I'd rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on Earth.

Steve McQueen

Practice random beauty and senseless acts of love.

~ Anonymous

the Environmental Law & Policy Center in Chicago learned that a pro-coal group had posted an online ad offering $50 (and lunch!) to anyone who would wear an "Count on Coal" t-shirt to the Chicago hearing. The ad was quickly yanked once the Tweets began

Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar Doc and Merle Watson

From the moment I first saw him play at the Main Point, the Birchmere, Cul Pepper, Merle Fest - I've always loved Doc & Merle. His Memories album is one of my favorites and his humor and warmth on Tennessee Stud from the first Will The Circle Be Unbroken album is palatable. It's like loosing Mark Twain in my book - a true American treasure - he's with Merle now. Thank you Doc for making our time on Earth a richer, fuller, more enjoyable experience. You will be missed by millions.

"When they let you in this world, they hand you a little box. It’s invisible, of course, and it’s got a few talents in it. And if somethin’ happens that you can’t lean on one, why you got two or three more you can get hold of.” Doc Watson

Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.

Spanish Proverb

A Robin Redbreast in a cage Puts all Heaven in a Rage.

~ William Blake

What do we live for; if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?

~ George Eliot

God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say "thank you?"

William A. Ward

BBC News - Major US law firm files for bankruptcy protection

BBC News - Major US law firm files for bankruptcy protection
Look what these greedy idiots did to a law firm...and all the people they put out of work - run away compensation is one thing but these idiots can't even regulate themselves when it comes to something as simple as payroll - THIS IS WHY corporate compensation regulation is needed - they didn't just put themselves out of business - they destroyed the lives of thousands of people and the economic impact those people have on their communities - unregulated capitalism is suicide plain and simple.

BBC News - Bluefin tuna record Fukushima radioactivity

BBC News - Bluefin tuna record Fukushima radioactivity
How is anybody surprised by this - the Earth is a closed system what you put in it is what you get (in your body as well)

Solar World Round Up - May 29, 2012

Despite concerted efforts by the dirty energy sector and their minions bought and paid for in Congress not only willingly but desperately bending over backwards to show loyalty in a contest of no wait I'm the biggest whore give me your money solar energy development and clean energy continues its march of inevitability.  Clean energy is the future and the future is now.  Create some jobs congress stop protecting the national security risky and health destroying dirty energy sector and do your jobs.  Its called governing.  Leave the profit whoring to unregulated Wall Street.

Here"s Your Solar World Round Up Spring 2012
 

Goldman Investment Shines Light on Solar Power
TheStreet.com
It's a simple acknowledgment that Goldman sees big profits in solar, wind and biomass power, not to mention the cheapest renewable energy of all, conservation. The University of Chicago has a new cell-making process that's as simple as soaking a ...

Solar energy industry is flourishing in Mass.
Boston Globe
But that isn't stopping the solar energy industry from flourishing here. Massachusetts, better known for long, cold winters, gloomy springs, and gale-driven nor'easters, is undergoing an unlikely solar power boom, attracting solar companies from around ...
 
Germany sets new solar power record
Independent Online
By Erik Kirschbaum A factory site of German solar power equipment company Q-Cells is pictured near Bitterfeld. Berlin - German solar power plants produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity per hour - equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full ...

UK powered up £7bn of green energy investments in 2011
Business Green
The news came a week after the government launched its draft Energy Bill which included plans to replace the current renewables subsidy scheme with new contracts for difference that would guarantee low carbon energy generators a set price for the power ...

New laws in Maryland could spell major success for solar energy
Hydrogen Fuel News
By Stephen Vagus This week in Maryland, Governor Martin O'Malley enacted two new laws that is expected to bring significant growth to the solar energy industry. The Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard for Solar Energy and the Solar Water Heating ...
 
