearance in May, he hedged when the subject came up. “I think we do have to look at nuclear, and what we’ve got to figure out is can we store the material properly? Can we make sure that they’re secure? Can we deal with the expense?”
Not exactly a full-throated endorsement. Obama’s lack of enthusiasm is easy to understand politically, especially given the apprehension many voters have about the safety of nuclear-power plants. Three decades later, Three Mile Island still haunts—despite the pleas of industry advocates who say the technology has improved to the point that accidents are almost unheard of. Most Americans probably have no idea that there are 104 commercial nuclear-power plants currently operating in the United States today. None has suffered a malfunction that led to a major leak of radioactive material. Nuclear-power proponents often point to France, which depends on nukes for 80 percent of its power.
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Ted Koppel, possibly angling to get back into the news game by taking the late Tim Russert’s role on “Meet the Press,” has formally dissolved his ties to Discovery Communication.
Koppel had six months left on his contract, but sources said he’s better off if he’s disentangled from any network or cable contract.
Koppel had not made any formal statement about the Russert slot, but TV sources said it’s a well-known desire for the former host of “Nightline” for 25 years. Koppel signed a three-year deal with Discovery right after he left “Nightline.”
A number of internal NBC candidates are up for the job as well.
Variety reported that The Koppel Group had produced 15 hours of documentary programming for Discovery under the “Koppel on Discovery” label. This year’s projects included the four-part China profile “The People’s Republic of Capitalism” and October’s “The Last Lynching.”
The parting of ways was described as “amicable,” but Koppel in a statement made no bones about the reason for the split.
“Producing our kind of news-related programs is an expensive proposition,” Koppel said. “It has long been clear that neither of us is interested in an extension of the current contract. Discovery and I worked on terminating the contract a few months early under terms that both sides found acceptable.
Page Six is reporting that right-wing agitator and controversy-seeker Ann Coulter’s jaw is wired tightly shut.
I know, I know. If the report is true, It’s almost as if our prayers have been answered.
Apparently it was broken, but by whom, no one seems to be sure. We could hazard a guess, but why throw roses yet.
The blogosphere is already aquiver over the idea of a forced Coulter Moment of Silence.
Finally, the Right Wing Barbie Doll has to shut up. This is, after all, the woman who called 2004 VP nominee John Edwards the F-word in 2007 while speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
“I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the ‘gay hate word’ ” so I’m — so, kind of at an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards, so I think I’ll just conclude here and take your questions.”
The rehab reference was a right-wing joke (and we use the term loosely) about actor Isaiah Washington using that word for his “Grey’s Anatomy” co-star T.R. Knight and been forced by the network to undergo psychological treatment.
But her unfunny comments drew criticism from all fields, Democrats, Republicans and gay rights groups.
But here’s the best part about the Coulter broken jaw news. No really, this is really good: Seems she has a brand new book titled “GUILTY” due out in early January and, of course, was all booked on TV and radio talk shows to discuss the “much-needed reality check on a Left gone wild,” declares the book’s jacket.
Her latest work reportedly exposes and mocks the media’s love affair with all things Democrat and all things President-elect Barack Obama.
Too bad Ann won’t be able to say a word about her new book.
That’s just a gosh darn shame.
Source: LA Times Blog
During a Hannity & Colmes interview last night (11/24/08), Republican Governor of North Carolina Mark Sanford, introduced as “one of the rising stars of the Republican Party,” cracked up when Alan Colmes asked if Sarah Palin might be one of the future stars of her party. He quickly recovered by offering the faint praise that she’d be “among the mix.” But then he soon moved on to name other names that did not include hers. With video.
In their discussion about the future of the GOP, Sanford told Colmes, “If you look at the Bobby Jindals of the world, who’s the governor of Louisiana, or look at Rick Perry in Texas or Mitch Daniels up in Indiana, there are a lot of governors, there are a lot of folks at the precinct level, at the county level who are working very hard to bring back the conservatism in the Republican Party.”
Colmes asked “Who else would you put in that category? …Sarah Palin for example?”
Sanford laughed heartily. Then he added, “Uh, certainly. She’s among the mix. I think it’s a broad swath that literally goes from Jim Douglas, who won in the most blue of blue states there, in Vermont… or it is indeed somebody who’s like a young rising star like Bobby Jindal. It is somebody like Sonny Perdue there in Georgia, who’s been working on a lot of neat reforms. It’s a broad swath of different folks.”
He never mentioned Palin again.
