Never Enough Bu**Sh** Department

So, if you believe some of the punditry out there, Bush is ahead by seven points. This is in one poll, I hasten to add--Gallup has Bush ahead by two. Two points? Statistically speaking, that's still a dead heat.

You can tell the GOP is deeply concerned. Why else would Cheney state that making the "wrong choice" on Election Day would doom the country to another terrorist attack? It's such an irresponsible, near-traitorous thing to say, and only makes sense if you accept the notion that Cheney, his boss, and their coterie--heh, almost typed "cotillion" there!--of political advisors and hatchet-men are deeply worried that they aren't getting enough of a political gain over Kerry.

Ruy Teixeira agrees. Oh yes, the media isn't letting on just yet that the Republicans are in hot water, but the evidence is out there. Why, that two percent bounce is, in Teixeira's words, "the worst ever received by an incumbent president, regardless of party, and the worst ever received by a Republican candidate, whether incumbent or not." [His emphasis.]

Which means, Kerry needs to nail Bush down hard for the next two months. He can. Although Kerry complimented Bush's debating skills during his Daily Show interview, Kerry is much better at extemporization--which means that Kerry will appear much calmer and stronger during the debates, while Bush will flinch at each and every unscripted turn. Meanwhile, even as Bush continues the "flip-flop" tirade, Kerry will keep reminding Americans that Bush has screwed up his first shot at being President and doesn't deserve a second chance.

"'W' for 'Wrong'"--not a bad slogan, really.

I still prefer twisting around the Republican slogan:

"10 Out Of 10 Terrorists Agree--Bush Is Good For Business"

But that's just me.

Never Enough Straight Facts Department

FactCheck.org simply rocks. Are you confused about some point of order in the political campaign, or in the news? Come to FactCheck.org and see what the Annenberg Public Policy Center's fact-checking team has to say. Don't worry, these folks are non-partisan--they'll zing Kerry and moveon.org just as they'll zing Bush and Swift Vote Veterans.

Except, reading the site, you get a quick feeling that Bush & Co. must've gone into Permanent Compulsive Lying mode, because FactCheck.org finds themselves in the somewhat awkward position of correcting Bush's team and allies far more than Kerry's.

Imagine that.

Never Enough Reassurances Department

Ghods, I love Molly Ivans. Her latest column is a hoot and a half--mainly because she can be both pointed and hilarious, all at once. Read this column, especially if you feel disheartened after the RNC. This will cheer you up, no problems.

And if that doesn't cheer you up, maybe a little Michael Moore, also commenting on the RNC, will help.

Chin up! All that is left to do at this point is to make sure as many people vote as possible, and to stand up to Bush lies. The rest will sort itself out. Trust me on this.

Never Enough Dissolving Parties Department

Watching the Republican National Convention, with its well-funded glitziness and fawning support for their Boy King, you'd never guess that the Republicans are in deep, deep trouble.

First, there's the matter of Alan Keyes, who in a matter of days has (a) accused Fox News journalist Walter Jacobsen of, of all things, being in the pay of the Democrats, largely due to the fact that Jacobsen caught Keyes claiming that automatic weapons were legal in Illinois and questioned him on that statement; and (b) called Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter Mary a selfish hedonist and a sinner. Note well that, for a high-profile Senate seat, Keyes is the best the GOP could do to counter the articulate but unexperienced Obama.

But Keyes is just the hottest potato in the basket, so to speak. There's the little matter of the GOP using moderate speakers to put a "compassionate" face on the most radical Republican platform ever, glossing over the problem of having too many conflicting interests under the GOP "big tent". Indeed, Republican moderates largely feel slighted by the Party's shift to the right. Stem cell research, environmentalism, fiscal responsibility, abortion, and gay rights are but a few areas where moderates feel the Republican leadership has abandoned them. Their reactions are varied--some stay the course, hoping to convince the leadership of the urgency of a more moderate point of view. Then there's the Log Cabin Republicans, who are running TV ads to force the Party to step back from its platform, which not only calls for a Constitutional amendment against gay marriage but also action against any attempt to grant gay couples rights akin to marriage, such as civil unions.

Right now, it seems that the only thing holding the Republicans together is loyalty to the party, not ideology or common causes. And, as David Brooks of the conservative Weekly Standard has pointed out, if Bush loses, not even party loyalty will prevent sectarianism that will make the Democrats look unified, coherent, and strife-free. Of course, Brooks sees a potential path to salvation in what he calls "progressive conservatism"--and what that means is anyone's guess. Perhaps it's just a matter of co-opting progressive language and welding it to conservative thought--or vice versa, a sell-job to conservatives of the need for progressive policy. But I have doubts it will work.

