A weekend in Chattanooga

NOT too small and not too big, Chattanooga is really the undiscovered gem of Tennessee, where old-school Southern manners and grand Victorian mansions meet a thoroughly modern, eco-friendly Tennessee riverfront. You’ll be called “sir” or “ma’am” everywhere, but ’noogans can have attitude to burn, too, like the wry bartender who showed the door to a wag yelling for “Free Bird” during a pub’s original-music night.

—Chattanooga's Tennessee Aquarium

Texans debate air quality amid coal expansion

HOUSTON, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Texans may consume more electricity than other Americans, but they're suddenly debating the wisdom of doubling the number of coal-fired power plants in the state -- plants critics say will worsen air quality and increase health risks.—by Eileen O'Grady

Outtakes—

The concentration of plants in one area of the state has raised concern among residents, business owners and elected officials who normally support new investment, said Jim Vaughan, president of the Waco Chamber of Commerce. The number of coal plants in Texas would double if all new plants are built. "That's got people saying we need to know more about this," he said.

"Everyone is really concerned about the environment," Waco Mayor Virginia DuPuy said at one of two McLennan County public hearings held last week which attracted more than 300 people. DuPuy urged the state agency that issues permits to require TXU to stagger plant construction to match the state's rising demand for power. "Give the new technology time to develop," said DuPuy. "We've got to err on the side of health."

Time to move the Mississippi?

Scientists have long said the only way to restore Louisiana’s vanishing wetlands is to undo the elaborate levee system that controls the Mississippi River, not with the small projects that have been tried here and there, but with a massive diversion that would send the muddy river flooding wholesale into the state’s sediment-starved marshes.—Cornelia Dean, The New York Times

Irbit is Daytona, Sturgis and Milwaukee all rolled into one

IRBIT is a small city in western Siberia, situated on the bleak plains east of the Ural Mountains. In the main square, it has a statue of Lenin that cheeky capitalists have painted pink. That monument is not the only thing that distinguishes Irbit: its 43,000 or so permanent residents are said to own, in toto, some 60,000 motorcycles. Noteworthy, indeed, for a place with a subarctic climate — brief cool summers and brutal winters worthy of a Boris Pasternak epic.—by Jerry Garrett, The New York Times

On creating jobs and stopping global warming

When we make big mistakes in America, it is usually because the people ... who knew better did not have the courage to do better.—Al Gore at New York University

Hey Louisiana: Leave Willie alone

LAFAYETTE, Louisiana (AP) Willie Nelson and four others were issued misdemeanor citations for possession of narcotic mushrooms and marijuana after a traffic stop Monday morning on a Louisiana highway, state police said.