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The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (Waxman-Markey cap and trade) bill passed in the house last week.

I have mixed feelings on this bill. First of all, while I believe that the planet’s temperature is rising and man is contributing to this temperature rise, I’m not convinced that the entire rise in temperature is due to man. Nor am I convinced that this rise in temperature is going to be significant or that it will cause catastrophic climate change.

So, I do not start from the position of ‘OMG WE’VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING NOW!!”.

However, I do believe that we should find more efficient energy sources, preferably ones that we can get from here in the US. Anything that can stop us from giving the crazies in the middle east our money is a good thing. (all the countries over there with oil are full of crazies – not to mention Venezuela). I believe that we need an energy policy that encourages self sufficiency as a country and promotes efficiency in our energy use. Unfortunately this bill doesn’t do this. The only thing that this bill is sure to do is put a drain on the US economy.

This is what I don’t understand about this bill. It looks like its main purpose isn’t really to significantly curtail global warming (because it doesn’t), its main purpose is a starting point for reducing CO2 emissions. I guess the idea is that doing anything, even if it doesn’t really work, is better than doing nothing at all. I’m not a Democrat, but if I were, this position would make no sense at all to me. The Democrats have the White House and both houses of congress. When will conditions be better for the Democrats to pass into law something that does what they want? The Republicans aren’t going to act like jackasses forever. Eventually they will get back into power.

The end result of this is going to be a law that accomplishes relatively little in the way of CO2 reductions but will put a drain on the economy. It doesn’t make any sense to me. I guess the United States will look better to the rest of the civilized world. Fine. Whatever.

There’s also an assumption that once the United States gets serious about climate change that the rest of the world will follow. (don’t make me post a link to the Odd Couple assume scene again – too late). I find the idea that the rest of the world will have a CO2 epiphany because the United States passes an ineffective global warming bill very naive.

If I were a Democrat, and not an Democratic ideologue, I couldn’t support this bill. As a cynic who thinks our government is run by the most incompetent and irresponsible people in the country, this bill makes perfect sense. It’s exactly the kind of useless nonsense I expect from our government. I’m not just picking on Democrats here, the Republicans were holding their own when it comes to incompetence when they were in power. They just have a different flavor. What kind of condiment do you want on your shit sandwhich?

Today. the house passed a bill allowing more regulation of tobacco products by the federal government. I’m fairly ambivalent about this bill because I don’t smoke and don’t like smoking but I’m also generally against additional government regulation. In any case, when I read the article this quote :

For smokers, the law will mean confronting graphic warnings of the risks of their habit every time they pick up a pack

reminded me of this (from Denis Leary):

Doesn’t matter how big the warnings are. You could have cigarettes that were called the warnings. You could have cigarettes that come in a black pack, with a skull and a cross bone on the front, called tumors and smokers would be lined up around the block going, “I can’t wait to get my hands on these fucking things! I bet you get a tumor as soon as you light up! Numm Numm Numm Numm Numm” Doesn’t matter how big the warnings are or how much they cost. Keep raising the prices, we’ll break into your houses to get the fucking cigarettes, ok!? They’re a drug, we’re addicted, ok!?

I’m going with Denis Leary on this one.

In another sign that maybe our “war on drugs” isn’t exactly working:

U.S. law enforcement officials say that more than a third of the cocaine smuggled into the United States from Colombia travels in submersibles.

An experimental oddity just two years ago, these strange semi-submarines are the cutting edge of drug trafficking today. They ferry hundreds of tons of cocaine for powerful Mexican cartels that are taking over the Pacific Ocean route for most northbound shipments, according to the Colombian navy.

Officials estimate that the subs cost about $1 million to manufacture in Colombia. Colombian officials say some former military personnel might be helping to design, construct and direct the vessels.

Ok, so we’ve been at this for pretty much my entire life(40 years) and the drug runners are still making enough money to build million dollar submarines. Not only that, but enough to expect to lose enough of them that they’re built with a self destruct button:

“The vessels are built to sink. When they open the valves, tons of water come in, and in a minute, or a minute and a half, they sink,” Barrera said. “There is no evidence, and what starts as a counterdrug operation becomes a rescue operation.”

So, they can’t prosecute these guys when they sink one of their own boats so they’ve created a law that has nothing to do with drug smuggling just to be able to prosecute these guys:

last fall the U.S. Congress passed the Drug Trafficking Vessel Interdiction Act of 2008, which makes it a crime to ply international waters in stateless vessels with the intent of evading detection. The maximum sentence is 15 years.

IANAL but it doesn’t make sense to me that the US could write a law saying that people who are not in US waters have to make their presence known or the US can throw them in jail. I hate these kinds of laws. Laws written with a particular scenario in mind but nothing keeping the law from being used in other scenarios.

I don’t have a solution to America’s drug problem, but by now I think we know what the solution isn’t. It’s time to try something else. As is normal however, our leaders are too spineless to even mention a different option.