Ok, so maybe you did, but, because I am holed up in Columbus at a training for Obama, I was floored by seeing this video. I mean, the age thing is a factor in this year's presidential campaign, but there is another relevant issue - that Obama has the 'cool' factor sewn up as well...

(hattip to NC Dem Amy)

No, John Edwards is not raising money to stop poverty by performing marriage ceremonies, but he did influence me,  and his advice directly led to me meeting my wife.

At his homecoming rally in December of 2006 John Edwards told us -

"don't wait for the next president to be elected to do something, get involved now"

So I got involved. I organized for Edwards in Colorado and started making connections with people and later, when he asked us, I went to protest Bush's vetoed war funding bill on May 2nd 2006 at our state capitol in Colorado. As luck (or fate) would have it, I ran into someone (the Coach) who I had spoken to once, a year earlier, who offered me my own radio show slot in the Denver market. (with zero experience)
And as luck (or fate) would have it, I had heard John and Elizabeth Edwards talk about the importance of Unions as the backbone of the middle class, so I started reaching out to local unions and union supporters...
(keep reading, I swear there is a wedding in here)

Welcome to part 5 of the   series on Renewable Energy.
This next installment could easily be a stand alone story, but I wanted to keep it in the context of the entire problem. (especially in light of the Supreme Court's ruling reducing the penalty to Exxon for the Valdez oil spill - an average of $15,000 per plaintiff, some of who lost a year or more in wages)
This segment is about the human cost in blood and lives. I hope that your anger about what has been done in this world in our name, for the consumption of oil, will stir you to the necessity to GET OFF OIL NOW through an immediate change in U.S. consumption and policy.
Here is my interview with Doug Vilsack, son former Presidential candidate, Tom Vilsack and Iowa Governor. Doug is someone I met while stumping for John Edwards, and he was stumping for Hillary. After we met, I told him about the show I host and he mentioned this story, which although I had heard about it, could not believe the depth and scope of the despiteful tactics of big oil and the complicity of our Media, most notably, CNN.

In parts 1-3 of this 'blogumentary' we covered the amount of renewable energy just waiting for us to tap, how local governments and people are getting involved, and how we need the federal government to change the laws to support renewable energy. (and a good bit of information from Dcoronata on Geothermal energy.
Now for the bread and butter issue: jobs. With the economic forecast showing a continued housing slump and general signs of a recession, a decade long approach of offshoring jobs,  bad unemployment numbers, and no real growth in any job sector except service jobs, there seems to be a lot wrong with our country's economic health. Fortunately, there is a solution for these problems, the emergence of green collar jobs.

Yesterday, we talked about how local politics can create a change in the way our cities and even states use energy, so much so, that we can change the policy of the utility companies themselves. AnotherMassachusettsLiberal commented on an interesting program in his community,called 'Green Start' and described it like this :

I pay extra to get renewably generated electricity, and the extra money I pay comes back, doubled, to my town in the form of grants for renewable energy projects.  32 total households in town are in the program, and there's currently almost $8,000 in the account.

Ideas like this are making ripples across the nation and making change, which is inspiring. However, as you will see in this interview with Ron Lehr of the American Wind Energy Association or AWEA, there has got to be some movement on the National level by the Federal Government, if we are really going to embrace the change necessary to move our country forward quickly.
Here is the interview:

Welcome to Part 2: Local Energy Initiatives: This will cover some of the ways citizens have gotten involved in passing laws to change their options for energy use, effectively giving a level playing field fo renewable energy. Now, although this post seems to be Colorado focused, the fact is, in part due to the location of the National Renewable Energy lab in Golden,Colorado combined with an active progressive community, Colorado has been leading the nation in embracing renewable energy. Here to tell us more about this and the Clean Energy Progress Fund - an initiative to be voted on this fall in Colorado, is Professor Thomas McKinnon, a Chemical Engineer,who has worked both with the NREL and with the School of Mines and now heads up the drive to support the Clean Energy Progress Fund.

This past week there has been a lot of talk from both Bush and McCain about the necessity for the Congress to start permitting new drilling sites for Oil companies in the face of high oil prices, as seen in this video
from the BBC, even though there is plenty of evidence that the real reason for the high prices are the insiders and speculators that Randi Rhodes first documented this week.
Followed by KO's investigation:

Huffington post has a story that seems to indicate that John Edwards is still very much in the running for VP. Now, I don't want to distract too much from the overwhelming importance of stopping this FISA amnesty bill, but maybe Senator Edwards opposing this capitulation would be a good thing as well.

By the way, if you are a Sam Nunn fan or want to dream about Gore as a VP, here is more on the VP story...

Now that we have a nominee in Barack Obama, it would seem that nothing can stop him from sweeping into the Oval office this fall. Curiously, however, some people seemed to be concerned that Obama can't win because he can't get white voters or can't keep the dissapointed Clinton supporters in his camp.
While some stories like this NPR storyare fairly benign,
there are other stories documenting the growing number of Clinton for McCain supporters
and even a website boasting of 15,000 supporters and threatening the following

Our Plans

It is our mission to raise money, promote John McCain. We will set up a "527" to raise money, run TV and radio ads against Obama. The Democrat party has left us out in the cold, so we are going to build a fire that they cannot put out

.

Really? how did the "democrat" party leave anyone out in the cold? More on these McCan'ts...

