This morning I was watching the news and I saw a really great commercial from the “No Recall” forces. In it, they listed a series of accomplishments by Gray Davis and the Democrats on the environment, workers rights, etc., followed by the warning “The Republicans opposed every one of these reforms. If this recall goes through, what will they try to recall next?”

This was by far the best anti-recall message I’ve heard yet from anyone. They’re clearly keeping this thing in perspective and reminding people that if Davis is recalled, they’re just opening up the state to all sorts of Republican garbage.

As I was watching the commercial, I was thinking to myself “Gee, it sure would be swell to post a link to this neat-o ad on my site!” (Yeah, my inner voice sounds suspiciously like Opie Taylor) Unfortunately, they don’t have the commercial posted on their site. Since there was a number on the bottom of the page, I figured I would try calling them to see if they had any plans to post the ad.

As I spoke to the receptionist and explained my situation, she seemed really puzzled that anyone would be calling about one of their commercials, but she forwarded me to the press office anyways. The woman from the press office, unlike the receptionist, was a total bitch. She kept asking me “Who do you represent?” and once she figured out that I was a nobody, she gave me some bullshit about how “the political office” would need to answer my question (even though she never bothered to ask why I was calling). After taking my number, she hung up up me.

Well, bitchy press office lady, I was trying to give you guys from free publicity. Since you wouldn’t give me what I needed to write some good things about your commercials, here’s a couple bad things about your commercials :

1. Don’t you people have spell-check?

Take a look at this frame from their “If 50% plus 1 vote yes on the recall” ad :



I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of a “firfighter”

2. Stop stealing from my friend Kyle

In their “Newspapers are calling it a circus” ad, they stole a picture from my friend Kyle’s website Ostrich Ink :



Here’s a clearer copy of the pic from his interview with Angelyne.

Now, I still totally oppose the recall, but it wouldn’t hurt for their press people to show a little courtesy, even if I don’t “represent” anyone but myself.

According to the Guardian, it was Karl Rove. Listen here for details. (link via Atrios) Of course the real problem is that journalists aren’t going to to want to reveal their private sources. So in essence, this has turned into a game of chicken (as Tom Tomorrow put it). I can’t imagine this “game” will last long. Within a day or two the temptation to be the first to name names will be too great for any media outlet to resist. Plus, there are enough people out there that actually know the names that the media will find a way to reveal their sources without really revealing their sources. For those of you haven’t been following this closely, Kevin Drum has been all over this story.

Via NotGeniuses, I came across this interesting post about charitable giving among the wealthy

Why tax the well-off? Because, two recent studies suggest, it’s practically the only way to persuade them to spend money on anyone but themselves. Philanthropy isn’t the answer: a survey from The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that Americans making $70,000 or more dispensed a paltry 3.3 percent of their earnings to charitable causes; in contrast, those making $50,000 to $69,999 gave 5.6 percent, and those making $30,000 to $49,999 gave 8.9 percent. Only at death does the tightfistedness diminish?but even then it’s the threat of the estate tax that awakens the philanthropic spirit. Or at least that’s the conclusion of another new study, which predicts that deathbed donations will drop precipitously if the Bush Administration succeeds rolling back the estate tax. The study finds that the cost of such a repeal, in lost donations and bequests, could be as steep as $10 billion a year?the equivalent of the grants doled out annually by the nation’s 110 largest foundations.

A few points to make about this one :

The disparity between the charitable contributions of the wealthy and the middle class seems like a microcosm of the disparity between the U.S. and every other industrialized country in terms of foreign aid. While we’re the richest country on Earth, we give a lower percentage of our GDP in foreign aid than just about anyone else. According to a 2001 poll, most Americans think we spend 24% of our GDP on foreign aid, when we really spend < 1%. As with foreign aid, the rich may give more in terms of actual dollars, but they aren't nearly as generous as the middle class.

While I’m a big fan of the estate tax (as well as just about every other tax on “unearned income”), I don’t know if I support the idea of the estate tax as an effort to “persuade” the wealthy to give more to charity. After all, you can’t make someone not be a selfish jerk.

What does it say about our society that the biggest incentive for many people to contribute to charity is that they can write it off their taxes? What would happen if we suddenly ended any tax incentives on contributions to non-profit entities? Would all the soup kitchens close? Would the Red Cross have to sell their bloodmobiles? It’s sad to think that the main reason people give away their money is to get out of contributing to our government and look like much more compassionate people than they really are.

