The Sierra Club has a nice fact sheet with references HERE 

The nice thing about this sheet is that all of the claims are sourced.  Really biased sources too.  Like the Department of Energy and the National Coal Council!  Check it out.  Then I suggest you check out the link HERE:

It’s a slideshow that gives you an idea what is being done to Appalachia.  

This is Black History Month.  Jeff Biggers wrote a great Huffington Post called

Strip Mining Black History Month.

I am ready to act, if I can find brave men to help me." --Carter Woodson

As schools, communities and politicians across the country celebrate Black History Month in February, they will be remiss if their lessons don’t include the coal fields of Fayette County, West Virginia. There, in the 1890s, a teenage African American followed his brothers into the coal mines, serving what Carter Woodson called his "six-year apprenticeship." In the evenings, the young Woodson would gather with other black coal miners, read the newspaper, and listen to their extraordinary stories of life underground, and their struggles during the Civil War and Reconstruction Era.

The daily history lessons among African Americans in Appalachia were not lost on Woodson. He later wrote that his "interest in penetrating the past of my people was deepened and intensified" during these sessions among coal miners in Fayette County. Woodson managed to return to high school in Huntington, West Virginia -- the access to education for African Americans being one of the reasons his family had chosen to come to Appalachia -- and earned his diploma in two years. He moved on to earn a degree at Berea College, which had been founded in the hills of eastern Kentucky by abolitionists in 1855, the University of Chicago and then a Ph.D. in history at Harvard University.

Woodson went on, of course, to become the "Father of Black History," and one of our country’s most celebrated historians. Few people realized, however, that West Virginia once again played prominently in Woodson’s career in 1920, when the young black professor lost his job at Howard University and became a dean at the West Virginia Collegiate Institute. There in West Virginia, Woodson finally received a substantial grant from the Carnegie Foundation that allowed him to return to Washington, DC and set his Association for the Study of Negro Life and History on a course for world acclaim.

Woodson’s and Black History Month’s largely overlooked origins in West Virginia are not the only casualty in our selective memory on American history.

A century after Woodson’s tenure in the coal mines in West Virginia, another "first" took place in Fayette County. In 1970, the first mountaintop removal operation was launched on Cannelton Hollow in area once called Bullpush Mountain. Thirty-eight years later, mountaintop removal practices--the process of literally blowing up mountains, and dumping the waste into waterways and valleys, in order to cheaply remove coal--have destroyed over 450 mountains and neighboring communities, displaced miners, and stripmined the cultural landscape in the Appalachian region.  MORE
 

Trying to get into the centre of Baghdad earlier this week offered one view of how far away the Americans and Iraqi authorities are from gaining control here.

By Andrew North
BBC News, Baghdad

We were at the airport. Just before we were due to leave, the entrance car park was hit by a car bomb.

US troops and private security forces who guard the perimeter locked the whole area down for the next four hours. No traffic was allowed in or out.

While we waited with scores of other vehicles, mortars were fired at the airport. Fortunately for us they landed on the other side of the runway, plumes of smoke shooting into the air.

You won't have heard about any of this because at the same time a series of other far more serious attacks was taking place.

One was at the Sadriya market in the city centre, where a massive car bomb killed more than 140 people.

It was placed at the entrance to a set of barriers put up around another part of the market where a previous single bomb, in February, claimed more than 130 lives.

The market blast "did not penetrate the emplaced barriers" a later US military press release helpfully pointed out, ignoring the fact that the bombers had yet again adapted their tactics with vicious perfection - setting off their device at the point where crowds congregated outside and at the very moment when they were busiest.

Bombers 'organised'

As we drove into the city, we counted six blast holes left by recent roadside bombs along just one 100-metre stretch of road.

A large patch of damaged, blackened Tarmac on a bridge spoke of another attempt to destroy a key crossing.

The Sunni extremists held to be responsible for these attacks seem to be making a mockery of the US and Iraqi security plan, which is now into its third month.

