As vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), Rich Cizik represented 4,500 congregations serving 30 million members. Considering himself a “Reagan conservative” and a strong initial supporter of George W. Bush, Cizik had been with the organization since 1980, serving as its key advocate before Congress, the Office of the President, and the Supreme Court on issues like opposition to abortion and gay marriage.

Is it that you don't know what war costs, or that you don't know that it makes us less safe?
We've spent $268 billion on making war on Afghanistan, and using Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz' analysis of Iraq we need to multiply that by four or five to get a realistic cost including debt, veterans care, energy prices, and lost opportunities. Public investment in most other industries or in tax cuts produces more jobs than investment in military. In fact, military spending is economically, as well as morally, the worst thing Congress can do. And this is economically the worst time in many decades to be doing the worst thing you can do.

I was unaware that SOS did not require the precincts to have paper ballots on hand for the primary. I do not disagree with that decision, as it seems to me that it would be a pretty high cost for just a few people like me who dont trust the machines and wish to vote on paper.

When my wife and I went to the polls this morning, she asked for paper ballot and was asked the reason she was asking for it. She refused to answer and left the polling place, with the intention of returning later. She (we)did not feel that question was appropriate. I asked for paper, and gave the reason that I did not trust the machines.

I was then given a provisional ballot envelope. I informed them I did not want to vote provisionally, I wanted my vote to be counted tonight, not next week. The informed me that all paper ballots needed to go into the envelope for privacy, and that all paper ballots would be treated as provisional. I was decidedly unhappy at this point, still not realizing that SOS did not order paper ballots to be available. At this point, I decided to vote on the machine.

Santa Rosa, CA (2. April 2010) With the media coverage on the horrific Gulf Coast oil spill largely centering on the volume of the spill and efforts to stem the outflow, Post Carbon Institute offers 12 additional important angles, each tackled by one of the Institute’s 29 acclaimed Fellows. For further perspectives, information and insight contact the Institute.

1. The Ripple Effect

RICHARD HEINBERG (Senior Fellow – Energy & Climate) – We’ve only just begun to see the true cost of the Gulf Coast oil spill. As we saw with Hurricane Katrina, the ripple effect of disruptions in oil supply can lead to profound and surprising outcomes. When you add the unimaginably large costs associated with the discovery and delivery of deep water oil to the even more prohibitive costs of cleanup and damage control and remove the oil industry subsidies, suddenly ‘alternative’ energy supplies seem far more mainstream, affordable and realistic.