But where will Gordon Smith be? Hint: he's skulking around the state, attending private meetings with supporters and underwriters. He seems petrified at the thought of actually meeting constituents. Wouldn't it be nice if he were given the opportunity? Anyone know of a scheduled event?

"The admiration is mutual. Kerry won 72 percent of the vote in Multnomah County" "admiration"? Oh give me a break. Probably a majority of local Kerry voters couldn't stand him. He just wasn't Bush.

Who: John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry What: The Kerrys will discuss their book "This Moment on Earth: Today's New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future" (PublicAffairs, $25, 254 pages) When: 7 p.m. Monday Where: Bagdad Theater, 3702 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd. Cost: $26

On a given day, these two probably burn more fossil fuels and do more harm to the environment than your average family would do in a year. Their multi-millionaire-mansion-jetting setting lifestyle is something I personally can't relate to and has little benefit to the environment. You really want to do the earth some good with $26? Go plant some trees or something - my 2 cents.

Oh puke. Are you the same people who absolutely refused to vote for Al Gore in 2000 and nearly gave the state to Bush as a result? And now fall all over him in order to redeem Yourselves????

John & Teresa are awesome people. They are every bit as much leaders on the environment as Al Gore. Senator Kerry was the leader on acid rain in the 80's. Teresa led on women and environmental health hazards in the early 90's. Besides the point, this book isn't about them anyway. It's about the people who ARE out there planting trees and cleaning rivers and oh, the entire city of Portland because it was the people that demanded the city be an environmental oasis.

More on the event and blogger call: http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/?p=72

For those of you with the chance to attend this event, I can tell you that the NYC event, an interview with Charlie Rose, was fantastic and the book is very good.

The Kerrys address a broad array of environmental issues in a non-partisan way. The focus is on people, who they met on the 2004 campaign trail, who had fought either alone or with similar minded people to fix or quantify local environmental problems, often with no governmental help.

Kerry roots as an activist really show in this incredible call to action. They describe many problems that have reached drastic levels - but it is not the problems you come away with, but a very positive sense that you can and should get involved to help where you can.

Someone upthread said that the large crowd was not for Kerry, but against Bush. In fact, there was no reason for someone not interested in Senator Kerry to go out of their way to attend the event. Voting was one thing, attending a rally another. From the pictures, video tape, and the reporting of the time, the crowd was happy to see Kerry. He easily won the primaries, where his competitors were other Democrats, not Bush.

Look Sandy, with all due respect it seems if you are being paid by the Kerrys to post here?:

"It's about the people who ARE out there planting trees and cleaning rivers and oh, the entire city of Portland because it was the people that demanded the city be an environmental oasis."

If the people of Portland really want to do the environment good - spend you're $26 here in town doing something constructive for Portland's environment - NOT by giving your hard earned $$ to a bunch of multi-millionaire-jet-setters...

Stan, I live in Florence. [email protected] Email me. I'll send you my phone number. You can call me. I've never been paid a penny for any political or activism work I've done in my entire life.

This millionaire jet-set crap is utter right wing bullshit. Who doesn't fly on jets?? Who isn't rich? Gore? Edwards? JFK Jr? How can people be so easily duped by right wing gibberish. It's astounding. It's times like this that it's easy to understand Obey's outburst.

And this is the reason I don't post on Oregon blogs generally. They tend to be filled with the kind of trash that's in this thread.

Thanks , and so sad that some people cannot get out of their own very personal elitism.

No surprise that we cannot advance if some are not even able to distinguish friends and foes.

And thank you to all those who are ready to fight for the environment, be it Kerry, Gore, or anybody else.

It is easy to be cynical about Kerry, but of course whether or not he is a "jet setter" is irrelevant. Albert Einstein was unfaithful to his first wife and indifferent to his children; does that make his scientific contributions any less worthy?

It’s easy to be cynical about one of the key Vietnam anti-war voices.

It’s easy to be cynical about the guy who created one of the most progressive DA offices for women in the 70’s.

It’s easy to be cynical about the guy who created one of the first rape victims units in the country.

It’s easy to be cynical about the guy who brought acid rain to the attention to governors across the country, and later to the senate.

It’s easy to be cynical about the guy who introduced the first GLBT legislation in the senate.

It’s easy to be cynical about the guy that launched the Iran/Contra and BCCI hearings.

It’s easy to be cynical about the guy who introduced Agent Orange legislation.

It’s easy to be cynical about the guy who was key to Vietnam Normalization.

It’s easy to be cynical about the guy who wrote the 1996 children’s health coverage bill, which eventually became SCHIP.

It’s easy to be cynical about the guy who rewrote the Oceans & Fisheries Act.

It’s easy to be cynical about the guy who wrote major portions of the Global AIDS and Tuberculosis Relief Act.

