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Wednesday, December 7, 2005
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Crap Bias
Left in the West: "I've written before that I think the main problem befalling America's press isn't a conservative bias, a liberal bias, or even a corporate bias, but rather a crap bias."
6:20:57 PM 
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TerriPAC
Michael Schiavo has started TerriPAC. Thanks to SoapBlox Colorado for the link.
Elevated Voices: "There are already three candidates running for governor in 2006 - Democrat Bill Ritter and Republicans Marc Holtzman and Bob Beauprez - but of the four statewide races that will be decided next November, this is the only race with a full slate on each side. All of that should change in the next month or so, and it sounds like we're already heading in that direction. Of the four statewide races (not including CU Regent), only that of state treasurer thus far has announced Democrats on the slate. Interestingly, 2006 will be a year where none of the top jobs features an incumbent who was elected by the people. Elected State Treasurer Mike Coffman took a leave of absence for a tour of duty in Iraq in the spring, and Governor Bill Owens appointed state Sen. Mark Hillman - who will run for the job in 2006 - as his interim replacement. Elected Secretary of State Donnetta Davidson left last summer for an appointment in Washington D.C., and Owens filled her job with Gigi Dennis, who by most indications will run for re-election. And elected Attorney General Ken Salazar left in January to take his post in the U.S. Senate, after which Owens appointed Republican John Suthers to take his place. While there are three Republicans who can technically be called 'incumbents' for these three seats, none have the comfort of knowing that the voters of Colorado have already agreed with them once before."
Category: Denver November 2006 Election
6:16:52 PM
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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays
Deep Blade Journal: "For the record, I celebrate the winter solstice because I was born right on it. And I am perfectly happy with a warm Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, or whatever. There's far too little love in the world for us to rip on each other about what greeting we use."
6:07:16 PM
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Lessons from the GOP?
SoapBlox Colorado: "There's lots of Buckeye transplants who hang around this blog--me, rnoboa, and em dash off the top of my head. Our Speaker of the House, Andrew Romanoff, also grew up in Ohio. In yesterday's thread about 'Other state-wide positions', rnoboa posted a long history of the Ohio GOP, it's rise to power, and how they did it. I think there are lessons in there our state Dems could learn from, so I'm bringing this comment in to it's own post here..."
Category: Denver November 2006 Election
6:55:02 AM
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Western Caucuses?
Peter Blake weighs in on the Western Primary (Caucuses) in his column in today's Rocky Mountain News [December 7, 2005, "Blake: Dems turn eyes to West"]. He writes, "It's a long shot, but Colorado could hold its 2008 presidential caucus or primary in January, months earlier than usual.
Many national Democrats are eager to end the stranglehold that New Hampshire and Iowa have had on the early presidential action because they consider the electorates in those two states to be insufficiently diverse. The Democratic National Committee appointed a 40-member commission to study the primary calendar last spring. Nobody paid much attention to it until recently, when Iowans and New Hampshirites discovered they might have to share national attention - not to mention heavy rental-car, hotel-room and television-advertising revenue - with other states. The primary commission, which meets in Washington this weekend, is considering a plan that would add one Western and one Southern state to the January calendar. The four Western states under consideration are Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada as well as Colorado. But Mike Stratton, a Colorado political strategist who's on the commission, conceded Nevada is the likely choice."
Hotline On Call: "Ex-NC Sen. John Edwards is in talks to help a powerful labor union launch a nationwide campaign to organize hotel workers, labor sources tell The Hotline. UniteHere represents more than 440,000 active hotel workers, retail employees, laundry workers, restaurant, food service and gaming employees. Its officers are fans of Edwards. Before it merged with the hotel union HERE in 2003, UNITE, a textiles union, endorsed him for the Democratic presidential nomination. Unions' economic might has waned, but they remain influential in the Democratic Party. Labor dues still fund most of the Democratic Party's GOTV efforts and its field campaigns. Many Dem politicians and office-seekers and the party's leading lights often appear at union events and issue press releases promoting labor rights. Some souls even join the occasional picket line. But Edwards, who has kept an unusually active profile for a former Senator, is showing labor leaders that he'll back up his own pro-labor words with meaningful action. Earlier this year, UniteHere left the AFL-CIO to help found a dissident umbrella group, the Change To Win coalition. 55 percent of UniteHere's budget is slated for organizing, and the union now has campaigns underway at Cintas, Hilton and several gaming companies. Most of the major casinos on the Las Vegas strip are UniteHere shops. Neither UniteHere nor Edwards' spokesperson would confirm that he plans to play an official role in a new organizing campaign." Thanks to Left in the West for the link.
