Coyote Gulch

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Wringing Water From the Rocks
Coyote Gulch was howling at the Museum of Nature and Science tonight. The shindig was the first in the series Wringing Water from the Rocks.
Beth Conover started off the evening by introducing the sponsor Ken Wright.
First to speak was Peter Binney, Aurora's Director of Utilities. He's been real busy planning a way to increase supply to meet anticipated demand. We also got a bit of a history lesson on droughts on the Colorado River and the South Platte River.
The next speaker, Dr. Robert Raynolds hit the geological highlights. Most of the water for the big towns south of Highlands Ranch comes from the Arapahoe Aquifer. The problem is due to reduced volume of water and diminished reservoir pressure. They're going to run out.
Dr. Raynolds trotted out a cool 3D computer animation model of a part of the aquifer. He also used Electric logs, fossils, and aerial photos to tell the story. Coyote Gulch apologizes for missing the name of the woman that created the animation.
All in all the first installment was a treat. If you follow water issues closely tonight was mostly background you already know. Make a point to buy a ticket (or two) for the next 4 lectures, July 27th, August 16th, August 23rd and September 27th.
Category: Colorado Water
10:35:35 PM

Immigration
Colorado Pols: "Colorado Democrats responded yesterday to comments by Senator Wayne Allard that illegal immigrants are 'all the same bad characters.'"
"Credit a Colorado Pols reader on this one. We didn't know about these comments until a reader pointed them out, and apparently nobody at the Colorado Democratic Party knew about them until we posted on it yesterday. Don't any Democrats read the paper in Greeley?"
That's the way of the Web.
James Chaney: "My Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, and George H.W. Bush. It was a party of honesty and accountability. It was a party of tolerance, and practicality and honor. It was a party that faced facts and dealt with reality, and that crafted common-sense solutions to problems based on the facts as they were, not as we wished them to be, or even worse, as we made them up. It was a party that told the truth, even when the truth came hard. And now, it is none of those things."
Thanks to The Moderate Voice for the link.
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
6:06:53 PM

Weblogs in Elections
Marshall Loeb: "Don't trust everything you read in blogs." Good advice, except for Coyote Gulch. Thanks to Dave Winer for the link.
6:55:15 AM

Iraqi Constitution
Friends of Democracy: "Iraq will soon have its first constitution written by the Iraqi people...I recently read a document written by a group of Iraqi intellectuals which had been distributed to National Assembly members and Iraqi politicians in order to bring some points to their attention before they drew up the general outlines of the constitution. What astonished me was the following: 'Islam is to be the sole source of legislation.'" Be sure to read the whole post.
6:37:23 AM

Bolton
Stygius: "While several Republican senators have come out in favor of White House compliance with the Senate's request for information on Bolton's handling of secret intelligence, the Bush Administration has managed to get Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts singing in key, or at least no longer overtly frowning on a recess appointment. However, White House stonewalling has yielded no benefits for the president politically, leading one to wonder why Bolton doesn't do Bush a favor and suddenly yearn for milder climes."
Blogs for Bolton? Blogs for Bush is running a photo of Mr. Bolton in their banner graphic.
Bull Moose: "But President Bush does not have the capacity to articulate a simple message of candor and unity to a civilian population that is divided and increasingly distrustful of his words. Or maybe he will surprise us all.
"But then again, maybe not."
Category: 2004 Presidential Transition
6:30:45 AM

Bennet to DPS
Here's Mike Littwin's take on DPS's hiriing of Michael Bennet [June 28, 2005, "Littwin: A wonderful choice for DPS, theoretically"]. Littwin writes, "If you like John Hickenlooper's Denver, you'll love Michael Bennet's Denver Public Schools. That's the theory anyway. We may have to wait awhile for the proof. Denver's new school chief is, of course, Hickenlooper's chief of staff. But that doesn't even begin to tell the story."
6:24:51 AM

e-mail John: