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Wednesday, March 28, 2007
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Oliver Willis is linking to video from Baghdad. He writes, "John McCain, whose campaign for the presidency is badly faltering, appeared on CNN in order to spin once again for the Iraq war and the 'surge' strategy. Amazingly, McCain reaffirmed his previous claim that Iraq is safe, alleging that Americans can just walk around with no problem. Thankfully CNN correspondent Michael Ware is actually in Baghdad and makes clear that McCain's rhetoric bares no relationship whatsoever to reality."
"2008 pres"
7:41:25 AM 
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beSpacific: "'Redacting the Science of Climate Change [pdf] the findings of a year-long investigation into political interference at federal climate science agencies. The report demonstrates how policies and practices have increasingly restricted the flow of scientific information emerging from publicly-funded climate change research. This has negatively affected the media's ability to report objectively on scientific issues, public officials' capacity to respond with appropriate policies, and full public understanding of environmental concerns.'"
"2008 pres"
7:35:34 AM
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Andrew Sullivan: "Even the conservative intellectuals who oppose marriage rights for all have now disowned the theories of Stanley Kurtz. David Blankenhorn is the latest to do so. Money quote: 'Neither Kurtz nor anyone else can scientifically prove that allowing gay marriage causes the institution of marriage to get weaker.' Still, Blankenhorn soldiers on, trying to argue that there is a self-reinforcing correlation between support for marriage equality and opposition to traditional marriage."
"2008 pres"
7:23:55 AM
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The American Scene: "The GOP has three major problems going into 2008: The war in Iraq, the exhaustion of the Reaganite "tax cuts and small government" domestic agenda, and the fact that the party's culture-war agenda, long a winner for the party, looks increasingly hard-edged and bigoted to many moderate voters. Therefore, what the party needs for the general election is a candidate who can plausibly distance himself from both the failures in Iraq abroad and Grover Norquist at home, and who can find a way to reach out to cultural moderates without abandoning the party's principles on issues like abortion. It needs a heterodox conservative, in other words, and it has a bunch of them in the primary campaign - but the leading contenders have heterodox records on precisely the wrong issues...
"The major contenders, in other words, have a worst-of-both-worlds problem. Their ideological untrustworthiness will give them fits in the primary season without winning them many swing voters come the general election. (John McCain, should he get the nomination, isn't going to pick up blue-collar voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania because he broke with his party to champion campaign-finance restrictions. Rudy Giuliani isn't going to win over any of the Montanans who went for Jon Tester or the Virginians who went for Jim Webb because he split the national GOP on gun control or welfare reform.) And because they're considered ideologically untrustworthy, they're vulnerable to a dark horse challenge not from the kind of creative reform conservative that the party desperately needs, but from a candidate whose principle qualification is a solid record of party-line votes, and not much else. Someone like, say, Fred Thompson.
"The result, if such a party-line conservative challenge to McCains and Giuilianis should succeed, will be a nominee who won't embarrass the party in November, but whose ceiling of support - unless the Democratic nominee is exceptionally bad - is probably around forty-eight percent of the vote. Which is to say, a loser."
Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the link.
Nick Gillespie (via Reason): "[Wash Times col Don] Lambro's col cites poll data showing Rudy Giuliani kicking GOP ass, and Clinton's too (by 6 percentage points). My random thoughts, a 1,000 years out from the election: If it comes down to Rudy vs. Hillary, the smart money is on her. She's shown she can go the campaign distance in a way that he has not."
Captain's Quarters: "Tony Blankley, the editor of the Washington Times, warns Republicans to get their act together now if they expect to defeat Hillary Clinton in 2008 for the White House. The Bush administration has begun playing into her one strength -- competence -- and the Republicans cannot rely on Barack Obama or John Edwards to stop her march to the Oval Office."
Political Wire: "Though most polls show Sen. Hillary Clinton as the clear frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, a new Harris Poll finds that 50% of American adults say they would not vote for her if she was the Democratic candidate, while only 36% say they would, with 11% unsure. More striking is that many Democrats are not behind her either, as 21% say they would not vote for her.
