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Wednesday, February 13, 2008
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The Cherry Creek News: "U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) today used his time as ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee hearing on the U.S. Dept. of Defense budget to challenge the department to maintain fiscal discipline for the ongoing military costs incurred by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and pressed them for additional details about future war funding."
"2008 pres"
6:40:05 PM 
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Andrew Sullivan: "Rasmussen nationally: For the first time, Obama leads."
Captain's Quarters: "Last week, the Hillary Clinton campaign argued that the month of February would belong to Barack Obama, and that they would focus on Texas and Ohio. After making a change in leadership in the campaign and watching the lopsided delegate split in Virginia and Maryland, Team Hillary has changed direction. Now they will fight for delegates in Wisconsin instead of ceding the state to Obama."
Daily Kos: "Wow. McCain has hitched his wagon to the Iraq debacle and there ain't no turning back. 'Speaking to reporters in Richmond, VA last night, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) attacked 'anyone' who points out that he is "fine" with keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for 100 or more years. 'Anyone who worries about how long we're in Iraq does not understand the military and does not understand war,' said McCain."
Victor Davis Hanson: "For McCain to win in this current anti-incumbent, anti-Republican climate of war and economic uncertainty, everything will have to break right -- the base will have to make a choice for the better, not the best, alternative and soon cool the rhetoric; the VP choice will have to be inspired; independents and moderates will have to be convinced that McCain's unique life-story and national security fides trump all else; and he will have to wage an effective campaign, hope his opponents don't, and trust that Iraq will continue to improve while the economy is stabilized."
"2008 pres"
6:25:20 PM
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Talking Points Memo: "It appears that waterboarding and Republican presidential ambitions may have collided today in the Senate. At issue is a Democratic measure that would restrict the CIA to using those interrogation methods listed in the Army Field Manual. In other words, it would bar the CIA from employing so-called 'enhanced interrogation' techniques."
More:
Republicans were expected to use a parliamentary procedure today that would have blocked the measure by requiring a 60-vote minimum to proceed. But here's where it gets interesting. Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain opposes waterboarding, which would have put him in the position of voting with the Democrats and against the President on this measure, perhaps giving the Dems the 60 votes necessary to proceed. So the Republicans scuttled that planned parliamentary maneuver, and the full bill went to a vote a little while ago, barely passing, 51-45. Notably, McCain voted against the bill. One would expect that his publicly stated reason for opposing it will be something other than the anti-waterboarding provision. The GOP thinking may be that it's better to have the bill pass and the President veto it, than have the current Republican nominee and the President so publicly at odds. That sets up an interesting situation when and if a veto override is attempted. But with the two-thirds vote required for an override seemingly out of reach, McCain's vote may be less crucial.
"2008 pres"
6:09:23 PM
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Juan Cole: "The Daily Star summarizes reports coming out of Iraq that the Speaker of the House is threatening to dissolve parliament. Iraq's legislature has been deadlocked for months over the budget and also setting a date for badly needed provincial elections. It is likely a hollow threat, but the Iraqi constitution does state, 'The Council of Representatives may be dissolved by a one-third vote of the Council or on requests of both the Prime Minister and the President.' Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani says he has those votes.
"The passage of the budget has been held up by demands of the Kurds that the Kurdistan Regional Authority receive 17% of national income, which many Arab MPs think is excessive. The proportion is based on Kurdish estimates of their proportion of the Iraqi population, estimates that are disputed. Some say they are willing to compromise on 14.5 % for the Kurds. Arab delegates also resent Kurdish demands that they pay for the Peshmerga security forces of the Kurdistan Regional Authority, which rejects federal troops ever setting foot on its soil."
"2008 pres"
7:03:35 AM
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Political Wire: "new Strategic Vision poll in Wisconsin shows Sen. Barack Obama edging Sen. Hillary Clinton, 45% to 41%, one week from the state's primary. Among Republicans, Sen. John McCain leads Mike Huckabee, 45% to 27%."
