U.S. Senate
See Full Big Line
(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
See Full Big Line
(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) George Stern
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
See Full Big Line
(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
See Full Big Line
(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
January 01, 2014 12:49 AM UTC
48 Comments
Happy New Year, Polsters.
Best wishes to everyone for a prosperous and fulfilling year, whatever your aspirations….
…unless you are a Republican candidate.
Or a Republican voter.
Roger, that.
yap.
Here's to Dems continuaing to act more like recognizable Dems (I'm talking to you Mark and Mike!), and to Repubs continuing to out-stuipid themselves for another year or three…which it looks like they are going to do.
We definitely need all the outstupiding we can get to avoid another 2010 disaster!
Sadly, enacting the retrograde far right agenda on issues involving human reproduction only requires one wackadoo to introduce the legislation which will be scored (and written by) the American Life League. They're the ALEC of the sex police. All the Republican representatives will line up to pass this mess so they don't get primaried by a thumper.
They're not all crazy on this issue. Their base just makes them vote that way. No Republican whose seat gives his party the majority can be trusted as a social moderate.
Speaking of idiot Republicans
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/12/30/publics-views-on-human-evolution/
The 2000/2013 difference is interesting. Either Rs are getting more backward over time or smarter people are leaving the R fold, leaving a higher proportion of backward behind.
I think it's the latter, BC. Look at the pols leaving the Republicans behind, starting with Charlie Crist. Then you've got folks like Olympia Snowe who step out so they no longer have to tow the Republican banner. I won't be surprised if several more Repulicans choose not to run in '14 and leave their seats up for grabs.
Happy New Year everyone. Best wishes for a great year.
Best wishes to all for a Happy Healthy Prosperous New Year!
Yes!
That's pretty, Zap.
Happy New Year! This is going to be a great year.
I wouldn't be so sure about that for your side, just yet. But a Happy healthy one for you personally, if not (make that no if) for you politically.
C'mon. Americans love the Tea Party more and more with each Faux-abuster grandstanding prank costing billions in showboating ineffectiveness. With Tom Tancredo fighting the Honey Badger, and Buck fending off Amy; eggmendment round three (not to mention the usual ancient male dinosaurs in the party flapping their gums about the perils and wonders of ladyhood); defending (failingly) against adults getting married and people living here from the nation next door; along with the GOP fighting the good fight to keep millions of working Americans in poverty (and thus on assistance, an indirect subsidy to their corporate bosses refusing to pay a livable wage for honest labor); it's hard to see how the party of Flat Earthers ('belief' in evolution is declining in the GOP) could go wrong. Indeed.
Nice verbal cartoon, Twitty.
I'm sitting in my living room with my new Macbookpro 13. My first Mac, it's considerably more portable than my faithful 17 inch Dell Inspiron. It takes a bit of getting used too but the retina display is spectacular,
Let my first post of the year be an accolade to our community. May Madco's burnout be brief. David Thi, keep up the good fight on behalf of moderate
democrats, to whom I now ally after the extinction of the GOP's rational wing.
Jeffco Blue, you rock. PC, may your tribe increase, Elliott, keep the loyal opposion's fire burning. Gov. Hick, keep on Frackin!
And God bless us, everyone.
Welcome to the light side.
Thanks. Although bad news you've gone over to the dark side (your new Mac) 🙂
I'll say it quietly, for those of us who stayed up too late and had too much fun and have awful headaches today. Happy New Year:0
Tell me again why we're not repalcing coal with nuclear?
I've got nothing against nuclear as long as it's done right. France seems to do a pretty good job with it. Happy Nuclear Year?
well said,
bc
france is indeed the model.
Tailings piles sitting alongside the Colorado River, upstream of the California population – a reminder of how toxic the industry has been in the past (nevermind concerns about the Schwartzwalder Mine here in Colorado, sitting upstream of Denver water supplies…)?
No accepted place to store waste byproducts?
Lack of utility investment money for very expensive reactors?
Not that I have anything against nuclear power generally, but we have a number of very visible reminders in this country that the nuclear power industry hasn't been very responsible here. The energy industry already gripes about the NRC's grip on the approval process, but the environmental activists tracking nuclear energy developments have had to intervene in some pretty egregious attempts to develop nuclear energy in some pretty stupid (for our health) ways, so IMHO there's a long way to go before we get it right.
We have nuclear plants of the same construction as Fukushima online and located near some pretty major faults; their immediate descendants are among the designs being considered for new plants. We have the memory of TMI and the relatively obvious faults that contributed to its meltdown – and haven't really done a lot to fix those faults AFAIK (and living less than 15 miles from TMI when it happened, I was pretty glued to developments for most of a decade…)
Oh come on. There are at least two uranium mills, maybe three, that were flooded by the creation of Lake Powell. The Moab pile was more of an eyesore and threat to eco-tourism than it was a danger to California's water.
That said, I'd like to see David move to Grand Junction and tell us how he feels about the reactor proposed upwind from us in Green River, Utah.
