Where is James Carville when you need him? 

Finally, Obama is taking a line from Clinton’s playbook.

Santo Politi has a great post up today titled Election 2008 and Price of Crude.  We were in a meeting together today and he mentioned it (but didn’t mention the content.)  Santo’s cynicism is right on the money as well as his concerns.  It’s definitely worth a read.

I’m speechless.  I don’t think I even know how to process this anymore. 

One of the big topics that came up on the panel I was on today at the DNC was the issue surrounding the labor supply in the US in computer science and IT.  There is a growing shortage of software engineers in the US that is getting worse as every year passes.  I’ve talked about this in the past as my main motivation for being involved in the National Center for Women & Information Technology as one of the ways to build the long term labor pipeline is to encourage more women and girls to get involved in careers in computer science and IT.

I think the Bush administration has completely missed the boat when it comes to dealing with temporary work visas and permanent residency for high tech software / IT workers.  This issue has come up repeatedly over the past few years as large software and technology companies have finally weighed in to try to impact some of our inane policies.

I think the solution to the problem is really simple.  The US should grant permanent residency to anyone who graduates from a qualified four year university with a computer science degree.  If you are concerned about people gaming the system, you can start out by limiting it to people that receive a post-graduate degree.  Of course, you can easily extend this beyond computer science (e.g. physics, chemistry, etc.)

When I was an undergraduate at MIT, a meaningful percentage of the student body was from other countries.  It never even occurred to me that these folks were "different" and didn’t "belong in our country."  Some of my best friends in college weren’t US citizens and I was baffled by the hoops they had to jump through even back then to work in the US.  In the past eight years, this has gotten dramatically worse and it’s time we got in front of this.

Everyone on the panel seemed to agree that this was a huge issue surrounding innovation in the US over the long term.  Most people seemed to agree that this was a simple solution that would not require a huge bureaucracy to administer.  With your diploma, you get permanent residence status. 

I don’t understand why there would be any rational resistance to something like this – after all, wasn’t the United States built on immigrants?

I’m having my half day DNC experience this morning.  At 10am I’m on a panel creatively titled 2008 Technology Roundtable.  It’s limited attendee (200 people at the Ricketson Theater) but appears to being broadcast live on the web.

It’s an interesting experience. I really didn’t want to deal with the traffic and people around the DNC, especially after running a marathon this weekend (and still being in a recovery phase), so I took advantage of my early wake up time and drove to downtown Boulder around 6:30.  I’m now sitting all alone in the breakfast room (green room equivalent) waiting for them to pull together the coffee service.  It’s kind of tranquil in a weird way.

My session (one of three) – titled "Promoting the Next Wave of Innovation" – covers the following:

The second session will address the question of what strategies that the federal government can use to promote technological development and innovation. In particular, it will evaluate what public policies can best spur capital formation and protect the U.S. advantage in that area; what educations reforms, particularly as to math and science education, can prepare a next generation of engineers and business persons; and what innovation policies, be they support for basic research or patent law reform can spur greater levels of technological development.

My co-panelists are John Seely Brown (Deloitte Center for Edge Innovation), Charlie Ergen (CEO – Echostar), Bill Kennard (Carlyle Group, Former Chairman FCC), Honorable Zoe Lofgren (Congresswoman – U.S. House of Representatives), Don Rosenberg (General Counsel and EVP – Qualcomm), and David Thompson (Group President of Information Technology and Services – Symantec). 

It’ll either be really interesting or really dull.  I’ll work on "interesting" but I’ve been told "no swearing."

I have no idea where this joke came from, but I couldn’t resist posting it because it combined Alaska, Massachusetts, Democrats, Republicans, Guns, the Pope, and a Grizzly Bear.

The Pope took a couple of days off to visit the rugged mountains of Alaska for some sightseeing. He was cruising along the campground in the PopeMobile when there was a frantic commotion just at the edge of the woods.

A helpless Democrat, wearing sandals, shorts, a ‘Save the Whales’ hat and a ‘To Hell with Bush’ T-shirt, was screaming while struggling frantically and thrashing around trying to free himself from the grasp of a 10-foot grizzly.

As the Pope watched in horror, a group of Republican loggers came racing up. One quickly fired a 44 magnum into the bear’s chest. The other two reached up and pulled the bleeding, semiconscious Democrat from the bear’s grasp. Then using long clubs, the three loggers finished off the bear and two of them threw it onto the bed of their truck while the other tenderly placed the injured Democrat in the back seat.