This is one of those stories so nasty it makes you want to never eat again :

A man bites into a piece of fried chicken and gets a nasty surprise.
A customer at Popeye’s chicken in Baltimore went home with a three-piece combo, but when he bit down, he realized it wasn’t chicken.

What he found, to his surprise, was a mouse. The mouse was found between the chicken skin and the meat of the chicken.

Okay, you disgruntled fry cooks out there, when you were just deep-frying chicken heads, it was more creepy and funny :

…but deep-frying a rat is really, really gross. I hope whoever did this gets arrested. There’s no telling how many diseases that rat could have had. Uggghhh….

Of all the horrible things that the Bush Administration has done, I didn’t think this would be the story that had legs (Thanks for the head’s up, Kevin.)

At CIA Director George J. Tenet’s request, the Justice Department is looking into an allegation that administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist, government sources said yesterday.

The operative’s identity was published in July after her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly challenged President Bush’s claim that Iraq had tried to buy “yellowcake” uranium ore from Africa for possible use in nuclear weapons. Bush later backed away from the claim.

The intentional disclosure of a covert operative’s identity is a violation of federal law.

The officer’s name was disclosed on July 14 in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak, who said his sources were two senior administration officials.

Yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak’s column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson’s wife. Wilson had just revealed that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson’s account touched off a political fracas over Bush’s use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking Iraq.

“Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge,” the senior official said of the alleged leak.

It goes without saying that revealing the identity of a deep cover operative in order to embarrass a political rival is far worse than anything Clinton was accused of. This isn’t your standard “every president does it” kinda stuff. This is the work of criminals who are willing to jeopardize national security in order to score a cheap jab at someone they’re pissed at.

Like I said before, I’m shocked that this has gone as far as it has. I can’t help but think this is all revenge for the White House making Tenet give his bullshit mea culpa back in July. Y’know the one where Tenet basically said “I should never have allowed the Bush Administration to lie. I take full responsibility…” I guess George called in his last favor when he asked the CIA to take responsibility for the words that came out of his mouth. I wonder who’s going to take a bullet for his this time?

Environmental regulations are good for the economy

A new White House study concludes that environmental regulations are well worth the costs they impose on industry and consumers, resulting in significant public health improvements and other benefits to society. The findings overturn a previous report that officials now say was defective.

The report, issued this month by the Office of Management and Budget, concludes that the health and social benefits of enforcing tough new clean-air regulations during the past decade were five to seven times greater in economic terms than were the costs of complying with the rules. The value of reductions in hospitalization and emergency room visits, premature deaths and lost workdays resulting from improved air quality were estimated between $120 billion and $193 billion from October 1992 to September 2002.

By comparison, industry, states and municipalities spent an estimated $23 billion to $26 billion to retrofit plants and facilities and make other changes to comply with new clean-air standards, which are designed to sharply reduce sulfur dioxide, fine-particle emissions and other health-threatening pollutants.

The report provides the most comprehensive federal study ever of the cost and benefits of regulatory decision-making. It has pleasantly surprised some environmentalists who doubted the Bush administration would champion the benefits of government regulations, and fueled arguments that the White House should continue pushing clean-air standards rather than trying to weaken some.

One of the biggest excuses conservatives give for opposing regulation is that the costs are an undue burden on businesses. Since most people are morons, this usually gives way to talk of “voluntary regulations” bait-and-switch. Why is it that businesses are the only entities that are allowed to regulate themselves? It’s not like we get to have “voluntary” drug laws or something.

This is tragic and unsurprising

A 4-year-old boy found a loaded gun in his family’s house and fired it through the front door, killing his 5-year-old sister and seriously wounding another boy, authorities said.

An older sister had seen the child pick up the semi-automatic handgun in the house Saturday night and had rushed the other children outside to try to protect them, but the bullet went through the door, hitting them, said Prince George’s County police spokeswoman Cpl. Diane Richardson.

The two wounded children stumbled across the street and collapsed in a neighbor’s driveway, she said. Kimberly Brice was pronounced dead after arrival at a hospital.

