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Tuesday, August 28, 2007
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Healthcare
Colorado Confidential: "As the cost of health insurance continues to skyrocket, so do the ranks of people without coverage. There were more uninsured people in 2006 than ever before, according to a report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Forty-seven million Americans didn't have health coverage last year, up from 44.8 million in 2005. Based on a three-year average between 2004-2006, 16.6 percent of Coloradans were without health insurance. That's a higher rate than in 35 other states. But Colorado's rate is in line with other Western states. The region came in third out of four areas of the country for its rate of uninsured residents, with 17.9 percent. Only Southern states had higher rates overall."
"2008 pres"
6:34:04 PM 
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Corruption
Talking Points Memo is running video of Alberto Gonzales' greatest moments. They write, "It's over, it's... all over. Alberto Gonzales resigned as Attorney General yesterday. As Americans we cheer, but as muckrakers we shed a tear for the man who over the past 6 months taught us new things about how mendacious, incompetent, and ridiculous an attorney general could be."
"2008 pres"
6:19:46 PM
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Iraq
Baseline: "An order to pull out some portion of 160,000 American troops, plus the 9 million tons of equipment and supplies the U.S. has shipped to Iraq -- everything from bandages to bullets to Bradley fighting vehicles -- is not only a huge logistics challenge, it's also a monumental information management task. The military will need to determine when troops and equipment move, which routes they will take, and what supplies should stay or go. And should a pullout be ordered, how well the military's information management systems work will be a significant factor in determining how quickly that mission is accomplished."
Thanks to Ed Cone for the link.
"2008 pres"
6:12:35 PM
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? for president?
Political Wire: "Minnesota's Democratic Party just announced 'that its central committee has approved shifting the party's presidential caucuses up to Super Tuesday, on Feb. 5,' according to USA Today."
"2008 pres"
5:59:11 PM
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Tax policy
NewMexiKen, who worked for the Feds, takes a look at the "fair tax" being bandied about by a couple of Presidential primary campaigns. Ken writes, "23%. Want to know how they get that figure? According to Bruce Bartlett, a deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy under Reagan and Bush I, writing in The Wall Street Journal, the actual rate in the proposal is 30%."
The Wash Park Prophet adds, "The proposal's 30% rate also ignores things like that fact that some economically purchases would in practice be exempted from the tax, and the fact that there will not be 100% compliance. A more realistic revenue neutral number is far in excess of 30%."
"2008 pres"
5:57:02 PM
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Marijuana possesion as Denver's lowest law enforcement priority makes it to the fall ballot
The Denver City Council voted to put SAFER's marijuana initiative on the fall ballot, according to The Rocky Mountain News. From the article:
Denver voters will have the final say on whether the city should change its marijuana laws, but that didn't stop several City Council members from accusing pot activists of turning city elections into a farce. "You're trying to make a joke out of the electoral process in Denver," said Councilwoman Carol Boigan. "I think this is aimed at street theater and capturing media attention." The council voted unanimously Monday to refer to voters a ballot initiative that would direct Denver police to make the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana "the city's lowest law enforcement priority." Backers of the proposed ordinance turned in several thousand signatures to earn a spot on the November ballot.
"The war on drugs is as misguided as the war on Iraq," said Councilman Chris Nevitt, who compared the country's drug laws to the failure of Prohibition. "This issue needs to be taken to the state and federal level. Denver voters have already spoken." In 2005, Denver voters made the possession of small amounts of marijuana legal in Denver. Denver police, however, have continued to cite people who possess less than an ounce of the drug, saying they have to enforce state law.
More coverage from The Denver Post. They write:
...assistant city attorney David Broadwell said the current initiative would have little or no effect on how the police and prosecutors pursue possession. The debate and surrounding publicity has repeatedly put city officials in politically awkward positions. Monday was no different, as four City Council members and Mayor John Hickenlooper admitted (or didn't deny) in the Denver Daily News that they had smoked marijuana. Monday's vote means this will be the third straight year Tvert has successfully placed a marijuana initiative before Denver voters. A 2005 city initiative successfully repealed a Denver law against possession, but a similar statewide initiative failed last year. Denver authorities currently enforce the state rules outlawing possession of marijuana. Bryan Vicente, an attorney with Citizens for a Safer Denver, told council members that tickets for misdemeanor possession of marijuana actually increased by 15 percent in the year after residents voted to repeal the city possession law. "I would just ask the council and members of the public to consider whether busting adults for personal possession of marijuana is the best use of resources," Vicente said.
