Posted by Birmingham News – Alabama’s volunteer fire departments, serving almost half of state’s population, struggle for funding, equipment.
Birmingham News – Advocates say anti-bullying efforts aimed at creating safe environment for students ignores gays.
Birmingham News – PSC approves rules aimed at ending billing of consumers for unauthorized phone services.
Birmingham News – Commentary by Linda Tilly of VOICES for Alabama’s children finds bright spots in recently released Kids Count.
Mobile Press-Register – Commentary by Gary Palmer of the Alabama Policy Institute discusses “low civic literacy,” concluding that knowledge of nation’s history has been “widely displaced by an emphasis on politically correct indoctrination.”
Decatur Daily – The Decatur Daily comments on just-concluded trial of former director of state’s Fire College, saying that trial revealed “the appetites for tax dollars.”
Montgomery Advertiser – “Capitol Beat,” Sebastian Kitchens’ weekly political roundup for readers of The Montgomery Advertiser.
Montgomery Advertiser – Governor exploring possibility of alternative fuel plant.
Montgomery Advertiser – Business groups pleased with success in passing health insurance tax breaks for small businesses may turn attention to education and training programs in next regular session.
Montgomery Advertiser – The Montgomery Advertiser looks at tax breaks approved during recent session, finding that they “made sense.”
Tuscaloosa News – Chief Justice wants to take revamp state’s indigent defense system.
Tuscaloosa News – The Tuscaloosa News says that reports that legislator’s son failed to register as a lobbyist is another indication that Alabama’s ethics laws need reform.
Tuscaloosa News – “Alabama Exposure,” Dana Beyerle’s weekly political roundup for readers of the NYTimes regional papers.
Daily Home – The Daily Home says that once the state weathers the economic downturn impacting budgets that funding for pre-k should be on “the fast track.”
Times Daily – State ranks high in occurrence of deadly diseases.
Birmingham News – Alabama’s aerospace communities await outcome of tanker contract protest.
You have to admire the Mobile Cash Register and their love of Gary Palmer of the Alabama Policy Institute,aka, Abramoff U. A quick check of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute which he bases his article on, reveals that it is a creation of Henry, and his son Al Regnery, of American Spectator fame.
Henry went to university in Germany in the 30′s, wow now that is a great background for preaching low civic literacy.
As my European friends tell me, the beauty of the US higher education system is that it teaches you to think, not memorize.
A important line in the Montgomery Advertiser story on alternative fuel is the following near the bottom of the story:
“Riley said there is a 500,000-acre area in the Black Belt where a company has grown pine trees for 22 years. Those trees are ready to be cut down, and the governor believes the area could be replanted with sugar cane.”
As typical for republican plans for development, it provides economic opportunities to a few big corporations. The residents of the black belt can cut cane.
Do like this quote in Palmer’s piece: “… politics is no longer guided by civic-minded people engaged in an intelligent debate about the best means of achieving the common good. It is now the domain of angry activists of all types with axes to grind or whose own self-interests supersede the best interests of the nation”.
Almost sounds like he is touting History and Moral Philosophy as a class.
I think Brazil has become energy efficient due to its reliance on sugar cane.
Margaret,
I think you mean energy “self sufficient”. I think the data show that switch grass done through a two stage distillation process offers better opportunities in the United States though. Sugar cane requires good soil, a long growing season, and is quite labor intensive. Switch grass will grow on poorer soils, will grown all the way up into Canada, is easily mechanized, and offers the farmer a chance at their own energy independence. The first stage of fermentation and distillation can be done at the farm, with a few changes in the moonshine laws, and the remaining material can be sent on to a larger and more complex facility for the more complex second stage of processing.
You’re right Margaret: Brazil went from being an energy buyer nation to an energy supplier nation when they switched to sugar cane-based ethanol — and they went from being a buyer to a supplier in less than one year.
Riley is right to suggest that timber property could be converted to energy-production use, especially as the price of timber remains depressed by Russian and Canadian subsidized production.
PecanJim, as for who harvests the cane, almost all of that historically terrible work has been mechanized, much like the rest of the agricultural industry. Therefore, not many jobs would result from it. The obvious benefit for black belt residents generally would be jobs at plants in the region that would produce ethanol or at supplier companies, either one of which would be superior to current job options.
Oh and Jim, you’re absolutely right about swithgrass being a better option.
This posting is one of the best I have seen on this blog is many weeks. The points were crediable, informative, and mostly ojective. This is what blogging is all about…….