Daily Briefing - 11/16/06

House Leadership for the majority has been decided. Three democratic Senators make an appeal to the President to work with them to limit greenhouse gases, while world leaders meet in Nairobi to discuss how to move forward on Kyoto (by slapping non-Kyoto countries with tariffs, perhaps??). Trent Lott makes his glorious return to power (that's a very loose use of the word "glorious"), and economics has lost a pioneer. All that and a lot more... in the briefing.

MW

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Daily Briefing – 11/16/06
718 days until the NEXT election… and global warming is an integral part of our nation’s agenda!

Key Issues in the News
Global Warming
- Nations wrangle in Nairobi
- Kofi Annan: Climate change is as serious as WMD
- Democrats to Bush: Greenhouse gas limits needed
o Grist has their exact letter, and more from the Financial Times
- The Bush administration will “watch closely” how others implement cap-and-trade systems. This can also be described as “not doing anything”
- How to talk to a skeptic: Consensus is collusion
- EU may apply tariff on those that do not sign on to Kyoto
- Sending a chill through winter sports
- Australian union buys shares in coal companies to have sway over global warming decisions
- Air pollution could combat global warming… umm, isn’t air pollution the problem? Come on people, are we grasping for straws now?
- The “left” in Australia have a new here… Al Gore
- Looking to start a trend
- Polar bear survival rate reduced
Washington/Legislation/Politics/People/etc.
- Speaker Pelosi… officially
- But we’re still waiting on the #2… I guess it pays to be slow with the briefing – Hoyer named Majority Leader
- He’s baaack
- So much for that bipartisanship thing
- And in typical fashion, Democrats return to infighting
- Tommy Thompson jumps in the Presidential “exploratory” ring
- “Blue Dogs” plan to throw their weight around
Other News from the Media
- Milton Friedman died
- Yikes, don’t forget your poncho
- Yesterday was a record day for markets
- Stem cells help dogs with muscular dystrophy
- Scientists unveil beginnings of Neanderthal’s DNA code
…and the Blogosphere
- The Fix: Hoyer v. Murtha
- First Muslim in Congress snubs the President for a Labor event
- “Conservative” Democrat panders to 99% of Americans, has radically “conservative” ideas of economic equality and stuff
- TomPaine: A green guide to the new Congress
- From Grist:
o What the Democrats win means for sustainable food movement
o A devastating die-off in the Puget Sound
o ON the floor of GreenBuildExpo
o Terry Tamminen, top environmental advisor to Gov. Schwarzenegger
o Trying to get CyberTran running
o Bill passed that further criminalizes animal-rights actions
Miscellaneous… or just plain weird
- Jim McGreevey, yup that Jim McGreevey, has filmed a pilot talk show episode as a possible co-host to Joan Rivers. Some ideas are just pure genius.
- Defending Borat
- I wonder if this could work with my cat
- Lyle Alzado, Barry Bonds, Marion Jones, Floyd Landis, and now… Annika Sorenstam?
- You jump on a person’s couch, the least you could do is invite them to your wedding
Quotes O’ the Day
"Sherwood's seat [in Pennsylvania] would have been overwhelmingly ours, if his mistress hadn't whined about being throttled," Grover Norquist

"As a result of this week's election, the new Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is now the most powerful woman in the country. After hearing this, Oprah Winfrey said, 'Yeah, right'." Conan O’Brien

"There's something painfully ironic about Trent Lott being named 'minority whip,'" - Robert A. George