Category Archives: Commentary

Look at Vermont

9/2/2010 – 11:15 am

Look at Alaska. Senator Lisa Murkowski conceded the Republican primary Tuesday to tea party/Palin candidate Joe Miller. In conceding, Ms. Murkowski criticized what she called distorted and personal attacks against her by Mr. Miller in the campaign. For his part, Mr. Miller accused Mr. Murkowski’s campaign staff of illegally interfering with the [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Civil Liberty, Electoral Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

How Hard is This?

8/19/2010 – 1:07 pm

Polish President Lech Kacszynski and 95 others were killed in a plane crash in Russia last April. A few days later, Polish boy and girl scouts erected a four-meter wooden cross in front of the presidential palace in Warsaw.
It’s been four months, a new president is in office and life is returning to normal. [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Civil Liberty | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Drinking Dry the Sea

8/12/2010 – 11:40 am

Consider the environmental woes that confront us. Consider drinking dry the sea. They feel about the same.
Global warming, overfishing, deforestation, uncontrolled release of genetically modified material, nuclear waste.
So cut it down, make it manageable. Choose a single issue – say the release of toxic chemicals into our air, soil, water and our [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Toxics | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

“… Is to Stop Discriminating…”

8/5/2010 – 12:12 pm

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority in Parents Involved in Community School Districts v. Seattle School District No. 1, (2007) wrote, “(t)he way to stop discriminating on basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
Sounds good, doesn’t it? Who says the Supremes are immune to sound [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Civil Liberty | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Vacation, Then and Now

7/29/2010 – 9:26 am

JOE’S POND, VT – We’re on vacation this week at Joe’s Pond (formerly “Injun Joe’s Pond”) in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. Swimming, canoeing, reading on the dock, getting sunburned, walking down to the little store for an ice cream after dinner, hearing the loons call at night.
It’s the kind of vacation I had as a [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Civil Liberty | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

On the Bayou

7/22/2010 – 4:54 pm

I was asked this week to write something for a fishermen’s publication about the BP oil spew. Here’s what I sent them:
I was in the Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana in the weeks after the Deepwater Horizon blew out. I’m an environmentalist; I work for Greenpeace. I was there to see for myself what [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Oil | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Whistling Past the Gas Station

7/15/2010 – 12:29 pm

I started writing about peak oil in this space in 1999; the last time I wrote about it (if I can believe my own search engine) was May 2008. Why so quiet lately?
The recession. In that May 2008 post, I noted that Goldman Sachs was predicting an oil price of $200/barrel in 2010. [...]

By floegel | Also posted in Energy, Iraq Invasion, Peak Oil | Tagged , | Comments (0)