Disqus - Latest Comments for pancheetah

Re: Here’s how much your county is getting from the federal stimulus package…

pancheetah — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:07:03 -0000

According to the report ONiell's Pub is getting a hefty chunk of dough. I'll need to a little reserch on that...

Re: The Chavez Effect? -- Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

pancheetah — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 20:22:24 -0000

II bought it Friday - and look forward to reading it. Local tv focoused on Chavez' attempt to get publicity, completely avoiding the main question - To what extent has South America been exploited in ways that crippled its ability to develop and in what ways does that exploitation continue today?

Re: Richardson vetoes bill that would reign in ‘double-dippers’

pancheetah — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:41:48 -0000

dissenting opinion.
I just qualified for retirement in one of the state systems and I hope to return to teaching after I retire as a teacher. I'll make millions! Actually I'll get about $150 a month. My monthly expenses related to my job exceed that amount and I'm not alone. State funding for teachers requires many of us to shell out in order to do our jobs. Legislation needs to address the problem and take into account who is affected and what service they perform for the state.

Re: Martin Heinrich gets honorable mention in HuffPo’s ‘Hottest Freshmen’ contest

pancheetah — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 12:16:58 -0000

Shrock's lucky Heinrich wasn't in to begin with...

Re: Senate opposes domestic partnerships 17-25

pancheetah — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 07:55:08 -0000

I'm not a huge George Lakoff fan but this excerpt from Lakoff on http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/ which was published the night before the stimulus package gives more clues about why we're experiencing large right-wing blowback on the state level....

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/02/george-l...

Tuesday, February 24, 2009
The Obama Code By George Lakoff, Berkeley, CA. February 24, 2009.

-- It’s Us, Not Just Him

The president is the best political communicator of our age. He has the bully pulpit. He gets media attention from the press. His website is running a permanent campaign, Organizing for Obama, run by his campaign manager David Plouffe. It seeks issue-by-issue support from his huge mailing list. There are plenty of progressive blogs. MoveOn.org now has over five million members. And yet that is nowhere near enough.

The conservative message machine is huge and still going. There are dozens of conservative think tanks, many with very large communications budgets. The conservative leadership institutes are continuing to turn out thousands of trained conservative spokespeople every year. The conservative apparatus for language creation is still functioning. Conservative talking points are still going out to their network of spokespeople, who still being booked on tv and radio around the country. About 80% of the talking heads on tv are conservatives. Rush Limbaugh and Fox News are as strong as ever. There are now progressive voices on MSNBC, Comedy Central, and Air America, but they are still overwhelmed by Right’s enormous megaphone. Republicans in Congress can count on overwhelming message support in their home districts and homes states. That is one reason why they were able to stonewall on the President’s stimulus package. They had no serious media competition at home pounding out the Obama vision day after day.</font>

Such national, day-by-day media competition is necessary. Democrats need to build it. Democratic think tanks are strong on policy and programs, but weak on values and vision. Without the moral arguments based on the Obama values and vision, the policymakers most likely be unable to regularly address both independent voters and the Limbaugh-Fox News audiences in conservative Republican strongholds.

The president and his administration cannot build such a communication system, nor can the Democrats in Congress. The DNC does not have the resources. It will be up to supporters of the Obama values, not just supporters on the issues, to put such a system in place. Despite all the organizing strength of Obama supporters, no such organizing effort is now going on. If none is put together, the movement conservatives will face few challenges of fundamental values in their home constituencies and will be able to go on stonewalling with impunity. That will make the president’s vision that much harder to carry out.
…
The ratings for Fox News and Rush Limbaugh are rising. Without a countervailing communications system on the Democratic side, they can create a lot of trouble, not just for the president, not just for the nation, but on a global scale, for the environmental and economic future of the world.

George Lakoff is Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of The Political Mind and Don’t Think of an Elephant!

Re: Live blog from the Senate Rules Committee

pancheetah — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:08:00 -0000

Ooops - hadn't logged in. So has enough happened to report this Sat or not?

Re: NMI webcast and liveblog on ethics reform from Senate Rules Committee

pancheetah — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:28:08 -0000

I like what you guys are doing or better yet, thinking about doing with webcasting. How long before you webcast a 5-minute daily news summary?

Re: ‘Green’ jobs bills aim to make most of stimulus money

pancheetah — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:24:25 -0000

Educationaol institutions like CNM seem well situated to provide training. What about training from Unions and private business? They have skilled workers already who can provide training in some target areas like weatherization.

Re: Albuquerque should revive Aldo Leopold’s sustainable ethic

pancheetah — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:58:08 -0000

Sand County Almanac - one of my favorite books of all time (Al Gore has recorded an audio version.) Your picture of Aldo was taken not too long before his untimely death.

I understand that he built a home for his family somewhere on 14th St. but no one has ever been able to tell me where it is [was] or whether it has been designated a historical landmark. Anyone know?

Re: ‘Smart growth’ conference starts today in Albuquerque

pancheetah — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 14:47:51 -0000

I see that Debbie O'Malley will be speaking as part of their activities today (Thurs) at 2 PM at the LOFTS about Smart Growth. I heard that she got appointed to the board of the Land Urban Institute. I wonder what they're all about and if they have any input into actual planning here.