Chevron May Use Solar in Oilfield Shared by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia
Bloomberg
(CVX) is considering using solar energy to produce the steam needed to pump heavy crude from an oilfield straddling Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Chevron may start a pilot solar plant at the end of 2013, Hashim al-Rifaai, chairman and managing director of ...
 
Unirac and Bella Energy Complete Milestone Solar Project on Salt Palace ...
MarketWatch (press release)
ALBUQUERQUE, NM, May 29, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Unirac, Inc., a Hilti Group Company and North America's leading provider of infrastructure for solar power systems, was selected by Bella Energy, a nationwide commercial solar developer and ...

Solar Energy Financing on Brink of Transformation; Obama Iowa Wind Power
CleanTechnica
“US solar projects have historically been bankrolled by some combination of energy sector players, banks, and the federal government, but the landscape is rapidly changing. New business models are emerging with an emphasis on third-party financing.

Solar power in MENA
REVE
Masdar Power is leading renewable energy development and currently constructing a 100 MW Concentrating Solar Power facility, Shams 1, in Abu Dhabi, which is set to be completed by the end of the year.

Aiding the search for solar energy storage catalysts
ScienceBlog.com (blog)
Eons ago, nature solved the problem of converting solar energy to fuels by inventing the process of photosynthesis. Plants convert sunlight to chemical energy in the form of biomass, while releasing oxygen as an environmentally benign byproduct.

 

Doc Watson Health Update | Folklore Productions

Doc Watson Health Update | Folklore Productions

Pew Research Center finds that clean energy has far more support than fossil fuels support across the political spectrum — except among conservative Republican males

Rupert "Fox News" Murdoch is in meltdown mode. Three of his aides face sanctions from Parliament for lying, another has been charged by UK prosecutors with "conspiracy to pervert the course of justice," and Murdoch himself is accused of having instructed then-Prime Minister Tony Blair to block the phone-hacking investigation.

every gallon of gas costs 56 cents more as a result of financial speculation.

since 1929, $10,000 invested in the stock market under Democratic Presidents (over 40 years) had become $300,671. Meanwhile, $10,000 invested in the stock market under Republican Presidents (over 35 years) had become only $11,733.

Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.

Jean Anouilh

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

Laughter need not be cut out of anything, since it improves everything.

~ James Thurber

In other words don't tax me but bomb Iran is a blatant display of poor math skills - let alone poor public policy.

Especially if we have to protect our oil companies. Soooo - lower tax rates means a retreat from all foreign soil - you can't have it both ways - yahoo American exceptionalisim - we can't add.

In as huge a country as the USA is from ocean to ocean and all points in between and with 350 million people and climbing we need a realistic tax rate.

If we have to protect our oil companies then a lower tax rates means a retreat from all foreign soil - you can't have it both ways - yahoo American exceptionalisim - we can't add.

The financial transaction tax is a good idea and wouldn't even be noticed by the hyper wealthy -

No wonder they don't understand our governing documents -

Sunlight Foundation: "Today's Congress collectively speaks at a 10.6 grade level, down from 11.5 in 2005. By comparison, the U.S. Constitution is written at a 17.8 grade level and the Declaration of Independence at a 15.1 grade level.

According to a new report from the Sunlight Foundation, Congress is speaking at nearly a full grade level lower than it did seven years ago - so its official they're idiots.

Jobs vs the Environment MYTH - full report
http://ping.fm/Anw1C

Economic experts have concluded that evidence fails to support the environmental “job-killer” myth. And four decades of false alarms about the alleged dangers posed by environmental regulations should be a reality check to everyone

3,300:
Number of workers Montgomery County,
Maryland expects to employ over the next
3.5 years building its new network of
stormwater controls.
Source: Montgomery County, Maryland

20,000:
Number of construction jobs created by each
$1 billion invested on water and wastewater
construction projects.
Source: Clean Water Council

118:
Number of contractors who are working on a
$63 million upgrade to the Noman Cole
Pollution Control Plant in Lorton, Virginia.

