dinner dates, and flowers."

Iraqi tea.

Via Hot Air.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 03:57 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Make energy and the economy your issues, and therein outflank Obama, who wants to go the "alternative energy only" route.

Or, as the biggest political genius of my lifetime used to put it, "it's the economy, stupid."

Via Insty, who remarks that ultimately "hairshirt environmentalism" never ends up being very popular with voters (no matter what they say, I might add, in their more idealistic moments).

I think we can have both: alternative fuels and more development of petroleum reserves. But we have to do it sensibly, and right now gasoline and electricity are our most cost-effective options. Let's not limit ourselves, or risk another recession.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 05:57 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Chilean President Michelle Bachelet is a >go-getter, meeting with the Canadian head of state and with Governor Schwarzenegger in quick succession in an attempt to grapple with her country's energy needs.

I would love to see solar power become cost-effective for something other than heating swimming pools; certainly the next few applications for that may be residential, until we've improved fuel-cell technology. But Chile and California (the world's seventh-largest economy) have a lot in common in this regard: Chile imports three-quarters of its energy, and the U.S. as a whole is importing over half its petroleum products.

(X-posted at Right-Wing News. Scroll around there, though: my old buddy William Teach [one of the illustrious blogospheric pirates] is posting today, as is Kathy Shaidle, the embattled Canadian blogger and free speech heroine with whom I disagree on nearly every social issue.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 02:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Yeah, yeah: I'm still obsessing about infrastructure, and conservation, and how we live, and how we commute. I know Americans love the suburban life, with the private backyard concept. And yet generations of New Yorkers have been taking their kids to public parks instead of hanging out in backyards . . . with little apparent brain damage. (Though I will concede that they talk funny.)

Of course, I spent my formative years in Santa Monica, California, and it was the best of both worlds: a suburb of Los Angeles on a small enough scale that one could walk around in it. I think that Santa Monica and Manhattan may be the most pedestrian-friendly places on the planet. (Manhattan being a smidge more vertical, and a smidge more counter-intuitive to get around in.)

But if I had to choose, I'd pick living in a smaller place without a backyard, and being able to walk—versus having a yard but being forced to drive everywhere I go. (Oh, wait: I just made that choice, and I find it more delightful every day.)

It isn't a matter of one's carbon footprint (though as you know I'm a foreign-policy conservationist, and I have been recycling longer than anyone I know). It's burnout, really: I spent years of my life losing 1.5-2 hours each working day just getting to and fro. Now I work on-site only when I have to (but stagger my hours so I'm getting there before or [preferably] after the rush hour), and I work from home when I can. And if I were doing a staff job I'd find a way to carpool or use public transportation at least two days a week, concentrating my errands-on-the-way-home into the other days.

I means, I loves to drive, but enough is enough.

h/t: Insty originally turned me on to this article about how freaking old our transportation infrastructure is (other, of course, than in the Bay Area and in Washington, D.C.). And L.A., I guess, though that system doesn't appear to go anywhere. After that, I just followed the links. Kind of like commuting, but . . . it's less important to have a good sound system when one is travelling through "cyberspace." (A word I haven't heard in years, and am starting to feel wistful about.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:52 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Throw in ANWR and Utah, and we'd really be on our way.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 03:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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