| |
|
Thursday, February 7, 2008
|
|
MSNBC.com: "John McCain effectively sealed the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday as chief rival Mitt Romney suspended his faltering campaign. 'I must now stand aside, for our party and our country,' Romney told conservatives."
"2008 pres"
5:57:50 PM 
|
|
Elevated Voices: "The prospect of the nomination not being locked up before the start of August's Democratic National Convention in Denver is making the rounds in political circles."
GOAT: "Senator Barack Obama addressed native issues at a town meeting in Elko, Nev. on January 18, as he spoke to a crowd of about 1,600 people. In response to a question about what he would do for tribal members if he became President, Obama talked about acknowledging the "tragic history" of the U.S. government's relationship with native peoples; said he would appoint a Native American policy advisor to strengthen relationships between the chief executive and tribes; and pledged to ensure that adequate resources are appropriated for Indian agencies."
Political Wire: "The latest Gallup tracking poll shows Sen. Hillary Clinton widening her national lead over Sen. Barack Obama to 52% to 39%. However, most of the interviews were conducted before the results of Super Tuesday were known."
"2008 pres"
5:53:03 PM
|
|
Talking Points Memo: "Attorney General Michael Mukasey is back on the Hill today, testifying to the House Judiciary Committee. Paul Kiel is covering it at TPMmuckraker. So far, he's dropped two big bombshells. DOJ will not be investigating: (1) whether the waterboarding, now admitted to by the White House, was a crime; (2) whether the Administration's warrantless wiretapping was illegal. His rationale? Both programs had been signed off on in advance as legal by the Justice Department. Cynics may argue that those aren't bombshells at all, that the Bush Administration would never investigate itself in these matters. Perhaps so. But this is a case where cynicism is itself dangerous. We have now the Attorney General of the United States telling Congress that it's not against the law for the President to violate the law if his own Department of Justice says it's not."
"2008 pres"
5:50:47 PM
|
|
Fort Collins Now has been down in Texas checking out a proposed in situ uranium mining operation with a lot of local opposition. From the article:
The first sign that there might be something wrong with the water on Craig Duderstadt's south Texas ranch was when the cows wouldn't drink. Last summer, they began to bypass their special groundwater well-fed trough, preferring to drink from a muddy puddle of rainwater. "This is a full water trough, and they'd walk a couple hundred yards and drink from a water hole. They'd walk right past that water trough," Duderstadt said. "You can't make 'em drink." About that same time, the well water used inside the house for everything from showering to drinking started running red and slimy. A well filter that would normally last six months plugged up in a matter of hours[~]one time, Craig couldn't even get it out of the filter casing because of all the sediment. The Duderstadts stopped drinking the water, too. A Culligan driver now brings four blue jugs of clean water a month from Victoria, the nearest big town, about a 30-minute drive northeast. The culprit, they say, is a uranium mining operation 1,250 feet from their front door. They say the water turns bad when the mining company drills exploration wells nearby...
Fort Collins Now traveled to Goliad, Texas, to find out how ranchers and grandmothers are trying to stop a newly formed company from extracting uranium from the ground using their groundwater. The fight against in-situ uranium mining in south Texas is similar to a battle brewing in Northern Colorado. There are differences, to be sure, but in both places, the fight comes down to water and the fundamental fact that it is essential to life. It's an especially tough issue for people who long thought they could count on that water to work on the land and earn a peaceful living. But as the Duderstadts and their neighbors have learned, nothing is ever certain...
Texas has bountiful uranium reserves, about 18 million tons of ore, equating to 23 million pounds of yellowcake, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The agency estimated reserves based on cost in 2003, and the 18 million figure is based on a price of $50 per pound. But last summer, uranium prices more than doubled that amount, and were hovering around $80 a pound the week of Jan. 28. It's evidence that investors and private and public utilities know uranium is an increasingly feasible alternative to coal and gas-fired power plants, especially since nuclear power plants don't generate greenhouse gases in the process of creating electricity. That is what led Paul Moore, a co-founder of the global environmental group Greenpeace, to advocate for nuclear. He is now a paid spokesman for the industry-funded Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, whose logo includes a 70's-style nuclear power plant protest pin with the phrase "No Nukes," but the "no" is crossed out and "yes" is scratched in. On the group's Web site, several national lawmakers are quoted saying good things about nuclear power, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, from Nevada, who reportedly said, "I'm cool with nukes," and GOP presidential front-runner John McCain, who is quoted saying, "We need to go back to nuclear power." Talk of a nuclear resurgence is being phrased in the language of national security, even patriotism -- the United States needs home-harvested material like uranium to survive, advocates say. It's not a renewable resource, but advocates say it could prolong stockpiles of fossil fuels that some say are right now reaching their peak. In large measure, fears about nuclear meltdowns have abated since the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant incident in 1979, when a malfunction caused the reactor core to overheat. Although no one died, or was even hurt, the incident prompted sweeping changes to the nuclear power industry. It also generated enough public mistrust and trepidation to help quash it. At the same time, uranium prices plummeted, and industry interest in the resources dissipated. Dain McCoig is evidence of the three-decade gulf in uranium interest. A 2002 Colorado School of Mines graduate, he now works as senior engineer at Uranium Resources Inc.'s Kingsville, Texas, in-situ mine and processing facility. There's a wide generation gap in his profession -- some of his colleagues are old enough to be his parents -- but the field is again ascendant as prices in uranium and even precious metals like gold have sparked a resurgence in mining education and employment.
Read the whole article. More Coyote Gulch coverage here and here.
"2008 pres"
6:43:09 AM
|
|
|
© Copyright 2009 John Orr.
Last update: 3/15/09; 2:06:26 PM.
|
|
|
