Now, according to a story in the San Diego Union Tribune, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is again backing down, reducing the mandate for zero-emission vehicles from 75,000 (between 2012 and 2017) to as few as 27,500. Pretty weak, considering we had electric cars on the road in the 90's.
The CARB claims that they can have a greater impact on air quality by focusing on low-emission hybrids, but this misses the point of developing mandates in the first place, which is to push the development of new problem-solving technologies which would not result from the free market alone. Anyone who has been near a road or a parking lot recently has seen hybrid vehicles on the road. The Prius is everywhere you look! The Prius is already popular and successful because it makes its drivers feel virtuous and cutting-edge, and most of all it saves them money! Hybrids will only become more popular as gas prices continue to rise. Now that hybrid vehicles have entered the mainstream, regulators need to look ahead and push for true zero-emission vehicles.
Check out this new approach, especially the videos: http://zeropollutionmotors.us/
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( 3 / 10 )I attended a vigil in Balboa Park tonight to commemorate the 4,000 American soldiers who have died in the Iraq war, and call for an end to the war. Lots of people honked in support. Navid came with me but got too shy as soon as he saw a news van pulling up, so he waited for me in the car.
There were some young men at the vigil and they were talking about being hounded by the recruiters, starting when they were 16. One boy was told he could take his surf board with him if he joined the Navy. The organizers had a temporary cemetary set up with the names of the soldiers, their age, rank, and the day they were killed. Almost all of them in their twenties. They never even made it to their 30th birthday.
There were 300 kids in my high school class. 4,000 young people killed means every single graduate of my high school being killed, not just one year or two years but 13 years in a row, every single graduate being killed.
And of course those numbers pale to near insignificance compared to the number of Iraqis who have died; estimated at 650,000 in 2006. This American Life did an episode on the Lancet study that came up with that number, and their methodology is pretty convincing.
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( 2.9 / 23 )Navid and I went to Torrey Pines State Park today to check out the wildflowers. Unfortunately I didn't bring my plant book so I couldn't identify a lot of them, but I took plenty of pictures and I'm starting a plant gallery for those whose names I do know. I expect to add to it as I learn more. Check it out!
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( 2.9 / 19 )I got this video link from the Kucinich email list. Has anyone heard about this angle? I don't remember hearing about the editorial he wrote, but the news of his resignation was all over the place, even though the accusations he made against the Bush administration in his editorial are much worse than what Spitzer himself is accused of.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMo7T9t0Gzk
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( 3 / 20 )I know, I know, I'm two days late. International Women's Day came and went on Saturday, with relatively little notice in the United States, and no mass emails from me. (For those who didn't receive my series of Women's Week emails last year they are still posted here .) It just so happened that Navid actually did cook breakfast for me that morning, as men were supposed to do that day, but I suspect it had more to do with his craving for waffles than a heartfelt desire to show gratitude for my female presence in his life. The waffles were tasty nonetheless!
The fact that it is Women's Day again means that this blog has been in existence for a whole year! I thank all of you who have stopped by to read (hello? anyone?) and I hope you will be a regular visitor next year too.
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( 3.1 / 17 )Hey! It's not often that you get to vote a politician OUT of office. Here's your chance...
The League of Conservation Voters is pledging to defeat Big Oil's allies at the polls, and they want us to decide who should earn a spot in their “Dirty Dozen.” Who do you think is the dirtiest? Who consistently votes the wrong way on critical environmental priorities such as global warming and clean energy?
The poll closes soon – VOTE TODAY!
Voting is definitely fun, but it's no joke. Your vote really will have an impact. Since 1996, LCV has defeated 43 out of 67 members of the Dirty Dozen! That's a 64% success rate - pretty remarkable considering 95% of incumbents win reelection.
Which candidate do you want to defeat?
Vote today and then tell everyone you know to join our campaign to get the bad guys out and the good guys in!