And lately? Oh yeah. He was the one who wanted to begin withdrawing troops in 2005, and called for withdrawal before Murtha even did. He’s the one who has actually introduced deadline legislation.

Easy to be cynical my hind-end.

It’s easy to be cynical about the guy who wrote a book touting Portland's bogus emissions reduction claims. Just some of Portland's mulit-layered environemtal concoctions.

Sadly, the only one doing the concocting is the Cascade Policy Inst who chose to focus on the numbers of cars in Portland when that wasn't even a key factor listed in the Global Warming Progress Report.

The key factors the report highlighted were light rail, streetcar and 75% growth in public transit; city using 10% renewable energy; city-wide 54% recycling rate; 40 green buildings, 750,000 trees and shrubs, and the weatherization of 10,000 housing units and 800 homes.

Portland has so much to be proud of with these efforts. I don't know why any group of so-called progressives would want to dump on it.

Yes, thanks for the post Sandy.

It seems that Kerry is still enough of a threat that even now the right wing feels a need to smear him at every opportunity.

The bottom line for them is that they still hate the man because as a bona fide war hero, he took his duty as a citizen seriously, speaking out against that illegal war and now this one too. The goose-steppers can't abide people who speak the truth to them.

John

Sandy, What are you talking about? OBVIOUSLY the "Cascade Policy Inst" chose to focus on the numbers of cars in Portland. That's because the fraudulent and baseless claims of emissions reductions by the Portland Office of Sustainable Development was based NOT upon any measurement of emissions, but on fuel sales in Portland. A completely diingenuous and absurd methodology. OF course the OSD didn't list cars as a "key factor" they were too busy with the complete snow job which you bought hook, line and stinker. The Global Warming Progress Report was noting but pure propaganda by a government agency. Not unlike the mistruths Bush is accused of every day. What the report highlighted was bunk when it comes to emissions. Our light rail has led to a massive neglect of growth's demands for more road capacity resuling in congestion spewing more CO2. The streetcars are meaningless and have done the same. Public transit hasn't even kept pace with population growth in it's share of comutters. The city using 10% renewable energy is a farce on it's face with Boardman coal fired energy used city wide. The total cost of the greening of 40 buildings would have been better spent on real environmental work. The 750,000 trees and shrubs came no where near compensating for the many small doug fir forests (and others) mowed down region wide for infill. Trees and shrubs don't reduce emissions anyway. The weatherization of 10,000 housing units and 800 homes did nothing for Portland emissions. The point is the claims of reducing emissions were a lie. The claims of low cost for these policies is also a lie. Can you not grasp what that means? A lying public agency?
Worsened air from congestion regionwide and a conspiracy of government agencies to cover up their costly failures and protect their status, jobs and funding. Unfortunately they have way too many folks like you who blindly support their every move.

Janice, I guess you're a little confused as to how to reduce the presence of emissions in the air.

Public transit. Decreased energy use due to the reduction of needs - green buildings, weatherized homes, recycling, clean alternative energy.

The trees help offset the emissions in the air as well.

It's an entire program, not the distortion of one word to serve an anti-everything agenda.

Sandy, There is one of us confused.

Challenge yourself with some critical thinking. If the NET result of those lovely policies don't truly reduce emissions does it not matter to you?

A 100 or 200 year old doug fir sucks up far more emissions than many of the planted trees and shrubs. Yet the doug fir logging for the planned infill policies has not been added to the mix. Of course not, because like so many other detriments it doesn't fit the adgenda/con job you buy. Commuters,trucks and service vehicles stuck in Metro created congestion spews large doses of emissions and it never is added to the mix. Does our transit system really result in a net reduction in the presence of emissions? High density excessive urbanization has it's pitfalls and the UGB driven real estate inflation has people moving further out and driving farther. That is never in the mix. The mining and batteries involved in hybrids has them polluting far more than the greenies want to hear.

In fact, as you demonstrate, denial is the weapon of choice for those enamoured with the policies around here.

It's not an entire program at all. Certainly not a balanced system either. More like a perpetual dishonest campaign pushing more and more of the same costly ped/bike/transit/smart growth policies which you gleefully assume are a net benefit. Contrary to being confused, I have fully considered the policies of your "program" The punch line here is too many people like you are not interested in hearing or considering ANYTHING conflicting with the "program". That eqauals intellectual dishonesty.

Kerry, of course, did not have to deal with the bonehead MultCo'ers who bought the Nader Lie.

No, thanks to the duplicitous actions of our Secretary of State, Bill Bradbury, working hand in glove with the Democratic Party of Oregon to block Nader’s legitimate right to be on the ballot, voters opposed to Bush were forced to vote for the most ineffective presidential candidate since Dukakis. One who mildly conceded the race without so much as a whimper rather than put up a fight.

