I Just Got Airboarded by Lisa Murkowski
While we’re trying to eliminatie torture from the U.S. foreign policy curriculum, I propose an amendment. Not only should human beings everywhere be free from the threat of torture, but so should logic. A bold suggestion on my part, I know, but if this won’t convince you, nothing will.
After health care, the next great debate before the congress will be climate change. We know that our Republican Senator (I love that we have only one now) has sold her political soul to the Republican party. She gets to be a muckety-muck, and many of her saner and more moderate tendencies get to be sold down the river. Just in case anyone missed her position on climate change, she’s now (instead of slinking away somewhere with a bag on her head) gone and published her opinion in the Anchorage Daily News.
Here’s the premise if you don’t have your shovel and boots handy to tackle the whole thing. It’s not like waterboarding exactly, but its close. And since it has to do with emissions, let’s call it airboarding.
(clears throat) Climate change. It’s complex. It’s important. How should we handle it? We need to be really careful, otherwise businesses in the state of Alaska will have to comply with regulations when they put bad things in the air. But we must reduce greenhouse gases, there’s no doubt about that. So, let’s find an organization that’s up to the task. No, not the Environmental Protection Agency with all those scientists and experts and experience. I’m talking about an organization that is capable of handling this complexity, and walking that delicate ethical line between saving the planet, and making sure we don’t ruin our economy while we do it. So, let’s toss aside all those experts and scientists and people who do nothing all day but think about clean air. Let’s put the whole thing in the hands of…. congress! They won’t let all those lobbyists, and campaign donations, and pressure from industry affect them. They never have before, right? Just trust them.
(head hits desk)
If you do happen to have a strong constitution, and you feel able to witness the torture for yourself, you may enter the chamber by clicking HERE.
Throw the cow???
How udderly ridiculous!
Mancow wuz a bravado-spewing jock, ’til he tossed his Bessie…
Time to vote her out of the Senate. She’s as bad as her pa.
After enjoying these last few weeks of unseasonably warm weather here in Wasilla, I’m thinking that the climate change is already under way and most likely has been for quite some time.
I don’t think it is just Alaska perpetrating the climate change but we are being subjected to the unregulated industrial forces in other far north regions to our east (Russia and China, just to name a few)
What we need to do now is enact legislation to not prevent climate change, but to slow it down in our lifetime so that our children, but most likely our grandchildren, will enjoy the benefits.
It’s gone wayyyy to far for us to worry about the current state of affairs, but we can make a difference for the future: or not, as my ex-boss used to say who cares what the world is like for my kid? She’ll have to deal with it and it’s not concern of mine.
Oops, I meant to say Russia and China to our West, not East….
Have a look at this chart if there’s any doubt in your mind that the world is warming up faster than is healthy for humans.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png
Climate change denial is batchit crazy.
Ms Murkowski is either delusional or lying. The science on climate change is already clear and daunting. #1 even if we radically reduced our carbon footprints tomorrow, the earth will continue to warm up for decades, the effects we are seeing are not short term fluctuations of long term trends. They cannot be reversed in the short term.
Claiming the economic effects of acting on climate change now would be deleterious is to lie about the long term effects. Yes we might have to tighten our belts some and modify our behaviors, but that is as nothing compared to the effect of a 75′ rise in sea level in the next 100 years.
There is a whole lot more to this story than is conveyed in the small elements discussed. We are beginning to see the effects of our blind behavior respecting the human population. It is the height of hubris to pretend to control the world when we cannot even control ourselves.
Then of course we have to ask the question, who does control us?
KN#7,
Who is controlling us, indeed. Your idea from August of boycotting Fox looks like it is beginning to take hold. I think we have to be responsible for ourselves and the community on this planet. Getting rid of those lying liars on Fox would be a good start.
No concept of science or facts or that people are smart enough to figure out whats going on?
Why do republicans hate the earth?
yes, AKpetmom, the whole concern about climate change is to, at the very least, slow. it. down.
We need to wake up and get a grip.
Really.
Too few have their eyes wide open.
Why to republicans hate humanity?
I went to the ADN link and read some of the comments.
It appears that Lisa has a few ‘ supporters ‘ there and they think she is right.
Classicsatchmo in particular is quite vocal. He said get it away from the
EPA ( the Experts… who are not influenced by lobbyist of course ) and let
the Government ( Congress ) run it.
But aren’t these the SAME people who DEFIANTLY say/claim the Government can NOT run anything effectively and they want ‘ smaller government ‘… and Guvmint out of their lives.
{ I remember Glenn Beck and his 9-12 project… wasn’t that the Meme..?}
This week they want the Guvmint in their lives.What a bunch of Morans!
Krubo, my take is she (Murkowski) is lying. I think her short term greed wins over her looking to the future, with responsibility for all.
I chose not to enter the chamber. The days are already upon us that some cities or states that never had floods, snow, earthquakes are beginning to experience these changes. It is cold when normally hot and vise versa. It is sad to read that your Senator refuses to acknowledge what is in front of her; but feels so compelled to heed to her base with such ignorance.
EPA and NOT Congress needs to over-see Climate Change. We do need Regulations on what goes in the air, into our water and etc.
Well…
We sure seem to have a thing for hiring goofballs to go do our government stuff…
Dear Senator M-
I do not want Congress regulating emissions standards based on whether big business WANTS to invest in tidier ways to do things …
I want Congress to tell big business to get over it’s nasty lil set of selves and invest or desist.
I’m not EVEN interested in discussing this.
This foolishness about economic trouble lying in wait if we try to address serious concerns over anything business doesn’t want to change is the same kind of hoo-hoo brain thinking which brought us the housing bubble…
And the big-business INDUCED economic trouble we have now…
THOSE folks already blew their chance.
Period.
