6degrees Astroblog
2008 Bogus Basin Star Party
Saturday night (28 June), Bogus Basin Ski Resort and the Boise Astronomical Society will be co-hosting the annual Bogus Basin Star Party, weather permitting, in the parking lot of the Frontier Lodge located at the ski resort. I invite everyone to come up and join us for an evening under the stars. We will be starting at 7 p.m., with viewing of the Sun prior to sunset using specially filtered telescopes. At 7:30 p.m., park rangers will take interested attendees on a nightlife nature hike around the area that will last about one hour.
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From the new west blog: gas is a serious topic
The Cow Fart Science Fair
We are advised to think seriously about cow farts.
It’s not just cars and trucks which produce greenhouse gases, according to a report commissioned by Idaho Gov. Butch Otter – it’s also dairies and feedlots full of cows.
Here’s the part of the story sure to delight fifth-grade boys: “Now that sources are identified, the state can begin to seek ways to reduce greenhouse gas production. Dairies, for instance, are testing the use of anaerobic digesters, which capture methane and turn it into electricity, as a method for reducing odors and emissions.”
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Change, Please
Obama, Ethanol, and Energy Prices
Two stories in the New York Times today suggest that Senator Obama has some work to do if he wants his energy policy to match his campaign rhetoric. First is a piece about Obama's ties to the ethanol industry and his support of America's current (and very irrational) ethanol regime. While it's no surprise that a Senator from a corn state would support corn-based ethanol, there isn't an economist or energy policy analyst under the sun who thinks the current combination of huge subsidies for inefficient corn ethanol and prohibitive tariffs on efficient, sugar-cane-based Brazilian ethanol makes any sense. At least some compromise on both of those issues ought to be one of the litmus tests as to whether Obama is serious about breaking from politics-as-usual.
The second piece was about an Obama proposal to crack down on oil "speculators." I'm not an expert on energy regulation and I don't doubt that there are some regulatory gaps to be plugged. But, there's no emptier way to score political points than to blame [pick your problem] on evil Wall St. moneymen. Frankly, we can only hope that high oil prices are the result of speculation, because if that's the case they will eventually crash. More worrisome is that high prices are actually the result of...terrible policies on the part of the country that burns the most oil and controls the currency in which oil is priced.
Senator John McCain's new cure-all, offshore drilling, isn't any better. A real energy policy, anyone?
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New Uranium Boom
Nuclear Opponents Off-Base
Chip Ward, author of Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West, contributes a long essay on the new uranium boom in the West on TomDispatch (an invaluable left-leaning group blog that usually focuses on Iraq and U.S. military policy). It’s called “Radioactive Déjà Vu in the American West.” And while I have great respect for Ward and his work, he is so wrong in so many ways on this issue that it’s hard to keep track.
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From the new west blog: Presidential campaign funding
Obama Signals With Decision About Campaign Funding
Since Barack Obama nailed down the Democratic nomination for president, he has made it clear there will be no obligated money in his campaign. He doesn’t accept PAC money, money from registered lobbyists, and now he has announced his campaign won’t accept about $80 million in public financing, either.
On his website, Obama declared in a video, "The public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who've become masters at gaming this broken system. John McCain's campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. And we've already seen that he's not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations."
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WE WON'T CHANGE UNTIL WE HAVE TO
$5 Gas: The Pain Before the Gain
We're all feeling Pump Pain, and who among us doesn't think that $5 gas is around the corner? I'm writing as fast as I can, in fact, so I can get this column posted before I have to fill up my pickup truck again, if I can afford it.
And thinking that perhaps $5 gas is just what we need.
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Column: Idaho Politics, U.S. Senate Race
Will Rex Rammell’s Run Ruin Risch?
Idaho Sen. Larry Craig told the Wall Street Journal Wednesday that he and other Idaho Republicans are worried about eastern Idaho veterinarian Rex Rammell, who dropped out of the Republican primary to run as an independent for U.S. Senate. Rammell's opponents are Republican Lt. Gov. Jim Risch, Democratic former congressman Larry LaRocco, independent candidate Pro-Life (formerly Marvin Richardson) and Libertarian Kent Marmon.
Rammell has consistently held that Risch is not representative of real Republican values, and states on his website: “Don’t believe for one second that he is a stalwart conservative. Risch is a stalwart politician that [sic] will say anything to get elected.”
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From The New West Blog
Boise Place Company to be Liquidated
Boise Place will not be built.
A judge has ordered that the assets of developer Gary Rogers' Charterhouse Boise Downtown Properties, having failed to convert the "Big Hole" in downtown Boise into an envisioned 31-story, mixed-use development called Boise Place, be sold to pay off creditors, the Idaho Statesman reports.
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housing in the west
Your Stories of Mortgage WoeWe want to know, and tell, your stories of mortgage troubles; of upstanding, perhaps, or questionable lenders; and of your trials and tribulations in the housing markets of the Mountain West, from Colorado and Utah to Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and the eastern reaches of Oregon and Washington. We have a lot in common across this region, and we can learn from each other.
If you don't feel comfortable posting your comments below this post, feel free to email me privately at , and I'll be in touch with you shortly. And while you're at it, keep your eye on NewWest.Net and sign up for our new quarterly news magazine at www.newwest.net/magazine. We're doing our best to cut through the rhetoric, the rosy projections from the real estate organizations and the rest of the hard-spun blather to bring you news that's grounded in actual facts.
Thanks.
Bob Struckman
New West magazine editor
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Idaho Politics: Presidential Campaign
Obama Hires Boise High Graduate as Chief of Staff
New West has learned through a local source that Democratic nominee for president Barack Obama has hired 1988 Boise High School graduate Jim Messina as his campaign Chief of Staff. Messina is former COS to Montana Sen. Max Baucus.
The Idaho Statesman has the story.
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