Climb a mountain. Ask a guru. Etc.

See, here, here, here, and here.

HEALTHCARE REFORM: "Our growing costs are unsustainable," he said, "and the plight of the uninsured is unconscionable."

Click to enlarge the opening screenshot, and link here, to read the entire International Herald Tribune story.

With world population to exceed 9 billion by 2050 — three times 1960's level — slowing population is needed for climate protection.

Google News linked to this AP report [photos added]:

Population growth contributes to emissions growth
By MICHAEL CASEY – 2 days ago

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — Few doubt the world's booming population contributes to rising carbon emissions.

But as a U.N. climate conference in Poznan, Poland considers how to reduce heat-trapping, greenhouse gases, the talk is all about setting emissions targets and funding renewable energy projects. Stabilizing population is not even on the table.

"Population is the unmentioned elephant in the living room when it comes to climate change," said Bill Ryerson, president and founder of the Vermont-based Population Media Center.

U.N. officials contend that pushing policies on population growth could undermine already difficult negotiations that are fraught with finger pointing between rich and poor nations over who is to blame for global warming.

The developing world would oppose introducing population into the mix on the grounds that it would hold them accountable for a problem they blame on the West. The Vatican along with Catholic and Muslim countries, meanwhile, are opposed over fears population policies would increase support for abortion and birth control.

"A lot of people say population pressure is a major driving force behind the increase in emissions, and that's absolutely true," the U.N.'s top climate official Yvo de Boer said. "But to then say 'OK, that means that we need to have a population policy that reduces emissions,' takes you onto shaky ground morally."

With the world's population expected to reach more than 9 billion by 2050 — three times what it was in 1960 — researchers argue that slowing population would make it easier to solve the climate crisis.

Understanding the role population plays, they contend, would also allow countries to develop policies to reduce their carbon footprint as well as protect citizens from the rising seas and worsening storms associated with global warming.

"If we don't address the population issue and population continues to grow the way it is, ... we will fail to solve the climate crisis," Ryerson said.

Brian O'Neill, a population expert with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said there is substantial evidence showing a strong correlation between a country's economic growth and its emissions.

"Slowing population growth as best we know now will substantially reduce emissions and it will make society better able to cope with climate change and it will improve the well being of people more broadly," O'Neill said.

O'Neill and others also said it's not only the sheer numbers of people that mattered. He and his colleagues released findings this year that found urbanization in China and India could result in increased emissions of as much as 70 percent by 2100 while aging in the United States could contribute to as much as a 40 percent decline. Smaller household sizes also have led to increased emissions.

However, other researchers argue using population policies to address climate change is shortsighted and would lead to coercive family planning policies like the one-child policy in China.

"The countries that have relatively high population growth like Africa tend to have the smallest carbon footprint," said Betsy Hartmann, director of the population and development program at Hampshire College in Massachusetts. "It really doesn't make sense to think that reducing family size is going to reduce global warming. Family sizes are already coming down."

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said addressing population growth must also consider a country's consumption rates — a reference to the fact that India's per capita emissions are a 15th that of the United States and China's one-sixth.

He didn't expect climate negotiators to take up the issue of population in Poznan or next year in Copenhagen, Denmark.

"It is for country to decide how to limit growth whether you reduce consumption levels, use more renewable energy," Pachauri said. "It's really a national decision. It is very difficult to provide for something like this in a multilateral agreement."

Even if it doesn't come up in Poznan, the Worldwatch Institute's Robert Engelman said policies to slow population growth will eventually find their way into the climate toolbox for many countries.

Laurie Coleman - employee of Hays Company as Sen. Coleman reported, or an independent contractor?

First question - the headline question: Something for the FBI to ask - inspired by the comments to a MinnPost online item. There the apologists for the Coleman stonewall talked about disclosure constraints that could be at play barring an employee's disclosure of an employer's trade information. That raises the question of what Laurie Coleman's status was. Did she work regular hours, per a schedule set by Hays Companies, or did she come and go as she pleased; and did she draw a salary, or invoice on some contractual basis and have her invoices paid, as an independent contractor would? Those are questions, since, if an independent contractor, she could show the public her invoicing records and business banking records, if any, without any compromise to Hays Companies business, nor any grounds for Hays to object.

