Coyote Gulch

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Women's Bean Project Holiday Fair
North Denver News: "The Women's Bean Project Holiday Fair will take place Friday, December 2nd thru Sunday, December 4th from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Located at 3201 Curtis Street in Denver, the WBP will feature a full line of products including packaged soups, chili mixes, dips, bread mixes, coffee beans, marinades and more. Additionally, corporate gift bundles will be available."

7:12:22 PM

In vitro fertilization
Wired: "As controversy rages around the use of human eggs in cloning and stem-cell research, a little-noticed backlash has begun against a procedure that produced equally intense ethical debates decades ago, but has since gone mainstream: making test-tube babies. At stake are growing concerns over in vitro fertilization, or IVF, specifically regarding the collection of human eggs and the storage of embryos that prospective parents may donate to research, set aside for future use or even give up for adoption. Renewed interest in IVF procedures could put one of the first significant brakes on a practice that has flourished outside strict regulatory control for more than a quarter of a century. New rules have already taken effect in Italy requiring that embryos created during fertility treatments be implanted, not stored, and calls from religious conservatives for similar legislation are now reaching a crescendo in the United States."

Democracy in Progress: "Many of us remember Gary Hart as a US Senator from Colorado, a presidential candidate, and an expert on defense and homeland security. But Hart is also a graduate of Yale Divinity School and was raised in the evangelical Protestant Church of the Nazarene. In his new book, God and Caesar in America: an Essay on Religion and Politics, Hart explores this aspect of his thinking, praising the positive influence of the teachings of Christ on our culture, while decrying the corrosive mixture of religion and politics that dominates the political scene today."

The Moderate Voice: "Will President George W. Bush Announce An Iraq Withdrawal Timetable? It sounds like it'll happen tomorrow. Read this."

U.S. Senator Harry Reid: "Dear President Bush, I write on the occasion of your trip to the southern border of Arizona, a state literally on the front lines of a public policy problem that our nation can no longer afford to ignore. As a former border governor, you have firsthand experience addressing the immigration issue. As President, you have advocated a comprehensive approach to immigration reform, a view at odds with many members of your party in Congress. Your leadership is needed to encourage bipartisan and realistic reforms to our immigration laws in the upcoming session of Congress."

Hotline On Call: "Dem '08ers on troops coming home." Thanks to the Daily Kos for the link.

Bull Moose: "It is not necessary to agree with the Administrations's prosecution of this war to believe that abandoning the Iraqis would be a moral travesty. Yet, Iraqi democrats cannot be confident that American political class will maintain its resolve."

Western Democrat: "Once we started talking about changing the primaries in a real way, moving Western States primaries and caucuses together into a real Western Primary, it seemed to have broken a logjam. In addition to the New Mexico/Utah led Western Primary, there is also a chance that either Nevada or Colorado could move between the mythical Iowa and New Hampshire as another early caucus state."

Category: 2008 Presidential Election

5:55:06 PM

Voter Turnout for November 1st Election
From today's Denver Post: "Nearly half of the state's registered voters cast ballots in this month's election, setting a new record for an odd-year election. The official turnout for the Nov. 1 election was 49.85 percent, breaking the record of 47.25 percent set in 2003, Secretary of State Gigi Dennis said Monday. Phillips County had the highest turnout, at 75.06 percent, and Dolores County had the lowest, at 36.87 percent. In 2003, voters soundly defeated a $2 billion proposal for water projects. A lot of money was also at stake in the latest election. Under the official tally, 52.06 percent of voters backed Referendum C, suspending the tax limits in the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, a constitutional amendment, for five years, allowing the state to keep about $3.7 billion that otherwise would have been refunded to taxpayers. However, 50.62 percent of voters rejected a companion measure - Referendum D - that would have allowed the state to borrow up to $2.1 billion for roads, school maintenance, pensions and other projects."

Here's the coverage from the Rocky Mountain News [November 29, 2005, "Voter turnout set record for off years"].

Category: Denver November 2005 Election

6:34:46 AM

CDOT Violations

Here's an article from the Denver Post dealing with violations of the Clean Water Act by CDOT [November 29, 2005, "CDOT cited over debris runoff"]. From the article, "State environmental regulators, however, allege that the dirt and debris from road projects polluted at least four waterways, including the Colorado River in Grand County, an unnamed tributary to Newlin Gulch in Douglas County, Boulder Creek, and the Purgatoire River in Las Animas County. In recent years, state environmental regulators have stepped up enforcement of Clean Water Act requirements that construction projects control erosion and sediment. Last year, the health department fined contractors $215,000 on T-REX - the Transportation Expansion Project on Interstate 25 and Interstate 225 in southeast metro Denver. The contractors, the state said, allowed runoff into the South Platte River from the 19-mile-long construction site."

