Coyote Gulch

Sunday, February 27, 2005

Coyote Gulch - Three years
Coyote Gulch passes three years old this week. In that post I was celebrating, and wrote, "Am posting from my Linux laptop running Opera! Go UserLand! Inch by inch to MS free." I was running Radio Userland as a server on a another box. It was so easy to publish to the web.
10:57:15 AM

Google
Dave Winer: "We're not having a serious discussion about the Google AutoLink feature. Boing Boing points to a sarcastic non-refutation of my piece. If this is the best we can do, we deserve what we get. To the BB people, Google hasn't drawn any kind of line, saying where this can't go. And consider what heat would be generated if what Google is doing to us were done to Google. Can I put up a Web app that scrapes Google and replaces their ads with mine, or adds mine to theirs? Could Microsoft? Could AP or the New York Times? When you take that first step down the slope, take a good look at what's further down the hill, because you're going there for sure. I keep hoping for intelligent discourse in the tech blogging community, it's still pretty rare. And to Yoz, I care, but I'm not obsessed. I think I'm looking out for you, how about helping out? Same with anyone else who publishes on the Web."
10:56:01 AM

Coal Fired Plants and the EPA
New West Network: "In December, Colorado regulators approved a plan for a $1.35 billion coal-fired plant in Pueblo, with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of pollution controls included, in what will be the state's first such plant in more than 20 years. Company officials cited rapidly growing demand along the rapidly growing Front Range, and the agreement both allowed the utility to raise rates to cover costs and required it to provide subsidies for energy conservation measures."
10:46:04 AM

North Denver News
It turns out that the NDN weblog is not really a weblog at all. However, the 'Ol Coyote and a Curious Stranger still give them high marks for providing RSS feeds.
8:12:27 AM

Social Security
Josh Marshall: "The Times piece, by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Robin Toner, confirms what you could glean if you've been reading the papers closely for the last week: the Republicans' townhall meetings on Social Security have ranged from so-so to terrible, with a few cases that were little short of riots. And they're coming back to DC with an even worse case of the phase-out-willies than they left with. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) of Iowa tells the Times, in so many words, that unless the president can pull off a major turnaround in public opinion on this issue, it's over. He goes on to say: 'I think 90 percent of the lifting is with the president. That process is starting, but it's starting very slow because too many Republicans and Democrats - how would you say it? - don't have the confidence that this issue is ever going to come up.'"
7:57:22 AM

2004 Presidential Transition
Controlling the government debt load used to be a conservative value. John Aloysius Farrell looks at the problem of deficit spending in his column in today's Denver Post [February 27, 2005, "U.S. deficit builds house of cards"]. He writes, "It should bother us all. We have a newly elected president and Congress to set us on a better course. If this current bunch won't do it, we'll need to find a group who can. The next election is 20 months away."
Coyote Gulch thinks that all the noise coming from the administration about Social Security is a distraction from the real problems facing the country. He would like the President and Congress to work on reducing the debt.
7:28:08 AM

Colorado Water
There are big pollution problems facing the Arkansas River valley, according to the Denver Post [February 27, 2005, "For some, river not worth its salt"]. Surface water all over the state are picking up salt from irrigation causing decreased crop yields and driving up the cost of treatment. From the article, "The lower Arkansas River in Colorado is the saltiest stream of its size in the United States. Its underlying problem is geology: The river picks up salt as it cuts through ancient seabed formations on its route through Colorado's southern plains. Traditional flood irrigation - diverting water across fields with canals, ditches and pipes - raises contaminant level as the river flows toward Kansas. Neither state nor federal law regulates polluted farm runoff. Instead, people rely on underfunded incentive programs to address the problem. Colorado state law presents another obstacle by preventing water-quality regulations from interfering with water rights."
7:18:36 AM

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