This emerging environmental industry is now worth $312 billion34 a year nationally and mploys 1.7 million people,with 75 percent of job growth in this field driven by government regulation.
The federal Clean Water Act alone spurs construction projects that are worth at
least $11 billion per year to the national economy, according to an EPA estimate in 2000.

Less than two-tenths of one percent of all layoffs in the U.S. are caused by government
regulations, according to 2010 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

$312 billion:
How much the environmental industry in the
United States is worth yearly.
Source: Environmental Business International

About 11,751 temporary jobs are expected to be created over five years if Virginia and the federal governments invest $804 million in farm runoff control projects such as planting trees and building fences along streams to meet Bay-pollution goals, according to a University of Virginia report

Similar stormwater projects could provide work for 178,000 full-time-equivalent jobs across the region over the next five years, including
36,000 jobs in Maryland, 10,000 in the District
of Columbia, 80,000 in Pennsylvania, and 52,000 in Virginia. Economic Policy Institute.

Construction is underway in Montgomery County,
Maryland, on $305 million in stormwater pollution
control projects that will create 3,300 construction
and engineering jobs.

Overall, the number of environmental clean-up
and monitoring jobs in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia has surged over the last two decades,from 98,000 jobs in 1990 to 140,000 jobs in2009, with a significant portion of this growth coming from required sewage and water system improvement projects

Sweeping assertions about economic ruin caused
by environmental regulations are nothing new,
and many economists7 have concluded that there
is no substance to them.8

43 Percent:
The increase in the number of environmental
industry jobs in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and
Virginia over the last two decades.
Source: Environmental Business International

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite - William Blake

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

"Today oil price fell, reflecting global economic concerns." Not from supply but on what speculators were willing to pay on the spot market because future demand was foretasted to be low - based on global economic news. Nothing at all to do with supply - or drill baby drill.

Here Comes the Future - BOO!

Let me see if I get the arch defenders of oil subsidies and the haters of the President right.  We aren't supposed to do any R&D in alternative clean energy because......we want to be beholden to foreign countries, because its not a national security issue, because pollution is healthy for us, because.....the status quo makes money when we drill until the very last drop comes out of our sovereign territory.  Okay good for those few people.

In the meantime we destroy our coasts, food supply and billion dollar tourist and fishing industry and never affect the international spot market while the commodity traders bid up the price of oil when economic signs are good.  We create a few jobs maybe in the hundreds with a few more platforms 15 guys a platform and aren't we smart.

Or we could build electric cars, install solar panels everywhere, retrofit every building, install wind turbines, wave generators, geothermal and invest heavily in our national infrastructure with mass transit creating millions upon millions of jobs generating a dynamic surplus.  And plow that surplus back into education to create the best work force in the world. Sounds like a terrible idea. 

But no the politicians want dumb people to manipulate with false advertising. Don’t think for yourself just follow. Resistance is futile assimilation is necessary.

Who would want to do an all the above energy strategy it’s obviously favoring one side over the other. We might sell less oil but who would care about that the guys selling the oil paying to elect politicians...nah they're not desperately trying to protect their 100 year old last century business model going the way of Kodak?

I agree with the entrenched just say no, bigoted and scared. We should just curl up in the fetal position not try anything new at all and let the extraction companies do what they want.  They won’t try and circumvent the system for personal gain or run rough shod over us. Hey as long as .0075 percent of the people are getting hyper rich I’m all for it the heck with old people, the sick and disabled. Let em rot in the street. 

They failed at being the rugged individual.  It’s the American way. That good ol' American mindset big fat business man blowhard act is just like a cowboy movie.  Acting and its a severely sociopathic.  In the end macroeconomics -reality- has to be dealt with.  The truth will out and the crooks, chicken hawks and pigs at the trough cry like babies. Wah, wah where’s my easy answer I’m scared of change, learning or doing anything new. LOL – some tough guys! Here comes the future....Boo!

