Nichols: Keep Lieberman in Caucus (For Now)

I don't mind Lieberman caucusing where he wants. He could caucus with himself as far as I'm concerned. It's the chairmanship thing that needs to go. Perhaps one goes with the other and I'm not quite understanding the Byzantine culture of the Senate properly. Nichols is usually pretty good so I'd give his advice serious consideration. My concern with this strategy would be that Lieberman would have even more power to jerk the Democrats around. (My emphasis added in the section noted below.)

I doubt Martin will win. Begich and Franken are in better shape from what I've been reading (especially on Politico). I wonder what he's reading to think otherwise. Also Nichols' historic examples, while interesting, don't really apply here, imo. This also assumes the the Republicans will go out of their way to block every bill on a 100% partisan basis. After the butt kicking they just took, and the bad re-election numbers they see coming up in a short two years, that may be the way to a complete power loss.

Some things aren't worth the price you have to pay. Keeping consistently selfish and disloyal people around you is one of them. You're just asking for big time headaches down the line.

Keep Lieberman in the Caucus (For Now) - John Nichols - The Nation - 12 Nov 08

"My sense is that Democrats would be wiser to keep Lieberman in the Democratic circle for so long as he sides with the caucus on cloture votes. After all, if Al Franken prevails in the Minnesota recount and Jim Martin wins the Georgia run-off -- both serious prospects -- a Democratic caucus that includes Lieberman will have 59 Senate seats. And if Alaska's Nick Begich comes from behind as that state counts the last of its ballots -- a more remote prospect -- a Democratic caucus that includes Lieberman will have the 60 seats needed to block a Republican filibuster."

Nichols: Keep Lieberman in Caucus (For Now)

I don't mind Lieberman caucusing where he wants. He could caucus with himself as far as I'm concerned. It's the chairmanship thing that needs to go. Perhaps one goes with the other and I'm not quite understanding the Byzantine culture of the Senate properly. Nichols is usually pretty good so I'd give his advice serious consideration. My concern with this strategy would be that Lieberman would have even more power to jerk the Democrats around. (My emphasis added in the section noted below.)

I doubt Martin will win. Begich and Franken are in better shape from what I've been reading (especially on Politico). I wonder what he's reading to think otherwise. Also Nichols' historic examples, while interesting, don't really apply here, imo. This also assumes the the Republicans will go out of their way to block every bill on a 100% partisan basis. After the butt kicking they just took, and the bad re-election numbers they see coming up in a short two years, that may be the way to a complete power loss.

Some things aren't worth the price you have to pay. Keeping consistently selfish and disloyal people around you is one of them. You're just asking for big time headaches down the line.

Keep Lieberman in the Caucus (For Now) - John Nichols - The Nation - 12 Nov 08

"My sense is that Democrats would be wiser to keep Lieberman in the Democratic circle for so long as he sides with the caucus on cloture votes. After all, if Al Franken prevails in the Minnesota recount and Jim Martin wins the Georgia run-off -- both serious prospects -- a Democratic caucus that includes Lieberman will have 59 Senate seats. And if Alaska's Nick Begich comes from behind as that state counts the last of its ballots -- a more remote prospect -- a Democratic caucus that includes Lieberman will have the 60 seats needed to block a Republican filibuster."

Blast of Wind (Info)

Sent this one off to the local Sierra Club list. Slightly modified for my LJ readers.

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You may find the following related information of some interest on these topics. REPI, small wind issues, distributed ownership of distributed energy resources and net metering. And CREBs.

Renewable Energy Production Incentives for Nebraska (2007)
Small-Scale Wind Energy - Carbon Trust (UK) - (Two excellent reports - PDFs)
Danish Wind Co-ops Can Show Us the Way
The End of One Danish Windmill Co-operative
The Effects of Net Metering on the Use of Small-Scale Wind Systems in the United States - NREL

This last study is a bit old (2002). I suspect that Trudy Forsyth at NREL has more up to date information. Either way the conclusions may surprise a few people.

And one last item not mentioned but that may be of related interest, Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBs).

Using CREBs to Finance Wind Projects in Montana

Blast of Wind (Info)

Sent this one off to the local Sierra Club list. Slightly modified for my LJ readers.

-----

You may find the following related information of some interest on these topics. REPI, small wind issues, distributed ownership of distributed energy resources and net metering. And CREBs.

Renewable Energy Production Incentives for Nebraska (2007)
Small-Scale Wind Energy - Carbon Trust (UK) - (Two excellent reports - PDFs)
Danish Wind Co-ops Can Show Us the Way
The End of One Danish Windmill Co-operative
The Effects of Net Metering on the Use of Small-Scale Wind Systems in the United States - NREL

This last study is a bit old (2002). I suspect that Trudy Forsyth at NREL has more up to date information. Either way the conclusions may surprise a few people.

And one last item not mentioned but that may be of related interest, Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBs).

