Merit-bound Alley

Well, not really Ovaltine, but Joe is taking his cue from something else that doesn’t really concern him. Seeing the news about the mysterious death Alexandre Litvinenko apparently put a bug up the butt of the Biden Dynasty founder to start putting the thumbscrews on Vladimir Putin. Apparently, Joe saw CNN sometime in the past couple of weeks, looked up Putin on Wikipedia (on the Internets), and recognized the name. Biden was heard to say that he has not been a big fan of Putin after the Russian President “wiped that big red splotch off of his head.”

I kid because I love. In reality, Biden thinks “that Russia is sliding further away from genuine democracy and a free-market system and more toward a command economy and the control of a single man.” Biden is not considering removal of Russia from the G-8 summit, a political meeting between the heads of the eight countries that control, I mean represent, about 65% of the worlds economy. Biden says, “”I would consider laying down markers about whether or not, as he continues to consolidate power within that economy and in that country, whether or not he warrants continued membership.”

In other words, he doesn’t support kicking him out, but supports seeing if they should kick him out if Putin’s behaviour of consolidating economic power under him continues. Get it?

One might wonder if Joe Biden is chiming in about Putin after the Polonium scandal as a way to get his name out there on big issues to test the waters for a presidential bid. That would be a shocking misuse of the media.

I will be on WVUD’s Progressive Voices tonight, along with Dana Garrett of Delaware Watch. The show runs from 7:30PM to 8PM. You can listen on the radio at 91.3FM or online at http://www.wvud.org/listen_online.htm . Questions can also be sent to provoices@gmail.com . Listen in and hear me stammer in a fit of nerves. It will be fun!

And black fish, black seals, black whales, and starving Alaskan Natives. Yes, Mr. President is considering another lovely concession to the oil companies, this time taking the unprecedented (and limber) position of slapping his father in the face while bending over for Big Oil by lifting the ban on drilling in the federal waters of Bristol Bay off the coast of Alaska.

You may ask why this is a slap in the face to George Sr. I would answer that this is because the ban was enacted by his dad after a little known even called the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. If you are one of the 10 or 12 people in the world who hasn’t heard of this, I’ll summarize. On March 24th, 1989, an oil tanker called the Exxon Valdez, carrying some 52,000,000 gallons of oil hit the Bligh Reef in Prince William sound, dumping 10 million gallons of it’s oil into the water and killing a huge number of the local wildlife and covering some 1900km of the Alaskan coast in oil. Since this area was (and still is) home to many endangered species including orca, sea lions, and bald eagles, President George Bush the First placed a ban on drilling in the federal waters in Bristol Bay.

What could be worth endangering the salmon, sea lion, migratory bird, king crab, etc, etc population?

Some 200 million barrels of crude oil, about what the U.S. imports every 16 days, are thought to be there. The agency estimates the region could yield 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas — a quarter of all U.S. annual production.

16 days worth of oil and a quarter of a years worth of natural gas production. 16 days and 3 months worth of energy. Maybe it would be more worthy to leave the bay alone and instead put a plan in to educate Americans on energy conservation. Or to give funds to clean, renewable energy. Unfortunately, Mr. President lacks the foresight when it comes to energy. Perhaps he likes getting his prostate massages from the oil companies too much to let them go.

There has been a certain amount of controversy regarding Pastor Rick Warren’s invitation offered to Senator Barack Obama to speak at the Saddleback Church’s second annual AIDS conference. It seems, although the conference has nothing to do with it, Sen. Obama’s pro-life views make him unqualified to speak on AIDS according to some of the fundamentalist Christians of the church. However, it is notable that Pastor Warren and Sen. Obama were able to see past this irrelevant difference in perspective to focus on the topic at hand: AIDS awareness.

To me, this sets a very important precedent in the war between the left and the right. Warren could have easily bent to the brainless masses and excluded Obama due to his views on abortion. Likewise, Obama could have avoided the conference and possible saved himself some grief. However, neither took the easy path, and a little bit of the wall between the left and the right has crumbled.

The one thing that frustrates me most about the people in power and the loudest citizens is the all-or-nothing divisiveness that halts at every level the process of running this country. Maybe the standard that Warren and Obama have set will be the beginning of more nonpartisan efforts in this country. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to no longer hear words and phrases like “cut and run”, “wingut”, or my favorite piece of drivel, “drinking the koolaid”? Wouldn’t it be great if, instead of blind partisanship and veiled insults, our public servants would be able to let some disagreements go in order to work together running this country?

I know there will never be broad agreement on every issue, at least not in my lifetime. It would be a pretty boring world if that were the case. What I would like to see is a process that isn’t halted by the petty disagreements that the two sides have. The division in this country has ceased to serve a purpose, if it ever did in the first place.