Great Lakes

MSU today launched a wiki dedicated to the Great Lakes and environmental issues. Its intent is to promote grassroots journalism by accepting user contributions. Given the scope of the issues that are related to the Great Lakes, I think this is a fantastic idea. According to the wiki, here's what they intend to cover:

This site explains the region's environment, explores its culture, celebrates its recreation, discusses its challenges. You can launch an exploration of those topics and more from the links in the banner.
But this is an important story best told by you and others who care about the fate of 18 percent of the world's fresh surface water. Go ahead, contribute. Create an article or add your unique twist to those already here.

Wikis are great and I'm really excited about this. Still, I'm a little concerned about anti-environment special interest groups tampering with the content of the wiki. One of the reasons why Wikipedia is insulated from these kinds of attacks is because it has a very thorough editorial policy and a team of volunteers dedicated to ensuring its neutrality. Even then, there are often inaccuracies in its content that are intentionally propagated by non-neutral interests. The people maintaining this wiki are going to need a strong process in place to deal with these sorts of issues.

SSP: Skinner Should Run Again

Here's what the Swing State Project had to say about Nancy Skinner:

Nancy Skinner MI 9
This is probably the greatest under-target in the nation and for that very reason Nancy Skinner should be given another shot in this district should she want it. One huge accomplishment of hers was to run through the considerable about of money Congressman Knollenberg had stored up over years and years. She ran a very good race and needs another chance. It also be noted this race was missed almost completely by the mainstream blog's that could have pushed it higher up. We might have missed a win here, as surely as the DCCC did.

However, DavidNYC disagreed with the diarist's assessment:

I would like to see someone with more experience take on Knollenberg, who has been in the House for over a decade. Beating an incumbent in a non-wave year is almost impossible - you need to have as strong a candidate as possible.

Also, Skinner raised only $400K, which strikes me as quite weak. By way of comparison, Eric Massa and Tim Walz, both first-time candidates without prior political experience, raised $1.4M and $1.2M respectively. And Massa's district is quite poor. They are sort of my benchmark.

If you can't raise somewhere in the realm of that kind of money in a strong Dem year, what were you doing? And I should note that MI-09 is a 50-50 district, while both MN-01 and especially NY-29 have a notable GOP tilt. NY-29 went for Bush 56-42.

Joe Knollenberg already announced that he was running for re-election, so he's obviously worried about something.

Mark Maynard: Sacrificing for our kids

Not really politics related, but a good read nonetheless.

TCM: Help WJR become the Great Voice of the entire Great Lake State again

Fantastic post on the lack of balance at WJR, especially considering its target audience. Make sure to read the comments too.

Dave Dempsey: Fresh Water: Protect the Public Trust

Dave discusses the "small container loophole" in terms of future water diversions from the Great Lakes. In his essay, he touches on a very important point: we all collectively own the Great Lakes, which are held in trust to us by our state governments.

WK: Michigan Legislature officially adjourns for the year

WK comments on the Legislature's last day of session. Its pretty funny.