Dirty Turkey!?
A carbon footprint equivalent to 6,000 car journeys around the world will be produced by the UK tucking into Christmas dinner, researchers say.
It is claimed the UK’s love of the traditional turkey dinner will generate 51,000 tons of carbon dioxide.
Academics calculated the production, processing and transportation costs of the festive ingredients.
“All stages in the supply chain have been considered, including raising the turkey, growing the vegetables, food storage, consumer shopping, cooking the meal at home and waste management.
See the story at this weeks 5.
Send comments on this week’s 5 to: [email protected]
Obama’s “Hard Truths”
Obama has begun to embrace positions that a generation of Democrats have been advised to avoid. The political “textbook” calls for a relatively inexperienced first-term senator to run hawkishly. Obama, whom Clinton criticized when he said that he would negotiate directly and without preconditions with America’s adversaries, now makes it a point to mention that he would sit down with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s President. On the question of torture, which Obama unequivocally opposes, the political temptation is to signal a willingness to show no mercy to our worst enemies, in much the way that Governor Bill Clinton, in his first campaign for President, returned to Arkansas for the execution of Rickey Ray Rector, a mentally disabled death-row inmate. On the increasingly perilous subject of illegal immigration, Obama favors issuing state driver’s licenses to undocumented workers, and tells voters, “We are not going to send twelve million people back home.” When discussing his energy plan, Obama says, “You can’t deal with global warming without, at least, on the front end, initially, seeing probably some spike in electricity prices,” and on Social Security he proposes what is, in effect, a large tax hike. These issues all have one thing in common: Hillary Clinton’s positions are artfully vague—aimed at surviving the general election—while Obama insists that it is more important to be forthcoming.
The New Yorker’s must read article at this weeks 4.
Send comments on this week’s 4 to: [email protected]
Warren Buffett
Buffett and Clinton took the stage at the Hilton San Francisco in front of 1,500 people who had paid from $100 to $2,300 each to hear the Democratic presidential candidate ask questions of the legendary investor – and put in a few pitches for her own ideas. The event was expected to raise $1 million.
On the issue of the securitized mortgages, Buffett said one can make more money “selling toxic waste to customers,” but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
Alluding to Bush administration policies, Buffett said: “In the last seven-eight years, the super-rich have gotten a huge break… It has been a marvelous, marvelous time to be super-rich.” The catch: “Nothing trickles down.”
He has faith in “the ability of the American economy to generate more and more prosperity,” Buffett said. “The real test of this country will be how widely is that prosperity shared.”
Buffett also said he feels strongly that the United States is making a serious mistake by importing $2 billion a day more than it exports.
“If you force-feed $2 billion a day to the rest of the world, they get somewhat less enthusiastic over time – and the dollar is worth less,” he said.
“We’re like a very rich family; we own a farm the size of Texas but want to consume more” than the farm generates, he said. “Every day, we sell off or mortgage a piece of the farm.”
If the policy continues, over time, the rest of the world “will own more of our farm” and future generations will resent that they spend part of their workweek paying off those costs of consumption, he said.
Read the article at this weeks 3.
Send comments on this week’s 3 to: [email protected]
Uninspired Voters
Three weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Republicans voters across the country appear uninspired by their field of presidential candidates, with a vast majority saying they have not made a final decision about who to support, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.
None of the Republican candidates is viewed favorably by even half of the Republican electorate, the poll found. In a sign of the fluidity of the race, one candidate who had barely registered in early polls several months ago, Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, is now locked in a tight contest nationally with Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts
Read the numbers at this weeks 2.
Send comments on this week’s 2 to: [email protected]
Long Live Led Zeppelin
I wish I was there.
See a video clip of the reunion at O2 Arena in London at this week’s 1:
Send comments on this week’s 1 to: [email protected]
Send me your links of the week: [email protected]
Slainte!