Who sucked out the feeling?

According to a post today on the SK Bubba Blab, the Knoxville News Sentinel ran an article today by Greg Johnson in which Mr. Johnson laments the possible woes associated with the generation of wind energy:

". . .windmills sucking more energy from our already sluggish air could very well cause East Tennessee's poor-quality air to stall in the EPA nonattainment zone until the next millenium."

WHA?!?

And our own Sen. Lamar Alexander recently introduced legislation to restrict tax credits for new windmills with this logic:

"It keeps these 100-yard-tall, monstrous structures away from Signal Mountain, Lookout Mountain, Roan Mountain, the Tennessee River Gorge, the foothills of the Smokies and other highly scenic areas," Alexander said.

"As for jobs," he continued, "every Tennessee job is important, but I fear that hundreds of these giant windmills across Tennessee's ridges could destroy our tourism industry, which could cost us tens of thousands of jobs."

I hope I'm not alone in my thought that there is definitely some sucking going on here, and the windmills are not at fault. Alexander is also opposed to off-shore windmills, although in favor of off-shore oil drilling. He's also in favor of oil drilling and other fossil fuel exploration / extraction in national parks. Perhaps in his estimation, a big white windmill is far more aesthetically harmful than a strip mine? Talk about fuzzy logic.

And don't get me started on the massive 110-foot zero-energy-producing Christian symbol that has been approved for Pigeon Forge (the dreck-hole that greets visitors to the Smokies and generates so much revenue with its putt-putt courses, race tracks, chain restaurants, and outlet malls that it has apparently been grandfathered in as a "highly scenic area").

Get more info on opposing Alexander's incoherent legislation from Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.