Midday Open Thread

• Bottled water? Tap water? What kind of bottle?  Some answers and an important political point:

  The critical difference is that you can get perfectly healthy water for free all over this country; the same is not true for soft drinks. If you need to purchase a drink, fine, let it be water -- it's far better for you than anything else on sale. But do we really "need" to be buying 7 million bottles of water every single day -- are we really that thirsty, or that eager to waste money?

  And yes, our refusal to recycle is a huge, horrible problem in the U.S. -- in recent years, recycling of No. 1 PETE plastic (the type most commonly used in water and soft-drink bottles) has gone from almost 40 percent to a pathetic 23.1 percent. Resolving that problem is complex and thorny -- I say we take a step back and reduce the need to recycle by cutting back on our consumption of a product we can get for free. It's much easier to stop buying water bottles than it is to improve your city's recycling program, or your neighbors' trash-disposal habits.

  As I mentioned earlier, there are places in the U.S. with water quality issues, and these issues only will worsen if the wealthy continue to reject tap water. Federal funding for municipal water systems has plummeted in the past 30 years, a trend that only will continue if those who can afford it drink only bottled water. I'm all for filtering tap water at home to remove the taste of chlorine -- it's much, much cheaper and more ecologically responsible -- and probably also safer -- than buying bottled water.

  I'd add that if you buy bottled water on any kind of regular basis, I don't want to hear you complaining about the price of gas.

• According to Chris Cillizza, YearlyKos provided a first:

  Clinton remains the steadiest candidate on the stump and in debates although -- for the first time -- she let herself be rattled by her opponents regarding her acceptance of donations from lobbyists during the YearlyKos presidential forum.

• It looks like the Bush presidency has made academics a little desperate: political giving by people working in education has shot up in recent years.
• The Right's Field snarks on McCain campaigning in Bermuda:

  This is actually sad. It’s like a rock band playing the smaller venues when the big cities don’t want them anymore. This is the equivalent of REO Speedwagon at the County Fair. I look forward to watching McCain use the Martinique and Guadaloupe caucuses as a springboard to the Presidency. And one shouldn’t forget the St. Vincent and the Grenadines straw poll coming up!

• At TPM, Steve Benen rounds up Rudy Giuliani's history as a serial exaggerator.
• Not that we didn't already know it, but Ted Nugent has issues.