Archives by month: February, 2007
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February 23rd, 2007
Posted by Alex Payson at 11:52 am
We are ever so appreciative for the good press that we are receiving. Thank you to all the people who are putting their time and energy into helping spread the word about Blue State Coffee. We can’t wait to thank you all in person at our store in Providence when we open at the end of this spring!
Read the article by Helen Mou that appeared in the Brown Daily Herald here.
Posted in BSC in the press, Blue State Coffee news, General news | 
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February 20th, 2007
Posted by Alex Payson at 10:51 am
For those of you who can’t get enough of Blue State Coffee, here are what some other people are saying about us!
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Columbia University Edlab blog
Bangor Daily News
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February 17th, 2007
Posted by Drew at 11:14 am
The Washington Post reports that Senator Christoper Dodd has raised $3 million in the last quarter of 2006. Of all the Democratic presidential contenders, Dodd has the second largest war chest, second only to Hillary’s.
Despite Dodd’s relative anonymity among voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, I wouldn’t write him off quite yet.
Read the article here.  Â
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Posted in Elections, General news, News round-up, Politics | No Comments »
February 17th, 2007
Posted by Drew at 10:49 am
In a recent op-ed, David Brooks goes where no conservative has gone before: he defends Hillary Clinton’s position on the Iraq War.
Far be it from me to get in the middle of a liberal purge, but would anybody mind if I pointed out that the calls for Hillary Clinton to apologize for her support of the Iraq war are almost entirely bogus?
I mean, have the people calling for her apology actually read the speeches she delivered before the war? Have they read her remarks during the war resolution debate, when she specifically rejected a pre-emptive, unilateral attack on Saddam? Did they read the passages in which she called for a longer U.N. inspections regime and declared, “I believe international support and legitimacy are crucial�
He continues:Â
Clinton’s biggest breach with the liberal wing actually opened up later, in the fall of 2003. Most liberals went into full opposition, wanting to see Bush disgraced. Clinton — while an early critic of the troop levels, the postwar plans and all the rest — tried to stay constructive. She wanted to see America and Iraq succeed, even if Bush was not disgraced.
When you look back at Clinton’s thinking, you don’t see a classic war supporter. You see a person who was trying to seek balance between opposing arguments. You also see a person who deferred to the office of the presidency. You see a person who, as president, would be fox to Bush’s hedgehog: who would see problems in their complexities rather than in their essentials; who would elevate procedural concerns over philosophical ones; who would postpone decision points for as long as possible; and who would make distinctions few heed.
Today, the liberal wing of the Democratic Party believes that the world, and Hillary Clinton in particular, owes it an apology. If she apologizes, she’ll forfeit her integrity. She will be apologizing for being herself.
 Read the entire article here.
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February 16th, 2007
Posted by Alex Payson at 4:00 pm
A Utah based company recently announced that they have designed a vastly improved solar panel. They claim that their solar panels will be able to produce energy at a cost comparable to traditional fossil fuel sources, with an estimated generation cost of 5-10 cents/kWh.
Now this sounds a bit too good to be true, so take this announcement with a grain of salt. But if they have managed to make a solar panel that is as good as they claim, then kudos to them. We are certainly in need of renewable energy sources right about now…
Read the entire press release here, and judge for yourself.
Posted in General news | 4 Comments »
February 13th, 2007
Posted by Alex Payson at 5:54 pm
Rest assured we are working as hard as we can to get our first retail store open! By late spring of this year we will be open and serving our locally roasted coffee at 300 Thayer Street in Providence, Rhode Island.
One of the delicious snacks we are very excited to be offering in our first store are locally made artisan cheeses.
And just in case you are as much of a turophile (yes it is an official term- look it up on google!) as I am- you can watch a live webcam of a block of cheddar aging….. Just don’t blink- you will miss the excitement!
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February 10th, 2007
Posted by Drew at 9:41 am
While the media spotlight shines on Hillary and Barack (who will announce his candidacy this morning), supporters of Al Gore are pushing the ex-VP to run again. One former aide even speculated that Gore may declare his candidacy at the Oscars later this month.
What do you think? Is Gore electable? He certainly was the first time he ran.
Posted in Elections, General news, News round-up, Politics | No Comments »
February 10th, 2007
Posted by Drew at 9:36 am
A new Department of Defense report shows that the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, headed by Douglas Feith, manipulated pre-war intelligence in order to make the case for war. Despite the conclusions of the mainstream intelligence community that Iraq and al Qaeda had nothing to do with each other, Feith’s office nonetheless insisted that September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague five months before the attack, and that there were “multiple areas of cooperation” between Iraq and al Qaeda, including a mutual desire for WMD. What’s worse, the Bush Administration used this as propaganda to “sell” the Iraq War to the American people. Machiavelli would be proud.
Read the declassified portion of the report here.
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February 6th, 2007
Posted by Alex Payson at 11:12 am
You know that pond behind your house all covered in green slime? How about if we started harvesting oil from all that algae? And in the process we removed carbon dioxide and excess nitrogen from waste water and power plants?
Sounds a little too good to be true, but that is the goal of several new biofuel companies. With high oil prices and improved biotechnology, oil from algae is looking more realistic every year. Some studies claim that per acre, algae could produce from 10-1000 times as much liquid fuel as other biofuel sources such as corn, soy, or sunflower.
It turns out that algae naturally produce oil, and that most of the world’s current oil deposits may have been produced by algae over many million years.
Read the complete article here, and maybe we can all appreciate those green, swampy areas a bit more now.
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February 3rd, 2007
Posted by Drew at 7:16 pm
A new Associated Press article discusses how life at Guantanamo has gotten worse:Â
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba – Abdul Helil Mamut’s good behavior earned him a spot in a medium-security compound at the Guantanamo Bay prison, where he slept in a barracks, shared leisurely meals with other prisoners and could spend more than half the day in an outdoor recreation area.
But in December, the detainee was among dozens transferred from Camp 4 to the maximum-security Camp 6, the newest section of Guantanamo Bay’s military prison.
Now Mamut, an ethnic Uighur from China captured in Pakistan, spends all but two hours a day isolated in his cell. He eats and prays by himself. His only recreation comes in a concrete courtyard surrounded by high walls, separated from other prisoners by a chain-link fence.
Read the rest of the article here.
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