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06
Bye-bye Dick, hello Fred
Jun 26, 2007That’s the thrust of Sally Quinn’s column in the Washington Post today. (Hat tip to BHC Readers Panelist Jack White.) She writes that the GOP has grown tired of Dick Cheney and so could be making a move to oust him. The logical choice to replace him, according to Quinn, is our own Fred Thompson.
Quinn writes: Everybody loves Fred. He has the healing qualities of Gerald Ford and the movie-star appeal of Ronald Reagan. He is relatively moderate on social issues. He has a reputation as a peacemaker and a compromiser. And he has a good sense of humor.
He could be just the partner to bring out Bush’s better nature—or at least be a sensible voice of reason. I could easily imagine him telling the president, “For God’s sake, do not push that button!”—a command I have a hard time hearing Cheney give.
Not only that, Thompson would give the Republicans a platform for running for the presidency—and the president a way out of Iraq without looking like he’s backing down. Bush would be left in better shape on the war and be able to concentrate on AIDS and the environment in hopes of salvaging his legacy.
Talk of Cheney’s ouster might just be rampant speculation. The degree to which he has been the force behind the presidency and the architect of the foolishness in Iraq is not. One could make a pretty compelling argument that Cheney is the most powerful figure in our government ... even more so than the president.
We will address Cheney editorially this week. You may share your thoughts here.
Posted by Andrea Hopkins Bottled water blues, part 2
Jun 26, 2007In response to yesterday’s post about a ban on bottled water in the city by the bay, Joey responds: Based on the article, they’re stopping buying bottled water of the sort that is used at the office water cooler. This is why it talks about dispenser rentals, paper cups, and attachment of dispensers to water pipes.
Looks like he has a valid point ... and I have no problem with a city or business, for that matter, deciding to eliminate water coolers in favor of their own filtered water. I drink filtered water from the sink at home.
However, there is a growing environmental movement that wants to eliminate bottled water (of the kind that everyone carts around with them).
From the Salem (Ore.) News, “Bottled Water Boom is Hurting the World’s Environment,”: Around the world, factories are using more than 18 million barrels of oil and up to 130 billion gallons of fresh water a year to create something that, by and large, most people don’t need. But the product is so amazingly popular that sales are going up 10 percent a year, just like clockwork.
The big success story? Bottled water. And the resources mentioned above are just to make the plastic containers.
Another 41 billion gallons of water is then used to fill them – water that is often just tap water, and other times has less frequent monitoring for safety or purity than if it had come out of a tap.
“Bottled water has become an incredibly big business, up to $100 billion per year,” said Todd Jarvis, an assistant professor in the Water Resources Graduate Program at Oregon State University, and a research hydrogeologist with the OSU Institute for Water and Watersheds. “There are enormous amounts of money to be made here. Some of the profits make our business majors blush, and everyone wants in. It’s just astonishing.”
Jarvis, who has studied the issue for 15 years and makes frequent presentations on it, arrived long ago at a simple conclusion – bottled water is not worth the price, and the people buying it often have no idea of the environmental repercussions. When his students learn the truth about the water itself and hear about the drawbacks of this burgeoning industry, he said, they often change their behavior.
You can read all of it here.
So my question remains: Is this a case of the fringe of the environmental movement crying wolf or something I should actually worry about as I pack lunches in the morning?
The next threat?
Jun 25, 2007San Francisco’s mayor, not content to declare war on the humble plastic grocery bag, is targeting bottled water. Apparently, it’s no longer hip among the Earth-friendly, enviro-conscious crowd to sip bottled water.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the mayor has forbidden the use of city funds to purchase bottled water:
San Francisco city government will no longer be allowed to use city money to buy bottled water for its employees under an executive order Mayor Gavin Newsom is expected to sign today.
Despite owning a pristine reservoir in the Sierra Nevada that is said to produce some of the country’s best-tasting tap water, the city spends nearly $500,000 a year on bottled water.
Newsom is making good on a year-old promise to curb spending on bottled water in the wake of a 2006 Chronicle story that found San Francisco had paid more than $2 million for water, paper cups and dispenser rentals in recent years.
“All of this waste and pollution is generated by a product that by objective standards is often inferior to the quality of San Francisco’s pristine tap water,” Newsom wrote in a two-page executive order that he is expected to sign today.
You can read more about the bottled water ban here.
I guess I understand the logic. However, I don’t think most people are buying bottled water as an alternative to drinking tap water. In my life, it’s usually a choice between a bottle of water or a soda. They generate the same amount of waste, but the water is healthier than the Diet Coke.
I have tried using these refillable sports bottles. I have a whole collection of them with mismatched tops that are always lost. Some of them leak. And I have yet to find one that I can completely rid of that blasted taste of dishwasher detergent. I take them out of the dishwasher and rinse ... and rinse ... and rinse. And I can still smell it and taste it. Let’s not even go into how many water bottles my kids have lost since day camp started ... and that’s with their names written on them in Sharpie. They still disappear.
So, if I’m going to go green on this issue, someone’s got to tell me why it really matters, how to get over the yuck-factor with the reusable bottles tasting like soap ... and how to keep up with the lids and the bottles themselves.
This week’s column
Jun 25, 2007Is about lax standards in China and the problems that this poses for American consumers. You may read it here. And, of course, you may comment on it here.
Have your say in advance
Jun 05, 2007Continuing our on-again, off-again practice of soliciting input prior to publication of editorials on sundry topics, here are some of this week’s works-in-progress. Feel free to share your thoughts on any or all of them.
1) G-8 summit: Global warming, poverty and world health issues are certainly important, but the chilling of relations with Russia seems more pressing. Will the prospects of a missile defense network in Europe lead to a new cold war?
2) JFK terror plot: That the FBI and Homeland Security unraveled this plot is a bit of good news, but does this portend a shift to more homegrown terrorists? Should we be looking within our border and abandoning our rather limited notion of what a terrorist looks like (i.e. Middle Eastern).
3) Toll roads: Southern states are looking to toll roads to save them from the despair of shrinking budgets for maintenance and construction. But in a region like ours, where the interstate is a critical artery for commuters and commerce, toll roads come with a down side.
