July 2011
4 posts
February 2010
3 posts
Bloom vs. Solar: Which One is Best? →
Corporate buyers and households will be asked to pick between fuel cells and solar. Here’s how they stack up.
Conoco and BP quit USCAP, underlining Congress’... →
ConocoPhillips, the US’ third biggest oil company, has become the latest major company to drop out of USCAP, the US Climate Action Partnership, a ceo-led organization aimed at advancing comprehensive…
China's strident tone raises concerns among... →
Great analysis of China’s increasingly truculent tone towards the West
January 2010
20 posts
Martin Wolf on the Volcker Rule: Volcker’s axe is... →
I admire Mr Volcker and strongly support his desire to develop a financial sector that supports the wider economy, rather than makes vast profits out of activities so likely to destabilise it. Equally, I agree that part of the solution is indeed structural. But these proposals are, in important respects, unworkable, undesirable and irrelevant to the task at hand. The president may indeed be...
Why the filibuster is frustrating but necessary... →
This is the strongest argument in defense of the filibuster. Still, Marcus fails to address the central point, which is not whether the filibuster is a good idea in principle, but how its overuse has made this country ungovernable. The rules have to be changed.
The audacity of nope (WaPo) →
The Againstness Epidemic has been years in the making. Individual strains of opposition have been cultivated in the petri dishes of special interest groups, religious fundamentalists, blogs, cable TV shows, talk radio, fringe subcultures (birthers, truthers, tea partiers). They feed into, and are fed by, entrenched industries of disagreeableness (fossil fuel companies, labor unions, the Chamber of...
Howard Kurtz: Obama's gridlocked government (WaPo) →
Extremely good, medium-length summary of the what’s happened in American politics in the last couple of months. Definitely worth the read.
The Lonesome Death of Post-Partisanship →
The other day, I was lighting a fire with a copy of the Times from June 27, 2009 when my eye fell on an article about Republican objections to the health-care reform bill. Back then, the public…
Unrepresentative Democracy →
Fallows notes:
Counting the new Republican Senator Scott Brown from Massachusetts, the
41 Republicans in the Senate come from states representing just over
36.5 percent of the total US…
One Year: Obama Pays the Price →
Barack Obama was not as popular and powerful as he seemed on January 20, 2009, and he is not as unpopular and weak as he seems today. His first year in office demonstrated his strengths and his…
Dear Nervous & Frustrated House Democrat... →
Remember, Republicans will blame you for this bill anyway. Unless you’re among the few Democrats who opposed it on the first go-round, you’ve already voted for health care reform. And you can bet the Republicans will let voters know that come November. You’ll be the representative who voted for that awful liberal boondoggle that, thankfully, the Senate blocked at the final stages of deliberation....
Why Everyone Is Wrong about Massachusetts
adamkatz:
Does anybody actually believe the ridiculous CW that Obama went “too far, too fast”?
The problem with Obama isn’t that he’s trying to do too much, but that he’s actually doing so little.
I think we elected Obama because we thought he was bold, different, and, because his vast rhetorical talents suggested he was capable of spurring the kind of widespread change we really wanted. This...
TNR: Does He Feel Your Pain? →
Obama’s political problem boils down to the difficulty he has speaking to and for middle America. This problem became evident during the middle of the primary battle with Hillary Clinton. And it could have seriously damaged his candidacy against John McCain. But the onset of the financial crisis that fall, and McCain’s feeble response to it, along with his choice of Sarah Palin as vice president,...
Alta participación en elecciones de Massachusetts →
Más de 55.000 personas votaron ya en Boston. La cifra duplica la de las primarias republicanas y demócratas del mes pasado. Leer
Massachusetts obliga a Obama a adoptar una nueva... →
Las elecciones por un escaño del Senado en Massachusetts marcan un antes y un después en la presidencia de Barack Obama y pueden ser el desencadenante de una nueva estrategia en política doméstica,…
MAROC - "Like a virgin" →
Des hymens artificiels, promettant de simuler “la première fois”, sont commercialisés par une société chinoise qui entend bien percer dans les pays musulmans. Exemple au Maroc avec le récit de …
Shannon Brown's mighty dunks put him in spotlight →
The Lakers reserve will compete in the dunk contest during NBA All-Star Game weekend in Dallas. Maybe it was the thousands of people who contributed to the “Let Shannon Dunk” movement on Facebook.
Clive Crook: U.S. Versus Europe: No Winner →
Put it this way: If America’s living standards suddenly descended to Europe’s, rather than the other way round, it would be a calamity that would make the country’s present economic difficulties look trivial.
And yet, as I say, higher U.S. productivity is not the main reason for this prosperity gap. Comparing America with the richest European countries, output per hour worked is...
Buckfast 'in 5,000 crime reports' (BBC) →
A Freedom of Information request showed the drink was mentioned in 5,638 crime reports in Strathclyde from 2006-2009, equating to three a day on average.
One in 10 of those offences were violent and the bottle was used as a weapon 114 times in that period.
Rich: The Great Tea Party Rip-Off (NYT) →
She recently signed on as a speaker for the first Tea Party Convention, scheduled next month in Nashville — even though she had turned down a speaking invitation from the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, the traditional meet-and-greet for the right. The conservative conference doesn’t pay. The Tea Party Convention does. A blogger at Nashville Scene reported that Palin’s price for...
