Photos, Easter Sunday Walk

Danged eagles are going to force me to buy a longer lense. Their nest looks to be 10 or more feet across and sits in a dead white pine above the creek on the Rhea County side. More than that I'm not telling. I don't know if you can tell from this shot but both birds are in the nest. One of them is just to the right of the tree trunk.

Black vultures are amazing flyers and are putting on a show for their courtship ritual. There were three birds in this flight. Two of them seemed to be in aerial combat while the other stayed close by.

Phlox in several shades are everywhere right now.

I don't have a clue what these beauties are. The flower stem is about six inches high. 

I'll try to post more later.

Evening Mist after an April Storm

"The Oceans are cooling", Other lies and Why they tell them

With great sanctimony and firm chinned voice, George Will spoke out on national TV and stated that climate change was a lie because the oceans were in fact cooling down, not warming up.  This was a plain and simple lie. Mr. Will is either deluding himself with the starkly fearful need for climate change to be "not happening" because his entire career is bassed on such fear and self delusion, or he is a liar. 

Some facts are in order...The oceans are really big and it is tough to put together enough accurate measurements to get and average temperature tracked over a long period of time. Some spots in the oceans are in fact cooling down, mostly due to the melting of large bodies of ice and the massive runoff currents flowing from the Arctic and Antarctic ice packs and others. The concensus of scientists is that the oceans are warming up with tragic velocity.

Other symptoms are even more stark in their obviousness...

Glacier National Park is currently predicted to be glacier free within the next decade or so. Want to see a glacier? Go quickly or they'll be gone.

The Antarctic ice shelf is cracking up.

The Arctic Ocean will soon be ice free. Oddly, rather than realizing that this will mean staggering changes in life all over the world, flooding millions out of their homes and causing entire coastal nations to disappear, and taking drastic steps to reverse the trend, conservatives are looking for ways to make money from it. 

Yep...Some people will benefit from worldwide disaster. Everyone else will lose and lose big. 

In the world of what passes for a modern conservative like George Will, that's all that counts. 

"I will make money," say people like George, "Therfore it is good for me to lie to you."

Peace,

Steve

Extra Reading

Evening 4-04-09

Nice to have a President again

This is our President

When the Rains Come

Last Summer the creek looked like this...

That was then...This is now...

If it's Tuesday, there must be Eagles

I'm so sorry you guys couldn't have been with us today. 

We had a work day putting up signs and fence posts but we took some time to explore the yard, which through an amazing set of circumstances goes from the top of Walden Ridge to the middle of Whites Creek. We took lunch at the overlook and kept getting buzzed by these two birds who were flying stupendous aerial stunts in tandem at eye level to our perch. They were two immature bald eagles, one of which is just starting to get his color. I apologize in advance for only having a little hiking camera with me.  I thought about posting one of the closer shots but this one tells a better story of what it's like to be a teenaged eagle playing with a friend.

I was wrong when I identified the violet as a trout lily...This is a trout lily....

This is Bloodroot. A prize for all spring wildflower hunters.

The Second Day of Spring

Pictures from Whites Creek in Roane County from our hike today... 

This is the pool below the confluence of Piney Creek and Fall Creek. We are standing in Roane County looking at Rhea County and are just a few hundred feet from the Cumberland County line. I'm curious about how the boundaries were drawn back when. I think these were land grant properties and frankly there's no way to get to these bits of Rhea County without going through Cumberland. 

Ford Branch


Trout Lily (I think)

Wake Robin Trillium
Buckeye

Conservation Fisheries Recognized for Endangered Species Work

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service presented their 2008 Recovery Champion Award to Conservation Fisheries biologists, Pat Rakes and J.R. Shute. They are being recognized for their contributions to the recovery program for endangered species.

Region 4 & 5
Conservation Fisheries, Inc.
J. R. Shute and Pat Rakes, Co-directors

Conasauga logperch, smoky madtom, yellowfin madtom, blue shiner, Cape Fear shiner, slender chub, blackside dace, boulder darter, vermillion darter, spotfin chub, and other endangered fish species

Since the 1980s, J. R. Shute and Pat Rakes have worked to recover more than 50 of the rarest fishes in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, and North Carolina. Their organization, Conservation Fisheries, Inc., has developed propagation protocols and technologies for fish-rearing, restored populations in their native streams—and expanded the knowledge of spawning behavior, habitat preferences, larval development, and early life-stage environmental sensitivity. Along with producing host fishes for freshwater mussels and maintaining “ark” captive populations, Conservation Fisheries has saved the smoky madtom from extinction, enhanced the status of species such as the yellowfin madtom, moved several species closer to delisting, and precluded the need to list others

.

Check out their web site and pay particular attention to that pretty "donate" button...Conservation Fisheries

Nobody, That's Who

So AIG used our borrowed money to pay bonuses to the scumbags who sold the credit default swaps that crashed the world economy. There was an amendment in the bailout bill that was supposed to stop that possibility but it got removed in the legislative process. Senator Chris Dodd was the Bill's sponsor and he's getting blamed for it.

That's not fair! Senator Dodd has no clue what happened to the amendment. It disappeared in the House and Senate Conference committee which is supposed to resolve the differences between House and Senate versions of bills and send them back to the two houses of Congress for final passage, which is normally a mere formality.

I listened to three big media news shows where the anchor looked sincerely at the camera and got this wrong. These people are hurting our country. This stuff isn't that hard to get right..And moreover, when a news outlet gets something wrong they should make as big a deal looking sincerely into the camera and correcting their misinformation before they go onto their story about a shark swimming in the ocean off Australia.

So we have two problems...Our big national media...The one sanctified and protected by the Constitution because of it's immense value to the democratic process...sucks big time. Our other problem is that our Congressmen and Senators...The ones we elect to make our laws...have no idea who is making our laws.

Think about that for a second. We live in a country where one of the 100 most powerful people in government, the cosponsor of the amendment in question, has no clue how it got removed in the Senate-House conference committee -- or if it was taken out of the legislation even before it made it into conference.

From Huffington Post

Let's also note that the original bailout bill was a Bush Administration creation and that this was simply a fix to that monstrousity that was added to the current administration's Stimulus Bill. The real blame goes to Bush but that too is lost in the current story.

The blame game would be amusing if it weren't tragic. It's the car thief blaming the owner for his car getting stolen because the burgular alarm was too easily beaten. So who will take the blame?

Peace,

Steve

Rare Plant found in the Gorge

A botanist friend reports that he has found Virginia Spirea along Whites Creek. It is endangered in Tennessee. When I looked at the pictures I thought, "Oh yeah. That stuff."


Check it out.

"A toxic but mutual embrace"

Josh Marshall points out something we all know but haven't really faced about our relationship with China.

All Hail Science

President Barack Obama did a lot more than lift the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research Monday. He came to the startling conclusion that scientific research should be based on science.

This will be a change. George W. Bush spent the past eight years making sure scientific research was based on conservative ideology, political manipulation and whim.

