Elephant trampling down Obama's backyard

With a Brown victory in its rear view mirror, the GOPP (Grand Ol' Palin Party) is now attacking the Senate Seat that was once represented by President BOB.

While Chicago has been traditionally democratic, this is a Senate seat and the results of MA indicate that plenty of gullible or corrupt folks can tilt this election towards Palinsanity.

Republicans hope for another Senate victory, this time in Obama's Illinois: "Republicans hope for another Senate victory, this time in Obama's Illinois
By lois Romano
Sunday, January 31, 2010; A03

CHICAGO -- Not a good week for the Democrats here trying to hang on to President Obama's old Senate seat.

The party's leading contender -- state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias -- has spent these last precious days before Tuesday's primary scrambling to explain why regulators have targeted his struggling family bank for greater oversight. Giannoulias, once a senior lending officer at Broadway Bank, is being pressed relentlessly by his Democratic rivals and the media about his role in the bank's woes.

Republicans promise that it is not a topic that will go away.

The Senate race in the president's home state will be among the most symbolically important and expensive races in the country this year. After Republican Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts this month, the GOP sees a clear path to victory in this Democratic state -- and his name is Mark Kirk.

Kirk, 50, a moderate five-term Republican House member, appears to be the man of the moment. As the likely GOP nominee to emerge Tuesday, Kirk is seen as a formidable, well-funded candidate, a Navy Reserve officer who has done two tours in Afghanistan and who can withstand the weight of a White House set to defeat him."

A Himalayan Problem

Our dad, a geologist who worked for GSI, used to describe the formation of the Himalayan mountain range to us. He explained the tectonic shifts and how the geologists concluded that it was formed by the collision of the tectonic plates underneath the oceanfloor.

There was an interesting piece in Discovery News on this topic.

India is Sinking into Earth's Mantle : Discovery News: "India is Sinking into Earth's Mantle
By Michael Reilly | Sat Jan 30, 2010 03:19 PM ET
Fun fact for you: scientists don't really know how the Himalayas formed. I mean yeah, they realize that the India tectonic plate is slamming into the Eurasia plate and has been for about 50 million years, but the mystery is why the mountain range is still growing. Usually when two continents collide it's like a car wreck -- there may be a bunch of mangled crust in the middle (mountains), but both vehicles stop moving.

Turns out, India appears to be sinking into the mantle. A new study based on computer models of the two plates shows that the formation and continued growth of the world's highest mountain range makes the most sense if a dense piece of India is down in the mantle, dragging the rest of the continent down with it.

That may not sound so weird but continents are buoyant; they're supposed to float, not sink. All the subduction you hear about all over the world is dense ocean crust sinking underneath continents. Except in the Himalayas. It's as though two cars collided, and one started to sink into the pavement."

$64 Billion, and more for Building America.

Obama Will Seek to Make 'Build America' Bonds Permanent - WSJ.com: "President Obama will ask Congress to make permanent a temporary bond program to help state and local governments finance projects, as they continue to struggle with budget deficits during the recession.

State and local governments issued more than $64 billion in so-called Build America Bonds in 2009, after Congress created the program as part of last year's economic-stimulus program. Under the current arrangement, they would lose the ability to issue such bonds after this year."

A Network's Candidate - social network's, that is.

"The Citizens' Candidate" - Grassroots Effort Uses Craigslist to Find Candidate For Utah House Seat: "AMY GOODMAN: Craigslist to choose a congressional candidate? Well that is exactly what a Progressive Coalition has resorted to here in Utah to unseat the Blue Dog Democratic incumbent Jim Matheson. The initiative is using Craigslist to find applicants willing to run. A final candidate it will be chosen through public interviews at the Salt Lake City, Library on Saturday." The citizens candidate initiative, as its called, was co-founded by Tim DeChristopher. He first made headlines back in December of 2008 as University of Utah student, when he disrupted the Bush administration/minute move to auction off oil and gas exploitation rights on 150,000 acres of federal land in Utah. Tim was arrested after he posed as a bidder and bought 22,000 acres of land in an attempt to save the property from drilling. He’s currently facing 10 years in prison on charges of interfering with the public auction..."