Here’s a question out there for you guys : Have you ever seen an article about an intruder being shot by a gun-weilding father? Even if that urbean legend turns out to be true, kids killing each other with guns is so common that this story isn’t big news.

For years I’ve been voting via absentee ballot because trying to get to a polling place on a Tuesday is always a pain in the ass. I think that’s the real reason voter turnout is so low. The majority of Americans don’t want to get up early, skip lunch, or leave work early just so they can wait in line for an hour to vote for someone they don’t care about. One of the many, many things I love about living in L.A. is that I get to vote early.

As I was waiting in line (for only a minute or two) to vote today, I think I realized why so many conservatives think liberals are elitists. While I watched other voters be escorted to their touch screen voting machines, the thought that kept going through my head was “Anyone who votes for Arnold Schwarzenegger is a goddamn idiot!” Although what I was thinking is true, I could see how it would rub some people who are dumb enough to vote for a bad actor with no political experience who’s completely unable to articulate a single position the wrong way.

If you live in L.A. County and you’d like more information about voting early, go to www.lavote.net. And if you’d like more information about how to vote like a retard, go to www.joinarnold.com.

Here’s something that stuck me as kinda funny. Before I mention it, here’s a little background about what a “top level domain” is :

Every domain name has a suffix that indicates which top level domain (TLD) it belongs to. There are only a limited number of such domains. For example:

gov – Government agencies
edu – Educational institutions
org – Organizations (nonprofit)
mil – Military
com – commercial business
net – Network organizations

The reason I bring this up is because I noticed something a little strange today. Have you ever noticed that the official website of the Democratic party is democrats.org, but the Republicans use gop.com. Based on the (rather loose) categories for top level domains, does this mean that the Republicans consider their party more of a “commercial business” than an “organization”?

The post below has me thinking of what other kinds of shirts people would be selling at a Republican Convention. Of all the ones I could come up with, the name of this post is the one I could definitely see being popular.

Speaking of poor people, thanks to our buddies in the GOP, there’s a lot more of them :

Some 1.7 million people in the United States slid into poverty in 2002 and incomes slipped for the second year in a row with blacks particularly hard hit, the U.S. government said on Friday in a report sure to provide ammunition for Democrats in the upcoming presidential race.

The Census Bureau’s annual report showed the number of people living below the poverty line rose to 34.6 million last year, from 32.9 million in 2001, when the national economy first went into recession.

Overall, the percentage of the U.S. population living in poverty grew for a second year, rising to 12.1 percent from 11.7 percent in 2001. The poverty line was defined in 2002 as $18,244 for a family of four with two children.

In case there was any doubt about who’s responsible for this, the headline of the article above makes it perfectly clear : Poverty Up Second Year on Bush’s Watch

It’s odd to watch a debate after reading the transcript first. Some of the lines that seemed pretty clever when written completely bombed. And other lines that I barely noticed in writing were pretty great when spoken:

EDWARDS: Well, here’s what I’d say to voters. What I’m going to do is something dramatically different than this president is doing. Everyone on this stage is against Bush’s tax cuts for the rich, but there’s something more radical than that going on here. What this president is doing is trying to shift the tax burden in America from wealth to work. He wants to eliminate the capital gains tax, the dividends tax, the estate tax, all the taxation of wealth or passive income on wealth, and shift that tax burden to people who work for a living. It’s an enormous mistake. The middle-class working people made this country what it is today. And I would say to Governor Dean and Dick Gephardt, I grew up in a middle-class family whose taxes they’re talking about raising. For a family of four, who makes about $40,000 a year, we’re talking about almost $2,000; $2,000 that could be used to pay a lot of bills. What we ought to be doing instead is empowering those families, helping them buy a house, helping them invest, lowering their capital gains rate. So we improve the–and expand the investor class in America.
. . .
BORGER: Ambassador Moseley Braun, who’s rich and who’s in the middle class?

MOSELEY BRAUN: The economic policies, the trickle-down economics that this administration has given us has created a situation, probably in recent–in our memory, that we’ve never seen before in our memory, of embedded wealth, entrenched poverty and a shrinking middle class. That, it seems to me, is the antithesis, the opposite, of what the American dream is all about. And so, what we are not–we’re not talking about class warfare, which I think is suggested by your question. This is not holding it against someone for doing well. But as people do well, I think they have a responsibility to build community. And that means getting away from an ethos of greed, that we have seen all too much of in recent times, and making certain that the economy works for every American and that opportunity is kept alive in this country.