A Dash of Science

We have seen that solar power has come of age but batteries have not. Here is a major advance in quick charging of lithium ion batteries. It could soon be possible to recharge an electric vehicle in as little as 9 seconds. With super fast charging, regenerative braking and fast acceleration become the norm. Weight can be cut down because cars can recharge so quickly that longer trips are no problem. This is really promising.

From our "Well, Duh!" Department: Frist Family business Against Heathcare Reform

Oddly, most health insurance companies seem pleasantly surprised with Obama's plan.

Former Columbia/HCA executive Richard L. Scott has launched a nonprofit group called Conservatives for Patients' Rights, which promises a $20 million multimedia ad campaign warning that the country is hurtling toward socialized medicine. Scott, who was pushed out of Columbia/HCA in the 1990s and now runs a chain of Florida urgent-care clinics, said in an interview that he has put up $5 million of his own money to kick-start the effort, with hopes of building a grass-roots campaign.

And did I mention that Zack Wamp is all against having your health decisions made by a central board? That's too funny. Other than the Healthcare PAC money Zach is getting, isn't an HMO a "centralized board" that makes your healthcare decisions?

I Love Rushbo

If there is anything that points to the disintegration of the GOP it is their choice of leadership...Whomever that may be...

It's Sunday... Mormons show a drop in Porn Viewing on Sunday

But they make up for it during the rest of the week, so much so that Utah is the number one porn viewing state in America. Which state is number two in porn views?

Sarah Palin's Alaska.

From our "Conservatives are weirder than we thought" Department:

80% of the top porn viewing states voted for John McCain.

60% of the states with the lowest porn rates voted for Obama. 

The study actually is more of a study in the end results of repression than anything else. The more conservative or religious a state is, the more its citizens subscribe to porn sites. 

Hey...I'm just the messenger here, doing my online research while some folks are in church. 

Fat Tuesday? State of the Union Address? Ash Wednesday?

Is there some subtle meaning in this?

Enjoy the day because I think we are going to be called on for personal sacrifice in order to help fix this mess we're in.

Quote of the day:

Progressive thought rests, first, on the value of empathy—putting oneself in other people’s shoes, seeing the world through their eyes, and therefore caring about them.  

The second principle is acting on that care, taking responsibility both for oneself and others, social as well as individual responsibility. 

The third is acting to make oneself, the country, and the world better—what Obama has called an “ethic of excellence” toward creating “a more perfect union” politically.

 From a post by George Lakoff...The Obama Code

The straight up answer to idiots who say they haven't seen Obama's Birth Certificate

Click

Flash back...TN Wingnut Edition

Only in TN

Tip via SouthernBeale

Corker is a TOON?

In a flashback to " Who killed Roger Rabbit", our junior senator from Tennessee is raising eyebrows with his performances lately. His cartoonish imitations of a foam at the mouth wingnut are at odds with people who know the guy. What's going on? 

I have asked essentially the same question several times: 

Has Bob Corker gone over to the dark side? Actually, I have gone from asking the question to stating it as fact. I had such high hopes for Corker and a moderate Republican. I guess there's no longer any such thing. We probably should have known this would happen when Karl Rove started hanging around Chattanooga during Bob's Senate campaign. The Republican party poured massive amounts of marketing and pr into Corker's run and just barely edged out Harold Ford, Jr. in a nasty and racially tinged campaign from Corker financed with a huge injection of Corker's personal millions at the last minute. It looks like Bob is now trying to either ingratiate himself to, or repay, the neoconservatives who now control the Republican party, but he frankly just looks goofy trying to do it. 

Peter Kotz at the Nashville Scene see the same thing.

Has Bob turned loon? Or is he just the latest in a long line of pols shamelessly grubbing to be the senator from Fox News?

Corker's call for TVA ratepayers to bear the full cost of the Kingston Catastrophe bears witness to Corker's deal with the devils of his party. Ignoring that it was Federally elected Republicans from all over the country who dismantled a resonably functioning TVA Board and replaced it with anti environment Republican party loyalists (including the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, for pete's sake), the call for us locals to pay for our bastard child after we've been raped is a little too much. 

Come on Bob...You weren't like this before...What happened? 

As Kotz calls for in his piece:

...it may be time for an intervention.

You need help, Bob. We're here for you if you can break through that bubble they are holding you in.

Peace,

Steve

What happened Yesterday?

I'm becoming a fan of TPM's Day in 100 seconds, even if it isn't always 100.

A New Day at the EPA

It looks like Science may once again be the guiding light in environmental decisions at the EPA.

Red State Update

(Warning: Profanity...But Jackie and Dunlap are talking about Wall Street bonuses so I think profanity is called for.)

Report on National Security

It is impossible to defend everything against every conceivable threat. We must move beyond gates, guards, and guns.

From a General who has been there and done that...Four Star (Retired) Barry McCaffrey

The Daily Soap

Welcome to the next episode of..."The Daily Lie"...Another breathless chapter in the irrational saga of the Republican Party. 

In today's episode, we find Republican leaders whining about being shut out of the stimulus bill process and claiming that President Obama reneged on his promise of bipartisanship. 

"Our bill created twice the jobs at half the cost," they sing in unison. Only it didn't. Instead of less than a Trillion bucks, which is the estimated cost of the final bill, the Republican Bill would have cost $2.5 Trillion! Off by a factor of seven is pretty normal for GOP arithmetic. Their bill would have raised taxes on 26 million American families, but cut the taxes of...Wait for it...Rich People! 

That was it. Their whole bill. No money for schools, higher education, people who've lost their jobs, alternative energy, transportation, veterans with disabilities, broadband for rural communities, and on and on...Just tax cuts for rich people. Look, rich people got trillions of dollars in tax cuts from the Bush Administration and the economy has tanked. Give rich people more money and all they do is stay up at night trying to figure out how to steal it from each other. Who in their right mind would think giving them more money would help turn our economy around? Nobody! Just Republicans, and they can't pass a "right mind" test with the answers already filled in. 

So were they left out of the process as they claimed? Why Hell no! They got to introduce their own Republican bill and as a matter of fact even a bunch of Republicans voted against the Republican Bill. Lack of Shame does appear to have some limits, even among Republicans. In the House, Republican amendments were offered and approved in the final version of the bill. Some were dumped, mostly with bipartisan support. As many as 60 Republicans voted with Democrats against some of the Republican amendments, proving that even some Republicans know better than to do some of the things that Republicans want to do. 

What did Tennessee's own have to say about Obama's bipartisanship efforts? 

“This was not a drive-by P.R. stunt, and I actually thought it might be,” Zach Wamp, of Tennessee, told the Times after he and his Republican House colleagues finished a long session with the President. “It was a substantive, in-depth discussion with our conference.” More to the point, the bill they were discussing had already been tailored to soothe Republican sensibilities.

Quietly and behind the scenes, the few rational people left in the Republican party are, in fact, working with Democrats to try and save our economy. In the final show, however, they revert to type. I suppose their defense will be, "I was only following orders." When history looks back on this time in world events, will we see that the "Good Republican" will have replaced the "Good German" as the enablers of things wicked?

Perhaps so.

