Category: Uncategorized (Page 6 of 49)

The silver lining of the closure of Transalta’s Centralia mine had been that they’d expected in about five years to have another mine open:

TransAlta is one of Canada’s biggest private power producers with coal, natural gas and hydroelectric plants in Canada, the United States, Mexico and Australia. The company said the Centralia mine was too expensive to maintain.

TransAlta officials have said they will seek approval for coal mining nearby at a site known as West Field, but that process could take up to five years.

According to Paul Hirsch at Environmental Law in Washington State blog, that isn’t going to happen either. As of yesterday, when the Corps of Engineers filed a notice in the federal register, Transalta is no longer working to open another mind down there.

This graph displays the impotence of the right wing netroots.

They don’t really exist. They talk a big game, but when it comes down to it, they don’t matter.

After the President crowned Sen. Mel Martinez as RNC “general chairman” in November, the right wing netroots exploded. Most of all, they were mad that Martinez was a pro-amnesty guy, but it also seemed like there was an impression that we’d entered an era where publically voted positions would no longer be anointed from above.

The race for chair of the Democratic National Committee is a perfect example of how the netroots can influence an election like this. This post from two years ago on MyDD is a perfect example of what was going on at the time. There is no parallel on the right wing netroots today.

By the beginning of December of 2006, though, all wind was out of their sails of the right wing bloggers who didn’t like Martinez. No umbrella organization was created, no altnerative candidate floated.

The rebellion against Martinez isn’t coming from your wired everyman (like the support for Dean in 2005), its coming from inside the RNC. An insider rebellion, even if it is succesful, will be much different than the organized opposition that came from online Democrats in 2005.

Martinez will have a fight, it will most likely be too little, too late, and it didn’t come from the netroots.

The local DL Chapter will be a the the Tumwater Bar and Grill this Monday at 7 pm:

There is lots to talk about. With the new Congress finally in session, the debate now is “will they or won’t they?” Will the new congress have the guts to de-fund the Iraq war? Will they do the “Kahuna Katrina Dance” and start an investigation into the inept (and most likely illegal) federal response?

Hope to see you there for a fascinating Drinking Liberally discussion of “Will they or won’t they?”

This morning Orbusmax, the Drudge Report knock-off of the Northwest, added the following headline to their rotation:

‘BLUE WAVE’ POWER ENTRENCHMENT IN OLYMPIA? STATE HOUSE SEEKS EXPANSION OF TERMS TO 4 YEARS:

If you follow the link, you’ll learn that HJR 4203 is not actually a Democratic bill, but rather one of the few bi-partisan bills introduced this year, hardly evidence of “Blue Wave” excess.

Hey Orb, for the record, Rep. Tom Campbell of Roy? He’s a Republican.

I’m sitting in the house gallery, waiting a few minutes for my appointment with Rep. Sam Hunt. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Right back atcha.

1. I’ve sustained five concussions. You may know this about me actually, since I usually mention it during the “my worst injury” discussions. But, why not start a “five” list with something that has happened to me five times?

2. I once wrote a book. Not a nanowrimo book, but a honest to goodness, from beginning to end book. I only know a handful of people who have actually read it, and no copies exist anymore. I was much younger then, its painful to even thing about it. I still love the title though.

3. Pat Lennon once handed me a baseball bat. That is something else I don’t have anymore. Of course, it was cracked at the handle.

4. On my first try fly fishing, I caught a sea run cutthroat trout. I haven’t caught anything fly fishing since.

5. My first position on any newspaper’s masthead was as the sports editor for the DSU Hornet. Note to college newspapers: Do Not name your paper after your school’s mascot. It is simply confusing.

Responses from my city to my email (kind of repeated in this post below). They seem pretty open to the idea, but of course tech questions abound.

Even if they don’t do it as the normal way of doing things, it would be great to supplement the paid movie postings with additional free ones.

Mayor Mark Foutch:

Emmett, those look like great suggestions to me and we’ll ask our staff look into them. As a 65-year-old perpetually three technology generations behind current apps, I’m continually amazed at the explosion of new options out there. I’m glad we have both a great professional City staff AND a citizenry expert in subjects from Art to Zoology, and willing to share their expertise with us.

Thanks a lot.

Mark Foutch
Mayor

Cathie Butler, the city’s communications manager:

Hi, Emmett – wanted to let you know I’ve passed your email along to
Shawn Ward who is the City’s IT Manager. This is way beyond my
knowledge of systems. FYI, the Granicus is more then video streaming;
it’s also the system we use to produce Council meeting minutes and post
both the minutes and Council agenda documents so they are connected with
the streaming video. Cathie

Councilmember Joe Hyer:

Emmett –

I think the tech folks got forwarded your email to respond … but I do know a couple of things that explain it better – it wasn’t just video streaming we got with grannicus, it also does the minutes in an easier way, which has cost us thousands in overtime for staff to do in the past … and links the minutes with the video.
We also have to have guaranteed level of service for citizens, and the free services can’t offer access and reliability…guaranteed.

But I think the real kicker is the time savings in MINUTES preparation — the added bonus was the ability to video stream…

See ya soon,

Joe

Something like this I just sent to the city council:

This year the City of Olympia spent $20,000 (following a $45,000 set up fee) to stream videos of our city council meetings, along with some other videos, online. This seems to be a waste of money to me.

Google Video, or some other similar free service, seems like a better option.

Yesterday I cut out of one of the streamed videos and educational portion on the city’s budget (available here). Instead of wading through the streaming function on our city’s website, I decided it would be better that this portion of the movie available in a much simpler format.

TCTV actually posts many of its videos online at Google Video. The advantage, other than cost, to use such a service is that once the movies are up, they can be shared. Bloggers can embed them into their own sites and the links are much easier to email than the current service.

All of the video files the city produces could be available online in totally public and shareable format, rather than the expensive and proprietary fashion they are now. Even if the city keeps it contract with the firm it uses the stream the videos, they should also upload movies to places like Google Video.

Belltowner was booted from Washblog for using naught words to defend chairman Dwight. So, a few days later he posts this, makes fun of a man’s birthmark and making a bunch of unfunny stuff up.

I would love to say that Will KellyKelley-Kamp’s (aka Belltowner) love song to Pelz makes any sense, but to me, it falls flat. But, if that is what he wants to do, more power to him.

I know, you’ve been wondering “where does Emmett fall in this entire libertarians are going to start voting Democratic thing?” Well, here you go. Its a diary at Left in the West because I thought that since I was inspired by Matt Singer’s take, I should respond on his site.