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We all know our Earth is in serious trouble. If there is one person who can really turn around things in our country it is the president. With elections round the corner and a line-up of presidential candidates, don’t all of us want to know who truly supports the green movement? Here’s a run down on the top candidates and their perspective of the environment:

Hillary Clinton
She has been known for citing serious environmental hazards in all of her speeches. However, it wasn’t until late 2007 that she actually drafted a comprehensive solution to the problem. This plan is essentially more like a cap trade mechanism which aims at reducing emissions by as much as 80%! A two-pronged approach focusing on investment and efficiency seems to be the primary strategy as of now. While the efficiency focus deals with elevating standards on vehicles, buildings etc. investment would focus on aspects like hybrids that are pluggable and also ensuring carbon seizures. Plans are also in the initial stages to form a NEC (National Energy Council) of sorts in order to segregate the responsibilities amongst agencies of the federal government. Clinton’s plan is pretty similar to the other presidential candidate lineups. However, it remains to be seen if any real implementation happens.

Barack Obama
Barack has been seen touting the usage of liquefied coal at one point which earned him a black mark amongst the green movers. Throughout his campaign he did not really devote time to focus on aspects about the environment or energy. It was only later during October 2007 that he finally released a detailed plan on energy conservation. In addition to the cap trade system promoted by Clinton, Obama also cited an investment of 150 billion to facilitate more green employment opportunities. His detailed plan also enlists aspects on improving efficiency creating a smarter electricity grid system and promoting public transportation.

John McCain
John McCain has been one of the few presidential candidates to truly voice his opinion on global warming issues. In 2003 he brought out the Climate Stewardship Act which was produced in 2005 and yet again in 2007. This proposal also focused on cap trade mechanisms while also cutting down emissions by 65%. He believes fuel efficiency must be raised in a gradual fashion instead of taking dramatic steps to change the existing system.

Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader is an Independent but has managed to carve a name for himself as far as environment protection measures are concerned. In the initial days of his career he started a movement that aimed at getting consumer protection and environment laws passed in parliament. He was also instrumental in getting acts such as Clean Water and Clean Air passed. Till date Nader has voiced his opinion strongly against the funding in favor of nuclear supplies. In addition Nader is also strongly against industries that pollute the environment. He believes aspects like imposition of carbon tax will help protect the environment to a certain extent. He also advocates the usage of solar power as an alternative fuel source.

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The deregulation of an industry only happens once, but in the case of energy (electric and natural gas services) it is a slow-release process migrating from state to state.

Energy deregulation revolves around the concept of allowing competition into the market place, giving consumers a choice of electricity and/or natural gas suppliers.

The $220 billion energy industry has been referred to as “the last great government-sanctioned monopoly.” To break it down simply, up until a few years ago, when you moved into a new house or apartment, you had only one option in energy provider whether you liked it or not.

Since the 1990s, however, in several states consumers have had a choice in energy providers, thus opening the market up to competition and driving down overall rates; but has it worked?

In Pennsylvania, electricity consumers were given choice starting in 1998, and by the end of 1999, nearly 500,000 residents had chosen a competitor over the local incumbent provider. On average, consumers who chose a competitive electric company were still getting the same service and reliability over the same physical lines, but at an average of $10 less per month.

On the flip side, California’s rush into energy deregulation in 1996 took a much different turn. Not long after the plan was voted into law, price gouging began to sour the pallets of many would-be money saving consumers, and within 2 years, lawmakers there sought to repeal deregulation legislation. Those measures failed, and by 2000, the price of electricity in California nearly doubled for residents of some communities. By early 2001, the electric utilities faced financial hardships to the point where electricity shortages occurred.

Good or bad, positive or negative, many states are still pushing the issue of energy deregulation. A couple have deregulated electricity in recent years to rousing success, including Texas and New York. Georgia and Illinois are moving forward in the deregulation of natural gas.

The key seems to be in a careful and slow approach, ensuring that competitive electric and natural gas companies seeking to do business within a particular state are able to meet standards of quality and customer service, as well as financial responsibility.
Illinois, for example, has allowed natural gas customers choice since 1993, though approval processes have been methodical and standards strict in order to protect consumers. This has created a very slow trickle effect that protects residents from companies doing under-handed business.

