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BREAKING: Christopher Celeste Endorses Jennifer Brunner for U.S. Senate
By: Lorraine Bieber
Posted Jul 1, 04:50 PM
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Posts in the category Front Page
Thom Coffman, owner of the Clarmont Restaurant, had a letter to the editor published in the Dispatch Saturday under the headline: "Kilroy should vote against card-check legislation"
http://dispatch.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2009/06/27/Coffman_MUST_SAT.ART_ART_06-27-09_A11_JKEA7G4.html?sid=101
Mr. Coffman lists reasons why he thinks the Employee Free Choice Act would be bad. Does he realize that Southwest Airlines is the mostly heavily unionized airline and also the safest, most efficient and profitable?
Coffman doesn't seem to understand that organized labor has not been competing on a level playing field with organized capital. To paraphrase what President Lincoln said, without labor there would be no capital.
Card check would be no different than registering to vote which is public information. Under card check, once enough workers support a union there would be a secret ballot to elect union leaders.
Canada has had a similar version of the Employee Free Choice. It's level of unionization is much higher and its ecomomy has held up much better than here.
Unionization was a primary reason why a strong middle class formed post-WWII. Unionized jobs pay somewhat higher wages. Wages are the source of demand in the economy.
Passage of EFCA would increase disposable incomes which would mean more customers. Mr. Coffman's arguements are penny-wise and pound foolish. Actually, I'm not very eager to dine at the Clarmont and I bet there are many other progressives who feel the same way.
Fortunately, I believe that Mary Jo Kilroy understands all this and will represent the 15th District well by supporting the Employee Free Choice Act.
http://dispatch.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2009/06/27/Coffman_MUST_SAT.ART_ART_06-27-09_A11_JKEA7G4.html?sid=101
Mr. Coffman lists reasons why he thinks the Employee Free Choice Act would be bad. Does he realize that Southwest Airlines is the mostly heavily unionized airline and also the safest, most efficient and profitable?
Coffman doesn't seem to understand that organized labor has not been competing on a level playing field with organized capital. To paraphrase what President Lincoln said, without labor there would be no capital.
Card check would be no different than registering to vote which is public information. Under card check, once enough workers support a union there would be a secret ballot to elect union leaders.
Canada has had a similar version of the Employee Free Choice. It's level of unionization is much higher and its ecomomy has held up much better than here.
Unionization was a primary reason why a strong middle class formed post-WWII. Unionized jobs pay somewhat higher wages. Wages are the source of demand in the economy.
Passage of EFCA would increase disposable incomes which would mean more customers. Mr. Coffman's arguements are penny-wise and pound foolish. Actually, I'm not very eager to dine at the Clarmont and I bet there are many other progressives who feel the same way.
Fortunately, I believe that Mary Jo Kilroy understands all this and will represent the 15th District well by supporting the Employee Free Choice Act.
Lost in the avalanche of grief and gossip over the death of pop idol Michael Jackson was House passage yesterday (219-212) of the omnibus energy and environmental bill by a narrow 7-vote margin.
And Licking County progressives should note - and take pride in the fact - that our congressman, Rep. Zack Space, D-Dover, voted YES on this important piece of legislation, despite opposition from farm, coal and energy lobbies so influential in his 18th District.
The Dispatch, which has fretted gleefully for months over Space's dilemma, noted in today's story on the vote that "the measure has provoked intense opposition from many Ohio officials."
Those of us who have supported Space in the past but worried about his blue-dog timidity in the face of the agriculture and gun lobbies should take heart with this show of backbone.
And kudos to the media panelists last night on WOSU-Radio's Columbus on the Record who noted Congressman Space's courage in voting for the bill.
Now, it should be recognized that the measure is not everything environmentalists wanted. But it does set goals for reducing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and establishes a cap-and-trade incentive system for pollution reductions, a similar approach to that which helped curb acid rain emissions back in the 1980s.
Yes, it will likely increase electric rates, especially in Ohio, since most of the state's generation depends on coal. Off-sets, however, are a new program to help low-income ratepayers absorb the rate increases and new government subsidies for wind and solar which could create new jobs and industries here.
If you credit Space with making the hard - but right - choice on this bill, you might $how your appreciation at www.zackspace.org
The Washington Post's Mouthpiece Theater honored Lee Fisher for the flap over his 1 a.m. shirtless video -- footage taken by his son, Jason, when Jason made a 2006 documentary.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/mouthpiece-theater/mouthpiece-theater-men-in-tigh.html
The shirtless clip was lifted from the documentary by GOP blogger Matt Naugle and turned into a YouTube video. Within its two short days of existence, it had been viewed more than 40,000. The Team Fisher, citing copyright violations, made YouTube take it down.
The Naugle did another video, using some of the same shirtless Lee. Team Fisher made it go away.
Then someone posted it on Blip TV. It's now gone.
Today's question is: Will Team Fisher go after the Washington Post or leave it alone?
