Dems Name State Blogger Corps for Convention (and no, you're not on the list)

Several months ago, Democratic officials began the process of credentialing bloggers who cover state and local politics, as part of the DemConvention State Blogger Corps. More than 400 blogs applied for the program, and selections were largely based upon the degree to which bloggers have become experts on the political happenings in their states.

You’ll see a list below of the 55 blogs that will comprise the State Blogger Corps. They’ll be seated with their respective delegations at the Convention. Bloggers will have some of the best seats in the house and they’ll be the eyes and ears of local audiences online around the country (congratulations if you're blog IS on the list below - mine aren't. Maybe I'll be able to sneak in, security shouldn't be too tight!)

The DemConvention State Blogger Corps is listed below.

STATE - BLOG NAME - BLOG URL

ALASKA - Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis - http://divasblueoasis.blogspot.com
ALABAMA- Doc's Political Parlor - http://politicalparlor.net
ARKANSAS- Under The Dome.com - http://underthedome.com
ARIZONA - Ted Prezelski - Rum, Romanism and Rebellion - http://www.rumromanismrebellion.net
CALIFORNIA - Calitics- http://Calitics.com
COLORADO -SquareState.net - http://squarestate.net
CONNECTICUT -My Left Nutmeg - http://myleftnutmeg.com
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA- DCist.com - http://dcist.com
DELAWARE – TommyWonk - http://tommywonk.blogspot.com/
DEMOCRATS Abroad - Democrats Abroad Argentina - http://www.yanquimike.com.ar
FLORIDA - Florida Progressive Coalition - http://flaprogressives.org
GEORGIA- Tondee's Tavern - http://www.tondeestavern.com
GUAM - No Rest for the Awake - Minagahet Chamorro - http://minagahet.blogspot.com
HAWAII - iLind.net: Ian Lind Online - http://www.ilind.net
IOWA - The Iowa Independent - http://iowaindependent.com
IDAHO - 43rdStateBlues.com - http://www.43rdstateblues.com
ILLINOIS- Prairie State Blue - http://www.PrairieStateBlue.com
INDIANA- Blue Indiana - http://www.blueindiana.net
KANSAS - EverydayCitizen.com - http://everydaycitizen.com
KENTUCKY – BlueGrassRoots - http://www.bluegrassroots.org
LOUISIANA - Daily Kingfish - http://www.dailykingfish.com
MASSACHUSETTS - Blue Mass. Group - http://www.bluemassgroup.com
MARYLAND - The Center for Emerging Media - http://www.centerforemergingmedia.com
MAINE - Turn Maine Blue - http://www.turnmaineblue.com
MICHIGAN - Blogging For Michigan - http://bloggingformichigan.com
MINNESOTA - Minnesota Monitor - http://minnesotamonitor.com
MISSISSIPPI - The Natchez Blog - http://natchezms.blogspot.com
MISSOURI - Fired Up! LLC - http://www.firedupmissouri.com
MONTANA - Left in the West - http://www.leftinthewest.com
NORTH CAROLINA - BlueNC.com - http://bluenc.com
NORTH DAKOTA - NorthDecoder.com - http://www.northdecoder.com
NEBRASKA - New Nebraska Network - http://www.NewNebraska.net
NEW HAMPSHIRE - Blue Hampshire - http://www.bluehampshire.com
NEW JERSEY - PolitickerNJ.com - http://www.politickernj.com
NEW MEXICO - Democracy for New Mexico - http://www.DemocracyForNewMexico.com
NEVADA - Las Vegas Gleaner - http://www.lasvegasgleaner.com
NEW YORK - Room 8 - http://www.r8ny.com
OHIO - Ohio Daily Blog - http://www.ohiodailyblog.com
OKLAHOMA - DemoOkie - http://www.DemoOkie.com
OREGON - BlueOregon (blog) - http://www.blueoregon.com
PENNSYLVANIA - Keystone Politics - http://www.keystonepolitics.com
PUERTO RICO - Jusiper - http://jusiper.blogspot.com
RHODE ISLAND - Rhode Island's Future - http://www.rifuture.org
SOUTH CAROLINA - CracktheBell.com - http://www.crackthebell.com
SOUTH DAKOTA - Badlands Blue - http://www.badlandsblue.com
TENNESSEE - KnoxViews/TennViews - http://www.knoxviews.com
TEXAS - Burnt Orange Report - http://www.BurntOrangeReport.com
UTAH - The Utah Amicus - http://utahamicus.com
VIRGINIA - Raising Kaine - http://www.raisingkaine.com
VIRGIN ISLANDS - Democratic Party of the US Virgin Islands - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/democratvi
VERMONT - Green Mountain Daily - http://greenmountaindaily.com
WASHINGTON - HorsesAss.org - http://www.horsesass.org
WISCONSIN - Uppity Wisconsin - http://www.uppitywis.org
WEST VIRGINIA - West Virginia Blue - http://www.wvablue.com
WYOMING - Hummingbirdminds blog - http://hummingbirdminds.blogspot.com

Source: DemConvention.com
Photo: dbking via flickr under a creative commons license

About ecopolitology

ecopolitology [EE-koh-pol-i-TOL-uh-jee] n. The emergent discipline of inquiry concerned with the theory, description, and analysis of the inescapable intersectionality of ecology and politics...or something like that.

