like planting a virtual tree…

No.. I am not joking…

Here is a screen shot from the Internet Explorer 7 page from Microsoft:

Guess that will offset all of the virtual CO2. Probably should stop driving my virtual SUV also….

Also up for some laughs… apparently Global Warmi.. er Climate Change is not just a product of SUVs and respiration of living organisms, but also the production of concrete!!

via Ace:

Yup. All we need to do is stop cutting down trees (also known as “carbon sinks”), stop making cement, and stop burning anything and we can keep our planet pristine.

And also, dead, because the population will quickly reduce itself to almost nothing, the same as it was during the Stone Age. Which I suspect is the ultimate goal.

And the Stone Age isn’t too far off. One of the suggestions from the Carbon Grove Grave is that you should air dry half of your clothes, just like your great-great grammy did.

So now the People’s Republic of California would like to stop making concrete and limit construction I am sure, because, ya know… we gotta save the planet and everything. Lets see how long until they realize that won’t work as their economy falters and fails And they’re putting CO2 footprint stickers on cars as well… Thank God above I don’t live in that state….

I am reminded of the scene from the second Austin Powers were, ironicly enough, Tim Robbins plays the president, and Robbins has just got the ultimatum from Dr. Evil. Dr. Evil has his base on the moon and is threatening to blow up Washington D.C. unless he gets 1 Trillion dollars!

The President: C’mon, let me nuke that bastard.
Commander Gilmour: Are you suggesting that we blow up the moon?
The President: Would you miss it?
[looks around the table]
The President: Would you miss it?

Well, after reading these two news stories ’bout the People’s Democratic Republic of California …
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Since the above headline came from Reuters, I suspect the copywriter meant something different but inadvertently stated precisely Arnold’s intentions.

In his speech Friday night to the California Republican Party’s annual convention, Arnold said:

In movie terms, we are dying at the box office. We are not filling the seats.

Well, perhaps someone with the initials A.S. has been poisoning the popcorn. After all, over the past few months, this someone has spent more time attacking Republican state legislators than the Democrats, which would seem a surefire way to sicken the audience.

Or to use a military metaphor, Arnold has been aiming at and firing cannons at the center of the Republican army - those few Republicans who actually do hold office. Doesn’t sound like a very good method of recruiting and electing more Republicans to office

Can you image this if a battlefield general advocated this as a military strategy - shoot at your own army. After all, even the most inept general knows that idea of battle is to aim at the other army. I suspect that a court martial would be more likely than a medal.

It sure sounds like Arnold wants the party to follow his directions - whether it be his health care plan or tackling other issues with “broad public appeal,” like climate change and building highways, railroads and tunnels.

And with these new government initiatives, he hopes to recruit new party members from the so-called ranks of the independents.

Somewhat hilariously, in light of the expansions in government power he’s promoting, he urged construction of a one-page state party platform focused on lowering taxes, limiting the size of government and building a strong national defense.

It’s hard to see how he plans to accomplish the first two goals along with all the new government programs he wants to start up. I guess he’s just another politician who’s going to accomplish these goals by starving someone’s else’s ass to feed his own.

As for national defense, that’s a federal issue that the state party has no control over…so what’s the point. Meanwhile, he’s been rather muted as the Democratic-controlled legislature is advancing a referendum for a popular vote by Californians on a Iraqi withdrawal.

What’s more interesting is that in the name of “including, not excluding” he proposed excluding the social issues that have galvanized many in the party into political activism.

Now in this post, I don’t really want to dive into the murky waters as to what priority that social issues should play in the state or national Republican Party, except to note that any viable conservative movement is going to have to find accomodation among social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and those who want to limit the scope of government action.

Rather, I just want to highlight the irony in Arnold’s prescription. I guess that in his eyes, not all are equally worthy of “inclusion” - he wants to “include” a host of those who agree with him, many or most of whom are going to come from outside the current party - and the rest can take a hike - even if that means “excluding” a large portion of the existing party faithful.

Sounds more like a purge than enlarging the tent.

Is this the real definition of “post-partisan” (as Arnold would like to call himself): It’s all about me.

John Hawkins at Right Wing News has graciously offerer Cindy Sheehan some pro bono assistance for her race against Nancy Pelosi in the form of two hard-hitting ads, which he has posted on his site. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got more planned.

Even better, one of the commenters suggested a bumper sticker for her campaign:

RUN, CINDY! RUN!

Another commenter provided helpful installation instructions:

Cindy’s supporters should place this on their back bumper.
Everyone else will place this on their front bumper…

With supporters like John coming forward already, Cindy’s got this election in the bag!

Headline on the front page of today’s Oakland Tribune:

Alternative fuel programs rarely live up to promise: State has spent big bucks on methanol, natural gas-powered fleets only to abandon them

And the feature article that follows once again details the inability of government to pick and choose winning technologies in the alternative energy supplies field - and how their bungling has cost the taxpayers millions of dollars without showing positive impact on the environment.

During the past two years, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration has sunk more than $17 million into a state fleet of cars and trucks designed to be environmentally friendly. So far, the 1,138 “flex-fuel” vehicles have traveled a collective 10 million miles and burned more than 413,202 gallons of gas. But not one drop has been high-grade ethanol — the fuel that promised to turn the passenger fleet into clean driving machines.

