Energy plan pushes automakers on mpg

Everybody knows about the soaring oil prices and problem with global warming. To help deal with this, Congress passed a bill to raise mile-per-gallon standards. Auto industries had already been planning to do this (such as they did for the Prius), however this bill will compel them to make more fuel-efficient vehicles on a faster timeline. "The auto industry's fleet of new cars, sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks and vans will have to average 35 mpg by 2020, according to the agreement that congressional negotiators announced late Friday...It would be first increase ordered by Congress in three decades." (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071202/ap_on_go_co/more_mpg). Sen. Diane Feinstein said, "It is a major milestone and the first concrete legislation to address global warming." Unfortunately, the article holds that this bill "may face problems over requirements for nonpublic electric utilities to produce 15 percent of their power from renewable energy sources such as wind or solar."

I hope this bill (or perhaps a compromise of it) works. Everybody knows that things really need to get done to solve the oil and gas-emission problems, but not much progress has been made. This bill shows that people are starting to get serious about getting things done, instead of mostly talking about getting things done. Maybe we'll see some nice debates about this coming up in the primary debates, huh?

I'd also like to note something extra about this article. "Rick Wagoner, General Motors Corp.'s chairman and chief executive, said the new rules [in the bill] would 'pose a significant technical and economic challenge to the industry.' He said GM would tackle the changes 'with an array of engineering, research and development resources.'"
The article makes GM sound really supporting and into all this, however I encourage people to check out a 2006 documentary film titled "Who Killed the Electric Car?" General Moters had a line of battery electric vehicles (which they called EV-1's) in the 1990's. The film accounts that GM wrongly felt that there was no demand for their product and so took back every EV-1 and disposed of them. The films also explores a couple of other reasons for the destruction of EV-1's, such as: both the oil and auto industries were unhappy with this line because they were afraid of losing money. Again, I encourage people to watch the documentary or even just look it up online. For a small link to get you going, someone else posted a small blog entry about it here: http://tonyguitar.blogspot.com/2006/07/why-did-gm-kill-ev-1.html. Check it out.

More on Hostage Situation

New information has been released about the hostage situatio and I just wanted to clarify what i wrote earlier. It turns out that Eisenberg didn't have a bomb, but a bunch of road flares. Also, police discovered that he had been raped in the past by a priest, and then tried to commit suicide, which is why he was in a psychiatric facility. So, it seems like the whole situation was an overreaction to one man's cry for help.

Clinton, however, got some publicity from the situation, and even met with the hostages.

Don't ask don't tell

Yesterday marked the 14th anniversary of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The act passed under the Clinton administration requires any homosexual or bisexual person enrolled in the United States armed forces to keep their sexual orientation a secret. It also prohibits commanders from investigate their sexuality. If any members revel their sexuality they would be automatically discharged.
Military veterans and activists protested the act, arguing that the act forces citizens to lie, and discriminates against gays. The Human Rights Campaign estimates the policy is responsible for the discharge of 12,000 men and women in the military. This topic was brought up in the recent GOP CNN/ youtube debate. What do you think about this policy?
For more information go to http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/30/military.protest/index.html.

I agree with Bryan J. Scrafford's response (http://ambivalentmumblings.blogspot.com/2007/11/edwards-on-dont-ask-dont-tell.html) that gays should be able to openly serve in the military without fear of discriminate or discharge. After all, with the Iraq war still in process, we're going to need all the able bodied we can find.

Huge beer heist

Someone stole 450 kegs from a Guinness Brewery on Thursday. The total cost of the stolen goods is calculated to be over €160,000 (US$235,000). For more information go to http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/29/europe/EU-GEN-Ireland-Beer-Bandit.php#end_main.

Bald Eagles, the American Symbol

As you may or may not know, the blad eagle, the emblem of the United States, is no longer an endangered species. On June 28, 2007 the Interior Department took the American bald eagle off the endangered species list, however the eagle will still be protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act because they are still "threatened." The eagles have been in danger of extinction since the mid 1960s, mainly due to DDT's (a pesticide that is now banned) and overly aggressive hunting. For example, over 100,000 bald eagles were killed in Alaska from 1917 to 1953 because Alaskan salmon fisherman feared they were a threat to the salmon population. (http://www.baldeagleinfo.com/eagle/eagle11.html)

"Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we now have over 200 breeding pairs, and nationally we have nearly 10,000. This is up from the frighteningly small total number of fewer than 35 pairs America had in the 1970s, but is still only half the historical high of 400 pairs California had before the problems affected them. " (http://kyledesigns.wordpress.com/2007/06/30/amazing-bald-eagle-comeback-just-in-time-for-independence-day/) Actually, most of the eagles for CA were bred at the SF zoo. One of my friends' father works there, and he said that the program was shut down there because it did so well it accomplished its goal. That puts a negative spin on it, but it did serve its purpose.

I decided to put this on the blog because of what the bald eagle represents to America and because many people do not know these things (myself included). We have eagles on the backs of our gold coins, the silver dollar, the half dollar and the quarter, and even on the Great Seal of the United States. I found an amazing site at http://www.baldeagleinfo.com/eagle/eagle9.html which all of you should check out. It is really interesting and funny, and I learned a lot of things. For example, did you know how the bald eagle became the national symbol? Maude M. Grant said, "...at one of the first battles of the Revolution (which occurred early in the morning) the noise of the struggle awoke the sleeping eagles on the heights and they flew from their nests and circled about over the heads of the fighting men, all the while giving vent to their raucous cries. 'They are shrieking for Freedom,' said the patriots."

The website also says that Benjamin Franklin wished that the turkey, and not the bald eagle, had been chosen as the representative of our country because the eagle "is a bird of bad moral character, he does not get his living honestly..." (basically he steals fish that other birds hunted) and is not suited for the "brave and honest" America. I find this very ironic because today America seems to fit Franklin's description of an eagle extremely well (substitute fish for oil, for example).

Unicef to the Rescue

Cholera, picked up from contaminated water, is claiming innocent lives in a Baghdad orphanage due to a bad sewage system. So far there have been 24 deaths across the nation, but they are scared of an outbreak. Cholera can kill in a few hours if it is left untreated. Luckily, Unicef is doing all that it can to help clean the water. They are trying to get the Iraq government to clean the water storage tanks and providing tablets to cleanse the water.

I think we're pretty lucky to live in a place which demands the water be clean, and our health be protected. With these poor children in such a bad environment, it seems like everything we complain about is pretty pointless. Next time unicef is selling those candy bars, maybe we should all pick up a few with some extra tip.

Hostages held at the Clinton Office

Lee Eisenberg walked into Hillary Clinton's campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire with a bomb strapped to his chest and took members of Clinton's campaign staff hostage. He called CNN officials multiple times, speaking about a need for better health care coverage for average people who can't afford it.

Eventually he gave in, having made no threats and ending the hostage situation. It seems pretty trivial, but it reminds me of those small rebellions that we learned about in US history. I think it was Shay's rebellion in which the rebellion wasn't that large but it represented the desires of the people. Is he representing others like him who want better health care coverage?

Or, another possibility was taht he wasn't coherent becuase the article did say "He said he'd been to a local psychiatric hospital," although it didn't specify if he was a patient.

Either way, this is antoher wake up call about security and safety in our modern world.

Here are some articles about this story: http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/30/clinton.hostagetaker/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/30/clinton.office/index.html