The frog and the scorpion: a traditional parable revised.

Charles Davis has written a great article for Carbon Control News:

Under the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, overseas military activities are generally exempt from regulation…

A 2008 report from Oil Change International that estimated the carbon footprint of the Iraq war found it responsible for “at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.” Ranked as a country, “it would emit more CO2 each year than 139 of the world’s nations do annually.”

I honestly had no idea wars were completely unregulated in this way (and as the article makes clear, will continue to be even under the best possible international agreements). So we have wars to control the oil that causes global warming, and then global warming will inevitably cause more wars, and then those wars will themselves help cause more global warming. And they told two friends, and they told two friends, and eventually earth was inherited by super-intelligent cockroaches.

Anyway, read it all. I think the best we can hope for is the super-intelligent cockroaches will power their civilization with technology that produces huge amounts of boric acid. Then at least we won’t feel like the planet’s only morons.

The first TMW of the new decade, here.

Q: Do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?

A: I believe that I am because I have common sense. And I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many other American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the kind of a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite Ivy League education and a fact resume that’s based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles. Americans could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership. I’m not saying that has to be me.

Click thru for the answer, if you need to.

The year in crazy, part two.

The year in crazy, part one.

Normally sporadic blogging to resume after the merriment. Many thanks to all who signed up so far for the sticker list (below).

Whatever you celebrate, enjoy.

I’ve gotten into the habit lately of directing everyone over to Salon to read the new cartoon, but TMW also goes up Wednesdays on Credo (formerly Working Assets). Most of you are probably familiar with the company, but for those who aren’t: Credo uses the profits they make as a phone company to fund various progressive causes. They’ve been sponsors of TMW for quite a number of years now, and we’ve been talking over the past couple of months about a new partnership of sorts. They want to build up their mailing list, and I want to figure out ways to keep working as a cartoonist, so here’s what we came up with: they’re going to start giving away an exclusive free TMW bumper sticker to everyone I send their way who signs up for their activism alerts, and they’ll toss some coin my way for every name they get. So if you sign up, you’ll get a free sticker and help keep me in business, which doesn’t seem like the worst deal you’re likely to be offered this week.

…adding: apparently only available in USA … apologies for any confusion …

Here’s the pertinent disclaimer:

CREDO Action supports the work of Tom Tomorrow and This Modern World. Everyone who orders a free Tom Tomorrow sticker or signs up to receive email alerts re: new cartoons, will also receive offers and activism opportunities from CREDO.

The sponsorship and collaboration between CREDO Mobile, CREDO Action and Tom Tomorrow simultaneously helps fund the publishing of This Modern World and grow the community behind CREDO’s progressive work.

Don’t worry. We won’t do anything nefarious with your info. CREDO does not sell, trade or release your e-mail address to outside third parties unless they are named partners on a given project, or are the recipients of a petition or citizen action you have signed.

Check it out here.

… adding: direct link to sticker order page here.

Digby:

And Obama can say that you’re getting a lot, but also saying that it “covers everyone,” as if there’s a big new benefit is a big stretch. Nothing will have changed on that count except changing the law to force people to buy private insurance if they don’t get it from their employer. I guess you can call that progressive, but that doesn’t make it so. In fact, mandating that all people pay money to a private interest isn’t even conservative, free market or otherwise. It’s some kind of weird corporatism that’s very hard to square with the common good philosophy that Democrats supposedly espouse.

Nobody’s “getting covered” here. After all, people are already “free” to buy private insurance and one must assume they have reasons for not doing it already. Whether those reasons are good or bad won’t make a difference when they are suddenly forced to write big checks to Aetna or Blue Cross that they previously had decided they couldn’t or didn’t want to write. Indeed, it actually looks like the worst caricature of liberals: taking people’s money against their will, saying it’s for their own good. — and doing it without even the cover that FDR wisely insisted upon with social security, by having it withdrawn from paychecks. People don’t miss the money as much when they never see it.

What this huge electoral mandate and congressional majority have gotten us, then, is basically a deal with the insurance industry to accept 30 million coerced customers in exchange for ending their practice of failing to cover their customers when they get sick — unless they go beyond a “reasonable cap,” of course. (And profits go up!) If that’s the best we can expect of progressivism for the next generation then I’m afraid we are in deep trouble.

From the inbox:

I just want to thank you for writing the Very Silly Mayor. I read it to my daughter for the first time last night and she throughly enjoyed it. I actually purchased two autographed copies, the second of which will go the son of my best friend, and I have no doubt he will enjoy it equally. It’s a funny line we parents have to walk; teaching our children to respect authority while at the same time encouraging them to question it. Your book will help in this endeavor.

Autographed copies are sold out, but there’s a regular copy waiting for you here.