Showing posts with label afganistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label afganistan. Show all posts
Here is a very good glimpse into what I do out here in DC.
One of the biggest things LCV does is the Scorecard. We rank every member of Congress, every President and every Governor objectively on their environmental record. For Congress it is easy: voting record. What this allows us to do is pick our Dirty Dozen, the worst 12 members that have an upcoming election and try to prevent their re-election. The Scorecard is a big deal here because it is really our identity. If you were to ask someone in Washington how an elected official is on the environment, the response would likely be something like, "well, what is their LCV score."
The other major thing we do elections wise is endorse people. A major part of endorsements are the candidates responses to a questionnaire they fill out, as well as an interview. We use the answers to either thank them and show how they are keeping promises in the future, or to hold them accountable when they don't. Today, we are doing accountability.
This morning LCV launched an ad campaign to hold four members of the House accountable for broken promises. If you look at this today there should still be the graphic on the front page of the broken hard hat, signifying the 1.7 million jobs that could be created if the American Clean Energy and Security Act passes, but that the member voted against.
I actually think the ads are good. However, they make life busy. Since I got here at about 8:30, I've finished my earlier post, gone through about 40 emails with news stories related to clean energy/global warming, updated some Twitter, read the news and opinion sections of all the newspapers I look through in 23 states and then, when the release was ready, began the media blitz that comes with putting out these ads.
First as I was riding to work today, I saw the link I posted earlier from Ben Smith detailing what was about to happen.
Then, after everything started, I wrote three blog posts. One that is up now (as of 3:15 pm ET) and two more to be posted later today. That is on top of whatever I do this afternoon, which I haven't gotten to yet. In addition I spent some time creating graphics for possible usage later, my first foray into photoshop in quite some time. And of course I tweeted about it just a few minutes ago.
There continue to be other things planned as the day goes on, included at least five more tweets, so stay tuned.
What is crazy is that you look at that and say, "well it wasn't that much." But it is time consuming. And it is on top of everything already planned for the day. See, while the campaigns department plans for this stuff, it is something we usually learn about week-of. In this case I knew before hand because I actually did the research on the newspapers they were placed in. That said, it still comes on top of the normal schedule of the day. And that is what I love about this place. Just when you think you're bored, the world turns upside down. That is why there are so many bars in this town. Without a night of relaxing and a drink every now and then, you just couldn't keep up. Your body could not physically handle it.
And the crazy thing about this is: it's recess. Wait a couple of weeks.
Anyway, hope that enlightened some of you. And apologies for any of you who may check my blog during the day for your daily news updates. Unfortunately I am not John Stewart. Sixty percent of the country can not look at me as the "most trusted anchor in news." I wish. I'll have some links later though.
For now:
Ben Bernanke is staying put.
Is it just me or are planes just dropping out of the sky this year?
Forty percent of SAT test takers are now minorities, an awesome statistic. This number is up nearly 10 percent in the last ten years. The average score for the class of 2009 was 1609 (but don't worry those of you who graduated before 2006 - it is out of 2400 now, with writing included). This is all positive news, albeit with one glaring problem. Race and socioeconomic class are still creating gaps in success rates. Blacks and poorer people are less likely to do well. While I am NOT a proponent of throwing out the SAT - some of you know very my belief that there has to be a standard of some kind (more on that in the D.C. education conversation) - there are some questions. This is the firefighter issue that the Republicans tried to use to derail Sonia Sotomayor, but there are questions about how we can help minorities do better on this test. You don't change the standard. You bring people up to it. Something to look at.
Close election in Afganistan. It is actually pretty cool to pay attention to this and see if, in reality, they can get this done.
This is coming together like an episode of CSI/Law and Order/NCIS. Wouldn't want to demean the military like that though, or my favorite show, so maybe just the first one.
RCP Horse Race Blog on Obama's approval rating numbers. It speaks truth, worry about seniors, because they vote.
Later.
[More]
One of the biggest things LCV does is the Scorecard. We rank every member of Congress, every President and every Governor objectively on their environmental record. For Congress it is easy: voting record. What this allows us to do is pick our Dirty Dozen, the worst 12 members that have an upcoming election and try to prevent their re-election. The Scorecard is a big deal here because it is really our identity. If you were to ask someone in Washington how an elected official is on the environment, the response would likely be something like, "well, what is their LCV score."