The biggest problem the Republicans have is that, for decades, they have relied on the Cold War as a launching point for paranoia and psychopathy wrapped in patriot's clothes. As long as the Republicans could be seen as hard on Communism, they could contrast themselves with the more reasoned, measured, but usually unwavering realpolitik of the Democrats. They could then cast attempts at progressive policy as tax-and-spend fluff which didn't solve any real problems and sapped precious dollars from hard-working taxpayers, with the occasional "Commie" accusation coughed under breath.

The problem then is clear--Republicans have built themselves up as the anti-tax, anti-progressive party. To twist around and become progressive without a better means to raise government income is to alienate their base. As Michael Moore pointed out in his recent op-ed piece in USA Today, many Republicans are "RINOs"--Republicans In Name Only. In other words, they largely support progressive policies, except for their resistance to taxation. If the Republicans wish to become "progressive conservatives", they will need to find a better means to raise revenues for funding progressive causes, or else deal with another few decades of alienation. And that will be tough.

It won't be impossible, however. It's quite possible to argue successfully, for example, that raising fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks will result in savings later on in terms of less energy consumption and smaller environmental clean-up costs. Again, the problem is how to explain this gigantic flip-flop to millions of Republicans who were convinced by conservative pundits that progressive and expensive are synonymous. It won't go down well with evangelicals who think Armageddon is right around the corner, and certain fossilized business sectors will recoil in horror at the notion that their selfishness won't result in any invisible hands saving the day. All in all, it looks grim for the Republicans in the long haul.

And I'm sure that Republican-bashers will be wiping their hands in malicious glee at the thought of the GOP being in deep waters. But I'm not a Republican-basher--or, at least, I don't think of myself as such. Hey, I like John McCain and Bob Dole, amongst others. I may disagree with some of their positions but I like them as people, and think they tend to have higher standards than, say, Newt Gingrich or John Ashcroft. To be blunt, if the Republicans did become more progressively-inclined, I for one would feel a lot better about the political process, and the future of this country.

Never Enough Shrooms Department

Mushrooms--toppings for salads, steaks, and pizzas? Or a potential bonanza of helpful benefits for humanity?

You decide.

Me, I'm up for eating radioactive Psyllocybin on a supreme deep-dish. If I'm going to trip I may as well go the Spider-Man route at the same time. And then we can spread mushrooms to clean up the mess I make while trying to figure out my super-powers!

Or maybe they'll cure me of the inevitable cancer that comes from chewing on Cesium 137-laden fungus. You never know!

(Never put your tongue firmly in cheek while chewing gum. BAD idea. BAD, BAD idea.)

Never Enough Off-Camera Faux Pas Department

You'd think by now that Republicans would realize that, just because one's interview isn't being broadcast at that exact moment, doesn't mean that nobody's recording, or paying attention.

For example, Bob Dole, who has been brought forth by Dubya in order to defend the Swift Boat Veterans group's integrity, said that "[t]here's got to be some truth to the charges" if only because "not every one of these people can be Republican liars."

And then Wolf Blitzer, the interviewer, showed Dole a clip from the Kerry ad which pointed out that Bush attacked John McCain's patriotism during the 2000 campain. The ad featured a clip of McCain telling Bush that he should be ashamed for stooping so low.

Bob Dole didn't have to see the clip--he remembered the debate where McCain lambasted Bush. But just after Wolf faded to the clip, Bob Dole had an off-the-record, but honest answer: "He was right."

I do not understand what it is that makes honorable Republicans stick loyally to the party even when its leadership commits shameful acts. I don't understand why McCain is supporting Bush after all this. Then again, I don't know why we still support Israel, for example. All I do know is that we must vote Bush out of office, lest US politics be permanently be-Roved.

Never Enough Prairie Home Sense Department

There's never been any doubt of Garrison Keillor's politics, really, but the fact that he can wrap it all up in homespun homilies, and yet use a richness of language that is rare in the age of the soundbite, shows that there may well be hope if his message can get out.

Here is the message. Enjoy--I did!

Never Enough Measured Decisiveness Department

Arianna Huffington has a new column on the tyrrany of the vacillating, intellectually lazy undecided voter, and it's a hoot:

According to a new poll by the National Annenberg Election Survey, 46 percent of undecided and persuadable voters say they find the [Swift Boat Veterans For Truth's] vile ads 'very or somewhat believable'.

Believable?! But then why are we surprised that the folks who are still on the fence nearly four years into one of the most disastrous and polarizing presidencies in American history find foaming-at-the-mouth accusations that John Kerry might have shot himself because it would look good on his resume 'believable'?

