The only way that mainstream American beer is drinkable is if it's really, really, REALLY cold. So maybe the advent of ubiquitous, affordable refrigeration (which is dependent on cheap electricity) paved the way for a culture of equine urine. (As Mr. McClelland mentions, ALL American beers tasted pretty much like Bud by 1960 or so. My parents' brand was Shaefer. Shudder.)

Likewise, in Europe refrigeration has always been more expensive. Hence the possibility of beer that tastes good.

Fare thee well, Budweiser--you are to beer what Twinkies are to dessert.

Elwin9, where in Romm's article does he say anything that leads you to suspect that he's *not* factoring in the cost of batteries and inverters when he talks about wind power? See what he says about thermal solar:

"Jigar Shah, chief strategy officer of SunEdison, explained to me that he could guarantee delivery to Florida of more kilowatt-hours of power with solar photovoltaics -- *including energy storage so the power was not intermittent* -- for less money than the nuke plants cost."

Romm's idea, as I see it, is that combining wind and thermal solar will let us ease off on unsustainable sources--and one unsustainable source, if you remove the massive sustained government subsidies, is nuclear as it is presently conceived and built. He may be wrong about other things, but he doesn't promise a magic, Green bullet.

Amity, what about those subsidies? If nuclear was in fact amortizable over a reasonable span of years, why would the utility companies need so much money up front? Wouldn't the magic of the marketplace take care of the costs of building reactors, without any need for cumbersome government funding?

I recall reading a multi-part exposé of the nuclear power industry in the New Yorker back in the '70s that exposed the short-sightedness and corruption of the U.S. utilities industry as it was then--imagine, post-Reagan, post-Clinton, post-Bush, post-Enron, how much less incentive there is for the utilities to be transparent and safety-conscious. Nothing against the engineers and workers on the ground, but it was clear that the executives in charge of the power plants were not to be trusted with a helium Underdog balloon for the Macy's parade, let alone fissible materials. As drdave39 suggests, the American public needs to see that this has changed in a tangible way before it tries again with nuclear energy.

"He has not dissented from party orthodoxy in the way Bill Clinton did on the way to the presidency in 1992."

That's because Bill Clinton triangulated his way to Reaganism Lite, in many areas. Call it realism, or what have you, but Clinton simply didn't have ideas or policies to present as a counterpoise to Reaganism, which therefore continued to warp public discourse: everybody "knew" that Government wasn't the answer to poverty, inequality, etc. etc., so (with the exception of Hillary's botched health care initiative) incremental tweaks were the order of the day even before the GOP takeover of Congress in '94.

Perhaps Obama's emphasis on "tone" isn't just a cover for a lack of substance. Maybe by "tone" Obama and his staff refer to the fact that while Bill Clinton had an opportunity to reformulate post-FDR liberalism for the 21st century, yet failed to do so, Obama will not repeat the same mistake. (How much of the New Deal was "tone"?)

To be sure, the times may have been wrong for a bold statement of progressive policies and values when Clinton took office; but thanks to his lack of vision and boldness, not to mention certain zipper-related malfunctions, we'll never know, and that's the tragedy of the Clinton presidency.

The principal qualification for being a press secretary for this immoral regime is the ability to tell lies and convey spin with complete conviction. It's easier to do this if you're as dumb as two sticks and a rock (cf. the perky sorority girl that holds McClellan's old job currently). Press secretaries in a deceitful administration are like the heat shield tiles on the Space Shuttle: they're supposed to burn up on re-entry. As soon as the logical and ethical contradictions pile up too high, it's time for a new spokesman. The fact that he now acknowledges the vast pile of lies that have been long visible to everyone with a frontal lobe simply means that he's hanging out with smarter people now that he's away from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

It was reported locally that the McCain campaign paid to have Gov. Bobby Jindal flown to Arizona for the barbecue. So no, it's not just a social call.

Republicans retained control of the 1st district of Louisiana in the special election held on May 3rd. This was the seat vacated by the election of Rep. Bobby Jindal as governor. Democrats did win in the sixth district, where Don Cazayoux was elected to fill out the remainder of Rep. Richard Baker's term. Baker resigned his seat to become a lobbyist for the hedge fund industry.