Congrats to Central Illinois

Good news for mostly boring (that's what those city slickers tell us) Central Illinois. Mattoon, Illinois (for you coastal dwellers, we're the state otherwise known as Chicago) will be the site of FutureGen, the "world's cleanest coal plant." It's good to know that my home state is on the front lines of helping to reduce the environmental impact of our energy-guzzling society. I don't know much about the science of it, but the world wide web told me this:

"For the first time coal gasification will be integrated with carbon dioxide, CO2, capture and geologic sequestration to prevent this greenhouse gas from adding to atmospheric accumulations responsible for global warming."

The governor visited town, but that's not always too impressive. I remember when governor Jim Edgar visited my home town of Sparta, IL to present a sizable check to a Mexican corporation that was going to take over the Spartan Printing Plant. They took the money and ran. Woops.

A governor, this time Blagojavich, visited my home town again a couple years ago because Sparta was going to become the home of the World (yes, World) Shooting Complex. Knowing about our town's history of eliciting phony business, lots of skepticism ensued, but wouldn't ya know it, the Complex is drawing in 1000s of shooters, today. Yee-haw.