I just saw the brilliant video of Tina Fey as Sarah Palin from Saturday Night Life.  First of all, Tina Fey was way hotter than Palin, and way funnier.  Secondly, Tina would make a way-better about-to-be-president than Sarah.  I read recently in an article from Naomi Wolf that several reputable dermatologists have said McCain currently has a virulent and life-threatening form of skin cancer.  They say he’s really only got two to four years to live.  And if it’s two years, that makes Sarah (Makes Me) Pale a very likely default US President.  This is a woman who thinks baby Jesus cries when you wear a condom.  A woman who tried to have books banned from a local library.  A woman who’s attended a church since she was 12, whose preacher even thinks George W. Bush is going to hell.  (W. is too liberal for Palin???)  A woman who is the next figurehead for Karl Rove and Dick Cheney’s reign of terror.  A woman who cut Alaska’s funding for teen moms (and is anti-choice, and thinks abstinence should be the only sex education we give kids in schools.)  What does she expect all these teen moms to go?  Perhaps she could invite them to stay at her house, and have a slumber party with Bristol and her baby?  And they could watch Saturday Night Live–oh, wait, maybe not such a good idea with Tina Fey in the picture. 

Please register to vote.  You can do it at Rock the Vote.

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So here’s what happened: John McCain launched an internet attack ad against Barack Obama suggesting Obama is not a suitable presidential candidate because he’s as empty a celebrity as Paris Hilton.  So, Adam McKay thought it would be funny if Paris Hilton ran for president, with the comedy logic that an intellectually capable Paris would nullilfy and make ridiculous McCain’s attack. (Pardon me for explaining the joke.)

So, Adam wrote a presidential candidacy announcement, got Paris on board and they shot it this week.  It’s the first time Paris really speaks publicly with any substance whatsoever, and she pulls it off pretty well.  But really, Adam McKay?  Your ghostwriting has Paris suggest an energy policy that’s a “combination of McCain’s and Obama’s” in which we do drill for offshore oil (McCain’s idea) “safely” (McKay’s idea) which will sustain us until we sufficiently develop alternative energy sources (Obama’s idea.)

First off, the idea of safe offshore drilling is dubious at best; no oil drilling is free of leaks, accidents, etc, and many of those problems are never made public.  Secondly, any offshore drilling started now won’t yield oil for another twenty to forty years–how does that sustain us or reduce gas prices now?  Thirdly, we’ve already got a host of alternative energies that are ready for development; this is the time to change.  LA Times journalist Carol Williams reported Schwarzenegger as saying, “Anyone who tells you [offshore drilling] would bring down gas prices any time soon is blowing smoke.”

If we don’t shift our energy use to alternative fuels in twenty to forty years, we’ll be much more likely to be gearing up to fight China for the oil left in the Middle East.  Our offshore oil should really be saved for the the next hudred generations of people, or sadly, saved in the case that we end up, say, waring with China for a hundred years, which would undoubtedly be directly or indirectly caused by fear and scarcity over resources.

So, thanks, Adam, for the good intentions, but it’d be funnier if Paris slammed down a hardcore energy policy instead of a hollywood one.

Handy-Dandy Energy Facts that Suggest Alternative Fuel Development is a Better Idea than Offshore Drilling:  US Vehicle turnover rate: 15 years
US Average age of vehicles: 9 years
Soonest possible time we’ll get any US offshore oil: 7 years
Number of oil spills for offshore drilling off the Texas coast: 187 spills of MORE THAN 2100 gallons between 1981 - 2005. That’s AT LEAST 392,000 gallons of crude oil, or roughly 16,000 gallons spilled every year.

With the US average vehicle age of 9.2 years, and average turnover rate of 15 years, in the time it takes to see any benefit from offshore drilling, we could be halfway to a green energy car fleet — which would drop the demand for oil and have the same price benefit for those still driving gasoline cars as increasing the supply of gasoline! (If that doesn’t make any sense to you, folks, please, PLEASE, go take an Economics 101 class at your local community college, or read Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan or Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner.)

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The setting of the sun in Alleppey and Cochi brings a beautiful, diffuse pink light every evening that I’ve only seen very occassionally where I live. I went to two parties in Allephuzah with Jay and Bones, the young dudes of Nani Residnce where I was staying. They were funny–constant tricksters and jokers–very different from the multitudes of serious Indians I’ve been meeting. Watching Indian guys dance with each other to “Om Shanti Om!” (a dance-pop hit here) was wonderful and hilarious, and I successfully avoided actually dancing with them… the young drunk Indian man is, if you can believe it, even more persistant than the sober one.

Took the train up to Cochin and stayed just inland of the giant fishing nets. Got a palm reading from an old man by the shore who said I’d have five kids. Ha!? Took a cooking class with a sweet retired couple and learned how to make an exquisite south Indian meal of coconut thoran, vegetable rice, and tomato fry. The next day I had a perfect cheese and tomato omlette and a warm death-by-chocolate cake at an adorable cafe called Teapot.

