Login Here
Herewith, a tale of two cities, for your perusal:
Youngstown, Ohio, was a steel-mill town of 165,000 souls. Then the mills shut down in the '70s, and the town started shrinking, to the point where it's now got less than half as many people. For years, they tried to regain their lost population with all sorts of schemes, the proposed blimp factory probably being the silliest.
Recently, the city's leaders had a different idea: Why not, instead of trying to get bigger, figure out how to live sustainably with the city's current population? Why not take out the old abandoned and wrecked properties and replace them with CSA-affiliated community gardens and playgrounds and the like? Why not take the opportunity to teach our children how to live a life at once urban and agarian? Why not back green websites? Why not, indeed?
Already, other Rust Belt cities like Flint in Michigan, Dayton in Ohio, and Wheeling in West Virginia, are studying Youngstown's new approach, known as "Plan 2010". On their own, several East German cities with declining populations are making similar moves to embrace new smaller, greener versions of themselves.
Ah, but what about smaller cities, such as those under 10,000 population? Are they large enough to put out the resources needed for this transformation? The community of Greensburg, Kansas, suggests that the answer is a resounding "yes!"
On the night of May 4, 2007, 95% of our homes and businesses were destroyed by a massive EF5 tornado that was nearly 2 miles wide. Although this storm was devastating to our community, we are presented with an incredible opportunity to show the world our strength and to create a new future for those who will live here. We strongly believe that we will be back, better than ever, and will be a model for rural America.
"Incredible opportunity" indeed. Greensburg is well on its way to rebuilding itself as a modern green community, mixing urban amenities with a rural setting. All city-owned buildings will be built to meet LEED Platinum standards, and homeowners are being given big incentives to rebuild green -- an opportunity that would not have existed, if not for the tornado.
Youngstown, Greensburg, and other like-minded communities in America and elsewhere are showing that adversity is opportunity in disguise, and that one can pivot nearly any adversity to become an opportunity.
Share This 
Spotlight
PW, eh?
Bravo to these communities. A tregedy is an opportunity.
Tragedy. Spell check is not my best friend*g*
Good morning PW. Very inspiring.
I grew up in Buffalo, whose story is much like Youngstown’s. I really liked it. It, like much of upstate, has wonderful natural environment, and Buffalo itself also has some good cultural institutions & schools. Yet it can’t get out of its own way. Should try to be what it is now, I agree.
this is inspiring. Thank you, PW.
PW -
What a wizard and inspiring post!
Had already read the article about Greensburg (fitting name, that *g*) and Youngstown is the icing on the cake. Lessons in how to come back better; bigger not necessarily being welcome to the party. It’s communities like these that will, hopefully, attract the kind of humans who care about leaving the planet in a more positive condition for their children.
Um, PW, could you forward this post to Pittsburgh, PA?
Great and timely post!!!
EGGSelent idea
Don’t miss the Discovery Channel special about Greensburg tonight. The show will air 8 p.m. and encores on May 4th, 12:00 am on the Discovery Channel.
they could be a tredgedy too,for all we know…”g”
Woohoo…. about Damn time…..
I have a picture from the balcony of my hotel in Crete where every building had one or more solar water heaters on their roofs…… homes, apartments, hotels, businesses all with locally made [Creta Sun] solar water heaters…..they had started putting them on new buildings 30 years ago….
Germany is providing subsidies to install solar power & water heating… this effort puts power back into the grid, creates jobs and living in Arizona where we throw away sunshine…… STILL we have no major power generation process from solar…
Now that’s an idea!
Pittsburghian Pups, you know what to do!
News from what Obama and Hillary term “The GOOD war”:
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Pentagon is considering sending up to 7,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year to make up for a shortfall in contributions from NATO allies, the New York Times reported on Saturday.
The increase would likely result in “the re-Americanization” of the war, one U.S. official said, according to the Times. U.S. forces would then account for two-thirds of foreign troops in Afghanistan, it said.
The report appeared a day after Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the United States could consider taking over NATO’s command in southern Afghanistan, where some NATO allies have been reluctant to provide combat forces.
Southern Afghanistan, site of the worst in a surge of Taliban violence, is now under NATO command. Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and Australia all have forces in the region.
Exactly. Hell, a study is going on right now to see if we could develop a solar-cell material that could be used as road surfacing. Imagine all of America’s roads turned into solar collectors!