Using CREBs to Finance Wind Projects in Montana

More Recycled Wind

Google has just signed on to the push for a "smart grid" which is a very large step in the right direction to help out on our electrical energy concerns.

Obama also has Dan Kammen from U.Cal-Berkeley as one of his energy advisors. Kammen is one of the brightest stars in the energy field, especially renewables. Frontline used him a lot in their recent reporting on global warming. He's also an advisor to Gov. Schwartzenegger. Kammen evidently first met Obama on a Harvard basketball court when they were students.

I just got back from a trip out to little Kearney, NE to attend a two-day conference on wind energy in Nebraska. There were about 450 attendees at the conference. Just about the limit of what that little convention center could handle.

(Speaking of packed wind conventions, they had to change the venue of annual AWEA conference from the Twin Cities to Chicago's McCormick Place because of the anticipated size of the convention. Last time in Houston, Windpower 2007 had something like 13,000 attendees. My first AWEA conference was in Amarillo in 1978 and we had maybe 200 attending.)

Kearney is near the middle of the 3rd District of Nebraska which is about 70% registered Republican. The section on wind rights leasing was packed.

The times they are seriously changing.

More Recycled Wind

Google has just signed on to the push for a "smart grid" which is a very large step in the right direction to help out on our electrical energy concerns.

Obama also has Dan Kammen from U.Cal-Berkeley as one of his energy advisors. Kammen is one of the brightest stars in the energy field, especially renewables. Frontline used him a lot in their recent reporting on global warming. He's also an advisor to Gov. Schwartzenegger. Kammen evidently first met Obama on a Harvard basketball court when they were students.

I just got back from a trip out to little Kearney, NE to attend a two-day conference on wind energy in Nebraska. There were about 450 attendees at the conference. Just about the limit of what that little convention center could handle.

(Speaking of packed wind conventions, they had to change the venue of annual AWEA conference from the Twin Cities to Chicago's McCormick Place because of the anticipated size of the convention. Last time in Houston, Windpower 2007 had something like 13,000 attendees. My first AWEA conference was in Amarillo in 1978 and we had maybe 200 attending.)

Kearney is near the middle of the 3rd District of Nebraska which is about 70% registered Republican. The section on wind rights leasing was packed.

The times they are seriously changing.

The Roots of PC

More recycled stuff from another on-line venue.

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This discussion on the annoying nature of certain phrases reminds me of Orwell's excellent essay "Politics and the English Language".

"But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better."

My memory of the original usage of "politically correct" and "politically incorrect" was one applied by liberal folks to the far left Marxists and Maoists who had a "line" in which to shoehorn reality. Many a head shop in the 60s had buttons, meant to be funny, with those terms on them.

At some point, maybe the early Reagan era, some folks on the right intentionally tried to re-brand a lot of the 60s terminology for their own political uses and these terms were part of that process. I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of intellectual prankstering might not have come from the Dartmouth Review group among others.

Likewise you'd see a lot of related conceptual head faking going on from the right. For just one example of several that come to mind, Dixy Lee Ray's "Trashing the Planet" book which sounds like the title of an environmentalist book when it is anything but that.

Seems like I also recall some right-wing writer trying to assert that Walter Lippman had originated the use of the PC term in a way that fit their revision of the popular 60s usage which implies intentionality in the framing war over that term.

As a final note, Josh Goldberg's book "Liberal Fascism" is an attempt to flip things the other way. Using a term, fascism, typically applied to the right, and trying to attach it to the left.

Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning

I didn't read the book but I did watch Goldberg on C-SPAN's BookTV which was enough to conclude that it was well prepared baloney. I worked on a project in grad school on the social theorist Emile Durkheim and the roots of fascism that covered similar territory.

Thanks to joe_haldeman for directing me to the review of Goldberg's book by Michael Mann of UCLA.

Sticks and Stones - Who Has More Affinity with Fascism - Liberals or Conservatives? - Washington Post - 03 Feb 08

The Roots of PC

More recycled stuff from another on-line venue.

---

This discussion on the annoying nature of certain phrases reminds me of Orwell's excellent essay "Politics and the English Language".

"But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better."

My memory of the original usage of "politically correct" and "politically incorrect" was one applied by liberal folks to the far left Marxists and Maoists who had a "line" in which to shoehorn reality. Many a head shop in the 60s had buttons, meant to be funny, with those terms on them.

At some point, maybe the early Reagan era, some folks on the right intentionally tried to re-brand a lot of the 60s terminology for their own political uses and these terms were part of that process. I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of intellectual prankstering might not have come from the Dartmouth Review group among others.

Likewise you'd see a lot of related conceptual head faking going on from the right. For just one example of several that come to mind, Dixy Lee Ray's "Trashing the Planet" book which sounds like the title of an environmentalist book when it is anything but that.

Seems like I also recall some right-wing writer trying to assert that Walter Lippman had originated the use of the PC term in a way that fit their revision of the popular 60s usage which implies intentionality in the framing war over that term.

