I never thought getting 60 senators in the D column was such a big deal, as some of the Dems are very conservative and wouldn’t necessarily hang with Obama anyway. Nate Silver lays it all out here:

Who Are The Swing Senators?

… Moderate Republicans are an endangered species these days, but there are still a few of them left, as well as several other quasi-moderates who either get along with Obama or are under some form of electoral pressure in their home states. Conversely, there are more than a couple of Democrats in the chamber whose votes Obama can’t take for granted.

In practice, there will be a group of four or five senators in each party who line up just to either side of the 60-seat threshold and will find that they’re suddenly very much in demand. If Obama’s approval ratings are strong, he should have little trouble whipping the couple of Republican votes he needs into shape, and should clear 60 comfortably on key issues. But, if Obama proves to be unpopular, there remain enough conservative, red-state Democratic senators to deny him a simple majority on key issues, much less 60 votes.

Also, Ped Shed, a great blog on urban issues, has come back to life.

TDM-pedia

In his latest post Laurence Aurbach includes a link to the Online Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Encyclopedia from the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, a wonderful resource.

TDM is sort of like carbon offsets, but better:

Contributions to TDM measures are more visible, immediate, local and effective than offsets. TDM measures encourage non-auto travel and carpooling, make better use of transit-oriented development, and so multiply the beneficial impacts of transit-oriented development investments. Carbon offsets may send that money to other countries where they mainly have value as charitable donations to energy projects.