Another Late Night (Early Morning) Rant

Ya know, it seems I can't have a coherent string of thoughts in the middle of the day. But for some reason, if I stay up all night: Verbal diarrhea!

It's been a while, so let's see what I can cover.

Health Care Reform

We went from "Universal Health Care" to "Affordable Health Care" to "Health Care Reform". What a year! I would warn conservatives that while "ObamaCare" might seem like a catchy buzzword, linking your opposition to health care reform while simultaneously bashing it, will backfire once many of the provisions become active. You opposed "exchanges" and "banning pre-existing conditions" and "free physicals" and "end-of-life counseling?" Are you friggin' nuts? If I were Obama, I would start using "ObamaCare" as part of my reelection slogan now.

Drill Baby, Dr..., OOPS! Plug Baby, Plug!!

I feel for President Obama. Just as he was trying to build support among moderate Republicans (all 3.5 of them) for "Cap and Trade" legislation by dropping the ban on offshore oil drilling, BP has a huge offshore drilling disaster. Kinda like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown. AARGH!

On the upside, Mr. Obama has taken the pragmatic pro-nuclear power approach. Hopefully, that works out a little better.

Tanning Bed + Arizona = Awkward Questions

I don't look illegal...Do I?

I actually feel bad for the police and sheriffs in Arizona. One law just turned a bunch of consummate professionals into career racists. Of course the real racists are having a field day.

Tea Partay!!!

The tea party movement, or--as it used to be called--the Republican Party, has so far successfully defeated two of its power players in major senate races. Charlie Crist is trying to pull a "Lieberman" in Florida and I don't know what the hell Bob Bennett is going to do. John McCain is officially on notice.

Of course, this could be good for Dems come November. If Republicans try to overplay their hand with extremely conservative candidates, moderate Democrats will capitalize. I'm interested to see what happens in the KY primaries next week. Rand Paul appears to be riding daddy's last name to a big win. Right now, I'm supporting Dr. Daniel Mongiardo for the Democratic side. He's actually been a vocal supporter of President Obama since early 2008. Jack Conway is a fairly unknown quantity to me, but seems like he could be a superstar in the party. (He's a pretty-boy* with a good head on his shoulders.) Either way, I like our chances in November.

So far, spring has been pretty good to us progressives. I'm going to research Elana Kagan a bit more before I have a full-fledged rant about her as Obama's SCOTUS Justice nominee. Maybe I'll have another late night before summer.

*Being a person of average appearance, I've always been distrustful of attractive people. They tend to "play" a bit more than the rest of us. My first real political support went to Paul Tsongas in 1992 (I was 16), then Howard Dean in 2004, followed by Bill Richardson in 2008. Clearly, I like 'em average. No offense Dr. Mongiardo!

The Promise of Nuclear (or Nukular) Power

If there's one thing that "gets my goat" about environmentalists, it's their aversion to anything that could help the environment. Mention solar power, wind power, or biodiesel and they get all happy. Mention nuclear power or ethanol and they start to have seizures. There is virtually as much power in one pound of enriched uranium as in 3 million pounds of coal. Solar power and wind power are nice supplements, but you would have to build arrays larger than the Mojave Desert to power Las Vegas alone. I have some "solar solutions" as well, but lets stick to the nuke plants.

Europe and Asia use Nuclear power for the bulk of their energy needs. Fission power plants produce less air and water pollution than coal plants. Their greenhouse emissions are on par with natural gas power (primarily from the production of the fuel rods). They are expensive to build, but are less expensive to operate than any other type of power plant. The bulk of cost goes to employment which is good for the economy. Sure sounds horrible.

The one downside (other than up front construction costs) is the idea of waste disposal. Seeing barrels of nuclear waste is enough to make the most conservative environmentalist cringe. But think of the alternative. If coal power waste was treated nearly as carefully as it should be, there would be thousands of barrels of waste for every one barrel of nuclear waste. Nuclear power's political downfall is its most admirable aspect: Containment. The net environmental impact coupled with job creation and more energy independence (most of our uranium ore comes from Canada) makes nuclear power the best alternative for our ever-expanding energy needs.

It's not perfect. No energy source is. But until hydrogen fusion becomes a reality, we will need many more nuclear plants to help the environment and "fuel" economic development. Somebody just needs to grow the cajones to make this point on the national stage.