Pickens, Gore, And Bush

The summer is rushing by. We've just had a beautiful week of near perfect beach weather. The surf has been a bit rough, but the water is warm once you get past the breakers. It's been dry with no rain for weeks until last night, when we finally had a thunderstorm.

T. Boone Pickens, the corporate raider and oil magnate, has a plan to rid us of our dependency on foreign oil. Al Gore is calling for a 10 year horizon to switch the U.S. to non-fossil fuel for all of our needs. Meanwhile, Mr. Bush is calling for off shore drilling. What's wrong with this picture?

Jim

PS: Read Tom Friedman's recent column on Bush and energy: "9-11 and $4.11"

Why I Won't Vote For Hillary

It's simple, it's because her husband betrayed gays and lesbians when he was president, and she has not given me any reason to believe that she would treat us any different if she were elected. It's that simple. So, how could she convince gays and lesbians that they wouldn't be betrayed once again if she were elected? For starters, she could take a page out of Al Gore's notebook and unequivocally endorse full gay marriage rights. But she won't. She could put ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" on her agenda for the first 60 days of her presidency, but she won't. Finally, she could forcefully state in her most important addresses, as Obama has done, that gays and lesbians deserve full equality. But she won't. So, I won' t vote for her. Period.

Jim

Gore Can Still End Up Being The Democratic Nominee

Huffington Post analyst Paul Abrams lays out a scenario whereby Al Gore can become the Democratic presidential nominee:

With the potential of a truly fractured Democratic field, the one person
who could heal that wound and set the race on fire would be Al Gore. Untarnished
by the primary battles, redeemed both by his own successes and Bush's failed
presidency, with a cause that percolates down to 1st graders who go on nature
walks, and with a conviction not to be handled by "handlers" (who are killing
Hillary now, as they did Gore in 2000), Gore would be perfectly positioned to
run a winning fall campaign. Although Hillary herself would be loathe to
"release" her supporters to Gore, many of the super-delegates and a large
fraction of the actual delegates would nominate Gore in a heartbeat, and only
those states where the delegates are committed on the first ballot could be
held.

Obama would have to win the Iowa caucuses tonight for this to happen, according to Abrams' scenario, starting a process that ends up with none of the Dems arriving at the convention with enough delegates to win the nomination. It's an interesting scenario. We'll have a better idea if it's actually possible after tonight.

PHOTO: The upper level tracks at AMTRAK's 30th Street Station

Jim

Will Al Gore Run?

Here's a photo of the nearly-completed Whyte Hall in the Fire Island Pines. Whyte Hall will be the community center and will host performances given by the Pines Arts Project.

Al Gore is in the news today with the publication of a new book. The buzz is that he still might run for president. Apparently, he's third in some polls even though he has said he is not a candidate. I have mixed feelings about Gore. I believe that he really blew it in 2000 in the debates with Junior. He should have wiped the floor with him, but instead he pandered and waffled and became a different Al Gore in each of the debates. I'm sure he has learned since then that you have to have a core set of beliefs and positions, and stick to them, He spent too much time around the waffler-in-chief Bill Clinton. I think he is tainted by his association with the Clintons. However, he could be a "new" Al Gore based upon his work on global warming, etc. It should be interesting. We'll just have to wait and see what he does.

The Democrats have finally caved on the issue of a deadline for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. We knew this was coming. Junior gets his way on the war, more troops will die, more money will be wasted, and our image worldwide will continue to suffer. The American public is powerless to stop it. So much for democracy.

Quotable: One of Andrew Sullivan's readers notes that Groucho Marx has a great one-liner that fits flip-flopper Mitt Romney perfectly: "I have my principles. If you don't like them, I have others."

Jim