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( 2.8 / 18 )I went to the PDA (Progressive Democrats of America) San Diego endorsement meeting on Friday for the 50th and and 52nd congressional districts. I live in the 50th, so Brian Bilbray is my Representative. He is a Republican and Judy Hess, the PDA San Diego leader, said that when they went to DC to lobby Congress, he was very rude and disrespectful to them, his constituents. It was so bad that one of his staff members tracked them down in the hallway afterwards to apologize for his behavior.
There are two Democrats running against Bilbray: Cheryl Ede and Nick Liebham. Their responses to the PDA endorsement questionnaire are posted at http://www.pda-metro-sandiego.org/ . As you can see, Cheryl put a lot of time and thought into her answers, and her convictions match well with the progressive agenda. By contrast, Nick declined to fill out the questionnaire, preferring to submit a letter in his own format, which did not answer many of the questions. When Judy plugged his answers into the questionnaire, he complained that she had done it unfairly. He behaved similarly at the endorsement meeting. He refused to use the microphone and tried to change the format of the presentation after the other two candidates had followed the organizers' rules. He spent his whole ten minute speach talking about his background, his campaign staff, and the support he has from the national Democratic party, rather than his stances on the issues.
In contrast to Nick's overconfident style, Cheryl seemed rather timid and self-effacing in her presentation, using a lengthy quotation from President Eisenhower and mentioning that she decided not to go into the Peace Corps as soon as her mother reminded her that she doesn't like to camp. She seemed less focused on winning the election and more focused on spreading information. I thought this was unfortunate since she took strong stances on the issues and I think she would represent us well in Congress. However, Nick Liebham seems much better positioned to win the election at this stage of the game.
The problem is that once in office, his votes might not be that different than Bilbray's! When asked whether he would join the Progressive Caucus, he emphatically said "No." He went on to say that he would not always agree with us but he would always listen. I would like to know what good it does to be listened to if the person listening has already made up their mind that they don't agree. Likewise, when someone asked if he supported the fairness doctrine, which would give political candidates equal coverage, he said no, claiming that with the many different media outlets and sources available in this country today, people can find any information they want if they are interested. Apparently he doesn't realize that most Americans are too busy putting food on the table for their families to go to the corners of the internet looking for the truth when all the major networks are repeating the administration's lies and the front-runners' poll results over and over.
Neither candidate got a 2/3 majority, so neither got the PDA endorsement, but my personal endorsement goes to Cheryl Ede for Congress. You can learn more at www.cheryledeforcongress.org .
PDA did endorse Vickie Butcher for the 52nd district, to run against Duncan Hunter.
The PDA endorsement meeting for the 51st and 53rd districts is next Friday, the 29th. Bob Filner is the Democratic incumbent in the 51st and will no doubt be endorsed. Susan Davis (D) is the Democratic incumbent and Mike Copass is the challenger in the 53rd. I have heard liberal San Diegans' frustration with Davis in past meetings and I think Copass will give her a run for his money. I met him at Friday's meeting and he struck me as a very friendly, engaging, with-it young man. He impressed another lady at the meeting by remembering her first and last name although they had only met once before. That will serve him well as a politician!
The primary election for Congress is June 3rd.
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( 3.1 / 9 )Dear Beth,
We warned Los Angeles County about the impending trouble with the "double bubble." Now, the Sacramento Bee editorial board is calling it "a major voting disaster." And there is speculation that the outcome could change how many delegates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama receive in California.
94,500. That's roughly how many people in Los Angeles County voted for Obama and Clinton on Super Tuesday, only to see their votes go uncounted by the now infamous -- and fatally flawed -- "double bubble" ballot.
Here's the bad news: Despite a record-breaking turnout of 189,000 voters registered as "Decline-to-State" (DTS), Dean Logan, L.A.'s Registrar of Voters, is still refusing to physically hand-count these ballots, effectively disenfranchising 94,500 -- at least HALF -- of DTS voters because they didn't fill in an extra, redundant bubble before voting for President.