Source: News Hounds
The Obama girls will be the youngest kids to live in the White House in decades.
As incoming President Barack Obama ponders economic-bailout plans in the Oval Office, some pretty heavy action will be taking place in the private quarters of the White House, too.
Malia and Sasha Obama, ages 10 and 7, respectively, are the youngest children to inhabit the White House in decades. And they will be facing some seismic challenges of their own, in child-development terms. The Obama girls will pass from childhood into the upheaval of the pre-teen and early teenage years in a venue that past presidential kid Luci Johnson termed a “museum, a public fishbowl and a prison.”
The loss of privacy, continuity and constancy imposed by their move to the White House — coupled with the monumental new opportunities it offers — will have a huge impact on the Obama children’s sense of identity and competence at a critical stage, child-development experts say. While the glare of the spotlight has burned some presidential kids, others have emerged unscathed and strong. A look at the risks and rewards, based on research and past examples, holds lessons for any parent raising children under unusual stress.
Malia and Sasha are facing some core “developmental tasks,” in child-development parlance: the need to build their own sense of personal identity, or their concept of who they are in relation to others and the world at large, and their belief in their competence as individuals. These growth stages must be accomplished in an ever-widening context of friendships, school, the neighborhood and the world at large.
The Obamas, child-development experts say, seem to be a picture of health, based on the deep affection and easy communication family members displayed last July in their only video interview together. Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, have vowed to hold life as steady as possible for the girls, and are taking grandmother Marian Robinson to Washington to help.
Read on…
According to Rachel Maddow only MSNBC covered the McCain conference live ~ I guess Fox News wasn’t feeling up to it yesterday!
President-elect Barack Obama, right, with Budget Director-designate Peter Orszag, left, during a news conference in Chicago, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2008
Obama was expected to introduce members of the advisory board Wednesday at a news conference, his third in as many days as Americans moved into the long Thanksgiving weekend. It was a remarkable burst of public activity for Obama, who has sought to assure nervous consumers and financial markets that he will bring swift economic relief as president.
Tuesday, Obama introduced Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag as his candidate to run the White House Office of Management and Budget. The president-elect also pledged a “page-by-page, line-by-line” budget review to root out unneeded spending.
On Monday, Obama tapped New York Federal Reserve President Tim Geithner as his treasury secretary and named several other top economic advisers.
His economic team largely complete, Obama was expected next week to introduce national security officials, including Hillary Rodham Clinton as his secretary of state. Aides said the New York senator had not yet formally accepted the offer, but transition officials have indicated that the nomination is on track.
Source: AP
In this Sept. 2, 2008 file photo, former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, left, and former first lady Barbara Bush are seen at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn
HOUSTON — Former first lady Barbara Bush was in a Houston hospital Tuesday after complaining of a “little bit of pain.”
Family spokesman Jim McGrath said Mrs. Bush went to Methodist Hospital as a precaution. She had been experiencing some pain this week but McGrath did not know what it was.
Mr. McGrath said all of the results for tests she had undergone had been negative. Mrs. Bush may be released later Tuesday or could be held overnight to watch her condition.
Mr. McGrath said former President George H.W. Bush was with her. Mrs. Bush is 83.
The former Barbara Pierce, daughter of the publisher of McCall’s magazine, married George H.W. Bush in January 1945 when he returned a hero from World War II.
She was the girl who, swept off her feet by a handsome Navy aviator, dropped out of college to marry him, “the first man I ever kissed,” and thence was destined for a lifetime role as Supermom.
They had had their first child, George, while still at Yale in 1946. A daughter, Robin, died in 1953 of leukemia a few weeks before her 4th birthday. The other Bush children are sons Jeb, Neil and Marvin, and daughter Dorothy.
For years, Barbara Bush has been a sunny presence in American life, the sort of person who would make herself and others comfortable at your kitchen table. But she also was tough.
In the course of being George H.W. Bush’s wife, she had to pack up and move the household 28 times before residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.
Mrs. Bush disclosed she was suffering from an overactive thyroid ailment known as Graves’ disease when she lived at the White House. The disease causes teary eyes and double vision in Mrs. Bush, according to her doctors.
Source: WSJ
HARTFORD, Conn. – Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman took another step Tuesday toward mending his relationship with Democrats, saying that Barack Obama’s actions since winning the presidency have been “just about perfect.”
“Everything that President-elect Obama has done since election night has been just about perfect, both in terms of a tone and also in terms of the strength of the names that have either been announced or are being discussed to fill his administration,” Lieberman said during a visit to Hartford.
