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The Big Picture: Newt Gingrich's Moonbat Lunar Colony Idea Busted in Cyberspace
Obama Outlines Incentive Plan to Rein in College Tuition Costs
GLYNN WILSON
Tornadoes Rip Through Alabama in January 2012
President Obama offered a plan Friday to reduce the costs of higher education by increasing the amount of federal grant money available for low-interest loans and tying it directly to colleges' ability to reduce tuition. In an impassioned speech before 4,000 students at the University of Michigan, Obama delivered an election-year pitch to the type of youthful audience that buoyed his 2008 campaign, saying his administration was putting colleges "on notice" that they must rein in soaring prices.
Romney, Gingrich Focus on Hispanic Voters in Florida
Romney Opens Up Nine-Point Lead Over Gingrich in Florida Poll

St. Louis Hosts First Big Parade on Iraq War's End
Since the Iraq War ended there has been little fanfare for the veterans returning home. No ticker-tape parades. No massive, flag-waving public celebrations. So, two friends from St. Louis decided to change that. They sought donations, launched a Facebook page, met with the mayor and mapped a route. On Saturday, hundreds of veterans are expected to march in downtown St. Louis in the nation's first big welcome home parade since the last troops left Iraq in December.
Army, Marines to Shrink as Budget Slows

California Passes New Auto Emission Rules
Obama Administration Rewrites National Forest Rules
The Obama administration finalized a rule Thursday governing the management of 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands, establishing a new blueprint to guide everything from logging to recreation and renewable energy development. The guidelines -- which will take effect in early March and apply to all 155 national forests, 20 grasslands and one prairie -- represent the first meaningful overhaul of forest rules in 30 years. The Bush administration had issued a management-planning rule for national forests in 2008, but a federal court struck it down the next year on the grounds that it did not provide adequate protection for plants and wildlife.

London Police Raid Murdoch News Offices
Twitter's New Censorship Plan Rouses Global Furor
Twitter, a tool of choice for dissidents and activists around the world, found itself the target of global outrage Friday after unveiling plans to allow country-specific censorship of tweets that might break local laws. It was a stunning role reversal for a youthful company that prides itself in promoting unfettered expression, 140 characters at a time. Twitter insisted its commitment to free speech remains firm, and sought to explain the nuances of its policy, while critics - in a barrage of tweets - proposed a Twitter boycott and demanded that the censorship initiative be scrapped.
Regional Political Roundup
Atlanta Jewish Times Publisher Resigns Over Assassination Column
Consumer Watchdog Makes Appearance in Birmingham
States Hold Up Progress on Health Care Reform

Select Regional News
Occupy DC Must Stop Camping by Monday
Judge Rules BP Contract Shields Transocean from Gulf Spill Claims
Federal Employees Plan 'Save Our Jobs' Rally Jan. 30
Editorials, Columns, Videos, Blogs of Note
Newt Gingrich's Moonbat Lunar Colony Idea Busted in Cyberspace
Krugman: Jobs, Jobs and Cars
State of the Union Video and Text
Gingrich Heckled During Florida Speech
Supreme Court Left Too Much Unresolved with GPS Ruling
The Conspiracy Theory Called Democracy is Killing America
Occupy Birmingham Holds Vigil for Ward Family in Center Point
Wayne Flynt: Don't Abandon Reason

In Case You Missed It
Politics, Government, Public Opinion
Candidate Obama Courts Latino Vote on Economic Tour
President Obama is NOT a Failure
Romney Damaging Self with Independents for Fall Campaign
Big Gingrich Donor is Self-Proclaimed 'Richest Jew in the World'
Romney Paid $6.2 Million in Taxes on $42.5 Million in Income
More Americans Trust President Obama to Set the Nation's Course

Legal News
Ex-HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy's Sentence Reduced to 70 Months
Warrant Required for GPS Tracking
Supreme Court Rejects Texas Redistricting Map

War, Intel, National Security
US Cybersecurity Efforts Trigger Privacy Concerns
US Army to Cut Combat Brigades
Wife of Alleged CIA Leaker Resigns
Science, Health, Environment
Daffodils Blooming in January? New Map Shows Warmer Plant Zone
President Obama Rejects Keystone Pipeline Permit
Standards for Mercury Pollution from Power Plants Unveiled

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Labor Board Chief to Press for New Union Rules
Consumer Confidence On the Rise in US
Web Blackout Protest Impacts Copyright Debate in Washington

Arts, Media, Education, Entertainment
Right-Wing Media Drops Bombs on Newt Gingrich
Should the New York Times Tell the Truth?

Sports, Travel, Outdoors
Revered Penn State Coach Joe Paterno Dies at 85
President Calls to Congratulate Saban on National Championship

labfield.jpg
Telescope
Featured Political Stories, Photos and Videos
Mark Kennedy Rewrites George Wallace's 1963 Inaugural Address
In his address to the Alabama Democratic Party Hall of Fame dinner crowd, Judge Mark Kennedy changed the wording of his father-in-law George Wallace's inaugural address from 1963.
Alabama Democrats Honor Hall of Famers From Education, Labor
College Democrats President Urges Young People to Get Involved

Featured Labor Stories, Columns, Photo Essays and Videos
Locust Fork News-Journal Top Stories and People of 2011
AFL-CIO Report Calls Immigration Law A 'Crisis in Alabama'
Labor Heavy Hitters On the Ground in Alabama's Immigration Battle
Heavy hitters from American labor are now on the ground taking a special interest in Alabama due to the growing controversy surrounding the state's draconian immigration law. An AFL-CIO sponsored delegation of union leaders actively engaged in the struggle for civil and human rights recently spent a day in Birmingham and Pelham getting a first-hand view of the law's impact by hearing from local community leaders and undocumented workers.

