Nationally the race is close. Electorally, Obama is setting up a landslide. He has a 5-10% margin everywhere from Ohio to New Mexico.
www.pollster.com
Start planning for a 28% capital gains tax.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Friday, July 4, 2008
Letter to Edward Markey
Congressman Markey:
It had not occurred to me, until your comments on 'This Week', that US investment in renewable R&D was more than just good for the country: it is also a bludgeon to be used diplomatically.
Bush goes to Saudi Arabia with a tin cup because OPEC controls the spigots and because an OPEC dollar-to-euro conversion would destroy our country. In finding leverage with them you make two remarkable insights:
First, that energy is the unit of power in our new cold war. And, second, that even though the US is on the tail end of its domestic oil production, its ability to innovate new solutions is the biggest stick in the fight.
Your comments re-frame enviornmentalism as a national security issue more convincingly than any I have ever heard.
Even the greatest military powers have bowed to the Middle East since Churchill's navy switched from coal to oil. A successful new technology would re-affirm our military's dominance and change a geopolitical equation that has played out, not just in recent wars, but in every war in living memory.
Such a technology is surely decades away. But, as you point out, merely the threat of unprecedented investment--a moonshot--can immediately strengthen our position in the world. Convincing speculators of the US government's commitment to energy independence is also possibly the best way to lower oil costs in the short term.
I hope you conclude, with me, that because research in renewable energy is crucial to US national security, it deserves funding commensurate with our military.
-Brandon Wolfe
It had not occurred to me, until your comments on 'This Week', that US investment in renewable R&D was more than just good for the country: it is also a bludgeon to be used diplomatically.
Bush goes to Saudi Arabia with a tin cup because OPEC controls the spigots and because an OPEC dollar-to-euro conversion would destroy our country. In finding leverage with them you make two remarkable insights:
First, that energy is the unit of power in our new cold war. And, second, that even though the US is on the tail end of its domestic oil production, its ability to innovate new solutions is the biggest stick in the fight.
Your comments re-frame enviornmentalism as a national security issue more convincingly than any I have ever heard.
Even the greatest military powers have bowed to the Middle East since Churchill's navy switched from coal to oil. A successful new technology would re-affirm our military's dominance and change a geopolitical equation that has played out, not just in recent wars, but in every war in living memory.
Such a technology is surely decades away. But, as you point out, merely the threat of unprecedented investment--a moonshot--can immediately strengthen our position in the world. Convincing speculators of the US government's commitment to energy independence is also possibly the best way to lower oil costs in the short term.
I hope you conclude, with me, that because research in renewable energy is crucial to US national security, it deserves funding commensurate with our military.
-Brandon Wolfe
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