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/mouthpiece-theater/mouthpiece-theater-men-in-tigh.html
The shirtless clip was lifted from the documentary by GOP blogger Matt Naugle and turned into a YouTube video. Within its two short days of existence, it had been viewed more than 40,000. The Team Fisher, citing copyright violations, made YouTube take it down.
The Naugle did another video, using some of the same shirtless Lee. Team Fisher made it go away.
Then someone posted it on Blip TV. It's now gone.
Today's question is: Will Team Fisher go after the Washington Post or leave it alone?
I just called the White House comment line at:
1-202-456-1111 and conveyed that I prefer a single-payer health insurance plan and that President Obama should at the least draw a line in the sand that there be a strong public choice option which would allow people or employers to buy into Medicare.
I attended President Obama's campaign rally in Dublin at which he railed against the health insurance industry with very harsh rhetoric. Change was promised.
President Obama won in a landslide and must deliver. Polls show that the public is behind a public option. Without it in a bill, President Obama and the Dems can forget about me donating next election season or going door to door again.
Senator Bernie Sanders has said that no bill is better than a bill without a strong public choice option. Bernie is our best advocate in Congress.
1-202-456-1111 and conveyed that I prefer a single-payer health insurance plan and that President Obama should at the least draw a line in the sand that there be a strong public choice option which would allow people or employers to buy into Medicare.
I attended President Obama's campaign rally in Dublin at which he railed against the health insurance industry with very harsh rhetoric. Change was promised.
President Obama won in a landslide and must deliver. Polls show that the public is behind a public option. Without it in a bill, President Obama and the Dems can forget about me donating next election season or going door to door again.
Senator Bernie Sanders has said that no bill is better than a bill without a strong public choice option. Bernie is our best advocate in Congress.
It's past time that Gov. Strickland and the state legislature come to their senses. Taft's 25% tax cut for those in the highest tax bracket needs to be rescinded. The tax cut was passed in the name of job creation. Where's the beef!? President Bush's answer to every problem was tax cuts for the rich and unemployment is soaring.
The truth is that rich people don't typicically create jobs when given a tax cut. Tax cuts for rich people ends up causing speculation in the financial markets which leads to economic bubbles and busts.
Jobs are created when someone decides that they can make more money from hiring someone than the person's labor will cost them.
The federal top marginal tax rate was 94% during the presidencies of FDR ,Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy and we had a stable, growing economy.
Taxes are on the way up in just about every state. Citizens are not going to tolerate 50% cuts in funding for libraries and schools, etc.
Our politicians need to find some backbone and do what they know needs done.
The truth is that rich people don't typicically create jobs when given a tax cut. Tax cuts for rich people ends up causing speculation in the financial markets which leads to economic bubbles and busts.
Jobs are created when someone decides that they can make more money from hiring someone than the person's labor will cost them.
The federal top marginal tax rate was 94% during the presidencies of FDR ,Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy and we had a stable, growing economy.
Taxes are on the way up in just about every state. Citizens are not going to tolerate 50% cuts in funding for libraries and schools, etc.
Our politicians need to find some backbone and do what they know needs done.
Vindy.com Newswatch
Gov. Strickland gets berated on proposed cutsE-mail iPod Print ShareThisPublished: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 @ 1:30 p.m.
COLUMBUS (AP) — Constituencies from libraries to mental health advocates are berating Gov. Ted Strickland about more than $2 billion in cuts he’s proposed to the state budget.
From Cleveland to the steps of the Ohio Statehouse, the final days of budget negotiations are increasingly filled with angry advocates who say they’re shouldering an unfair share of the burden.
Strickland, a Democrat, has proposed cutting alcohol and drug addiction services by 28 percent and community-based mental health services by 34 percent.
The governor also has proposed a nearly 50 percent cut in funding for public libraries.
Strickland proposed about $2.4 billion in cuts, along with a gambling expansion he says will raise $933 million, to close a $3.2 billion gap in the two-year state budget.
This is good news for Gov. Ted for 2010???????
Gov. Strickland gets berated on proposed cutsE-mail iPod Print ShareThisPublished: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 @ 1:30 p.m.
COLUMBUS (AP) — Constituencies from libraries to mental health advocates are berating Gov. Ted Strickland about more than $2 billion in cuts he’s proposed to the state budget.
From Cleveland to the steps of the Ohio Statehouse, the final days of budget negotiations are increasingly filled with angry advocates who say they’re shouldering an unfair share of the burden.
Strickland, a Democrat, has proposed cutting alcohol and drug addiction services by 28 percent and community-based mental health services by 34 percent.
The governor also has proposed a nearly 50 percent cut in funding for public libraries.
Strickland proposed about $2.4 billion in cuts, along with a gambling expansion he says will raise $933 million, to close a $3.2 billion gap in the two-year state budget.
This is good news for Gov. Ted for 2010???????
Here is a new video of Shirtless Lee that is more entertaining than the original:
An American Opera
"The Greatest Pet Rescue Ever!"
This is an award-winning emotionally moving film about the official and
unofficial efforts to save the pets of New Orleans after Katrina.
Tuesday, June 23 at 7pm
Free Press Tuesday film night. This special showing is not free. The
filmmaker we be present.