Damn, Arianna, as usual you rock. And it really touches on an issue that has been gnawing at me for some time. To wit, I don't have problems with principled conservatives (or principled liberals/progressives for that matter) as much as I do with the increasingly large number of people who are apathetic about politics except when swayed by the unprincipled use of attack ads. As Bill Clinton mentioned on the Daily Show recently, attack ads are used because they work. And, in my opinion, attack ads work because people do not take the time to become informed in advance.

As long as a sizeable group of people refuse to learn about anything outside their lives, politics will be an ugly affair. So the question becomes, how do you convince the "swing vote" that they have a vested interest in paying attention to news beyond the sound bites on network news and on the front page of newspapers? That sort of attention takes both time and commitment, and while it is inherently patriotic to do so, it takes an educational effort to convince them so.

There's a new mission for progressives: They need to reach beyond their little circles of people who more or less agree with them, and reach out to the masses. Air America Radio is a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done. For instance, what if TomPaine.com or Alternet found funding to start a nationwide newspaper in the vein of USA Today but with a more progressive slant? Sure, there are plenty of progressive magazines out there, but the key here is to find a relatively inexpensive way of increasing circulation while educating and encouraging people to think in bolder, more optimistic ways, and to invite action rather than passivity.

It won't happen right away, but I hope it happens sooner rather than later. America needs it.

Never Enough Pleasant Surprises Department

Salon has a great piece today comparing Bush's election prospects to, of all things, Jimmy Carter's. That's a sad comparison indeed, but it rings true--Bush's Presidency is so crummy that it'll be invoked every time a Republican candidate runs for President for the next decade or more, as a reminder of how wrong things can get if we elect one of them. It's no healthier for politics than the current election's prelediction for negative attack ads, really. But it will hopefully force the Republicans to reconsider the nature of their base and perhaps force it to recoup some sembalance of mainstream politics.

As I doubt most of my readership are willing to deal with so much as a Salon day pass sponsorship ad, I am quoting the end of the article, wherein the author briefly touches on Bush's "ownership society" speech, compares it to Carter's "malaise" speech, and then tells a story his father once told him:

Some time back, the great University of Texas economist Robert Montgomery was summoned before our Texas Legislature, then hunting subversives. According to legend, the hearing was the shortest on record. It consisted of a single question and answer. Not having ever seen a transcript, let me paraphrase:

Q.: Professor, do you believe in private property?

A.: Senator, I do believe in private property. I believe in it so strongly, I think everyone in Texas should have some.

HEH. Now you know why, despite efforts by extremist Republicans over the past few decades, I love my fellow Texans. You got to admire that much cheek combined with that much common sense.

Ah, but I ramble. I dare you to read the ad--if you, like me, pray that Bush get voted out of office, this article will cheer you up. Guaranteed.

Never Enough Fuel Technology Porn Department

OK, fine, I admit, my idea of "porn" isn't quite as restrictive as most--I don't have to have naked bodies in it, for instance--but this Washington Monthly article by Sam Jaffe is still quite masturbation-worthy in my eyes.

Why? Because it points out that there are ways to energy independence that are practical, economical, environmentally friendly, and easily implemented in the next decade or two. To wit: using new technologies to convert cellulose to ethanol, we can drastically reduce our dependence on foreign oil and make it economical to do so. Right now, ethanol is made from corn, which simply cannot be grown in enough quantities to supply adequate fuel for vehicles--not without simultaneously cutting US food production down to nothing. Using cellulose instead means any plant matter could be used. Thus, we could grow plants that are very hearty and need no irrigation or fertilizers, on land that would be useless for food crops, and then mow them to harvest the cellulose for ethanol production. The process of making cellulosic ethanol would be significantly cheaper than gasoline, let alone corn ethanol.

That's for the short term. For the long term, hydrogen fuel cells still look much more promising in terms of energy efficiency and pollutants. This is where a newly developed and inexpensive catalyst comes into play--it can strip the abundant hydrogen atoms from ethanol, making a fuel that would be pure enough for solid-state fuel cells. Make those solid-state fuel cells from ceramics capable of handling the heat, and you now have the ability to convert ethanol to hydrogen to abundant electrical power. There will be pollutants since the ethanol-based hydrogen would not be pure enough, but such pollutants would only be carbon that is already in the biosphere in the form of plants, not additional carbon from fossil fuels.

The bottom line is that this is all doable for mere billions--billions already being spent poorly by Dubya to pursue much more exotic lines of research. If John Kerry is serious about switching to a hydrogen-based economy, he and his policy wonks should read this article and give its proposal a serious consideration. For all the great ideas I've seen so far on energy alternatives, this is the first for which I've truly felt excited and inspired.