Time is running out to change Dean Logan's mind. Over 22,000 people like you have signed our "Count Every Vote" petition in just a matter of days. To help the Courage Campaign deliver as many signatures as possible directly to Dean Logan, please forward this link to your friends immediately:
http://www.couragecampaign.org/CountEveryVote
Calling it "a major voting disaster" and a "raw deal" for Decline-to-State voters, the Sacramento Bee's editorial board puts "94,500" in perspective:
"The scale of disenfranchisement is huge - 94,500 of 189,000 decline-to-state votes. That's half of the nonpartisan ballots. By comparison, in the infamous Florida "butterfly ballot" debacle in the 2000 presidential election, 19,120 Palm Beach County ballots went uncounted because of the bad ballot design."
That's right. Five times as many voters are now being disenfranchised than in Palm Beach County's "hanging chad" catastrophe of 2000. The only difference is that Dean Logan, the L.A. County registrar, knew this would happen ahead of time -- because a lawyer for the Courage Campaign warned him in a detailed letter prior to the primary.
22,225 (and growing). That's the astounding number of people who have signed the "Count Every Vote" petition so far, building a movement for election integrity that could become our largest signature-gathering campaign ever. Please tell your friends, family and fellow activists about our campaign to demand that Dean Logan count every vote today:
http://www.couragecampaign.org/CountEveryVote
Excited by the race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, an unprecedented number of Decline-to-State voters rushed to the polls last Tuesday to vote in the Democratic Party primary. But at least HALF of these voters in Los Angeles County -- 20% of the electorate in the largest election jurisdiction in America -- are now finding out that their vote was rejected because they "failed" to fill out a meaningless bubble on a confusing ballot.
We don't know if -- as the Los Angeles Daily News speculated -- the "double bubble" debacle "could affect the number of delegates each candidate gets -- potentially determining the Democratic nominee for president." We do know that, no matter the speculation, we can't take one vote for granted.
Spread the word. Count every vote:
http://www.couragecampaign.org/CountEveryVote
The stakes are high. And, with a deadline looming to certify the vote, time is short.
Your support will help make sure the "double bubble" disaster does not disenfranchise independent voters inspired by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Please forward this email today so that we can deliver the largest number of signatures possible to Dean Logan and remind him that the integrity of our elections -- and the faith of people in the process -- depends on counting every vote.
Thank you for taking a few minutes of your time to defend our democracy today.
Rick Jacobs
Chair
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( 2.8 / 13 )If the other link didn't work for you to watch Dennis's withdrawal press conference, try this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tApDGClSSI
Then check out his Congressional campaign at http://www.kucinich.us/ .
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( 3 / 11 )You can see the California election results (the full ones, not just the top three as reported in all major media outlets) at http://vote.ss.ca.gov/ .
I checked the results and saw that Dennis Kucinich was getting 0.8% in San Diego County, based on the absentee ballots. It seemed like a low number but then I thought, that's almost 1 percent. That means about one in every 100 Democratic voters voted for Dennis! That's no small feat considering that he was shut out by the media almost from day one, that he takes no special interest money, and that he was forced to stop campaigning for President to work on holding his Congressional seat against big-money invaders. That means that if each one of us Kucinich supporters could convince 50 other people to vote for him, we would win! That doesn't seem so insurmountable, does it? Suddenly being at 1% in the polls doesn't seem like a drag, it seems like a great start. So how can one person reach 50 others? Well, they can start conversations, hold house parties, pass out fliers, go door-to-door, send emails, write in their blogs, there are lots of ways to reach other humans (they are all around us!) And you don't even have to reach all 50 people yourself--you can pyramid-scheme it! You convince 4 people, they each convince 4 people, and they each convince 4 people and you now have 85% of the vote!
So my mind is blown already, and then I start thinking we can go much further, much faster. The nation is roughly evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. Put another way, for every Democrat there is a Republican and vice versa. So if each Democrat adopts just one Republican and converts them, we will have a nation united for peace, prosperity, civil rights and economic justice for all! I was thinking we could set up a website for it, to facilitate the adoption of Republicans. And here's the great part--we can sell it to the Republicans as their chance to convert Democrats! We set up the dialog partners, get them talking, and see who prevails. (Needless to say, I have full confidence in the result.)
So what are we waiting for? Let's go change our destiny!
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