North Side Green Party

A Republican-Democrat proposal to impoverish tens of thousands of State and local government employees was one of the top items of business Saturday when the Cook County Green organization met.

The proposal was developed by the Civic Federation, a group representing the interests of some of the area's largest corporations. Under the plan state employees, both retired and active would begin paying deductions of up to $8000 per year. The proposal would also reduce pension benefits for active employees.

Nawar Alsaadi, in a guest post on The Oil Drum, says that hopes for a successful conclusion to American's war in Iraq dim as Iraq's oil production continues to decline. Alsaadi cites several factors as contributing to the fall-off, including corruption and incompetence. The biggest factor, however, may have been deliberately falsified oil reserve reporting by the government of Saddam Hussein. Iraq, apparently, was falsifying its reserves in order to win a larger OPEC production quota.

Wednesday, April 28, will mark the 57th anniversary of the CIA's overthrow of Parliamentary democracy in Iran. The move was authorized by US President Eisenhower in 1953.

A naturalist with a deep knowledge of the ecology of the Chicago area will appear tomorrow afternoon at the Hyde Park Historical Society.

Joel Greenberg is the author of The Natural History of the Chicago Region, Of Prairie, Woods, and Water, and coauthor of A Birder’s Guide to the Chicago Region.

The event takes place at:

Saturday, April 25, 2009
2-4 PM at the Hyde Park Historical Society
5529 South Lake Park Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637

According to a fact sheet leaked to the North Side Greens, State retirees are about to take a big financial hit in the form of large deductions from their pension checks. The North Side Greens called Springfield to ask how retirees would manage financially. "I honestly don't know," said a spokesman for the Governor.

California is getting set to mandate cuts in energy used by televisions. According to a story in the San Francisco Chronicle increasing sales of large flat screen televisions have resulted in large increases in electricity usage.

Plasma screen televisions are the worst offenders. A typical 42 inch plasma screen uses more energy than a large refrigerator.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009 is Earthday. Earthday was started by Senator Gaylord Nelson (Democrat, Wisconsin) in 1970. The date of earthday has varied over the years.

Today we hear from both Democrats and Republicans that growth is the answer to every question. Sen Nelson believed otherwise. He thought there were limits to growth, limits which must be respected if we - and nature - were to survive: "The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the other way around."

The Register carries a story on the trial in Sweden of the crew of Pirate Bay. According to Peter Sunde, one of the crew's founders, "We lost."

The pirates operating out of Pirate Bay don't have much in common with those operating out of Somalia. For one thing, the Swedish pirates have millions of sympathizers around the world. In addition, they never take hostages.

The "Civic Federation," which represents large corporations, has been pressing the State of Illinois to follow the private sector's lead. The Federation wants the State to begin by stripping their active and retired employees of paid pension and health coverage.

The Illinois Green Party will hold a State convention on Saturday. The event is open to all Illinois Green Party members. The Greens have no party bosses, so decision making remains in the hands of the rank and file.

Click here to read the announcement.

Roane Carey is managing editor of the Nation magazine. He is at present on a journalism fellowship at the Chaim Herzog Center for Middle East Studies and Diplomacy at Ben-Gurion University in Beer-Sheva, Israel.

Carey has posted a story warning of growing Israeli pressure for an attack on Iran.

Huge "dead zones" have been appearing in the Gulf of Mexico. Pollution from poorly managed agricultural operations and the output from municipal water treatment systems flows into river systems which drain into the Gulf. The Mississippi River is the most important of these systems.

Last week we heard reports that FutureGen, a multi-billion dollar project to demonstrate the feasibility of "clean coal" would at last be getting underway. The project would generate electricity from coal and pump CO₂ deep underground, where it would remain forever imprisoned by thousands of feet of impermeable rock. The project would be sited near Mattoon, Illinois.

Greens and other environmentalists were opposed to the project, but their objections had been swept aside, and the project would go forward.

Betty Brown, a Republican member of the Texas State legislature is asking Asian-Americans to change their names. Her remarks were directed at Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans.

"Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) have released a new study on the health toll of shipping. Globalization has meant an enormous increase in the number and tonnage of cargo ships. A spokesperson for the EDF calls today's maritime transports "floating smokestacks."

The annual mating season for Illinois amphibians has just ended. Rob Kantor blogs at Environmental Almanac. His topic is frogs, toads, salamanders and the vanishing mini-wetlands on which they depend.

A letter from the Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund warns of a plan by the Chicago Public Schools to stop making payments into their pension fund. It's called a "pension holiday," but unlike most holidays, this one won't be much fun - at least not for the teachers whose pensions will be impacted.

Matt Reichel, who challenged the Chicago Democratic Machine in the 5th Congressional District drew 7% of the vote. This represents a better than five-fold increase over the March primary totals. Overall voter turnout decreased, mostly at the expense of the Democrats.

The University of Illinois at Urbana is hosting Planet U: The Human Story of Climate Change. Perspectives are drawn from the sciences, humanities and the media. The focus will be on the human dimension of climate change. The conference starts today and runs through Friday.

Those who cannot attend in person will be able to watch the conference live via a link on the conference web site.

The Obama Administration position on warrantless wiretapping is worse than that of the Bush administration, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The EFF is in court now, fighting to restore constitutional protections abridged by the Bush Administration.

The Obama Administration's position is said to be more extreme than that of Bush. Department of Justice now argues that "Government can never be sued for surveillance that violates federal privacy statutes."