Director McPhee was watching the drama unfold on the news at home in
Michigan. This was a story of a lifetime. He knew that he had to
immediately go down to New Orleans with his cameras to document what
was happening. He didn't have any particular expectations or agenda.
Once there McPhee discovered that it was mandated that people be
evacuated out of New Orleans without their beloved animals. But what
would happen to the animals? Documenting the rescue became, he said,
his destiny. The resulting film is at times both painful and
heartening. We see New Orleans desperate to reunite with their pets,
sometimes successfully, other times not. We witness volunteers bravely
organize rescue efforts. The film isn't so much about facts and
figures. McPhee wanted to create an emotional impression and for us to
connect to the experience. At this he succeeds.
http://www.anamericanopera.com/
Also, on the same night before "An American Opera," the Drexel Theater
is screening a documentary about NPR's Garrison Keiller:
GARRISON KEILLER: THE MAN ON THE RADIO in the RED SHOES
Tuesday, June 23 at 5:15 p.m. (regular price)
Drexel East Theater, 2254 E. Main St., Bexley
Sponsored by The Free Press and Central Ohio Green Education Fund.
truth@freepress.org
"The Greatest Pet Rescue Ever!"
This is an award-winning emotionally moving film about the official and
unofficial efforts to save the pets of New Orleans after Katrina.
Tuesday, June 23 at 7pm
Free Press Tuesday film night. This special showing is not free. The
filmmaker we be present.
Director McPhee was watching the drama unfold on the news at home in
Michigan. This was a story of a lifetime. He knew that he had to
immediately go down to New Orleans with his cameras to document what
was happening. He didn't have any particular expectations or agenda.
Once there McPhee discovered that it was mandated that people be
evacuated out of New Orleans without their beloved animals. But what
would happen to the animals? Documenting the rescue became, he said,
his destiny. The resulting film is at times both painful and
heartening. We see New Orleans desperate to reunite with their pets,
sometimes successfully, other times not. We witness volunteers bravely
organize rescue efforts. The film isn't so much about facts and
figures. McPhee wanted to create an emotional impression and for us to
connect to the experience. At this he succeeds.
http://www.anamericanopera.com/
Also, on the same night before "An American Opera," the Drexel Theater
is screening a documentary about NPR's Garrison Keiller:
GARRISON KEILLER: THE MAN ON THE RADIO in the RED SHOES
Tuesday, June 23 at 5:15 p.m. (regular price)
Drexel East Theater, 2254 E. Main St., Bexley
Sponsored by The Free Press and Central Ohio Green Education Fund.
truth@freepress.org
Green Jobs Can Make A Difference
Following on the heels of a study from the Pew Charitable Trusts last week, two more reports from a broad coalition of environmental groups and research institutes suggest that clean-energy investments have the potential to kick-start the economy and employ millions of workers — particularly those at the lower end of the economic scale.
In a statement accompanying the release of the two reports — one authored jointly by the Center for American Progress and the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; the other by the institute, the green jobs advocacy group Green For All and the Natural Resources Defense Council — the researchers assert that a “$150 billion investment in clean energy could create a net increase of 1.7 million American jobs and significantly lower the national unemployment rate.”
As part of their study, P.E.R.I. and the Center for American Progress provide a state-by-state breakdown of where jobs are most likely to be generated.
And Robert Pollin, James Heintz and Heidi Garrett-Peltier — researchers at P.E.R.I. — wrote on the center’s Web site on Thursday that the estimated 1.7 million jobs could make a significant impact on the nation’s jobless rate:
These job gains would be enough — on their own — to reduce the unemployment rate in today’s economy by about one full percentage point, to 8.4 percent from current 9.4-percent levels — even after taking into full account the inevitable job losses in conventional fossil-fuel sectors of the U.S. economy as they contract. Our detailed analysis … calculates that roughly 2.5 million new jobs will be created overall by spending $150 billion on clean-energy investments, while close to 800,000 jobs would be lost if conventional fossil-fuel spending were to decline by an equivalent amount. It is not likely that all $150 billion in new clean-energy investment spending would come at the expense of reductions in the fossil-fuel industry. However, we present this scenario to establish a high-end estimate for reductions in conventional fossil-fuel spending, and the net gains in employment that will still result through spending $150 billion per year on clean-energy investments.
The P.E.R.I. report joined by N.R.D.C. and Green for All, meanwhile, emphasized the impact such job creation might have on low-income and less-educated workers. Among their findings:
• Of the 1.7 million net increase in job creation, about 870,000 would be “accessible” to workers with high school degrees or less.
• Of those, about 614,000 would be jobs that present “decent opportunities” for advancement and increasing wages.
• The increase in jobs (and decrease in the unemployment rate “should raise earnings for low-income workers by about 2 percent.
Job creation among less-educated workers would be “seven times larger than the number of jobs that would be created in this category,” the researchers also concluded, “by spending the same amount of money within the fossil-fuel industry.”
Green Jobs can make a difference in bringing new jobs to the poor and working class in Ohio and this country!
