Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Your Morning News 7.22.08
Posted by Josh in Al Gore, Barack Obama, colbert report, Election 2008, Iraq, oil, T. Boone Pickens, the economy, Women
Unless you live under a rock, you know that Senator Obama has been in Iraq for the past few days. Yesterday, after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pulled back on remarks he made over the weekend agreeing with Senator Obama’s plan for Iraq, his chief government spokesman released a statement saying that the Iraqi government supports a timetable to get US troops out of Iraq by 2010. If you check your box scores you will see that is essentially the same thing as Senator Obama’s plan.
My favorite development of the past few weeks was the rise of Texas oilman and corporate raider T. Boone Pickens as a major advocate for alternative energies and wind power. Wind power is great, but mostly I just like getting to say T. Boone Pickens. Today the New York Times offers a strong endorsement of his alternative energy plans.
To go along with that, the Los Angeles Times has a survey piece on the state of oil and whether we have found all there is to find. Some say that we have but others say that we have only found the easy oil and that there is plenty of oil but it will just be harder to access. My favorite statement about the idea of “Unconventional oil” is from Al Gore’s Rolling Stone interview: “you know, junkies find veins in their toes. It seems reasonable, to them, because they’ve lost sight of the rest of their lives.”
Today’s story you should read to feel like a well-informed citizen is on how the economic downturn is affecting women. Economists had thought that the decline in the percentage of women working was the result of women choosing to stay home, but studies are showing that the majority of women who have left their jobs have done it for the same reasons men have. Namely, they have been laid off while their job was moved to Kuala Lumpur. The whole piece is worth a read and has some great graphics.
