Actually, given Republican reaction towards key issues like environmental degradation, climate change, health care reform, or the situation in Iran (or the blind support of former president George W. Bush and his Iraq debacle) in addition to strategically disagreeing with President Obama on just about every issue, Number Six’s quote could be: “[Republicans] have an amazing capacity for self-deception. How do [they] do that?”
Furthermore, a poll from WYFF4.com of Greenville, S.C., as of this morning, shows that about 91% believe it wasn’t appropriate for S.C. governor Mark Sanford to leave and not tell anyone. Sometimes, truth is unavoidable.
Whether right or wrong, politics is a game of perception. And if Governor Sanford’s goal is the national stage, this “disappearance” act just looks wrong on so many levels. He is going to be perceived as “flaky” and “irresponsible”, because of this “stunt”. This is not about a guy just getting away for a few days without a cell phone. This is about whether or not Sanford has what it takes to run for President of the United States. And right now it looks like he doesn’t have “it”.
Update 2: What South Carolina residents are saying about the Mark Sanford debacle:
Update 3: The State, South Carolina’s largest newspaper, published emails between Mark Sanford and a woman in Argentina; but should these emails have been published or remained private? I’m guessing he sent these emails from his state government account. At most job sites—especially in the government—employees working in information technology have access to electronic mail or even an employee’s work computer.
According to the Department of Energy, Tesla Motors will receive $465 million in loan money to advance electric vehicles, Ford Motor Company will receive $5.9 billion in loans to finance engineering advances, and Nissan will receive $1.6 billion in loan money to produce electric cars and battery packs at a manufacturing complex in Smyrna, Tennessee.
Today, the Obama Administration announced $8 billion in conditional loan commitments for the development of innovative, advanced vehicle technologies that will create thousands of green jobs while helping reduce the nation’s dangerous dependence on foreign oil. The loan commitments announced today by the President include $5.9 billion for Ford Motor Company to transform factories across Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, and Ohio to produce 13 more fuel efficient models; $1.6 billion to Nissan North America, Inc. to retool their Smyrna, Tennessee factory to build advanced electric automobiles and to build an advanced battery manufacturing facility; and $465 million to Tesla Motors to manufacture electric drive trains and electric vehicles in California.
These are the first conditional loan commitments reached as part of the Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program. The Department plans to make additional loans under this program over the next several months to large and small auto manufacturers and parts suppliers up and down the production chain.
“We have an historic opportunity to help ensure that the next generation of fuel-efficient cars and trucks are made in America,” said President Obama. “These loans – and the additional support we will provide through the Section 136 program – will create good jobs and help the auto industry to meet and even exceed the tough fuel economy standards we’ve set, while helping us to regain our competitive edge in the world market.”
“By supporting key technologies and sound business plans, we can jumpstart the production of fuel efficient vehicles in America,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said. “These investments will come back to our country many times over – by creating new jobs, reducing our dependence on oil, and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.”
These commitments will help reduce the 140 billion gallons of gasoline Americans consume each year, lessening the nation’s dependence on the volatile world market for oil, and decreasing the cause of a fifth of the nation’s carbon emissions. The Obama Administration recently announced an agreement to raise passenger car fuel standards from 27.5 miles per gallon to a target of 35 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2016. While 35 mpg is ambitious, the Department of Energy’s auto loan program received more than a hundred applications for loans to help achieve greater fuel efficiency. The competition among advances in conventional engine technologies, next-generation biofuels, and transportation electrification holds the potential to increase US fuel efficiency dramatically over the next several years.
The Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program is an open and competitive process focusing on the best companies and best technologies in American manufacturing. First appropriated in the fall of 2008, the program will provide about $25 billion in loans to companies making cars and components in US factories that increase fuel economy at least 25 percent above 2005 fuel economy levels. The intense technical and financial review process is focused not on choosing a single technology over others, but is aimed at promoting multiple approaches for achieving a fuel efficient economy.
Applications for the loan program have included vehicles running on electricity, biofuels, and advanced combustion engines, and were submitted by both car and component makers, US automakers, US manufacturing subsidiaries of non-US-based companies, major US auto parts suppliers, and innovative startups.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Who Killed The Electric Car part 1 of 10
A book by marine biologist and naturalist Rachel Carson—Silent Spring—was no doubt another important ingredient that fostered the modern environmental movement. However, although the mindset of out of sight, out of mind or the misunderstanding that Nature can absorb our waste without consequences, was historically a huge factor in our Nation’s environmental troubles, history seems to be repeating itself today. However, the difference today are our environmental regulatory protections. From The Plain Dealer:
The fire — a brief Sunday afternoon flare-up of oil-soaked debris likely ignited by either molten steel or a spark from a passing rail car — was doused by local firefighting tugboat crews. The story barely made the newspapers the next day.
But the effect of that two-hour flare-up has lasted four decades.
Today, the river fire stands as an enduring image of progress gone wrong.
But after so many years, it becomes difficult to really understand and feel the rampant water (and air) pollution of the industrial era that led to the Cuyahoga fire.
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The image of a black, gooey hand coming out of the Cuyahoga like a B-movie swamp monster defined the plight of the Cuyahoga. By association, it indicted all industrial American cities — and a culture that for a century had generally viewed natural waterways as a means to an end.
“The Cuyahoga River — the thick pollution on the water and the fire — became a convenient example of what ‘bad’ really is,” said Frank Samsel, whose company aided in early 1970s cleanup efforts.
Video: “[Water pollution] is the shadow of progress”
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Photo source for attribution here. Photo by Dave Knapik.
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