Green Party of Tennessee

Former Senator Bill Frist has been named the head of SCORE (Statewide Collaborative On Reforming Education).
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/frist-to-chair-new-statewide-edu...
He will be on WGOW-FM tomorrow at 8:35 AM.
After doing some research I've found that some of the backers are into the charter school movement.
Groups like the Doris & Donald Fisher Fund which support KIPP.
KIPP which are non-union privatized schools.

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/21_01/expl211.shtml

http://www.onlinecpi.org/downloads/Target_SD_CPI2005.pdf

His intended suicide note has been released.
Others have pointed out that he intended this as a political protest. Argueably a form of terrorism.
I support the first ammendment rights of all. Even extremists like neo-nazis.
It is better to give them rhetorical rope to hang themselves than to stifle their speech.
However that only works if there is a counterpoint arguement to be heard.
Sad fact is media conslidation has left us with few media outlets giving other viewpoints.

Between Central and Holtzclaw Avenues - Frank Depinto

100s of coal-laden boxcars heading north to TVA
Power Plants.

100s returning South then West, empty,
to be filled again

Lighting our homes, Warming our Earth.

Reuters - February 2, 2009

LONDON (Reuters) - The United States overtook Germany as the biggest producer of wind power last year, new figures showed, and will likely take the lead in solar power this year, analysts said on Monday.

Even before an expected "Obama bounce" from a new President who has vowed to boost clean energy, U.S. wind power capacity surged 50 percent last year to 25 gigwatts (GW) -- enough to power more than five million homes.

Political and business leaders worldwide have urged "green growth" spending on clean energy to fight both recession and climate change.

Last weekend there was a gathing of minds at the Sequatchie Valley Institute.
There was much talk on building connections with their work and other projects.
Got to meet many people from Chattanooga who are each working on projects.
Hopefully some synergy will come out of this.
I look foward working on this projects with everyone.
But let's back this up with political action as well.

Stanford Report, December 10, 2008

BY LOUIS BERGERON

Wind power is the most promising alternative source of energy, according to Mark Jacobson.
The best ways to improve energy security, mitigate global warming and reduce the number of deaths caused by air pollution are blowing in the wind and rippling in the water, not growing on prairies or glowing inside nuclear power plants, says Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford.

I found two stories from New Scientist.
The first some of us have already thought of .

What is your dinner doing to the climate?
It may surprise you to learn that our diets account for up to twice as many greenhouse emissions as driving. One recent study suggested that the average US household's annual carbon food-print is 8.1 tonnes of "equivalent CO2 emissions" or CO2eq (a measure that incorporates any other greenhouse gases produced alongside the CO2). That's almost twice the 4.4 tonnes of CO2eq emitted by driving a 25-mile-per-US gallon (9 litres per 100 kilometres) vehicle 19,000 km - a typical year's mileage in the US.
Full Article

The other has a interesting twist.
A high-albedo diet will chill the planet
Researchers are proposing that one way of temporarily reducing global temperatures would be to replace existing crops with variant strains that reflect more solar energy back out to space. The overall effect would be the same as making large areas of the planet more mirror-like. Their calculations suggest this could cause average summer temperatures in temperate zones to fall by as much as 1°C.
Full Article

Certainly both are food for thought. ;)

Crooks & Liars has details on a proposal to increase or defense spending continuosly.

The United States is projected to spend more on defense in FY 2009 than the next 45 highest spending countries combined, yet a push by conservatives and the military, backed by arms companies, is trying to lock the defense budget at 4% of GDP.

The unholy triumvirate of Pentagon deskwarriors, arms manufacturers and conservative fans of defense pork are ramping up a pressure campaign right now designed to inflate the military's budget requirements and thus provide a cushion for what they believe will be an Obama administration's pullback from record defense spending levels under Bush. By January, that campaign will be in high gear, with lobbyists and pundits enlisted to push for money to fund everything from missile defense plans against non-existant threats to stealth jets as counter-terrorism platforms against small groups of men with improvised bombs. Read more here.

Originally posted on EFF webpage

News Update by Richard Esguerra

Last week, the RIAA celebrated the signing of a ridiculous new law in Tennessee that says:

Each public and private institution of higher education in the state that has student residential computer networks shall:

[...]

[R]easonably attempt to prevent the infringement of copyrighted works over the institution's computer and network resources, if such institution receives fifty (50) or more legally valid notices of infringement as prescribed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 within the preceding year.

While the entertainment industry failed to get "hard" requirements for universities in the Higher Education Act passed by Congress earlier this year, the RIAA succeeded in Tennessee (and is pushing in other states) with this provision that gives Big Content the ability to hold universities hostage through the use of infringement notices. Moreover, the new rules will cost Tennessee a pretty penny -- in the cost review attached to the Tennessee bill, the state's Fiscal Review Committee estimates that the new obligations will initially cost the state a whopping $9.5 million for software, hardware, and personnel, with recurring annual costs of more than $1.5 million for personnel and maintenance. Not a penny of this will go to artists, nor to any of the record labels RIAA represents.

Listen To Commentary
More at http://jimhightower.com/
Monday, November 10, 2008
by Jim Hightower

Obama elected! Job done, right?

Uh… not quite. If last week’s sweeping vote for change is to mean anything substantive, We The People have stay alert and on the move. And the job begins now.

Like fresh-poured concrete, the shape of Obama’s presidency is going to set up quickly, and we can’t be lulled into thinking that casting a ballot is all that democracy requires of us. Now is not the time to crank back in our La-Z-Boys, trusting Obama to do the heavy lifting for us. Wall Street, the war machine, Republican Congress critters, weak-kneed Democrats, and other powerful forces of business-as-usual policies will be all over him. These insiders intend to shape him in their mold.