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A changing climate around nuclear energy
,----[ Quote ]
| A new, bipartisan consensus is building
| around the environmental benefits of
| nuclear energy in America.
|
| Just a few weeks ago, in a meadow in Rocky
| Mountain National Park, Democratic Sen.
| Mark Udall of Colorado joined Republican
| Sen. John McCain of Arizona in concluding
| that nuclear energy "has to be part of the
| solution" as the country seeks to reduce
| its carbon footprint and help reduce
| greenhouse gas emissions.
|
| The debate about nuclear energy in Oregon,
| and across much of America, has been a
| highly emotional, often partisan affair.
| This new alliance is a breath of fresh
| air, representing a fundamental shift in
| political alignment. Fifty-nine percent of
| Americans polled by Gallup earlier this
| year said they support nuclear energy as
| one way to meet the nation's electricity
| needs.
`----
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20091012/OPINION/910120301/1049
The Insurance Industry's Deceptive Report
,----[ Quote ]
| But if the PWC's report doesn't offer much
| in the way of trustworthy policy analysis,
| it is an interesting looking at the
| changing politics of the issue. In short,
| the insurance industry is getting scared.
| After many months of quiet
| constructiveness, they're launching a
| broadside on the week of the Senate
| Finance Committee's vote. The White House,
| which had a pleasant meeting with the
| industry's leadership last week, was
| shocked by the report, and so too was the
| Senate Finance Committee. The era of
| cooperation seems to be over, and they
| weren't given much advance warning. But
| the report might have another impact, too:
| The evident anger and fear of the
| insurance industry might do a bit to
| reassure liberals that this plan is worth
| supporting, after all.
`----
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/10/the_insurance_industrys_decept.html
Patients Before Profits
,----[ Quote ]
| When an insurance company says an 11
| percent increase in its rates â during a
| recession â is too small, it is clear that
| the health care system has lost its way.
| Health care must be about patients and
| medical treatment, not corporate profits.
| Until the country and especially Congress,
| which is currently writing and debating
| health care overhaul legislation, returns
| to this notion any reform will be more
| akin to window dressing than the
| fundamental change that is needed.
`----
http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/124568.html
Recent:
Against Transparency
,----[ Quote ]
| Reformers rarely feel responsible for the bad that
| their fantastic new reform effects. Their focus is
| always on the good. The bad is someone elseâs
| problem. It may well be asking too much to imagine
| more than this. But as we see the consequences of
| changes that many of us view as good, we might
| wonder whether more good might have been done had
| more responsibility been in the mix. The music
| industry was never going to like the Internet, but
| its war against the technology might well have been
| less hysterical and self-defeating if better and
| more balanced alternatives had been pressed from
| the beginning. No one can dislike Craigslist (or
| Craig), but we all would have benefited from a
| clearer recognition of what was about to be lost.
| Internet triumphalism is not a public good.
|
| Likewise with transparency. There is no questioning
| the good that transparency creates in a wide range
| of contexts, government especially. But we should
| also recognize that the collateral consequence of
| that good need not itself be good. And if that
| collateral bad is busy certifying to the American
| public what it thinks it already knows, we should
| think carefully about how to avoid it. Sunlight may
| well be a great disinfectant. But as anyone who has
| ever waded through a swamp knows, it has other
| effects as well.
`----
http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/against-transparency?page=0,0
Larry Lessig and Naked Transparency
,----[ Quote ]
| Lessig's essay is a call for us all to pay
| attention. Transparency cannot start and end inside
| the beltway, it needs us all. As Brandeis himself
| noted when he argued before the court in Muller v.
| Oregon (208 U.S. 412) in his pathbreaking Brandeis
| Brief, the first brief to use hard social science
| data to try and change the law of the land, âthe
| most important political office is that of the
| private citizen.â
`----
http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/10/larry-lessig-and-naked-transpa.html
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