Ecahn - sigh, I think a lot of places in Upstate have the problem that we tend to look back all the time. The number of people here who talk about how we are the birthplace of IBM and look what they did to us drives me nuts. The same conditions: good people, good transport, education, etc. that made it a great place for IBM to start here (and Endicott Johnson and Link Simulation, etc. etc.) are still here. But it’s sometimes hard to move into the future when you keep looking behind you all the time.
Hi PW. What’s up with Al Franken’s campaign there in Minnesota?
We’ve got millions of people beginning to retire- who no longer have to be near employment centers. Many of em have little but social security and the equity in their house…
On the other hand, we have plenty of towns that are becoming deserted. The have amenities and low real estate prices….
Sounds to me as if the two were MADE for each other.
Heard something the other day about the weight and friction of trucks at a toll booth being used to generate electricity beneath the toll booth. Want me to ask for the link?
How amazing it would be to see a leader in the steel industry transformed to a leader in green living.
If we’d put half the troops into Afghanistan that we did in Iraq and skipped invading Iraq entirely, Osama would be caught or dead and we’d have had enough troops to set up a stable government.
As it is, Karzai’s just the mayor of Kabul. He is better off than al-Maliki, who doesn’t control anything.
Missouri and Kansas are two areas with lots of cities in population decline—take a look boomers!
Is that a picture of Youngstown? I think I want to live there…looks dreamy.
Yep. Very hard to live in the present, apparently, when it seems to compare unfavorably to the past. I now have family in Rochester are & love spending time there, the canal, other features. All of the state that I’ve visited seems wonderful to me.
Nice, very nice.
PW, I sure like the way you look at the world.
thanks for the insightspiration.
Not so dreamy in January perhaps.
Maybe- that’s what the soviets thought- where are they now?
Good Morning PW.
With apologies, I’d like to bring up an EPU’d comment because, somehow, it seems appropriate here too. Besides, it just makes me heart-sick, and I have to get it out fwiw.
I have been going through my deceased parents’ old papers, sorting, saving, filing and culling.
I came across something I do not know how to file, either physically or psychologically. It brings tears of frustration and loss every time I look at it.
The source: a 1960’s-era Air France travel brochure my parents had saved. I hope you will allow me a rather extensive quote, as follows:
…..
…..
well, you get my point by now.
Dumbya, what HAVE you done?! How DARE you!?!
Just imagine. This man-child started out simply blowing up frogs while his mom giggled at the harmless thrill of it all.
just….. unspeakably….. sickening…..
I’m waiting to see what will be done with the square miles of parking lots that stretch along our highways (the ones that are one step down from intersates), thanks to that second curse of the late 20th century, ‘roadside commercial zoning’. (The first and foremost curse, of course, being the internal compustion engine.)
The best and most accessible forests and arable lands have been suffocated underneath asphalt which is larded with salt in the winter (in parts of the Northeast, at least), traps no rainfall, and heats the air above in summer to such a degree that clouds are dissipated and the local weather changes.
Never mind that even at the peak of the commercial successes for the stores, not one-third of these parking lots have been utilized at any time, save maybe around Christmas — never mind that duplication of offerings from competing franchises ensures that about a third of the stores go out of business (the little stores off the main drag are killed by the local mega-hardware store, that mega-store is killed by Home Depot, Home Depot is killed by Lowe’s, ad nauseum).
I’ve been known to rant that all developers of such atrocities be required to put into escrow funds sufficient to restore the land to USDA-approved dairy farms when the utilization of the lots falls below one-quarter, or some such criterion.
What have these small cities found themselves able to do to reclaim their patrimony, their most valuable roadside area, where there could be local businesses of many kinds and trees and parks?
Huh. The Greenburg, KS story is on CNN right now.
Any word from AK recently?
Alternate energy sources that I can think of….
- Wind
- Solar
- Tidal Wave action
- Geo-thermal [hot springs]
Anyone have any others?
I live in Youngstown and while change is coming here, there is a lot more rubble than there is green construction. We do have one of the largest city parks in the US, and some very involved garden clubs, but the reason must of the city is turning green is that no one’s mowin the lawns or pulling the vines off the abandoned houses.
