Hey, before I get into my long, running opening you are always so excited to read (I know you are!), just wanted to pass along two links, one hilarious, one not so much.

First, if you read Geoff Baker's Mariners blog you probably already saw this, but apparently last night, before the M's game, former Mariner and current broadcaster Mike Blowers predicted that Matt Tuiasosopo (yes that one) would hit his first major league homerun into the second deck on the 3-1 count in his second at bat. Seriously. Well, listen for yourself...I will say if they Mariners have made one very good decision in recent years, it was hiring Blowers. He is very good up there.

Second, a rather scary story out of USC that was text to me almost right after it happened. Stafon Johnson, one of the only Trojan running backs with the ability to hold onto the football, apparently (and this is not meant to be funny AT ALL) lost the handle on a barbell he was bench pressing, dropping it on his throat. He immediately started coughing up blood and was rushed to the hospital where he is still in surgery.

I spent considerable time talking to the person that told me about it and apparently he was being spotted - a requirement at college weight lifting sessions. While it is possible that the spotter's attention lapsed, there is no way he didn't catch it. Can't imagine if Johnson had dropped the likely 200-plus pounds he was benching directly on his throat, that he would still be alive. Anyway, keep him in your prayers.


Moving on.

HUGE week here in the nation's capitol for those of us in the energy sector. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and John Kerry (D-MA) will be unveiling their version of comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation on Wednesday. If I have to type that phrase anymore I am going to go crazy.

One of the major things we do at LCV is provide our state leagues with LTE's (letters to the editor) for them to find signers for and send out to local media. You would probably not be amazed, but this is where most political LTE's come from. Joe Schmo generally does NOT get his LTE printed. We want to put out as much positive feedback as we can, knowing the the oil and coal industries are not going to get beat again. They are like the Yankees - they spent $130 million-plus already and all they got was a climate bill. So this time they will spend more. Because they can. The difference is I like the Yanks - your 2009 AL Eastern Division champs!

Anyway, so in the last two days I have written around 50 versions of the same 150ish words. Needless to say, I've gone a little nuts.

And if this sort of thing turns you off from politics, well, it should. This is how advocacy works. LTE's are never geared toward readers. They are geared toward the deputy press secretary in the office of the Congressmen and Senators in that state or district, who compiles the clips everyday and runs them by the member.

So it should be a wild week.

And with that note, I'm out. Sorry about the lack of other links. Will update. But, actually I did just think of one.

Not sure how many of you have ever heard of Maldives. It's an island country about 450 miles southwest of Sri Lanka. It boasts the lowest highest point in the world (catch up with that?) at 2.3 meters. In other words, the effects of global warming would sink the country, much like some of the U.S. Navy bases. They are so worried about this that the country has already purchased land in Australia for 330,000 or so residents. Anyway, the cool story is that, in order to call attention to this obviously major issue for them, the president will be holding a cabinet meeting under water. If you Google image search the country you will see some pretty awesome pictures of underwater restaurants and such. This will be a regular government function. Pretty cool/interesting.

Also, whoever did this, serious or not, is an idiot. You just cannot do anything that seems like a threat to the president.

And I'm not sure what to make of this whole Iran situation, other than that I'm pretty sure the governments that are acting all up-in-arms probably already knew about this and now it is just public. Oh, how the news media can change things.

Later.

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.