And what exactly was Nader’s lie? That the two major parties represent the same corporate interests? That they collude to maintain control of the nation’s political system, effectively locking out third party candidates that offer substantive change?

Try thinking more like a citizen and less like a Party hack.

Try thinking more like a citizen and less like a Party hack.

I think T.A.'s thinking more like a father whose son is fighting a war in Iraq that never would have been waged under a Gore presidency. But to Naderites, there was no difference between Gore and Bush -- this is the big lie.

Another recent lie of Nader's -- since you ask -- is that in 2000 he mostly stayed out of Florida and swing states, and instead campaigned in safe red states and cities like Austin. Total bullshit, as anyone working in the swing state of Oregon understands. Nader practically lived in Portland, and implying that Oregon wasn't a swing state is revisionist history of the highest order.

I'm happy to see John and Teresa Heinz Kerry come back to PDX and I feel it is important to turn out an hear/support people who we beleive in.

He is going to be talking about the environment , and I hope to be able to ask him if he will support the Cape Wind offshore wind farm that seems to be back in business after being blocked by "environmentalists" like RFK JR. and Senator Kennedy. Kerry's position has been unclear. Here is an article from '05:

Massachusetts liberals contradict themselves on wind farm Written by Mark Edward Manning Published January 29, 2005

Remember this entry, in which I chronicle the Watertown (Massachusetts) Citizens for Environmental Safety-sponsored Hiroshima Remembrance demonstration that turned into one large anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War protest? Well, I came home at a time when the proposed Cape Wind Farm is being debated, and the aforementioned W.C.E.S. and the much more conservative group, The Watertown Citizens for Common Sense Government (W.C.C.S.G.), which usually fights bitter battles with the W.C.E.S. (and of which I'm a member), both advocate the wind farm. Politics sometimes really does make for strange bedfellows.

Guess who doesn't support it? Mr. Edward M. Kennedy.

It would seem that the senior senator from Massachusetts has had his insincerity exposed. Can anyone honestly say that this is a man of integrity, what with his environmental double standard? Other members of the Kennedy clan oppose it too, including the tireless advocate for cheap fuel himself, Joe Kennedy, as well as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who earns his keep by bludgeoning companies about their environmental practices.

And how about the Bay State's junior senator? Does anyone know where Kerry stands on this? Last time I heard, he already took 70 million positions on the wind farm and will probably take 70 million more by the time the debate is all wrapped up.

What in the name of dear Mother Earth are the rest of us supposed to think about this? Are we to believe that these uber-liberals no longer find Kyoto kinky? What's happened to their ecological fetish? Save the whales! That's their motto - but the small print reads, unless it means tarnishing our silver spoons.

The elitist liberal NIMBY crowd could sink this proposal for a cheap, clean and environmentally safe source of fuel for not only the Islands and Cape Cod, but a good chunk of eastern/southeastern Massachusetts.

Shamefully, the Republican Governor Mitt Romney also opposes the wind farm. Being a businessman, Romney ought to know damn well that he can't stand in the way of progress. Yet he's worried about tourism? The wind farm will be seven miles off the coast! No-one's going to see it. Mitt, a word of advice - the bleeding hearts who live on Nantucket aren't going to vote for you anyway, so you might as well do the right thing.

Usually, Kerry and the Kennedy clan are good advocates for the causes that the W.C.E.S. holds dear. But at least the liberals of the environmental safety group agree with its more conservative town opposition that the state should proceed with the wind farm.

That should tell you that Massachusetts politicos are blowing hot air and tilting at the wrong windmills.

Janice,

"don't truly reduce emissions"

Emissions in the air. Kyoto isn't just about cars. The objective is "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere". Stabilization must be reached through a variety of mechanisms, which is what Portland is doing. What's so hard to understand about that. Criminy.

Whoever decides to see John & Teresa, enjoy. To those who choose to engage with the chronic malcontents, thank you; because I'd end up sitting in a corner plucking my eyelashes out if I had to do it on a regular basis. I actually admire politicians ten times more than I used to for that simple fact alone.

Cheers.

“I think T.A.'s thinking more like a father whose son is fighting a war in Iraq that never would have been waged under a Gore presidency.”

Since my crystal ball isn’t working as well as yours I won’t venture a guess what Al would or would not have done as prez. What I do know is he wasn’t able to win Clinton’s home state or even his own and that’s what cost him the election.

Of course it’s much easier for his sycophants to blame Nader than acknowledge their candidates shortcomings.

It’s all about party loyalty.