Yep - one of the interesting aspects of being in a place that considered itself the cutting edge of everything in the 19th and early 20th centuries is that most of the sprawl that you see in places like Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, and out west just … sort of missed us. Living conditions here are fantastic. I ride my bike to work in 30 min. on uncrowded roads. My husband’s commute is 15 min. People just need to get off the whole “what we need is a big employer to discover us” bandwagon and support smaller local businesses. In 1987, Singer Link laid off about half of their workforce. A lot of them got picked up by what was then Martin Marietta, but is now BAE(and they are doing hybrid commercial buses)right here. Other people went into their own businesses doing medical simulation and visual systems. Diamond Visionics is one of them and they have grown tremendously - I think they have over a hundred employees. But people get all nostalgic for the 15,000 IBM jobs that disappeared over the past twenty years. If we’d encouraged smaller development here, those 15,000 jobs might have been in 30 healthy companies instead of one big bloated one that decided that they did not want to be in the computer business any longer.
You’ve pretty well covered it.
In some sense, wind is a form of solar energy. So are biofuels.
Nuclear energy is alternative to fossile fuel, and there are some alternative among the forms of nuclear energy, e.g., using Thorium rather than Uranium.
Methane from digesting cow manure
Hmmm. Perhaps one of the reasons I like NYS so much is because I hate suburbs & sprawl. That exists near NYC, though even there much of it is older & has mellowed. I HATE new construction, of whatever ilk: residential, commercial, industrial. (Well, perhaps except for Manhattan.) Scars on the earth. NYS seems to have less of it.
Brief history of Iraq from Wiki:
Britain imposed a Hāshimite monarchy on Iraq and defined the territorial limits of Iraq without taking into account the politics of the different ethnic and religious groups in the country, in particular those of the Kurds and the Assyrians to the north. During the British occupation, the Shi’ites and Kurds fought for independence.
Faced with spiralling costs and influenced by the public protestations of war hero T.E. Lawrence in The Times, Britain replaced Arnold Wilson in October 1920 with new Civil Commissioner Sir Percy Cox. Cox managed to quell the rebellion, yet was also responsible for implementing the fateful policy of close cooperation with Iraq’s Sunni minority.[2][3]
In the Mandate period and beyond, the British supported the traditional, Sunni leadership (such as the tribal shaykhs) over the growing, urban-based nationalist movement. The Land Settlement Act gave the tribal shaykhs the right to register the communal tribal lands in their own name. The Tribal Disputes Regulations gave them judiciary rights, whereas the Peasants’ Rights and Duties Act of 1933 severely reduced the tenants’, forbidding them to leave the land unless all their debts to the landlord had been settled. The British resorted to military force when their interests were threatened, as in the 1941 Rashīd `Alī al-Gaylānī coup. This coup led to a British invasion of Iraq using forces from the British Indian Army and the Arab Legion from Jordan.
[edit] Iraqi monarchy
Further information: List of Kings of Iraq
Emir Faisal, leader of the Arab revolt against the Ottoman sultān during the Great War, and member of the Sunni Hashimite family from Mecca, became the first king of the new state. He obtained the throne partly by the influence of T. E. Lawrence. Although the monarch was legitimized and proclaimed King by a plebiscite in 1921, nominal independence was only achieved in 1932, when the British Mandate officially ended.
In 1927, huge oil fields were discovered near Kirkuk and brought economic improvement. Exploration rights were granted to the Iraqi Petroleum Company, which despite the name, was a British oil company. King Faisal I was succeeded by his son Ghazi in December 1933. King Ghazi’s reign lasted five and a half years. He claimed Iraqi sovereignty over Kuwait. An avid amateur racer, the king drove his car into a lamppost and died 3 April 1939. His son Faisal followed him to the throne.
[Mod Note; truncate edit]
Oops- that turned out to be longer than I thought- sorry.
Dear Ghu, I’d like to see more ‘green’ in cities. We try, a lot of us, but it’s hard to do it all ourselves. I remember when my mother was looking for a house in town, we looked at some brand new ones that were being advertised as ‘energy efficient’, and found they were all-electric. That’s not what we considereed ‘energy-efficient’. (She bought one with a gas water heater so we could use our nearly-new gas dryer.)
OT, headline for ET:
Well, we have this reputation as a very expensive place - through from what my sister tells me she has to pay for in Virginia, I think it’s all about the same, really. But again, Upstate NY is a 18th and 19th Century phenomenon — we are pre-auto, so the cities and towns are liveable and walkable. I went down to the Eastern Shore last weekend and saw some of the most horrific transformations of agricultural land into sprawl, malls, and housing developments that I’ve ever seen. Beautiful land just stripped of the top soil, with either two mega-mansions in the middle of it, or a strip mall, or a hundred housing units with no side walks, no way to get to the grocery stores, schools and churches other than in the car. Just dreadful. And all, from appearances, put up in the last five years.
