Open Thread for Night Owls & Early Birds

Glenn Hurowitz over at Grist, the on-line environmental magazine, interviews Scott Kleeb, the 32-year-old, highly photogenic, Yale Ph.D who is the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Nebraska.

The hot rancher speaks

^{U.S. Senate candidate Scott Kleeb and the clean energy roundup}

Question: Where do you see Nebraska's economic future, and what role do you think clean energy will play in it?

Answer: We've got to transform the way we produce and consume energy. There's a failure of leadership we've seen at all levels of government. We've got to figure out how to do more with less. That's true of our elected officials and true of ourselves as individuals. This is a generations-long process. We are on the cusp of it right now. Biofuels and wind energy and solar energy and algae-based energy is just the tip of the iceberg.

Nebraska's economy is going to be transformed by that revolution. Farmers will find new ways of feeding or, once we get to cellulosic ethanol, fueling the world.

Question: Recent studies have suggested that devoting American land to growing biofuels instead of food is causing massive deforestation in carbon-rich tropical forests. How can switchgrass and cellulosic ethanol be viable if it's just causing food to be grown in these highly sensitive ecosystems thousands of miles away?

Answer: The rainforests are the world's largest carbon sink. The impact [of deforestation] there is much more important than what we're talking about in this country. You saw it in the farm debate on what we do about Conservation Reserve Program land [agricultural land that's set aside for conservation purposes]. You're even seeing an internal battle. Many farmers are members of the Farm Bureau or the Farmers Union, but are also members of Ducks Unlimited or Pheasants Forever. On one side, they're being lobbied by their farm organizations who talk about $5 [a bushel] corn or $6 corn and talk about how great it is and how we should produce more of it. On the other side, they're being lobbied by the organizations they're members of like Ducks Unlimited talking about increasing the CRP acreage. Farmers are personally conflicted about it. That's only going to get bigger. These are not easy questions that we're trying to deal with.

The advantage of switching to switchgrass is that you can do it because you don't harvest it the same way you harvest soybeans or corn or other row crops. You don't have to plough up the ground or disrupt the soil. With switchgrass, it's a little bit like mowing your yard. You never actually dig the roots out of the system. You never actually turn over the soil in any way, you just sort of mow off the top part of it. You don't actually disrupt the soil underneath it. You can raise switchgrass in areas we now consider marginal lands, low water lands so that it would not be competing with the river systems like the Mississippi or the Platte or some of the Corn Belt states where they do have a lot of rain or wherever it might be. You're competing on a different set of areas than you would be for food production.

Click on. There's lots more.

The Overnight News Digest is posted.

It's Flooding in the Midwest

More rain in the Midwest this week could turn an already bad situation into a national catastrophe. As usual, George Bush is nowhere to be seen; no word if he's enjoyong another tasty cake while thousands of American families fight to save their lives and homes. One would hope the Bush administration and their assorted neoconservative cronies might actually take this seriously, after all this isn’t New Orleans, August 2005; this is an election year:

Tom Murphy AP --  Rescuers in boats continued to pluck people from rising waters in Indiana yesterday, a day after more than 10 inches of rain deluged much of the state. In Iowa, pumps and thousands of sandbags were sent to the Iowa City area, where officials fear a reservoir could top a spillway and flood the city of about 63,000 by tomorrow.

Michael Crumb, Trib -- In Des Moines, plans were being made to build temporary levees and begin sandbagging to hold the water back. In Iowa City, City Manager Michael Lombardo said as many as 150 homes near the Iowa River are "directly in harms way," with another 130 homes in two mobile home parks also being threatened.

Need we point out that a number of Iowa National Guard units are deployed overseas, others are just returning or preparing to leave? That means the local guard is at roughly half their normal strength in both manpower and equipment thanks to Bush and McCain's war. Oops!

Sara Stewart, KCRG News -- This Memorial Day weekend, the Iowa Army National Guard says it needs more equipment to effectively fulfill its duties. The guard's continued presence in Iraq means it only has about 60 percent of the necessary materials. Iowa National Guard Soldiers respond to local emergencies, protect our country at home and serve overseas.

Open Thread and Diary Rescue

Tonight's Rescue Rangers are Louisiana1976, yashua, jennyjem, dadanation, grog, and Avila, with vcmvo2 as editor.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further... And one fine morning... So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaslessly into the past. F. Scott Fitzgerald ~ The Great Gatsby ~

• ct suggests that if you'd like to attend NetrootsNation on "one fine morning" in July then you'd better take action in Netroots Nation Scholarships- Now One More Day to Apply!

• In De-polarizing: Finding common ground through Bohm dialogue, geomoo describes an interesting process whereby "listening to" rather than "arguing with" can be utilized to foster mutual understanding between previously opposed groups. (vcmvo2)
• pfiore8 understands that Democrats win on the issues, but wonders how we can convey that to ordinary americans. (jennyjem)
• Tip O'Neill is quoted as saying "All politics is local." With this in mind, AstroCook walks us through his day volunteering to help get more people registered to vote in Jefferson County, Colorado in My first voter registration drive .. what are you doing? (dadanation)
• mwmwm reports on a deadly infection found in pigs that doesn't seem to concern the FDA but should concern you, the consumer, in MRSA, pigs, and the food supply. (Avila)

• gtomkins brings us an intriguingly detailed account of why this primary season lasted longer than others, and presents a fresh perspective on the debate in Why momentum failed. (Yashua)
• CatJab covers a public hearing about a hot-button issue that may send ripples across this country in Single Payer Heats Up in Chicago. (jennyjem)
• khowell tells her late father Yes, I attended. It's the story of hugs, tears, laughter, and the emotions surrounding the loss of a parent. (grog)
• GrimReefa contemplates a certain lack of innovation and unwillingness to change in this interesting take on The end of the Republican Party as we know it. (Avila)

• iampunha introduces us to a little-known character in American history, and describes his role in the protection of free speech in June 9, 1969: imminent lawless action. (jennyjem)
• In an earlier diary, CollinMcDonnell highlighted how metal theft was an unusual but relevant barometer of how badly our economy is right now. Today he provides another indicator that also indicates the bleak nature of our nation's financial straits in Sign of the Times: Forced to Give Up Their Pets. (dadanation)
• Christian Dem in NC does a double-take at the news today in AP: Gitmo interrogators urged to destroy notes. (jennyjem)

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this Open Thread.

Obama:  McCain offers "a full-throated endorsement of George Bush's policies"

John McCain may whine that he's not running for Bush's third term, but Barack Obama knows it's true:

But when it comes to the economy, John McCain and I have a fundamentally different vision of where to take the country.  Because for all his talk of independence, the centerpiece of his economic plan amounts to a full-throated endorsement of George Bush's policies.  

...and so does McCain's co-chair, Lindsey Graham:

STEPHANOPOULOS: You said the tax policy and the healthcare policy were essentially, Senator Graham, John McCain is calling for an extension or maybe even enhancement of the George Bush policies.

GRAHAM: Yes, absolutely.

Wow.  Less than a week after Obama secured the nomination and we're already seeing the partisan rancor ending. This should make John McCain very happy.

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