Sickening

That's the best word to describe this photo.

Sickening

That's the best word to describe these images.

Rude, Crude, and In Your Food

I suppose I should comment on the disaster in the Gulf.  Just after it occurred, I posted a few places saying, in essence, yuck but I don't think it will get too bad.  Boy, was I wrong about the scale.  Unless the second "top hat" works, the Mississippi Canyon "incident" will end up being the 2nd biggest oil spill in history, ahead of Ixtoc I but less than the disaster precipitated by the first Gulf War.

But there isn't too much point in unleashing an extended rant.  Even a disaster on the scale of this spill won't change many people's minds about petroleum production and utilization.  Americans seems permanently locked into the conceptualization of oil as it stood in the mid-1980s.  The Exxon Valdez spill and two wars in the Persian Gulf didn't change anything fundamental.  The loss of the eastern Gulf of Mexico fisheries won't change anything.  The only thing that will change Americans' attitudes is an actual, long-term shortage.

It's coming.

Born to Watch Volcanoes

I've been watching the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland obsessively for the past few weeks, and I've put much of the information I've found into two maps:

• Eyjafjallajökull 2010 Eruption Map
• Eyjafjallajökull 2010 Eruption Addendum

Enjoy!

My Nominee

for the next United States Senate Majority Leader: Bernie Sanders.

He's the only one who gets it.

Is Our Democrats Learning?

Sadly, no.

Update 5/25:  Fortunately, the Dems did finally get around to passing health insurance reform.  Good for them.

The Distressing Gap

Calculated Risk likes to talk about the distressing gap between existing and new home sales a lot. It's certainly something to ponder. When will the combination of population growth and consumption of fixed capital reduce the surplus inventory of homes enough so that developers have a reason to build again? Inquiring minds Greedy investors would like to know.

But I'd like to talk about the other distressing gap: the one between the policies being implemented and the policies that the country needs. I think it is the primary fuel for the online-lefty civil war that is going on right now (nope, I'm not linking to any of it).

Take health care reform. (Please!) Congress is about to pass a bill that makes a number of significant improvements to the current system. But the improvements are not anything like the fundamental transformation that is needed to really fix the system. Various legislators added cost controls here and there, but a strong, nationwide public option was defeated. A bill for a single-payer system wasn't put to a vote in either chamber. So, as of now, there is a big gap between what progressives want to see done and what the country is going to get. The same holds true for gay rights (the HIV travel ban has been lifted but DOMA/DADT haven't been repealed), economic stimulus (which wasn't large enough and had far too many tax breaks), foreclosure prevention (programs exist but they have done very little at a high cost), and others. The next big reform package that won't meet progressives' criteria is the climate change bill. The news from scientists keeps getting worse, and yet little is likely to be done. Fossil fuel production is geographically based, so the issue cuts across ideological lines - mostly in favor of the status quo.

So, what to do? Clearly the thing not to do is launch a nuclear attack against your closest allies, which is currently taking place. Instead, progressives should identify the obstacle(s) to better legislation and take them on. Quite clearly, the biggest obstacle for health care reform was the filibuster. It needs to go. So progressives should work together to lobby Senators to get rid of it. And they should also lobby Representatives, because the House has an institutional interest in beating down the filibuster. And they should lobby Democratic Party hacks because a lot of them will be out of a job if the party loses big in 2010. Once the supermajority rule is eliminated, progressives can take the campaign finance system (again) and support more progressives in primaries. Or something else. It will be tough, and there will be a lot of disappointments. The left just doesn't have the institutional muscle the right does, due to less money and extreme fragmentation into single-issue groups. There is also the inherent asymmetry between change and business as usual. But what else can progressives do except to keep on trying?

Update 2009/12/24: As usual, somebody else says it sooner and better.

Update 2010/01/01: Another good post, this time focusing on how the "movement" was squandered in at the beginning of Obama's first year. Again, right or wrong doesn't matter: how the former volunteers feel is simply a fact that has to be (or should be) addressed.