Peace,

Steve

William Rivers Pitt covers this in far more depth

Representative Lousie Slaughter uses the term "disingenuous" as a polite term for Republicans as she lets us in on how it really was.

Whoa...Are Democrats going to grow a Spine?

The new Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman, Chip Forrester:

"I wasn't attacking Republicans in general. I was attacking this elitist, extremist group led by Robin Smith, fueled by Jason Mumpower, stoked by Chip Saltsman, and as chair I'm not going to let stand that kind of attack on our candidates, our Democrats. It's fair to have vigorous, ideological discussion about the policies that will help get Tennessee and our country out of the worst economic downturn since the Depression. That's fine. If the Tennessee Republican Party wants to engage in policy discussion, I'm all for it. But you're not going to attack my Democrats with a racist flier. I don't see how any reasonable Tennessean could look at that and not interpret that as a racist-looking document."

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090215/OPINION03/902150352/1008/OPINION01

RDD...(Republican Derangement Disease)

How does a rational human being face themselves in the mirror after ranting crazy stuff on National TV?

My senior senator, Lamar Alexander,  says the stimulus package is "a spending bill, and not a stimulus bill." Do these people ever feel bad about saying stupid things like this? Is "Republican Derangement Disease" redundant? Triple redundant? Can we just say "Republican" and have people nod their heads in knowing agreement like they do when you mention "Alzheimers" in the same sentence with an old person?

Conservatives spent the last 8 years voting to borrow trillions of dollars from our children and pissed it away while destroying our international reputation, our military, our economy, and possibly our future. Now republicans are goose stepping with the other members of their party to moan and whine that the people who have to fix our economy are spending too much money? What? Are they nuts? 

Karl Rove apparently is...

Over the past month, House Republicans have used the stimulus bill to redefine their party, present ideas on how to revive the economy... 

Ok. I'll bite. Name exactly ONE Republican idea to stimulate the economy...Tax cuts for the Rich? Yeah, right! These people are both crazy and traitors. Yeah, traitors. Why do they hate America? We just gave them trillions of dollars in tax cuts...Three times the amount they are claiming is too much in the stimulus bill. Got that? We cut the hell out of rich people's taxes and the economy tanked anyway. 

Paul Krugman thinks Republicans are simply nuts:

...the rhetorical response of conservatives to the stimulus plan — which will, it’s worth bearing in mind, cost substantially less than either the Bush administration’s $2 trillion in tax cuts or the $1 trillion and counting spent in Iraq — has bordered on the deranged.

Read the rest of Paul Krugman's column.

President Obama has done what he could to include Republicans in trying to save our economy. They want no part of it, actually, even though they smile and dance and agree right up until time to vote. Then they turn into snarling dogs, biting the hand of anyone who tries to help them. 

Obama included tax cuts in the stimulus bill at their demand, and then they refused to support it, even after they got what they wanted. What they really want is for Obama to fail. For America to lose. They want America's economy to fail beause they somehow think that this will make them look good. Well here's a message to republicans/conservatives: You did this to us, and frankly, most Americans know this. Keep following Karl Rove, keep standing in the way of Obama's work to fix our country, and you'll disappear into a fractured minority party. 

Conservatism is a failed philosophy, as starkly demonstrated by the last eight years in America. if you somehow believe it's not...consider yourself diagnosed.

Peace,

Steve

On the Origin of Species and Fools

Today is Charles Darwin's birthday. Happy 200th, Charles!

Here in Tennessee, Darwin is not well thought of by the FundXtians, nor by FundXtians anywhere else. Ask one about Darwin and you usually get an ignorant response. (Ignorance is a field of study in their universities, near as I can tell.) Typical is something like, "I don't believe in Evolution." To anyone with even a rudiment of knowledge, this would be kin to not believing in the orbit of Earth around the Sun.

 It is a common misperception that Darwin discovered Evolution but this is not true. What Darwin described was the mechanism that made Evolution happen. He figured out how species came to exist when previously, according to the geological record, they had not.

Well before Darwin's time, Evolution was fairly well accepted, due to the obvious record  in the geology. Looking at a vertical slice of our planet a long time ago, people could see the obvious. The deeper down you look, the simpler the organisms preserved in the fossils. Down deep were shellfish, corals, and little bug like things, but no turtles, alligators, pigs, or cows. Look closer to the surface and there were things that sort of resembles alligators, turtles, pigs and cows. Look very close to the surface and there they were...Turtles, Alligators, pigs and cows. This sequence is repeated all over the world where geological forces have cracked open the earth and shifted great vertical slices of the geological record up where we can see it in plain view. Things went from very simple to very complex. There was no denying it for a rational human being. 

So if there was a time very long ago, when none of the complex forms of life existed, including humans, but they existed today...How did this happen? Some folks claimed that a supreme being was making them,  fish, alligators, pigs, cows, and humans, when it was time for them to exist. Darwin thought that was a stretch and that some simple mechanism was probably at work. 

Young Charles had been educated to be a preacher, but his heart wasn't in it. Religious faith is a difficult concept to a rigorously logical mind, but Darwin held on to his beliefs until well after he formulated his theory on the Origin of Species. He was sent off on a ship, basically so the captain would have somebody literate to talk to at his evening meal. As the ship travelled along the southern coast of South America, young Charles saw an amazing diversity of species of life. He saw armadillos and monkeys. On the Chilean coast he saw a steep vertical slice of the Pacific shelf created by what would come to be known as Plate Techtonics, where great sections of a continent crack and shift up and down as the continents float about on the crust of the earth. Darwin of course had no knowledge of this but once again the vertical display of time and its effect on the complexity of life was displayed. Simple life forms at the bottom(long ago), more complex life forms at the top(more recent). Evolution was obvious. Darwin's question to himself was "Why?"

It was Charles Darwin's meticulous research, compilation of specimens and data, that was published as his book, "The Origin of Species" In it he described the mechanism of Evolution. His "theory" has withstood generations of evaluation by scientists and, though we have filled in many of the blanks and details, the theory is essentially accepted by every sane scientist and researcher on Earth. 

Darwin showed us how a species differentiates into other species over time and the challenges of staying alive and reproducing. His theory explains why we have new flu viruses every year, why bacteria get resistant to our medicines, and why there were a hundred different breeds of dogs in the Westminster Dog Show this week. It explains many things that some people are uncomfortable with facing, such as why human generations who historically lived in cold climates where the sun was weak tended to have light pigmentation to their skin, whereas people who lived where the sun is strong and ever present, tend to be dark. 

Darwin showed us the explanation for almost everything biological, even human behavior. He even gave us the explanation for why some humans refuse to accept facts that challenge their beliefs. This is more complicated than I will go unto here, but let's simply note that societies evolve, too, and that evolution may become de-evolution through the exact same mechanism. 

Thank you, Mr. Darwin, for that greatest of gifts. The gift of Understanding.

Peace,

Steve

Other posts I have written on Darwin are Here and Here.

Dr. Doom and the Black Swan

Watch this interview with the two economists who have been right about everything that has happened so far. Try not to listen to anything the talking heads say at CBNC. These guys make sense...Unfortunately.

