A USA Today editorial provided a very smart suggestion on how US primaries could be conducted in a more democratic, environmentally-effective, organized way that is also more likely to yield the best candidates: regional block primaries.
So I guess the Zaidmans are not the only ones running their van on vegetable oil. Greg Melville reports in the New York Times – Greased Lightning – about how he powers his station wagon with left-over waste oil from french fries. He makes the point – if $1,000 can help him refurbish his engine this way, shouldn’t the big car companies be able to get it together once and for all?
As poignant as when Senator Clinton spoke about how her own Mother was born before women had a right to vote, today when she endorsed Barack Obama with the same tenacity as she displayed during her campaign, she shared an anecdote that encapsulated the historical significance of her campaign:
To all those women in their 80s and their 90s, born before women could vote, who cast their votes for our campaign…
I’ve told you before about Florence Steen of South Dakota, who was 88 years old and insisted that her daughter bring an absentee ballot to her hospice bedside.
Her daughter and a friend put an American flag behind the bed and helped her fill out the ballot. She passed away soon after and under State law her ballot didn’t count.
But her daughter later told a reporter, "my Dad is an ornery old cowboy and he didn’t like it when he heard Mom’s vote wouldn’t be counted. I don’t think he’d voted in 20 years, but he voted in place of my Mom.
Besides the historical progress referenced above, Clinton also spoke powerfully about human potential, underlining why so many women and men have rallied behind her and Senator Obama’s campaigns:
To the Moms and Dads who came to our events, who lifted their little girls and little boys on their shoulders and whispered in their ears, ‘see, you can be anything you want to be.’
Following on the footsteps of Rudyard Kipling’s IF, and the message, Don’t Give Up, Senator Clinton spoke today with the same tenacity as she displayed during her campaign, yet somehow with more passion, sincerity and inspiration than any time before:
To those who are disappointed that we couldn’t go all the way, especially the young people who put so much into this campaign, it would break my heart if in falling short of my goal, I in any way discouraged any of you from pursuing yours.
Always aim high, work hard, and care deeply about what you believe in.
And when you stumble, keep faith. And when you are knocked down, get right back up and never listen to anyone who says you can’t or shouldn’t go on.
-Senator Hillary Clinton, June 7 2008 Speech Endorsing Barack Obama and giving one of her best speeches ever.
I was initially persuaded by media and pundit assertions that what is behind this meteoric rise in raw materials is at least connected to "speculation" – ie, hedge funds plowing in billions into commodity future contracts and other financial investments that make the goods artificially rise in cost.
But look at the Deutsche Bank chart (which my law school buddy Stanley Haar shared with me) below.
Non-Exchange traded commodities have risen more than those traded on exchanges. Unless hedge funds are also buying the physical goods in all these sectors, the more likely culprits are sheer global over-consumption and over-consumerism. For years the mantra was that we should only hope the rest of the world will have a standard of living that is closer to the Western world’s. Now that India and China are more than catching up, we are learning how this taxes our planet.
A better plan would be for all of us to learn to live just a little bit more modestly and less wastefully.
Goldman Sachs reckons consumers are handing over $1.8 trillion a year to oil producers.
These states include Iran, Venezuela, Russia… No wonder "authoritarian-driven economies" have looked so good over the last few years. No wonder Iran and Venezuela can afford divisive hegemonic policies.
It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.
-Herbert Clark HOOVER
31st President of the United States (1874-1964)
This, indeed, is one of the paramount challenges faced by democratic systems. Democracy cannot exist without freedom of expression. And yet how can it safeguard from demagogic populists who once in power may seek to dismantle democratic systems? Nowadays it is fashionable to criticize democratization efforts in the Middle East – after all, look at what Hamas is doing in Gaza, and what is going on in Lebanon with Hezbollah, and the rise of salafis and fatalists wherever any openness is shown.
There are three keys to a successful democratic system:
With regards to the Hezbollah-Lebanon-Doha debacle, and the article by Barry Rubin that I blogged about here, I received some interesting comments from Ami Isseroff, who runs MideastWeb and who I consider one of the most thoughtful and thought-provoking analysts on the Middle East:
There is no use comparing everything bad that happens to Munich. This was more like Abbyssinia – including the toothless sanctions. Iran can only be stopped in Iran. Nothing could be done in Lebanon. As for us [in Israel], we have Iran in the north and Iran in the south. There cannot be peace as long as Hamas exists. Your Gaza correspondents are right, and the Palestinian public opinion surveys confirm that Hamas have little support. But in elections, it doesn’t matter what people think. It matters who has the most guns and counts the votes. Read the book Point of No Return about Iran/Hezbollah by Ronen Bergman . …Iran cannot be negotiated with. They will not give up until they are confronted with overwhelming and decisive force. A blockade by sea and air at least,
I am a staunch independent and find partisan politics to be too narrow minded in general, but if just 10% of Recount, HBO’s telling of the 2000 election Florida contest between Bush and Gore is true, one has to be