I really don’t know what to make of this.  I recall when she ran for the Senate she came on very strong with the Hillary Rodham Clinton moniker, in true liberated women fashion.  It didn’t really bug me though I thought it was fairly obvious why she did it on several levels.

Come to think of it, and a quick Google search confirms, she began using that name long before then, so I retract the implication that it was a campaign tool in 2000.  But is it a campaign liability now?

I wouldn’t think so.  I wonder if there is a focus group that thinks so though.  Maybe some survey said that some target demographic values the traditional name structure.

Or, does she perhaps want to promote a more unified stance with Bill, and now draw on his name appeal which remains strangly powerful, where she was (understandably) trying to make herself comfortably distant from him (and his hijinks) during her Senate run?

I don’t honestly know.   Regardless, according to this story, she is ready to lose the Rodham and just be Mrs Bill for a while, and all indications are that the focus of the ommission is her presidential bid..

All I will say is I think it says something about her, but Ii won’t say what.  You decide for yourself if it is relevant and if so to what measure. 

Via Hot Air:

According to Raw Story, Hearst Newspapers will report that Hillary Clinton will drop her maiden name “Rodham” in her campaign for President.

Here are a few excerpts via Raw Story:

# Clinton identifies herself as “Hillary Clinton” in her campaign press releases and on her campaign website. The lone mention of her maiden name is in a campaign biography that says “Hillary’s father, Hugh Rodham, was the son of a factory worker from Scranton, Pa.”

# She continues to use “Hillary Rodham Clinton” in her New York-focused press releases and in the Senate.

You read that right. 

The new binding energy targets the EU voted on and approved to lower CO2 and make Europe more ‘green’ will actually increase global warming, threaten endangered species and speed the deforestation of the South East Asian rainforests.

Via the Mighty Orb:

EU green targets will damage rainforests

European union green fuel targets will accelerate the destruction of rainforests in South-East Asia and threaten the habitat of endangered species, such as the orang-utan.  

In March EU leaders agreed to set a binding climate change target to make biofuel - energy sources made from plant material - account for 10 per cent of all Europe’s transport fuels by 2020.

But the European Commission has admitted that the objective, which aims to cut carbon dioxide emissions, may have the unintended consequence of speeding up the destruction of tropical rainforests and peatlands in South-East Asia - actually increasing, not reducing, global warming.

Can you say oops?

European consumption of plant-based fuels will soar from around three million tons at present to more than 30 million tonns in 2010, driving a boom in imports of cheap biofuels.

Europe is still years away from self-sufficiency in biofuels produced from straw and other waste vegetation. As a result, demand for cheap imports of fuels, such as palm oil, is expected to soar.

Countries such as Indonesia have already begun planning an increase in the production of palm oil, a development campaigners fear will see more rainforest fall to the axe and rare peat soil burned.

Andris Piebalgs, the European Energy Commissioner, has confirmed that, despite setting the biofuel target, the EU has no system to certify that imports exclude palm oil or fuel production that has resulted in the destruction of rare natural resources.

Oops again.

”No mandatory certification exists at present that will guarantee that tropical rainforests or peatlands in South-East Asia are not destroyed for the production of palm oil,” he said.