So far, their surge seems to be having more effect than the American one. MORE

Of course the whorish American media is not going to be showing any of this. When are the American people going to rise up and impeach these monsters? What has to happen? Do they have to drop a nuke on Baghdad? Or will a few more rivers of blood be enough? Will it take a draft? This war is not winnable. Just go ask the ghost of Ho Chi Minh. We are not fighting terrorists, we are fighting an aroused populace who object to being occupied! GET THAT THROUGH YOUR HEADS

~Susan~

From P.M. Carpenter's Commentary

March 17, 2007

While tooling around Iowa yesterday on the increasingly oxymoronic "Straight Talk Express," Republican Senator John McCain emasculated himself right before an audience of journalist spectators, one of whom happened to be the NYT's Adam Nagourney, who recorded the bloody details of the excruciatingly painful self-procedure.Who suffered more — Mr. McCain, his surgical assistants, or the reporters — may be debatable, but suffering was indeed the nut of it, as the presidential candidate squirmed and hesitated but nevertheless proceeded to excise his manhood, right there, right there on the bus, in deference to the Christian right's vigilant eyes.

The complex and elective deballsification came somewhat unexpectedly in response to a reporter's simple question:

Should U.S. taxpayer money go to places like Africa to fund contraception to prevent AIDS? MORE

This is not only dead on the mark but screamingly funny. I suggest you read the whole thing. Warning: Don't drink anything while you're reading–it will end up coming out your nose.

~Susan~

From the Austin American-Statesman

Thursday, March 29, 2007

When asked recently why the Texas Legislature had suddenly become so critical of toll roads after it authorized them just a few years ago, state Sen. Steve Ogden, a Republican from Bryan, had an on-the-money answer: "What's going on? We had an election, that's what."

The same can be said about what's going on in Congress regarding the war in Iraq.

In November, Americans, out of patience with the war, took congressional majorities away from Republicans — who had steadily supported President Bush's handling of Iraq — and gave it to Democrats.

Now, Democrats are finally moving toward a confrontation with Bush over the issue of how much longer, after four years and about 3,200 Americans dead, to continue major U.S. combat operations in Iraq.

The House has voted for a binding deadline to withdraw most U.S. troops by September 2008. The Senate on Tuesday voted for a non-binding deadline by March 31, 2008. In both chambers, however, the winning margins were thin: 218-212 in the House and 50-48 in the Senate.

The Senate and House voted on different versions of the same legislation, so there will be negotiations over a final version to send to the president.

The president, strongly opposed to setting any pullout deadlines, has promised to veto the bill if it has one. There's irony in that threat, for the deadlines are attached to a $122 billion appropriation to pay for continued U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. MORE

Bush; if you support the troops sign the bill. If you veto the bill this is one person's fault–yours. Don't sit up on Pennsylvania Avenue throwing tantrums. Of course that still won't explain the soldiers who have died because even when you had a blank check you couldn't bother to provide them with armor. Or up-armored Humvees.

We won't even begin to talk about your cronies in Halliburton feeding the soldiers spoiled food. Or giving them contaminated water. If this is your idea of "supporting the troops" these kids don't need enemies–they have you!

Sign the damn bill, Bush!

~Susan~

By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist Friday 06 April 2007

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow - T. S. Eliot

Arizona Sen. John McCain took a walk through a Baghdad market on April Fool's Day, and may well have burned his presidential campaign down to the ground in the process. That little stroll has visited upon his head a deluge of humiliation and shame vast and astonishing enough to beggar imagination, and that was before the bodies started hitting the ground.

Translated into mathematical terms, McCain's walk was Pythagorean in scope, squared hypocrisy added to squared idiocy equaling squared disgrace. In political terms, McCain's Baghdad walk was a full-blown, bull-moose, train-wreck disaster of truly galactic proportions: a veritable Hindenberg of campaign photo-op debacles. It was so mind-bendingly ugly and deranged and disgusting that the once-iconic "Dukakis in the Tank" blunder now seems quaint by comparison.

The genesis of this catastrophe, in case you missed it, was a verbal gaffe by McCain during a widely broadcast interview last week. After enduring several minutes of sharp interrogation regarding his staunch support of Bush, the war and the "surge," a neuron within his logic circuits apparently misfired. He claimed, with an entirely straight face, that the streets of Baghdad are today entirely safe for an American to walk down. This whopper made even the most shamelessly craven war apologists shake their heads in public, and forced McCain to undertake a desperate face-saving lunge to recover some shred of credibility.

