Bill McKibben Speaking at Power Shift 2011

Crystal Stilts - Departure

Some music feels to me like the memory of music-as if you had left a performance with the music still playing in your head.  

First blizzard of summer

I am out of sunflower seeds, and the birds and deer are not happy.  The deer are out kicking the heck out of an old leaf pile looking for acorns.  On a happy note, the ice went out yesterday.

Matt Yglesias on the true price of coal

Matt Yglesias explains why coal is cheap:

"Coal-fired electricity is cheap for roughly the same reason that pulling a dine and dash at a fancy restaurant is a cheap way to get a nice dinner."

     Energy Policy in the United States is not an example of the free market at work.   Government allows coal companies the right to hand off the costs of pollution to society.  That is a government program, just as putting money into renewables or enacting a tax on carbon would be a government program.

   The question is: Which government energy program will lower health care costs, protect the planet, and move our economy forward in a sustainable direction?

New York Times: State level G.O.P. after our natural heritage

Although the article doesn't mention Wisconsin, the template among these Republican governors is the same-and will certainly be part of the playbook of a Governor who sees Wisconsin and its natural resources as "open for business".

James Fallows on Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan's "serious" proposal

Read the whole article for a great take-down.

Paul Ryan is a follower of Ayn Rand, and requires his staffers to read The Fountainhead. Ayn Rand believed public education was a form of theft, so he must be happy that his Janesville, WI school board is eliminating 130 positions, most of them teachers, as a result of Governor Walker's budget "reform".