Dr. Doom and the Black Swan 

(hat tip to TPM.com)

Republicans can't lead and won't follow...Quote of the Day

"Since Republicans can't lead and won't follow, they need to get out of the way!"

Reaganism has nearly wiped out this country. Progressives pointed out that it was a bad idea a century ago, pointed out it was a bad idea thirty years ago, and I guess we better point it out again, right now today.

Republicans need to come with an idea that isn't "give all your money to rich people", but that looks increasingly unlikely. The Republican proposals for fixing the worst American economy in our lifetimes looks pretty much like the exact same thing that created the worst American economy in our lifetimes...Tax cuts for Rich people. It's a bad idea! WE told you so!

President Bush borrowed more money than all his predecessors in history combined in order to make it look like our economy wasn't a disaster. If he had spent what he borrowed on something besides things like covering Dick Cheney's ample ass on his mismanagement of Halliburton and tax cuts for the rich, we might actually have an economy right now. But Bush didn't and we don't. Given the obvious failure you'd think they would at least be sorry and shut up, but no...Republicans are working their evil little mouths as hard as they can to make people believe that the way to fix this mess caused by giving tax cuts to rich people is to give some more tax cuts to rich people. 

"Help the middle class? What? Are you crazy? What good does that do for rich people?"

The Republican operating theory has been tried many times over, throughout history. It always ends badly. Eventually, the starving masses have to gather up into a massive cloud of vengence and eat all the rich people. It's ugly. Just ask Marie Antoinette. She hated liberals, too, even though she always longed to live the simple peasant's life, and was chastised for wearing "peasant" dresses made of muslin "unfit for a queen". Rather than hold that image of Marie 's head being surgically removed by Dr. Guillotine's brutal device, Republicans are standing on the barricade's demanding more tax cuts for rich people and corporations...Their donors. 

Well, Republicans have a lot of unmitigated gall. You have to give them that. After voting against our economy for the last 8 years, they are hellbent on doing the same thing, now, claiming tax cuts for the rich will be good for the economy. And I suppose next we'll hear that we should give corporations more tax breaks if they send more jobs overseas. That would make about as much sense.

Want to know where spending a dollar will give the greatest boost to the economy? Give it to a poor person. That's right! Give it to a poor person. I guarantee you it will get spent right here at home. Give a rich person an extra dollar and what happens? Gets put in a hedge fund or spent in Europe or the Bahamas or something. 

Here's an actual chart that shows the economic return for each dollar spent in a stimulus bill. 

Food stamps, unemployment benefits, and infrastructure investment put the most money back into the economy for every dollar spent on them. Tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy do the least.

So the word to Republicans is "Shutup!" Go away. You've hurt America well enough as it is. At least get out of the way and let us fix this mess you've made. Maybe you can read about the French Revolution to pass the time. That's the one where they cut the heads off of the conservatives at the end. 

Peace,

Steve

Help get the Grassroots a Seat at the Table

No...I'm not talking about Michael Phelps or bong hits. 

Ok, two things...

First...The South Carolina DA who is looking to see if he can make a case against Phelps is a jerk. If everybody who has done what Phelps did were prosecuted it would shut down the American justice system and eliminate the vast majority of law enforement officers, DA's, Judges, etc. 

Second...The jokes are hilarious:

 Never share your pot with someone who has the lung capacity of a dolphin. - Conan O'Brien

Ok, back to the grassroots, or shall we call it the "NetRoots"?

Lots of us are tired of being asked for money by local politicians only to find that we get ignored on big issues because we didn't give enough. We've watched National Coal have their way with legislators. We've watched big corporations get tax breaks and incentives while state services are being cut back. In Tennessee we've watched the state leaders back  Republican Lites instead of finding real live Democrats to run for office, and the platforms are virtually indistinguishable from each other. 

As Tennessee faces schools which are 9th from the bottom, an environmental foobar with the coal industry, a Billion dollar budget shortfall, and healthcare in a stinking mess, our state legislators, now dominated by Republicans, are announcing gay marriage bans, guns in state parks, and attacking the real menaces to society, which is either abortion or illegal immigrants, depending on which elected idiot has the microphone. 

America went blue in the last election and a recent Gallop  poll says a majority Tennesseeans consider themselves Democrats. So why did Republicans win the elections here? Well...It was mostly Republicans who were running, regardless of the capital letter after the name on the ballot. The Progressive message was lost as our state leaders told Obama to stay out of the state. 

Well, we looked to Democratic leaders to do something. You know...like maybe...Lead? 

 They didn't. They haven't. So we will. 

Step one is to let the state Democratic Party know that they have to answer to the people. This is supposed to be the difference between Republicans, who exist to serve rich people and serve as their whores and parasites. Democrats are supposed to represent workers, common people, the common good, and a healthy future for our children. 

Republicans are supposed to make things profitable for gun manufacturers and make sure gay sex stays in public bathrooms where it belongs.

The top down leadership that didn't lead has to go. The Tennessee Democratic Party has to be woken up, or we have to find a different state to move to. We can't continue to walk backward while smiling and pretending that everything is ok. It's time for action, so here's what we're gonna do...

We're going to give money to the Tennessee State Party.

That's right...We're speaking to them in a language they understand. American Currency. Greenbacks. Dollars (worth less as each day goes by but hey). It's a rap on the head that says, "You guys screwed this all up. Time have changed. Change with us or get out of the way."

So today, Tennessee Progressive bloggers have started a program we have named "Chip In!" after the new Democratic Party chairman, Chip Forrester, who has no part in this.  We propose to raise $1000 in small donations in 48 hours in order to get his attention. So far it looks like we messed up.  We are nearly thre quarters of the way to our goal after only two hours.  It's OK, we'll deal with it. We'll raise the target and make a bigger impression. 

So herre's YOUR chance to help the Progressive movement in Tennessee, even if you don't live here.  Hey...We gave money to help Your state and we're only asking for a few bucks. As important as the amount of money is the number of contributers. Give us $5 and you'll have done your part. We're working to get a seat at the table and this is how it's done in American Politics for now.

Give something...It's easy.

Thanks! and Peace,

Steve

The Future of Food

PETA seems to me to be a goofy organization that does stupid stunts like throw blood and flour on people wearing leather and fur. I don't get it. I wonder how many of them eat fish or call the exterminator when termites swarm out of their baseboards? If PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals...mostly the cute fuzzy kind) wanted to get me behind them they would give up all that irritating stuff that is more likely to get one of their noses broken than stop people from wearing leather. Instead they would go after CAFO's.

 

CAFO stands for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, and it is probably the single most environmentally devastating farming practice this side of mowing down the Amazon rain forest to graze cattle. It destroys the watershed it drains into and has ruined the health of a lot of people who used to make their livelihood on the coastal rivers of North Carolina. CAFO's produce bad meat on top of everything else they do bad. If you don't believe me, try making contact with a local farmer and buy some farm raised pork. it's harder to do than it ought to be, but you won't believe the taste. Really! It tastes just like pig! Same thing for chicken and beef.