War criminals.
What a beautiful reminder of the Baghdad of old. I remember looking at online real estate in Baghdad at the beginning of W’s war. The homes were VERY expensive…
Looking forward to further rhapsodising with you about NYS in June. Like your characterization of it as 19thC. As I own an historic house, that probably explains why I don’t like anything new.
Off to errands. See y’all later.
Interesting comment about pre auto towns…..Towns of three to four square miles with a central “downtown” and fairly dense populations (say 40,000 or so) make a lot of sense.
Hey PW
Love the idea of greening older cities. I’m also from a declining steel town with a lot of vacant commercial properties [and now, unfortunately, vacant houses from foreclosures].
It could be a great place if some of these properties could be turned into parks or community gardens.
Well, we are pre-auto for sure. One of the things that hits me is that although a lot of emphasis has been placed on how the automobile and the interstate system changed the face of America in the 1950s, I’d like to put as much emphasis on air conditioning, which I think opened up the South and the Southwest to commercial and industrial development(it’s tough to hold meetings, work at a machine or a desk when it’s 100 degrees plus inside and outside). I’d also like to point out the work of the American Association of School Architects, which put out a set of guidelines in the 1950s, claiming that no school could possibly be built on less than 25 acres. If you want to know how we ended up with schools outside of towns, with kids being bused or driven to schools with no sidewalks near them…that is where THAT comes from.
It’s fine — though I see that the AP’s Patrick Condon did a puff piece on a local paid Republican operative blogger named Michael Brodkorb and got most of the key facts wrong, despite having been repeatedly informed of the truth.
Methane from landfills….. in Oregon City Oregon they power a factory with the methane gas from the old closed landfill that was there in the 80’s and earlier…
In some sense, methane from manure (aka “farts”) is a form of biofuel in the sense that animals turn biomass (food) into fuel (methane).
But, the energy in food comes from photosynthesis, which is powered by sunlight, and the major problem with solar energy is storing and transporting it. And, IMHO methane is the optimum way to do both, since we already have the infrastructure for storing and transporting methane. Also we have the infrastructure in place to use methane for cooking and heating homes. Also methane powered electric generators cost half as much per watt as coal-fueled generators, and a quater as much per watt as nuclear generators.
im a art history/history buff,shock and awe,totally disgusted me in human/and ARTISTIC cultural sense
IMHO, Franken would be an outstanding senator. If he knows all the stuff in his books he is a very well-informed person.
Somewhere I read that Coleman was vastly out-polling Franken, however.
Seems that Iraq has pretty much been a hell hole since the brits invented it following WW1.
The Wiki article said that there was a brief period of relative peace in the seventies.
figures……..dumbasses
Hydrogen
Coleman up by eight or so- but Franken HAS been in the lead recently…Too early to call I’d say.
Well you have to MAKE hydrogen- usually from electricity- so hydrogen becomes a way of STORING energy more than a SOURCE of energy.
my bad
Hydrogen may prove to be very useful- many of the new sources of energy are interittent- the wind doesn’t always blow nor does the sun always shine- so we may need a way of storing the power for times when we have no source.
Two major problems facing hydrogen. First is producing it in a way that the energy going in is roughly comparable to the energy coming out. Thermodynamics rears it’s ugly head. Second, it faces a chicken and the egg problem. Nobody wants to build large number of fuel cell cars until there is infrastucture to support them. On the other hand, no one wants to build the infrastructure until there are enough cars to make it profitable.
I lived in Rome for almost six years, Albany for roughly two years total, I worked in Manhattan for most of a year and have cousins in Syracuse.
I found the Albany area far and away the best part of the state (for me anyway). Large enough to have variety but small enough that I could get around easily. Far enough north to be out of the city but able to get there and back in a day if needed. And far enough east to get away from the snow belt, lake-effect (lake-effect on my sinuses as much as the snow).
Also convenient to get to the mountains if I wanted to do so as well.
It really is personal to the individual though.
Had dinner with him a few wks ago on my birthday. Doing well.
It would be, wouldn’t it?
We’ve already got Rock Port, Missouri, the first city that’s powered entirely by wind, and Kalamazoo, Michigan is working on a project to use algae to turn waste water and industrial and restaurant grease into clean energy.
