Links 11/1/09

Polar bear plus grizzly equals? BBC

A farmer’s field of dreams buries climate change war The Age

Schwarzenegger’s secret message to the state Assembly: ‘F*ck you.’ Think Progress (hat tip reader Scott)

An Old Master, Back in Fashion Devin Leonard, New York Times

Band of Dems Blasts Geithner Plan Washington Independent (hat tip reader John D)

The G.O.P. Stalinists Invade Upstate New York Frank Rich, New York Times. This is becoming surreal. Given the trajectory of the economy, and the overly bank friendly policies of Team Obama, the Dems should be in trouble. But the radical right wing Republicans are so self destructive that we may see a race to the bottom.

Antidote du jour:

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14 comments

    1. ozajh

      I’m not so sure.

      Here in Australia I have twice seen major parties at State level move so far away from the middle ground that it rendered them unelectable even when the governing opponent was totally incompetent.

      Once was the left-wing party going too far left; the other was the right-wing party going too far right.

      1. john

        Lucky for Australians to have proportional representation where a third/fourth/fifth party vote can send a real message.

    2. Peripheral Visionary

      Saying he’s lost it would be implying that at some point in the past he had it.

      “Punch-drunk with this triumph, the right will redouble its support of primary challengers to 2010 G.O.P. candidates they regard as impure.”

      Exactly; that’s precisely what’s going to happen. What he doesn’t understand, however, is that that is a sign of a *healthy* party, not a sickly and collapsing one. It’s a sign that its membership is active and vocal, and have taken matters into their own hands and out of the hands of the party insiders.

      That is a radical departure from four to eight years ago, when Republicans would vote for anybody with an (R) next to their name, regardless of any other considerations. And it is a radical departure from the current state of the Democratic Party, when any candidate appointed by the insiders and with the Obama seal of approval is accepted unquestioningly, regardless of how corrupt or ideologically impure that person may be (the name “Chris Dodd” comes immediately to mind.) That isn’t healthy, that’s the opposite of healthy.

      Frank Rich’s unstated assumption is that incumbents, or even just party-appointed insiders, will be more likely to win elections than populist candidates. That has been true for much of the last fifty years, but there is absolutely no guarantee that it will hold in the future, and given the sheer volume of anger that is building in the country, I am inclined to take the opposite view: that it is challengers, not insiders and incumbents, who will have momentum on their side.

  1. i on the ball patriot

    Regarding; “A farmer’s field of dreams buries climate change war” …

    Nice to see that pumping cooled diesel exhaust into the soil grows veggies, but would you really want to eat them? And will they label them in the markets as diesel exhaust grown?

    http://www.catf.us/publications/view/83

    1. Skippy

      Fine particulates is just becoming public and is a huge issue. Umm ever wonder why chemical plants are a long way away form nice people, funnily enough the stuff travels.

      Pumping any by-product of oil or other fossil fuel into the ground will end badly.

      Skippy…The poor die making this stuff or get payed just enough to tempt them too.

  2. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

    We need a ‘Cash For Bad Ideas’ program – there are way too many bad ideas like some linked here polluting people’s brains.

    Give these people cash to trade in their bad ideas so they can go out and replace those bad ideas with new ideas…the idea here is to get those bad ieas off the ‘Idea Superhighway’ and help stimulate the economy at the same time.

    Really stinking ideas – $2000 each. If not too bad, maybe $500.

    1. Dave Raithel

      Hey, I can use the money. But since you did not give a specific link example, I’m not sure what kind of bad ideas to offer. And would there be a limit on the number of bad ideas I may be paid for?

  3. Tonsure Wimple

    The Polar/Grizzy thing is really interesting. Bears hibernating use an alternate metabolic pathway for fats that uses no water. That’s how they hunker down for weeks/months: they switch to a water conservation mode.

    The Polar can’t melt enough ice/snow for a normal land mammal’s water needs, so it runs the alternate no-water metabolic pathway all the time. This is the key mutation that allows the subspecies to exist, and push north.

    I wonder which pathway the hybrids use?

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