 

So anyway, this came up when I cracked open a homegrown egg this morning to make pancakes. First of all it took two shots to crack the shell and then the yellow was...well, yellow. Deep orange yellow. I've been talking to folks about getting a farmer's market going around here but there aren't that many farmers left. We need to encourage them. Looking around I found this amazing article with a manifesto and everything aimed at restoring FOOD to it's rightful healthy place in our society.

 

Food Democracy Now!

 

Cute name, right? It looks very doable. Think about it...Healthy food in schools, end massive subsidies for huge corporate farms, and make the food labels tell you what you're eating. What? A food label that tells you what's in the stuff you are about to serve to your children? Sounds socialist to me.

 

And I'm all for it.

 

Peace,

 

Steve

 

More here: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/1/30/193023/517

Grudge against a Dead President

Gerald Ford did a monumental disservice to my country when he pardoned Richard Nixon.

By so doing, Ford prevented any investigation and thorough public discussion of the Nixon atrocities. Worse, he negated any deterrents that such an investigation would have had on future Presidential misdeeds. This has serious ramifications at the present. I firmly believe that Ford has given comforting precedent to the people who subverted the workings of our Constitutional checks and balances...And...I believe that the future of our Country depends on us enduring the investigation of the many transgression of the Bush and Cheney years.

We have been lied to repeatedly. We have been harmed.

The suppression and harassment of scientists and their warnings have lost us precious years in the fight against global warming. Climate meltdown will be far more severe than we were led to believe and Bush knew it. He did the same thing with the scientific reports telling him that the Southwest United States face serious and permanent dewatering by 2050 as he did with his briefing, "Osama Bin Laden determined to strike inside the United States."

Now we are finding out that Bush simply lied about his domestic Spy program. Bush stated that only Americans who have been talking with terrorists overseas were eavesdropped on without a warrant. That is as bold a lie as a President has ever told the American people. Who was targeted?

...Everyone, but especially journalists and news organizations.

It is a fundamental tenet of American democracy that the electorate must be informed. Without accurate information, we the people cannot make good decisions and cast our votes responsibly. Anyone who stands in the way of telling citizens the truth is a traitor.

The time has come to shine a light into the crevasses that the Bush Administration has hidden the truth, not so much that we may punish George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, however deserving, but so that we may deter the most powerful people in the entire world from lying to us ever again.

Let the investigations begin. Let the chips fall where they may. There is no reason on earth why we should know more about a stained blue dress, than we do about our stained Constitution.

This will be a test of our strength as a Nation.

Peace,

Steve

The damning NSA Whistleblower interview on Olbermann

In the spirit of the gift...

...Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit...

...We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.

From Franklin D. Roosevelt's Inaugural address

A January Sunday

Constituent Service?

As my Junior Senator from Tennessee spirals off into the land of unbridled conservative ideology, I am a bit amazed at his ability to remain in his alternate universe where he works against the best interests of his own constituents.

After we dutifully paid our taxes for the billions of dollars spent to rebuild New Orleans, Mississippi, Texas, and Florida, Goldman Sachs, AIG, etc. etc. etc., Senator Corker wants us to pay for our own damages from an entirely preventable disaster that was an act, not of god, but of his own chosen conservative ideology. Corker seems to applaud the cronyism of the Bush Administration's packing of the TVA Board of Directors (including a director whose qualification is that he is Chairman of the Republican National Committee...Isn't that a bit obvious, guys? Where's the finesse?) which led us in a straight line to the devastating event of 12:20 am, December 22, 2008. Cut costs, increase profits, increase bonuses, blame someone else and get out of town when disaster strikes.

Where is the competency and professionalism? Where is the concern for people's health...Their lives?...Concern for anything except profit and personal gain? It's the manifestation of the "I've got mine so things are fine" creed that has us in our present National condition. What I don't understand is who deserves a bailout and who doesn't? Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton when it became the target of an avalanche of class action suits involving its subsidiary's asbestos liabilities. When ehe became Vice President, one of his major successes was to get Congress to bail out Halliburton by assuming the liability for thousands of mesothelioma cases.

Republicans have no problems with bailing out rich people and corporations, but they go all outraged if anythings looks like it will actually help, you know, people. And if those people belong to a Union, Bob Corker will be the point man in the attempt to bring them to ruin. In Corker's world unions are bad. No reason except that they are Unions and Unions are bad. Forget the fact that unions are simply groups of people working together for better working conditions. This goes directly agains the conservative mantra of cut costs, make more money. Treating people like human beings is bad for business. Bob Corker is all against it.

Unions want things like humane working conditions, which is really bad for the coal business. Unions want things like proper training for workers and adequate safety precautions and adequate planning for emergencies and trainging and proceedures installed so that when something DOES go wrong, the aftermath is minimized. Lives are saved. Screwing people should not be a good business plan. Unions are the primary entities that keep corporations from screwing workers. Senator Corker hates Unions. He was willing to let millions of jobs be lost in order to get the United Auto Workers Union. Nice guy, Mr. Corker.

Let's think about Unions and the debt we owe them, shall we? Particularly some customers of a large corporation that was forced to provide training to its workers by their unions...Training that gave them proceedures and equipment to react and save lives when bad things happen. Some people are calling it a "Miracle". Well miracles happen when people lay the ground work for miracles to happen. Here are some of the unions involved in this miracle:

Seafarers International Union.
National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Patrolmen's Benevolent Association
Uniformed Firefighters Association
Uniformed Fire Officers Association
Association of Flight Attendants-CWA
Airline Pilots Association
US Airline Pilots Association

In yesterday's miracle where the lives of 155 people were saved after the US Airlines crash into an icy river, there were no CEO's or Senators flying planes, piloting boats, jumping out of helocopters, guiding people out emergency doors, deploying lifejackets and inflatable chutes, or co-ordinating the efforts of the massive New York response organization. Every one of them was a union member.

Bob hates Unions. Well, except for the one he belongs to...The Republican Party.

It looks like he doesn't much like his constituents, either.

Peace,

Steve

A better look at the Unions involved is here

This is totally uncalled for, and I apologize in advance

Therre are scores of unanswered questions about who did what in the Bush Whitehouse. Did Cheney commit treason in the outing of a covert CIA agent?

Where is the "Undisclosed location"?

How well did Georege W. Bush actually know Osama Bin Laden back in his business days with Osama's big brother?

Well sure, those are important but other events are happening that will bring up the opportunity to ask some other questions...

Former Knoxville Mayor Victor Ashe is returning from exile in Poland.

Now will someone ask the question enquiring minds want to know the answer to?

Who was fake reporter/real male prostitute, Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert being paid to visit in the WhiteHouse?

Or maybe fill us in on this one?

Senator Corker: Roane County should Pay for its Own Rape Kit

Tennessee Senator Bob Corker has just pissed me off.

Rarely does anyone try to take me for a fool in such a juvenile way as he just did. For Corker to make the statement that the people harmed by the TVA Disaster do NOT deserve to get help from the Federal government might be the most transparently asinine statement by a Tennessee politician ever…And Tennessee has set the bar higher than a Beale Street hooker when it comes to asinine statements by politicians. I don’t get it. Why would Corker make the mother of all irrational statements by a person previously thought to be coherent is beyond me, but he did.

