The Hartford Courant reports on the increasing failures of underground transformers and powerlines around the state. Last summer Stamford suffered outages attributed to failing transformers. More recently an electric worker was killed in Waterbury performing routine maitenance work. From The Courant:

The state’s two largest electricity providers, Connecticut Light & Power Co. and United Illuminating, both have multimillion-dollar projects under way to replace and upgrade equipment above and below ground.

Officials from both companies said Thursday that demand for more electricity is driving the projects, although aging equipment is also a concern.

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Walter Shaprio in Salon hits the highpoints about the direction of debate that has not yet materialized.

With Bush reportedly poised to unveil his new military strategy next week, it is time to pose fresh, future-oriented questions about Iraq. If a “surge” in troop levels had a 20 percent chance of reducing the lethal nature of the civil war, would it be a risk worth taking? If America began a major troop withdrawal tomorrow, would more Iraqi civilians be alive in 2008? What should be the guiding philosophy that determines America’s next step in Iraq? Reducing U.S. military casualties? Saving Iraqi lives? Preventing further chaos in the region?

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Former Mayor Bill Collins wants the state to buy the so-called sooty-six and start generating power. Today’s Norwalk Hour reports:

“I sort of drafted (a bill) that would empower the state of Connecticut to acquire all the ‘Sooty Six’ plants (including) Norwalk’s Manresa,” Collins said. “There’s six of these plants like Manresa in the state. What this bill is saying is the state should buy them all and condemn them if necessary.”

“They used to be a significant portion of generation,” Collins said. “If they are rebuilt — at a cost of several billion dollars — then that would have a dramatic effect on the amount of electricity available in our state.”

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Iraq is a quagmire, and that leaves little room for serious debate about what the US interests really are in the Middle East. Everything distills to either “pull the troops out” or “add more troops to win it.” There are a few blogs out there that dissect the real issues in blunt terms that reflect the actual reality of the precarious position of not only our military, our foreign policy and our role in the middle east and a few of them are Belgravia Dispatch and Juan Cole and Steven Clemons. Today’s WashingPost Op-Ed by Joe Lieberman has certainly ignited the blogsphere to rehash arguments that have been hashed and hashed and hashed.

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Authentic Connecticut Republican posts a brief statement here: Authentic Connecticut Republican: Riled Rell reacts (rightfully) to DPUC action. California and Enron showed the bad side of not carefully planned deregulation. Our legislators have failed to look out for the utility consumers in this state. Creating an Energy department may be a good first step, but a stronger action would be to take a step back towards having our utility companies generate electricity. Under the present system, there is no incentive for better management, and a convenient excuse to point at the vagaries of the market.

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