Although ecopolitology is a word, it isn't considered one in the English language - at least not yet. If you google ecopolitology you'll find mostly references to this blog, but you will also find a couple of Russian and Eastern European uses of the word to describe the academic study of humans and nature.

To be honest, I thought I had made it up along with a couple of colleagues of mine a few years back in grad school. I was taking an environmental political theory seminar and we were were reading lots of postmodern and post-structural works about the politics of nature, the social construction of nature, the role of science in democracy, etc. I believe we had been reading Bruno Bruno Latour's Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy, in which he had talked about the different '-ology' suffixes used in various disciplines of scientific inquiry (i.e. zoology, biology, geology, theology, sociology, etc.).

My colleagues and I wondered why there was no 'politology' in US parlance, just 'political science.' I honestly think that the earliest practitioners of political science, as a field of academic inquiry, were so self-conscious about it's position relative to the other sciences that they had to add the word 'science' to help bring some legitimacy to the fledgling discipline. Can you think of (m)any other disciplines where they have felt compelled to add the word 'science' to the end of it? Personally I like 'politology' and I'm going to stick with it.

Anyways, because I was reading all of these French postmodernists who like to make up words, I decided to slap an 'eco' together with a 'politology' and use the word to broadly describe environmental politics. It wasn't until months later when I decided to start a blog as a means to flesh out ideas for my dissertation research, that I instantly knew that ecopolitology had to be the name of it.

Thanks for visiting and please come back again.

Best,

Timothy B. Hurst
Fort Collins, CO

info [at] ecopolitology [dot] org

Pundit Kitchen Cooks Up Pictures for Your Political Blog

If you've got a couple seconds go check out Pundit Kitchen where you can "Cook up pictures for your own political blog." Or just let other people do it for you. Pretty funny stuff! I couldn't resist posting these, which they encourage you to do. You can also submit your own pictures, and let others write the captions for you.





Make more pictures for your blog

Renewables to Get Another Chance in Congress?

This week, the Senate is doing some tinkering with the recently proposed economic incentive package put forth by the House leadership and President Bush. More specifically, this tinkering would extend the renewable energy production tax credit (PTC) for another year and would extend the solar investment tax credit. The Senate Finance Committee also included energy efficiency incentives to the package. Hopefully, these amendments will not be left by the wayside as they were late last year.

Read more...

Just when you thought the coast was clear - more Lomborg.

An E&E Publishing Service Climate: Skeptical enviro Bjorn Lomborg discusses post-Kyoto roadmap, calls Kyoto "feel good strategy" (Wednesday, December 12, 2007) As the international community convenes in Bali to create a roadmap for post-Kyoto climate discussions, how successful will a new climate treaty be at reducing emissions and decreasing the impacts of climate change? During today's OnPoint, Danish political scientist Bjorn Lomborg explains why he believes Kyoto is a "feel good strategy". He also explains why the international community should be focusing on funding R&D for alternative technologies and adaptation measures, rather than emphasizing an emissions-reduction treaty. Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" and "Cool It--The Skeptical Environmentalists Guide to Global Warming," gives his views on the Stern review on the economic impacts of climate change and assesses the current climate discussions in Bali. watch video About E&ETV E&ETV is produced by the staff of E&E Publishing, LLC and broadcast from our state-of-the-art Capitol Hill studios. E&ETV brings viewers insightful interviews with the top policy makers and opinion leaders from the energy and environmental policy world. E&ETV broadcasts daily at 10 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. E&E Publishing, LLC 122 C St., Ste. 722, NW, Wash., D.C. 20001. Phone: 202-628-6500. Fax: 202-737-5299. www.eenews.net

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Show me the deliberation...please!

After surfacing for some air in the last two weeks, the elusive energy bill has again disappeared into the murky depths of Senatorial politics. Unfortunately, the U.S. Senate has not become the deliberative institution it was designed to be. We see hearings on C-SPAN with lots of questions being asked, and a few being answered. We see flip charts and bar graphs and fancy posters being presented. We see Senators come to the floor with their aides (and sometimes with the help of their aides) to deliver policy speeches to an audience that consists mostly of administrative staff, security guards, pages, and sometimes even some lucky tourists. Real deliberation does not happen on the Senate floor, although bargaining might. And that usually happens when the C-SPAN mics are off.