If a utility in another state had a similar problem, "certainly I think we would expect (the utility) to deal with that," Corker said. Corker noted that many efforts have been made to make TVA a self-standing entity that runs independently and has a corporate-like board.

First of all, TVA IS in another state…Several of them in fact, but it primarily serves Tennessee, or rather it is supposed to.

Second of all...This not about TVA. It is about the people, tens of thousands of us, that TVA has harmed emotionally, physically, and economically.

At any rate, TVA is NOT a Tennessee utility. We don’t run the damned thing, Bob Corker and his fellow Senators do…And for 10 more days, George W. Bush.

Hey Bob…Take a moment and read this:

The nine-member TVA Board of Directors sets policy and strategy for TVA. The members are nominated by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve five-year terms.

That's from the TVA Board of Directors web site.

The operations people on the ground, including CEO Tom Kilgore, are hired hands doing the bidding of the TVA Board of Directors whose appointments are blessed by Senator Corker and his fellow Senators. And you would have to be a fool to think that our Tennessee Senators didn’t sign off on the SIX new Directors created and installed by the Bush Administration, so that they take over TVA policy from the three members of the Clinton era Board. So check out who is now on the TVA Board:

Chairman William B. Sansom of Knoxville, Tenn., is chairman and chief executive officer of The H.T. Hackney Co. and has held that position since 1983. Hackney is a diversified company involved in wholesale grocery, gas and oil, and furniture manufacturing. His term expires May 18, 2009.

Howard Thrailkill of Huntsville, Ala., recently retired as president and chief operating officer of Adtran, Inc., in Huntsville, which supplies equipment for telecommunications service providers and corporate end-users. Previously, he was president and chief executive officer of the firm Floating Point Systems. His term expires May 18, 2010.

Mike Duncan of Inez, Ky., is chairman, chief executive officer, and director of Community Holding Co.; chairman, CEO, and director of Inez Deposit Bank; and Chairman of the Republican National Committee. He is a director of the regional Center for Rural Development. His term expires May 18, 2011.

There are four more Directors currently listed on TVA’s web site…There are supposed to be Six more. I don’t know why this is but it is a violation of the TVA Bylaws to have less than Nine.

I list those three Directors for a reason. The TVA Board has committees that are charged with overseeing particular phases of TVA operation, such as this one:

Operations, Environment, and Safety Committee

Howard Thrailkill, Chair
Mike Duncan
Bill Sansom

Yes, that’s right, boys and girls, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, good old Bob Corker’s party, sits on the committee that directs TVA’s Safety and environmental actions.

The Republican National Committee Chairman also sits on the TVA ETHICS committee. I totally trust the Chairman of the Republican National Committee to make sure TVA operates in an ethical manner. Don’t you?

And…If there’s anybody in America I trust with the personal safety of my family, it’s a big time pro-corporation, anti-worker, Republican. And if there’s anybody in America I trust to do the right thing for the environment it’s a pro-global warming, pro-coal, big time Republican.

And…If there’s anybody in America directly responsible for the TVA disaster that has ruined Christmas for any number of Roane County, Tennessee families and made thousands of Roane Countians fearful of their family’s safety and preserving a healthy environment in their homes, it’s the TVA Board of Directors and the people who installed them into their positions of power with laws that also make them legally untouchable for putting a bullet in the back of Roane County Tennessee in the name of a Federally owned corporation’s enterprises.

And…If there’s anyone in America who should step up, say, “Hey, wait a minute!” Call out these people and do everything in his power to make the Federal Government correct the deep injustice it has put upon his constituents, it should be Senator Bob Corker, who is the people of Roane County’s voice in the very Federal Government that did this to us.

I hope that somewhere in Bob Corker’s head there’s a voice saying, “Hey…Wait a minute.”

Roane County took a bullet for America… We’re bleeding proof that Coal power has to be phased out. We have subsidized coal with our health, lives, and the safety of our very homes. The least we could expect of a Senator is to go to bat for us against the very people that put us in this fix, which inescapably includes Senator Corker himself.

Peace,
Steve

Please be Thoughtful About the TVA Ash Spill

Headlines that start with hyperbole (Radioactive![Not] Much Worse than Thought![Not]) are as misleading and as wrong as the local Chamber of Commerce saying "There's no problem here."

There is a sorry trail of lax oversight, poor management, and misplaced compensation incentives from the TVA Board over many years that led to this disaster. The blame for this event can be laid squarely at the feet of TVA's corporate mindset, the anti-environment Bush Administration, his appointed TVA Directors, and also, everyone who has ever flipped a light switch into the ON position.

Hysteria may serve a radical agenda but it won't help the community directly affected by this nor will it serve the people on the ground working to make sure this thing gets all the attention it deserves and gets properly re-mediated. Nor does it serve those of us who are working hard to lay the ground work for a healthy and viable community going forward. The TVA Ash Spill is a disaster, a big damned mess, and has health considerations all its own. In addition to the environmental damage caused by mining and burning coal for energy, there is the unpaid economic damage of Coal energy, from cradle to grave. We lose the ears of those we need when we exaggerate.

Publishing a water quality analysis from water dipped out of the soup at ground zero and then screaming about it containing 300 times the arsenic levels allowed in treated drinking water is absurd and simply not helpful to the credibility of environmentalists. That would be like screaming that apples contain an unhealthy amount of arsenic. They do, but very few people eat apple seeds in any quantity and very few people are getting their drinking water out of the soup at ground zero. In fact, most of us who live here feel like we have never had such good testing and oversight of our water supply. Even normal water treatment removes every contaminant associated with the ash spill. As of right now with everybody watching, I would bet that our water processing is as good as there is anywhere in the country.

There have been breathless pronouncements that TVA and TDEC have not been truthful with us. In fact, not one incorrect water testing analysis has been published by TVA or TDEC and they are regularly posted publicly. The delays I have run down have turned out to be due to incompetence rather than any malicious intent, and have been corrected quickly. TVA quickly released a map showing the testing locations and has continually posted their results, as has TDEC. The test results have been completely in line with the results published by some environmental groups, regardless of what you may have read.

We've had the expected positioning by politicians, big and small, and lawyers are swarming over our public meetings like rats at the old dump, and some environmental activists (not all) are running around scaring people. Inaccurate information has appeared in nearly every respected news outlet. It needs to stop. Nobody has been able to find an inaccuracy in any of the published test data and there is a ton of it out there. What it shows is that we have a mess...There are hazards...They are manageable...We have to be vigilant...We have to be truthful! We don't have to exaggerate anything to show what a foobar TVA has given us. We have to look into the future toward the greater long term good for our community.

The next couple of years are going to be harder than they needed to be. We are getting hurt economically with depressed property values and tax base, and it is going to be more difficult to attract the right kind of community based businesses to our area. Particularly if they buy into the hysteria and think those apple seeds are going to crawl out of the lake in the middle of the night and get them. Every community has its problems, but thanks to TVA's monumental mess up, we now know what ours are and what we have to do to fix things. The good news is that this mess can be contained, even though it will take time. Roane County Tennessee is a stunningly beautiful area. The people who have come in here to look at the spill can concentrate on the less than one square mile that is for real a disaster, and they can look around at the rest of our area.