The other major thing we do elections wise is endorse people. A major part of endorsements are the candidates responses to a questionnaire they fill out, as well as an interview. We use the answers to either thank them and show how they are keeping promises in the future, or to hold them accountable when they don't. Today, we are doing accountability.
This morning LCV launched an ad campaign to hold four members of the House accountable for broken promises. If you look at this today there should still be the graphic on the front page of the broken hard hat, signifying the 1.7 million jobs that could be created if the American Clean Energy and Security Act passes, but that the member voted against.
I actually think the ads are good. However, they make life busy. Since I got here at about 8:30, I've finished my earlier post, gone through about 40 emails with news stories related to clean energy/global warming, updated some Twitter, read the news and opinion sections of all the newspapers I look through in 23 states and then, when the release was ready, began the media blitz that comes with putting out these ads.
First as I was riding to work today, I saw the link I posted earlier from Ben Smith detailing what was about to happen.
Then, after everything started, I wrote three blog posts. One that is up now (as of 3:15 pm ET) and two more to be posted later today. That is on top of whatever I do this afternoon, which I haven't gotten to yet. In addition I spent some time creating graphics for possible usage later, my first foray into photoshop in quite some time. And of course I tweeted about it just a few minutes ago.
There continue to be other things planned as the day goes on, included at least five more tweets, so stay tuned.
What is crazy is that you look at that and say, "well it wasn't that much." But it is time consuming. And it is on top of everything already planned for the day. See, while the campaigns department plans for this stuff, it is something we usually learn about week-of. In this case I knew before hand because I actually did the research on the newspapers they were placed in. That said, it still comes on top of the normal schedule of the day. And that is what I love about this place. Just when you think you're bored, the world turns upside down. That is why there are so many bars in this town. Without a night of relaxing and a drink every now and then, you just couldn't keep up. Your body could not physically handle it.
And the crazy thing about this is: it's recess. Wait a couple of weeks.
Anyway, hope that enlightened some of you. And apologies for any of you who may check my blog during the day for your daily news updates. Unfortunately I am not John Stewart. Sixty percent of the country can not look at me as the "most trusted anchor in news." I wish. I'll have some links later though.
For now:
Ben Bernanke is staying put.
Is it just me or are planes just dropping out of the sky this year?
Forty percent of SAT test takers are now minorities, an awesome statistic. This number is up nearly 10 percent in the last ten years. The average score for the class of 2009 was 1609 (but don't worry those of you who graduated before 2006 - it is out of 2400 now, with writing included). This is all positive news, albeit with one glaring problem. Race and socioeconomic class are still creating gaps in success rates. Blacks and poorer people are less likely to do well. While I am NOT a proponent of throwing out the SAT - some of you know very my belief that there has to be a standard of some kind (more on that in the D.C. education conversation) - there are some questions. This is the firefighter issue that the Republicans tried to use to derail Sonia Sotomayor, but there are questions about how we can help minorities do better on this test. You don't change the standard. You bring people up to it. Something to look at.
Close election in Afganistan. It is actually pretty cool to pay attention to this and see if, in reality, they can get this done.
This is coming together like an episode of CSI/Law and Order/NCIS. Wouldn't want to demean the military like that though, or my favorite show, so maybe just the first one.
RCP Horse Race Blog on Obama's approval rating numbers. It speaks truth, worry about seniors, because they vote.
Later.
Happy Wednesday morning, sans my wallet. Here I am carrying my passport around all day. Thank goodness for the foresight in getting that before I left Seattle.
For those of you who think it's too inconvenient to vote, try living in Afghanistan. The country attempts to vote today in yet another election that will surely be contested.
This is a big day in that country. Watch carefully to see if we have another Iran on our hands, or something even worse.
Some links:
Jerry Brewer on E.J. Savannah. For a while it was an "oh, how the mighty have fallen" story with the direction his and J.R. Hasty's careers had gone. If only God hadn't told Jonathan Stewart to go to Oregon. Come to think of it, God, tell someone to move to Eugene? Really? (Sorry Grandpa, but in addition to the fact the Oregon, the center of financial greed in athletics is there, public indecency laws also do not exist. Yes, girls walk around naked at night, legally.)
This Mercer Island Little League team is legit. Watched them play over the weekend. They can mash.