Dennis Spisak
Mahoning Valley Green Party
Ohio Green Party
www.ohiogreens.org
www.votespisak.org/thinkgreen/
Following on the heels of a study from the Pew Charitable Trusts last week, two more reports from a broad coalition of environmental groups and research institutes suggest that clean-energy investments have the potential to kick-start the economy and employ millions of workers — particularly those at the lower end of the economic scale.
In a statement accompanying the release of the two reports — one authored jointly by the Center for American Progress and the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; the other by the institute, the green jobs advocacy group Green For All and the Natural Resources Defense Council — the researchers assert that a “$150 billion investment in clean energy could create a net increase of 1.7 million American jobs and significantly lower the national unemployment rate.”
As part of their study, P.E.R.I. and the Center for American Progress provide a state-by-state breakdown of where jobs are most likely to be generated.
And Robert Pollin, James Heintz and Heidi Garrett-Peltier — researchers at P.E.R.I. — wrote on the center’s Web site on Thursday that the estimated 1.7 million jobs could make a significant impact on the nation’s jobless rate:
These job gains would be enough — on their own — to reduce the unemployment rate in today’s economy by about one full percentage point, to 8.4 percent from current 9.4-percent levels — even after taking into full account the inevitable job losses in conventional fossil-fuel sectors of the U.S. economy as they contract. Our detailed analysis … calculates that roughly 2.5 million new jobs will be created overall by spending $150 billion on clean-energy investments, while close to 800,000 jobs would be lost if conventional fossil-fuel spending were to decline by an equivalent amount. It is not likely that all $150 billion in new clean-energy investment spending would come at the expense of reductions in the fossil-fuel industry. However, we present this scenario to establish a high-end estimate for reductions in conventional fossil-fuel spending, and the net gains in employment that will still result through spending $150 billion per year on clean-energy investments.
The P.E.R.I. report joined by N.R.D.C. and Green for All, meanwhile, emphasized the impact such job creation might have on low-income and less-educated workers. Among their findings:
• Of the 1.7 million net increase in job creation, about 870,000 would be “accessible” to workers with high school degrees or less.
• Of those, about 614,000 would be jobs that present “decent opportunities” for advancement and increasing wages.
• The increase in jobs (and decrease in the unemployment rate “should raise earnings for low-income workers by about 2 percent.
Job creation among less-educated workers would be “seven times larger than the number of jobs that would be created in this category,” the researchers also concluded, “by spending the same amount of money within the fossil-fuel industry.”
Green Jobs can make a difference in bringing new jobs to the poor and working class in Ohio and this country!
Dennis Spisak
Mahoning Valley Green Party
Ohio Green Party
www.ohiogreens.org
www.votespisak.org/thinkgreen/
Governor-Cum-Fox talk show host Mike Huckabee was a guest on The Daily Show recently giving the usual holier-than-thou prolife speech. Yes, every life is precious, Huck. So why aren't you doing anything to prevent natural abortions, i.e., miscarriages?
Maybe Huck's been ordered by Fox News to take the focus off vigilante-justice inspiration Bill O'Reilly. If anyone has misused public airwaves to incite violence, it's him.
Is it just me, or does it seem unAmerican that nine justices -- predominantly Catholics who have not experienced child birth and have no medical credentials -- should be making decisions about methods used for late term abortions? For once, I wish talk show hosts would discuss this.
Has it occurred to neoconservatives that you can't work the keep-big-government-out-of-our-lives argument both ways? You can't support the rights of the individual (as in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, for example) and not be pro-choice.
Personally, I'm sick of old men on Fox and elsewhere discussing gynecology in sound bites and always with a morality chip on their shoulders. They don't know what they're talking about.
Today, Lee Fisher's Senate campaign issued a rare public policy statement and the topic was health care.
Anthony, at Ohio Daily, points out that Fisher's policy statement comes "weeks'' after "similar statements or policy papers from the Brunner campaign,'' including her call today for health care reform legislation that includes a public insurance option.
Anthony sums up Fisher's less-than-detailed statement here:
http://www.ohiodailyblog.com/content/fisher-issues-first-policy-stances-offers-statement-health-care-principles
But on the lighter side, the Republican blogs have a video of a shirtless Lee Fisher explaining his concern that the '06 governor's race had no clear and concise message. Politico has picked it up. So have newspapers in Cincinnati and Dayton. All I can say is that Jane Godall would love this guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly0DD5Gv0Hw
Brunner talks about her broader views on health care here:
http://www.jenniferbrunner.com/index.php/pages/issues
I'm hoping to spark a discussion about plans for a nuclear power plant in Piketon. A front-page Dispatch article reported Wednesday that Governor Strickland, Senator Voinovich and Rep. Jean Schmidt support such a nuclear facility being built by Duke Energy and the French nuclear energy company Avena.
My opposition lies in the fact that nuclear power plants can't compete in the free market. No insurance company would insure a nuke plant. The Price-Anderson Act makes the government the insurer of nuclear power plants which is a gigantic welfare check to the nuclear industry. Without Price-Anderson, there would be no private sector nuke plants.