Lieberman, the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000, was re-elected to the Senate in 2006 as an independent but continues to caucus with Democrats. He supported Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign, going as far as to criticize Obama and make a speech at the Republican National Convention.
Democrats threatened to strip him of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee but instead removed him as head of a smaller environmental subcommittee.
Connecticut Democrats meet Dec. 17 and are still considering a possible censure of Lieberman for his actions during the presidential campaign.
“I will ask them to judge me by my record,” Lieberman said. “Generally speaking, I’ve had a record, a voting record, which is really ultimately what it’s about, not unlike most Democrats.”
Lieberman said he believes the rift between himself and the party stemmed mainly from his support of President Bush’s policy in Iraq and will close as that becomes less of an issue.
“It appears to me that the war in Iraq is coming to a successful — I don’t want to say conclusion yet, but it’s moving in a way that it will not be a divisive issue either in the Democratic Party or between Democrats and Republicans in the time ahead,” Lieberman said. “And therefore, I think we’ll return to more normal times, which I welcome.”
Source: AP
President-elect Obama will appoint Paul Volcker to head an advisory board.
President-elect Barack Obama will appoint former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker on Wednesday to be the chairman of a new White House advisory board tasked with helping to lift the nation from recession and stabilize financial markets, Democratic officials say.
University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee, one of Mr. Obama’s longest-serving policy advisers, will serve as the board’s staff director, along with his duties as a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Members of the panel will be drawn from a cross-section of citizens outside the government, chosen for their independence and nonpartisanship.
[..]
Wednesday’s event was more of a surprise, but with it, Mr. Obama has found a place for the former Fed chairman who is largely credited with halting inflation in the early 1980s. Since the financial crisis erupted in September, Mr. Obama has leaned heavily on the 81-year-old Mr. Volcker for advice.
[..]
Advisers familiar with the team selection said Mr. Volcker’s advanced age always made it unlikely he would get the Treasury job, but Mr. Obama wanted him in the White House with Mr. Summers, who, like Mr. Volcker, moved into the center of the Obama policy orbit in recent months.
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Defense Secretary Robert Gates has served for two years under President Bush.
WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama’s security team came into sharper focus, with officials confirming that Defense Secretary Robert Gates would retain his job and that retired Marine Gen. James Jones would likely join the incoming administration as national security adviser.
The picks, which are expected to be formally announced in Chicago Monday, signal Mr. Obama’s desire for experience and continuity with the nation embroiled in two wars.
The probable appointments — along with Sen. Hillary Clinton’s likely ascension to the secretary of state position — also mean that Mr. Obama is entrusting his foreign policy to centrist figures who have at times advocated policies that were more hawkish than his own.
Lawmakers from both parties had been urging Mr. Obama to retain Mr. Gates for weeks, arguing that it would improve the new administration’s ability to oversee the war effort. It would also put a Republican in the cabinet of a president who promised to bridge partisan divides.
Mr. Obama appears to have made a similar calculus in asking Gen. Jones to be his national security adviser. The former North Atlantic Treaty Organization supreme commander and Marine Corps commandant hasn’t decided whether to take the job, but people close to him said the general appears likely to accept.
The job would make Gen. Jones, a nonpartisan figure, the chief policy coordinator between the State Department, the Pentagon and other national-security agencies.
Gen. Jones would become the first former military general to serve as the top White House national-security adviser to a president since retired Gen. Colin Powell worked alongside President Ronald Reagan 20 years ago. He is close to Sen. Clinton, and has close ties to many lawmakers on Capitol Hill, where he worked for years as a Marine liaison.
Gen. Jones also has deep knowledge of two of the biggest challenges Mr. Obama will face in his first term: the need to redesign America’s energy infrastructure and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.
Mr. Obama’s decision to retain Mr. Gates, while expected, is the clearest indication to date of the incoming administration’s thinking about Iraq and Afghanistan. The defense secretary has opposed a firm timetable for withdrawing American forces from Iraq, so his appointment could mean that Mr. Obama was further moving away from his campaign promise to remove most combat troops from Iraq by mid-2010.
Read more..
CHICAGO (Reuters) – President-elect Barack Obama takes another step toward tackling the ailing U.S. economy on Wednesday as part of an aggressive effort to demonstrate that his administration will face the global financial crisis head-on.
