Daily Briefing - 12/21/06

We're going to keep this short today...

The New York Times has a great, yet depressing article on the misuse of funds and overall bad methods of encouraging developing countries to cut greenhouse gases. In short, its wasting a ton of money and coddling polluters. There is a great op-ed in the Boston Globe today from Rep. Marty Meehan and Paul epstein from Harvard Med calling for greater action and stronger pronouncements. Grist is on the ball with two revealing interviews, one with soon-to-be Chairman of the Energy and NAtural Resources Committee John Dingell (D-MI) and the other with former President-elect of the Christian Coalition of America Rev. Joel Hunter.

In other non-global warming news, all you need to know is that my fellow Jews are keeping it green in DC and Donald Trump called Rosie O'Donnell disgusting. Well, there's more to know... but that is all in the briefing!

MW

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Daily Briefing – 12/21/06
683 days until the NEXT election… and global warming is an integral part of our nation’s agenda!

Key Issues in the News
Global Warming
- Outsize profits, and questions, in effort to cut warming gases
- Europe acts to penalize jet pollution
- Making noise on global warming, an op-ed from Rep. Meehan (D-MA) and Paul Epstein from Harvard Med School
- CO2 and alarmism, an op-ed from Fred Singer
- With warmer weather, different decisions to make
- Alternet: The hidden opportunity in global warming
- AZ Chamber of Commerce fears state action
- Financial Times: Climate change, a heated debate
- Consensus about global warming calls for action, from the Des Moines Register
- Gore brings the dilemma to living rooms
- Grist’s How to talk to a climate skeptic: The null hypothesis says its natural
- Grist: A conversation with Rep. John Dingell on climate change, fuel economy and the 110th
Washington/Legislation/Politics/People/etc.
- Senator Warner (R-VA) weighing reelection bid in ‘08
- Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) not sorry for Islamophobic remarks
o An analysis from Cenk Uygur on Huffington Post
- President Bush: You can have your minimum wage increase, but you gotta cut taxes too
- Gov. Jeb Bush: No tengo futuro
- A new breed of Democratic populist: Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson
Potential ‘08ers…
- Romney (rightward shift raises questions), McCain (democrats punching bag), Edwards (Labor’s man), Obama (obviously some people live under a rock), Clinton (U.S. has “never had a mother”), Obama again (critics building cases on faulty premises), McCain (scaring the field onto his train), McCain again again (trying to reverse his SC misfortune), Giuliani (held first fundraiser and launched a website), Clinton again (cultivates CA base), Edwards again (preparing NH trip), Romney again (heading to Iowa), Richardson (Nevadans want him to run),
Other News from the Media
- Jewish environmentalists want to know, “How many does it take to change a light bulb?”
- George Will questions the value of the egalitarian “intellectualism” of the internet
…and the Blogosphere
- RedState: Is Brownback bad on immigration?
- Daily Kos offers a reaction to the NYT story on cutting GHGs in third world countries
- From Grist:
o A conversation with Rev. Joel Hunter, former President-elect of the Christian Coalition
o Learning from Nobel Prize winners
o Traditional journalism struggles with complex issues
Miscellaneous… or just plain weird
- Celebrity mudslinging between two people nobody really cares about!
- Wait wait, does this mean that the second coming will be a Komodo dragon??
- Oh my, it seems Tom DeLay’s blog created a firestorm of comments (Warning: some comments are rather inappropriate)
Quotes O’ the Day
“The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.” ~ Gustave Flaubert