My understanding is that nuclear power is actually fossil-fuel intensive because of the massive energy required to extract uranium.
There's also the issue of the storage of radioactive waste and safety concerns. The Davis-Bessey nuke plant near Toledo very nearly had a catastrophic disaster just a few years ago.
Ohio would be much better off investing and encouraging clean, safe and renewable energy such as wind, solar and geothermal. Doing so would put thousands of people to work.
My opposition lies in the fact that nuclear power plants can't compete in the free market. No insurance company would insure a nuke plant. The Price-Anderson Act makes the government the insurer of nuclear power plants which is a gigantic welfare check to the nuclear industry. Without Price-Anderson, there would be no private sector nuke plants.
My understanding is that nuclear power is actually fossil-fuel intensive because of the massive energy required to extract uranium.
There's also the issue of the storage of radioactive waste and safety concerns. The Davis-Bessey nuke plant near Toledo very nearly had a catastrophic disaster just a few years ago.
Ohio would be much better off investing and encouraging clean, safe and renewable energy such as wind, solar and geothermal. Doing so would put thousands of people to work.
Citizens' group Ohio Election Justice Campaign (OEJC) calls on media to investigate collapse of Ohio's landmark 2004 election fraud lawsuit; deadline for prosecution for destruction of evidence expires soon.
Columbus, OH (PRWEB) June 15, 2009 -- As the deadline for prosecution of election officials looms, Brunner's office has taken no action to investigate the 2004 election or the destruction of key evidence in the landmark 2004 Ohio election fraud lawsuit, King-Lincoln v. Blackwell, 2:06-cv-00745 (S.D. Ohio), according to the Ohio Election Justice Campaign (OEJC).
In a May 2009 blog, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner admitted, "Numerous election activists have reviewed the centrally stored ballots in great detail, some with conclusions that allege wrongdoing." Brunner live blog on May 16, 2009.
The deadline for prosecution for the destruction of key evidence in the election fraud case will expire in the next few weeks.
As alleged in court documents, a private corporation, The Ohio Association of Election Officials, encouraged the destruction of evidence in violation of federal court order. Motion for Special Grand Jury. This group will be holding its summer conference June 15-17th, 2009 in Columbus at the Columbus Renaissance Hotel.
SOS Brunner is hosting this conference, entitled "Election Officials Summer Conference and Trade Show." In Ohio's current tight budget, the SOS office will not give costs for conference hosting.
Read More »Contact person: Paddy Shaffer, Director, Ohio Election Justice Campaign, (614) 266-5283
Please note: Links at the end of summery for the court case, exhibits (evidence, records, research), articles, and a video.
The below summarizes the unresolved election fraud situation in Ohio, then goes into depth with a synopsis, further background, and research resources. Your help is urgently needed before the statute of limitations expires.
Please contact US Attorney General Eric Holder at 202-353-1555 and ask him to work with the Ohio Election Justice Campaign (OEJC) and other supporting individuals and organizations to quickly initiate a special grand jury investigation into the 2004 election before it is too late.
Summary Read More »
Please note: Links at the end of summery for the court case, exhibits (evidence, records, research), articles, and a video.
The below summarizes the unresolved election fraud situation in Ohio, then goes into depth with a synopsis, further background, and research resources. Your help is urgently needed before the statute of limitations expires.
Please contact US Attorney General Eric Holder at 202-353-1555 and ask him to work with the Ohio Election Justice Campaign (OEJC) and other supporting individuals and organizations to quickly initiate a special grand jury investigation into the 2004 election before it is too late.
Summary Read More »
"The passenger pigeon needs no protection. Wonderfully prolific, having the vast forests of the North as its breeding grounds, traveling hundreds of miles in search of food, it is here to‑day and elsewhere tomorrow, and no ordinary destruction can lessen them, or be missed from the myriads that are yearly produced" (Ohio Senate Select Committee, 1857)."
By 1857 the passenger pigeon was already little more than a human generation from extinction. The evidence was plain for anyone to see. Habitat destruction and the relentless, unregulated, killing of pigeons for commercial interests continued without impediment. Within two decades the passenger pigeon became a rare bird. In 1900, the last authenticated wild passenger pigeon was shot in a Pike County, Ohio barnyard by a 14 year-old boy who observed it eating grain. The boy did not even know what kind of bird it was. At that point a few captive birds survived, providing a small measure of hope that one day billions of passenger pigeons could return to their rightful and empty place in our skies. That hope vanished when Martha, a 29-year-old pigeon, died at 1:00 p.m. on September 1, 1914 at the Cincinnati Zoo. Martha spent her entire life as a captive. Martha never felt the wind in her face. She never flew in a flock numbering millions, or billions, of birds as her recent ancestors did. Martha’s lifeless body was ceremoniously frozen into a block of ice and shipped off to the Smithsonian Institution, where today she rests in "storage".