Thank you,
An Alaskan with a bruised forehead…and a dented desk…
there are beginning to be a lot of us.
PS-
Senator M-
The EPA is the appropriate body to actually do the work they were established to do. Congress hasn’t been blowing anybody’s hair back lately with the quality of job it’s doing , so just stay over there til you all get the hang of your own dang jobs, please…?
I need some aspirin…
Yeah, I saw that earlier today and nearly lost my lunch. She’s gone off the deep end. I live and work here, and I don’t want Congress in charge of my air, no way, no how!
Am I right in thinking that most of the people of Alaska must surely realize the consequences to them of climate change? More immediate consequences than to most of us?
I don’t suppose it would do any good to ask if anyone in Congress knows what the Evironment in Environmental Protection Agency means.
Would it?
I don’t suppose it would do any good to ask if anyone in Congress knows what the Protection in Environmental Protection Agency means.
Would it?
I don’t suppose it twould do any good to ask if anyone in Congress knows what Protecting the Enviornment mean in the context of green house gasses.
Would it?
Or whose job it already is, to Protect the Environment, in the US of A?
Would it it?
Naw. I didn’t think so either.
I would think any gardener could tell you that global warming is real. When I was a kid, I gave my mom huge bouquets of lilacs (cut from her bushes, of course) every Mother’s Day.
But now they’re done and gone by the second Sunday in May.
Hear hear..to Alaskan Pis comments. In my part of the Will. Valley now..we are in year 4..of great changes in watering needed for the fields, and the need to continue a rather agressive upgrade of drip irrigation..each year. Being older than dirt..I am used to ..roughly..20ish yr cycles..gonna be..interesting…to read the tree rings..when I am 100….
Okay, I read the senators article, then I went outside, found a cow, and stuck my head up its southern end. I then inhaled deeply, and asked the cow, “Is there really life on this planet, or do I need to fix myself some chicken soup.” The cow just belched some methane and contentedly ambled away. I decided on another cup of coffee.
Jammer5 – ROFLMAO
I looked at the comments as well and had to bang my head on the desk a couple of times. Those who are commenting PRO Lisa M. are very shortsighted. It is not cut and dry, it is not your town, state, or country. IT IS A GLOBAL ISSUE! Pollution exists in many forms and we need to curb all of it, ALL OF IT! Coal will never be clean, but we can reduce its use. Nuclear Energy is amazing, but what do we do about the waste. WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT THE WASTE. Solar in the North East is not our answer, so expand into wind, hydro, bio fuel. Why not?
The scientists are there to help us grow into a less polluted living and more self-sustainable society. We need to listen and act. We DO NOT need to listen to politicians who are influenced by their next check from corporate goons.
Wow, those comments got me worked up.
Coal will never be clean.
Amen to that.
What the anti’s do not understand, or refuse to understand, is basic chemistry fact: anything that burns gives off large amounts of CO and CO2.
Wood + heat = CO, CO2, and carbon-, nitrogen- and sulfur-based acids.
Any form of CH + heat = H2O, CO, CO2 and carbon-based acids.
She has become totally absorbed into the Republican party. It is time to get her out of there and try someone new. See how long it takes to happen again. She is only concerned with maintaining the status quo and supporting monied big business. She sees nothing positive and no positive aspects like jobs, and general improvement of our country and economy that technology could bring. She wants us to continue to live like cavemen because the future looks scary and progressive otherwise.
I saw that headline and couldn’t go in; my day was bad enough as it was. I was not feeling sufficiently snarky enough to go in and blast the stupidity.
Two things to remember about Lisa and why she is making such ridiculous statements.
1. Ms. Murki’s campaign contributions mainly come from the fossil fuel boys. She is their “gal”.
2. Her religious beliefs are of the same ilk as Palin and Parnell, so she believes that we are near the End of Times and she’s helping to prepare for it. (There’s a picture somewhere I think AKMuck’s got it of those three at one of the Assembly of God services with the crazy preachers.)
“Let’s think about it.” – This is pretty much Murkowski’s position on everything. Its the thoughtful-sounding version of “just say no.” Note the headline on the Anchorage Daily New’s lower front page today “Health Reform won’t cure Doctor shortage”. Actually, the current proposals also won’t alleviate traffic jams, win the war in Afghanistan or get Anchorage a decent newspaper. (I’m sure tomorrow’s headline will be “Health Reform won’t cure problems with television reception.”) Anyway, this is also Lisa’s position on health care reform. I’ve written her five times and gotten nearly identical replies that she can’t support health care reform efforts because the current proposals won’t instantly alleviate the shortage of primary care physicians. So, instead, she wants to study the problem some more. And here we are again on climate change. “Let’s study it some more, let’s think about it, Let’s do nothing for a long time but not actually say no to anything because then I’ll look like a thoughtful moderate and not just another Republican robot repeating “no, no, no, no, no….”". Is anyone else out there old enough to remember when they used this line to criminally delay regulation of tobacco products? “I mean, we don’t really, really, really know that cigarettes cause cancer.” Right?
There has to be something going on with our climate, when here in Iowa we never really had a good old hot summer. And now we are haveing the coolest fall I can ever remember. When I see that Alaska is having warmer temps than Iowa in the month of October—–What is going on????? Snow in Nebraska?
Whew!!——I am not ready for this.
“Airboarding”…..LOL. Good one, AKM.
Maybe airboarding is Murkowski’s way of handling climate change?
Theoretically, ahem…..if the GOP blow their hot air continuously down people’s tracheas as per waterboarding techniques, then those people would never blow off CO2, thus decreasing atmospheric CO2.
Cunning technique except those airboarded people would “die quickly”…..but WAIT! That would fit in nicely with Part Two of their health care plan. Those clever GOP! Two bothersome policy birds with one stone.