Archive for February 7th, 2008


More Green Party primary results

The results were split between Nader and McKinney. But Lordy, the numbers of Green voters is getting minuscule, a trend that needs to be reversed quickly if the party is to remain viable.

California
Registered voters: 15,712,753
Registered Greens: 127,042 (0.81% of registered voters)
Total Green votes: 27,511 (about 20% voted)

Arkansas
Open primary system. Voters can vote for any candidate.
Registered voters: 1,570,961
Total votes cast: 510,850
Total Green votes: 637

According to the secretary of state’s office earlier this month, the Green Party has six registered voters in Arkansas.

Ouch.

Illinois
Total votes cast: About 2.8 million
Total Green votes: 2,597

3 Comments »

Bond insurer bailout failing fast

After weeks of pretending otherwise, it’s becoming obvious the bond insurers can’t be bailed out. Both the numbers involved and the risk are too high for that.

Some major U.S. banks are saying they are prepared for this, but what of smaller banks, pension funds, state and municipal accounts, and the like? Many of them do not have the resources to withstand the big financial hits that will come when bond insurers get downgraded.

Deutsche Bank CEO: Bond insurer downgrade will create debt “tsunami”

1 Comment »

Egyptian FM threatens to break Palestinians’ legs if they breach border again

“Anyone who violates Egypt’s borders will get his leg broken,” said Egyptian Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit.

He blamed Israel for the humanitarian crisis and hardship that Gaza is experiencing, and for “responding to the Palestinian (Hamas) missiles with collective punishment.”

He also criticized Hamas for launching those missile attacks, describing the confrontation as a “laughable caricature” resulting in self-inflicted wounds.

This is an unusually blunt warning, not at all couched in the phrases of diplomatic niceties. But then, the breach of Egypt’s borders - a serious matter for any nation - were caused by conflicts that are not of Egypt’s doing and theoretically at least, not their problem.

No Comments »

Bloggers smackdown TSA!

TSA airports. Gizmodo.com
“Take the Crackberry out of your pocket real slowly, punk…”

After repeated complaints on their blog and other blogs, TSA apologized for harassing searches of all electronics at some airports and promised to sin no more. They titled their post “A Win for the Blogesphere” so someone send them a spellchecker.

The wondrous image is from the fine folks at Gizmodo.

No Comments »

Proposed Bush bio book cover

Bush bio book cover. joedelaplaine.com

From my friend Joe Delaplaine, who has an animation, design, and illustration website.

No Comments »

Beluga SkySails completes maiden voyage

 Beluga Skysails

The sails weren’t deployed until midway in the voyage, and still saved 10-15% in fuel costs. As crews gain experience, another 5-10% savings is expected.

All of which means less carbon emissions too. Sometimes cleantech can mean using old technology in unexpected new ways.

1 Comment »

Georgia loses big in the southeast water wars

A federal court has ruled that Georgia can not withdraw as much water as planned from Lake Lanier because Congress did not approve the deal. This is a huge victory for Alabama and Florida, who brought the lawsuit against Georgia.

As Mark Twain said, “Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting over.”

No Comments »

Undersea cables: Choose a conspiracy

Cthulhu

GigaOm has a helpful guide to current conspiracy theories that attempt to explain why so many underseas cables are getting severed.

The big problem with all the theories is that if Evil Entities are targeting specific countries, then why would they want to damage multiple other countries too? Then there’s the little factoid that no ships were in the area where two of the cables were cut. (AHA, you say, that just proves how Devious They Are. The fiends must be using submarines, then… Hmmm, but to reiterate, why?)

GigaOm ends by blaming an angry Kraken, but frankly, I suspect Cthulhu.

No Comments »