Boy these former Cleveland pitchers dominate the NL. Watch the video. Basically the breakdown how good Cleveland should be...
Honestly, I love the successful black athletes are making good business decisions these days. It is part of the whole concept of building wealth. Although, I won't go so far as to say that owning part of the Miami Dolphins will make you Warren Buffett. But hey, there was a movie made about your biggest star.
The U.S. New and World Report released its new rankings of the best colleges with UW slipping a bit to 42. There were a bunch of school attended by Garfield grads on the list.
Swiss banking takes a hit from the almighty U.S.
Remember when Britney was singing Baby One More Time?
Before reading this, know that I can't stand Jay Mariotti. I kind wish, actually I really hoped that Ozzie Guillen clock him once in the White Sox locker room and give him a reason to be scared to go in there. This guy has no idea what he talking about 99 percent of the time. Honestly I think the only worse talking head in sports is Skip Bayless. This is no different. If they find out that Cable assaulted this coach then fine, let Goodell do what he does. But if this is an internal team issue, let the team handle it. This is football Jay Mariotti. If they wanted wussies they'd have hired Dr. Quinn and Medicine Woman (free drink for the first person to name the source of that).
Mariotti should be suspended. Actually fired. For being an idiot. But, unfortunately, he's a journalist. They have some sort of freedom of the press rights. And most of the ones I know are damn good at what they do. But for Mariotti, a particular Bob Knight quote comes to mind. "We all learn to write when we're kids. Most of us move on to better things."
[Side note: I wanted to find the stories that Mariotti wrote before and after Guillen called him a "pile of sticks", but google only turned about 100 stories about how many people hate Mariotti, including his co-workers. Apparently they planned a parade when he resigned from the Sun-Times.]
Stay up y'all. Be easy.
[More]
For those of you who think it's too inconvenient to vote, try living in Afghanistan. The country attempts to vote today in yet another election that will surely be contested.
This is a big day in that country. Watch carefully to see if we have another Iran on our hands, or something even worse.
Some links:
Jerry Brewer on E.J. Savannah. For a while it was an "oh, how the mighty have fallen" story with the direction his and J.R. Hasty's careers had gone. If only God hadn't told Jonathan Stewart to go to Oregon. Come to think of it, God, tell someone to move to Eugene? Really? (Sorry Grandpa, but in addition to the fact the Oregon, the center of financial greed in athletics is there, public indecency laws also do not exist. Yes, girls walk around naked at night, legally.)
This Mercer Island Little League team is legit. Watched them play over the weekend. They can mash.
Boy these former Cleveland pitchers dominate the NL. Watch the video. Basically the breakdown how good Cleveland should be...
Honestly, I love the successful black athletes are making good business decisions these days. It is part of the whole concept of building wealth. Although, I won't go so far as to say that owning part of the Miami Dolphins will make you Warren Buffett. But hey, there was a movie made about your biggest star.
The U.S. New and World Report released its new rankings of the best colleges with UW slipping a bit to 42. There were a bunch of school attended by Garfield grads on the list.
Swiss banking takes a hit from the almighty U.S.
Remember when Britney was singing Baby One More Time?
Before reading this, know that I can't stand Jay Mariotti. I kind wish, actually I really hoped that Ozzie Guillen clock him once in the White Sox locker room and give him a reason to be scared to go in there. This guy has no idea what he talking about 99 percent of the time. Honestly I think the only worse talking head in sports is Skip Bayless. This is no different. If they find out that Cable assaulted this coach then fine, let Goodell do what he does. But if this is an internal team issue, let the team handle it. This is football Jay Mariotti. If they wanted wussies they'd have hired Dr. Quinn and Medicine Woman (free drink for the first person to name the source of that).
Mariotti should be suspended. Actually fired. For being an idiot. But, unfortunately, he's a journalist. They have some sort of freedom of the press rights. And most of the ones I know are damn good at what they do. But for Mariotti, a particular Bob Knight quote comes to mind. "We all learn to write when we're kids. Most of us move on to better things."
[Side note: I wanted to find the stories that Mariotti wrote before and after Guillen called him a "pile of sticks", but google only turned about 100 stories about how many people hate Mariotti, including his co-workers. Apparently they planned a parade when he resigned from the Sun-Times.]
Stay up y'all. Be easy.