In his third news conference this week, Obama will make an “economic announcement” at 10:45 a.m. EST, his transition office said, following a similar event on Tuesday, when he presented his picks to head the White House budget office.
The Wall Street Journal reported Obama would name Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to chair a new economic advisory panel designed to stabilize financial markets and steer the country out of a recession.
Quoting Democratic officials, the newspaper reported on its Web site that University of Chicago economist and Obama policy adviser Austan Goolsbee would serve as the panel’s staff director.
It said the board would not supplant the Treasury Department, but give Obama an official forum for getting expert advice outside bureaucratic channels.
Obama, who succeeds President George W. Bush on January 20, seems already to be taking the reins as financial market players increasingly tune out the current president and focus instead on the country’s next leader.
In addition to naming his top economic advisers, Obama has come closer to forming his national security team, with reports saying that Republican Robert Gates will stay on as defense secretary and retired Marine Gen. James Jones will take over as national security adviser.
Those appointments, along with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, are likely to be made early next week, after the November 27 Thanksgiving holiday.
For now Obama has put his focus squarely on the economy, pledging a costly stimulus package that he urged the next Congress to pass quickly.
On Tuesday, he vowed to cut billions of dollars in wasteful government spending.
But questions remain about both goals. Obama declined to put a figure on the stimulus package — other Democrats have estimated it could cost hundreds of billions of dollars — and he did not identify specific government programs to be cut.
Analysts said Obama’s daily economic pronouncements showed the next president stepping into a leadership chasm.
“Confidence in Bush as an effective president has eroded so substantially that he is no longer taken seriously,” said Paul Beck, a professor of political science at Ohio State University.
“There is, of course, much more confidence in Obama or he would not have been elected as president. And, he is the president-in-waiting, so the only alternative the country has to Bush as a leader, especially in a period when the markets have failed and government must play an enlarged role in them.”
Obama has not shied away from telling struggling industries like banks and automakers to take responsibility for their ailing position in the economy.
In an interview with ABC television network, Obama said bank executives should forego their bonuses this year.
Source: Reuters
CHICAGO (Reuters) – President-elect Barack Obama announced his top budget officials on Tuesday and promised significant spending cuts to partially offset a costly stimulus package that aims to revive the U.S. economy.
As the top two officials at the Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag and Rob Nabors will closely examine federal spending to cut out wasteful programs, Obama said.
“If we are going to make the investments we need, we also have to be willing to shed the spending that we don’t need,” Obama said at his second press conference in as many days.
One obvious example: Crop subsidies to farmers who make more than $2.5 million per year, Obama said.
Though he does not take office until January 20, Obama’s team of economic advisers are already working out the details of a two-year package to save or create 2.5 million jobs that could cost several hundred million dollars.
Obama himself meanwhile has dropped his former low-profile approach and spoken directly to the American people with two news conferences this week. A third Obama press appearance is scheduled for 10:45 a.m. EST Wednesday.
Bush administration officials continue to extend massive life support efforts to the ailing U.S. financial system.
The Federal Reserve on Tuesday announced a $600 billion program to buy mortgage-related debt and securities, and a $200 billion program to increase the availability of consumer debt, such as credit cards and auto loans.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson urged patience and said any effort will take time to work.
Orszag now heads the Congressional Budget Office and Nabors currently serves as staff director of the House Appropriations Committee. Both previously held White House positions under President Bill Clinton.
Their announcement follows on Monday’s unveiling of New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy Geithner as Obama’s Treasury secretary and Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury secretary under Clinton, as director of his National Economic Council.
Obama’s aides are in contact with Bush administration officials, who said they would work closely with Geithner and other incoming officials on any new rescue plans.
The scope of the economic crisis has widened since Obama’s November 4 victory over Republican John McCain, with auto companies warning that they are short on cash, unemployment numbers rising and the government bailing out yet another gigantic financial institution, Citigroup Inc.
New figures released on Tuesday showed that the U.S. economy shrank more severely during the third quarter than previously estimated as consumers cut spending at the steepest rate in 28 years. Corporate profits and business investment fell as well.
Obama has kept a low profile until this week’s news conferences, which are intended to show the priority he places on addressing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
He said on Monday he has not yet decided whether to roll back President George W. Bush’s 2001 tax cuts for the wealthy, which would provide the government with much-needed revenue, or simply allow them to expire at the end of 2010 as scheduled, a move that would avoid what would likely be a bruising fight in Congress.
Source: Reuters
Out Foxing Karl Rove 
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