Consumers in Illinois still bare some responsibility and are encouraged to research any natural gas provider they plan to switch to. In addition, consumers are not encouraged to sign long-term contracts with new providers as this will lock them in and keep them from taking advantage of future savings.
Whether you are for or against the deregulation of electricity and natural gas, you should research the concept fully in light of your state’s provisions and make a decision based on the needs of your budget and family.

In short, deregulation of energy can benefit the consumer, as long as the deregulation process itself is well-regulated.

Al Haneson blogs about Illinois issues and life at Ambit Illinois Natural Gas and Midwest Lawn Tips

Knowledge is power. Presently the voters have taken an active role in choosing our next president. A leading factor is if the candidate can bring out change. Voters will benefit greatly by understanding the powers of the presidency.

The most familiar power of the president is the president’s power as Commander-In-Chief of the armed forces. The president has the power to deploy the military even if there is no war, and can establish military governments in occupied areas.

The Vietnam War was a long protracted war that did not have a declaration of war. Because of this war, congress adopted a new law over president’s veto, the War Powers Resolution. This requires the president to consult with congress whenever possible prior to committing armed forces, or when he has committed forces. When committing forces, it must cease within 60 days unless congress declares war or extends the sixty day period.

The president has great powers over international affairs as international spokesman. The powers are great because the president will not have any issues with the States and the president does not need authority from congress to act as spokesman for the United States.

The president has broad power with treaties and executive agreements. With treaties, the president needs two-thirds approval of the Senate. A self-executing treaty takes effect without any enabling legislation. It is equivalent to a legislative act and supersedes state laws. With conflicting treaties, the later in time controls.

A nonself-executing treaty needs federal legislation to implement their provisions. This is usually needed to get the states to take action with their state laws.

In March of 2008, President Bush suffered a defeat when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his assertion on the powers of the president regarding U.S. treaties with the States. In Medellin vs. Texas, the Supreme Court ruled that the States are only bound if the treaty explicitly said so or if there was legislation to make that clear.

This case was emotionally charged because the defendant was convicted to death for the gang rape a murder of two Houston teenagers, and a total of 51 Mexican nationals who were convicted and sentenced by state law were made part of this case.

The International Court of Justice ordered President Bush to tell the states to review cases of some foreign defendants who were denied the right to contact their embassies when they were arrested. President Bush ordered the states to review the cases.

The issue before the Court was whether the treaty was binding on the States in accordance with President Bush’s order.

The right to contact their embassies was included in the Vienna Convention and the Optional Protocol which gave specific jurisdiction to ICJ. (Later on the U.S. withdrew from the Optional Protocol.) The United States insisted on this right when it negotiated the treaty.

But now the Supreme Court ruled that the president’s executive power does not give him the authority to intervene in those state criminal cases unless the treaty explicitly says so or if there is legislation to make that clear.

This set a strong line on the difference between self-executing and nonself-executing treaties.

The last power of the president is executive agreements. This does not need Senate approval but will prevail over state law. The scope of power of executive agreements included when the president recognized the Soviet government and made an agreement which forced New York State to have the banks release funds to the Soviet government. United States vs. Pink 315 U.S. 203 (1942).

The president can settle claims by executive agreement. When assets were frozen for the Iranian hostage situation under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the president released the assets by executive agreement.

Understanding the powers of the president and what areas are not within the scope of power will help the voters make a more realistic evaluation of the candidates.

Knowing your legal and consumer rights is your best defense.

Chinese antiques civilization evolved very separately from influences from the west until modern times, and those were more of warships and gunboat diplomacy by the west to intrude itself into commerce of the Orient. The west has much to feel shame about in it’s treatment of China, as does Japan, and for which China never ceases to remind all guilty parties. This has become such an ingrained self defence mechanism that China continues to use it to this day, whether it holds the high moral ground or not.

To China, any statement in criticism of any policy of modern China is to invite near assault, as television cameras from London to Paris to San Francisco to elsewhere have shown us, until now the Olympic torch, this democratic symbol of athletes showing their best is becoming more a Roman Circus parade, in which the army surround the prisoner in his cage on his way to the stadium. There, he would be ritually strangled to cheering thousands, or offered as a combatant with a small sword against a lion.

This could be modern China’s solution to so much world dissatisfaction with their moral rights to yet be worthy of holding the icon of democracy, the Olympic torch: the world seems to say loudly that they are not. In sympathy with the feelings of the ancient Greek governing council of Thirty, as those who ruled Socrates imbibe the life releasing chalice of hemlock, so that for China: to distribute to each Tibetan monk who dares speak from his heart, or his mind. Alexander the Great knew those Thirty were all driven from power soon after such cruel folly.

