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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (38674)	8/9/2008 8:20:18 PM
From: MJ	Respond to of 224748

Who is that? The Dalai Lama, Frank Sinatra-posthumously, Queen of England, President George Bush, Henry Kissinger?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (38674)	8/9/2008 8:32:23 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Respond to of 224748

The young Beatles were blockbuster celebrities, yet socially radical and out of the mainstream...One that you probably can relate to--Charlie Chaplin was considered a huge Hollywood star but his socialist politics were considered scandalous on Main St, USA.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (38674)	8/9/2008 9:17:49 PM
From: lorne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224748

Kenneth...."How can someone being portrayed as "the biggest celebrity in the world" also be painted as radical and out of the mainstream?".... He is being portrayed as a big celebrity by Leftist Media not the majority of people....IMO it is the majority of sane people who believe...correction who KNOW he is a radical.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (38674)	8/9/2008 10:32:05 PM
From: TideGlider	Respond to of 224748

Who is the biggest celebrity? Obama is only having his 15 minutes of fame. He will be no different than Kerry or Edwards in a very short time. Get a life Kenneth.. This is KILLING you.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (38674)	8/9/2008 11:21:32 PM
From: Justin C	Respond to of 224748

Elvis? He never revealed his politics but was certainly out of the mainstream musically in his day. :) How can someone being portrayed as "the biggest celebrity in the world" also be painted as radical and out of the mainstream?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (38674)	8/10/2008 1:26:34 AM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 224748

NYT Tom Friedman: ...Unlike America, Denmark, which was so badly hammered by the 1973 Arab oil embargo that it banned all Sunday driving for a while, responded to that crisis in such a sustained, focused and systematic way that today it is energy independent. (And it didn’t happen by Danish politicians making their people stupid by telling them the solution was simply more offshore drilling.) What was the trick? To be sure, Denmark is much smaller than us and was lucky to discover some oil in the North Sea. But despite that, Danes imposed on themselves a set of gasoline taxes, CO2 taxes and building-and-appliance efficiency standards that allowed them to grow their economy — while barely growing their energy consumption — and gave birth to a Danish clean-power industry that is one of the most competitive in the world today. Denmark today gets nearly 20 percent of its electricity from wind. America? About 1 percent. And did Danes suffer from their government shaping the market with energy taxes to stimulate innovations in clean power? In one word, said Connie Hedegaard, Denmark’s minister of climate and energy: “No.” It just forced them to innovate more — like the way Danes recycle waste heat from their coal-fired power plants and use it for home heating and hot water, or the way they incinerate their trash in central stations to provide home heating. (There are virtually no landfills here.) There is little whining here about Denmark having $10-a-gallon gasoline because of high energy taxes. The shaping of the market with high energy standards and taxes on fossil fuels by the Danish government has actually had “a positive impact on job creation,” added Hedegaard. “For example, the wind industry — it was nothing in the 1970s. Today, one-third of all terrestrial wind turbines in the world come from Denmark.” In the last 10 years, Denmark’s exports of energy efficiency products have tripled. Energy technology exports rose 8 percent in 2007 to more than $10.5 billion in 2006, compared with a 2 percent rise in 2007 for Danish exports as a whole. “It is one of our fastest-growing export areas,” said Hedegaard. It is one reason that unemployment in Denmark today is 1.6 percent. In 1973, said Hedegaard, “we got 99 percent of our energy from the Middle East. Today it is zero.” Frankly, when you compare how America has responded to the 1973 oil shock and how Denmark has responded, we look pathetic. “I have observed that in all other countries, including in America, people are complaining about how prices of [gasoline] are going up,” Denmark’s prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told me. “The cure is not to reduce the price, but, on the contrary, to raise it even higher to break our addiction to oil. We are going to introduce a new tax reform in the direction of even higher taxation on energy and the revenue generated on that will be used to cut taxes on personal income — so we will improve incentives to work and improve incentives to save energy and develop renewable energy.” Because it was smart taxes and incentives that spurred Danish energy companies to innovate, Ditlev Engel, the president of Vestas — Denmark’s and the world’s biggest wind turbine company — told me that he simply can’t understand how the U.S. Congress could have just failed to extend the production tax credits for wind development in America. Why should you care? “We’ve had 35 new competitors coming out of China in the last 18 months,” said Engel, “and not one out of the U.S.”

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (38674)	8/10/2008 1:29:01 AM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 224748

Editorial: Here is the underlying reality: A nation that uses one-quarter of the world’s oil while possessing less than 3 percent of its reserves cannot drill its way to happiness at the pump, much less self-sufficiency. The only plausible strategy is to cut consumption while embarking on a serious program of alternative fuels and energy sources. This is a point the honest candidate should be making at every turn.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (38674)	8/10/2008 7:52:07 AM
From: lorne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224748

Kenneth...you leftist liberals are much like different religious sects trying to exterminate each other for no other reason but POWER to control others. Good to see you folks heading down this path. A bit funny as well leftist media will promote all leftists crazies. Don't forget Hillary's side opposing hussein obams. :-) Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan on the ballot John Wildermuth, Chronicle Staff Writer Saturday, August 9, 2008 ....""The next part is going to be exciting," she said. "I want at least one debate with all four candidates so that Nancy Pelosi has to answer for her record."".... sfgate.com

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (38674)	8/10/2008 2:20:40 PM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 224748

Good for Democrats........ Consumer spending heading for a fall Economist: 'Frugality is now replacing frivolity' By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch Last update: 12:01 a.m. EDT Aug. 10, 2008WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- With the stimulus checks just a memory, U.S. consumer spending is set to decline in the third quarter for the first time in 17 years, economists say. The rebates were big enough to keep spending on the positive track in the second quarter, but U.S. households didn't spend nearly as much of the windfall from Washington as Congress expected. Instead, they saved it and used it to pay down debts heading into what could be a long winter. Economists estimate that between one-sixth and one-fourth of the money was spent. "Frugality is now replacing frivolity," wrote David Rosenberg, chief North American economist for Merrill Lynch, who suggests that the consumption patterns of the 1950s could be coming back. "Ozzie and Harriett" is in; "Sex in the City" is out. The first official data on third-quarter consumption will be released in the coming week. In addition to the retail sales report for July, the calendar also includes July numbers for consumer prices and industrial production for July, and the June figures on foreign trade. The data "should reinforce the view that the U.S. economy is in recession," said economists for Goldman Sachs. The developing slump in consumer spending will make it increasingly difficult to sustain positive growth, said David Resler, chief economist for Nomura Securities. If the U.S. consumer falters, then global growth probably will too. Consumers face three hurdles: Higher energy may be easing, but their wealth is still falling. And wage growth has been very weak.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (38674)	8/10/2008 2:23:10 PM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 224748

Zakaria: The next president will inherit the world as it is in 2009. He will have to examine the Bush administration's policies as they stand in January 2009—not as they were in 2001 or 2002 or 2003—and decide how to accept, modify and alter them. There was a U.S. president who came into office convinced that everything his predecessor had done was feckless, stupid, ill-informed and venal. He rejected and tried to reverse everything that he could, almost as an article of faith. Before he had even examined the policies carefully, he knew that they had to be changed. The base of his party was delighted by his clarity and fighting spirit. That president, of course, was George W. Bush. His decision to blindly repudiate anything associated with Bill Clinton is what got us into this mess in the first place. Let's hope that the next president, no matter how much he despises Bush, will take a careful look at his administration's policies, America's interests, and the world beyond and do the right thing for the country and its future.