Afterward, I walked across the peninsula to Jew Town where I took a couple of illegal pics of the synagogue. Jews came from Israel somewhere between 1000 BC and 1400 AD (they’re still not sure) and inhabited a few parts of India. In 1568, they built the synagogue I visited. There were about 2000 Jews left here, and all but 12 are not in Israel. And guess what?! I met one of the last surviving Cochin Jews! Her name is Sara Cohen, and she’s 70 or 80. A total sweetheart. Met a family of South African Jews a the shul as well and we walked around Cochi for the evening. That night, we ate at an Italian place called Upstairs (which was.. upstairs). I ordered a panacotta for desert, hoping to eat it with my second piece of death-by-chocolate cake, and sadly the panacotta melted in its hot chocolate sauce on the way home. I ate it anyway. It’s only a week since I was doing yoga four hours a day. What happened? Rickshaw drivers are constantly wanting to bring you here and there, and they’re stunned when you want to walk somewhere.

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My time left in India is shrinking!

In the last week, I’ve been traveling to a new place almost every day, making my way to Sivananda Ashram ( http://www.sivananda.org ) this afternoon, where I’ll stay for a week or two to do some yoga. So many quite remarkable things have happened that I’d like to present them for you in a montage. Hum your own favorite montage song while reading (”Chariots of Fire”, “If You Want to Sing Out” from Cat Stevens, a little Miles Davis… whatever you go in for) and imagine me Making Progress Toward a Goal, Learning Valuable Life Lessons, or Having a Ball.

Auroville… entering the Golden Golf Ball of Utopia (Google the Matramandir) for a bit of meditation, riding my moped around and feeling really independent in a new way here (Auroville is a small place with very little traffic, so for those of you who were worried imagining me without a helmet, it was fine and it’s all over now) …. saw a traditional Indian dance concert, sat on the beach having my palm read by a German amateur palm reader, ate fresh shark with a Slovenian couple and watched an old Russian slapstick about escaped tigers on a ship…. visited the energy healer in Pondicherry, ate an extravagant meal at the hotel where international embassadors stay in Pondi…

Took the overcrowded bus to Villapurum and the third class (open seating) train to Trichy… met a family on the train whose daughter had a human growth hormone deficiency who asked me to help them get cheaper HGH ($180 a month for 10 years) but I wasn’t able to connect with them…. stayed at a hotel with a swimming pool for the first time, and that was the day it started raining here… rested in Trichy, watched In the Line of Fire on cable and had a long hot shower……

Train to Madurai, stayed at the Hotel Supreme… bathroom smelled like puke (but fine otherwise)…. met a woman from Jersey (near England, where the cows come from) and we strolled around the temples at night and had dinner on the roof… in the morning, I went to the flower market and bought lotuses and roses and took pictures of the bustle… saw the Gandhi museum, felt inspired and humbled….. walked outside and videotaped a soundbite for a P.S.A. on eye care (I looked into the camera, with generosity and care in my eyes, and spoke this line for them: “We, too, donate.” Can we get a grammarian out here please??)

Took the 4 hour bus to the Periyar Wildlife Preserve…. but on the way I was listening to Sean Hayes on my iPod, and, overcome with a sense of expansion and love, I turned to the woman next to me and gave her a rose from the flower market…. she invited me to her home for tea in Cumbum (yes, Cumbum)….. her daughter called me Auntie, and I met everyone in the neighborhood and spoke to their whole family on the phone….. one family fed me sweets, the next showed me how to make dosas and applauded when I did it, then ten people watched me eat….. the girls pumped up the Indian music and danced for me (!!!) and then I got up and we all danced together–they know all the moves from the Indian music videos, and it was just like choreographing dances to Young MC in sixth grade, but with added hip shaking and Indian head nodding…… JaiLakshmi invited me to stay, and I said yes…. she made the bed for me and they slept on the floor……

Took the morning bus to Periyar and stayed at Coffee Inn where I stayed in another raised thatched-roof hut overlooking the wildlife sanctuary….. met people, toured a spice and flower garden….. bought great spices and teas…. I feel a bit like a successful version of Columbus…. took a boat tour and spotted FIVE wild elephants!! ate a feast with friends at Ananda Bhavana, some paper dosa, gobi manchurian (hello Gobiji), mulai kofta, coconut rice…..

Stood for six hours on a crowded train to Trivandrum as the rain poured down, saw water buffalo… met a guy named Francisco here who is working on his PhD… he helped me find a room here, and we had dinner…… his FIRST time ever eating with a woman!

So I’m off to the Ashram for a week or two…

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ENVIRONMENTALISM IN VOGUE

The Bush Administration is putting on a new environmentally friendly face. Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth just won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Environmental headlines are flashing across the cable news crawl every day.

After thirty or forty years of scientists’ warnings, the media and the public are finally starting to come around to the fact that environmental issues like global warming, biodiversity, and human population need to be at the top of the agenda. And the business community is finally understanding that what is good for the environment is also good for the bottom line. Making money and contributing to the health of the planet: what could be better!?

GREAT NEW BUSINESS IDEAS!

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