Looking around at what is happening, I see good things coming out of this down the road. TVA's corporate practices are getting a white hot light shined on them. I expect their environmental awareness to jump off the scale. Orders for new coal plants are being cancelled across the country. The myth of "clean coal" has been forever exposed for what it is...a plain and simple lie. The coal waste storage practices will change forever. It is going to cost money to clean this up and it's going to cost money to make people whole. Community groups are being formed to insure that this happens. There is a common bond created when people come together to face a mutual disaster.

With all this said, we need to be aggressively vigilant, holding TVA and our officials to the task of setting things as straight as they can ever be. But even though their motivations may be personal rather than altruistic, there's nothing to be gained from stabbing them in the back when they're headed in the direction we want them to go.

Peace,

Steve

On the ground daily information and links can be found at www.RoaneViews.com

Environmental Justice to All in 2009

We got screwed this year.

Been happening for a long while...We're just now finding out how much and how bad.


So far there has been little discussion of the TVA ash spill on conservative TN blogs. They must be freaked right now. This disaster is absolutely the result of the "rah rah for coal", "burn baby burn", "drill baby drill", lack of ethic promoted by conservatives in their never ending quest for lobbyist dollars.

Right now, Tennessee Republicans are cowering in back rooms wallowing in a mix of fear and ectasy.

On one hand they have to be thinking this is a chance to squeeze Big Coal lobbbyists for a ton of money. Coal energy is looking like really nasty stuff right now. Not only are Republicans backing plans to level the Appalachian mountains and dump the nasty leftovers into the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River, but all the world has to look at the TVA disaster and think about that "Free Market" bull crap and what the constant Republican quest to eliminate environmental oversight. Republicans are telling Coal lobbyists that it's gonna take a lot more money for the GOP to keep on taking the "Clean Coal" message out to the public.

On the other hand, this is the perfect opportunity for Progressive Democrats to hang a sign around the neck of Tennessee's GOP that says, "Republican = Murderer". The weakening, in the name of deregulation, of laws that require businesses to operate in such a manner as to not kill people can be laid directly at the feet of the Republican Party.

Republicans have built the current rabid conservative iteration of their once noble party on their absolute conviction that Tennessee voters are stupid. It absolutely worked in the last election.
Can the GOP message that a clean environment is bad and clean coal good?

Public schools are bad and vouchers for rich people to send their kids to private schools are good?

Fair markets are bad and free markets are good?

The environmental callamity that has befallen Roane County, Tennessee can be laid squarely in the laps of Conservative Republicans, who have eviscerated just environmental law, and the weakling who call themselves Conservative Democrats what stood by and watched them do it.

At this very moment, Tennessee Republicans are being told to shut up, say nothing about the environmental aspect of Roane County's disaster. The message is boiled down to "Yes, but...We need Coal!"

Well no we don't...Air and water that won't make you sick would be really nice though.

Where are our Democrats that can spread the message that We aren't going to get a healthy environment as long as Tennessee voters continue to live up to Republican's expectations of how stupid they are?

Coal is killing us...Republicans (and conservative Democrats) are helping.

Now we get to play the "HOW STUPID ARE THEY?" game as we watch to see if TN voters make the connection that Conservatives have superior marketing "Be afraid, very very afraid, of the scary black guy, (while we kill you slowly for money)".

Superior marketing...But no Product!

Now is the moment for Progressive Democrats to step up and shout loud in the New Year.

Peace on Earth, Good will and Justice to All in 2009!

Might as well start right here in Roane County Tennessee.

Steve

Quote of the Day

From Jay Bookman in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

...when properly harnessed, greed makes an effective, productive servant.

But it makes a terrible master.

The Great Coal Sludge Disaster of 2008

Amazingly, folks have called and emailed from all over the Nation asking about us. We're fine. Whites Creek Gorge faces many threats but this isn't one of them.

We are downstream of the TVA disaster site by 20 miles or so, and the Whites Creek embayment on Watts Bar Lake is large enough that we'll see very little of the effects, even far into the future. The stuff will keep right on going to Chattanooga, or simply settle into the lake bottom, along with vast quantities of other nasty stuff left over from the Atom bomb project. Like megatons of mercury and enough radioactive isotopes to kill everything on the planet several times over.

But would you believe it's in a relatively safe place at the bottom of a huge TVA lake under several meters of mud. The PCB's are the greatest threat and you can just not eat the fish. That's too bad because Watts Bar has produced over forty world record fish.

I'll try to post more later, but you can follow some of the fun at www.RoaneViews.com, our local progressive community site.

We are working to house some of the volunteers who have experience helping communities who have felt the impacts of coal and its disasters. I have to force myself not to say "I told you so"...Aw what the Hell..

As I've said before, "Mining coal is one of the stupidest and most self destructive things humans do."

Peace,

Steve

Will Bush give Cheney a Pardon that includes Murder?

Claims from the actual people who say they worked to fix elections for the GOP say that Obama actually won the election by maybe seven million or more votes than the final tally says he did. One of my fervent hopes is that election fraud gets investigated in heroic depth. Problem is, the people who know what they did to help Karl Rove steal elections...Well, they are dying.

He told—Connell told Spoonamore that one of the primary reasons why he helped Bush-Cheney steal elections was to save the babies.

Michael Connell was about to testify about Karl Rove's illegal involvement in the 2004 election tampering in Ohio that gave George Bush his second term in the presidency. He was afraid that Bush and Dick Cheney were going to throw him under the bus, but he was wrong. It was an airplane.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, he had asked the Attorney General Mukasey for protective custody, because of threats to him and his wife?

MARK CRISPIN MILLER: He reported threats to his lawyer, Cliff Arnebeck, and Arnebeck—also, Velvet Revolution heard from tipsters, as well, tipsters who also claimed that Connell’s life was at risk. Stephen Spoonamore, the whistleblower who was the first—who was the one to name Connell in the first place, also had an ear to the inside. He’s also very connected. And all these people were saying Rove is making threats, the White House is very worried about this case.

Republican IT Specialist Dies in Plane Crash

America Now

The price of freedom is eternal vigilence.

Steve

Legacy

"History will be very kind to me. I intend to write it." ...Winston Churchill

There is some kind of Bush legacy project going on. It must be that conservatives worry that people will look back onthe Bush regime and realize that giving total control to a manifestly selfserving political party is not good for the long term survival of our nation. "Can't have voters realizing we're all crooks, we gotta lie about what happened," must be the whisper going through republican inner circles.

President Bush has yet to take responsibility for one single uncomfortable thing that happened while he was president. "All the decisions that were made" that precipitated the housing crisis? "Made before I got here." It's possible that he believes that, but more likely he's simply lying. The New York Times has done a little study that shows very plainly that the responsibility for the subprime meltdown lies with George W. Bush, who blocked every effort to prevent it from happening. It's like they really really believe that what ever is good for their short term bank accounts is good for the entire country.

