Today's bloggers briefing was back at Heritage, after being hosted by Family Research Council last week. Heritage's Conn Carroll stepped up to the plate and did a great job hosting the briefing in Rob Bluey's stead, who was out sick for the day. At lunch we heard from Congressman Joe Barton on global warming and energy policy and Jared Young who talked about a new niche YouTube site - CampaignCircus.com.

Joe Barton
Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX) is the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and he began by describing himself as an advocate for an energy policy based on free markets. Barton talked about the science behind climate change, and how climate change is a naturally occurring phonomena. He stated that whatever we do regarding global warming - we need to make sure that Americans' lives remain relatively unaffected and that we maintain the standard of living we Americans currently enjoy. Here are some more notes from Congressman Barton's remarks:

Cap & Trade Program

Nobody can tell you with a straight face that such a system won't be extremely expensive - the system has single-handed removed the petrochemical industry from Germany.

The effect of this program will be to drive energy-intensive industries off-shore.

There's no real effort to push this bill when the economy is weak because no one can deny the negative effect it will have on the U.S. economy.

Right now the global warming alarmists have the upper-hand (on the committee) but they don't have the votes. However, they don't want to talk about the science, they want us to accept the science as a given and get to the "solutions phase".

Even the people who think global warming a huge problem admit that if we did everything they wanted done right now - it wouldn't change the world's temperature 1/2 degree Fahrenheit.

Nuclear Power

The nuclear energy guys have won the fight.

Al Gore doesn't talk about it, but he just kinda accepts it - there's a benign neglect of nuclear power.

Once one or two nuclear power plants are built, we'll see an avalanche of others being built.

* The last time a nuclear power plant was built in the U.S. was in Texas in the 70s.

Congressman Barton was soft-spoken but clear and precise. He defined his role on the Energy & Commerce Committee as to "be the adult;" a role that should be filled far more often then it is in Congress these days.

Campaign Circus
Jared Young is the co-founder of the new niche YouTube site CampaignCircus.com which aggregates the latest political videos. Young has previously been involved with the video sharing site zigvid.com. He hopes that Campaign Circus will gain traction as a tool for bloggers.

Some notes on Campaign Circus:

* Launched a month ago.
* Political/campaign version of YouTube.
* Focused on the Presidential primary – will shift to House and Senate races in near future.
* A video aggregator for all the latest attack ads.
* Can embed and share videos easily.

Young noted that they'll be adding a "Pundit Accountability" section that will track the top pundits so you can have a easy-to-find record of what a pundit's said, and if their predictions have turned out to be true or not.

Young also got feedback on potential features including a tool to allow a user to cut-up a long video into shorter snip-its and then re-post the shorter clip.

UPDATE: More on Campaign Circus from Ericka over at RedState.

FYI: Stopping Planned Parenthood
Ericka Andersen has a good article up on former Kansas Attorney General and current district prosecutor Phill Kline and his battle against Planned Parenthood of Kansas. Kline spoke at last week's bloggers briefing.

Today's Bloggers Briefing was packed full of Conservative politics and Web 2.0 deliciousness.

National Presidential Caucus

We had Don Means from National Presidential Caucus call-in to talk to us about the good work NPC is doing to allow everyone in the nation, not just those people who live in a early primary state, to participate in the primary process.

Don said that NPC wants to, “Reward those people who are looking to do more then just vote.” And that's why they came up with the idea for a national caucus.

Check out David's post at TechPresident for some more info on what NPC is all about, and how you can get involved.

(Disclaimer: NPC is a DAG client)

American Civic Literacy Report

Several people from ISI told us about the recently released American Civic Literacy Report.

Some key findings of the report are:

*College Seniors Failed a Basic Test on America's History and Institutions.
*Colleges Stall Student Learning about America.
*America's Most Prestigious Universities Performed the Worst.
*Inadequate College Curriculum Contributes to Failure.
*Greater Learning about America Goes Hand-in-Hand with More Active Citizenship.

USA Today has a great story out today on the topic which mentions the report prominently.

Ken Timmerman had a pithy comment on why we should be concerned that our college graduates don't know basic economics or political science.

You get the physics wrong, and the bridge falls down. You get the political science wrong, and our society falls down.

GlobalWarming.org

Myron Ebell and Cord Blomquist showed off the the newly relaunched GlobalWarming.org (what a great URL). They said they hope the site will focus global warming skepticism in one place, and serve as a resource for people who want to see another side of the debate. Check it out, and if you'd like to contribute to their blog, shoot them an email.

Owen Paterson

British MP Owen Paterson crossed the pond this week and joined us for a really engaging talk about Conservative Politics in Britain. He also shared his thoughts on US politics and world affairs. The conversation was off-the-record but I will say that I feel pretty optimistic about the future of the Tories with leadership like Owen Paterson and David Cameron at the helm.

Blogger Bulletin Board:
*Emmanuel Jal Live Concert

*Religious Practice and Civic Life: What the Research Says

*Ken Timmerman’s “Honor Killing”

Next Week
Congressman Pete Hoekstra will talk about intelligence gathering in the War on Terror, FISA and No Child Left Behind.