The right for Senators to filibuster was designed so that debate could continue until a consensus was reached. Usually, now that does not mean debate and deliberation, that means deal-making, mutual back-scratching and overt bargaining. The filibuster is now used as a threat, rather than as an opportunity for substantive back-and-forth. Basically the filibuster now translates as: "I refuse to debate about this and there is nothing that can get me to change my mind." Once again, we can thank James Madison for the institutional incrementalism that pervades and can sometimes cripple American lawmaking.

I appreciate people having conviction about their principles, but why is it that flexibility, contingency and pragmatism are not considered principles worthy of conviction? Regardless of those structural flaws in the system, right now it's the only one we got.

After the Senate voted against cloture on the motion to agree to the House amendments last Friday, we have been seeing a very calculated game of political 'chicken.' The President all along has said he would veto any bill that singles out the oil industry and revokes substantial tax credits to big oil. But does he mean it? Probably yes. Despite the threat, Senate Democrats decided to push ahead with the bill, however, as many guessed would happen, the renewable energy standard was trimmed off to improve the bill's hopes of passage. At this point, it is unclear whether Democrats have the necessary 60 votes to prevent a filibuster and move forward with a vote on the bill.

My concern is that this is one of those instances where President Bush will show his 'conviction' by not passing any bill that repeals the billions of dollars to big oil subsidies. Maybe the President will surprise, in fact I hope he will surprise me. So I will hope that the President will show the rest of the world what a democracy in action looks like by passing the laws that a bicameral legislature has clearly determined as the will of the people. But the one thing that I have found about George W. Bush over the last 7 years is that he has lots of opportunities to surprise me, and hasn't done so once. With that said, I have carefully selected a few quotes that show the kind of real 'quality' communication that have emanated from our leadership in the last few days concerning the energy legislation.

It's a bill that's not going to become law. - Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX)

[The House passed a bill] they knew was unacceptable to the president and had no chance being signed into law. - White House Spokesperson Dana Perino

This is not a good bill, but it can be turned into a great bill. - Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM)

If it goes to the White House, we would hope that common sense would prevail and the president would sign that. – Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)

I guess they're trying to guarantee a veto.” – Donald Stewart, spokesman for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

He is impossible, and has been for seven years, to deal with. – Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)

Canadian Parties Compete for Greens in Ontario

The major political parties in Canada have all accepted the science of climate change and are now rolling out their green plans in an effort to gain political support from environmentalists. This is unlike the situation in the U.S., where the two major parties seem to accept the science but continue to do little more than offer lip service and rhetoric. Is this another sign of the U.S. lagging behind in terms of environmental initiative?

read more | digg story

Fences and Boundaries: Is the grass always greener?

What is that old adage about the grass being greener on the other side? Well, there is certainly some truth to that statement, but it depends on which side the person is on when those words are uttered. A little while back I attended a lecture given by conservation biologist Michael Soule. He showed several slides the land bordering fencelines along park boundaries. The images he showed were of highly overgrazed lands next to much more healthy lands on the other side of the fence. Surprisingly, the overgrazed land was within park boundaries, while the healthy land was outside the boundaries. The images Soule showed were of Rocky Mountain National Park in central Colorado, where the dominant land management practice in the park has been to let the elk populations thrive. With wolves all but erradicated from the Colorado landscape, the elk have no ecological forces keeping their populations in check. But in terms of the wolf, there are myriad political forces keeping their populations in check. There are many options on the table, ranging from birth control for elk, to allowing limited hunting. But one of the more controversial proposals would bring wolves back to Colorado. Why is it controversial? Because a wee bit of politics has mixed with some science to create (no, not political science)-- the strikingly familiar dynamics of environmental politics in the U.S.

Let me explain: elk have become the meal-ticket for RMNP, the National Park Service, and the firmly entrenched tourism industry in the gateway town of Estes Park. Elk parade through the streets of Estes, munching on grass at McDonalds and lazing on the lawn of the Stanley Hotel. Tourists stop and snap photos of the large, charismatic herbivores; sometimes the lucky folks can even do so from the air-conditioned comfort of their adventurously named Land Rovers, Explorers, Expeditions, and Navigators; or perhaps their more aptly named Suburbans. Additionally, a rather vociferous alliance of anti-wolf forces (mostly ranchers fearing the cow-snacking tendencies of the gray wolf)has gained a stable foothold in the ag-friendly state of Colorado.

My point is not that there is something wrong with elk, actually I find them to be rather stunning creatures. Nor is my point that people should actually get out of their cars to appreciate wildlife (at least not my central point). My point is that we must be watchful of the power politics can have over scientific evidence. Science may not always be able to provide the "best" answer, but we must be watchful of our political leaders obscuring empirical evidence necessary to sound policymaking. Sound familiar?

I could not locate the slides that Prof. Soule showed that day, but I am often reminded of the landscape and ecological impacts of fences, borders and boundaries. These images are absolutely stunning examples of how land management practices around the world can have a sometimes devastating effect on ecological systems. Enjoy these images, my guess is that you will not always be able to guess on which side the park sits! Looks can be deceiving!