Winners

At a time when everyone can remember those $2.80 prices at the gas pump, politicians in Iowa are tossing around "renewable energy" as the "gotta have" catch phrase of the season. But how to tell if they are full of hot air? The Iowa Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) is launching a campaign to make them walk their election-season talk. Specifically, the group is targeting high-profile Congressional candidates, beginning with First District House candidates Bruce Braley and Mike Whalen and Third District House candidates Jeff Lamberti and Leonard Boswell, and asking them to commit to achieving four goals by 2025: reducing U.S. oil usage by one-third; switching to "clean, renewable, homegrown" (i.e. biodiesel) energy; to cut home energy usage by 10 percent, by employing greener development and construction practices; and tripling current funding levels for research toward renewable resources. The Iowa Farmer's Union and the Iowa Interfaith Power and Light campaign are also part of Iowa PIRG's effort to clean up America's act.

Who knew that having a beer with some like-minded buddies (and maybe throwing in a Bush barb here and there) would earn Des Moines the patronage of a national conference? The Des Moines chapter of Drinking Liberally, a nationwide group of cocktail-loving lefties, announced that Des Moines will play host to Drinking Liberally's 2007 national conference. That means thousands of people - from DL affiliates in other states to city, state and nonprofit leaders - all, presumably, with a taste for the finer beverages in life, will descend on the Metro. And that means cash for Des Moines hotels, restaurants and especially bars, and, for at least a weekend, a city that tips toward the liberal side. Cheers to you, DLers!

Losers

It's neither reasonable nor sane to blame Catholicism for the phenomenon of pedophilia - partly because it's statistically impossible for priests to have been responsible for the one in three girls and one in seven boys who are sexually abused in the United States. Similarly, it's delusional to blame Wiccans for the Des Moines murder of Matthew Stegman, despite the comments made by some dark, messed-up young adults who've watched too much bad TV and now stand accused of killing Stegman in Woodland Cemetery. The Des Moines Register quoted Lt. Mark Morgan of the Des Moines Police Department as saying, "We haven't really thought of Wiccans being dangerous in the past." The Register also printed this shockingly confused understatement, "On the surface, anarchists would appear to be at least as dangerous as Wiccans, officials said." Some of the accused may make dark references on their MySpace pages, and they may have waxed poetic about Lucifer. But just for the record: People who go around talking about their devotion to Satan are different from Wiccans, people who find spirituality through the natural world and believe that whatever you do to others comes back to you threefold. The xenophobes who want to blame Wicca for Stegman's murder understand nothing of the Craft. Society needs to guard against hysterical prejudices. They're what brought us the Burning Times.

Did anybody believe Jeff Lamberti last week when he finally said, "no, stop, don't" to the freakish attack ads being run against his opponent, Leonard Boswell? Is it mere coincidence that his sudden revelation happened just after the televised debate in which he looked a little too smug about those ads? For weeks, the Economic Freedom Fund - the same group that knocked the knees out from under John Kerry - has been targeting Boswell with ads that are so bizarre, they're almost entertaining. Then we have anti-Boswell ads financed by the National Republican Campaign Committee, which has received money from delusional former Rep. Mark Foley, the perv who has convinced himself that teen boys are hot for him. CV

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