Save money? Don't be silly. "Borrow and spend" has been the mantra of the engineers driving the train right of a cliff. "Sensible regulations?" Why that's big government! They are against big government, for deregulation, and letting people who commit constitutional crimes go...Right after we give them medals.

The whole thing is laid out here.

As we head into this season of renewal, let us not forget who the bad guys are and what we need to do. It is a large task. But as my friend says, when you have to eat a whole elephant the only way to do it is one bite at a time.

Peace,

Steve

No Greater Evil, No Greater Hero

Via Rachel Maddow

Indecent Exposure

I feel as if a white hot spotlight has flashed on with both of our national political parties caught in the glare.

Nothing in my memory exposes the hypocrisy of the Republican Party more than the debate on the monetary bailout of our financial institutions and our lack of a monetray bailout of our auto industry. At the same time, nothing exposes the spinelessness of the Democratic party more, either.

It appears that the GOP is run by very effective managers suffering from moral bankrupcy, while the Democratic party is run by...well, nobody.

A couple of facts intrude...Financial institutions, like the ones we just bailed out with three quarter of a TRILLION freaking dollars, used their bailout money to pay dividends to stockholders and bonuses to their executives, and, to allow the healthier ones to buy up weaker ones, and we still have no credit.

Salaries make up 60-70 percent of the cost of doing business at financial institutions.

My junior senator, Bob Corker, voted for that one.

My junior senator, Bob Corker, is leading the charge to break the United Auto Workers union because the cost of building an American car includes 10-15% labor. Only it actually only includes less than 10% labor, the rest is pensions and healthcare costs for retired workers...Old people who fulfilled their part of a contract and Bob says screw 'em.

(While actively working to undercut America's big three, Corker is squarely behind the $577 million dollar subsidy the state of Tennessee is providing foreign car maker Volkswagen, by the way.)

So Bob...It's the right thing to help an industry with 60% labor costs and a bad thing to help an idustry with 10% labor costs unless the workers agree to work for half what they're getting now?

The Democratic Party will never get a more clear cut delineation between between the two political parties as to which one stands for people and which one stands for corporations. There is a clear line between good and evil here.

It is time for the National Democratic Party to say it loud.

Peace,

Steve

More

Help Plug a Leak in the Ark

I'll be danged...There're my friends right there in the latest issue of National Geographic!
One of my favorite do-gooder projects is the small work I get to do with the folks at Conservation Fisheries, located across the street from the Knoxville campus of Pellissippi State College. These folks toil away, for salaries a teacher wouldn't work for, in relative obscurity doing the work they love and feel called to do...Saving fish species.

It's fascinating to walk around their facility and realize that for some of the most beautiful creatures in our world, this is their last best hope for survival. It may seem to the unknowing that losing a species is no big deal. There's lots of others, right? Well, no. There are fewer and fewer species on this planet and it's our fault. We never know which one is the critical straw that will crash an ecosystem by it's disappearance. Nor do we know which species holds the cure for a dread disease, or even, as one day may be the case, the key to humankind's survival.

The Fish species that Conservation Fisheries Inc. (CFI) work with live in Tennessee's streams and rivers, and they are having a tough time getting by. Of the 4,000 or so Boulder Darters left in the whole world, 15% of them are given life by the aquariums of CFI in Knoxville. Of the less than 6000 Yellowfin Madtoms, a fascinating tiny catfish looking beastie, about the same percentage survive in the tanks that are painstakingly maintained in the ordinary looking building that houses Conservation Fisheries Inc. and the interns and scientists who function as a dating service and nannies to breed and rear thousands of young of these and many more fish species. It looks like an old steel building but it is really an ARK.



Here's your chance to help Noah, by going to the Conservation Fisheries website and donating a few bucks. You'll feel really good about yourself.

Peace,

Steve

President-elect Obama’s transition team LISTENED!

From Renee Hoyos at Tennessee Clean Water Network

Understanding the Big Damned Mess We're In

Conservatives, Republicans, Libertarians, whatever, have no business being anything other than a minority player in the scheme of a democracy. The very idea of letting them gain control of our press and media has had devastating results on this country, as any honest observer must admit.

When a platform is given to a nut job vice presidential candidate who prayed on TV for god to bless her efforts to get federal money for the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere", and then not be laughed off the national stage as she doggedly repeated the obvious lie, "I told them Thanks, but no thanks", it becomes obvious that something is wrong with our truth detectors at the national press.

I watched with rising anger as President Bush said he regretted that his intelligence was so bad prior to his starting the Iraq war, even though his offices went so far as committing treason and a host of lessor offenses as they gamed the
CIA into doing their bidding and ruined the careers of people who pointed out the lies.

Frankly I think all of our national problems flow from an ineffective press. It was the Pamphleteers, after all, that drove the outrage at British injustice that created this nation. Without them, we are destined for mediocraty or just plain failure.

One of our Nobel Laureates in Economics lays out the big mistakes in our recent history that allowed forces to congeal into the sorry state of the nation as it sits today. He factors in the consolidation of our media as one of the five biggies.

Here's an overview.

Every step we take in rebuilding our country has to reverse these mistakes at every turn.

Peace,

Steve

Quote of the Day

"...(Obama) says we only have one president at a time," (Congressman Barney) Frank said.

"I'm afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have..."

TPM

Grackles and Broadwing

Yesterday morning...

I sat at the breakfast table with the morning light on my back. I felt, more than saw, the shadow near the back of my head. There was a loud smack, I uttered an expletive and ducked reflexively. Turning to look, there was a broadwing hawk recovering itself in mid air, just three feet from my face, and just on the other side of the window. This was the second time the hawk had slammed into it after missing a dove perched on top of the feeder.

So I have to find a new location for it. I can't continue to rely on the screen on the outside of the window to save the hawks life and keep the glass from crashing in on my head. They seem much larger when they are three feet from my face, flapping wildly to keep from falling to the ground. Striking and beautiful, the striped tail stands out in my mind after the hawk glides through the branches of the white oak and off into the woods.

A few minutes later, a gazillion grackles take over this side of Whites Creek Gorge. I tell my wife that it's at least TWO gazillion but I'm going with the more conservative figure for this account. It's way more than a shitload, for sure. The grackles are everywhere, on every branch, constantly moving, boiling three dimensionally to the ground, to the trees, from branch to branch, descending on any tree where one of them looks like it has found something to eat. Suddenly the ground is swarming, suddenly it has only a few birds in it but the trees have grown black leaves everywhere, and a few brown ones. It is like the noisiest locust swarm ever, oozing through the forest, boiling almost. For a half hour I watch them, erratic in their motion but moving, nonetheless, in one direction as a whole, up the creek, and eventually it is still and the noise gets more distant.

The cat is in shock, hiding under my car in the driveway. She is still under there 45 minutes later when I come out to leave for town. Normally she swaggers out to receive adulation but this morning she bolts around the house and under the porch where the dogs have taken refuge. They have gathered closely together to await their fate, the whim of a gazillion grackles.