During a press conference last week Bush asked what he thought about economists’ predictions that we would see $4+ gas prices by early spring. He was surprised and said he had not heard that. This is frightening to say the least. The President of the United States, who started a war over oil that is estimated to cost us $5 trillion dollars before it is over, doesn’t know how much gas costs. I wonder if he knows what a burden this is for the average family- prices have tripled during his administration. And it’s not just gas. Heating oil and energy prices have skyrocketed.

Today oil passed the inflation-adjusted high reached during the Arab Oil Crisis of the late seventies and early eighties. World stock markets are in a tailspin. The House of Representatives have passed a bill ending $17 billion in handouts to oil companies (who made $146 billion in profits last year) and moving that money into alternative energy tax credits. These credits are critical to encouraging rapid development of sustainable energy alternatives that can help us end our oil addiction. Yet Republicans in the Senate are blocking this bill and the President is threatening a veto. This partisan block voting is destroying our economy in exchange for short term gain by an industry sector intimately associated with this Administration.

Because his understanding of the issues is far beyond the partisan crap the two parties are forced by political reality to embrace:

“They must know we can’t fix our economy and create jobs by isolating America from global trade.

They must know that we can’t fix our immigration problems with border security alone.

They must know that we can’t fix our schools without holding teachers, principals and parents accountable for results.

They must know that fighting global warming is not a costless challenge.

And they must know that we can’t keep illegal guns out of the hands of criminals unless we crack down on the black market for them.”

Pragmatism for once. Sounds like a winning platform to me, NRA notwithstanding (and BTW, where was the outrage when that college kids shot all those students in Illinois? He was able to walk into a store and buy handguns even though he’d been institutionalized).

I’m extremely disappointed in Hillary. It really looks like they never had any contingency plan for running from behind and they are trying to make up for it by taking cheap shots at Obama. You can’t take down visionaries by innuendo, nor can you play the experience card when your own husband did very well with very little experience. I am not, for the record, a converted Obama-ite, yet. I don’t think either candidate has really shown any innovation in their approach to the issues. I also want to see them laying out their battle plans for McCain, how they are going to counter every single stance he is taking.

Hillary’s lack of contingency planning means that she isn’t going to be prepared for all the crap the Republican machine is loading into their catapults- severed heads, old scandals, lies and other rotten dead meat are all going to be hurled at the Dems. They’ll play the race card, the fear card, the sexist card, they’ll make up stuff, they’ll cheat, lie and steal- it’s their way and they can’t change. Both Hillary and Barack need to start showing their weapons instead of sniping at each other.

And someone needs to challenge the American public to pull together for energy independence in ten years or less- the Apollo Alliance is the right approach. Give people something concrete they can do to change things in their lifetimes.

Thanks to Franke James:

Severe pollution causing disease outbreaks, cancer, birth defects and decreasing male births in Great Lakes Communities according to a suppressed CDC report:

MONTREAL GAZETTE

Leaked report on the Great Lakes is a wake-up call

High levels of pollution pose a health threat. U.S., Canadian
decision-makers keep public in the dark for fear of lawsuits, expensive
cleanups, scientist says
WILLIAM MARSDEN The Gazette
Thursday, February 14, 2008

At least 9 million people living on the United States side of the Great
Lakes basin may be in danger from high levels of chemical pollution,
according to a secret study that has been withheld from the public.
The study was kept secret from the public for seven months until this week
when it was leaked to the Centre for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C.

The 400-page study was done by the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and
Prevention on behalf of the International Joint Commission, which oversees
issues relating to the joint management of the Great Lakes.
The study shows there are 26 “areas of concern (AOC),” where there are
elevated levels of illnesses that can be traced to pollution.

These areas of concern are spread out through all five of the Great Lakes
with particular intensity in Chicago, Detroit and Buffalo. More than 9
million people live inside the boundaries of these AOCs.
The report states that illness in the populations “compares unfavourably …
with the U.S. population.”
For instance, the report identifies elevated levels of infant mortality in
26 AOCs, and of premature births in four AOCs.
The study also identified 108 hazardous waste sites, of which 71 are or
could be public health hazards.
Powerful lake currents can distribute the chemical and hydrocarbon
pollutants including dioxins throughout the Great Lakes system and down the
St. Lawrence River. Migratory marine life such as eels, which swim from Lake
Ontario to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, also distribute the pollutants.

The study mirrors a series of reports previously done by Health Canada in
the 1990s that revealed 17 Canadian AOCs, where there were elevated levels
of illnesses that could be traced to pollution.
When the Canadian reports were printed in 1998 they also were kept from the
public. In this case, Health Canada circulated them only to public health
officials in the 17 AOCs.

One study was leaked to a reporter in Windsor, Ont., in 2000, forcing Health
Canada to release the rest.
The Americans have claimed that their study was suppressed because the
science was substandard.
Michael Gilbertson, a former International Joint Commission scientist who
was one of three scientists to peer review the U.S. study, said the reasons
behind the suppression were political.

“Their real reason is that in the States and also in Canada at the moment
there is really a reluctance within the governments to acknowledge that
there are any effects of these chemicals on fish or wildlife or on human
health,” he said.
Gilbertson said the governments are afraid of lawsuits and expensive
cleanups.
“I mean you can find sources of chemicals in the environment,” he said. “But
if you actually find effects, this has a connotation of liability.
Governments are extremely reluctant to allow their scientists to start
making statements about the effects of chemicals on fish, wildlife or on
humans. Particularly on humans.”

The Canadian study, for example, found a series of outbreaks of Minamata
disease in Thunder Bay, Collingwood, Sarnia and Cornwall. Minamata disease,
which includes cerebral palsy among its symptoms, is caused by mercury
poisoning.
Each of the affected areas had large chlor-alkali plants that used mercury
for making chlorine. At various times between 1948 and 1995, these plants
released 742 tonnes of mercury into the Great Lakes. Mercury dumped in
Sarnia went down the St. Claire River to Lake St. Claire and then down the
Detroit River to Lake Erie.

Canadian research has also found an inexplicable drop in the male-female
ratio on the Aamjiwnaang Reserve near Sarnia. The number of male babies had
dropped 40 per cent in the mid-1990s. The reserve is surrounded by 46 large
chemical plants and refineries.

Furthermore, Health Canada studies showed, the Windsor area suffered from
much higher mortality and morbidity rates than in the rest of Ontario.

The federal government and the province of Ontario launched a program in
2000 to reduce pollution in the Great Lakes.
So far, two areas - Collingwood and nearby Severn Sound - have been removed
from the AOC list.
wmarsden@thegazette.canwest.com

- To see the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention report go to
www.publicintegrity.org/default.aspx
C The Gazette (Montreal) 2008