Political Wire: "In Iowa, a new Zogby telephone poll shows a very close race for the Democratic presidential nomination. John Edwards leads with 27% support, with Sen. Hillary Clinton close behind at 25% support and Sen. Barack Obama at 23%. Fifteen percent said they were unsure whom they would support."
"2008 pres"
7:22:08 AM
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Governor Ritter signed HB 07-1281 [pdf] and SB 07-100 [pdf] yesterday, according to the Denver Post. From the article, "Under a still and cloudy sky, Gov. Bill Ritter on Tuesday signed legislation he said would make Colorado a national leader in wind and solar power. 'Colorado is the sixth-sunniest state - believe it or not - and the 11th-windiest state - believe it or not,' the governor said as he signed into law the cornerstone pieces of his renewable energy agenda. He signed the two bills at a gathering of more than 100 lawmakers, environmentalists and energy industry officials at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's National Wind Technology Center south of Boulder...
"House Bill 1281 requires large, investor-owned utilities to produce 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2010. Smaller cooperative utilities would have to produce 10 percent of their power from alternative sources by then."
"Senate Bill 100 requires utilities to upgrade their transmission lines to carry new energy sources while allowing them to recover the upgrade costs during construction."
"2008 pres"
6:47:39 AM
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Here's an article about the possibility of the U.S. Senate lifting the ban on stem cell research from today's Denver Post. From the article, "Legislation to lift limits on federal embryonic stem-cell research is headed back to the Senate floor, and possibly back to President Bush. Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid on Tuesday said senators will debate stem-cell legislation in early April. They'll consider a bill similar to the one sponsored by Denver Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette, which passed the House in January. Senate backers say they have enough votes for passage. That would send the bill to Bush for the second time. The president has promised to veto it again, as he did last summer after it passed Congress...
"Republicans do not appear to be blocking a vote on the legislation. Republican Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is working with Reid on an agreement that would allow a vote on the bill, a McConnell aide said. The bill from DeGette would toss out Bush's restriction limiting federal research on embryonic stem-cell lines to those created before August 2001. DeGette's bill would allow research using embryos created for in vitro fertilization, slated to be discarded and donated without compensation."
"2008 pres"
6:41:55 AM
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Here's a look at the science of measuring the ice stored on Greenland from HappyNews.com. They write, "Greenland is cold and hot. It's a deep freezer storing 10 percent of Earth's ice and a subject of fevered debate. If something should melt all that ice, global sea level could rise as much as 7 meters (23 feet). Greenland and Antarctica - Earth's two biggest icehouses - are important indicators of climate change and a high priority for research, as highlighted by the newly inaugurated International Polar Year. Just a few years ago, the world's climate scientists predicted that Greenland wouldn't have much impact at all on sea level in the coming decades. But recent measurements show that Greenland's ice cap is melting much faster than expected. These new data come from the NASA/German Aerospace Center's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace). Launched in March 2002, the twin Grace satellites circle the globe using gravity to map changes in Earth's mass 500 kilometers (310 miles) below. They are providing a unique way to monitor and understand Earth's great ice sheets and glaciers.
"Grace measurements have revealed that in just four years, from 2002 to 2006, Greenland lost between 150 and 250 cubic kilometers (36 to 60 cubic miles) of ice per year. One cubic kilometer is equal to about 264 billion gallons of water. That's enough melting ice to account for an increase in global sea level of as much as 0.5 millimeters (0.019 inches) per year, according to Isabella Velicogna and John Wahr of the University of Colorado, Boulder. They published their results in the scientific journal Nature last fall. Since global sea level has risen an average of three millimeters (0.1 inch) per year since 1993, Greenland's rapidly increasing contribution can't be overlooked. 'Before Grace, the change of Greenland's ice sheet was inferred by a combination of more regional radar and altimeter studies pieced together over many years, but Grace can measure changes in the weight of the ice directly and cover the entire ice sheet of Greenland every month,' says Michael Watkins, Grace project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. However, as anyone who has ever been concerned about his or her weight knows, a number on a scale is just the beginning. In the five years that Grace has been flying, scientists have found ways to make the most of this new set of observations."
More Coyote Gulch coverage of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment here.
"2008 pres"
6:29:21 AM
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© Copyright 2009 John Orr.
Last update: 3/15/09; 12:46:35 PM.
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