Quote by Martin Luther King
“When scientific power outruns moral power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men.”
~ Martin Luther King
Quite the thought there…
Posts tagged ‘Thought for the day’
Internet Freedom Day
Internet Freedom Day
One year ago we defeated SOPA.
Today, celebrate your freedom of expression.
January 18th is #InternetFreedomDay
What’s something you love on the net that you’d never want to see censored?
There are lots of great things we can do to celebrate this very important anniversary of
beating SOPA one year ago today! Check out a few of them at:
and do what you can to
celebrate the one year anniversary of beating SOPA today!
And don’t forget: Aaron Swartz was instrumental in helping to beat SOPA!
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Not sure what it’s all about? Check out the following article:
The Day Wikipedia Went Dark - Boston Review
Many sites, including all of my websites went dark that day!
As was noted in the article:
The free Internet will rise or fall on the involvement and ingenuity of the people, not on courts or lawmakers.
Internet Freedom Day: Coming together a year after SOPA/PIPA – EFF.org
Internet Freedom Day: Celebrate SOPA/PIPA Victory One Year Later!
Rockefeller: Coal must ‘boldly embrace’ the future
Rockefeller: Coal must ‘boldly embrace’ the future – Coal Tattoo:
Without good health it’s difficult to hold down a job or live the American dream. Chronic illness is debilitating and impacts a family’s income, prosperity and ultimately its happiness.
The annual health benefits of the rule are enormous. EPA has relied on thousands of studies that established the serious and long term impact of these pollutants on premature deaths, heart attacks, hospitalizations, pregnant women, babies and children.
Moreover, it significantly reduces the largest remaining human-caused emissions of mercury–a potent neurotoxin with fetal impacts.
Maybe some can shrug off the advice of the American Academy of Pediatrics and others but I cannot.
Amen and Amen.
Thank you, Sen. Rockefeller!
I am so happy to see this from the Senior United States Senator from West Virginia!
Maybe this will make a difference for West Virginians and also here in Hampton Roads, Virginia with the proposed 1500 MW Cypress Creek Power Station (ODEC’s proposed coal plant in Dendron, Surry County, VA).
Just one from the very interesting comment section:
Howard Swint says:
June 20, 2012 at 1:18 pmI support Sen. Rockefeller for his bold leadership in this speech. It’s been a long time coming…
EDIT: Here is the link for the poll:
http://wvgazette.com/polls/201206230087
Apparently any readers of the paper can vote, no matter where you live as purported by FriendsOfCoal.org. So please go vote your mind.
AN ILL WIND – The Secret Threat of Coal Ash
First, I would like to thank those who got our grid power back on here in Virginia after Hurricane Irene knocked it out about 24 hrs before Irene made landfall in the Outerbanks of NC.One thing that being out of power for more than a couple days does do is make you realize how dependent we all have become on ‘the grid’ and how we really need to change that at some point, don’t you think? Between dangers of outages like this, and potential threats from terrorists on our infrastructure, it just seems to make sense that we figure out a way to get the power we need but by decentralizing from The Grid.
Over the last month, since August 4th, we have intermittently had to deal with the smoke and ill air quality of the wildfire in the dismal swamp. There were times when here in our little town there was smoke hanging in the air, and in our very homes when we woke up in the morning and were having trouble breathing. It was particularly bad for my Jim who is on an oxygen concentrator. Thankfully, Hurricane Irene, actually did one thing that was good, it almost (but not quite) put out that wildfire. I hope they can get the 30 or so hot spots put out before it dries out again.
Because I have a problem with the whole issue of dangerous coal ash, and huge coal plants close to people’s homes and spewing dangerous arsenic, and so much more into our air, does not mean I don’t appreciate The Grid or those who work to provide and maintain, and restore that power after natural disasters like this. My only complaint is the dangerous ways in which they often do that; meaning coal – from the cradle to the grave and the health and environmental dangers it poses.
Coal from Mountain Top Removal to this ILL WIND of coal ash that sends ‘sandstorms’ of coal ash directly over the reservation when the winds blow wrong, and other coal plant travesties around the country and around the world, to ODEC trying to get a 1500 MW coal fired power plant in Dendron, VA and Surry County rolling over to get the money they are promised and the empty purse of promised jobs (yeah, how many and for how long, and what of those who live here?) To the whole of a region like Hampton Roads that will be adversely affected by a 1500 MW coal plant with a prevailing wind that will draw that smoke/vapor over other areas in Hampton Roads.
From the text at Youtube:
See the whole project at http://www.earthjustice.org/illwind
The Moapa River Indian Reservation, tribal home of the Moapa Band of Paiutes, sits about 30 miles north of Las Vegas and about 300 yards from the coal ash ponds and landfills of the Reid Gardner Power Station. Coal ash is the toxic ash and sludge left at the end of the coal burning process. It’s laced with arsenic, mercury, lead and other heavy metals. It’s the second largest waste stream in America and it’s currently unregulated.
If the conditions are just wrong, coal ash picks up from Reid Gardner and moves across the desert like a toxic sandstorm sending the local residents running for their homes. The reservation has lung, heart and thyroid disease rates that are abnormally high and the power plant is currently seeking to expand its coal ash storage capability.
The film An Ill Wind tells the Paiute Indians’ story.
View and interactive presentation of the story at:
http://www.earthjustice.org/illwind
Watch the complete film at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL49Ibc0L88
And learn more about coal ash at:
http://www.earthjustice.org/coalash
Many thanks to the Moapa Band of Paiutes for allowing us to tell this story and to Vinny Spotleson of the Sierra Club and Dan Galpern of the Western Environmental Law Center for helping with the project.