One last post, re the wind farm. John Kerry has taken one position since its proposal. Let the process, including environmental impact statements, be completed. Several locations were being considered, which nobody ever mentions - and some where the windmills may not have been appropriate due to the marine life and birds. As you may recall, there have been quite a few whale beachings on the cape in recent years. I live on the coast, there are places here where we rightly wouldn't want a wind farm. Why should it be any different on the east coast? More importantly, why do people choose to believe ideological hype first, and put their thinking caps on - well never actually.

"It’s all about party loyalty."

Holy crap. It's all about the mess we knew Bush would make of everything.

How can anybody STILL say this. Unbelievable.

"...a war in Iraq that never would have been waged under a Gore presidency."

Do some research if your memory is so faulty. Gore ran as more of a hawk than Bush. He was for "regime change" long before Bush ran, and he was one of the architects of the child-killing sanctions that you "moderate" Democrats want to avoid talking about. Gore and Kerry were and are imperialists and corporatists, and they are far to the right of the international consensus.

Sandy- RFK Jr and others were screaming aginst the wind farm before any study had been released. People who cry "NIMBY" are always going to bring up the birds when windfarms are proposed. If not wind, then we will have to build more coal/nuclear plants, which aren't healthy for birds or anything else. Those plants won't be built anywhere close to Cape Cod, but in places like New Hampshire or New Jersey. Of course, they still pollute the air for all of us.

Sandy, "Criminy"? How about try and pay attention.

"Kyoto isn't just about cars" is a response to what exactly?.

Does science matter to you? How do you know Portland's "mechanisms" are a net contribution to the "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere"? I say they are NOT.

You don't have anything but theories and presumptions to back that up. And when our local government agencies compile a report making false claims of emissions reductions you should be alarmed. What's so hard to understand about that? Instead you are furthering the flashoods with various rhetoric with the same false pretences. The truth doesn't need phony government reports and other misrepresenting rhetoric and propaganda. Truth stands on it's own. You need to go find some truth. Because Portland's claims of lowered emissions is complete BS.

Grant - Did I defend RFK anywhere in my posts? No. Kerry was attacked because he didn't immediately support the project, despite the fact that sites hadn't even been chosen and impact statements hadn't been completed. This was years ago. It's funny to me that something that environmentalists would demand in any other instance, an environmental impact statement, is suddenly suspect because rich people want to proceed cautiously. If they wanted to put a wind farm off of Devil's Elbow, I'd be doing the same thing. There's too much marine life and birds to just allow them to be throw up with no oversight.

Janice - The entire point of the program is to implement Kyoto standards. If you don't know what's in Kyoto, then you don't know what you're talking about. Cascade Policy Inst. chose to distort the issue. It isn't strictly about car emissions.

Sandy, Take the blinders off. Any Bozo knows what the "program" is. The distortion comes from the falsified conclusions that the local perogram results in a net reduction of emissions. You are playing silly games with your avoiding the reality of where Portland emission levels really are. Apparently all you require is a local government agency's baseless and concocted claims of emissions reductions and that's good enough for you. Never mind that ALL the local policies, or "programs", in total are more likley resulting in a NET emissions increase due to the resulting worsening congestion they create. But you don't care about that. You just want more of the same whether or not it's effective or honest. Cascade Policy Inst. did not distort anything. They simply disputed and debunked the claims Portland made about reducing emissions to 1991 levels. No "it isn't strictly about car emissions" but that is how Portland falsified the claim of reduction. By using fuel sales and car emissions. You don't know what YOU are talking about. So go call the Portland Office of Sustainable Development who used fuel sales and car emissions in their bogus conclusions of reduction. Without them using "car emissions" themselves to deceive the public we would not be having this conversation. Bottom line, and I hate to break your heart, but Portland is NOT a model for anything but public decieit. So jog around town breathing the lowered emissions then take a swim in the Willamette after any rainfall and enjoy the model.

Mr. Torrid, That is total balderdash. The POSD did more than make a calculation error. The bigger fraud was their non-measurement of emissions at all. While claiming they did. Something which CPI pointed out and you glossed right over. Deliberatley I'll charge. Because that's the way you people operate. Deceit and misrepresentation. By now you know there was no measurement of emissions, that the POSB methodology of using fuel sales is proposterous and dishonest and that CPI did what none of the local pandering press would do. They exposed the OSD fraud. You, Joe, are part of the real snow job.

Not CPI or I said transit directly causes congestion. You made that up because that's how you operate. By falsehoods. Try and grasp this and be honest. The "totality" of policies around here are indeed increasing congestion and emissions. Policies which include neglecting the needs of growth in traffic which results inwhat we are all aware of. Congestion is worsening. Relying upon the POSD to cook up a bogus report claiming otherwise is foolish, navie and disingenuous. Stop your spinning and recycling of MetroSpeak long enough to be honest.

This must have been done in Portland http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi3erdgVVTw

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