"2008 pres"
7:01:26 AM
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Rocky Mountain News: "Barack Obama powered past Hillary Rodham Clinton in the race for Democratic convention delegates tonight on a night of triumph sweetened with outsized primary victories in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. 'Tonight we're on our way,' Obama told cheering supporters in Madison, Wis. 'But we know how much further we have to go on,' he added, celebrating eight straight victories over Clinton, the former first lady now struggling in a race she once commanded. The Associated Press count of delegates showed Obama with 1,186. Clinton had 1,181, falling behind for the first time since the campaign began. Neither was close to the 2,025 needed to win the nomination. His victories were by large margins -- he was gaining about 75 percent of the vote in the nation's capital and nearly two-thirds in Virginia. He had 62 percent of the vote in early Maryland returns. By contrast, Clinton was attempting to retool her campaign in the midst of a losing streak. Her deputy campaign manager resigned, the second high-level departure in as many days."
Rocky Mountain News: "Though some political wonks thought Virginia was Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's best hope of at least slowing Obama's momentum on Tuesday night, the commonwealth's contest wasn't even close...With double-digit victories in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, Sen. Barack Obama extended his recent winning streak, took over the lead in pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, and took a significant step toward becoming the first African-American man to win his party's presidential nomination...Virginia has undergone a major demographic shift since the segregated '60s, including explosive growth in the northern tip of the state near Washington, D.C. With the population changes, plus the addition of more military, high tech and financial sector jobs, some say it more closely resembles a Mid-Atlantic state like Maryland than other states of the old Southern Confederacy."
Captain's Quarters: "In the end, the Mike Huckabee surge in Virginia fell far short of victory. John McCain swept the Potomac Primaries last night, winning by nine in Virginia and winning among conservatives in Maryland. The delegate count now makes his nomination inevitable."
The Cherry Creek News: "Has the race for the Democratic presidential nomination tilted seriously in favor of Barrack Obama? That's the question tonight, as the Illinois Senator stormed to victories over Hillary Clinton. With the Clinton campaign reeling with staff turnover and fundraising woes, Obama is piling up votes and delegates. Obama beat Clinton in all three Democratic 'Potomac primaries' in Maryland, Virginia, District of Columbia. John McCain scores similar trifecta over Mike Huckabee on GOP ballots."
Daily Kos: "Barack Obama didn't just beat Hillary in Virginia. He didn't just get more votes than John McCain. In 'red' Virginia, Obama got 142,000 more votes than all the Republicans put together. And that was with Hillary Clinton taking 100,000 more votes than John McCain. He kicked butt, took names, and did it with both hands tied behind his back. Oh, and in Maryland, with 40% of the vote in, Hillary is beating all Republicans put together while losing by 27%. You could probably limit Democrats to only left-handed voters, or red-haired voters, or left-handed red-haired voters whose names start with 'Q,' and the Republicans would still be in trouble."
"2008 pres"
6:53:12 AM
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Here's an alarmist view of water in the Southwestern U.S. from the AP. They write:
Researchers at San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography said Tuesday the West's largest storage reservoir faces increasing threats from human-induced climate change, growing populations and natural forces like drought and evaporation. There is a 50 percent chance Lake Mead will run dry by 2021 and a 10 percent chance it will run out of usable water by 2014, if the region's drought deepens and water use climbs, the researchers said. "We were stunned at the magnitude of the problem and how fast it was coming at us," said marine physicist Tim Barnett. "Make no mistake, this water problem is not a scientific abstraction but rather one that will impact each and every one of us that live in the Southwest." Currently, Lake Mead -- located in Nevada and Arizona -- is half-full, as is Lake Powell. Both lakes help manage water resources for more than 25 million people in seven states. Researchers said that if Lake Mead water levels drop below 1,000 feet, Nevada would lose access to all its river allocation, Arizona would lose much of the water that flows through the Central Arizona Project Canal, and power production would cease before the lake level reached bottom.