If she's an independent contractor as Hays claims, it's her business, not theirs. She can disclose. The primary thing stopping that from an independent contractor, would be the will of the contractor and her spouse.

Two Putt Tommy had the link referencing Coleman Senate disclosure forms, where the Senator, a seasoned lawyer knowing the nuances, wrote "salary" which is something an employee gets, not an independent contractor; yet Hays is in record calling Ms. C. an independent contractor; e.g., see here and here (this last link raising the very status question raised here and now but not in the context of any unhindered right to disclose exculpatory information, if any, or a lesser right of an employee if the information is an employer's to release or hold private). Indicia of status as an employee or independent contractor are analyzed in unemployment insurance cases where employees can seek benefits but contractors cannot; see, e.g., here and here. Washington Times this past Thrusday, reported:

According to records, the Coleman payments were sought on invoices mailed by Hays to DMT in May, June and September 2007. The invoices listed an overnight delivery address and an account number for wire transfers.

Hays Executive Vice President Michael Prins was named in the documents as the "producer," or the broker. Mr. Prins has contributed more than $27,000 to Republicans since 2000, including $4,500 to Mr. Coleman, according to FEC records. James C. Hays, the insurance company's founder, donated $15,850 to Mr. Coleman and his campaign committees since 2002, according to FEC records.

In a statement, the firm called the accusations "libelous and defamatory." It said the payments went for risk-management consulting services and denied any of it went to Mrs. Coleman, whom the company described as an independent contractor.

The Colemans have declined to release information showing Mrs. Coleman's earnings at Hays or any documents listing her duties.

The question of suitable public disclosure, and the motive to self-exonerate if the evidence supports such exoneration, was discussed by Eric Black, quoted at length and linked to, here.

Second question: Is this house worth issuing a three-quarters-of-a-million mortgage absent it being owned by a Senator that a banker might want to gratuitously benefit; for business or personal purposes (i.e., a reportable gift, if more is lent on the home as security without personal recourse or collateral, than it would ever be worth). Have a look at the picture that MinnPost provides, here - click to enlarge the screenshot:



_________UPDATE_________
I cannot find a general WaPo Senate disclosure report page, only the item Two Putt Tommy linked to, but there is this Open Secrets link, which gives reports in pdf form, current and for the recent past.

Best coverage of what the canvassing board's recent meeting did, live blogging MPR Polinaut, without attempt at analysis of relative advantages.

Here. It is time progression of the meeting events, starting at the bottom, up.

No "Al won" or "Norm won" or this thing favors that person, none of that, just events as they happened, lawyers going unquoted. Enough ballots to swamp the gap, challenged and "should have been counted but wrongly rejected absentee" categories; but to beat the gap the Franken margin on those would have to be quite favorable.

But what of all those "correctly" rejected absentee ballots. It is troubling that technicalities and deficiencies can disenfranchise a vote. Surely people should not screw up, and be mistake free, but in the real world it is not always the case.

I see arguable grounds for the Senate to say no sufficient showing of a victor, with a refusal to seat either Franken or Coleman short of holding a runoff. The power seems there for the Senate to say that, they cannot order a runoff, but they can say if you in Minnesota want the seat occupied and the vote yours, it is what we'd require before seating anyone. Powerful suggestion, even if jurisdiction to order something is absent. There would be a runoff if that were the order. But could Barkley participate, i.e., hold a complete re-run, vs. a runoff, and what if that question were to be litigated?

Strib reports - Edina's comprehensive plan does not whore to developers or land owners wanting to cash out.

The article did not name the consultant Edina employed who some reportedly criticized, but it would not surprise me if the individual were Phil Carlson, of Bonestroo, the bad choice the existing sitting Ramsey council made here where I live.




In Edina they rejected density. Ramsey already played with it in the failed Town Center. Played like a child with matches.

We had one overly aggressive family wanting to cash out its cornfield then, and we currently have one aggressive family pushing to cash out more northerly land along County Highway 5, and each time we have had individual officials complicit in allowing the aggressiveness to be satisfied.

