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Tuesday, April 5, 2005
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Iraqi Election
Blogs for Bush: "Iraq's newly elected parliament will choose a new president tomorrow, which, according to Iraqi officials, is 'the next step in building Iraq's first democratically elected government in 50 years.'"
6:41:58 PM 
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 Hunter Thompson
CNN: "Hunter S. Thompson's ashes will be blasted from a cannon mounted inside a 53-foot-high (16.15 meter-high) sculpture of the journalist's 'gonzo fist' emblem, his wife said Tuesday."
6:38:10 PM
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Colorado Water
Looks like downstream water rights on the Colorado River might win one for a change. The Aspen Times reports, "The development of Base Village appears to have encountered another hurdle, this time in the form of the U.S. Army."
"Water supply and stream depletion associated with Base Village are at the heart of a nine-page letter from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to Michael O'Connor, Intrawest's vice president of development."
"The March 23 letter requires Intrawest - partner on Base Village with the Aspen Skiing Co. - the Town of Snowmass Village and Snowmass Water and Sanitation District to provide extensive details about the information used to approve plans for supplying water to and treating waste generated by Base Village."
Thanks to MakesMeRalph for the link.
6:30:01 PM
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Weblogs
New West Network: "We're interested in keeping up with our fellow bloggers out there in the West, so this is a new feature we'll be posting on this page -- the Western blog roundup."
Dan Gillmor: "That San Francisco proposal to regulate political blogs."
6:21:15 PM
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Denver May 2005 Election
The North Denver News is endorsing the new Denver Justice Center, Referred Question 1A, on the May ballot. They write, "The Mayor has been poorly advised on this issue for two reasons. The first is that shaping the electorate, or seeking to depress turnout, sets a poor precedent and is simply anti-democratic. Denver needs more, not fewer, engaged citizens voting. The second is purely practical politics. The voting machinations have set off suspicions with many long-time Democratic activists-people with elephantine memories and long track records organizing elections. These folks were skeptical of Hickenlooper to begin with, and the games with votes have hardened those concerns. Hickenlooper is a political newbie, with months in double digits under his political belt, while these activists have generations of experience with the process. The Mayor would be well-served to buy the Frank Sullivans of the world a cup of coffee and tell his supporters and staff not to monkey with voting."
Be sure to read the whole article.
6:30:11 AM
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Social Security
Here's the seventh part of the Denver Post's editorial series on remaking Social Security [April 5, 2005, "Paying for private accounts"]. They write, "By the forecast of the Social Security trustees - the most pessimistic of several such prognostications - the current system can pay every cent of future benefits through 2041. After that date Social Security would still be able to pay benefits substantially higher than today's levels, even after adjusting for inflation."
"But Bush's proposal to allow workers under 55 to divert up to 4 percentage points of the 6.2 percent tax on their earnings that now goes to Social Security into private accounts could worsen the funding picture dramatically. If all workers opted for such accounts, the change would eventually siphon off about 31 percent of the money currently going into Social Security. By contrast, about 16 percent of current payroll taxes are now earmarked for the Social Security Trust Fund, which is scheduled to reach a high of $6.6 trillion in 2028. Diverting nearly double that share to private accounts, as proposed by Bush, could cause the trust fund to go broke as early as 2020 - creating the very crisis the president says he wants to forestall."
"To avoid such a debacle, there are just three ways to finance a transition to private accounts: raise taxes, cut benefits or borrow up to $2 trillion over 10 years to finance the transition. The exact cost of the transition would depend upon how many workers really opted for private accounts."
6:04:17 AM
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© Copyright 2009 John Orr.
Last update: 3/14/09; 7:25:35 PM.
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