Ted Kennedy

Dead at 77.

Addendum: Sen. Byrd is calling for the health reform bill to be named after Kennedy.  Does that mean he’ll support the public option as Kennedy did?  Byrd’s been silent up until now.

The Boston Globe has an history of Kennedy’s life, with a video.

Second addendum: Legislation is pending to allow the Massachusset’s governor to appoint an interim “caretaker” senator to ensure representation until the election.  A name being tossed around is Michael Dukakis.

Coburn the Clueless

I don’t even know what to say.  The level of callousness and cynicism is simply disgusting.

Did I err?

A few days ago I posted about the supervisors’ approval of a plan for inclusionary zoning (the details of which I guess are still in flux from the reading of Daniel Mintz’ article in this week’s Independent).  In the post I praised Clif’s vote and told you that it was one of the issues over which I had disagreed with Estelle during the campaign.  But Mintz closes out with a paragraph dedicated to her which suggests that maybe she supports some form of I.Z. at this time.  I’m not sure actually, and I intend to clarify it with her next time I see her.

The article ends with a comment from Bonnie Blackberry and Estelle, the former not objecting to the substance of the proposal, but to a process which she states has excluded input from rural residents.  The final paragraph:

Estelle Fennell of the Humboldt Coalition for Property Rights said a focus on building out urban areas restricts other choices.  “We want to be assured that there will be ample housing opportunities in the rural areas, ” she told supervisors.  “It’s important to plan the urban areas properly, but it’s also important to understand that there are a lot of people for whom living in rural areas is a sacred desire.”

Is she proposing an IZ in some form in rural areas?  I’m not sure how it would work, but I’m intrigued by the idea.

It may be that she was speaking to something besides IZ altogether, but Mintz concluded his article with it so I have to assume that there’s some IZ context.

Did VP Cheney get caught in a serious fib?

Seems so, although to be fair about half of the text in the report has been redacted presumably to keep the worst stuff under wraps.

Addendum: Cheney’s spinning wildly and some of the media is falling over itself to help him out.

Humboldt County may have had its first swine flu death

But before you panic, she had other health issues as well which probably contributed.

Still, the announcement of the first confirmed intra-county case earlier in the year raised some questions.  They declined to give the woman’s name nor the community in which she lived in the interests of her privacy.  I have no problem with keeping the names private, but I question whether the health department had the right to keep the community which may have been exposed a secret.  On the other hand, you don’t want a policy which discourages people from coming in for treatment, though I can’t imagine that the prospect of a public announcement that a Redway man had the flu would deter me.  But then, quite frankly I would have no problem releasing my name either so everyone who came in contact with me would consider getting themselves checked out.

But really, at least so far, the strain is actually less dangerous than other “normal” strains being passed around.  And arguably, we have more to fear from the fear than the object feared.

Cold comfort for the friends and family of this one woman however.  Keep them in your thoughts, not the fear.