Quick Hits

Another day with way too much stuff going on. Let me try some ten-second opining:

• As news like this continues to come out, we'll see the environment become a much bigger issue in the coming weeks and months.

Britons face the prospect of a welter of new green taxes to tackle climate change, as the most authoritative report on global warming warns it will cost the world up to £3.68 trillion unless it is tackled within a decade.

The review by Sir Nicholas Stern, commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and published tomorrow, marks a crucial point in the debate by underlining how failure to act would trigger a catastrophic global recession. Unchecked climate change would turn 200 million people into refugees, the largest migration in modern history, as their homes succumbed to drought or flood.

I'm actually a little disappointed that Britain is seeing this as simply a tax issue, when there are so many things people can do to reduce their carbon footprint. And holding corporations to account for their pollution and increase in greenhouse gases seems to me the smarter policy rather than burdening working people.

• Another thing we're seeing become more and more of an election issue is the problems of electronic voting.

After a week of early voting, a handful of glitches with electronic voting machines have drawn the ire of voters, reassurances from elections supervisors -- and a caution against the careless casting of ballots.

Several South Florida voters say the choices they touched on the electronic screens were not the ones that appeared on the review screen -- the final voting step [...]

Debra A. Reed voted with her boss on Wednesday at African-American Research Library and Cultural Center near Fort Lauderdale. Her vote went smoothly, but boss Gary Rudolf called her over to look at what was happening on his machine. He touched the screen for gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis, a Democrat, but the review screen repeatedly registered the Republican, Charlie Crist.

That's exactly the kind of problem that sends conspiracy theorists into high gear -- especially in South Florida, where a history of problems at the polls have made voters particularly skittish.

Why is it a conspiracy theory to point out that every time a story like this comes out, the vote-switching occurs to the benefit of the Republican? By the way, Lou Dobbs et al are jumping on this story about a voting machine company sold to a group linked to Hugo Chavez. Whatever it takes to get all of the voting machines out of the electoral process, but this seems like a total nonstarter, and in fact a way for Republicans to turn the tables and argue that Democrats stole the election (or maybe to discourage turnout on all sides by having everyone assume that voting is fixed).

• CA-11: Dick Pombo is now the beneficiary of $1.3 million in Republican largesse, and environmental groups are using manpower to counter that.

• TN-SEN: Similarly, in Tennessee, Democratic mobilization of higher turnout is turning heads. Karl Rove is not the only person in politics with a turnout strategy, and the Democratic one is based on capturing "drop-off" voters, people who only vote in Presidential elections. I've seen this become the focus in my local GOTV operations as well.

• CA-50: Is Brian Bilbray under investigation or not? He clearly does not live in the same state in which he serves Congress. Bilbray's people are doing whatever they can to keep this investigation under wraps through the election.

• You can't cry to Johnny Law:

Former Bush administration official David Safavian wept as he asked for leniency in his obstruction of justice case Friday, telling a judge that his lobbyist friend Jack Abramoff manipulated him and drew him into the scandal.

Safavian, who was convicted in June of lying to investigators about his relationship with the lobbyist while Safavian was chief of staff in the General Services Administration. He helped provided Abramoff with details about GSA projects and offered advice on dealing with the agency.

He got 18 months in prison.

• Go Dave Lamberti!



• Cannot wait for the Borat movie:

Do you think a strong man like George Bush could sort out the problems of the Kazakh government?

"We in Kazakhstan admires very much George Walter Bush. He a very wise man and very strong - although perhaps not so strong as his father Barbara."

I'll probably be camping out at midnight Thursday to ensure a seat.