Skin Deep database

Here is the link to the Environmental Working Group's (http://www.ewg.org/) cosmetics database "Skin Deep" we discussed last night:

http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/

Thank you all for coming. I had a wonderful time!
Laura

Is Human Activity Causing Global Warming?

Is human activity causing global warming? I wind up discussing this with my retired coal industry executive father all of the time! Here is a great debate on this topic (part of National Public Radio's Intelligence Squared series) with a very distinguished panel including:

Richard C.J. Somerville, professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies

Brenda Ekwurzel, climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists

Philip Stott, emeritus professor of bio-geography at the University of London

Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at MIT

Michael Crichton, author and filmmaker

I am really not sure why Michael Crichton is on the panel, but he has an interesting point of view.

Some information on where the candidates stand

From NPR's web site:
Jan. 30, 2008 -- Historically, environmental issues have taken a back seat in national elections. But that appears to be changing. Climate change is moving to the front burner for many of the candidates vying for the Democratic and Republican nominations in 2008. The new awareness results from several factors: A growing consensus among Americans on the left and right that global warming issues must be addressed; concern over imported oil from the Middle East; and the newfound muscle of California's eco-voters, thanks to their state's early primary this year.

Here, a guide to what the presidential candidates have said so far:

Sen. Hillary Clinton (NY): Supports an 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. Her track record on auto fuel-economy standards is mixed: She supported an increase to 40 mpg in 2003 but opposed it in 2005. She proposed a $50 billion R&D fund for energy efficiency and alternative energy; oil companies would have to pay into the fund or invest in clean energy themselves.

Sen. Barack Obama (IL): Supports cutting carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Favors increasing the auto fuel-economy standard to 40 mpg. Would reward domestic automakers for producing more fuel-efficient vehicles by helping to fund health care for their retirees. Under his plan, 50 percent of the health care savings would be invested in technology for cars with better gas mileage.

Sen. John McCain (AZ): Lead author of a Senate proposal to reduce carbon emissions by 65 percent by 2050. Supported an increase in auto fuel economy to 35 mpg but opposed a 40 mpg standard. During a GOP debate, he said, "We ought to be investing in alternate energy sources. Recently, there was a group of retired military officers who said climate change and energy independence is a national security issue. It is."

April 1 meeting information:

The topic for the April 1 meeting is the environment and politics.

I found this amazing frontline special on the topic. Click Here to watch it.

That should get us started. If anybody has any other material to suggest, please do so.

Note: posted for Laura by her fairy blogmother.

Another word on sexism in politics...

I meant to post this BEFORE last meeting, but things got a little crazy.

So sorry I missed it.

If you need something to consider besides PB&J vs. chicken nuggets, I came across this about sexism and the presidential race on a blog I regularly read. It will get you thinking no matter whether you agree or disagree.

Backgrounder: GOP tipetoeing around racism/sexism

GOP fears charges of racism, sexism
By: David Paul Kuhn
Feb 24, 2008 10:58 PM EST


Republican strategists work on calibrating approach aimed at protecting the party against charges of being racist or sexist.
Photo: Composite image by Politico.com
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Top Republican strategists are working on plans to protect the GOP from charges of racism or sexism in the general election, as they prepare for a presidential campaign against the first ever African-American or female Democratic nominee.

The Republican National Committee has commissioned polling and focus groups to determine the boundaries of attacking a minority or female candidate, according to people involved. The secretive effort underscores the enormous risk senior GOP operatives see for a party often criticized for its insensitivity to minorities in campaigns dating back to the 1960s.

The RNC project is viewed as so sensitive that those involved in the work were reluctant to discuss the findings in detail. But one Republican strategist, who asked that his name be withheld to speak candidly, said the research shows the daunting and delicate task ahead.

Republicans will be told to “be sensitive to tone and stick to the substance of the discussion” and that “the key is that you have to be sensitive to the fact that you are running against historic firsts,” the strategist explained.


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In other words, Republicans should expect a severe backlash if they say or do anything that smacks of politicizing race or gender. They didn’t need an expensive poll to learn that lesson, however.

They could simply have asked Joe Biden, John Edwards, Bill Clinton or any number of Democratic politicians who stung over their choice of words in this campaign already.

GOP officials are certain their words will be scrutinized ever more aggressively. They anticipate a regular media barrage of accusations of intolerance – or much worse.

They seem most concerned about Obama right now.

