Snippet from AP article on whether Bush will see Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth:

"Doubt it," Bush said coolly Monday.
...
"New technologies will change how we live and how we drive our cars which all will have the beneficial effect of improving the environment," Bush said. "And in my judgment we need to set aside whether or not greenhouse gases have been caused by mankind or because of natural effects and focus on the technologies that will enable us to live better lives and at the same time protect the enviroment."

OK, sure, new technologies will improve the fuel efficiency, but no one will develop these technologies if they have no incentive to, and even if they are developed, consumers will not buy them because they have no reason to. Futhermore, the development of these technologies doesn't mean that consumers can't also reduce their emmissions by driving less and buying smaller and more efficient cars. Again though, they probably wont do it unless they have some incentive to.

The last part of the statement just blows my mind. I don't think there is any question in the scientific community that the massive release of greenhouse gasses by humans over the last 50 years has caused a large increase in the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere during the same period. I mean, the statement is almost tautological, but certain people still deny it, even in the face of mountains of supporting data and research.

In other news, here's an objective test of how well our nations colleges are preparing our current generation to ineherit the country. The list of top ten favorite books on facebook.com:

1. The Da Vinci Code
2. Harry Potter
3. The Bible
4. Catcher in the Rye
5. Angels and Demons
6. To Kill a Mockingbird
7. The Great Gatsby
8. 1984
9. Lord of the Rings
10. Pride and Prejudice

Wow, we really are doomed. At least The Great Gatsby made it on the list.

The election cylce is really heating up again. NYT's going crazy with articles, and I'm enjoying it. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a piece of the action once I graduate. Looks like this is a big opportunity for Democrats, unless we blow it.

There's been a lot of talk about past strategy, how the past 6 years have been too consultant driven, how liberals are convinced that most American's actually don't agree with their worldview, how a liberal's natural tendency to question even his core beliefs has only hindered him. And there is a lot of truth in those statements, but I believe that circumstance may be of help here. The first point may always be the case, we just need the consultants to be right for once and we need a candidate who can take a lot of advice but not go stiff. On point two, I'd say that you can't go into a campaign thinking people don't agree with you. You really have to believe you are right and that it's your job to convince people that they agree with you. Otherwise you're out off the bat. Point three shouldn't be much of a problem coming of perhaps the most stubborn presidency in recent memory.

I think I may have to take of page from Chris Matthews (or every page) and say that the only real campaign strategy that works in America is a Freedom (capital F) strategy. Not only to people love Freedom, they also love the word Freedom. If there's one thing that America stands for, for better or for worse, it's Freedom. So Republicans seem to have a stranglehold on the word these days. There is a way around this. The core difference between the 'liberal' and the 'conservative' interpretations of freedom (and the reason my Milton Freedman's books are so hard to read) is that when conservatives say freedom, they mean freedom of choice, while when liberals say it, they mean 'effective freedom' of choice and freedom to HAVE choices. My canonical example is if you're alone in the middle of the desert, you have the freedom to choose between laying down and dying slowly or walking around a bit to speed the process up.

Economically, this gets back to one's interpretation of the free market and the government's role therein. Republican's are often dead set on ignoring the very idea of externalities and their resulting inefficiencies. The same goes to a lesser extent for failed markets. Socially, things are much simpler, and Democrat's clearly hold the high-ground. Of course there's the question about what to do about guns, gays, and abortion. That's a much tougher question and will take some serious strategic though (later).

I think the best way to summarize my ideal strategy is through a TV spot storyboard. The trick is to stop focusing on getting every little constituent-targeted buzzword in there. If you do that, you end up with a series of unrelated phrases and no central theme. Think Reagan's Morning in America. Forgive me for being a little nerdy:

Central theme: You call this Freedom?

Opening: shot of someone in gridlocked traffic in a smog-filled urban wasteland (you guessed it: Frank Stallone, I mean, LA), jump to shot of 3.00+ gas price sign. Work in some natural disaster footage after that (Katrina, too soon?) to work in the whole global warming catastrophe theme.

Other possible scenes: someone getting an enormous healthcare/college bill, someone getting fired from a blue-collar job, war footage, social security.

Transition: repeat central theme, there's a better way, some really nice catch phrase.

Later part: DOPAMINE - some guy farming, baseball in a cornfield, generals/diplomats/executives shaking hands, happy factory worker showing up for work saying hi to coworkers.

Ending: back to farmer and son watching sunrise from porch, XY is fighting the good fight, repeat dopamine enhancing catch phrase.

God, I should just make that myself. I'd love to go way overboard with that idea.