The best hurricane blog. The National Hurricane Center advisories on Ike.
Here is an image of Hurricane Ike from the International Space Station.

Here are some relevant posts on the hurricane-climate link:

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Newt Gingrich’s coal-and-billionaire fueled K-Street 527 corporation, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF), is gearing up the next phase in its campaign to continue the extreme Bush agenda for four more years. Newt’s front group has risen to prominence through his “Drill Here, Drill Now” campaign to redefine energy policy, but he now plans to roll out his right-wing agenda on education, the economy, and health as well. The Wonk Room has obtained Newt’s game plan for “Solutions Day,” September 27, in the form of a 12-page “Action Pack for Activists.”

“Solutions Day” should really be called Pollution Day. The game plan recommends that volunteers to “invite local elected officials” and reach out to “key, state-level bloggers,” and “taxpayer groups, such as Americans for Prosperity” to gather people at “workshops” listening to Newt Gingrich speak (webcast, DISH Network—219, and Direct TV – Channel 577). Americans for Prosperity, as readers of the Wonk Room know, is yet another fossil-fueled right-wing front group.

On September 27, Newt will sell this radical right-wing agenda using talking points designed by propaganda master Frank Luntz:

Energy Gingrich’s Drill, Baby Drill plan to continue our suicidal pollution-based economy will be bolstered by Regnery Publishing’s “Drill Here, Drill Now” book and “We Have the Power,” a movie by Newt’s wife being distributed by Citizens United, the right-wing hate group run by Whitewater hit man David Bossie.

Economy Gingrich claims to be in favor of “real investments for long-term growth to create the best jobs, with the best take-home pay, and with the greatest prosperity for safe pensions and retirements.” However, the economic agenda of ASWF and its allies in fact includes defeat of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would restore bargaining rights to workers against corporate intimidation; the abolishment or slashing of taxes that only affect the superwealthy, such as the estate tax (“death tax”) and corporate tax; and the privatization of Social Security (“Personal Social Security Savings Accounts”).

Education ASWF is promoting Bob Compton’s documentary “Two Million Minutes” and calling for increased science and technology education. This emphasis hides Newt’s radical agenda of privatizing government services, bringing religion into schools and forcing all immigrants to learn English.

Health Under Newt Gingrich’s drug company-funded Center for Health Transformation, ASWF will push its agenda to protect corporate malpractice (“tort reform”), to break down Medicare and Medicaid, and to make health insurance more expensive (“consumerist health care“).

Download Newt’s “Action Pack” here. To fight back on Newt’s day of pollution, join the Green Jobs Now Day of Action, for real solutions, not more pollution.

I have uploaded the entire 233-page (!) “Discussion Draft” of the bipartisan bill here. I have blogged on many of the main elements in the summary (see links below). But as you can imagine in a bill this long, a lot of provisions are not in the summary.

Some of the provisions are fluff, like the entire 12-page Title I — “National Commission on Energy Independence.” Just what we need, another commission.

Some provisions are useful clarification. As I hoped, Title II makes clear that the “consumer tax credits for advanced vehicles” is focused on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), see Section 202 (page 17). The tax credit is “$2,500, plus $400 for each kilowatt hour of traction battery capacity in excess of 4 kilowatt hours” with a cap at $7,500. A midsized PHEV might consume 0.3 to 0.4 kilowatt-hours per mile when it runs on electricity (yes, Toyota may well do better than that, but I doubt GM will).

So a PHEV20 (one with a 20-mile range running only on electricity) might have a battery capacity 7 kwh, and get a $3700 tax credit. The Chevy Volt is supposed to be 40-mile electric range and get about $6500.

Her are a few more highlights and lowlights of the draft bill:

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I have uploaded the entire 233-page (!) “Discussion Draft” of the bipartisan bill here. I have blogged on many of the main elements in the summary (see links below). But as you can imagine in a bill this long, a lot of provisions are not in the summary.

Some of the provisions are fluff, like the entire 12-page Title I — “National Commission on Energy Independence.” Just what we need, another commission.

Some provisions are useful clarification. As I hoped, Title II makes clear that the “consumer tax credits for advanced vehicles” is focused on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), see Section 202 (page 17). The tax credit is “$2,500, plus $400 for each kilowatt hour of traction battery capacity in excess of 4 kilowatt hours” with a cap at $7,500. A midsized PHEV might consume 0.3 to 0.4 kilowatt-hours per mile when it runs on electricity (yes, Toyota may well do better than that, but I doubt GM will).

So a PHEV20 (one with a 20-mile range running only on electricity) might have a battery capacity 7 kwh, and get a $3700 tax credit. The Chevy Volt is supposed to be 40-mile electric range and get about $6500.

Her are a few more highlights and lowlights of the draft bill:

Read more

At least the Defenders of Wildlife (DoW) understand how to counterpunch against the Rovian myth-building around Palin.

We knew that Palin was fighting hard alongside Big Oil to ensure the polar bear goes extinct– even if that meant opposing the Bush Interior Department on global warming. But her policy on wolves is unconscionable.

Warning — this ad is quite brutal and gruesome, because that’s the kind of slaughter of animals Palin champions:

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When the world’s uber-centrist magazine of choice runs a headline almost identical to mine (see “The Last Car You Would Ever Buy — Literally“), you know it’s all over. Especially when one of that magazine’s leading energy columnists, Vijay Vaitheeswaran, used to sing that technology’s praises (here). Here’s the bottom line:

But the promise of hydrogen-powered personal transport seems as elusive as ever. The non-emergence of hydrogen cars over the past decade is particularly notable since hydrogen power has been a darling of governments worldwide, which have spent billions of dollars in subsidies and incentives to make hydrogen cars a reality….

Here’s the fatal flaw in the H2 economy:

…the logistical, technological and economic problems facing hydrogen fuel-cell cars mean that they are very unlikely to make it to market any time soon. One thing holding back hydrogen vehicles is a chicken-and-egg problem: why build cars if there is nowhere to fill them up, or hydrogen filling-stations if there are no cars to use them? Just around the corner, honest.

But wait, here’s another fatal flaw in the H2 economy:
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