Franken has recently been embarassed by tax problems. Apparently his bookkeepers failed to pay State taxes on profits from books/talks in several different States. One of the major problems now for “national” celebrities and sports figures is keeping track of this stuff. States are cracking down and expanding their tax systems since revenues are so tight. It used to be that you had to be a “resident” to be taxed in many places. But now, as long as you earn in the state, you can be taxed.
Actually, the polling’s fairly close. Most of it shows Franken behind, but not by much.
Sports players face the same issue
Oops!
The thing is, Franken’s account underpaid in some states, but overpaid in NYS and MN. So it’s a wash.
“I know it’s tough times, and I know you’re having to pay more at the fuel pump than you want,” Bush said. “But this economy is going to come on. I’m confident it will.”
In case you’ve missed it. This bit of blather is on Huffpo. Sadly it is accompanied by the W picture. I wish that garbage did not appear on my pc. Why doesn’t it say he took us to war for oil, acc. to McW. Get it out there. Sorry, OT.
So do TeeVee people who do moble television….. lets see Elmore has worked in MA, NY, DC, UT, PA in the last month….. so there are 5 state taxes PLUS he his home state….
Y’all remember the sordid tales of Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons (R-Nev) who supposedly brachiated all over a cocktail waitress just before the election in 2006? One of his big defenses was that he was happily married to a great woman, Dawn Gibbons…so “why would he do that!”
Well, apparently, Governor Gibbon’s is of the “Rudy Giuliani School” of philandering.
Gibbons seeks divorce for “incompatibility”
Oh. My Gawd.
Thanks for this, Cinnamonape!
I’m sure it’ll get sorted out. But it’s not a “wash” politically. But, in my opinion the Republicans are hauling this stuff out very early, just to stay in the game. In prior elections they’d wait until the last days before the election to drop such “bombs”…or at least until after the conventions. By doing it so early they allow their opponents to resolve the issue and rebound.
BTW That should be DAWN Gibbon, the wife of Jim Gibbon…not ANN. DUH!
I am so impressed you know and use that word that I have never heard.
Exactly. Considering that the local GOPers have their own, far more serious tax issues (case in point: Ron Ebensteiner), this is like Hitler accusing Churchill of war crimes.
It was Franken, himself, who hauled it out. So, the Republicans didn’t have a choice about timing. I’m sure you’re right in that they’d prefer a big non-sequitur distraction right before the election. The question of trust and capability with one’s own business matters would, ordinarily, be a big winner from the Republican perspective but when you compare and contrast against the biggest deficit spending on congressional record, which Normy Coleman was a happy participant in, then it doesn’t fly too fast too far.
I think Al was smart to bring it out now and if the Republican opposition can still make it an issue in November, good freakin’ luck with that. The fact that Normy is a stooge might be a bigger problem than coming up with enough bright, shiny distractions.
There is a lot to be said for this approach, but some things to watch out for as well. There is a small town in my province that did this - attracted many vigorous retirees who were interested in living in a northern environment. Now these retirees are getting older and needing more services - and are really stretching the community’s resources. And because these people moved away from their home communities and families to take advantage of the low house prices and low cost of living, they retirees don’t have a lot of family and other supports nearby.
So just something to be aware of and to plan for.
Link to the sad, sad picture of Clusterfuck’s second term. It looks a bit like the first term- but at a lower level:
http://www.pollster.com/presbushapproval.php
Good points
It’s so sad. Even the usual thrill of the, “I told you so,” has been robbed.
I still know some of the insane 28% for whom the rationale, “He needed to do what he did in order to keep America safe,” still holds water. What can you say to those folks? Just sad!
Great kos point about the “gas tax holiday”
It’s the Jobs Stupid: Gas Tax Holiday Jobs/$$ Lost by State, 150 Economists Write Letter Hotlist
Don’t worry, I just fixed it! ;-)
That’s the “well we’re better off without Saddam Insane and dems woulda raised our taxes” people….They will never move.
Right now the only thing Franken has to worry about is his delegates at State Convention, Convention first week in June. Most estimates I’ve seen have him close on First Ballot — but it could take a couple.
He called in his volunteers and called all the delegates and alternates before the news hit the papers, then sent out a mailing with all the data, and word is he hasn’t lost any delegates. Once he is officially endorsed, then the Campaign against Coleman can begin, and I think it will be tough. Expect the Summer to be a long round of small town parades and corn festivals — with limited advertising, and then nothing but political ads till next November on TV after Labor Day.
It appears once more that things are not all that they seem.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com......html#more
Never been to a corn festival- sounds exciting!