Great answers from people who have no chance of winning this election.

Speaking of people who won’t win, this answer to the question “What in office, as president, would be the least popular, most right thing you would do?” is one of the most hippy-ass ideas I’ve ever heard :

KUCINICH: I would move to create a Department of Peace which would seek to make nonviolence an organizing principle in our society and to work with the nations of the world to make war itself archaic.

Awwww….who wants a hug?? I’m surprised he didn’t say “I would move to create a ‘Department of Puppies and Ice Cream’ because puppies are cute and ice cream is delicious.”

Ha! A couple years ago, people were claiming that they’d be building cities around this thing. Well, it’s hard to build cities around something if you can’t even buy it anymore :

The maker of the Segway Human Transporter has agreed to recall the motorized scooters because riders have been injured falling off when its batteries are low.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall Friday, saying that three people had been injured. One suffered a head wound and needed stitches.

The recall involves about 6,000 of the single-rider, two-wheeled scooters that can travel up to 12 mph. The scooter uses gyroscopes to keep it upright, making it less likely to fall or be knocked over.

But the CPSC said that scooters being operated with low battery power may not have enough power to remain upright, causing the rider to fall.

And while I have an excuse to repost it, here’s a picture that cracks me up every time I see it:

“So easy to use, that my seven year old son was able to master it within 5 minutes.”
- segwaychat.com

John Kerry has just posted a fundraising letter on his campaign’s site that shows how intolerant the Republican party really is :

wouldn’t be writing this email if what I’ve just seen didn’t anger me beyond words.
I think when you look at these pictures you’ll agree.

Look, I’ve seen some ugly politics in the years since I came home from Vietnam. I’ve been targeted by the Nixon White House – the original masters of dirty tricks. I’ve seen the Willie Hortonization of politics. I’ve been disgusted seeing President Clinton attacked from day one of his presidency by a right wing machine. Most recently my brother in arms Max Cleland who left three limbs on the battlefield of Vietnam had his patriotism questioned by a vengeful and meanspirited GOP that tears people down to advance their agenda.
I decided to run for President to oppose that kind of politics that degrade our democracy and turn good people away from the process.

Now I need you to join me in showing we reject the divisive politics some in the GOP are passing on to a new generation of Republicans.

These t-shirts were displayed and offered for sale at the College Republicans National Convention in Washington. The divisive slogans and graphic pictures are not to be laughed off as campaign rhetoric – they are racist, anti-gay and violent. I support the First Amendment and I am using my right to free speech to protest these products.

But our protest must come in actions not words.

Of course the rest of the letter is “blah, blah…gimme money” kinda stuff, but you really should see these shirts :

“Party of inclusiveness”, my ass.

I knew they would make sure this didn’t die, but I didn’t realize it would be this fast :

With remarkable speed and near unanimity, Congress on Thursday passed legislation intended to ensure consumers can block many unwanted telemarketing calls. But the courts still have the final say about whether the service takes effect as scheduled next week.

The House voted 412-8 and the senate 95-0 for a bill making clear that the Federal Trade Commission has the power to enforce the “do-not-call” list. President Bush said he looked forward to signing the measure.

“Unwanted telemarketing calls are intrusive, annoying and all too common,” he said in a statement. “The millions of people who have signed up for the list have the right to reduce unwanted telephone solicitations.”

So lemme get this straight : We have at least three million people out of work, homeless people dying in the streets, millions of children with no healthcare, underfunded homeland security, a national intelligence system that routinely drops the ball, and hundreds of people dying daily of preventable causes, but the only time both houses of congress can work together is when it’s to block something that’s annoying???

Well, like many of you, I haven’t gotten a chance to see the debate yet. (You’d think something this newsworthy would have an online stream…) Buuuut, I have been keeping my eye on the Washington Post’s running transcript of the debate. Here’s a few highlights that looked good in print :

DEAN : But the biggest issue in this campaign is the question of patriotism and democracy. I am tired of having John Ashcroft and Dick Cheney and Jerry Falwell and Rush Limbaugh lay a claim to patriotism and lay a claim to the American flag. That flag belongs to every single one of us. And I am tired of having our democracy hijacked by the right wing of this country.