The Edina comp. plan, from what Strib has said looks good. Ours looks bounded only by the extent developer greed and the market will constrain it to not happen as badly and densely and disruptively as "planned."

The market will constrain Ramsey, not its decision makers, unless the new council acts differently.

Edina kept land from high density, for job growth instead, Strib reporting in part:

The council approved a comprehensive plan update that spurns urban-style solutions to Edina's affordable housing shortage.
By MARY JANE SMETANKA, Update: December 11, 2008 - 11:17 PM

After almost two years of community debate, Edina has approved a comprehensive plan update that rejects denser, more urban-style development as a way to rejuvenate the aging suburb filled with expensive single-family homes.

Dozens of public meetings, hard work by citizen volunteers and the guidance of a professional consultant steered Edina through one of the most deliberate and open comprehensive plan updates in the Twin Cities.

Yet, at the recent meeting where the City Council unanimously sent it on to the Metropolitan Council for review, the mood was decidedly sour, both among the council members and the audience.

Before the council vote, Mayor Jim Hovland complained that the final plan "eviscerated" recommendations calling for more multi-story, affordable residential development, which he said was key to luring younger people into the city.

"To me, this plan does not reflect the majority opinion of this council. It is a document fashioned to satisfy the requirements of the Met Council," Hovland said. "It doesn't reflect my vision, frankly, and I don't think it reflects the vision of many other people in this town. It just reflects the vision of those who chose to show up."

[City Council Member Joni] Bennett and fellow Council Member Linda Masica, who is leaving the council next year, were determined that the plan should reflect what they saw as the overwhelming sentiment among residents against dense development. The plan couldn't pass with their opposition.

Drafts of the plan had included a proposed new high-rise residential neighborhood of buildings up to 16 stories high in the now-industrial area between Cahill Road, the Bloomington border and Hwy. 100. Taller buildings were proposed in other areas of the city, too, and affordable housing goals included about 500 new rental or owner-occupied units.

The proposal for "Cahill Gardens" vanished when the council decided that existing light industry there was thriving and providing a good mix of jobs. Proposed building heights were dropped in other neighborhoods, and the goal for affordable housing dropped to 212 units -- the number the Met Council had suggested for Edina.

After facing a barrage of criticism last spring from residents who didn't like proposals for density and high-rises, the council, in its final meeting about the plan, faced people like Sharon Ming, a member of the housing task force that met 40 times over two years.

"I don't know why you created that public process and then ignored it," Ming said. She said the plan "has a lot of history, a lot of words, and very little vision, very little strategy, very few ideas about what this city needs to do."

John Bohan, a retired Pillsbury Co. vice president, disagreed.

"The original draft was a reflection of the vision of the consultant, whose focus was largely urban development," he said. "I went to many of the public meetings, and to say this doesn't reflect public sentiment is incorrect. I applaud the council for its work."

Unlike Edina, Ramsey did not have a professional consultant, we had Phil Carlson who posed as one but to me the essence of professionalism is to not produce a flawed final product exceeding Met Council imposed growth quotas, which Ramsey has done, working with Phil and with Phil working with the Hunt family. In Ramsey where most existing older housing on large lots is affordable but not densely packed, affordability is not an issue, crowding is, and having an as-usual over-optimistic expansionist "forecast" of growth from Met. Council, the people on staff and at the council table in Ramsey were unsatisfied and planned for more than Met. Council imposed on the community, to absorb and deal with. More! Not less. More!

Phil Carlson, I would not have the man plan a dog house, after seeing him at work.

Ramsey, the home of the Kurak-Gamec-Nedegaard-Elvig Town Center fiasco, should salute Edina, and learn from it how to be wise instead of being Ramsey.