Moscow's Stray Dogs (FT) →
There is one special sub-group of strays that stands apart from the rest: Moscow’s metro dogs. “The metro dog appeared for the simple reason that it was permitted to enter,” says Andrei Neuronov, an author and specialist in animal behaviour and psychology, who has worked with Vladimir Putin’s black female Labrador retriever, Connie (“a very nice pup”). “This began in the late 1980s during...
Ailes' New Political-Media Party: The FNC-RNC... →
September 2009
2 posts
Life Recorders May Be This Century’s Wrist Watch →
Imagine a small device that you wear on a necklace that takes photos every few seconds of whatever is around you, and records sound all day long. It has GPS and the ability to wirelessly upload…
Google’s Monopoly: The Board Game, Not Antitrust →
Increasingly these days you hear the words “Google” and “monopoly” in the same sentence. There is no shortage of fears that the search giant is getting too powerful in the search and online…
July 2009
5 posts
Derailed: Is There A Better Way to Tackle Climate... →
So all the “Gs” gathered in Italy this week appear to be floundering in their efforts to craft some sort of meaningful deal on climate change.
The little engine that couldn’t
Rich…
Google Drops A Nuclear Bomb On Microsoft. And It’s... →
Wow. So you know all those whispers about a Google desktop operating system that never seem to go away? You thought they might with the launch of Android, Google’s mobile OS. But they…
Soon you'll be able to buy any top-level domain... →
In 1996, Microsoft bought the domain Slate.com from a guy named John Slate. Back in the early days of the Web, it paid to have a snazzy dot-com name to call your own. In conversation, the proper noun…
Wind Power: China’s Massive–and Cheap–Bet on Wind... →
Is China planning not just the world’s biggest wind farm—but also the cheapest?
No zoning problems at least (AP)
Xinhua news service reported yesterday that China will break ground…
The Looming Facebook Privacy Fiasco →
Facebook’s privacy conference call just ended, and it’s clear some major changes are going to be coming to the social network soon. Some of these, like a totally revamped privacy control page,…
June 2009
16 posts
Chaos, arm-twisting gave Pelosi win →
Pelosi’s victory came from whipping, cajoling, begging and browbeating undecided Democrats.
Round-up: Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Trade Bill Up For... →
The House of Representatives is likely to vote today on the Waxman-Markey climate bill, which has as its centerpiece a cap-and-trade program for reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The bill,…
First Solar Touts Falling Costs, But Will It Be... →
The Walton family of Wal-Mart fame owns about 39% of First Solar stock – and the retailer’s legendary penchant for driving down costs is rubbing off on the renewable-energy company.
First…
Today’s Vote Doesn’t Matter. Unless, Of Course, It... →
As Noah noted earlier, the House of Representatives is at long last scheduled to vote on the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill today.
Bloomberg News/Landov Take a deep breath,…
Going Electric: Nissan, Exxon, the Feds and Tesla... →
In the full-throttled U.S. push for fuel efficiency, electric cars aren’t an after-thought. They’ve been given a seat at the grown-up table.
Associated Press Fast cars, no gas.
On…
Climate Change Accounting Goes Public in a Big Way →
Flashy billboards are usually not my thing, but it’s hard not to be grabbed by the 67-by-32-foot billboard unveiled yesterday outside New York City’s Penn Station.
Deutsche Bank…
Suntech to market pole-mounted systems with Petra... →
Leveraging the company’s prime location in the PV market, Suntech Power has been tapped by Petra Solar to form a collaborative marketing alliance to market utility-grade, pole-mounted solar AC…
Barclays Capital sees upside to China’s solar... →
Suntech Power Holdings could be a key winner in the bids for business with China’s Qinghai provincial government, which has plans for a 500MW solar plant over the next 2-3 years. Although Suntech was…
Green Ink: A Republican Energy Plan →
Crude oil futures jumped over $71 a barrel ahead of an expected decline in U.S. inventories and thanks to a weaker dollar, Bloomberg reports. Oh, and OPEC has a new trigger for jumpstarting…
Plug-in Vehicles Face Speed Bumps with Federal... →
Electric vehicles such as the Chevy Volt are being hyped in Washington as the next leap forward in transportation. They are being embraced on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue as a way to kick…
Energizing the Base: Republicans Unveil Their... →
Don Quixote tilted at windmills. The modern version would subsidize them—and nuclear power, and clean coal, and pretty much everything else that burns or boils.
A mock charge?
The…
Clean-Energy Investment: ‘The Worst is Past’ →
There may be some light at the end of the tunnel for the recession in alternative energy investment, but there’s still plenty of darkness, a new study out today says.
Forecast: Some sun,…
China Challenge: How Can U.S., China Tackle... →
There’s a new parlor game in Washington these days: Trying to figure out how the U.S. and China can work together to tackle climate change.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee hosted the…
Solar Comeback? New Deals and Optimism in the... →
Is the solar-power market showing signs of life?
That’s almost 10,000 kilowatt hours
Let’s see. This morning, SolarCity, a provider of small-scale solar installations for homes and…
Renewable-Energy Investments Top Traditional... →
Good news, bad news on the clean-energy investment front.
China topped developing countries with $15.6 billion (AP)
Despite the global economic slump, total clean-energy investment…
China Syndrome: Will the U.S. Go It Alone on... →
When it comes to a global treaty tackling climate change, will the U.S. insist that China play ball or not?
Wrong channel (AP)
That question has come to a head this week—and sparked a…