Hell yeah! Looks like Dean showed up with his ass kickin’ shoes on. Seriously though, this is a great throwaway line that will energize the hell out of the senate base (which is exactly what he should be doing during the primaries).

Clark impressed me early on with his response to the question about whether to give Bush the $87 billion he requested for Iraq :

CLARK: Well, Brian, if I’ve learned one thing in my nine days in politics,you better be careful with hypothetical questions, and you’ve just asked one. Now, look, this $87 billion is the first we’ve heard from this administration of anything like a reasonable estimate of what the down payment is. Congress needs to really go after this figure. What is the strategy? What will make this operation a success? What will it take to exit? How do we get international support in there? There are dozens of questions to be asked on this.
. . .
And the final answer that we need is, the president needs to tell us how he’s going to pay for it. This can’t be an addition to the deficit. We want to see where the money’s coming from.

First of all, joking about his inexperience was a great idea. It effectively stopped any of the other candidates from criticizing his resume’s lack of political skills.

Even better though was his insistence that Bush be the one to figure out how to afford the $87 billion. Like I said in this post, the Democrats would be much better off handing Bush a copy of the budget and saying “We’re broke. If you need more money, you need to figure out where to get it.”

The always amusing Al Sharpton had a great comment for Clark that not only highlighted Clark’s recent affiliation with the Democratic party, but also had a great, thinly-veiled attack on Lieberman :

SHARPTON: Well, first of all, as the only New Yorker, I want to welcome General Clark to New York and I want to welcome him to our list of candidates. And don’t be defensive about just joining the party. Welcome to the party. It’s better to be a new Democrat that’s a real Democrat, than a lot of old Democrats up here that have been acting like Republicans all along.

Now, it wouldn’t be a debate if it didn’t have an attack on Howard Dean that backfired. Here’s a brief version of John Kerry’s attack on Dean that backfired :

KERRY: We Democrats fought hard to put those tax cuts in place, Ron. Those represent the efforts of Democrats to try to reach the middle class of America. The 10 percent bracket wasn’t George Bush’s idea. It was our idea…I think Governor Dean is absolutely wrong. And he’s wrong on his facts.
. . .
DEAN: That is not a tax cut. Whatever you got out there in tax cuts, the majority of Americans saw their kids’ college tuition go up, their property taxes go up
. . .
GEPHARDT: I don’t agree with John. I think that’s the wrong policy, and let me tell you why. This plan has failed. The president’s economic plan has failed. And we should not keep half of a failure or a quarter of a failure or two-thirds of a failure. If it’s failed, let’s change the policy. Let’s do something else.

I dunno how this played out on TV, but on the web it seemed pretty stinging. It’s one thing to effectively defend yourself the way Dean did, but to have Gephardt’s answer not only back up Dean, but mention Kerry by name, seems to pretty much negate any positive impact that Kerry’s remarks might have made.

Sharpton also had a good point by pointing out that Bush’s “tax cuts” were essentially a tax hike

SHARPTON: Well, I think that, clearly, rich are those that are above a certain income bracket that are able to, without any concern, pay for their livelihood and their family. I think what we’re hearing here, though, is something that is particularly disturbing to me. I think that we’re not talking tax cuts, we’re talking tax shifts. And what President Bush has offered and some are supporting, is to give us $300 at the end of the day, when we bring about an economy where interest rates go too high, where mortgage lending can’t happen for people right here in Queens. My two daughters are here tonight. Would I rather give them $300 that, if they buy a pair of sneakers apiece, the $300 is gone, or would I rather them be able to buy a home and have interest rates where they can have a home mortgage? If you talk to the American people like that, they will understand the fallacy of that. And that’s not about reading lips, because we’ve read Bush’s lips; they lied. He said that there are no tax cuts, yet he caused a shift where state tax, sale tax and property taxes went up. That’s a tax hike where I come from.

Let me add that $300 for two pairs of shoes is insane. I could buy fifteen pairs of the shoes I’m wearing now for that amount of money.