That’s because the vehicles have no access to ethanol pumping stations. There were none when the Chevrolet Impala sedans and Silverado trucks were purchased and none are scheduled to open until December 2009. That’s four years after the vehicles first hit the road.

Even worse, the flex-fuel vehicles are actually chugging out more smog and greenhouse gases than many vehicles in the state’s old fleet — as much as 2,000 extra tons annually. As a result, energy experts question whether the administration’s zest to “look green” has come at the expense of real environmental progress.

If they’re right, Schwarzenegger’s office isn’t the first to bungle with alternative fuel. The latest purchases are the state’s fifth attempt in two decades to shift the vehicles its employees use on the job to cleaner fuel. The failed moves have cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

The article then goes on to describe the state’s series of misadventures since 1981 investing in passenger cars that ran on methanol, electricity, propane, compressed natural gas, and E85 - all of them abject failures.

The same thing happens every time,” said Bob Sonnenfelt, president of the Northern California-based Public Fleet Supervisors Association and manager of Oakland’s municipal fleet. “The infrastructure isn’t there to support the vehicles. The program dies, like it did with methanol, and they start another one.”

Thus now, taking a leaf perhaps from Hugo Chavez, or perhaps Canute, the state has decided that the way to succeed this time is by executive fiat: the world’s first low carbon fuel standard, which requires a 10% or greater reduction in the amount of carbon released into the air from auto fuels.

What a brilliant stroke from the Terminator. I’m surprised nobody’s thought of this idea before.

But alas, every party has it’s pooper. The article goes on to note that not everyone is certain that Arnold’s decrees will succeed.

“There are a lot of these big, bravado moments. They put out an executive order, or pass a law, but they don’t follow through with the commitment,” said S. David Freeman, former energy adviser to President Jimmy Carter. “The journey to energy independence requires real, substantive change.”

Here’s a radical idea for real, substantive change: get government out of the way and let market forces find a solution. Indeed, by eliminating CO2 emissions from politician’s pronouncements, we’d be halfway there right at the onset!

Hmm…the end of Affirmative Action in sight??

Ten years later, the numbers of underrepresented minorities at UC have rebounded at the undergraduate level, although they haven’t kept pace with high school graduation rates. But more blacks and Hispanics are also going to lesser-known branches of the 10-campus system and fewer to the flagships of Berkeley and UCLA.

Meanwhile, the movement toward race-blind admissions is spreading. Florida, Texas and Michigan have rewritten their admissions rules. Ward Connerly, the UC regent who started it all, is taking his campaign for race-blind admissions to as many as five more states next year, including Colorado, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arizona.

“If things unfold the way I am predicting they will unfold,” Connerly said, “I think we are witnessing the end of an era.”

The debate over affirmative action begins with how you define affirmative action.

To Connerly, it’s a system of “racial preferences” that drive a wedge between people. To his opponents, it’s a way to recognize that not everyone starts with the same advantages.

First we’ve seen the spectacle of Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointing herself Prime Minister and conducting policy negotiations with foreign powers on her own initiative in opposition to the President’s explicit request not to do so.

Next, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Tom Lantos, who accompanied Speaker Pelosi, appointed himself as Secretary of State, or at least would so appear, as he announced that the Democratic party had established its own executive branch separate from our the one that our Constitution established in Article II. As Rep. Lantos told the world:

We have an alternative Democratic foreign policy. I view my job as beginning with restoring overseas credibility and respect for the United States.

So now that the Congressional Lemoncrats™ have established a parallel U.S. government, the next logical step is for the states to fission. On April 5th, California’s Senate President pro Tem, Democrat Don Peralta, kicked off a drive to have the California legislature place a secession resolution on the California February 5, 2008 primary election ballot.

Well, he didn’t actually name it secession; but that’s effectively what he’s calling for when he wants the citizens of California to vote for having the state conduct its own foreign policy, which is the prerogative of the U.S. government.

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Duncan Avatar in his post When doing the right thing hurts… brought to our attention the plight of one Kirsten Stewart and the price she was paying for not hiring illegal immigrants as workers in her landscaping business.

However, examining the original column by Mark Cromer, titled A Casual Betrayal, adds a new dimension to this tale, highlighting various ironies and hypocrisies of progressives on the left towards the Illegal Immigration issue.

First, is the unexpected locale for this tale:

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On a recent trip to California, Presidential hopeful Sen, John McCain slammed President Bush on global warming, describing his handling of global warming as “terrible”. Unlike Guiliani, who recently had to settle for dinner in Sacramento with the governor, McCain had the privilege of hopping on board a helicopter with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to tour the Long Beach and Los Angeles ports, flying over the future site of a hydrogen power plant that will sequester carbon dioxide in the ground.

Back on the ground, standing side-by-side with the governor and having been given access to the governor’s usual retinue of trailing TV crews during what was billed as a nonpolitical event to call for tougher federal action to stop global warming, McCain heaped praise on Schwarzenegger, labeling the mandatory reductions in carbon emissions that California enacted last year a model for Congressional action on global warming.

Thus John McCain continues to cement his credential as a “big government” Republican, notably following on the heels of his intrusive campaign finance law, as he proclaims support for unprecedented massive government interference in the operation of U.S. businesses in the name of saving the planet from global warming. Looks like his “straight-talk express” has fully derailed and he’s hitching a ride from the nanny-state police.

Bon voyage, John…I prefer to walk.