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With President Obama's lobbying; Senators Rockefeller, Lieberman, Dodd and Kerry from Mass were joined by 30 other Democrats who voted to not allow Americans to purchase far less expensive prescription drugs from outside the US.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-health-senate16-2009dec16,0,4934854.story

This was a major aspect of reform and could have provided real competition and potentially saved struggling Americans billions. Absolutely inexplicable why any honest politician could have conceivably voted against this.

Pharmaceuticals / Health Products: Top Recipients / Self Explanatory / From Opensecrets.org

Top 20 Presidential Candidates
Rank Candidate Amount
1 Obama, Barack (D) $2,135,376
2 Clinton, Hillary (D) $689,099
3 McCain, John (R) $671,722
4 Romney, Mitt (R) $385,011
5 Giuliani, Rudolph W (R) $186,530
6 Dodd, Chris (D) $115,200
7 Paul, Ron (R) $89,766
8 Thompson, Fred (R) $57,430
9 Richardson, Bill (D) $50,200
10 Edwards, John (D) $37,170
11 Biden, Joseph R Jr (D) $25,275
12 Huckabee, Mike (R) $23,236
13 Thompson, Tommy (R) $22,150
14 Gilmore, Jim (R) $19,900
15 Brownback, Sam (R) $15,000
16 Hunter, Duncan (R) $6,850
17 Nader, Ralph (I) $6,700
18 Kucinich, Dennis J (D) $5,497
19 Barr, Bob (L) $3,800
20 Tancredo, Tom (R) $3,050
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Isn't it interesting how the WSJ (in their article: The Copenhagen Concoction) can suddenly latch onto causes they had no sympathy for in the past? In this case, starving children who will go unfed if we just ignore global warming science. How many will starve as the oceans die and climate change disrupts farming? How many will die in the wars over resources? Choosing to feed starving children is not a choice we often see them making.

Climate change is like a sinking ship. Deniers sit on deck and say I don't see any water in the bilges, or, if they care to look, they simply say all ships leak. Others are saying, well, if those people won't bail, then I won't bail either, and so the ship sinks faster. Somebody needs to lead, and since we have some of the best bailers (engineers and scientists), we should lead by example. This is an opportunity to lead and put people to work in high paid, skilled, jobs. Unfortunately, the conservatives think we only need to cut taxes, which mainly benefit the rich and very little trickles down to the rest, and then only very slowly.

The hacked emails are not helping, each side says the emails support their point of view. There has been some discussion of how quotes are taken out of text, but not much. We don't see any of these scientists on the talk shows, but there are very few talk show hosts with any education or even interest in science. The news media/talking heads are all about "if it bleeds it leads, if it's fluff we can't get enough". Technical stuff fits neither of these categories. The bulk of the evidence, unfortunately, supports the science of human caused global warming. That is clear to any one who cares to thoroughly investigate the condition of the good ship earth.

The most offensive comment is the one about how green energy can't compete with the old sources without massive subsidies. What of the $18.5 billion in loan guarantees for the nuclear industry alone? Wasn't nuclear supposed to be "too cheap to meter"? Storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain has been scrapped after spending $9 billion, as the WSJ reported 02/26/09. Abandoned nuclear plants have cost taxpayers and ratepayers $40 billion, while ratepayers paid over $200 billion in cost overruns. Costs can be compared on the basis of dollars per kilowatt (kW). The last 5 nuclear plants built in 1976 and 1977 cost $4,377 per kW (cost overruns averaged 169%), according to data provided by the Union of Concerned Scientists. According to the DOE, the average cost of wind power was less that $1500 per kW from 2003 to 2006. According to a paper by Synapse Energy Economics, 07/08, coal plant construction costs were estimated to be $1500 to $1800 per kW in 2005. The paper then reports the cost of a new coal burning plant for Duke Energy Carolinas went to about $2200 per kW by 2007. Another plant for Wisconsin Power & Light, a 300 MW coal plant using a cleaner coal burning technology, but no CO2 capture, had seen its cost rise to over $3500 per kW by mid 2008. Many new coal plants have been canceled due to increasing costs brought on by higher commodity costs.

We need to challenge our engineers and scientists to solve the technical challenges to make renewable energy an even better solution. A 12/10/09 Senate committee hearing (Energy and Natural Resources) on energy storage tackled the issue of storage, so that wind, solar, and wave energy can be efficiently stored and become energy on demand, just like fossil power. The archived webcast can be found here: http://energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.ByYear&DateDisplay=12/12/2009. Democratic senators challenged bureaucrats to drop their "wait and see" approach and become more activist. Storage has been characterized as the "holy grail" of renewable energy.

As a final thought, if you do not wish to spend money to insure against the probability of global climate change then why do you spend money to insure against the unlikely event your home may catch fire?]]> http://www.renewminnesota.com/blog/blog.php?id=1
This video shows the nonsense that passes for logic from the conservative right on the health care issue. Can these people really claim any logical reason for opposing health care?

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