---

Journey Home - Paul Burke

The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.

Henry Miller

"The church is supposed to be the lobbyist of the poor, and the church has given up on its calling..." Shanta Premawardhana, President of the Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education

The Earth Orbit

Our Earth is a living breathing organism not a dead rock that we just happen to be on.  Humans are a part of the natural process just as plugged in as the ocean breezes and the passing clouds.  We have evolved out of that natural process you see before you.  Every decisions we make whether its tossing a cigarette butt on the ground or ignoring industrial/commercial pollution degrades that system and degrades us.  Every breath you take is like that planet spinning you see before you.

What does it feel like to orbit planet Earth?

Our Earth is a living breathing organism not a dead rock that we just happen to be on.  Humans are a part of the natural process just as plugged in as the ocean breezes and the passing clouds.  We have evolved out of that natural process you see before you.  Every decisions we make whether its tossing a cigarette butt on the ground or ignoring industrial/commercial pollution degrades that system and degrades us.  Every breath you take is like that planet spinning you see before you!

Acts of Kindness, even in the simplest ways, are what make our lives meaningful, bringing happiness to ourselves and others.

~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama

The 87 GOP members of the freshman class sent more than 25.6 million pieces of unsolicited mail last year at a cost of nearly $9.8 million, according to a review of records compiled by the chief administrative officer of the House.

Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.

~ James Thurber

Giving is the secret of abundance.

~ Swami Sivananda

Think on This...
SELF! What action should be taken? CORRECT thine own WAYS!

Cayce Reading 1828-1

The Department of Defense, War, Veteran Affairs and Nuclear Weapons Program is 60% of the Federal Budget - Education is 6%, Health and Human Services is 6%, NASA 1.5%, EPA 1%.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Not to hurt our humble brethren is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission - to be of service to them whenever they require it.

~ St. Francis of Assisi

Spending billions and billions of dollars trying to get control of the so called terrible government seems a bit counter-intuitive to me. Seems like the government must be pretty wonderful to spend that kind of money.

Environmental regulations have been around for centuries. River pollution was banned in South Carolina as early as 1671. In 1306, certain types of coal were banned in England because of the air pollution they caused. (StephenBP Huff Post)

Any time any DC elite complains about 'the deficit' remind them that when Clinton left office we had a huge surplus, so big that at the rate it was being paid down the entire US debt was going to be paid off in 10 years. Bush demanded that we give back the people's money and Greenspan warned of the danger of paying off the debt ... So we went from big surplus to huge, huge deficits. Bush said it was 'incredibly positive news' when we went back into deficit spending. He said it was good news because it continued the plan to use debt to force the government to cut back .

As far back as records go (1895), never has the U.S. strung together 12 straight months warmer than May 2011 to April 2012 according to new data released today by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. The average temperature was 2.8 degrees F above the 20th century average

To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.

Heather Cortez

Doesn't "expecting the unexpected" make the unexpected expected?

~ George Carlin

In the Bizarro world in which we live, we have 27 Attorneys General challenging the constitutionality of 35 million Americans getting health coverage, but no one challenges the constitutionality of an undeclared war (see Article I, Section 8 on that) that has now entered its second decade.

Our tax dollars have been hijacked for personal gain instead of being plowed back into our communities by the richest 1% because that's what they do and that's what they live for. It is a question of values and community and We The People civilization such as it is need/demand/deserve and require economic democracy.

Imagine those trillions invested in our communities and citizens for education and improved quality of life as opposed to the improved portfolios of the less than 1 percent.

The question is who controls the flow of trillions of dollars generated from the labor and taxes of this country.

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

Marcus Aurelius Antonius

We are what we repeatedly do.