Ed Quillen is exploring the idea of presenting President Bush with a gift when he visits Colorado today [November 29, 2005, "Welcoming the president"]. He writes, "We could try one of our Official State Rocks, or perhaps an Official State Tree blue spruce for a Christmas tree for the Crawford ranch, but on a national scale, our most important product might be water. Not that we have much of it, but even so, downstream states from Nebraska to California rely on us to deliver water to them. The gift should not be any old generic Colorado water. We need something special that relates to the president, and fortunately, we can collect some on the Western Slope, over in the reaches where they're drilling for natural gas. Our gift of presidential water, ready for the cooler near the Oval Office, will contain benzene, which has been appearing in water in drilling country. More of it will likely appear in the future, because oil and gas drilling were exempted from the Clean Water Act in the energy bill that President Bush signed last summer. Granted, benzene is a toxic chemical, a carcinogen which can also cause nausea, headaches and respiratory problems. But since our president thinks it's OK for us to have it in our water, and in the water that millions of people use downstream from Colorado, he shouldn't mind having it in his water, too."

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in favor of instream rights yesterday, according to the Rocky Mountain News [November 29, 2005, "Court battle over instream rights creates ripples"]. From the article, "The case, involving changes to Central City's water system, pitted the gambling town against the Colorado Water Conservation Board, which runs a program designed to help keep water in streams for the benefit of the environment. Monday, the court ruled that Central City would have to make sure its diversions on North Clear Creek in Gilpin County don't infringe upon instream water rights controlled by the state. Central City had argued that it didn't have to tailor its diversions to protect state water rights in the same stream. But the court said the state's instream flow rights deserve the same level of protection that other holders of water rights receive under the law. Keeping water in streams for the environment - rather than diverting it and putting it to use - is difficult in Colorado because if water isn't diverted or captured in a reservoir, it eventually flows out of the state. Critics of the instream flow program argue that such a practice is wasteful and is a poor use of a scarce resource. Environmentalists and recreational users disagree, and have fought for decades to protect water for instream use. The Central City case drew the attention of cities across the state, including Denver, Westminster and Arvada. Cities traditionally have been wary of minimum stream flows because they fear the rules limit their ability to manage their own supplies."

Category: Colorado Water

6:29:31 AM

Immigration Reform?
President Bush spoke about immigration reform yesterday, according to the Denver Post [November 29, 2005 "Bush touts border plan"]. From the article, "President Bush promised Monday to step up efforts to close the border to illegal immigrants, but he insisted that the crackdown be accompanied by a guest-worker program open to the millions of people who are already in the country illegally. Bush's speech came as Congress has begun to grapple with legislation to overhaul immigration laws, an issue that has divided the Republican Party. While many businesses rely on immigrant labor and favor a guest- worker program, a large group within the party believes tougher border enforcement is most important and that a temporary- worker plan would only attract more undocumented workers...Answering critics who call a guest-worker program a form of amnesty for illegal immigrants, Bush vowed to oppose any proposal providing an 'automatic' path to citizenship, and he said that participants in a guest-worker program ultimately must be required to return to their homelands."

Here's the text of the President's speech from Blogs for Bush.

Here's the coverage from the Rocky Mountain News [November 29, 2005, "Tancredo finds parts of speech hard to swallow"]. From the article, "Tancredo has been among the most outspoken congressional critics of Bush's plan to allow some illegal immigrants to receive three-year work visas if they have willing employers. Tancredo equates it to 'amnesty' for people who entered the country illegally and has vowed to lead the fight against it. Still, Tancredo said Bush's speech signals progress since he also spoke of tougher measures to secure the border and tougher enforcement against employers who hire illegal immigrants."

Meanwhile the Denver Post reports that the President has a big job selling his program to Republicans and Democrats [November 29, 2005, "Colorado observers skeptical of revised immigration plan"]. From the article, "...Jan Herron, a backer of a proposed ballot initiative that would cut off services to illegal immigrants in Colorado, was less encouraged. 'I totally disagree with the president,' Herron said. 'I'm a Republican, and I don't like what he's doing. I think the majority of the party doesn't like what he's doing, and I think the Republican Party is in big trouble.'"

The Denver Post editorial staff weighs in on the President's efforts [November 29, 2005, "A house divided on immigrants"]. They write, "The president continues to walk a kinder, gentler line on immigration, seeking to satisfy business owners who don't want anything to jeopardize a low-cost supply of ready labor. At the same time, many party leaders want Bush to promote policies that will help the GOP woo Hispanic voters...This country definitely needs a meaningful debate on immigration reform. We don't know if Musgrave plans to press her case with the president today, but Republicans seem far from any consensus."

Oliver Willis: "I guess they've given up pretending and prefer to throw some red meat to the base, saying that they really don't like those brown-skinned folks. Now, I'm against 'guest worker' programs myself, and I think we ought to have secure borders - including our northern border, the one the GOP doesn't seem to care about - but the Republican's immigration jones is nothing more than a sop to the racist base of the Republican party (see Malkin practically panting with anticipation here). I see 2008 in the GOP being a race to prove who hates the brown-skinned folks the most."

Category: 2008 Presidential Election

6:15:06 AM

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