More coverage from Colorado Condidential. They write:
University of Colorado Colorado Springs professor Dr. Robert Melamede was one of the first speakers to support the ordinance, and lamented Iraqi war veterans who "come back and spend the rest of their lives on pain medication" rather than being given the option of medical pot. "The federal policy is that narcotics are better for you than marijuana," Melamede said. Those against the proposal also made a showing at the meeting, and the majority of them identified as professionals in the substance abuse industry. Shannon Mulcahy, an adolescent counselor at Arapahoe House, a non-profit provider of rehabilitation services, claimed that marijuana today "is ten times stronger than what was available in the 1970s." But it was when Mulcahy told city council that a percentage of youths who use marijuana were more inclined to participate in violence that laughter erupted in city hall from ordinance supporters, forcing council president Michael Hancock to give a stern warning to cacklers. Tom Brewster, a licensed social worker with a substance abuse program partially funded by the University of Colorado at Denver Health Sciences Center, expressed his concern over the ordinance increasing addiction and victimizing children. After that, Miguel Lopez spoke as a representative of the Chicano and GLBT community, emphasizing his concern over marijuana arrests targeting minorities in the city. Lopez also read supportive letters from city council members in Seatle, WA, where a similar measure has been implemented.
"denver n2007"
6:59:34 AM
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South Platte River Basin Task Force
Here's an update on Governor Ritter's South Platte River Basin Task Force from The Rocky Mountain News. From the article:
In June, Gov. Bill Ritter seated a task force to find ways to manage the river so that surface water users and well owners can co-exist. But the tone Monday was less than optimistic, with members expressing doubt that anything meaningful will come from Ritter's initiative. "The reality is there is not much that can be done," said task force member Manuel Montoya, manager of the Brighton-based Farmers Reservoir and Irrigation Co. "There are small tweaks that can be done, but they are not going to amount to much," he said.
The group, which has met five times since June, must craft a plan for lawmakers by Sept. 30. Monday, Ritter urged the group to put self-interests aside. "The whole hope of this was that we could take the decisions that have been dealt us and find some solutions," he said.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here and here.
"colorado water"
6:54:50 AM
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Aurora City Council to vote on new water rates
Here's a recap of last night's Aurora City Council meeting where councilors took up the issue of water rates, from The Rocky Mountain News. From the article:
On the heels of complaints from constituents such as Pomarico, council members discussed Monday changing a rate structure implemented in January that charges people for water based on four usage blocks. At the highest block, residents are charged $10.75 per thousand gallons of water...
...the rate structure has had "unintended consequences" on water bills, said Mayor Ed Tauer, who added that every council member has had constituents contact them about the issue. Council member Bob Broom introduced an ordinance Monday to eliminate the highest rate block by Jan. 1. The council will vote on the proposal in two weeks. Some council members questioned whether doing away with the highest block would bring the intended relief because most residents never reach that level of water usage. Council member Ryan Frazier suggested changing the baseline for the rate system.
"colorado water"
6:50:20 AM
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Dam safety
Here's a short look at dam safety in Colorado from The Glenwood Springs Post Independent "reg". From the article:
Jack Byers, deputy state engineer with the Colorado Division of Water Resources, said that while Garfield County has high-hazard dams, none are operating under restrictions or have immediate safety concerns. High-hazard dams are ones that could cause significant loss of life or property damage if they failed. "It doesn't dictate what is the likelihood of the dam failing, it is more how you have to manage these dams," said Dave Merritt, chief engineer with the Colorado River District, based in Glenwood Springs. High-hazard dams must undergo annual inspection in Colorado.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee passed [U.S. Representative John] Salazar's dam repair bill early this month. It is expected to receive consideration by the full House after Congress returns from its August break. The bill would authorize the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide grants for rehabilitation and repair of publicly owned dams. It would make $200 million available over five years for work on the nation's aging dam infrastructure. States would have to provide 35 percent in matching funds. Byers praised the measure but also said the amount of money is relatively small compared to the need that exists...