______UPDATE_________
To give some idea of how these Bonestroo people operate, learning who they really are by how they operate, they did some kind of a "water study" of Ramsey that must have been clearly deficient, since Met. Council has wrestled extensively with the situation in intervening time (see especially the UPDATE info). I don't know if they're ashamed of the quality of their past Bonestroo work product, but they scrubbed their website of mention of it, where they'd previously touted the Bonestro Ramsey water study, this link:

http://www.bonestroo.com/water_study_ramsey.asp


Now, a page not found error. What's at play? How can I prove the page ever existed? That is something those Bonestroo folks might challenge. They might be that way, playing hardball at every turn.

As often is the case, the WayBack machine to the rescue, showing that they scrubbed the site some time between Jan. 18, 2008 and the present, for reasons they should tell us of since now we can only surmise.

For everyone's benefit, here is the preserved WayBack Machine screenshot [click to enlarge and read]



Scrubbing a website like that is a quite shabby thing, in my view. What do YOU think?

I now publicly challenge the Bonestroo people to defend their scrubbing of their website of their Ramsey water study page. I shall send them an email linking to this post, issuing exactly that challenge.

What do YOU expect to see from that?

A defamation lawsuit?

Truth would always be a defense to that. Let them sue.

I will go a step further. I hope the new council will investigate who contracted for that Bonestroo water study, when, at what price, who were the individuals involved on each side, and how did that play into that sorry firm being selected to consult on the Ramsey 2008 Comprehensive Plan and to perform as they did. It's overdue.

How was Phil Carlson chosen? What traits or talents did he offer to get the contract?

Do Coleman cash flow needs now being reported add fuel to the fire?

David Brauer, MinnPost Daily Glean, reports a cost over run for the Coleman home remodel.

Norm Coleman had a home remodeling project go $86,000 over budget just as Nasser Kazeminy allegedly tried to convey $100,000 to Norm's wife through her employer. Coleman's office provided an accounting of the $414,000 project that showed a supporter who coordinated the deal was paid $33,000. The senator remortgaged his home for $775,000 and admits he owes more than it's now worth, but otherwise wouldn't comment.

More Norm home: There are two suits but no proof Kazeminy tried to get the money to Coleman; no proof Coleman knew or profited from that scheme if it existed, and no evidence that anything illegal happened with the home project. Still, that's a big mortgage for a guy making $180,000, whose wife has a part-time job, and whose retirement/investment accounts are under $600,000.

Brauer credits Fox's Tom Lyden with breaking the story.

HufPo ran the story, again crediting the Fox/Leyden effort.

MinnPost seems to have the gist, gossip free, while Fox further reports:

The FBI is now reportedly investigating the allegations that Nasser Kazeminy tried to funnel $75,000 in campaign contributions through the Senator's wife. By why would a U.S. Senator, who makes about $180,000 a year, need the money?

Norm Coleman's home in St. Paul's Crocus Hill neighborhood is not lavish -- but it's a lot nicer than it used to be, thanks in part to contractor Jim Taylors, who helped remodel the home two years ago.

"Put in a second floor master bedroom/bathroom, the bedroom was there, we just added a bathroom and closet and a kitchen remodel, actually turned into half the house remodel by the time we painted and refinished floors and did some landscape work," says Taylors.

The remodeled kitchen was the backdrop for some of the Senator's campaign commercials. FOX 9 learned the woman in charge of the project was Shari Wilsey, an interior designer. Wilsey, along with her husband Roger, are longtime friends of the Coleman's and financial contributors to the Senator's campaigns.

The Wilsey's even hosted a fundraiser for Senator Coleman during the Republican National Convention at their Summit Ave mansion, just blocks from the Coleman's.

Two lawsuits allege that in spring of 2007, Edina businessman Nasser Kazeminy began a series of $25,000 payments to Coleman from Deep Marine Technology, a company he controlled in Texas, to Hays Companies, the Minnesota Insurance company where Laurie Coleman works.

Senator Coleman is not a party to the lawsuits -- denying any wrongdoing. "My wife has been devastated, impugning her integrity, the allegations are false and defamatory," he says.

But government ethics professor David Schultz says tough questions are fair game, when serious financial allegations are made involving a United States senator.

"It speaks to first, in terms of credibility, in terms of what Norm Coleman has to say in responding to allegations. Second it speaks to the whole sense of motive, motive in terms of why he at this point might be trying to raise money," says Schultz.