While I have posted now not one, but two different post in the past 2 days,
on John Edwards as the best VP choice, I want to state a disclaimer:
I think the waiting game has helped the dems
and while I think Obama is narrowed down his choice to 2 people, he should draw out the selection process as long as possible...

EDWARDS WINS ON THE ROAD
We are now closer to the general, and we must win the election this fall. Time to rally behind the best ticket, and who the people already know and can get behind...
read more...

http://www.cbsnews.com/...

UPDATE
because Edwards said at one point he was not interested in VP, let me put this up, which basically reversed that statment
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Mr. Edwards has carefully played down his aspirations for an administration role. In an interview in January, he said he would not accept a vice-presidential spot or Cabinet position. "No, absolutely not," he said, shaking his head emphatically when asked.

But privately, he told aides that he would consider the role of vice president, and favored the position of attorney general, which would appeal to his experience of decades spent in courtrooms as a trial lawyer in North Carolina; and his desire to follow in the footsteps of Robert F. Kennedy, one of his heroes.

I am writing a diary to insist on the inclusion of John Edwards in y'all's VP polls.
Why? Well, as someone who traveled my state stumping for Edwards, I can't tell you how many times I heard people say
"if it had only been Edwards/Kerry - they might have won."
Now I am fully behind Barack Obama for President
as I have stated here.
But, having said that, I am dismayed that the most popular candidate in the race, (besides HRC) would not be on the minds of diarists here.
let this sink in...

Now that the controversy around the Democratic nominee is all but over, we have a much more powerful weapon - Obama's influence. Obama can use his influence to help us with local ballot initiatives. In many states around the country, voters are becoming all too acquainted with slickly worded ballot initiatives that have appealing names that often hide the true nature of their intent. It turns out that there are several agencies with Right Wing agendas that are behind these bad laws being passed, including  laws like the recent "Personhood" initiative which asks people to sign a ballot for "equal rights" but here is what the law actually states:

to define personhood as "any human being from the moment of fertilization"

If approved, this would most likely become the first challenge to Roe Vs. Wade, and as the court is now structured, it would be overturned.
At least one group is out there fighting back, like on this Right to Work initiative:

In many states around the country, voters are becoming all too acquainted with slickly worded ballot initiatives that have appealing names that often hide the true nature of their intent. It turns out that there are several agencies with Right Wing agendas that are behind these bad laws being passed, including  laws like the recent "Personhood" initiative that if approved, would most likely become the first challenge to Roe Vs. Wade.
But not so fast - it turns out that one group, Protect Colorado's Future has gathered enough information to prompt Reverend Daniel Klawitter and Reed Norwood to file a lawsuit as citizens against the Secretary of State, Mike Coffman to address the validity of the approval of this petition's place on the fall ballot. (Coffman, incidentally is running for Tom Tancredo's vacated seat).
more here...

HRC blames Obama for her insinuation about assassination.
More here...
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/...

Clinton Camp Stokes RFK Flap by Blaming Obama

It is comical enough to make me wish SNL had not ended the season last week, so that Amy Poehler and Seth Meyer could have had an episode on Hillary called REALLY?
And, Hillary is calling for another debate?
http://blogs.abcnews.com/...

to debate what?
when you will exit?
why you are staying in?

McCain is at it again, despite being cute on Saturday Night Live, he is out there making statements again on Obama's foreign policy.

I have news for Senator Obama, talking, in unconditionally with a man who says Israel is a rotting corpse, will not get Iran to give up their Nuclear weapons program and it is reckless.

(as opposed to Bush's 'sensible' foreign policy???)

Listen to Edwards slamming Bush and McCain and showing the importance of going in a new direction with Barack Obama.

(hattip to Jed Report for the youtube video.)

Protect Colorado's Future, a progressive group in Colorado,
kicked off 2 ballot drives yesterday at the state Capitol.  One of the initiatives could become a model for other states seeking to end Corporate abuses. This initiative is called the Corporate Fraud  initiave and has the support of 8 out of 10 Coloradoans polled.

It is designed to legally stop the kind of Executive fraud that brings to mind people like Ken Lay or Joe Nacchio, and others who made a fortune by engaging in illegal practices such as robbing the pensions of employees or overstating the budget or illegal stock sell offs.
No more CEOs laughing all the way to the bank while the workers are stuck with no job or no retirement.
The other initiative is to secure employees' jobs by ensuring that their employer has a reasonable cause to terminate employment. This ballot iniative is the Just Cause iniative and has lots of public support.
From the site...

I first met Neghin Sobhaini last year while doing an interview on the subject of Darfur. There I learned of her heritage as an Iranian American, and of her work in Iran with the U.N.
When McCain started touring the country with Joe Lieberman and continued to hint at another War - this time with Iran, I knew Neghin would be a good person to discuss how these type of actions are affecting politics in Iran, specifically by undermining the moderates in the country who want reform and diplomacy with the West.
What I could not imagine, was that one of our Democratic Candidates, Senator Clinton, was going to be inflaming tensions just as much as the Republican candidate with statements about 'obliterating Iran.'
While I want to support the moderates both in our country and abroad, I am also concerned that these type of statements are exactly the kind of cover that Bush and the Neo-cons want for a tactical airstrike against Iran.
Whether you are concerned about that issue, or if you would just like to learn more about Iran's religious factions, structure of parliament, and Iranian political history in relation to the United States, tune in to this interview-