If this diary gets picked up, I expect to take a lot of heat for my comments.  But I just have to share my urgent appeal to John Edwards: please drop out of the race and campaign for Obama.

Now, before you jump down my throat, let me make something perfectly clear: John Edwards is my preferred candidate.  John's position on the issues most strongly mirror my own.  I was committed to his victory, so much so that I agreed to serve as a voluntary advisor to the campaign, and I believed that he had a chance to pull off a win.  But that opportunity has passed.  John's strategy to win in Iowa and use the bounce in media coverage and contributions into New Hampshire and beyond failed. So the question at hand is this: what now?

In case you haven't noticed, people are getting concerned about global warming. I know, I know. Glenn Beck thinks it's all just a hoax and he's on CNN for darn sakes, so why are we still talking about this?  Well, because Grinchy Gingrich is now worried. So what's an honest-to-god patriotic American to think?

In all seriousness, this is the big one folks. The real deal. And everybody is scratching their heads trying to figure out how to get out of this mess. One line of exploration is capturing carbon dioxide out of the air or before its emitted and then storing it deep underground or in the oceans. There are all kinds of ideas being kicked around for how to do this, including one I had never heard before: synthetic trees.

Never heard of it either? Well, join me below the fold.

A few months ago, I shared with the dKos community the amazing opportunity my wife and I received as a result of the film An Inconvenient Truth. The opportunity? Funding for a year so that the two of us could quite our jobs and work towards mitigating the climate crisis. We were given the freedom to be creative and think big. (Hopefully, we lived up to the opportunity.)

At the time I asked for suggestions, and was overwhelmed with both a flood of positive well-wishes and some fantastic ideas. I can't stress enough how much the responses did to launch us in the right direction. I promised to post updates as our research progressed and ideas coalesced. It's been a while but here's the skinny. I hope you'll join me below the fold.

The diary is long and detailed and probably not of much interest for those who weren't involved in the creation of the plan.  However, one question emerged that I think bears the attention of anyone who cares about our dependence on fossil fuels or the fate of our planet:

How can the dailyKos community best utilize its expertise and people power to bring to life the great ideas captured in Energize America?  We proved that we could use them to elect politicians who truly represent the values of the American people... can we use them to shape a healthy energy and environmental future?

This diary is a follow up to one specific suggestion I received from numerous people---to check out Energize America, a 20-point plan developed--through much discussion on dailyKos---U.S. energy security by 2020.  

So what did Al Gore do to me? To find out what and how you can help, please follow me beneath the fold...

A high-security biological defense laboratory that might be built near Tracy to store and study incurable diseases such as the Ebola virus and mad cow disease would be no different than a biological weapons research center, according to a molecular biologist from the University of California, San Francisco.

"The only difference between defense research and offense research is your intent," said Dr. Judith Flanagan, who said the Level 4 laboratory would replicate the types of experiments terrorists and rogue states might conduct.

Well, here's my take (and I'd be curious to hear yours): If we're all ultimately forgotten or, at most, a historical footnote, then we've won.

So, if you're with me, the questions we're left with are these: What the hell are we going to do about it? and When is it time to abandon this leaderless, rudderless party and start anew?  

In the fast and furious days leading up to the Libby indictments, when many of us were frantically hoping for signs that this would be a very merry Fitzmas, indeed, a story came out in UPI claiming that Fitzgerald had widened his investigation to look into the Niger forgeries.

Apparently, that aint true.  More below the fold.

So, here's my question: What did Luskin say to convince Fitzgerald to lift the hammer?  Take the poll.

Let's all take a collective hit from the dream pipe and imagine the political climate in 2006 and 2007 after:

• Fitzgerald indictments lead to the wide-scale resignation of many senior-level White House officials.  Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and others attempt to take the fall for Bush and Cheney but the smell of blood is in the air.
  
• The once-iron wall guarded by Rove and other Republican operatives has crumbled and those who had once been scared into submission--including high-ranking military officers and Congressional members--begin to air their grievances, disagreements and attempt to distance themselves from the administration.  The Republican tent collapses (a tent that, after all, was built on the quest for power not on shared values), leaving the party's leaders exposed and blinking in the sun like cockroaches on a kitchen floor.

keep going, it gets good...

I wonder how they determine who is "qualified" or not...

In addition, the committee is asking members to inform on party officials if they don't comply.  The penalty would last for one election cycle, 'after which "the offending Democratic officeholder's record shall be cleared of the misconduct charges."'

More below the fold.

This is a perfect opportunity for Democratic Senators to stand up as a collective group and clearly define the Values Gap between Republicans and Democrats (that is, if they can find their spines).

How?  All Democratic Senators should travel as a group down to New Orleans on Tuesday to assist in aid operations.  No business as usual on Capitol Hill. Expose the Repugs for the uncaring, duplicitous, calculating, cynical scumbags they really are.

If this is an idea you support, please recommend and contact your Senators.  Let's get this moving. I'm serious. It's about time.  Christ, it's way past time.

Our Democratic leadership sat silent while the voices of thousands upon thousands of our citizens were thrown in the dustpin of history not once but twice in national elections. It was no coincidence that they were predominantly poor, that they were disproportionately black.

Our Democratic leadership sat silent and even lined up behind our so-called President when he led us into an unjustified, ill-conceived war under false pretenses.  It was no coincidence that so many of the young men and women sent to die and kill in the false name of American security were poor and of color.  

Time for what? Time for the Democratic leadership (I gotta say, sorely tempted to throw a "sic" in there) to say what must be said:
(follow me down)