Andrew Spittle

It looks as though it won’t necessarily be smooth sailing for Sarah Palin in her eventual bid to be re-elected as Alaska’s governor.

Democrat Bob Poe, the former Alaska State Commissioner of Administration and former CEO of Anchorage Economic Development Corporation, said Wednesday he will announce tomorrow that he intends to seek the Democratic nomination for governor of Alaska.

Poe is viewed as a serious, viable candidate by state Democrats, though there are some other candidates that could derail Poe’s bid to unseat Palin. Poe lacks statewide name recognition unlike a candidate such as Ethan Berkowitz, the Democrat who came close to defeating Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) this past November.

While it sounds like he may not be the perfect candidate to oppose one with such name recognition as Palin it is at least refreshing that the Democratic Party in Alaska will make a serious attempt at unseating Palin. Should be an interesting year for state elections in both Alaska and California.

Link to quote.

There are a couple articles out today that discuss the potential benefit that an investment in American railways could have. While a full-fledged investment in high speed rail would cost hundreds of billions of dollars and would create many jobs in the long term a different kind of investment could provide relatively quick tangible benefits. Were some of the money from Obama’s economic stimulus plan to go toward the smaller rail projects around the country jobs could be created and a sincere commitment to an overhaul of American transportation would be shown.

For me it simply boils down to what the future is: is it roads, rail, or some other form of transportation. I cannot believe that 50 or 100 years from now America can still thrive while being as reliable upon cars as we are now. While hybrids are a good start they still in part rely upon gasoline and the simple production of cars for every individual citizen eats up a tremendous amount of resources. At a time when billions of dollars are being invested in projects to create jobs I would love to see efforts made to create a rail system that runs on electricity and is actually something that is practical to use for much of the country.

While an electric rail system would currently also consume vast amounts of carbon (after all, much of our electricity comes from coal power plants) in the future it would provide for a much more sustainable transportation system. Were we to come to rely upon electric rail we would at some point in the future be able to overhaul our entire transportation system by changing the power grid: something that would bring benefits to far more than just transportation. It just makes more sense to simplify our transportation into something that can be made more sustainable through a few large measures instead of many small ones. Here’s hoping that at least some of Obama’s stimulus funds go toward mass transit and the rail system.

Sometimes Andrew Sullivan just has posts that make you wonder why other public conservatives aren’t as thoughtful and rational as he. For example, today he posted that:

Does Pajamas Media believe that the future of journalism really belongs to Joe The Plumber? Or that this is really worth publishing? It seems to me that the right is still culturally disoriented. If they are still promoting Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber and Ann Coulter and culture-war resentment as their core message, they are obviously in deep denial about what this election really meant. If their only unifying theme is hatred or reified “elite liberals”, they are doomed.

This denial – this calcification of the worst of the right in the last eight years – is the real danger to Republicans. What they need is a grappling with the public policy issues at hand, and an imaginative constructive, conservative approach to them. But the posturing is so much easier, isn’t it? And still, one presumes, really lucrative for a tiny few.

Definitely my favourite conservative to read online. I find that I agree with much of his reasoning and arguments. Furthermore, when I find that I disagree with something I don’t get frustrated like I would with Fox News; rather, I find that I disagree with his stance, but agree with his logic and rationale.

Link via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan (January 08, 2009) – The Online Right .

From a posting on Change.gov:

To finally spark the creation of a clean energy economy, we will double the production of alternative energy in the next three years.  We will modernize more than 75% of federal buildings and improve the energy efficiency of two million American homes, saving consumers and taxpayers billions on our energy bills.  In the process, we will put Americans to work in new jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced – jobs building solar panels and wind turbines; constructing fuel-efficient cars and buildings; and developing the new energy technologies that will lead to even more jobs, more savings, and a cleaner, safer planet in the bargain.

Sounds good to me. The entire post is definitely worth reading and will probably make you thankful that once again we have a president that can elucidate his points with clarity and poise.

Link via Dramatic action | Change.gov: The Obama-Biden Transition Team.

Again from Boing Boing is a story about a shooting involving a BART police office and an unarmed man. Boing Boing writes that:

In the early hours of New Year’s Day, 27-year-old BART police officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed 22-year old Oscar Grant. A number of people who were riding the BART train that night witnessed the shooting, and shot video or photos on handheld cameras or phones. The victim’s family today filed a lawsuit for $25 million. Five days after the shooting, the accused officer still has not given a statement. He is said to be have received death threats and authorities are apparently moving him from place to place to protect him from harm. Some people are speculating the shooting may have been an accident — the officer may have grabbed his gun by mistake because he thought he was instead grabbing a Taser device.

Regardless of whether this was an accident or whether it was intentional on the officer’s part the fact of the matter is that it is a horrendous tragedy. I just wonder why a BART officer even needs to be armed with a firearm? Granted, I have only rode the BART a handful of times, but I just can’t imagine a situation there that would necessitate the use of deadly force. To me a Taser device would be more than enough.

Link via “Citizen videos” spread online showing BART police officer shooting unarmed man to death – Boing Boing .

From Matthew Yglesias:

Fittingly enough, it seems that there was no genuine guest scheduled to stay in Blair House. Rather, the Bush administration asked former Australian Prime Minister John Howard to stay at the place in order to give them a pretext to turn the Obamas down. Fittingly, from everything I’ve heard about Howard he and Bush are really two peas in a pod in terms of terrible policymaking.

My assessments of Bush just keep getting driven lower and lower. I think that Yglesias says it best when he opens this post by describing Bush as petty, stupid, and immoral. I would have thought that by this point the administration would be desiring to avoid PR gaffs and to present as good of a face for Bush as it can so that he can at least ride off into clear skies and not a storm of frustration.

Link via Matthew Yglesias » The Howard Gambit .

Read this today on Boing Boing. Pretty fitting since I’m currently reading Bjorn Lomborg’s controversial book, “Cool It”.

Earlier this year, predictions were rife that the North Pole could melt entirely in 2008. Instead, the Arctic ice saw a substantial recovery. Bill Chapman, a researcher with the UIUC’s Arctic Center, tells DailyTech this was due in part to colder temperatures in the region. Chapman says wind patterns have also been weaker this year. Strong winds can slow ice formation as well as forcing ice into warmer waters where it will melt.

Link via Sea ice area returns to 1979 level – Boing Boing .

Update: As with everything concerned with global warming there is far from a consensus on this issue. To see a different side of the story that interprets graphs (not sure from what source though) as showing a rise in December, but an ultimately downward trend click here.

Update #2: In order to clarify this post for those out there that have already mischaracterized it. By no means am I claiming here that the trend is downward. I think it’s fairly clear to see that using the particular data for this instance the ultimate trend is down. However, this is not what me, nor Boing Boing was claiming. Simply read the headline, it claims that sea ice levels returned to the 1979 levels. This does not mean that the average is what it was in 1979 nor that levels are now higher nor that the trend is upward: it simply says its returned. For a further discussion of why I disagree with those aforementioned links see my most recent post.