Ones and Zeros

We see two kinds of legacy being made now.  In the Gulf the spill that’s still gushing will have repercussions for decades.  It appears that the fishing industry in the Gulf coast on down the FL coast and into the Keys will be affected for a very long time.  Tens of thousands who work directly on the water or in connected businesses will be affected, many who are still recovering from Katrina.

While the oil will disperse, the more volatile components of the oil will vaporize (affecting the air quality) the remaining tar balls will be floating around on the Gulf for decades.  The tiny droplets of dispersed oil will enter the food web and affect the ecosystem and human health for the entire Gulf for your children’s lifespan.

Meanwhile the Obama administration has approved a wind farm off Cape Cod.  This will, with normal maintenance, will provide zero-emission and zero-CO2 power for decades to come to help power the Cape and islands nearby.  These wind turbines will displace the power currently generated by burning oil. They’ll do it quietly, and without a major impact on the ecosystem, wildlife, and quality of the area.  Unlike oil wells, if a wind turbine fails, no ecological damage will result.

I hope the Obama adminstration continues to leave the latter legacy and doesn’t pursue the insanely damaging legacy of oil.

State Senator Mike Bennett (R) of Florida was caught by a TV camera looking at pictures of women in bikinis. His explanation that it was email that was sent to him is a bit suspect - the window showing on his screen looks more like a browser window.

The bad news for Sen. Bennett is he’ll have to deal with this.  The good news for the rest of us is that we found a GOP politician who’s in trouble for straight, heterosexual things.  Not lesbian bondage, closeted gays, or bathroom encounters. It’s almost refreshing!

The old adage is that conservatives are caught in money scandals and liberals are caught in sex scandals.  Looks like the conservatives have widened their base.

The big word this year seems to be bipartisan.  Am I the only one who’s not concerned with this?  I want the right policies to do the right things to solve our country’s problems without creating new problems a couple years from now.  This isn’t bipartisan, this is thoughtful and realistic thinking with all the best knowledge and information we have on the subject.

Bipartisan is figuring out how to satisfy all the extremists, no matter how unfounded, illogical, crazy, and unscientific their opinions are.  I don’t care about that

I know we always won’t get it right, our information isn’t - can’t - be accurate enough for that.  There’s just too many variables.  But trying to please every nutjob in the country and on the radio and cable channels is not only a thankless job, but an impossible one.  Focus on “correct”, that’s hard enough.

Just a comment on Virginia.  We now have Bob McDonnell as governor who’s celebrating the Confederacy for the whole month of April (one day wouldn’t do!) while trying to avoid the messy issue that the Confederacy was formed to fight FOR slavery.  What strange worldview and mindset is this guy from when he thinks this sort of racist behavior is appropriate?

Either he’s very ignorant of a key part of our country’s and our state’s history, or he’s a racist and liar.  In either case he’s not fit to be govenor.

And then there’s the Virginia Attorney General.  He’s planning to sue the US government about health care reform.  Health care reform is supported by the majority of Americans in poll after poll.  The Virginia demographics are reasonably representative of the country and it’s reasonable to assume that the national polls on health care reform are mirrored in the state.  So Ken Cuccinelli is subverting the will of the people that he represents in suing the federal government.

Cuccinelli and McDonnell are also using the state government to rescind and rollback protections for gays.  That’s what they started with when they got into office.

So in a few short years Virginia has gone from an up and coming cosmopolitan state to a racist southern holdout fighting against it’s own best interests.