The state has about 193 dams with restrictions out of about 2,000 in total, he said. Those restrictions might include prohibiting a reservoir from being completely filled, or used to store any water at all. Most of the dams with restrictions are considered low-hazard, meaning problems with them wouldn't endanger lives, he said. Locally, large dams such as the one at Rifle Gap are considered high-hazard. However, Merritt said much smaller dams also can be high-hazard, as in cases when they are located in narrow canyons. Salazar's bill wouldn't apply to privately owned dams. Nor would it pertain to federally owned ones, such as Ruedi Reservoir near Basalt, which the federal government maintains. Byers believes Salazar's focus on dam safety is well-timed, given the recent, deadly collapse of a highway bridge in Minneapolis.
"colorado water"
6:42:01 AM
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Science: CloudSat and CALIPSO
Here's an update on Cloudsat written by one of the principal investigators, Graeme Stephens, for The Denver Post. From the article:Despite the enormous number of images of clouds from space, previously there had been little real information about the properties of clouds. CloudSat is the first radar to look vertically at the characteristics of clouds, particularly their water and ice content. That data will help scientists better predict weather patterns and climate changes.
Those improvements will give us more confidence in predicting droughts and severe storms in the future, including the effects of global warming...
CloudSat - designed at Colorado State University in Fort Collins and built by Boulder's Ball Aerospace - flies in NASA's "A-Train" constellation of satellites, maintaining a separation of about 15 seconds from the CALIPSO spacecraft, which carries a laser system called "lidar" to study clouds and aerosols (dust and pollution). The lidar complements the CloudSat radar, in that each is particularly well-suited for studying a certain class of clouds. Together, they give a complete picture of clouds from the thinnest cirrus high in the atmosphere to the thickest, most heavily precipitating clouds...
Among some of the new discoveries gathered in the first 12 months of CloudSat's operations:
- CloudSat research is leading to a promising new technique for estimating the intensity of hurricanes from space. The method could one day supplement existing techniques, assist in designing future tropical cyclone satellite observing systems and improve disaster preparedness and recovery efforts. Developed by scientists at CSU, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the technique uses NASA satellite data, including data from CloudSat, to remotely estimate hurricane intensity.
- CloudSat has provided the first real information on the fraction of clouds that produce precipitation. Over the Earth's oceans, CloudSat has shown that precipitation is much more common than was previously thought, due to the fact that precipitation over oceans is extremely hard to measure and the light rain that often falls has been completely missed by satellite observations until now. Weather and climate models fail to predict this precipitation, but the CloudSat observations will lead to improvements in the predictions. CloudSat has shown that 15 percent of all oceanic clouds produce rain that falls to the surface.
- Weather and climate-prediction models predict that the majority of rain that falls comes from deep thunderstorms. CloudSat has revealed that this is not the case, and instead the observations show that a large proportion of rain falls from much shallower clouds.
- CloudSat has provided new insights on the greenhouse effects of clouds, identifying where and when clouds trap heat in the atmosphere and where and when they increase the amount of heat lost from the atmosphere to space. This dynamic trade-off between heating and cooling is one of the basic controls on global climate and the new knowledge gives scientists better tools to estimate future climate.
The CloudSat radar also provides observations of clouds over the polar regions during winter. These clouds have been largely invisible to earlier satellite observations because of the lack of sunlight and the difficulty of sensing a difference, from space, between cold clouds and cold ice-covered surfaces. As we are finding out, the polar regions are extremely sensitive to climate warming, and the complex interplay between the polar surface and polar clouds can now be studied for the first time.
More on Mr. Stephens from The Denver Post.
More coverage here or here. More Coyote Gulch coverage here and here.
"2008 pres"
6:30:19 AM
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© Copyright 2009 John Orr.
Last update: 3/14/09; 9:31:54 PM.
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