Juan Cole: "Speaking in San Antonio on Monday, Democratic National Committee head Howard Dean said that the US cannot win in Iraq. The link just given, to WOAI, allows you to listen to the interview. He called for bringing the national guards home from Iraq immediately."
TalkLeft: "The New York Times reports that the White House and Sen. John Mcain are nearing a compromise on the torture amendment. The White House is said to be ready to yield to McCain on his insistence that the CIA not be exempted from the Amendment. But, McCain is willing to consider the inclusion of a standard that limits liability of CIA officers."
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
6:48:13 AM
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Colorado River salinity
Glenwood Springs Post Independent: "By the time they reach Mexico the waters of the Colorado River are so laden with salt as to be a danger to crops. 'About 9 million tons of salt passes Lees Ferry (on the Colorado River in Arizona) every year,' said Paul Von Guerard, office chief of the U.S. Geologic Survey in Grand Junction. Since the 1970s, the seven states through which the river flows have agreed to control that burden of salt as much as possible. The USGS monitors the salinity of the river, which has its source in Colorado. Thursday, members of USGS in Grand Junction brought the Energy Advisory Board up to date on efforts to monitor salt in the Colorado reaches of the river...About 47 percent of the salt in the river comes from natural sources such as hot springs and erosion of soil and the rest is from human actions. Salt causes about $300 million in damage to crops, water pipes and hot water heaters in the lower Colorado River Basin in California and Nevada, as well as in Mexico, Von Guerard said...About 47 percent of the salt load that goes through Colorado passes the Cameo monitoring station on the west side of DeBeque Canyon just east of Grand Junction, Von Guerard said. But only 18 percent of that load comes from the river above Glenwood Springs, according to data from a station just upstream from the city. The rest of that salt comes from sources between Glenwood and Grand Junction, he said. The USGS needs to monitor that load with at least one new monitoring station between Glenwood and Grand Junction, at a cost of $25,000. Because of flattened funding in the last few years, USGS is seeking to find financial support from local towns and cities in that reach of the river to install a station, Von Guerard said."
Here's the press release from Mayor Hickenlooper's office about the appointment of Harris Sherman to Denver Water [via The Cherry Creek News].
Here's an article from the Colorado Springs Gazette.com with details about the Sierra Club's lawsuit against Colorado Springs over sewage spills in Fountain Creek. From the article, "The Sierra Club on Tuesday filed suit in U.S. District Court alleging Colorado Springs Utilities violated federal law by spilling raw sewage into Fountain Creek. The suit is similar to one filed last month by a district attorney in Pueblo. The suits seek a judge's order requiring the city-owned utility to stop the discharges and speed up work to upgrade the city's sewage system. The Sierra Club expects its lawsuit to be joined with the Pueblo district attorney's action. The Sierra Club alleged the utility has sent 73 million gallons of raw sewage down Fountain Creek in the past seven years, creating dangerous bacterial levels. Despite that, the environmental organization alleged, the city continues to allow new development to connect to its sewage system and has struck a deal with the state that doesn't require completion of necessary upgrades until 2012...Utility officials have said they[base ']re committed to preventing spills into Fountain Creek. But they've made no secret their belief that the Sierra Club and Pueblo County have used this summer's accidental spills to advance a different agenda - stopping the utility[base ']s proposed Southern Delivery Water System. The project would take water the city owns in Pueblo Reservoir and pipe it to the east side of the city. A byproduct of the project would be increased flows of treated wastewater in Fountain Creek."
The Army Corps of Engineers are not convinced that Parker needs to expand the size of Rueter-Hess Reservoir, according to the Rocky Mountain News [December 7, 2005, "Corps wants proof reservoir expansion is needed"]. From the article, "Rodney Schwartz of the Corps told the gathering of about 50 people that while there are no good alternative sites in the county at which to store more water, an enlarged Rueter-Hess may not be the best plan either. 'There may be some alternatives that let them get by with a smaller reservoir,' Schwartz said. But [Frank] Jaeger said with 400,000 residents projected to flood into the county over the next two to three decades, 'it makes no sense to not build it all the way out.' He said less than half an acre of wetlands would be affected by the expansion and that the reservoir could be vital to preserving the county's underground water supply. The Rueter-Hess, which would strictly be a storage facility, would have to have all its water pumped into it from other sources, including Cherry Creek, aquifers, irrigation return flows, and imported water. Jaeger said a nearby sanitation station would treat effluent to water-quality levels higher than what flows through Cherry Creek."
Coyote Gulch asks that the Corps get in touch with Dr. Bob Raynolds if they still have doubts.
Category: Colorado Water
6:16:57 AM
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© Copyright 2009 John Orr.
Last update: 3/14/09; 7:53:42 PM.
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