Greece would honor those who spoke their minds in honest protest of a wrong. However, in 2008 Beijing, as in Rome at any time or Greece in 469 B C E, the Socratic group of monks from Tibet could be paraded in chains through the smoggy air of Beijing without masks. Hell on earth itself would be to parade them around Beijing without masks until they cough or drop, an updated Bataan march. Then China, the world’s most glorious civilization, as they keep telling us, could take these terrorist monks into the stadium to the Chinese only crowd, all will like Confucious do as the emperor says, and will show thumbs down as the Manchurian tigers enter through the other gate.

All is quiet with drama, for a short while. But, soon, what Han batons could not quite complete, nor could the reeducation camps, but quickly could the mighty tiger. Dragon tiger, did he who make thee, make me? So, if we care, and we are there, why not bypass these Roman circus fakes of the true spirit of Athens and democratic speech andfree athletes, bypass made in China if modern. Buy Chinese antiques before they reah that curve in their progress from dollar an hour to who has great grandmother’s Ming vases?

You do, which you are buying now. So clear your mantle, Mickey. Buy low, enjoy, and a decade from now, when the guys are having a yard block sales of their modern Chinese junk, say you are busy. Someone on the net has just bid two extra zeros onto that Ming vase I love. Well, Mings and Chinese antique things I do love, but I sense my love being overwhelmed by the sound of dollars, a million callers. Makes you wish you had bought more back then. You still can. But as China becomes more rich, so will those at the top.

And it will be they who will eventually, as in Japan decades earlier, stop just thrilling about their modern gadgets and cellphone photos. What about our Chinese antiques heritage? Have we got a Ming mantle for you, new rich Sam Ming Kew. Yes, Mickey, you rebuilt your mantle. Smart investing. Serves you good, Lady Marion, and Sir Robin Hood.

Derek Dashwood enjoys noticing positive ways we progress, the combining of science into the humanities to measure politics, wise use and mis use of power and protective love at
Chinese Antiques

Japanese antiques follow the pattern of their mother China, in that as peoples poured out of Africa some million years ago, they took on various characteristics, whether the golden peoples of the east who also poured over into the America’s and became brown, or the Indo European groups that spread west into Europe, becoming lighter skin and blue eyes as their more northern lives now required more sun absorbtion. In original humanity Africa, equitorial peoples retained their dark skins to lessen skin cancer from heat of direct year round sun.

In Japan, the code of protection from foreign attack was intensified after two ferocious attempts by Mongol China to land immense fleets to enslave the people of Japan. Short landings inflicted terror and death to local Japanese, but armies of Samurai forced them back. The next, much greater fleet to arrive in a few years would surely have won, but a mighty typhoon stopped their landing and increased in force to sink most of the Chinese fleet, and cause their retreat forever. This during the time of Marco Polo.

To this day, and with each arrival of a ship, including those of Admiral Perry in 1854, few sailors taried long ashore, or only a few returned to their ships. Japan became very inward, sword by sword. And this control by the leader Shogun evolved into one over lord Shogun, many deaths, and an Emperor evolved, in time to meet the west. After Admiral Perry, Japan modernized, beat Russia in an early 20th century sea battle, and began it’s expansion through the 1930’s and 1940’s until the USS Missouri pulled into Tokyo Bay in 1945 and all agreed that western democratic capitalism had arrived.

That front page newspaper photo of the immense and powerful 6 ft 5 inch General Douglas MacArthur standing next to a rather disshevelled puny Emperor dressed hastily in western clothes with his head and tie askew told the people of Japan a new era had begun. And as we know now, they learned our lessons better than us. So while a new Japanese auto will be a good purchase, a Japanese antiques would do you far better. They will make millions more fine autos: but the samurai sword, or historic precious artifact keep going off the shelf, and your only choice one day will be a very nice replica.

If you sense a pattern of wealth to this, it is not to the Neds with lead heads in those huge buggy lines with their modern oriental replicas. Be wise, go back to the future, where an investment in time, will return much more by far. I bought my first rental house in 1961 for $11,500 and worked my way up to selling my antique seaside inn in 2004 for $2,100,000. When you look at what is available, and what richer Chinese will delight in buying up Japanese antiques to show off when Tokyo is in town.

