Obama in Albany on Friday:  We just got word this morning that Senator Barack Obama will be at the Albany Fairgrounds today, Friday, at 3:30 PM, doors open at 1:45 p.m.  Tickets required and are available from 9:00-12:00 today at the Corvallis downtown Obama Office (4th and Jefferson) or at the AMF Bowling Lanes at 1246 Clay St. in Albany.  Tickets are free, first come first served, 2 tickets per adult, limited seating available. They're almost gone, so hurry.

Clinton in Portland:  Join Rep. Sara Gelser at a fundraiser for Senator Clinton in Portland on May 16.  Tickets are going fast, and it would be great to have some Benton County folks at the event.  For more information about the event, ticket prices, and other ways to help Hillary please contact Sara at sgelser@yahoo.com.

DEFAZIO TO SPREAK TO 8th GRADE STUDENTS, EUGENE REALTORS, ATTEND MOBILITY INTERNATION EVENT, TOUR U OF O MUSEUM, DISCUSS LANE TRANSIT SYSTEM

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden recently addressed the American Health Insurance Providers (AHIP) conference. The American Prospect's Ezra Klein reports on Wyden's address, and does a wonderful job of illustrating Ron Wyden's unique approach to persuasion, as well as the essential choice that Wyden's Healthy Americans Act offers to the insurance industry. Well worth reading!

Update: Additional perspectives on the Healthy Americans Act.

Former Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber has endorsed Steve Novick in the primary to dethrone Senator Gordon Smith. Steve Novick, a lawyer and activist with a long history in Oregon politics, is competing with Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley for the Democratic nomination for Senate.

Steve Novick for Senate website
Jeff Merkley for Senate website

Here's a great article on Barack Obama’s rhetorical strategy of redefining liberal values as mainstream values, and refusing to be put in the liberal “box”. The article points out that not only is this a successful way to appeal to voters across the ideological spectrum, but it is also a powerful way to advance liberal issues and values.

But in the heart of a Democratic primary -- when bashing Republicans and acting partisan is in anyone's best interest -- Obama continues to push our values out to the majority. It's a brilliant move: Democratic goals and values aren't just liberal. They are American goals and values: ethical government, availability of health care and college, a common sense foriegn policy, and more.
Listen to his speeches. He constantly talks about his core liberal philosophy in a way that's appealing to non-liberals.

All democrats are welcome. Doors open at 6:30, Meeting starts at 7:00.

This is the second meeting for this group. All are welcome! Meeting at 5:30PM and should last about 30 minutes.

From the London Daily Mail:
25 Feb 2008
A "Doomsday" seed vault opens this week in the Arctic to preserve crops in the face of climate change, war and natural disasters.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is intended as a back-up to the network of seed banks around the world which store, grow and replenish thousands of varieties of crops.

From McClatchy Newspapers:
By Steven Thomma, February 10, 2008

RICHMOND, VA — They know things about presidents, the people of Virginia.

They gave birth to eight of them — more than any other state — including four of the starting five. They even hosted a rebel president — Jefferson Davis's Confederate White House was in Richmond.

They also know racial politics. The state that served as the capital of the confederacy, which saw its rolling countryside scarred by Civil War battles, went on more than a century later to elect the nation's first black governor, Doug Wilder in 1989.

From the New York Times:
By PATRICK HEALY, February 6, 2008

Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama carved up the nation in the 22-state nominating contest on Tuesday, leaving the Democratic presidential nomination more elusive than ever. Mrs. Clinton won California, Massachusetts, New Jersey and her home state, New York, while Mr. Obama took Connecticut, Georgia, Minnesota and his base in Illinois.

From the Financial Times:
By Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson in Davos,January 25 2008
Businesses are doing too little to tackle a looming water crisis, Ban Ki-Moon warned the World Economic Forum on Thursday, describing their response to a UN water sustainability initiative as “a drop in the bucket”.

Water has displaced climate change as Davos delegates’ chief worry outside the US economy, with no fewer than nine water-related events on the programme, compared with just one last year.

A "must see" YouTube video (quick to load):
One Day = $720 Million

From The Christian Science Monitor:
Even as some states are mandating ethanol as part of the fuel mix, new research suggests that some biofuels are less ecofriendly than they seem.
By Brad Knickerbocker, January 17, 2008

Creating fuel from plants seems like a win-win proposition. It reduces dependence on foreign oil, and it doesn't produce the greenhouse gases that cause global warming – at least that's what advocates claim. But biofuels are not without their critics.

Some recent research suggests bio fuels could have a greater environmental impact – biodiversity loss, destruction of farmland, and the energy necessary to produce them, for example – than burning fossil fuels, reports The Guardian, a British daily.