Open Thread for Night Owls & Early Birds

Following the lead of the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth, the League of Conservation Voters announced Monday in Colorado, Ohio, Montana, Michigan, New Mexico, and Washington, D.C., that it is endorsing Senator Barack Obama for President.

"Senator Obama’s proven record and his commitment to a clean, renewable energy future make him the best choice for President," LCV President Gene Karpinski said.

"At a time when this country must reinvent itself for a new energy future, we can imagine no better steward than Barack Obama. Under his leadership, America will finally achieve the economic growth, environmental protection, and national security that are possible with a new, clean energy economy."

"We have a real choice here," said Carol Browner, LCV board member and the longest-serving EPA Administrator in the agency’s history.

"Barack Obama has been a committed leader and has offered bold and comprehensive proposals when it comes to global warming, energy and the environment. John McCain, whose plan will be a continuation of Bush-era political gimmicks, will carry on Bush’s legacy of failure when it comes to energy policy,"

For thirty-eight years, LCV’s annual Environmental Scorecard has been the nationally accepted, non-partisan, environmental report card for our leaders. Barack Obama has earned an impressive lifetime 86% score.  His opponent, Senator McCain, has earned only a 24% score.  

Juliet Eilperin at Washington Post campaign log "The Trail" wrote:

A new ad from the McCain campaign blaming Obama for rising gas prices prompted the following response from Friends of the Earth Action President Brent Blackwelder: "It's only July, but we're already seeing dishonest and hypocritical gutter politics from John McCain. Flip-flopping John McCain said just two weeks ago that our dangerous dependence on oil 'has been 30 years in the making,' but now he tries to blame Obama -- even though it's McCain who has been in Washington for 26 years. Here's the truth. The Bush/McCain drilling plan won't lower gas prices but will increase our over-reliance on oil. We can provide relief from high gas prices while growing the economy, protecting our security and fighting global warming by focusing on conservation, clean energy and transportation choices instead."

Twenty-six years in Washington. Which is just one year shy of the 27 years the U.S. has had a lousy energy policy, courtesy, originally, of Ronald Reagan and the folks who told us that low-carbon alternatives were a scam and energy conservationists just wanted us all to "freeze to death in the dark."

Open Thread and Diary Rescue

Tonight's Rescue Rangers are dadanation (also mentoring HansScholl), BentLiberal, Louisiana 1976, joyful (mentoring drbcladd), shayera, and vcmvo2, with srkp23 editing.

• mamamedusa's first diary, Infant mortality, race, and myths, is a chilling must-read. (dadanation)
• RO45 considers Obama's impact on teen and tween fashions in Grandmothering and Politics. Another anecdote from the enthusiasm gap. (drbcladd & joyful)
• Wattree considers whether race is thicker than ideology in Your Brother is The One Who Thinks Like You. (drbcladd & joyful)
• Avenging Angel tells Kossacks that Barack Obama will be repairing some McCain damage during his European trip in Obama Seeks to Rebuild European Alliances McCain Mocked. (shayera)
• phoebe1st tells Kossacks she was Inspired by Darcy's T-Shirt. And what she's doing about it. (shayera)
• Dotted Timeline continues a series on the financial barriers to higher education in Slow death by strangulation, part 7 and describes the ruin that today's students must risk to pay for college. (HansScholl)
• billlaurelMD's charts, graphs, and pictures continue to record the shrinking Arctic icecap in North Pole today, 7/21/08. (HansScholl)
• Johnny Venom offers up some good news (with a caution) about the low standing of the dollar, in Manufacturing Monday: The Prius to be made in America, VW expands too! (BentLiberal)
• faithfull takes a look at the ramifications of "peak coal" in Appalachia and the environmental impacts of mountaintop removal, in Mountain Monday: 10 Years of Coal. (BentLiberal)
• dhonig highlights some NFL hypocrisy in Wine, the NFL, and competing with the government. (shayera)
• In The Desperation of John Hagee, Frederick Clarkson distills the many reasons why this preacher's apocalyptic rhetoric has been toned down. (vcmvo2)

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this open thread.

Pittsburgh bound

I don't know if there's a consensus yet, but I heard plenty of people refer to Netroots Nation Austin the best ever, and I'm certainly in that camp. I may be biased -- my vastly reduced role meant I got to spent a lot more time attending sessions and hanging out with the crowd, and I had a blast despite battling a litany of illnesses.

The parties were out of control, and let me get provincial by claiming that the Daily Kos party at Maggie Mae's was the best of the lot, and perhaps the best party ever at a YearlyKos/Netroots Nation conference. I plan for an encore in 2009. Too many people whined about the 2006 Mark Warner party. Well, we were in Austin to prove that despite the best efforts of the killjoys, a good, lavish party was exactly what people demanded. Complete with chocolate fountains.

Several people with children, including my wife and I, were able to enjoy babysitting courtesy of sister site Mother Talkers, and we certainly plan on bringing that back next year as well, so keep that in mind if you want to bring the little ones along. I think the kids may have had more fun than us. My son is already asking when he can go back to Texas.  

Next year, the party moves to Pittsburgh, August 13-16. Some of you may still remember the Pittsburgh of the 80s, which was a depressed steel town suffering the effects of globalization (and Japanese dumping). The Pittsburgh of the 00's is a story of dramatic urban renewal. It has wisely built itself as a hub for banking, medicine, and Green innovations, while Heinz foundation money has cleaned up and revitalized entire parts of town. I had heard the stories, but seeing the new Pittsburgh during my 2006 book tour was eye opening. You guys will be pleasantly surprised. It's a rocking city.

So who will speak in 2009? Who cares? Gore wasn't even on this year's agenda, so you never quite know who will decide at the last moment that yes, there is room on the schedule to squeeze in a visit. Really, if you're going for the speakers, you're going for the wrong reason. The community, the sessions, the parties -- that's what makes these events so damn fun. Everything else is gravy.

John McCain: Straight Talk at a Town Hall

John McCain recently described his town hall meetings as an hour or so of him responding to people's "hopes and dreams and aspirations" and that when it's over, they "know my plan for the future of America." Leaving aside the ridiculous notion that all that is accomplished in 90 minutes (including McCain's opening statement), let's look at the straight talk he gave a voter yesterday in Michigan:

AUDIENCE MEMBER: As a Catholic male, I'm adamantly pro-life...Between Roe v. Wade...the unproven science of embryonic stem cell research, the moral implications of human cloning - I'm hoping to pull the lever for someone who will fight for the rights of the unborn. And can I count on you to fight for the rights of the unborn?

JOHN MCCAIN: Yes you can. I believe the noblest words ever written are that all of us are created equal and endowed by certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And I think that that applies to the unborn as well as the born.

This man specifically included stem cell research as a part of the "fight for the rights of the unborn," and McCain unequivocally said that the man could count on him. So, what is McCain's position on stem cell research?

I believe that we need to fund this. This is a tough issue for those of us in the pro-life community. I would remind you that these stem cells are either going to be discarded or perpetually frozen. We need to do what we can to relieve human suffering. It's a tough issue. I support federal funding.

So unless McCain is planning to flip-flop on the only position he takes that is overwhelmingly favored by the American people, he purposely misled lied to this man. In the grand scheme of John McCain's plans to to carry out George Bush's third term, perhaps this little sin of omission isn't important, but it says a lot about the kind of person he is.  

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