Why Working People Vote Against Their Economic Interests
Why do working class people in the South so frequently vote against their own economic self-interest? In answering the question a little more than 20 years after his book came out, retired Auburn History professor Wayne Flynt said some things you will never see reported by any newspaper or television news station in Alabama.

Al Henley Elected President of the AFL-CIO of Alabama
American Unions Have Way More Work to Do to Restore Public Approval
Alabama Miners Shut Down Coal Production, 1000 Rally in Birmingham
GLYNN WILSON
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The United Mine Workers of America declared a day of mourning on Monday and shut down all coal production for the entire state of Alabama to protest the anti-union budget cutting policies of the new Republican governor and GOP-controlled legislature.

Daryl Dewberry's army of mine workers from District 20, covering most of the Southeast, packed the house with their signature camouflage T-shirts at the "We Are One" rally at Boutwell Auditorium, moved across the street from Linn Park due to the threat of afternoon thunderstorms.

"These colors don't run," Dewberry said to resounding cheers and applause.

"A wrong to one is a wrong to all. We stand with you. We're ready to fight and we'll fight with you."

The mine workers were joined by the Communication Workers of America Local 3902, which hosted the rally, along with the AFL-CIO, the plumbers and pipefitters of UA Local 91, and all the other unions in the state, including the American Federation of Teachers and the Alabama Education Association.

VIDEO: United Mine Workers Shut Down Coal Production

Union Workers, Democrats Take A Stand at State House

Videos: Alabama Unions Rally at Alabama State House

Save the American Dream Rally Held on Capitol Steps

The Big Picture: Long Live Organized Labor in America
Could the protests for the rights of workers spread around the country and herald a new day for American labor?

Featured Stories, Photo Essays and Videos from BP's Gulf Oil Disaster
Glynn Wilson
Some Wildlife Returns to Gulf Coast After Oil Gusher
Where Oh Where Have All the Wildlife Gone?
Are We Learning the Lessons from BP's Oil Disaster in the Gulf?
When the British Petroleum corporation issued a press release announcing that the multinational behemoth would commit $1 billion for Gulf Coast restoration projects, every news organization in the world ran a story about it. But where were the reporters and editors asking the tough questions, such as: Is the $1 billion enough? What is the plan for restoration? What does the company and the government plan to restore?
Unanswered Questions Remain on the State of the Gulf Coast

Riki Ott Speaks at Orange Beach Public Health Forum
Robin Young, Like Thousands on the Gulf, Suffered 'BP Crud'
Wherever disaster strikes, there's always an associated crud. There was the Exxon Valdez Crud. The Nine Eleven Crud. The Katrina Cough, and then the TVA coal ash cough. Now, along the entire coast of the Gulf of Mexico, there is the BP Crud, afflicting workers and the general population from Louisiana to Florida.
Air Quality Along the Coast Raises Questions
Watchdogging BP Video: Oil Giant Restricts Press Access to Alabama Beach

BP's Oil Spill Will Have Major Environmental Impacts on the Gulf of Mexico
Interior Department Permitted Deep Horizon Without Impact Study
Ken Salazar, a former Senator and Attorney General of Colorado, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the 50th Secretary of the Interior on Jan. 20, 2009 by President Barack Obama. Less than three months later, on April 6, 2009, the British Petroleum company was granted a permit for the Deepwater Horizon, the deepest oil well ever dug in the Gulf of Mexico -- without an Environmental Impact Study as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. The Minerals Management Service, an agency of the Department of the Interior charged with regulating the oil and gas industry, has been ensconced in a ethics scandal in recent months for cozying up to the oil and gas industry. The agency granted BP a "categorical exclusion" to NEPA on the basis of three reviews of the area, which concluded that a massive oil spill was "unlikely," according to government documents.
Gulf Oil Slick One: A Glynn Wilson Video

Featured Nature Stories, Photos and Videos
Secret Vistas: A Film About the Lake Chinnabee Campground
Click Here or on the Image to Check Out the Archive on the Birds of Alabama
Glynn Wilson
An Alabama yellow hammer, otherwise known as the Northern Flicker [colaptes auratus], and in the South, the yellow-shafted flicker since they have yellow tail feathers, which you can only see from certain angles. These birds have a special place in state lore going all the way back to the Civil War, and it is the state bird of Alabama.

Alabama has been known as the "Yellowhammer State" since the Civil War. The yellowhammer nickname was given to the Confederate soldiers from Alabama when a company of young cavalry soldiers from Huntsville, under the command of Rev. D.C. Kelly, arrived at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where Gen. Forrest's troops were stationed. The officers and men of the Huntsville company wore fine, new uniforms, whereas the soldiers who had long been on the battlefields were dressed in faded, worn uniforms.

On the sleeves, collars and coattails of the new calvary troops were bits of brilliant yellow cloth. As the company rode past Company A, Will Arnett cried out in greeting "Yellowhammer, Yellowhammer, flicker, flicker!" The greeting brought a roar of laughter from the men and from that moment the Huntsville soldiers were spoken of as the "yellowhammer company." The term quickly spread throughout the Confederate Army and all Alabama troops were referred to unofficially as the "Yellowhammers."

When the Confederate Veterans in Alabama were organized they took pride in being referred to as the "Yellowhammers" and wore a yellowhammer feather in their caps or lapels during reunions. A bill introduced in the 1927 legislature by Representative Thomas E. Martin, Montgomery County, was passed and approved by Governor Bibb Graves on September 6, 1927, making it the state bird.

The tradition extends to the University of Alabama, where the famous Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer cheer has been around for decades. It bas banned in 2003, but students voted overwhelmingly at Homecoming 2005 to bring it back.

The Rammer Jammer was an old campus magazine at Alabama, and the yellowhammer is the state bird.


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