As a final note, Josh Goldberg's book "Liberal Fascism" is an attempt to flip things the other way. Using a term, fascism, typically applied to the right, and trying to attach it to the left.

Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning

I didn't read the book but I did watch Goldberg on C-SPAN's BookTV which was enough to conclude that it was well prepared baloney. I worked on a project in grad school on the social theorist Emile Durkheim and the roots of fascism that covered similar territory.

Thanks to joe_haldeman for directing me to the review of Goldberg's book by Michael Mann of UCLA.

Sticks and Stones - Who Has More Affinity with Fascism - Liberals or Conservatives? - Washington Post - 03 Feb 08

Local Call for Nuke - Renewables Equivalence

This stuff really chaps my hide. Hopefully $7,000/kW new nuclear (Moody's - May 2008) will not be pushing renewables to the rear as "emissions free energy". Like high level nuclear waste isn't an emission of note. It is also curious they didn't mention who made that comment.

Public Provides Views On Energy - Nebraska City News-Press - 11 Nov 08

Neil Moseman, who Gov. Dave Heineman appointed in May to head the energy office, said the hearing was the last of eight held across the state in advance of revisions to the state's 1992 policy. Moseman said wind power is part of the impetus behind creating a new energy plan. The state is currently listed as the sixth best in the nation for wind potential, but it ranked around 23 in actual production."

"Cooper Nuclear Station at Brownville was mentioned as an excellent employer for rural Nebraska and a long-term solution to the state's energy needs. State policymakers were urged to replace the phrase of renewable energy with 'emission free energy' when they set energy goals."

Local Call for Nuke - Renewables Equivalence

This stuff really chaps my hide. Hopefully $7,000/kW new nuclear (Moody's - May 2008) will not be pushing renewables to the rear as "emissions free energy". Like high level nuclear waste isn't an emission of note. It is also curious they didn't mention who made that comment.

Public Provides Views On Energy - Nebraska City News-Press - 11 Nov 08

Neil Moseman, who Gov. Dave Heineman appointed in May to head the energy office, said the hearing was the last of eight held across the state in advance of revisions to the state's 1992 policy. Moseman said wind power is part of the impetus behind creating a new energy plan. The state is currently listed as the sixth best in the nation for wind potential, but it ranked around 23 in actual production."

"Cooper Nuclear Station at Brownville was mentioned as an excellent employer for rural Nebraska and a long-term solution to the state's energy needs. State policymakers were urged to replace the phrase of renewable energy with 'emission free energy' when they set energy goals."

250 Died from Windscale Cancers - Torygraph

The Nuclear Reaction - A Tour of Britain's Nuclear Power Stations - Telegraph (UK) - 14 Nov 08

"In the end, it took two days to put the [Windscale] fire out. Catastrophe was avoided. But, contrary to the official statement, which claimed that the release of radiation was not hazardous and had been 'carried out to sea by the wind', the impact of the fire on human health was devastating.

Local farmers and villagers received a radiation dose 10 times higher than the maximum permitted in a lifetime, and over the years it is estimated that more than 250 people succumbed to cancers. "

More targeting of low-information voters by true believers? Where have I heard this before? Is it really true that Obama is a Muslim?

Nuclear Power? There’s Nothing To Be Afraid Of - Eastern Daily Press - 14 Nov 08

"'There are dyed-in-the-wool ideologists who are just anti the concept of nuclear,' added Mr Dowds 'There is a place for everyone in this world. I'm pro-nuclear and you will never convince me otherwise. There are people who do not have strong feelings either way and these are the people we really want to engage with.'"

"Environmental groups raise many concerns over what happens to nuclear waste, but British Energy says a cooling pond at Sizewell B holds all the spent fuel since the station started operating in 1995."

So problem solved. Silly me.

250 Died from Windscale Cancers - Torygraph

The Nuclear Reaction - A Tour of Britain's Nuclear Power Stations - Telegraph (UK) - 14 Nov 08

"In the end, it took two days to put the [Windscale] fire out. Catastrophe was avoided. But, contrary to the official statement, which claimed that the release of radiation was not hazardous and had been 'carried out to sea by the wind', the impact of the fire on human health was devastating.

Local farmers and villagers received a radiation dose 10 times higher than the maximum permitted in a lifetime, and over the years it is estimated that more than 250 people succumbed to cancers. "

More targeting of low-information voters by true believers? Where have I heard this before? Is it really true that Obama is a Muslim?

Nuclear Power? There’s Nothing To Be Afraid Of - Eastern Daily Press - 14 Nov 08

"'There are dyed-in-the-wool ideologists who are just anti the concept of nuclear,' added Mr Dowds 'There is a place for everyone in this world. I'm pro-nuclear and you will never convince me otherwise. There are people who do not have strong feelings either way and these are the people we really want to engage with.'"

"Environmental groups raise many concerns over what happens to nuclear waste, but British Energy says a cooling pond at Sizewell B holds all the spent fuel since the station started operating in 1995."

So problem solved. Silly me.