As they prepared to leave, the Pope summoned them to come over. ‘I give you my blessing for your brave actions!’ he told them. ‘I heard there was a bitter hatred between Republican loggers and Democratic environmental activists but now I’ve seen with my own eyes that this is not true.’

As the Pope drove off, one logger asked his buddies ‘Who was that guy?’

‘It was the Pope,’ another replied. ‘He’s in direct contact with Heaven and has access to all wisdom.

‘Well,’ the logger said, ‘he may have access to all wisdom but he doesn’t know squat about bear hunting! By the way, is the bait still alive, or do we need to go back to Massachusetts and get another one?’

Did anyone mention that the DNC is happening in Denver next week?  Egads.

My Sunday morning online scan of the New York Times turned up an awesome Op-Ed by Frank Rich titled It’s the Economic Stupidity, Stupid.  It’s a scathing (er – "fucking brutal") criticism of McCain and his total lack of understanding of "the economy", how it actually works, and what he would do about it were he to be president.

While Rich takes a few cheap shots (hey – it wouldn’t be a political Op-Ed without some gratuitous things) I think it’s right on the money.

At the end, Rich makes a good argument for Michael Bloomberg as the VP Candidate.  He also dismantles Carly Fiorina as a potential VP and suggests Romney would be a slightly less bad idea.  I can’t imagine either Fiorina or Romney as VP’s – my mind just boggles.  Bloomberg – now that’s someone I could get excited about – for EITHER party.  I hope the dude is at least answering his phone when it rings.

But the real message of the Op-Ed is how out to lunch McCain is on the economy.  Taken at face value, it’s terrifying.  Of course, it’s an Op-Ed so you can’t take it at face value, but it’s politics so that’s what you get.

Time to go for a run and think about birds, the ocean, and happy thoughts.  I’ll drink some Pixie Maté first to fuel me while giving thanks to my latest 50 by 50 Marathon sponsor.

I’m a huge believer in land conservation.  I believe one of the best ways to protect our environment is to take wide swaths of land permanently out of circulation.  I was delighted to read an article Amy forwarded me from the New York Times today titled Deal Is Struck in Montana to Preserve Forest Areas.

The Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land have put together a deal to pay $510 million to buy about 500 square miles of forest currently owned by Plum Creek Timber.  Half of the money will come from private donations; the other half will come from a new tax-credit bond mechanism that was recently passed.  I’m delighted our government is spending – via a tax-credit bond – $250 million on land conservation.  I’d like to allocate 50% of my taxes next year to stuff like that.

I’ve been involved directly in some land conservation; we have a conservation easement on all of our land in Eldorado Canyon, I am a trustee for the Colorado Conservation Trust, I’m a huge fan (and beneficiary) of all the Boulder and Boulder County Open Space activity, and I’ve been involved in several very contentious land use issues.  The political and economical dynamics of public property rights, land use and development rights, and conservation are incredibly complicated and often extremely polarized. 

It’s gets especially messy in areas that are fragmented (or "checkerboarded") like the land in Montana.  In these situations, the amount of work to figure out how to get all the land in one contiguous area into an actual deal can be mindboggling.  The Nature Conservancy and Trust for Public Land are pros at this and it looks like they’ve pulled off something amazing this time around that will have long term benefits for a beautiful part of our country.

I don’t write much about politics on this blog.  Like father, like son – politicians (and politics) give me a headache.  However, I love to pimp my father’s blog and he’s got a great post up today titled John McCain Describes His Health Plan; In Reality A Non Health Plan. 

For the past few months, my dad – a retired endocrinologist and now healthcare pundit – has been inspecting, dissecting, and commenting on what the various presidential candidates have been saying about healthcare.  He’s got plenty of stuff on Obama, Clinton, and McCain.  It’s a compendium of uniformly dismal, sad, and disappointing non-solutions. 

While he doesn’t write short posts, if you are interested in original thinking in this area from someone who has a lifetime of experience practicing, thinking about, helping to reform, and experience the healthcare system, you should spend some time with Stan Feld’s Repairing the Healthcare System. 

As a special bonus, if you are involved in the Obama campaign and want some tips, I know Stan is game to help.