One must ask how it could be that the Ohio Senate could issue such a brazen and deceitful statement when the facts showed a valuable species was plummeting toward extinction. Could it have been lobbying by the railroads that hauled boxcars full of pigeons to market? Could it have been the influence of cotton-growing slave owners who served cheap pigeon meat? Could it have been the agricultural interests who turned the birds into fertilizer and hog food? Or was it the restaurant owners? Or the shooting interests who used live pigeons for tournaments? Perhaps the good Ohio Senators were merely protecting "jobs" by refusing to protect the pigeons. It was obviously unsustainable. Whatever the Senators were protecting, it could not be saved without protecting the pigeon population.
Apparently many politicians have not learned from the mistakes of their predecessors. Today, the world faces a much bigger problem than the extinction of a single North American bird. In the absence of effective action now, one-million terrestrial plants and animals will be gone or on an irreversible path to extinction in forty years. The evidence that we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions is abundant and clear. The world's oceans, forests, and ice regions are collapsing. Millions of people are being uprooted, and 300,000 people died last year because of climate change. Substantial numbers of politicians, corporations, and media moguls preach that we cannot afford to cap greenhouse gases because it will cost us jobs and economic growth. The truth is that inaction has already cost us jobs, and continued inaction could soon make all jobs as rare as passenger pigeons.
It is time for America's politicians to stand up and become leaders and representatives of the people instead of being servants for corporate contributors. It is time for America's citizens to reject the distortions spread by the fossil fuel industry, whose past actions prove they are solely concerned about profits. Corporations do not have hearts or souls. It is all about the money, when it should be about our children's future and the sustainability of life on Earth.
Pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act now or the Smithsonian Institution will soon be running out of space.
Jim Wentz
'Smart grid' promises dawn of high-efficiency energy use
Jun 7, 2009
Boston Globe
WASHINGTON - Thomas Alva Edison, meet the Internet.
More than a century after Edison invented a reliable light bulb, the nation's electricity distribution system, an aging web of power lines, is poised to move into the digital age.
The "smart grid" has become the buzz of the electric power industry, at the White House, and among members of Congress. President Obama says the advancement is essential to boost development of wind and solar power, get people to use less energy, and to tackle climate change.
What smart-grid visionaries see coming are home thermostats and appliances that adjust automatically depending on the cost of power; a water heater that may get juice from a neighbor's rooftop solar panel; and a plug-in hybrid electric car that charges one minute and then, on a scorching-hot day, sends electricity back to the grid to help head off a brownout.
In a smart-grid system, utilities get instant feedback on a transformer outage, shift easily among energy sources, integrating wind and solar energy with electricity from coal-burning power plants, and go into homes and businesses to automatically adjust power use based on prearranged agreements.
"It's the marriage of information technology and automation technology with the existing electricity network. This is the energy Internet," said Bob Gilligan, vice president for transmission at GE Energy, which is aggressively pursuing smart-grid development. "There are going to be applications 10 years from now that you and I have no idea that we're going to want or need or think are essential to our lives."
Hundreds of technology companies and almost every major electric utility company see smart grid as the future. That interest got a boost with the availability of $4.5 billion in federal economic recovery money for smart-grid technology.
But smart grid will not be cheap. Cost estimates run as high as $75 billion. Who is going to pay the bill? Will consumers get the payback they are promised? Might "smart meters" be too intrusive? Could an end-to-end computerization of the grid increase the risk of cyberattacks?
Today's grid is seen by many as little different from one envisioned by Edison 127 years ago.
The hundreds of thousands of miles of power lines that crisscross the country have been compared to a river flowing down a hill: an inefficient one-way movement of electrons from power plant to consumer. There is little way to provide any feedback of information to the power company running the system or to those buying the electricity.
"The heart of a smart grid is to make the grid more flexible, to more easily control the flow of electrons, and make it more efficient and reliable," said Greg Scheu, head of the power production division at ABB North America, a grid technology provider.
"The meter is only the beginning," said Alex Huang, director of a grid technology center at North Carolina State University. He said that instead of power flowing from a small number of power plants, the smart grid can usher in a system of distributed energy so electricity "will flow from homes and businesses into the grid. Neighborhoods will use local power and not just power flowing from a single source."
There are glimpses of what the future grid might look like.
On the University of Colorado campus in Boulder, the chancellor's home has been turned into a smart-grid showhouse as part of a citywide, $100 million project spearheaded by Xcel Energy. The home has a laptop-controlled electricity management system that integrates a rooftop solar panel with grid-supplied power. It also tracks energy use and is equipped to charge a plug-in hybrid electric car.
Florida Power & Light is planning to provide smart meters for 1 million homes and businesses in the Miami area over the next two years in a $200 million project.
"We've got about 70 [smart grid] pilots all over the country right now," said Mike Oldak, a specialist on smart grid at the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned power companies.
An Energy Department study projects energy savings of 5 percent to 15 percent from smart grid.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Again, the smart grid will help increase the use of renewable energies and decrease the use of fossil fuels....which is what we need in America today!
Dennis Spisak
Mahoning Valley Green Party
Ohio Green Party
www.ohiogreens.org
www.votespisak.org/thinkgreen/
Jun 7, 2009
Boston Globe
WASHINGTON - Thomas Alva Edison, meet the Internet.