We lived in central Illinois for a while and went to sweet corn and broom corn festivals.
Went to a chili cookoff once- and I smelled a garlic festival while driving by.
Oh, and don’t forget the greatest hits of SNL that Normy’s goon squad is combing the archives for as we speak. Any allusion to drug use or the evil devil’s weed should get heavy air play. I’m looking forward to it for several reasons. One would be that it’s some of Franken’s best work. The second would be the opportunity to juxtapose that earlier Franken with the earlier dope smokin, anti-war, anti-administration, DEMOCRATIC, Normy Coleman on the U of M campus. Agh, it shall be glorious and silly in an extreme!
OOPS!
updated 47 minutes ago
BAGHDAD - The U.S. military on Saturday fired missiles at a target about 50 yards away from the general hospital in Baghdad’s Sadr City district, wounding more than 20 people and destroying ambulances, hospital officials said.
Dr. Ali Bustan al-Fartusee, director general of Baghdad’s health directorate, told The Associated Press that 23 civilians were injured.
He said no patients in the hospital were hurt, but that some of the wounded included civilians outside on their way to visit patients, and that around 17 ambulances were damaged.
RW — the big Corn Festival is in Mitchell South Dakota. They have a huge auditorium, and they cover the outside with designs in different colors or corn every fall. Feeds the birds all winter.
Fortunately- all of the dead and injured victims were Al Queda. Some of them were very YOUNG Al Queda.
I’ve never been to either a corn festival or to South Dakota- would you say it’s one of the better corn festivals for a person to start on?
Al Queda are like rattlesnakes- the little ones are often the most dangerous- beware especially of Al Queda BABIES- they are VISCIOUS!
Mitchel is NOT for the uninitiated. You gotta start slow man, and build up to the Everest. Try Cokato, MN:
http://www.cokato.mn.us/carnival/index.html
Very interesting interview about Wright on Salon. Non-hysterical and informative.
Thanks- I don’t want to subject myself to health risks.
“brachiated”? I’m an anthropologist…and “gibbons” are well known for having flexible arms that allow them to “arm swing”. I thought it was a cute juxtaposition of what “Mr. Swinger” Gibbons did with the waitress.
BTW The Gibbons are both a couple of fruitcakes. When Jim Gibbons was an Assemblyman he was called up to serve in Desert Storm. At that time http://firstlady.state.nv.us/ ">Dawn Gibbon, a Jane Fonda lookalike many years younger than Jim, was appointed to replace him (she was not yet married to him I think, he was married to another woman). While he served she insisted that every other legislator wear yellow ribbons daily, and would go ballistic if the didn’t.
A few years later she was caught up in a scandal where it was discovered that she was being “extorted” by an illegal alien that she had hired and had work for her for almost a decade. And she may be involved in that FBI investigation. Gibbons pulled strings for a military contractor while his wife was involved in a “consultant” role for that firm. Despite the denials it seems like a pretty clear case of where one, or the other, should have withdrawn from involvement.
So the divorce may have something to do with the stresses related to their criminal investigations. But it could be that Jimbo is just a horndog. Jim willingly lived alone in Washington D.C. when he was a Congressman while Dawn held sway back in Nevada. Given all the stuff about expensive call-girls during that period it may be that something has emerged about his “inside the Beltway” extracurricular recreation.
Kickbacks?
Mitchell is fine in the late summer - early fall. The place is called the Corn Palace.
Not all that far from the Badlands and the famous Wall Drug Store, and then another hundred miles or so, Mt. Rushmore. Then go on up to Deadwood and you can do old time gamblin’ and wander the hillside grave yard and look up the graves of your favorite western characters. A surprising number of them were murdered in Deadwood.
A-yep. It kills jobs, hurts Congressional Democrats, weakens our highway funds, and won’t lower the price of gas.
Obama’s opposition to the gas-tax holiday stems from having seen the results when it was tried at the state level in Illinois in 2000. He voted for it then, but it didn’t lower gas prices — the oil companies just pocketed the difference. Even worse, it was a camel’s nose under the tent to try and push through a permanent repeal of the state gas tax, which he helped vote down.
Bom dia, pups
To that post at Kos, did you do the gas tax saver calculator? You plug in some info and it will tell you ow much you would save over this 15 week period.
I found that I would save a whopping $15.03 while my state would lose over $660,000,000 in fed highway funds and over 23,000 jobs.
Here is a linky to see how much you would save and how much your state would lose.