Wikipedia: On Politics

Excellent read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics

Bush and Cheney Should Resign--Keith Olberman

“I didn’t vote for him,” an American once said, “But he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.”

That—on this eve of the 4^th of July—is the essence of this democracy, in 17 words. And that is what President Bush threw away yesterday in commuting the sentence of Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

Watch the video..

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19588942/

Happy Clerihew Day

Today is the birthday of Edmund Clerihew Bentley whose middle name became a form of light verse.

Bentley made a name for himself with a classic work of detective fiction called Trent's Last Case, but he is best known for the four-line verse form that bears his middle name: the clerihew.

The clerihew is a biographical form that begins with the subject's name (or at least contains the name in the first line). It is made up of two rhyming couplets (thus the rhyme scheme is AABB). The only other requirement of the form is that it should be light hearted or humorous.

Bentley's Biography for Beginners, published in 1905, was his first collection of verse. He followed this up with additional volumes of verse in 1929 and 1939.

Here are a couple of examples of Bentley's clerihews:

Edward the Confessor
Slept under the dresser.
When that began to pall,
He slept in the hall.

The art of Biography
Is different from Geography.
Geography is about maps,
But Biography is about chaps.

An Op-Ed of Merit

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_6308408

Libby Walks

Maybe Paris should have called the President...this sends an awful message to the American people about what can be done and erased even though the process was correct no matter how uncomfortable it was for everyone involved. The judge and jury made a decision, he broke the law, got caught and was served his consequences. The president decided that his sentence was excessive. What about the hundreds of thousands of excessive sentences that are meted out for behavior across this country?

There are 2.3 million other Americans who don't have Bush's phone number. Libby won't do the time even though he did the crime. I would say something about the need for integrity from public officials but that's laughable with this administration. Perhaps this president was more worried about what Libby would say once he was actually wearing county jail orange and staring at that 12X8 playpen that he was expected to call home for the next 2 years.


Read Talk Left's take

Actual Poll Numbers Are the Lowest Ever

Here's the actual poll numbers from AP-ISPOS
...and still no one says the big "I" word. Can you
believe that they are that afraid of Cheney? Can't we
just get them both out at the same time?

How the Presidents Stack Up

Check out this graphic from the WSJ.

The New U.S. Embassy in Iraq

...is bigger than the Vatican.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20060423-122454-5409r.htm

I've been properly chastened by a co-editor that I need to post more on my own blog.

So, let's talk about Colorado and political philosophy. If Colorado were a citizen, what party affiliation (if any) would it claim? Is it left or right? What are the big issues to Colorado and how would it feel about them?

Personally, I think Colorado is more of an independent/Libertarian. Comment away.

IREA Feeling Blue?

The Intermountain Rural Electric Association, better known by its acronym IREA (pronounced "Ai-ree-ah") may sound like either a bunch 'a hick farmers generatin' 'lectricity with some windmills and naturally generated propane (aka cow toots), or a Jamaican feel-good greeting (Aiyre mon!), but it is, in fact, one of the largest and most powerful electrical utilities between the Sierra Nevadas and the Mississippi. And it just got a little bluer (or greener depending on you viewpoint).

IREA is an electrical co-op run by its own members, through an elected board. Its customers are its members, so theoretically, this means the folks making the decisions have the best interests of the customers at heart, and the customers have a strong incentive to be involved in management of the utility. On the basis of this theory, the Public Utilities Commission leaves IREA largely to its own devices.

Those who study IREA and similar co-ops have opinions about the efficacy of this system that span a range nearly as broad as TGIF's new menu (motto "We'll fry ANYthing!"). Far be it for me, a non-IREA customer to comment. The system seems to keep rates low for its customers. However, IREA produces most of its energy from coal, more than nearly all other U.S. utilities as a percentage, and opposes most legistlation aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. IREA management even went so far as to recently hire noted global warming skeptic Pat Michaels, to the tune of $100,000 in consulting fees, without member input. http://theflume.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=4199&TM=43941.28 Details on Michaels' responsibility are sketchy, but presumably he will spearhead an anti-renewable energy PR campaign. Low rates now are certainly attractive to members, but fail to account for externalization of costs of global warming. Of course, that doesn't really matter if you don't believe in global warming. http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics

Some IREA members might be turning the behemoth in a different direction. A trio of renewable energy advocates recently ran for the board of directors, all against incumbants, and one of them won. http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5690021.
Another had a fairly close margin and the third lost but garnered a very respectable turnout. This is even more meaningful when one considers that IREA provides electricty to the cradle of American conservatism, producing such juggernauts as James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Marilyn Musgrave, Rev. Ted Haggart, and Tom Tancredo, who has been lovingly dubbed an "ignorant yokel blowhard" by such persons of gravitas such as Dave Barry. see column

A group called IREA Voices has taken the lead in the charge to change IREA's coal-fired philosophy. http://www.ireavoices.org/. Whether the renewablites will eventually triumph over the fossil fuelies, or indeed who is David and who is Goliath in this quietly raging struggle, are questions that remain to be answered. But this is certainly a crack in the dike of one of this country's most conservative energy utility postures.

Welcome to Thoughts from the West

We live in interesting times, and I live in an interesting state. Colorado's demographics have changed quite a bit since I first moved here from New York in 2000, to witness what pundits describe as a Western state moving Red to Purple to Blue.

These same pundits are struggling to make sense of what is changing in Colorado. I'm not surprised; they tend to look at things like polls and statistics and find data to support their conclusions, rather than the other way around.

TFTW is bound to be about a lot of things. I'm interested in civics and governance. One author is interested in energy. Another, incarceration. Yet another, who knows? But through it all this project is about concerned citizens, living in the West, who have something to say.