More than a century after Edison invented a reliable light bulb, the nation's electricity distribution system, an aging web of power lines, is poised to move into the digital age.
The "smart grid" has become the buzz of the electric power industry, at the White House, and among members of Congress. President Obama says the advancement is essential to boost development of wind and solar power, get people to use less energy, and to tackle climate change.
What smart-grid visionaries see coming are home thermostats and appliances that adjust automatically depending on the cost of power; a water heater that may get juice from a neighbor's rooftop solar panel; and a plug-in hybrid electric car that charges one minute and then, on a scorching-hot day, sends electricity back to the grid to help head off a brownout.
In a smart-grid system, utilities get instant feedback on a transformer outage, shift easily among energy sources, integrating wind and solar energy with electricity from coal-burning power plants, and go into homes and businesses to automatically adjust power use based on prearranged agreements.
"It's the marriage of information technology and automation technology with the existing electricity network. This is the energy Internet," said Bob Gilligan, vice president for transmission at GE Energy, which is aggressively pursuing smart-grid development. "There are going to be applications 10 years from now that you and I have no idea that we're going to want or need or think are essential to our lives."
Hundreds of technology companies and almost every major electric utility company see smart grid as the future. That interest got a boost with the availability of $4.5 billion in federal economic recovery money for smart-grid technology.
But smart grid will not be cheap. Cost estimates run as high as $75 billion. Who is going to pay the bill? Will consumers get the payback they are promised? Might "smart meters" be too intrusive? Could an end-to-end computerization of the grid increase the risk of cyberattacks?
Today's grid is seen by many as little different from one envisioned by Edison 127 years ago.
The hundreds of thousands of miles of power lines that crisscross the country have been compared to a river flowing down a hill: an inefficient one-way movement of electrons from power plant to consumer. There is little way to provide any feedback of information to the power company running the system or to those buying the electricity.
"The heart of a smart grid is to make the grid more flexible, to more easily control the flow of electrons, and make it more efficient and reliable," said Greg Scheu, head of the power production division at ABB North America, a grid technology provider.
"The meter is only the beginning," said Alex Huang, director of a grid technology center at North Carolina State University. He said that instead of power flowing from a small number of power plants, the smart grid can usher in a system of distributed energy so electricity "will flow from homes and businesses into the grid. Neighborhoods will use local power and not just power flowing from a single source."
There are glimpses of what the future grid might look like.
On the University of Colorado campus in Boulder, the chancellor's home has been turned into a smart-grid showhouse as part of a citywide, $100 million project spearheaded by Xcel Energy. The home has a laptop-controlled electricity management system that integrates a rooftop solar panel with grid-supplied power. It also tracks energy use and is equipped to charge a plug-in hybrid electric car.
Florida Power & Light is planning to provide smart meters for 1 million homes and businesses in the Miami area over the next two years in a $200 million project.
"We've got about 70 [smart grid] pilots all over the country right now," said Mike Oldak, a specialist on smart grid at the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned power companies.
An Energy Department study projects energy savings of 5 percent to 15 percent from smart grid.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Again, the smart grid will help increase the use of renewable energies and decrease the use of fossil fuels....which is what we need in America today!
Dennis Spisak
Mahoning Valley Green Party
Ohio Green Party
www.ohiogreens.org
www.votespisak.org/thinkgreen/
TVA Ships Toxic Coal Ash to Georgia and Alabama
Written by Becky Striepe
Published on June 8th, 2009
Georgia and Alabama are now storing more than 1000 tons of the fly ash that leaked from a Tennessee coal fired power plant in December.
The spill, which dumped over 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic sludge in the area around the Kingston coal plant, was over 120 times larger than the Exxon Valdez. It destroyed homes in the area and contaminated local water supplies. Cleanup is still underway from the disaster six months later.
· So why is the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) shipping tons of this toxic substance from Tennessee to Georgia and Alabama?
There are two loads of the ash headed out of Tennessee: one to Taylor County in Georgia and the other to Perry County, Alabama. They're using area landfills as testing sites for transporting and disposing of this dangerous substance, experimenting with different sorts of rail cars and storage.
The idea is to test for the safest way to dispose of the ash. TVA authorities are saying that they're taking safety into account, but according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press:
The ash waste was stored in what Tennessee classifies as a Class II or industrial waste landfill behind TVA's Kingston Steam plant near Harriman [...] the spilled ash now will be taken to Class I municipal garbage landfills.
Georgia and Alabama solid waste officials confirmed [this] Friday afternoon, but they said their landfills are double-lined with both clay and a synthetic barrier material.
They're sending the ash from an industrial dump site to nonhazardous landfills. It just feels like the TVA still isn't taking the risks from fly ash seriously, barrier material or not. There was barrier material at Kingston, and we saw what happened there.
Coal ash is a highly toxic by-product of coal fired power plants. It contains contaminants like lead and arsenic, and according to Scientific American, is more radioactive than nuclear waste. Kingston-area residents have filed a $5 million class action lawsuit against the TVA for damages from the December spill.
