Daily Briefing - 11/20/06

Global warming is worse than cooties! But will that revelation keep the UN deal from falling apart? Either way, the Bush administration is still unlikely to join the pact, or abide by its regulations. DC is trying to do its part. So are a couple of Nobel Laureates, and The Economist examines where we go after Kyoto.

In Washington, a very prominent member of the Democratic party looks to renew the draft, while his compatriots push issues that hit our wallets and cut the pork. Ron Brownstein looks at the ever changing electoral map and the venerable William Safire dissects the "netroots." The blogs are focusing on '08 and analyzing '06, endlessly.

Like the guests at TomKat's wedding, I'm sure readers are begging me to "stop, stop" and get to the Briefing...

MW
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Daily Briefing – 11/20/06
714 days until the NEXT election… and global warming is an integral part of our nation’s agenda!

Key Issues in the News
Global Warming
- The Economist: Son of Kyoto?
- Building Green: D.C.’s efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions
- U.K.’s Environmental Secretary David Miliband says fight need more momentum
o The Independent reports that the climate deal could be “in tatters” otherwise
- “Imagine the world knew global warming was about to destroy 43 nations - " but not which 43"
- Japan Times: A Viable Post-Kyoto Approach
- UN climate pact unlikely under Bush, analysts say
- Wall Street Journal: Global Warming on Trial
o And we’ve got Nobel Laureates helping our cause
- A cool calculus
- Migratory species threatened
- Individual actions to help stop global warming
- Carbon credits, an environmental investment
- How to talk to a skeptic: “Climate Models are unproven” and they don’t consider clouds
- Grist report from UN Climate Conference
- Global Warming: Worse than Cooties
Washington/Legislation/Politics/People/etc.
- The “Mommy Party” is pushing the “pocketbook issues”
- Shutting down the “favor factory.” Earmark-laden appropriation bills were halted by anti-pork Senators last week, drawing ire from some of their pork-lovin’ compadres
- The morphing of the electoral college map
- How Iraq will affect ’08 race
- “Should we be very ethical or only kinda ethical?”
- No bad blood or so he says
- In the corridors of power, reverberations of change
Other News from the Media
- Reinstituting a draft?
- Failing grades from the OMB for the State, Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security Departments, as well as NASA
- William Safire on "Netroots"
- What will be the biggest breakthrough of the next 50 years?
…and the Blogosphere
- Tom McIntyre at RCP liked what he saw from Webb and Tester on Meet the Press
- Dick Morris is frightened by the prospect of “ultra-liberals” rising on the wings of moderates
- Conservative Democrats? Not so, says Nathan Gonzalez at the Rothenberg Report
- TPM: FL-13 recount rambles on
- MYDD on 2008 metrics and the sorry slate of Republican candidates
- From Grist:
o How green will the 110th Congress be?
o Fast Food Damnation
o Dispatch from an eco-showroom
o Out-hofe… Warner in?
o Bike-Friendly Reps in charge again
- Huffington Post: Is Fox flat lining
Miscellaneous… or just plain weird
- Season Shot – Ammo with flavor
- Hollywood makes a comeback
- Landing on an asteroid traveling at more than 30,000 mph? Piece of cake.
- Say it ain’t so, Kramer. Say it ain’t so!
- Fox News tries its hand at its own version of the Daily Show
- “The kiss lasted so long it caused guest to shout ‘stop, stop.’” I guess people could only take the revulsion for so long?
Quotes O’ the Day
“[D]id you ever talk to these computer geeks? I mean, can you carry on a conversation with them? …I really fear for the United States because, believe me, the jihadists? They’re not playing the video games. They’re killing real people over there.” – Bill O’Reilly, on how my iPod makes me a geek and indirectly makes jidahists kill people.