"But Earth Day is still useful--litter pickups, children's parades. Some things are simple enough for children to understand, but the grownups need to start raising their game. The grownups need Earth Life, and we need to teach today's children to be tomorrow's engineers and scientists."

In the words of George Carlin... fuck the children!

For two generations now we've been talking about how we Must Teach The Children to care about the environment. And we do a damn good job of it, at least until they turn sixteen. Then we set up a system where they have no choice but to grub for money, get a car to move around the suburban sprawl where we chose to raise them (it's so good for the children! Oh, the children, the children, I need a bonus room for the children, think if the children!), go to university and then pay off tens of thousands of dollars in student loans and other obligations which completely rule out doing anything with their lives but grub for money.

It's not the children who are wrecking the planet. Children have zero influence in what happens. Children don't buy SUV's. Children don't play golf. Children don't vote for Republicans because children don't give a shit about the three hundred dollar tax break. It's the adults. And even if we stroke ourselves off with how we're teaching the next generation to do a better job than we did--if indeed that was ever a valid argument, which it pretty demonstrably is not--we are out of generations.

Putting it all on The Children (oh, the children, put the children in the SUV and drive to the mall for the Earth Day celebration brought to you by Wal-Mart!) just lets us pretend the responsibility is someone else's.

In 1932, not only did they have to go all the way to the convention, but it took four ballots before Franklin Roosevelt beat out Al Smith for the nomination.

Everybody please just chill.

"But I also think Krugman is underestimating the likely consequences of the incredible advances that scientists have made in just the last ten or fifteen years in understanding and manipulating the building blocks of both matter and life itself. Synthetic biology and nanotechnology, alone, will offer humanity almost unlimited power to rebuild nature and the physical world."

Nuclear power will be too cheap to meter!

You'll be taking vacations on the Moon!

There is a Flying Car in your future!

Robots and automation will produce the twenty-hour work week!

Unintentionally, perhaps, this poll shows the foolishness of strategic reverse-engineering of candidates.

My first instinct was, "Jim Webb." But when I answered the individual questions, most of the answers turned out to point away from Webb. (Hispanic western governor, no preference re: hair part.)

Ultimately, of course, what Democrats have been doing (until this election, of course) is dissecting and strategizing and creating laundry lists of what qualifies you to be a winning candidate and more often than not, picking someone who meets all the criteria but goes down in flames.

(White guy, bomber pilot during WWII, senator from the midwest.)

(White guy, sitting VP from the South, fought in Vietnam.)

(White guy, former VP from the midwest.)

(White guy, senator from New England, fought in Vietnam.)

Asking for an example where a protracted Democratic primary worked out well for the Dems:

In 1932 Al Smith and Franklin Roosevelt went to four ballots at the convention. There were other contenders and one of them (Garner I think) agreed to pull out and support FDR.

(The parallels are kind of striking in that Al Smith was the preferred Tammany candidate, i.e. the long-established Democratic machine.)

That turned out pretty well I think...

Pre-Peak: "As prices rise, the free market will make there be more oil."

Post-Peak: "There's no shortage, it's just speculators driving up the price."