Re: Running for prez: Grist compares five candidates’ energy & climate plans

pancheetah — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 17:40:07 -0000

I got the 1 Sky card too. I went to the green jobs rally in Robinson Park in September to see if any progress had made on green jobs and it was not surprising that there were no jobs there. Instead the rally helped to increase the momentum behind green job creation.

I looked at Mark Udall's (Colorado) energy platform prior to the election and noted that he proposed including $$ for green job training, specifically noting an important role for community colleges. Who will do green jobs training here in New Mexico? Without knowing what they'll be trained for it's hard to grasp what the curriculum will look like. But likely partners could be CNM, UNM, NMSU and small energy related businesses. At least one NM institution has made contact with a newly elected congressional representative. How soon will additional meetings take place? The First Hundred Days agenda will give a glimpse of what training is needed and real talks can begin.

Re: California U.S. Rep. Hilda Solis to be named labor secretary

pancheetah — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 21:39:36 -0000

(aside... for an interesting story based on the Juarez murders, read 'IF I DIE IN JUAREZ' By Stella Pope Duarte, University of Arizona Press, 2008)

Re: Guv takes valedictory lap on Rail Runner

pancheetah — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:33:33 -0000

Our neighborhood association board members road it when it opened from Bernalillo to ABQ. We're talking about getting some kind of event together for our neighborhood on the train now that it goes to SF.

Re: Val Kilmer takes in the Pit

pancheetah — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:30:16 -0000

nice renovations planned though.

Re: Val Kilmer takes in the Pit

pancheetah — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:29:47 -0000

Now if we could get him to come to a women's game too...

Re: Guv’s office, TV station spar over report

pancheetah — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 14:56:37 -0000

It's hard to say which station is New Mexico's GOP spokeschannel. Time and again I found their political coverage slanted (e.g. overestimating the crowd for McCain and cutting the crowd estimate for Obama in half.) The problem for them is that after awhile they don't really have any credibility with me, except for their sports and weather.

For credible local news the traditional media are really a poor source. NMI does a good deal to bring the real news to locals.

Re: States struggling to meet renewable energy standards

pancheetah — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 12:27:44 -0000

Will Obama's concern for state funding shortfalls include $$ building alternative energy capacity? I wonder what Jason Marks would say?

Re: Wilson would change her name to Palin

pancheetah — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 12:21:51 -0000

She's been on TV twice this last week so what is she aiming for now?

Re: Weighing the pros (and cons) of the sparkly green economy

pancheetah — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 12:25:39 -0000

You've got some useful and provocative points. You say, "I believe strongly that you should only make an investment if the benefits exceed the costs." What makes investments risky is that we don't know for sure what the costs are going to be necessarily. The recent fluctuations in energy costs demonstrate how hard it miht have been to assess the value of weatherization just six months ago. Weatherizing when energy costs were high had a shorter pay back period than now. Still it's important to be clear about the risks and benefits.

About net jobs (and not to quibble) new jobs can take jobs away from another sector or employ discarded workers from another sector. The numbers can be misleading since the number of workers may be the same but the workers contributions to the GNP may not be equivalent. There are numerous jobs where the green jobs will outperform current jobs in terms of increases in GNP.

Re: Albuquerque/Santa Fe residents are big texters

pancheetah — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:08:04 -0000

Apparently, if not the only, I'm the first faculty member to use texting as a feature of my classes at CNM. It came in handy in an emergency when the server with the midterm went down and I needed to provide emerency instructions. Over 90% of my students had txt msging.

Re: Albuquerque/Santa Fe residents are big texters

pancheetah — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:06:56 -0000

Re: Pulp twisted

pancheetah — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:43:08 -0000

The GOP economic stimulus package...

Re: New Mexico goes a deep shade of blue for President-elect Obama

pancheetah — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:41:02 -0000

You say, "Part of Obama’s victory in New Mexico stemmed from his campaign’s ability to turn out the vote. Estimates had nearly 80 percent of New Mexico’s registered voters casting ballots in the 2008 general election."

Dems are hugely grateful for the Obama ground game, especially when it came down to getting out the vote. But not enough recognition is being given to the other DEm campaigns of Udall, Heinrich, Teague Lujan and more.

When it became apparent that the Obama campaign was not canvassing for other Dem candidates consistently, the other campaigns, Dem precinct and ward activists had to really step it up in order to find their own pledged votes. Unless we had done our own canvassing in precinct 162, we would not have know that there were 26 undecideds for Heinrich among voters who were pledged to Obama. We found them and addressed their concerns (largely name recognition) individually.

The issue remains - as we move forward, will Obama volunteers and voters work with volunteers from all the campaigns as well as Democratic party activists? Will there be any coordination or will each group be doing their own thing? Let's here some plans, please.

Re: Which women should rule the world (or at least the White House)?

pancheetah — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 11:26:28 -0000

US Rep Jan Shakowsky for anything available
US Rep hopeful, Chellie Pingree anything available
Madelyn Albright - SOS again

Re: ‘Green collar’ is the new blue collar

pancheetah — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:04:41 -0000

I went to the Green job rally a couple of weeks ago in Robinson park. After 8 years of Bush it's no surprise that there weren't any green jobs posted at the rally. I signed the 1Sky petition and hope to see some green job initiatives in the 'first hundred day.'