I guess we as individuals and families really do need to start thinking about how we can get ourselves off the grid … if more homes are off the grid, these big coal plants wouldn’t even be considered necessary…
Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow
Well, here in the sunny south, a week and a day before official Winter, it has been snowing all morning.
We also had a very cold spell last week and will have one again this week. How cold? It was in the teens overnight here in Virginia in early December. And will be again this week. And this week we have the added ‘benefit’ of wind chill factors that may tumble into the single digits at least one day this week.
OK, you guys up in Canada? Take back your arctic air! We have had enough already! LOL!
This is only the first half of December. What do we have to look forward to by the time the real cold gets here in January and February (besides higher orange juice prices due to even Florida having very cold (for them this time of year) weather?
Global Warming, my a….nevermind.
Hope you all enjoy the Christmas Theme and snow on my blog for the Christmas holidays 2010. 
Breaking News – Smith Coal Plant Cancelled and a new collaboration planned between activists and the utility!
Breaking News – Smith Coal Plant Cancelled and a new collaboration planned between activists and the utility!
Thanks to a powerful and growing New Power grassroots movement, a broad alliance of Kentucky activists sent an electrifying message across the nation today: A just transition to a clean energy future, even in the heartland of coal country Kentucky, is possible.
We have some great news to announce: The coal-burning power plant proposed by the East Kentucky Power Cooperative (EKPC) has been canceled by the utility.
EKPC has entered into an agreement with Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, Kentucky Environmental Foundation, the Sierra Club, three individual co-op members, the Kentucky attorney general, and Gallatin Steel (EKPC’s biggest industrial customer). Under the agreement, EKPC will halt its plans for the proposed coal-burning power plant in Clark County by abandoning the permits it needed to proceed with construction. The cooperative also committed $125,000 toward a collaborative effort in which the public interest groups, EKPC and its member co-ops, and other parties will work together to evaluate and recommend new energy efficiency programs and renewable energy options.
This is awesome news!!! And in the heart of Coal Country! Utilities and Clean Energy Activism working together to the common good! What an exciting prospect!
It can be done and it looks like there might still be hope for the folks in Hampton Roads and the Chesapeake Bay Watershed regarding ODEC’s Cedar 1500MW Creek Power Station proposed within Dendron, VA (in Surry County, VA).
Support Lyme Groups’ Decision to Withdraw from IOM Lyme Workshop
Support Lyme Groups’ Decision to Withdraw from IOM Lyme Workshop
Please let Congress know you support the move by LDA, TFL and CALDA to withdraw from the NIH/IOM State-of-the-Science Lyme Disease and Other Tick Borne Diseases Workshop by reading the statement below and completing the response form. LDA will send your reply directly to Congressman Christopher H. Smith (NJ). It will not be used for any purpose other than this project. Thank you!
Lyme Groups Withdraw from Scientific Meeting
I support the move by the national Lyme Disease Association (LDA), the California Lyme Disease Association (CALDA), and Time For Lyme (TFL) to withdraw from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) sponsored workshop. I agree that the above groups should not participate in nor submit the Institutes of Medicine’s (IOM) commissioned scientific paper to the Panel in protest of the IOM’s workshop about the state of the science regarding Lyme and tick-borne diseases. Despite the 3 groups’ repeated requests for transparency and a balance of scientific viewpoints, as delineated in Congressional Appropriations language, neither the hearing panel nor the speakers selected by the IOM satisfy the Congressional intent or objectives.
The IOM’s mission was to provide an “independent, objective and non-partisan” program and there are no scheduled speakers with opposing viewpoints of similar scientific weight to balance Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) presentations about the research gaps in Lyme disease. Many state-of-the-art scientific researchers, experienced clinicians and patient advocates have been relegated by the IOM and NIH to spectator positions. I believe that this amount of bias undermines the integrity of the scientific workshop and that its final report will reflect this lack of objectivity.
Support Lyme Groups’ Decision to Withdraw from IOM Lyme Workshop
As most who read my blog know, my hubby has been suffering with Lyme Disease for several years now including a paralyzed right side diaphragm. This particular problem (only one of many my hubby experiences), is well known to be a ‘side affect’ of Lyme Disease and documented in various places. Here’s one article about it “Diaphragmatic paralysis due to Lyme disease“.
Just for the record, confirmation articles were discovered AFTER the diagnosis. And although the doctor didn’t confirm the source of the problem (likely afraid to do so), he did confirm the paralysis during one of the two a hospital stays of 8 days on two IV antibiotics for diverticulitis, also from the Lyme Disease. NEITHER OF THESE PROBLEMS, or the high blood pressure and other issues were ever a problem until after the tick bite and the bullseye rash and subsequent ‘typical’ antibiotic treatment (doxycycline) and allergic reaction, or more likely a ‘die off’ reaction, to the massive death of the Lyme bug that nearly killed him with dangerously high blood pressure (which he never suffered with before this incident).
Am I getting through to you Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and Dr. Gary Wormser of Westchester Medical Center ?! My hubby was a healthy person who was active and vibrant until Lyme Disease struck him down. It was a night and day difference. Now tell me one thing has nothing to do with the other. Anybody?….
I miss you Pappa
May 1st we celebrate the life of a very precious man, my Daddy, who passed away in 2005.
Daddy would have been 78 tomorrow.
I posted articles about my Pappa on the page entitled:
Until we meet again, Pappa…