McCain traveled to Baghdad to prove his claim correct, and the pictures appeared shortly thereafter. In the first available frames, the senator was shown walking through a Baghdad marketplace wearing a Kevlar vest, a general on his right and a troop on his left, and a second troop three steps ahead brandishing his rifle. While this kind of protection detail seemed to undermine his claims of safety, the escort and the vest could easily be understood as normal and necessary precautions taken to protect a visiting dignitary. For a time, McCain appeared to have made his point.

It didn't last. On the heels of those narrow-scope photos came reports of what McCain's entourage was actually comprised of. That "safe" Baghdad market had been flooded with more than one hundred battle-ready troops and armored Humvees. Three Blackhawk helicopters and two Apache attack helicopters roared overhead, and sharpshooters were posted on the surrounding rooftops. Simply put, McCain's "safe" street was one overly loud mouse-fart away from being paved with flaming lead during every step of that little walk.

To compound the calamity, a report emerged two days later describing the abduction and slaughter of 21 Iraqis who worked in the marketplace McCain's mini-Normandy force had stormed the previous Sunday, an obvious act of retribution for his visit by a violent Baghdad militia. Already belied by the revealed firepower he brought along, McCain's "safe" walk in Iraq led directly to yet another horrific Baghdad bloodbath. There is bad, there is awful, and then there is this thing, this quantum singularity of ignominy that bends the very light now shining upon it.

Call it farce, call it folly, condemn it for its drenching hypocrisy and the mortal consequences suffered by 21 innocent people. One must also see this, in the end, as a true American tragedy of historic proportions.MORE

In view of what has happened, I think McCain should withdraw from the race. He is no longer a viable candidate. Go home Senator, you have caused enough damage.

~Susan~

The thing that jumps out at me most about Gonzo-gate is the sheer incompetence of all of the major players. This thing looks to be going right up into the White House. It has dirtied the reputation of the Department of Justice for years.

It did not need to happen.

Setting aside the reason these U.S Attorneys were fired, the whole thing could have been avoided very easily.

Every one of the these prosecutors; even the fired ones were good Repiglicans. They would not have been appointed to their posts in the first place if they had not. Here is what I envision should have happened if a scandal was to be avoided:

Gonzo visits each of the (not yet) fired prosecutors. Conversation would have gone something like this. "Prosecutor, you have been doing a great job for the team. We really appreciate your work and dedication to the cause. You are one of eight people who have been selected to move up.

In order for this to happen we are going to ask you to resign your position here. It's going to hurt us but you really need to move up. We'll put someone in your place and you will be going to your new position."

Who is going to object to a promotion? Nobody. Eight prosecutors resign, are moved to meaningless posts that pay a lot and the new people move in. Everyone is happy.

What you don't do is either ask for their resignation or fire them and state publicly that it is for cause. These prosecutors might have been willing to go along with this as long as they did not have the Administration coming out and saying they were fired for cause!

When you do that the person fired then has his job prospects affected. And they will quite rightly scream about it. I don't blame them.

If I can think of this why didn't the Administration? Their bumbling set off this whole firestorm. Sounds rather like Iraq doesn't it?

By Andrea Buffa
TomPaine.com Thursday 15 March 2007

Remember how the U.S. invasion of Iraq was supposed to liberate the women?

Normally not the subject of news stories, Iraqi women made headlines in three sensational stories last month. First there was the Sunni woman who accused Iraqi police officers of raping her. Since most of the Iraqi police are Shia, the issue became a sectarian row, with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki firing a top Sunni official who had the audacity to say the rape charge should be investigated.

In the same month, a woman suicide bomber killed more than 41 people at a college in Baghdad, one of the largest attacks by a woman suicide bomber since the war began. And finally, there is the ongoing story of four women who face the death penalty in Iraq, at least one of whom could be executed any day now. Human rights groups, such as Amnesty International, have questioned these women's trials for their lack of transparency and fairness, as well as a potential absence of legal representation.

Rapes, bombings, death sentences, and a discriminatory legal system; it is one of the unspoken facts of militarism that women often become the spoils of war. The Iraq war has been a disaster in many ways, but none so extreme as what it's done to Iraqi women.

