26 April 2004

Spending money like a Canadian

[source, source]

A suppressed report by the [Canadian] federal government evaluating the effectiveness of spending $500 million since the year 2000 to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases has shown — surprise! — that the spending was largely wasted, producing neither a reduction in gas emissions, nor the development of new “cleaner” technologies.

[…]

How did the government manage to blow $500 million of taxpayer money?

It put it into “Action Plan 2000,” which committed $210 million to promote technologies that reduced greenhouse gas emissions in industry and transportation; it gave $125 million to cities to encourage them to use the non-existent new technologies.

And another $100 million was spent on promoting foreign demand for the non-existent new technologies.

Being a logo-realist means never having to care if something exists.

Posted by orbital at 10:46 AM | View 0 TrackBacks | Trackback URL

I threw them away before I kept them

[source, source]

The Kerry campaign Web site says it is “right-wing fiction” that he “threw away his medals during a Vietnam War protest.”

Rather, the Web site says, “John Kerry threw away his ribbons and the medals of two veterans who could not attend the event.”

[…] A television interview Mr. Kerry gave in November 1971 shows that Mr. Kerry himself fed the confusion from early on. […] When the interviewer asked, “How many [medals] did you give back, John?” he answered, “I gave back, I can’t remember, six, seven, eight, nine.”

When the interviewer pointed out that Mr. Kerry had won the Bronze and Silver Stars and three Purple Hearts, Mr. Kerry added, “Well, and above that, I gave back my others.”

He would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those medaling kids.

Posted by orbital at 10:39 AM | View 0 TrackBacks | Trackback URL

They ain't dead quite yet

Here’s a scary set of musings:

In any case, the interesting part of the Times’ “how Hillary became a hawk” piece isn’t the why, it’s the fact that liberals don’t seem to mind very much:

While some liberals have complained about her hawkish ways, it does not seem to have hurt her overall standing with Democrats. A recent poll by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, for example, showed that 71 percent of Democrats surveyed expressed support for her, compared with 65 percent garnered by another prominent New York Democrat, Charles E. Schumer, the state’s popular senior senator.

Lee M. Miringoff, director of the polling institute, said those numbers suggested Mrs. Clinton’s popularity among Democrats may transcend any position she might take challenging liberal orthodoxy. That, he added, was reminiscent of Mr. Clinton, who remained immensely popular in the party even as he defied liberal constituencies with moderate to conservative positions on issues like crime and welfare.

Let me state my bias — I’m bitterly opposed to Hillary Clinton. However, she’s reminiscent of President Bush with regard to this article. First off, history shows that it doesn’t pay to underestimate either of them. Second, both of them are maintaining their popularity with their bases despite taking some positions that are not popular among the base (Clinton - hawkishness, Bush - spending like a drunken sailor). These factors have made Bush a formidable force on the national political stage. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for Clinton as well.

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