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Sunday, December 16, 2007
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Captain's Quarters: "The British completed their handoff of security responsibility in Basra to the central Iraqi government today, the last of four provinces under their control. The UK will leave 5,000 troops at their base near the Basra airport, but will only deploy on request from Baghdad. Otherwise, they will consider themselves "guests" and assist with training for Iraqi security forces."
Juan Cole: "In the far north of Iraq, Turkish warplanes bombed villages that its security specialists say were harboring terrorists of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). The bombing campaign is the latest in a series of actions that have brought tensions to a boil in the Kurdish-dominated north."
"2008 pres"
4:46:26 PM 
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Talking Points Memo: "Quick quiz: what's going to cost the U.S. more over the next decade: the exploding costs of entitlements like Social Security and Medicare or Bush's tax cuts? Despite all the talk we hear about the prior, it's not even close -- the tax cuts are poised to cost the treasury far, far, more. And yet, every Republican presidential candidate in the field, to a man, vows to make each of Bush's cut permanent, beyond their scheduled expiration in 2010. As the NYT's Tom Redburn notes today, over the next 10 years, it will cost 'roughly $2.5 trillion in revenues now expected under current law. And that's just the beginning.'"
"2008 pres"
4:44:46 PM
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Unbossed: "We all know that millions are not covered, those that potentially are don't have full coverage, some that are can't afford their share of employment-based coverage and therefore forego it. In the post-Sicko world in which we live, the common wisdom seems to be that we are at the point where universal health care is inevitable. Is that the case, though? A new report by EBRI explores whether employment-based health benefits vanishing. The first part of the report reviews recent survey data that shows a situation of greater stability in coverage than we have come to believe. There is stability in the percentages covered and in many other measures."
"2008 pres"
4:32:43 PM
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Political Wire: "The Des Moines Register's editorial board has endorsed Sen. John McCain and Sen. Hillary Clinton for the 2008 Iowa caucuses saying they are 'the candidates it believes are most competent and ready to lead.'"
Captain's Quarters:, "The Des Moines Register gave its endorsements in the primary races. For the Democrats, the Register unsurprisingly went with the Establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton. For the Republicans, they gave a big surprise to John McCain, a man who ignored Iowa in 2000 and has gained almost no traction in 2008. Why McCain?"
Political Wire: "A new Datamar survey in Florida finds Mike Huckabee now leading the Republican presidential race with 25%, followed by Rudy Giuliani at 21%, Mitt Romney at 19%, Sen. John McCain at 10% and Fred Thompson at 9%...On the Democratic side, Sen. Hillary Clinton is way ahead with 44%, followed by Sen. Barack Obama at 20% and John Edwards at 14%."
Four years ago this week on Coyote Gulch, [Mike Littwin via The Rocky Mountain News:] "Sure, this was great news for George W. Bush's re-election hopes. Or at least that's the early take. No one knows what will happen next in Iraq. Saddam was barely showered and shaved before the suicide car bombers were back at their deadly work. And, of course, it's one thing to capture Saddam and yet another to explain just where his weapons of mass destruction have gone. But here's how the thinking goes if you're a Democrat running for president: If the news was great for Bush, it couldn't be so great for Dean, the anti-Iraqi-war candidate who has positioned himself so successfully as the anti-Bush."
"2008 pres"
4:31:25 PM
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This should be fun to watch. The Colorado Wildlife Commission and the newly revamped Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. From the article:
Thursday's meeting of the Colorado Wildlife Commission and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission was the first tentative step in what's going to be a taxing journey on a short road. The two commissions, along with the Colorado Department of Environment and Public Health, are the main players in meeting the demands of House Bill 1298, which directs the COGCC to develop regulations for energy development that protect wildlife and environmental resources. The six-month process (HB 1298 set a July 1, 2008 deadline) is going to be important because until the current Washington administration changes, development in western Colorado isn't going to slow down. And although the wildlife commission already has an energy policy in place, it lacks the power of enforcement. HB 1298 can supply that, plus give wildlife and environmental interests now sitting on the COGCC, which until 1298 passed was dominated by the energy industry, a major role in parenting the wildlife and environment friendly regulations.
"2008 pres"
9:10:36 AM
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Here's the lowdown on the 2007 Farm Bill from The Pueblo Chieftain. From the article:
Sometimes big things come in small packages and that is the case with the 2007 Farm Bill that the Senate approved Friday afternoon - despite a warning from President Bush that unless sharper cuts are made in subsidy payments made to wealthy farmers, he will veto the final bill. The Farm Bill is a simple name for far-reaching legislation that spells out federal farm and ranch programs until 2012, from crop subsidy payments to federal grants for building biofuel refineries. In Colorado alone, Department of Agriculture payments totaled $357 million in 2005. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., has staked a lot on the new farm bill, bringing the Senate Agriculture Committee to Colorado early last year for a field hearing and shepherding sections of the legislation through Senate debate last week. Perhaps the biggest change that Salazar has pushed for is the creation of a new $5 billion disaster emergency fund to help farmers and ranchers when they are battered by blizzards and other natural disasters - like the storms that buried the Eastern Plains last Christmas and New Year's. "This is a good bill and it creates major opportunities for rural communities in Colorado," Salazar said Friday in a telephone press conference, emphasizing the legislation provides incentives for renewable energy. "I hope the president will accept this bill." The bill was approved Friday on a vote of 79-14, but not until Salazar and the Democratic leadership fought off 14 amendments to the legislation, some calling for major cuts in subsidy payments, offering to replace them with bigger federal crop insurance guarantees...
[The bill] would provide approximately $40 million for Colorado ranchers and farmers for water and soil conservation projects [and] would keep open a list of Farm Service Bureau offices in Colorado for at least another year. Agriculture Department officials have been seeking to close the offices in Bent, Conejos, Rio Grande and El Paso counties.
"2008 pres"
8:56:28 AM
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Here's a long column from The Boulder Daily Camera expressing hope that public opinion will rally around lessening or eliminating human induced climate change. Read the whole thing. Here's an excerpt:
The gulf between public and expert scientific understanding of climate change was evident at a recent symposium marking the 50th anniversary of the global carbon dioxide record. At the symposium, held near the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii (which has carefully tracked atmospheric CO2 for five decades), leaders in science, business and politics discussed a wide array of attainable strategies to cut greenhouse-gas emissions.
But citizens (and their elected representatives) are unlikely to act quickly and decisively until most of them see climate change for what it is: dangerous and accelerating. In the United States, many simply do not grasp this.
In a recent survey, 68 percent of Americans said they supported a strong, international treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. While that's encouraging, only about half of U.S. respondents said they were personally concerned about climate change.
The survey, which was conducted by Yale University, Gallup and the ClearVision Institute, indicates growing concern about climate change. But it also reveals the depth of public confusion about the best, peer-reviewed climate research. Only 48 percent of Americans believe there is scientific consensus about the causes of climate change. Only 40 percent believe there is scientific consensus that warming is, in fact, occurring.
"2008 pres"
8:17:57 AM
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© Copyright 2009 John Orr.
Last update: 3/15/09; 1:52:06 PM.
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