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Monday, June 9, 2008
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Coyote Gulch is amazed that our 3 year old nephew knows what a fist bump is all about but Fox News doesn't. 
"2008 pres"
6:14:34 PM 
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Colorado Independent: "A new McCain TV ad is starting up on Friday with buys in Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, New Mexico, Nevada, Wisconsin, West Virginia [~] and Colorado. Get used to these political ads."
"2008 pres"
6:12:47 PM
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Ed Quillen (via The GOAT: "...the local brew-pub makes its beer in town, but the barley malt and hops come from somewhere else.
"In other words, the feeling of smugness doesn't last long when I realize that just about everything I consume is trucked in from far away and is affected by rising fuel prices. You can walk, but you can't hide."
"2008 pres"
6:02:01 PM
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TalkLeft: "Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on June 20th about the leak of Valerie Plame's identity."
"2008 pres"
5:54:40 PM
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grist: "When the normally conservative International Energy Agency (IEA) agrees with both the middle of the road IPCC and more ... progressive voices like mine, it should be time for the world to get very serious, very fast on the clean energy transition. But when the media blows the story, the public and policymakers may miss the key messages of the stunning new IEA report, Energy Technology Perspectives, 2008. You may not have paid much attention to this new report once you saw the media's favorite headline for it: "$45 trillion needed to combat warming." That would be too bad, because the real news from the global energy agency is: Failing to act very quickly to transform the planet's energy system puts us on a path to catastrophic outcomes; The investment required is "an average of some 1.1% of global GDP each year from now until 2050. This expenditure reflects a re-direction of economic activity and employment, and not necessarily a reduction of GDP," in fact, this investment partly pays for itself in reduced energy costs alone (not even counting the pollution reduction benefits); The world is on the brink of a renewables (and efficiency) revolution."
Meanwhile, from The Denver Business Journal: "Both the Democratic and Republican national conventions will be powered by wind and solar energy, utility company Xcel Energy Inc. announced Monday...Xcel said its Windsource program will provide enough power to offset the estimated 3,000 megawatt-hours that the conventions will use. The Windsource power will come primarily from Xcel's Ponnequin Wind Facility near the Colorado-Wyoming border and from a wind farm in southwestern Minnesota. A solar installation at the DNC venue, the Pepsi Center, will generate 10 kilowatts."
Matt Frost (via The American Scene): "I remain unconvinced that it's possible to mitigate climate change with any tools at our disposal, and I don't think we'll bring the next generation of energy sources to market by making fossil fuels more expensive in relative terms. Such an approach is especially fragile in an inflationary and increasingly zero-sum world economy, so I tend to agree with Indur Goklany and Tom Schelling that the best way to solve the problem of climate change is by applying the brainpower that only a wealthier developing world can deliver. The political consensus, however, is for getting a head start on direct mitigation, and emissions trading might be the least-bad way to do so."
Andrew Sullivan for the link.
"cc"
5:50:09 PM
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Here's a look at conservative support for Barack Obama from Bruce Bartlett via The New Republic. From the article:
The New Yorker is hardly the optimal vehicle for reaching the conservative intelligentsia. But, last year, Barack Obama cooperated with a profile for that magazine where he seemed to be speaking directly to the right. Because he paid obeisance to the virtues of stability and continuity, his interlocutor, Larissa MacFarquhar, came away with the impression that the Illinois senator was an adherent of Edmund Burke: "In his view of history, in his respect for tradition, in his skepticism that the world can be changed any way but very, very slowly, Obama is deeply conservative."
As The New Yorker's assessment shot across blogs, many conservatives listened eagerly. A broad swath of the movement has been in open revolt against George W. Bush--and the Republican Party establishment--for some time. They don't much care for the Iraq war or the federal government's vast expansion over the last seven-and-a-half years. And, in the eyes of these discontents, the nomination of John McCain only confirmed the continuation of the worst of the Bush-era deviations from first principles.
But it was hardly inevitable that this revolt would translate into enthusiasm for the Democratic standard-bearer. After all, you could see similar signs of unhappiness four years ago, and none of that translated into mass defections to the John Kerry camp. And, despite Ann Coulter's vow to campaign for Hillary Clinton over John McCain, the old bête noir of the right would have never attracted many conservatives. That's what makes the rise of the Obamacons such an interesting development. Conservatives of almost all ideological flavors (even, gasp, some supply-siders) have been drawn to Obama--out of a genuine affection and a belief that he may actually better embody movement ideals than McCain.
Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the link.
"2008 pres"
5:49:34 PM
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Here's a look at Colorado and the western U.S. and how things are shaping up for the presidential election, from The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. From the article:
The recent Democratic surge in Colorado and other Western states has left presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama wondering whether the region will swing their way come November. Colorado and several of its neighbors are part of what could be a fundamental realignment of the formerly reliably Republican Rocky Mountain West. With Democrats ascendant in states across the region -- from Montana to Arizona -- Obama's campaign team already has made painting the West blue part of his campaign strategy. "We want to send a message now that we are going to go after them, and I expect to win them," Obama told a New Mexico crowd on Memorial Day. McCain, too, has made the West a priority, citing his experience on western issues during a recent Associated Press interview: "I believe as a Western senator I understand the issues, the challenges of the future for these ... states, whether it be land, water, Native American issues, preservation, environmental issues."
Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico seem the most likely candidates to realign this year. All three of the states voted for President George W. Bush in 2004 by margins of 5 percentage points or fewer. All three of the states also elected Democratic state and federal leaders in recent elections, including New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, despite their histories as red states. Colorado has trended Democratic starting, most noticeably, in 2004, when Democratic state Rep. John Salazar captured former Republican Congressman Scott McInnis' seat, and Attorney General Ken Salazar took the state's open Senate seat. The trend continued in 2006 with former Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter succeeding outgoing Republican Gov. Bill Owens and former state Rep. Ed Perlmutter taking outgoing Republican Congressman Bob Beauprez's seat. Other states in the region have seen similar trends, including the rise of Democratic governors in Wyoming, Montana and Arizona, although their roles as swing states are less sure...
Obama's enthusiasm, particularly in Colorado, could be blunted by several factors, including a ballot measure concerning the polarizing issue of abortion. Expect Amendment 48, which would define life as starting at conception, to bring out conservatives in droves, possibly spoiling the electorate's recent Democratic tendencies. Also, a scandal on either side of Colorado's open Senate race between Republican Bob Schaffer and Democrat Mark Udall could sully the party's brand. The same could happen in state or federal races in Nevada and New Mexico.
"2008 pres"
6:10:08 AM
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© Copyright 2009 John Orr.
Last update: 3/15/09; 2:30:34 PM.
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