When the subject turned to healthcare, Dean had a good “attack that’s not really an attack” on the other candidates that both touted his successes in Vermont while at the same time cementing his “Washington outsider” status :

DEAN: In all due respects to all the candidates here, any of whom would be better than George Bush as president, these folks have been in Washington a long time and talked about health insurance for a long time, and we have very little to show for it. In my state, 99 percent of the kids that are eligible for health insurance who are under 18, 96 percent have it. Everybody under 150 percent of poverty, all our working poor people, have health insurance. And a lot of seniors have prescription benefits. This does need to be a system that’s built on what we have. We’ve done that in Vermont. I’d like the opportunity to do that for the whole country.

While Clark seemed to do pretty damn good for his first debate, I was amused (and a little shocked) by this :

INSANA: Senator Graham has referred to the stock market as a–simply as a lottery. Do

you share that view, or do you find an appropriate role for stock market investments

in the Social Security retirement program?

CLARK: George Bush said that he would protect Social Security, but all he’s done is present tax cuts. His tax cuts total three times the amount of money needed to make the Social Security system solvent for the next 75 years. I’m a believer in Social Security. I think you need to protect that system, I think you need to put the resources into it, I think you need to assure that it’s solvent. And I’ll tell you why. First, it’s right. It’s right because when people work in this country, the wealthiest country in the world, they have a right to be assured that in their elderly years they will have a minimum standard of income. Secondly, I think it’s good business practice, because in the economy we’re facing in the future, we want people to move between jobs and job, we want people to move between skill and skill. We want them to have retirement security, so they can take a chance. For both reasons, we need to sustain Social Security.

WILLIAMS: Ron, I’ll give you an extra 30. Did you get the answer you wanted?

INSANA: Not at all.

Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a debate moderator come right out and confront someone for not answering a question. Is there any way we can sign these guys up in advance to moderate the 2004 debates?

The other day I predicted that the candidates would gang up on Clark, since he’s jumped to the head of the pack since his announcement last week. Not only was I completely wrong, but the attacks on Dean were more fierce than ever :

GEPHARDT: Howard and I just have a basic disagreement. He said in, I think, 1993 that Medicare was the worst federal program ever. He said that it was the worst thing that ever happened. He also supported, at our darkest hour–when I was leading the fight against Newt Gingrich and the Contract With America, he was shutting the government down–Howard, you were agreeing with the very plan that Newt Gingrich wanted to pass, which was a $270 billion cut in Medicare. Now, you’ve been saying for many months that you’re the head of the senate wing of the Democratic party. I think you’re just winging it. This is not the view of Democrats, in my view. This program has been under attack from the Republicans since the beginning. And we need a candidate against George Bush that can take the fight to him on it, not someone who agreed with the Gingrich Republicans.

WILLIAMS: Governor Dean?

DEAN: That is flat-out false, and I’m ashamed that you would compare me with Newt Gingrich. Nobody up here deserves to be compared to Newt Gingrich. First of all, I did say that Medicare was a dreadful program because it’s administered dreadfully. I’ve done more for health insurance, Dick Gephardt, frankly, than you ever have, because I’ve delivered it to a lot of seniors and a lot of young people. And I’ll stake my record on health insurance against anybody up here. Of course, we’re not going to get rid of Medicare, and you are wrong to insinuate so, but we’re going to run it properly because we’re going to have somebody that actually is taking care of patients running Medicare and Medicaid in the FDA so we can get the things that we need to get to patients. To insinuate that I would get rid of Medicare is wrong, it’s not helpful, and we need to remember that the enemy here is George Bush, not each other.

Like in the other debates, Dean was able to fight back and defend himself while still appearing to be above the fray.

Perhaps the weirdest moment of the debates was this quote from John Kerry. While I was reading it I couldn’t stop thinking “Huh? John Kerry said this? Senator John Kerry?”

KERRY: We only have 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves, Gerry. There is no physical or metaphysical way for the United States of America to drill its way out of this problem. We have to invent our way out of this problem. And the sooner that we have a president who understands that and begins to commit America to the science, the discovery, to the alternatives, to the renewables, to begin to press America toward the great journey toward energy independence, the better off America will be, the better our health will be, the more effective our economy would be and, frankly, the better our national security will be and the better world citizen we will be.

At least as far as the transcript is concerned, it seemed like a pretty solid debate. If I have any further thoughts after watching my tape of it tonight, I’ll make sure to share them with you…