“You can’t run against Barack Obama the way you could run against Bill Clinton, Al Gore or John Kerry,” said Jack Kemp, the 1996 GOP vice presidential nominee, who expressed concern that the party could be reduced to an “all white country club party” if it does not tread cautiously.

“Being an African American at the top of the ticket, if he makes it, is such a great statement about the country,” he added, “Obviously you have to be sensitive to issues that affect urban America. …You have to be careful.”

GOP operatives have already coined a term for clumsy rhetoric: “undisciplined messaging.” It appears as a bullet point in a Power Point presentation making the rounds among major donors, party leaders and surrogates. The presentation outlines five main strategic attacks against an Obama candidacy, with one of them stating how “undisciplined messaging carries great risk.”

NYT article on McCain's alleged affair

McCain allegedly has an affair... What does the publishing of this article by the New York Times say about gender (and sex) in our American culture?

The Long Run
For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Senator John McCain during his 2000 presidential bid. His campaign this year is not as focused on the corrupting power of money in politics.
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By JIM RUTENBERG, MARILYN W. THOMPSON, DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and STEPHEN LABATON
Published: February 21, 2008
WASHINGTON — Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.

The Long Run
Honor and Influence
This is part of a series of articles about the life and careers of contenders for the 2008 Republican and Democratic presidential nominations.
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The lobbyist Vicki Iseman, whose relationship with Mr. McCain troubled some of his aides.
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A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.

Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.

It had been just a decade since an official favor for a friend with regulatory problems had nearly ended Mr. McCain’s political career by ensnaring him in the Keating Five scandal. In the years that followed, he reinvented himself as the scourge of special interests, a crusader for stricter ethics and campaign finance rules, a man of honor chastened by a brush with shame.

But the concerns about Mr. McCain’s relationship with Ms. Iseman underscored an enduring paradox of his post-Keating career. Even as he has vowed to hold himself to the highest ethical standards, his confidence in his own integrity has sometimes seemed to blind him to potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest.

Mr. McCain promised, for example, never to fly directly from Washington to Phoenix, his hometown, to avoid the impression of self-interest because he sponsored a law that opened the route nearly a decade ago. But like other lawmakers, he often flew on the corporate jets of business executives seeking his support, including the media moguls Rupert Murdoch, Michael R. Bloomberg and Lowell W. Paxson, Ms. Iseman’s client. (Last year he voted to end the practice.)

Mr. McCain helped found a nonprofit group to promote his personal battle for tighter campaign finance rules. But he later resigned as its chairman after news reports disclosed that the group was tapping the same kinds of unlimited corporate contributions he opposed, including those from companies seeking his favor. He has criticized the cozy ties between lawmakers and lobbyists, but is relying on corporate lobbyists to donate their time running his presidential race and recently hired a lobbyist to run his Senate office.

“He is essentially an honorable person,” said William P. Cheshire, a friend of Mr. McCain who as editorial page editor of The Arizona Republic defended him during the Keating Five scandal. “But he can be imprudent.”

Mr. Cheshire added, “That imprudence or recklessness may be part of why he was not more astute about the risks he was running with this shady operator,” Charles Keating, whose ties to Mr. McCain and four other lawmakers tainted their reputations in the savings and loan debacle.

During his current campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Mr. McCain has played down his attacks on the corrupting power of money in politics, aware that the stricter regulations he championed are unpopular in his party. When the Senate overhauled lobbying and ethics rules last year, Mr. McCain stayed in the background.

With his nomination this year all but certain, though, he is reminding voters again of his record of reform. His campaign has already begun comparing his credentials with those of Senator Barack Obama, a Democratic contender who has made lobbying and ethics rules a centerpiece of his own pitch to voters.

“I would very much like to think that I have never been a man whose favor can be bought,” Mr. McCain wrote about his Keating experience in his 2002 memoir, “Worth the Fighting For.” “From my earliest youth, I would have considered such a reputation to be the most shameful ignominy imaginable. Yet that is exactly how millions of Americans viewed me for a time, a time that I will forever consider one of the worst experiences of my life.”

A drive to expunge the stain on his reputation in time turned into a zeal to cleanse Washington as well. The episode taught him that “questions of honor are raised as much by appearances as by reality in politics,” he wrote, “and because they incite public distrust they need to be addressed no less directly than we would address evidence of expressly illegal corruption.”

A Formative Scandal

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Barclay Walsh and Kitty Bennett contributed research.

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