Rather than take the time to write a substantial, coherent post on any one topic on this Friday, July 31 — the birthday of the late, great Milton Friedman — I offer you four quick hits to amuse, inspire, frustrate, and activate. Without further ado:
- What’s the deal with a 63 degree high in July? Newly recorded territory for Denver, as more people may be shivered into considering what scientists have been documenting of late: Global warming (or cooling, for that matter) isn’t caused by human activity in any meaningful amount
- If the crazy weather has you confounded and you’re inclined to stay indoors, tune in this evening to Independent Thinking on KBDI 12 in Denver to learn more about Clear the Bench Colorado and the growing movement to recall state supreme justices who have overreached
- Rossputin makes a great catch this morning of an extensive Associated Press story detailing how federal stimulus dollars are being wasted while tight state budgets ignore high-needs transportation projects (eg, deteriorating bridges)
- Speaking of crumbling, Red State blogger E Pluribus Unum does a fine job analyzing the state of poll numbers for Barack Obama and the Democrats, why you can trust Rasmussen and turn a skeptical eye to most other polls, and why it shows their big government agenda is DOA
- While the August recess for Congress gives us a break from the health care debate and the Obama Care takeover plan limps and staggers, why not ignore the naysayers who say “we must do something” and consider genuine, effective, free market-oriented health care reforms (like those proposed here or here)
Happy Friday!
Clearing the bench may be, by itself, a swell idea. What worries me is who gets to name the replacements. And confirm them.
What makes these people thing that giving Bill Ritter and the Donks a whole new team on the bench with even more party loyalty will be a net improvement?
Your comment assumes that Ritter will still be in office in 2011 to reappoint them. Clear the Bench can respond to this on its own, but I would say that if their initiative is successful it most likely means that a Republican challenger also won. To me, at this point, it’s more likely that McInnis or Penry beats Ritter than Clear the Bench passes. But regardless, a Clear the Bench initiative could give energy & momentum to the conservative side just by being on the ballot.
I think the Ritter wins / Clear the Bench wins scenario is small, and having to deal with this type of Plan B is a concern. But one also could argue that Ritter would be publicly chastised, and if he went out of his way to appoint partisan judges it would cost him political capital to push other parts of his agenda. And I hesitate to ask … but how much worse could the state supreme court get?
In response to Billl, maybe 4 Justices being dismessed by the people in 2010, will put the fear of the people back into the justice system? Apparently, the current crop of justices do not fear the people enough to hold the line.