Aristotle

Tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

~ Albert Einstein

A Message To Sportsmen, Hunters and NRA Members

 

Environmentalist here: We understand the individuals need for goodness sake Robert Redford made the beautiful movie A River Runs Through It about fly fishing.  Bob is a huge environmentalist.  What the middle and left oppose is violence for violence sake.  What we understand is the balance of nature.  With over 7 Billion people on the planet we have to keep run away degradation at bay.  What would be excellent is if the individual sportsmen and hunters came out against long line fishing the indiscriminate sweeping of the oceans, factory farming which spreads disease and destroys our waterways, or smokestack pollution which spreads mercury and lead poisoning, or even voluntarily took the lead out of lures, shot gun shells and buck shot.  Because as you know the woods and other predators feed on kill that's left behind.

Speak up for common sense regulation as passionately as you advocate for the right to carry a weapon and together the left, right and center can "govern" better.  It's not the individual its the permanent incorporation of individuals that create the biggest foot print.  Culling herds, actually using what you kill for food  its all part of the environmental chain.  But mass destruction like what occurred to the buffalo out on the great plains is short sighted.  We environmentalist also realize guns, weapons are a huge business but the bigger the business the more potential it has to do horrific destruction whether its Columbine, VCU or Monsanto altering our food with herbicides and pesticides.

Speak up for other issues as loudly as you can regarding the overall general well being and balance of the very environment that actually sustains us and then maybe more people will appreciate the individual sportsman's point of view.  Until then you just sound like your right to shed blood and wander around in the woods alone trumps everything else.  Remember these are public lands and as much as you ridicule the east and west coast cities that's where the majority of the population lives and the majority of the tax revenues come from.  Tax revenues that get dispersed throughout all 50 states. 

Government is not the problem pitting left versus right citizen against citizen is the problem and those that do that practice the art of deception.  Greed is the problem profit over health is the problem.  It always has been and always will be a question of balance.  Government is the cop on the beat that is supposed to manage that balance in the market place and keep it running smoothly for everyone.  Single issue campaigns/voters/advocacy groups screw up the works.  There's a bigger picture that needs to be taken into account its complex and interrelated and requires cooperation. 

A sketch has charm because of its truth -- not because it is unfinished.

~ Charles Hawthorne

A sketch has charm because of its truth -- not because it is unfinished.

~ Charles Hawthorne

Love is all and love is everyone

Lennon/McCartney

As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it.

Mahatma Gandhi

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

Scott Adams

There is nothing like a dream to create the future.

~ Victor Hugo

Acts of Kindness, even in the simplest ways, are what make our lives meaningful, bringing happiness to ourselves and others.

~ Dalai Lama

The Romney policy team is the Bush policy team. Salon's Andrew Leonard: "[Glenn] Hubbard is famous for his role as a chief architect of the Bush tax cuts ... Greg Mankiw is famous for a little flap during the Bush reelection campaign when he annoyed the White House by declaring that free trade and outsourcing of jobs 'was probably a plus for the American economy in the long run.' ... They are campaigning with the explicit promise to return to the economic agenda of Bush."

"Big companies like Verizon use threats of layoffs to force their workers to take pay and benefit cuts, and use the money to pay huge amounts to their executives. This is why the middle class is being 'hollowed out.' So the 99% Spring movement will be protesting outside of Verizon's shareholder meeting in Huntsville, Alabama on Thursday ..

Upon discovering research that identified pesticides as a leading contributor to declining bee populations, Monsanto, a major producer of genetically modified foods, decided to simply buy out Beelogic, the research company.

The electrical shock delivered to the chest by a Taser can lead to cardiac arrest and sudden death, according to a new study, although it is unknown how frequently such deaths occur.

The study, which analyzed detailed records from the cases of eight people who went into cardiac arrest after receiving shocks from a Taser X26 fired at a distance, is likely to add to the debate about the safety of the weapons. Seven of the people in the study died; one survived

With Scott Walker raking in $13 million in just three months, the WI recall battle is shaping up to be a definitive showdown between Big Money and the People.