Closed mouths, thin skins at CABPRO

I have questions about Nevada County's antiregulation lobbying group CABPRO; I haven't been able to get answers via phone to the CABPRO office, via phone to executive director Martin Light, or via phone to founder Kim Janousek.

So I left a comment over on Russ Steele's Aug 10 post on the CABPRO blog:

Russ, how do I get in touch with someone from CABPRO, please?

Posted by: Anna Haynes August 12, 2010 at 12:24 PM

It didn't survive moderation.

Save the Air in Nevada County?

Can someone clue me in, as to what's up with this organization?

Its home page has a "Donate" button & says "Please Help our Education and Research Efforts – Tax Deductible 501 (c)(3)"

So I went looking for its IRS Form 990s on Guidestar, but couldn't find the org. there; checked the IRS "search for charities", couldn't find it there; checked a listing of Nevada County nonprofits, couldn't find it there.

At the time of posting , phone calls to their "Media Relations" people had not yet been returned, and nor had the previous day's inquiry to a founder; but see comments for update.

I'm sure the answer is simple and aboveboard, but I'd like to know what it is.

Cups are flying, over at the Tea Party (as of Aug 1)

This is just a heads-up, to those who might otherwise have missed it (and who care to attend these things) - in the comments on this post at Rebane's blog, there's internecine warfare and shattered porcelain all over.
Names invoked: Mandy Morello, Laura Boatright, Larry Naritelli, Dave Kern, Stan Meckler, Mark Meckler...
(h/t Jeff Pelline, or one of his commenters)

That is all.

NevCo Transportation Commission, meet SeeClickFix - Pedestrian Improvement Study Funded for County

$65,000?
The $64,000 question is, why not save [many of] our tax dollars & use SeeClickFix?

This week: Use a climate band-aid, open a can of worms - ounce prevention best

Three links.

1. Three new studies illustrate significant risks and complications with geoengineering climate

Engaging climate contrarians on the science - An experiment

This post - and project - is an exploration into taking a different, "nitty gritty science" path, looking into the science cited as supporting some contrarian climate science claims. The purpose is to see what we find on the journey, and to compare the efficiency & the outcome of two approaches: the "look at the [purported] science" approach, and the "CEO using science" one.

Health of our banks & credit unions, from Mar 2010

Here's how our banks and credit unions (ones that have branches here) rated on their Troubled Asset ratios in March, compared to each other and to the median bank and credit union values.

Another regret, in brief - the spouse, albeit business partner

Having already posted one regret today, might as well add a more recent one - I no longer think my having called out local climate-change denier Russ Steele's spouse and business partner was fair [... (2012-01-09 update)]

Apologies, E.S.
(but do please inform yourself on the topic; not for me, for yourself, since anyone with a child has a stake in the future.)

Regrets

(I can't add this comment over at Grist where it belongs, so, here it is...)

"The traits of engineers that get them into the most trouble... is that they approach stress in "fix-it" mode and go off half-cocked." - Bruce Salem, 2008

20-20 hindsight is better than nothing, but I sure wish I could have thought ahead.

Distinctions - Science, policy, politics

For local consumption.
Talking with a friend this morning (thanks, friend!), I think the human tendency toward dualism might have sent us talking past each other. Here's how I see the distinctions between science, policy and politics:

Future K-12 Ed. - Despite murky evidence it's effective, Engineering gets near-equal footing with Science in Draft Framework

New Warming101 blog post.

NAS Draft Science (&T&E) Standards Framework, on climate: better than current state science standards...

New Warming101 blog post.

Yo, economic fearmongers - British Columbia's carbon tax looks like success

Interesting article here - B.C.'s carbon tax is looking like a winner.

This week: Warmest decade on record, record heat waves worldwide, crashing plankton from GW, video on evidence - and you don't know the consensus

(New NCFocus feature - rather than giving you (or sending you to) my daily firehose or H.E. Taylor's weekly one, I'll be doing a weekly post linking to some of the news on global climate destabilization.)

Sac N&R: big legal mess if "Big Oil’s ballot attack" succeeds

From the July 22 Sacramento News & Review issue comes an in-depth look at likely consequences of November's "Stop AB32" initiative, AB23 - titled "Don’t panic", it suggests that if you're a lawyer, good times could be coming.

"Instead of saving the economy from overzealous environmental regulation, the measure [AB23, to stop 2006's AB32] is more likely to spawn lawsuits and confusion—and send a message to clean-tech investors that California can’t make up its mind."

"Backers of the initiative agree that much of Prop. 23’s impact will be sorted out in the courts. [Dan] Logue said even he isn’t sure which pieces would be scrapped by the new law and which would be left unscathed.
“It’s a good question,” said Logue. “I think there’s going to be a lot of legislation that’s going to be tested in the courts.”"

A thorough article; recommended reading.