While Coleman didn't agree to sit down for a interview, his campaign did agree to share billing records of the remodeling project. Original projections in 2006 estimated a cost of $328,000, but four months later, the construction cost was estimated at $414,000, over-budget by $86,000.

During that time is when, the lawsuit alleges, Kazeminy was trying to get money to Coleman.

According to the lawsuits, in March of 2007, Kazeminy said that "U.S. Senators don't make s---" and he was going to try to find a way to get money to Coleman.

"On the one level it could just be a coincidence, on the other level this could be one of the reasons he's getting that money from elsewhere, to try to make up for his, to be able to pay off a loan, pay off a line of credit," says Schultz.

Records provided by the campaign show that Coleman paid Wilsey in full for the renovation -- $414,000. In part, by refinancing his home in March 2007, for $775,000.

The Senator acknowledges, that like a lot of people in America, he now owes more on his home than it's actually worth.

What we know is this: the Senator had costly and over-budget renovations to his home at the same time a contributer was allegedly trying to funnel him money. But he's still criticized for walking away from reporters, while the questions aren't going away.

The original Oct. 6, 2008 Harper's story on the Senator's DC row house basement housing mere blocks from his work place, said this [emphasis added]:

In July 2007, Coleman began paying Larson $600 a month in rent for a portion of a one-bedroom basement apartment in a Capitol Hill town house… Earlier this month, after National Journal questioned Coleman and Larson about the living arrangement, the senator said he discovered that his rent for last November and January had not been paid. In mid-June, Coleman covered the back rent with a personal check for $1,200 made out to Larson and signed by the senator’s wife. Last year, Coleman sold furniture to Larson to cover one month’s rent, according to Larson. And Larson held on to yet another month’s rent check for three months, cashing it a few days after NJ’s inquiries.

Why the Senator would not sign and tender his own check, rather than it being issued by Laurie Coleman, is unclear. The present HufPo story murkily discusses timing, the remodel, the Kazeminy firm's checks to Hays, so that it is unclear on timing, as to how the Laurie Coleman check for the DC rent fits in, time wise, with money alleged to have been routed with intent to benefit the Senator indirectly or directly.

Also, whether Laurie Coleman issuing checks is the household norm, or unusual for the covering of the DC rent instance, is something only the Colemans, and their banking records, can answer.

________UPDATE________
This story seems to be growing legs. There is all this, Google News, where the question of just who or what the FBI is investigating is being obscured, and the extreme makeover of the Coleman home has been humorously characterized:

Lest you should think that Rod Blagojevich is alone in his greed and venality, don’t be deceived. It looks like Senator Norm Coleman up there in the north country was doing a little home renovation on the public dole, very similar to Ted Stevens of Alaska. I guess their cabins just needed a little extra insulation and the senators figured that the taxpayers would want them to be warm and comfy.

Minn Independent [Chris Steller 12/12/08 3:15 PM report posting online] has this photo of the remodeled kitchen, and a transcript of the Fox story, plus a link ostensibly to a "building permit" which instead is to Ramsey County property assessment info:




[I have not verified tax parcel number or address as tied for certain to the Colemans]; and the numbers do not fit with a mortgage refi for $150,000 above assessed value if assessed value is purported to be any approximation of fair market value - and that goes for the before-&-after remodel assessed value, and with the "value" of the "improvements" curiously underassessed by quite a substantial amount below reported cost - is this an illegal undisclosed "gift" to the Senator from folks in the assessor's office, or merely conservative assessment practices at play - he was the mayor, after all, now the Senator, so why would they overassess? Still, assessed improvements of $139,900 is just over 30% of the reported actual cost of $414,000 and that's simply stageringly inexplicable except as an intended gift rather than error or conservative practice. Am I wrong? Is there a Ramsey County assessor's officer person willing to explain this in a comment? It just looks dead wrong and suspicious to me.

As I read more of the writings I may further update the post if anything truly novel surfaces. More same old, same old, may be in a string listing, or wholly ignored. Any reader effort on finding a novel detail or two, and taking time to post a comment, would be appreciated.