Be inscrutable though, when they ask how much. Bow lower than them, this is the trick that Marco Polo learned. The lower kowtow, the bow to the emperor, implies such power to him or her that they are obliged to cut off your hear or grant your request. Marco left the Forbidden Palace with riches, and his head. You could too. Buy now, kowtow later, be rich ever after. Deep kow, holy tow, count your cash. Bless your long vision in this day by day survivial world. If you don’t plan your retirement investments, who will?

Derek Dashwood enjoys noticing positive ways we progress, the combining of science into the humanities to measure politics, wise use and mis use of power and protective love at
Japanese Antiques

It was a masterful campaign right through to Texas. Just before Texas Obama admitted they had let up for a few days and could have perhaps won or closed the gap with a stronger finish.

This was to my recollection the first time Obama admitted his campaign had made a mistake. Up to that point it was by most accounts a masterful campaign; in fact, an almost perfect campaign.

But as we know now, that was the calm before the storm.

First came the Michelle Obama comments that she had never been proud to be an American until her husband ran for office. Whew. There’s one that will come back before November.

The Swift Boat propaganda masterminds will somehow create an image of her being First Lady and trying to represent the country she is not so proud of. Whew.

Next came the very Rev. Wright or as he is now called the Rev. Wrong. Willie Brown, perhaps one of the most savvy Democrats and former Speaker of the California Assembly and Mayor of San Francisco, nailed it on the head.

Willie said the real pros when they make the decision to go for high office look all around themselves and clean up the rough spots anticipating the vetting process. Obama did not do that thinking he and his message were above all the pettiness. By the way, for those that aren’t aware of it, Willie Brown is African American.

Obama’s explanation of the Rev. Wright was OK for his supporters but insufficient for his detractors. Does Obama expect everyone to believe he sat in the good Reverend’s church for 20 years and simply not hear Wright’s anti-American rantings? Of course lots of folks do sleep through church…

But the real problem with the good Reverend is yet to come. The Swift Boat propaganda machine will bring up, as Vice President Dick Cheney said at the recent press convention, the prospect of the Rev. Wrong giving invocations at the White House. Whew. That won’t play well in Peoria and a lot of other places.

And then there’s the ex- terrorist and “English professor” William Ayres. He and wife Bernadette Dohrn are quite the darling couple and have a loyal following amongst the progressives at the University of Chicago where he is a “Distinguished Professor.”

Obama said he was only eight when Ayres and company bombed the United States so what’s the big deal? The big deal is just how will that play in Peoria and the odds are it won’t play so well either.

It will play about as well as Obama’s elitist statement that rednecks cling to their guns and religion because they are bitter about the economy and their government.

Whew. He may have been talking to the liberal progressives out here in California but his message will be relayed to every small town in the land.

Now it appears the clouds are gathering over what now increasingly appears to be a defective campaign. His explanations and complaints about rising above it all show either contempt or arrogance or both.

Many Americans take very seriously their President’s loyalty, character and judgment, something the Obama campaign has vastly underestimated.

Arrogance is the only explanation.

Obama is a really smart guy and he likes entertaining others with his brilliance. He likes to “show off” and “wing it” and that’s what gets him in trouble. Like a night club comedian he lives or dies off the audience’s reaction; that’s why he says things like small town folks are bitter and cling to their religion.

As a “typical white person” it’s not really about Democrats like me, who really don’t care what preachers say and don’t pay attention to what clowns like William Ayres say.

It’s my friends in the South and Midwest that are crying “foul.” These folks are white, Reagan Democrats or Arnold Republicans. They are centrist, patriotic and by many experts the so-called swing vote.

For Obama they unfortunately don’t forgive and forget and they are spreading the word.

By all accounts Obama is a very smart person and I voted for him in the California primary. His mistaken views of economics and proposals for an all powerful government would have been issues for the fall but now they will play second fiddle to his loyalty, character and judgment problems.

In an election the Democrats simply could not lose it appears it is now a real race and one we Democrats can definitely lose. And in the end it may well be Obama’s arrogance that leads to his downfall.

Like Dick Morris said, the biggest problem we Democrats have may turn out to be that Obama is our party’s nominee.

Jack Deal is the owner of JD Deal Online Marketing, Santa Cruz and Monterey, CA. Related articlesmay be found at http://www.jddeal.com/blog/opinion and http://www.freeandinquiringmind.typepad.com