I was surprisingly inspired by John and Teresa Heinz Kerry’s new book, This Moment on Earth, coming out March 26th, 2007. This inspiration snuck up on me around the third chapter. Prior to that, I found the book good, well worth reading, but a little bit like just one more book outlining what humans are doing wrong. Starting around the third chapter I realized I was referring to the book in several conversations and several blog diaries and that several of the people and organizations featured in the book I mentally filed away as worth looking into for future political connections, diaries and general research.

In short, almost without my realizing it, John Kerry’s book was getting into my brain and inspiring me. The book starts a bit dull but by the end is excellent.

My earliest impression, from the press material that arrived with the book and from the introduction, was that this book promised something really new and welcome. The book was billed as the next step in the evolution of the environmental debate. I was ready for a book that took as given the problems and focused primarily on solutions. Having been through way too many “debates” online where I yet again outlined the very clear scientific evidence for global warming only to have yet the same false claims that global warming was some kind of scam or myth (these claims are never backed up by scientific evidence of any substance), I really was ready to have a book that moved beyond that.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, bête noire of the Bush administration and target of terrorist death threats by Pat Robertson, has won re-election, reports Bloomberg. Chavez has achieved some local notoriety for calling chimp boy 'the devil' at the United Nations, and by making cheap heating oil available to poor residents of the Bronx and Harlem; both these things are just not done in the era of conservative government.

Chavez took 61 percent of the vote while opposition candidate Manuel Rosales took 38 percent, based on 78 percent of the votes counted by the National Electoral Council.

"I surrender myself to the Venezuelan people," Chavez told backers who crowded around the Presidential Palace in Caracas. He sung [sic] the national anthem from the palace balcony as fireworks lit up the sky. "Long live Venezuela. Long live the Socialist Revolution. Long Live Bolivar."

Not so sure about the socialist revolution part, but the guy has cut his country's poverty rate from 55% to 38%, and is a constant irritant of the Bush administration and its terrorist allies Robertson and Coulter; so it appears likely that certain more colorful parts of the political spectrum will be tearing their hair out tonight, again.

Too bad, really.

The New York Times: Alcee Hastings, a lawmaker who in a previous life had been one of only a handful of judges to be impeached and removed by the Congress, will not chair the House Intelligence Committee. Nor, it seems, will AIPAC tool Jane Harman. We shall see.

Also in the Times, a strange story about a leaked White House memo expressing doubts about the Iraqi premier; the chimp, of course, is meeting the Prime Minister in Jordan today. One wonders why and by whom that memo was leaked today; not very artful.

Get ready for hospital closings. Larry Littlefield on Room Eight discusses possible consequences.

The civil war in Iraq is not a civil war, says the White House. Just put your fingers in your ears, close your eyes, and sing La La La loudly; you'll be fine.

Speaking of which, Saudi Arabia may be preparing to intervene in Iraq, says DailyKos.

The Albany Times-Union goes into the details of Bruno and Silver's obfuscation on member item disclosure. The records were provided as a 3,000 page image PDF, rendering them largely unusable; the Assembly has now provided the earmark data in searchable format, which the Senate continues to refuse to do. See what a difference a republican Senate majority makes? Huh?

Lastly, The Washington Monthly has a portrait of incoming Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

Sometimes things just come together and several individual items that don't quite add up to a story unite into a really good one.

This last week, a discussion with someone who grew up in Iowa, this month's issue of Catalyst, the newsletter of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and a press release from Nancy Pelosi all synergized to remind me that Democrats have been pushing for a real, American, practical energy policy since the Carter administration and all the Republicans advocate for are oil, oil, oil.

On October 26th, in response to the release of record profits by the bloated oil company Exxon/Mobil, Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement:

"Today’s record oil company profits remind Americans that Republicans’ energy policies, which were written in secret by the Cheney Task Force and the energy industry, are an abject failure for the American people. Their six-year record of heaping subsidies on oil companies reaping record profits while leaving consumers to pay the bill, has brought us record dependence on foreign oil.

“Under President Bush and the Republican Congress gas prices are 75 percent higher than in 2000, consumers will pay an average $2,300 more in energy costs than they did in 2000, and we are sending nearly $800 million a day to the Middle East and other oil producing countries.”