The Carr Blog

Another concern has now come up regarding compact fluorescent bulbs:

Mercury leaks found as new bulbs break - The Boston Globe: "'People should continue to support CFLs until there are mercury-free alternatives available,' said Cindy Luppi of Clean Water Action, a local advocacy group."

Of course like I mentioned here are we making it less likely for mercuty free alternative light sources will be developed as easily if laws are already being passed to force incandescents to an early death. Are CFLs being ushered in too soon and once again if the market decided what consumers want perhaps we would have LEDs in a few years that would help avoid the new concerns about CFLs.

toothpastefordinner.com

Well maybe not directly but as this study points out the push for fluorescent bulbs may have unintended consequences like most well meaning laws do. But like everything else, the government will make a law that ends up bad and then act like that didn't happen and outlaw the thing they pushed to begin with. It seems that melatonin production is suppressed by light from the blue part of the spectrum and could be linked to higher cancer rates.

Lights at Night Are Linked to Breast Cancer - washingtonpost.com: "Abraham Haim, a University of Haifa chronobiologist involved in the study, said the findings raise questions about the recent push to switch to energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs, which suppress melatonin production more than conventional incandescent bulbs. 'This may be a disaster in another 20 years,' Haim said, 'and you won't be able to reverse what we did by mistake.' He called for more research before policies favoring fluorescent lights are implemented, and for more emphasis on using less light at night."

Once again governments just need to get out of the way and let the market and people decide what they want and what science reveals about what is chosen. Then the market can adjust quickly without the red legal tape in the way. Who knows without this huge premature push for fluorescent bulbs LED lights may have taken a foothold or another technology would have been developed had companies not had to change course of production to focus so much on fluorescent bulbs.

While Barack Obama continues to play the part of the perfect smooth talking politician, his wife has some baggage it seems in bringing some unneeded controversy to the table. First her comment came that, "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country." Then now her senior thesis at Princeton was released, showing what I think is a young woman with a chip on her shoulder for little reason.

From Politico. com Michelle Obama's thesis was on racial divide: "The thesis, titled 'Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community' and written under her maiden name, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, in 1985, has been the subject of much conjecture on the blogosphere and elsewhere in recent weeks, as it has been 'temporarily withdrawn' from Princeton's library until after this year's presidential election in November. Some of the material has been written about previously, however, including a story last year in the Newark Star Ledger.
Obama writes that the path she chose by attending Princeton would likely lead to her 'further integration and/or assimilation into a white cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society; never becoming a full participant.'"

Yeah on the periphery of society like becoming the first lady. This kind of attitude she seems to present is something that perpetuates racism in this country by constantly pointing to every possible example of someone being treated differently because of race. Sure there are issues of race in this country still, but that is what has made Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton so played out when they push the race card at every opportunity. People then start to glaze over at the real issues of race and start treating all instances of discrimination as someone just playing the race card.

Why oh why does Penn Jillette have to be doing Dancing With The Stars?!? I love Penn and I know he will be entertaining but I've tried to watch that show before and it just bores me to tears. I guess that's what the DVR is for. Funny enough on a couple of the latest Penn Says episodes, he is talking about getting crap injected in his face to smooth out wrinkles for the show.

Catster.com
Innocently enough, my husband an I clicked on a coupon for a free sample of "kitty febreeze" today when low and behold we were sent to this site. Catster is like Myspace for cats, complete with interest groups, polls, "the scratching post" and more. It reminds me of this documentary we recently watched on Animal Planet called "Cat People" where these people are totally obsessed with cats. Anyways, we made a page for Callie. There's even Dogster.com for those who are more inclined towards canines.

RollingStone.com has a great article railing the Democrats for their two faced opposition to the war. When it means getting votes they are willing to yelp about how much they will fight to end it, when it really means something in Congress, they turn tail and run at every opportunity.

"The really tragic thing about the Democratic surrender on Iraq is that it's now all but guaranteed that the war will be off the table during the presidential campaign. Once again — it happened in 2002, 2004 and 2006 — the Democrats have essentially decided to rely on the voters to give them credit for being anti-war, despite the fact that, for all the noise they've made to the contrary, in the end they've done nothing but vote for war and cough up every dime they've been asked to give, every step of the way."

"Euros Accepted" signs pop up in New York City - Yahoo! News: "In the latest example that the U.S. dollar just ain't what it used to be, some shops in New York City have begun accepting euros and other foreign currency as payment for merchandise."

Woohoo, aren't our politicians great? Devaluing the dollar by overspending, bailing people out, spending endlessly on a war that has no foreseeable end, the list goes on and on.

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - TICKER MORNING EDITION: Thursday, February 7, 2008 � - Blogs from CNN.com: "WASHINGTON (CNN) — Looking back, last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference presidential straw poll provided a pretty good preview of the Republican race so far. The contest is a reliably headline-grabbing test of the conservative base’s preferred candidates -– and with hundreds of activists gathered in Washington for the final CPAC vote before the primary season, Mitt Romney’s team poured thousands of dollars into the event. Scores of Romney volunteers sporting identical campaign T-shirts, bused in at the campaign’s expense, stumped hard in the halls of the Omni Shoreham."