Women not only suffer what everyone in Iraqi society suffers - the absence of security, collapse of the country's infrastructure, a health care system in tatters, and high levels of poverty and unemployment. They also suffer gender-based violence and increased social conservatism. The constant violence - looting, assault, kidnapping, rape or death at the hands of suicide bombers, militias, foreign troops, Iraqi police, and local thugs - has trapped women and children in their homes. Many women who'd formerly worked outside the home or attended school now stay indoors.

In an attempt to describe women's lives in Iraq today, Yanar Mohammad, a leading Iraqi women's rights advocate says: "It is heartbreaking to me to see the return of extreme, anti-women practices that we had not seen for many decades. When I grew up in Iraq, women went to school; educated, professional, working women were a part of our society. Today, a woman risks her life simply by going to the grocery store. Our lives have been ripped from us." MORE

Anyone want to bet on how long it will take before Iraq has a Taliban like society? If I lived in Iraq I would do anything to get out of the country and out of the region. Especially if I had children.

~Susan~

From the Nation

by John Nichols

Is George Bush delusional?

No, that question is not an attack on his intelligence.

Nor is it a criticism of some bizarre new position he has taken with regard to the affairs of state – although, as it happens, he has.

Rather, it is a serious question about whether the president understands what is going on around him.

After he announced Tuesday that the White House would not make a serious effort to cooperate with the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation into the firing of U.S. Attorneys who would not politicize their prosecutions, the president was asked about several of the attorneys who had been removed.

"I'm sorry, just frankly, it bubbled to the surface the way it has, for the U.S. attorneys involved," answered Bush. "I really am. These are — I put them in there in the first place. They're decent people. They serve at our pleasure. And yet, now, they're being held up in the scrutiny of all this. And it's just — what I said in comments, I meant about them. I appreciated their service, and I'm sorry that the situation has gotten to where it's got. But that's Washington, D.C., for you. You know, there a lot of politics in this town."

Here's the troubling thing about Bush's response.

It appears that he might be unaware that his firing of the U.S. Attorneys – who, as he notes "serve at the pleasure of the president" – too the situation "to where it's got." MORE

From CounterPunch

Instead Democrats Peddle Bogus Antiwar Resolution

By JOHN V. WALSH

The peace movement is now in a tizzy about the various "antiwar" resolutions proffered by the Democrats. Earnest and heated discussion of the minutest details of these various bills is clogging up the UFPJ (United For Peace and Justice) discussion groups and other channels of the official peace movement. But unfortunately all this frenzy is destined to come to naught. None of these bills will survive a Republican filibuster in the Senate or a Presidential veto. And the bills are all subject to challenge in the courts on the basis of which powers the Congress and Executive have over the conduct of war. These measures are designed to do no more than save face for the Dems and allow them to continue to bash Bush. But the bills will not and cannot end the war.

There is but one way for the Democratically controlled Congress to end the war and that is to stop the funding. So far the "antiwar" Democrats refuse to do that. So they now own the war every bit as much as Bush does. They cannot reasonably say that they refuse to defund the war now, but they will end the war later if one of their number becomes President in 2008. The simple fact is that they have the power now but they refuse to exercise it. They allow the death and destruction in Iraq to continue in order to satisfy their donors, AIPAC and their own ambitions to descend to the presidency.

The Democrats will claim that they only have a "razor thin majority," so that their hands are tied. But this is not so. It takes only one Senator to filibuster against funding the war. Then it takes only 41 abstentions to sustain the filibuster. 60 votes are needed to stop a filibuster; so 41 abstentions mean that a filibuster is sustained and Bush's supplemental funding bill for the Iraq war is dead (1). Such a filibuster is of course veto-proof since the filibustered bill simply dies and there is nothing for Bush to veto. There are 51 Senate Democrats, most of whom claim to be against the war, and at least one antiwar Republican Senator so the votes are there ­ unless our solons of the Senate are deceiving us. If such a filibuster takes hold, the administration must then come back to the Congress with a bill acceptable to the 41, presumably a bill with funding to bring the U.S. soldiers home safely and quickly. (Sign the petition calling on Senators to take this action at www.FilibusterForPeace.org and circulate the petition widely.) MORE

This has real possibilities. Are you listening Senator Wyden? Senator Boxer? Senator Kennedy? One very brave senator who is willing to stand up to the Bush Administration. Forty-one abstentions. Who is going to go after someone who abstains? We just need one brave senator. Do we have one?

~Susan~