As usual Congress has completely let us down. They kicked the problem up to a very lame duck president who has been doing nothing but gutting as many environmental rules as he can before he leaves office. So even if Bush decides to do something for the automakers, it will likely be a simple bailout with no attempt to take advantage of a great opportunity to fight our addiction to oil, global warming, and our sour economy. Republicans deserve a good portion of them blame since their only goals seemed to be to stick it to the auto workers. That said, Democrats hold an almost filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a big majority in the house. What in the world are you people waiting for? Jesus?

Way to go, Congress. You missed a big opportunity for helping the country and the planet that may never come again. I can’t wait to see how you’ll take Obama’s plans and flush them down the toilet…

Peter

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2231965,00.html

In short, the car company executives came whining to Cheney; so he promptly abused his office to intrude on California’s sovereignty for the sake of the auto makers’ profits.

The only question I have is this: why didn’t Cheney send out Christmas cards to everyone with a photo of him and all the car executives naked and in bed with each other. Perhaps with the message “Merry Christmas and a happy new year of screwing you helpless peons over!” I mean come on, he’s not even trying anymore to cover up the fact that he’s just a corporate puppet. Show the country you’re trying to plunder SOME respect ya big bag of crap!

1) The NRDC has a great feature on their website that lets you search for your elected officials, and then easily send a message to them in a uniform manor. Visit http://www.nrdconline.org/nrdc/leg-lookup/search.tcl. This page finds both your federal and state officials. Even though it’s relatively easy to find your federal officials via the federal government’s web sites (see tips #2 and #3), finding state officials is a little harder. In general you can go to <state>.gov (substituting <state> for the actual state name, of course), but each state’s web page is completely different.

2) For finding Senators, you can also just go to http://www.senate.gov and use the drop down selection box in the upper right-hand corner of the page to find your senators by state name, and a link to a web form for communicating with them. This may be easier to remember if you forget to bookmark the NRDC page.

3) For the House of Representatives, you can go to http://www.house.gov and use the form on the upper left-hand corner of the page to search for your representative by zip code. If you don’t know the extra 4 digits of your zip code, go to http://www.usps.com and click on the “Find a ZIP Code” link on the far left of the top navigation bar to search using your home address.

I hope this helps make it easier for any Americans reading my blog to communicate with our government. Voicing your opinion is really only a few clicks and an email away. Use it!

Ok, I’m playing stupid. It makes perfect sense if you are concerned more about corporate profits than your own citizens’ well being. This decision by the EPA was either made by corporate sycophants that Bush already strategically placed in the EPA, or Bush directly told the EPA to overrule California. Either way, the EPA has clearly overstepped it’s power. Let’s hope the courts can quickly free California’s hands from this ridiculous and unprecedented restriction. If not, it will be up to the citizens to raise hell with their congresspeople.

Actually, it wouldn’t hurt to raise hell right now. Excuse me while I go send some emails…

The Bushie-infested FCC is trying another push for greater media consolidation. After all, it was great for selling the Iraq war. Why not improve upon this successful mechanism for mass mind control?

Somebody in congress is trying to sneak billions of dollars in “guaranteed loans” (i.e. subsidies) for the nuclear power industry into a spending bill. Apparently none of the big banking entities (the traditional financial allies of the ruling elite) don’t even want to back construction of these plants, so the only choice left for the industry is corporate welfare. One question: where the hell are the billions for alternative energy research and infrastructure?

Finally, I found it quite amusing (and by amusing I mean embarrassing…but in a good way) that Al Gore stood up in front of the world and said his own country is mainly responsible for preventing progress during climate talks in Bali, Indonesia last week. Then news comes in Saturday that the US changed it’s mind and came to some agreement with the other talk participants. I’m not a Gore sycophant, but I do think he couldn’t be more effective right now as an individual trying to “change the world”. If he were POTUS, he’d be bogged down by politics and maintaining the largely unchecked, capitolistic status quo of the country. As a former vice president who isn’t afraid of the political ramifications of putting the US on the spot for being irresponsible, I think he carries a lot of influence.

This past Saturday the movers came. Anna had been worried that they wouldn’t be expecting to pack our stuff for us, but I kept insisting that everybody who hires movers expects their stuff to get packed for them. So of course the guys do a walk through and immediately call their boss. They weren’t expecting to pack our stuff, and didn’t have any supplies. Luckily we had saved a bunch of boxes from the move out to Arizona. Unluckily the U-Haul place in Gallup doesn’t sell packing supplies, and cleaning out Wal-Mart and Home Depot amounted to only 24 small boxes. Somehow we made due, though, and after an unexpected delay we left town Sunday (today) for Albuquerque. We’re sort of dreading how much extra they’re going to charge us beyond the estimate because of the flub.

Tomorrow we get to drive 11 hours to San Antonio to visit my sister. Given that Jaidee has been sick and whiny lately, it should be an interesting road trip. Still, we’re glad to finally be on the road. The Navajo Reservation was a very worthwhile experience for both Anna and me. That said, we’re glad to be going back to family and the familiar. As Judy Garland famously said, “There’s no place like home.”

Of course he thinks of these things in more grandiose terms: religion, complete privatization of government, world domination, black & white justice (metaphorically and literally). But it’s kind of interesting how such “higher” views can lead to such a pattern of hatred for one’s own species. Maybe I should write a book called “A People’s History of the Bush Administration’s Policies”.