I love it, why hasn't the media made such a deal out of the Romney camp officially "spamming" straw polls and busing in supporters. He did this in Iowa to and I'm sure any other opportunity. Meanwhile, Dr. Paul's supporters are criticized for doing the same thing spontaneously, usually at their own expense and then the results discredited.

Sex Chats Cost Peachtree City Police Chief His Job - News Story - WSB Atlanta: "PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. -- The police chief who lead a crusade against Internet sex predators resigned after explicit sex chats were found on his department computer, according to a report in TheCitizen.com."

Boy don't you have to love the hypocrisy. As my wife said, "what is wrong with people?" And I agree, how stupid can you get and how sad is it that he led the charge against internet sex predators and should have known better. Sure as the article points out he didn't do anything illegal, just stupid and sometimes I wonder if that isn't just as bad.

The continuation of what has been started by Dr. Paul depends entirely on us. He may continue to run, run as a third party or pursue his congressional seat. It depends on us using the connections we have made through Meetups, RonPaulForums.com, MySpace, Facebook, etc. to continue to work for change from small to large.

The first thing is to continuing talking to people that aren't convinced about the ideas of freedom and liberty. It is hard for a lot of people to reject the concept of having a "social safety net" or having government make laws against people they don't like. Many people aren’t concerned about things until it personally affects them. But once you have an audience then use it to explain these ideas in full; that has been the weakness for Dr. Paul. The media has not given sufficient time to explain his ideas or even force the other candidates to explain their positions. They are more concerned with treating it like a soap opera than giving people information to make informed decisions. Most people don't even consider where the money comes from that gives them economic stimulus checks. .

The second is to not fight about how we work to achieve the basic goals of this movement. Whether someone decides to choose to fight within the Republican Party with the Republican Liberty Caucus goes to the Libertarian party or Constitution party, the goal is the same. We can all still use these communications lines we've opened to work towards achieving freedom and getting back to the basic tenets of the Constitution.

The third is to work locally, find candidates for local, state and congressional positions that represent our ideas and make it clear to them how important those positions are to you. This country didn't move towards a war starting, welfare state overnight and it won't change back overnight. It will take time and if Dr. Paul ends up back in the House then lets give him some help. We all know now there is enough support across this country to bind together in our local communities. Maybe some of us will choose to run.

Remember Dr. Paul cured our apathy, not just for this election cycle but forever. I'm not giving up on Dr. Paul but I wanted to make sure that people keep their heads up and remember the big goals. Like Dr. Paul says, this movement is not just about him. And no matter who becomes president this November, it will be easier to spread our message as people really start to feel the pressure of supporting a welfare state or continuing in wars we can't afford.

Google Maps

Google has a pretty cool Super Tuesday tracking tool. Mixing up Twitter, Google Maps, Election News and results once they start coming in. The Twitter comments are pretty cool as they follow people around the country and unfortunately around the world.

One of the best articles on Ron Paul I've read lately. It plays the "he can't win" card but does point out more of what he has in common with old school Republicans and dismisses some of the "nutty" comments.

Donald Luskin on Ron Paul and Economics on NRO Financial: "Paul deplores the federal deficit, but insists the only way “to solve that problem is to cut spending, not to raise taxes — or to not lower taxes when you get a chance.” As a first step he advocates the elimination of all taxes on capital — estates, capital gains, interest income, and dividends. He told me, “It’s capital that you need to make capitalism work.” He says the idea that most excites young voters is his proposal to eliminate income taxes on tips: “It’s a big deal if you’re a family struggling and if a second member of the family is working and trying to pay the bills.” Nothing nutty about any of that.

Paul may be the anti-Reagan when it comes to foreign affairs and the military. But he out-Reagans Reagan in his unwavering opposition to the government regulation of business. He may have seemed like a nut when he was one of only three congressmen to vote against the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002. But weren’t the real nuts the conservative congressmen who got swept up in a witch-hunt against “corporate crooks,” and voted to impose the most sweeping, burdensome, anti-competitive, and costly financial regulation in a generation?"

Penn talks about Mitt Romney's magic underpants in his new video blog.

One of my favorite web comics, I've been reading drew's stuff since he created this.


toothpastefordinner.com

Women Warned Daytona Serial Killer Likely In Relationship, Clean-Cut - Orlando News Story - WKMG Orlando: "A serial killer believed to be preying on women in the Daytona Beach area is likely clean-cut, employed and involved in a relationship, possibly even married, according to information released by the Daytona Beach police chief. In fact, Chitwood asked women involved with someone with qualities likened to the serial killer to contact the police immediately. He said they may be in danger themselves."

Women be careful of your hard working husband could be a serial killer... report him to the authorities immediately.