More coverage from The San Diego Union-Tribune. From the article:
Colorado River reservoirs that serve 20 million people in the Southwest could essentially run out of water in 13 years based on current climate and water-use trends, researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography said yesterday. That would jolt San Diego County, which relies heavily on the Lake Powell-Lake Mead system for water. Several million people across the Southwest also get hydroelectric power from the reservoir's dams, which the scientists said may suffer an "abrupt drop" in production in about 10 years if reservoir levels continue to fall.
Major industries - from tourism to biotech - would be affected by such a shortage, which already is starting to force changes. A large marina on Lake Mead recently was forced to move its floating docks to deeper water. This latest warning could escalate pressure for more conservation, either voluntary or mandatory, several water experts suggest. The report is the first in a peer-reviewed journal to pin a date on when the river's water level would drop so low that reservoir water could no longer be drawn by gravity, said authors Tim Barnett and David Pierce, scientists at Scripps, which is part of the University of California San Diego. The paper was accepted for publication by the American Geophysical Union, an international society of Earth and space scientists...
"Based on the assumptions that (Barnett and Pierce) made, I certainly don't disagree with this conclusion," said Terry Fulp, operations manager of the Lower Colorado River for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Fulp added a caveat: Long-term changes in river flows can't be predicted precisely, so the Scripps calculation could be off by several years.
The Lake Mead-Lake Powell system includes the stretch of the Colorado River in northern Arizona. Aqueducts carry the water from the river to cities such as Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Diego. The system is at about half-capacity because of a recent string of dry years. "It's pretty dramatic...From month to month, there is a noticeably bigger white band (of rock and sand) and you can see more islands popping out of the water," said Krystyna Stave, an environmental studies professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.
Pierce and Barnett approached future river flows based on probability of certain events. They gave a 10 percent chance that functional storage in Mead and Powell reservoirs will be gone by 2013 and a 50 percent chance that it will disappear by 2021. They said there's a 50 percent chance that the minimum power-production levels in both lakes will be reached in 2017, based on current trends. Martin Hoerling, a meteorologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo., said the Scripps report offered the most specific projection that he has seen about the river's looming crisis. He also emphasized the inherent uncertainties in predicting precipitation, but said "the science is unanimous" that Colorado River flows will shrink in coming decades. The Scripps report "should catch attention because climate change is real and it needs to be part of the dialogue about how we manage the water resources," Hoerling said.
Barnett and Pierce touched on possible solutions, many of which already are being tried across the region. Those include increased calls for conservation, new guidelines for managing river water and numerous attempts to tap potential supplies such as the Pacific Ocean and aquifers. "We are all planning to deal with less water from the Colorado River," said Ken Weinberg, a top official at the San Diego County Water Authority. Concerns on the Colorado River have been heightened by legal complications to moving water from Southern California's other major water source, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. This year, the region's farmers have had supplies cut by 30 percent. Despite problems, numbers released yesterday by the San Diego County Water Authority show that the county set a record high for water use in 2007. While per-capita use has remained relatively flat over the past two decades, the growing population keeps nudging the total demand up. Several water managers in San Diego County said the region's conservation push in recent months doesn't appear to be saving the targeted amount of water - about 10 percent. "The public isn't believing that we have as much of a constraint as we really do...They turn on the tap and there is plenty there," said Bud Irvin, board president of the Santa Fe Irrigation District in North County. The county water authority mainly has relied on stories in local media and word of mouth to spread the conservation message. But it's working on a plan that's likely to include a big increase in paid advertising. No budget has been proposed. Jim Barrett, director of public utilities for the city of San Diego, is among the many local water managers convinced that mandatory rationing is unnecessary. "We don't want to excite people needlessly in anticipation there might be a problem later," Barrett said. Rationing would be difficult to fairly impose, he said, because an across-the-board reduction would punish households and businesses that have already started to save.
"colorado water"
"colorado water"
5:50:18 AM
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© Copyright 2009 John Orr.
Last update: 3/15/09; 2:07:42 PM.
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