I'd prefer a nuclear plant replace the coal plant we have here in Boulder – better air quality right here.
Afterall, St Vrain was such a bargain! Too cheap to meter I heard.
This is what I want to understand better, smaller scale. If we include local (micro) hydro (esp on ditches, canals, etc.), roof-top solar, landfill (and coalmine) methane, wind, in the mix for local and regional production; as well as (as long as needed) tradtional sources for large powerplants supporting the grid overall, (including, perhaps, nukes) we could get a long ways down the road. Local production also localizes impacts, making it harder to pretend they are not blowing mountains apart, or storing piles of spent fule rods having never figured out a practical, political or sound solution to long-term waste storage, in some small town outside the population center, like in Emerey County Utah for instance.
meant to include the links…
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/jun/05-the-big-promise-of-micro-nukes#.UsV6MfRDvh4
Discover:
The Big Potential of Micro Nukes
Downsized, simplified reactors are poised to revive nuclear energy and bring carbon-free power to where it is needed most.
and this…
Thorium-based nuclear power
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Another words, you're a NIMBY. A nuclear plant is fine as long as it isn't in Boulder.
Not that I'm going to ruin my New Year by siding with David in any way, shape, or form . . .
. . . but, I always felt that the mill-tailing remediation in Grand Junction was just about a textbook example if NIMBYism.
( . . . and, I've always believed the mill-tailings as home-construction materials themselves went a long way towards explaining a lot about the political leanings, as well as a few of the othe noticeable proclivities, of many if those residents.)
We've known this for quite some time, Dio.
The flooding of Lake Powell is supposed to make me feel more comfortable about this how?
I'd personally be fine with a reactor in Green River if I lived in Grand Junction. The fallout from a meltdown would be pretty minimal over that distance unless something truly idiotic was done during the design and installation. (Like I said, I lived just outside the first stage evac zone for TMI. We left the night of the incident when reports of a hydrogen bubble made a worst-case scenario sound frighteningly likely. But the reports afterward of three-headed glowing cows were just ridiculous.)
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/01/fukushima-ghost-towns-high-radiation-levels-tsunami
True but there aren't any Fukushimas in France. Just sayin'.
1. Because it's more expensive? According to RMI's Dr. Hunter Lovins,
2. Because we still have no clue about where/how to store nuclear power waste, other than on Native american lands, which harms human beings and aquifers.
3. Because uranium mining tailings are still impacting health in Colorado as well as on the res? (see Duke's link)
4. I realize that there are a few scientists currently advocating for nuclear power, citing irreversible climate disaster on the horizon.
What I think: When renewables could provide for all energy within five years, it doesn't make sense to foul our own nests. The pro-nuclear scientists may well be correct, but I don't trust the energy corporations not to put profits before the public good.
The older generation of plants – yes. The plants they can build today – no.
So what does this "new generation" of nuclear plants do with their wastes? What water supply cools them?
Mama — look at Club Twitty's links — I believe it answers most of your questions. I was surprised at how far along the Thorium-based reactors are moving — India, Canada and China are moving extremely fast, and even the US is finally starting to reactivate the program they had in the 1960's!
The remediation of uranium tailings intentionally used as construction fill in Grand Junction cost the American taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars. Charlie Steen did well, but the nuclear legacy in this nation (mostly for weaponry not power), cost a pretty penny its tally not yet complete; and the current corporate dominance over any kind of menaingful public health or safety conerns is enough to make anyone paying attention a bit concerned IMO.
Changing the paradigm about how we think of energy and energy production is the key. Without that far-removed multinational corporate providers will always be willing to sacrifice an isolatead local public good on the alter of profit.
Like I said, they seem to do a pretty good job of it in France so, apparently, it can be done.
When you are dealing with materials that are toxic and deadly for tens of thousands of years, pardon me for considering a few decades of avoiding a problem as a 'good job of it.'
I think we need to use the grid as backup and to move large power around, but should move to a system where as much power is produced locally as possible, then reigonally, then nationally/internationally. I would like to learn more about thorium and the micro-nukes being developed. I'm not saying it absolutely cannot be part of the mix (in my world) just 1) I remain unconvinced of its general sensibility (or the economics); and 2) it facilitates continuted reliance on highly centralized (and very vulnerable) power deliverly system that lies–IMHO–as a root of our current problems.
pardon me for NOT considering…
I mean if the Guvs can't even add a simple edit function on the comment how can we ever expect nukes to be safe?
Colpols Won't be in charge of nukes?
By the way, Twitty, all of your points are good ones. I just think we should be open to addressing some of the negatives, as discussed in articles to which you have provided links such as the one on micro nukes in Discover, in order to possibly take advantage of the positives of nuclear energy. It strikes me that it may be time for old liberals like me, who have been dead set against nuclear since our youth, to re-examine the issue in light of new and potential developments and in the context of global warming with an open mind.
Speaking of global warming, there was a typically stupid letter in today's Post about how that ship getting stuck in the ice in the Antarctic shows how silly global warming concerns are. Sigh.