This is why we need to switch to more use of solar and wind power. There is no such thing as "clean coal", only dirty coal with highly toxic by-products!
Dennis Spisak
Mahoning Valley Green Party
Ohio Green Party
www.ohiogreens.org
www.votespisak.org/thinkgreen/
Written by Becky Striepe
Published on June 8th, 2009
Georgia and Alabama are now storing more than 1000 tons of the fly ash that leaked from a Tennessee coal fired power plant in December.
The spill, which dumped over 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic sludge in the area around the Kingston coal plant, was over 120 times larger than the Exxon Valdez. It destroyed homes in the area and contaminated local water supplies. Cleanup is still underway from the disaster six months later.
· So why is the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) shipping tons of this toxic substance from Tennessee to Georgia and Alabama?
There are two loads of the ash headed out of Tennessee: one to Taylor County in Georgia and the other to Perry County, Alabama. They're using area landfills as testing sites for transporting and disposing of this dangerous substance, experimenting with different sorts of rail cars and storage.
The idea is to test for the safest way to dispose of the ash. TVA authorities are saying that they're taking safety into account, but according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press:
The ash waste was stored in what Tennessee classifies as a Class II or industrial waste landfill behind TVA's Kingston Steam plant near Harriman [...] the spilled ash now will be taken to Class I municipal garbage landfills.
Georgia and Alabama solid waste officials confirmed [this] Friday afternoon, but they said their landfills are double-lined with both clay and a synthetic barrier material.
They're sending the ash from an industrial dump site to nonhazardous landfills. It just feels like the TVA still isn't taking the risks from fly ash seriously, barrier material or not. There was barrier material at Kingston, and we saw what happened there.
Coal ash is a highly toxic by-product of coal fired power plants. It contains contaminants like lead and arsenic, and according to Scientific American, is more radioactive than nuclear waste. Kingston-area residents have filed a $5 million class action lawsuit against the TVA for damages from the December spill.
This is why we need to switch to more use of solar and wind power. There is no such thing as "clean coal", only dirty coal with highly toxic by-products!
Dennis Spisak
Mahoning Valley Green Party
Ohio Green Party
www.ohiogreens.org
www.votespisak.org/thinkgreen/
Openers is reporting today that Lee Fisher now supports same-sex marriage. Welcome Lee. You now hold the same position as Dick Cheney, who disclosed his support for marriage equality earlier this month.
Fisher's change in tune is the latest example of how he stakes out a position, only to change it when polls show he's on the wrong side.
He was opposed to the death penalty -- then he was for it when he decided to run for attorney general.
He was for progressive taxation -- then ran for governor as a tax cutter against Bob Taft. Taft won.
He was opposed to marriage equality -- before he was for it.
So why the change?
Mr. Fisher saw Jennifer Brunner in his rear-view mirror. She is challenging him for the U.S. Senate nomination and she has supported marriage equality back when polls suggested that she was out of her mind.
Nice to have you on board, Lee, but I'm still amazed that Dick Cheney got there first!
Fisher's change in tune is the latest example of how he stakes out a position, only to change it when polls show he's on the wrong side.
He was opposed to the death penalty -- then he was for it when he decided to run for attorney general.
He was for progressive taxation -- then ran for governor as a tax cutter against Bob Taft. Taft won.
He was opposed to marriage equality -- before he was for it.
So why the change?
Mr. Fisher saw Jennifer Brunner in his rear-view mirror. She is challenging him for the U.S. Senate nomination and she has supported marriage equality back when polls suggested that she was out of her mind.
Nice to have you on board, Lee, but I'm still amazed that Dick Cheney got there first!
The Free Press and Central Ohio Green Education Fund invite you to the
Second Saturday Salon
June 13 - 6:30-11pm
World traveler, activist and avid photographer Bob Studzinski will show photos of his recent trip to Bolivia.
Also, art, videos, music, refreshments, and socializing with progressive friends.
1021 E. Broad St., side door, parking in rear
truth@freepress.org
253-2571
Second Saturday Salon
June 13 - 6:30-11pm
World traveler, activist and avid photographer Bob Studzinski will show photos of his recent trip to Bolivia.
Also, art, videos, music, refreshments, and socializing with progressive friends.
1021 E. Broad St., side door, parking in rear
truth@freepress.org
253-2571
Sonia Sotomayor would be another Supreme Court Justice with the background of being a corporate lawyer. She isn't likely to write opinions that break up companies that are "too big to fail" in anti-trust cases.
And, she isn't expected to be a justice in the mold of Thurgood Marshall or Earl Warren who made rulings that caused sweeping changes.
No one expects any Democratic U.S. senators to vote against her nomination but progressives should hope for more liberal nominees for the highest court from President Obama in the future.
And, she isn't expected to be a justice in the mold of Thurgood Marshall or Earl Warren who made rulings that caused sweeping changes.
No one expects any Democratic U.S. senators to vote against her nomination but progressives should hope for more liberal nominees for the highest court from President Obama in the future.
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We are seeing the impact of repression
I would like to see this study expanded to examine the incid...
I would like to see this study expanded to examine the incid...
