I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Barb Wold over at Democracy for New Mexico points out that Val Kilmer is a Nader fan. During the 2008 election year he contributed more than $4,000 to the Nader campaign — Wold provides the list of contributions in her blog. Why do we care? Because although he hasn’t talked to anyone in the New Mexico press, the actor keeps talking up a 2010 run for the governor’s office to the national press. In one comment he said “actors always win” when they get into politics.
Wold, though, says that his contributions won’t help him much with Democrats, whom he would most likely want to appeal to:
Even worse — if you’re planning to win the hearts and minds of New Mexico’s Democratic voters — Kilmer made contributions to Nader even after Barack Obama had clinched the Dem nomination.
Now that we have Val Kilmer off our plate, let’s turn to True Confessions: A socialist complains about “Economic Stimulus 2009.” Local teacher Scot Key is on fire over at ‘Burque Babble — he’s an “… unabashed Liberal. Big L, big I, big … you get the picture.” Franklin D. Roosevelt is one of his favorite presidents, he says, whose “… attempts to resurrect the American economy in the wake of what became known as the Great Depression were exactly the kind of big-picture, intra-United States projects/thinking the country has desperately needed again for decades.”
But Key doesn’t think what’s happening now is quite the same thing:
The problem I have with all this is the lack of (and here’s a good Socialist, Trotsky, festooned with negative connotation term for ya) planning. Many in this country are obsessed with the idea that “Socialism” is evil. In reaction, instead of carefully planning the government allocation of dollars to help the “Hell No We’re Not Socialists” economy, we’re just dumping the money into the financial markets, state governments etc., calling it a “stimulus” and pretending to let the “Invisible Hand” pick it back up from there.
I have to admit, I share Key’s concerns.
In other blogosphere places:
If you’re a fan of former Republican Sen. Pete Domenici, you won’t want to miss this photo essay by local photographer/blogger Mark Bralley. “Saint Pete” aside, this piece really gets across how long Bralley has been documenting politics and public affairs in New Mexico. I want to see the rest of those archives.
Looks like local radio reporter/blogger Peter St. Cyr is back. He had taken a hiatus for medical reasons for about a month. He posted a blog Tuesday with the list of where we can expect the federal economic stimulus money to be allocated in New Mexico.
John Fleck is keeping an eye on the “brackish water rush.” Predictably, as the state moves in the direction of regulating the vast amount of brackish water believed to exist in New Mexico, private interests are rushing to file claims to the water. Brackish water needs to be desalinated in order to be used for human consumption, and that’s very expensive. But given the water scarcity that already exists in the Southwest, many think the use of brackish water is definitely in our future.
