While May the 4th is Star Wars day and May 5th is Cinco de Mayo, today felt like a Doom day, at least when the well written articles I found were all very Doom oriented. So, on the announcement of ‘Doom articles till 2’, these three:

Ukraine is looking at tapping their shale gas reserves.
The Transition could be pretty awful, and we have no real backup plan.
Crop yields decline with global

Gov. Corbett released his 2012 budget today. As expected, it shows cuts, with particularly large ones in education. His speech is available here, and it contains some excellent quotes, particularly in the light of sustainable economics.

We need to do the hard cutting so the tree can once again bear fruit. And that fruit is jobs.Ah! So by that logic, government creates jobs, and we need to... cut

(I realize that a lot of what I post on here is Open Letters - most of my other writing time goes into environmental sites like PittEnvironmental)

If you aren't outraged at the current spending bill that passed the House, you aren't paying attention.
For PA folks, Toomey's address in DC is:
B-40B Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510



Dear Senator Toomey: I am a Pennsylvania

Dad:
I am writing this before I call to tell you the same information - so by the time you read this it will no longer be a surprise. But the point of this card is not so much to inform as to capture the moment, so it can be put on the mantle and eventually into a box for my kids to uncover years down the road. Your point about the impermanence of emails (and phone conversations) is well made.

The Internet (as distinct from the internet) does some pretty amazing things. It is impressive how real so much of it is, with all that media focuses on anonymity and avatars - that people engage and connect with so many more people in so many more revealing ways than we do with strangers we pass by on the street. There's self-selection there, like knowing that people with the same color shirts