Calhouns Can(n)ons

Awwww, Gawwwwd, It’s, Like, Sooooo Embarrassing

Iowa? Again? First it’s the gays. In Iowa, they get to marry. Not California. Noooo, Not in progressive, cutting edge, Number One California. Nope. Iowa. And in education, we rank somewhere below Hogspit Nowhereville Alabama or something. Universal medical care? Worse than, what? Chad??? And some Republican politicians up in Sacramento are still willing to push our budget-busted state off the cliff rather than break their sworn oaths to Grover Norquist. Embarrassing. It’s just plain embarrassing.

Now this headline: “Iowa breezes past California in wind energy; Texas is first. "

Awwww, Gaawwwwddd, continues the AP story by Dirk Lammers, “Texas continues to blow away the competition, but Iowa can now generate more wind power than California, according to a new industry report to be released today.

“The Lone Star state’s 7,118 megawatts dwarfs Iowa’s 2,797 megawatts, but wind power has grown into a key part of the energy infrastructure in Minnesota and Iowa, where each state generates more than 7 percent of their electricity from turbines, the American Wind Energy Association study said.”

And in a side bar, there was California with 2,517 megawatts. Jeeeeze.

Listen up, California, ya wanna make headlines and take a mega leap into the energy race? Forget Norquist. Let’s all tax ourselves a few shekels for up front money, form a county by county or state-wide, not-for-profit municipal utilities agencies that would slap solar panels on every single roof in the state, hook up the house and business, then hook up feed-back lines to the grid and Ka-Pow! No need to get stymied trying to build ginormous solar arrays out in kit fox habitat or stringing miles of transmission lines out in the middle of nowhere. Urban rooftops are already hooked up to power lines and ready to go, plus you don’t have to lose power getting it from middle-of-nowhere A to urban-use- point Z.

Even more fun, instead of planting trees in parking lots, plant solar panels on poles. Park your car under the shade of a solar panel and when electric plug in cars finally become reality, we can all go park and plug in our cars and then go shopping! What’s more American than that!