Sunday, June 24, 2007

There may be an actual reason we feel people are getting stupider and stupider and we have many more ADHD problems. Check it out.

I am not a fear monger, but how many chemicals are developed and used without testing annually?

rojo

Friday, June 22, 2007

Notes from the Tubes--

Just a few thoughts before the weekend--

1) Cheney is above the executive branch. In my opinion, a specious argument. But if that is the case, I want to see the damned energy policy formation meeting notes!!!!!! These were denied to the public based upon executive privilege. Can't have it both ways Big Dickman.

2) I was listening to Randi Rhodes yesterday and she was speaking of caging votes and how a minimum of 1,000,000 votes were not counted because of vote caging (you can guess these votes were not the votes of prep school graduates). McNulty admitted he heard of the practice but did not research it in House testimony yesterday. Voter suppression is a felony offense. As second in charge of DOJ, he did not research this???? Either blind, incompetent, both or maybe in collusion. And Tim Griffin (where do the Republicans find so many lookalikes for the Pillsbury dough boy?? Are they cloning Rove?) was rewarded by being given a US Attorney post for suppressing minority votes and giving the election to Bush. (Which he has since quit because public service is not worth it. Ah, less money than the private sector and there is scrutiny. unlike Enron.)

Illegal, yes. But who gets to press charges. If there were that many votes not counted, does anyone know who they were? I am naive to this process, but if someone has names, could not the person whose vote was not counted contact these people and have them press felony charges of abridging constitutional rights? I don't know. Abu Torquemada will not press charges. Can Congress press charges for vote caging? I really don't know.

rojo

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

If this does not raise your blood pressure, little will. So we could have saved lives, but we didn't, but we have protection for contractors because they can afford it. Why? Because they charge it back to us at a 30% minimum profit margin. Soldiers are collateral damage.

What the hell is this?

Contractors protect their "intellectual assets" - a wonderful buzz term meaning your ass is mine until you die and we will slough you off like a healed scab when you quit making us money - better then we protect our youth.

Another day I will rant about the use of contractors. Today I want to focus on how mismanaged this war and our military is. No one would ever expect the armed services to be safe. But if you have a volunteer army willing to go and serve, this cannot be the best you can do.

I truly believe that Saddam was picked because it was like attacking the local puppy butcher. An amoral oppressor who attacked his own people (Kurds). And they had no anti-aircraft capabities to stop shock and awe. Quick win, Mission Accomplished, look good in a codpiece, be studly. But, oops, we forgot the aftermath and what Condi calls civil order problem:

"But you know, I just -- I know that there are all these reports now -- well, but you know that this might happen or that might happen. I can remember sitting in our meetings before the invasion and saying, and particularly Don Rumsfeld -- you know, people worrying about revenge, that after all those years of the suppression of Shia and Kurds, particularly Shia, there might be revenge taken out. And then we were really rather surprised not to see it. And even in the first few months after the Samarra mosque, we were sort of surprised that people didn't.

Well, it has emerged. But it's emerged by extremists and bad guys doing it. It's not as if -- and sometimes when people say civil war it drives me a little bit crazy because, you know, it's not like Iraqi Shia and Sunnis are running down the streets killing each other because they're Sunnis and Shias. These are organized gangs and death squads, and that's a civil order problem. And we're helping them deal with a civil order problem.

I think part of the problem for the American people is that's kind of uncomfortable. And as Dave Petraeus has said, it's very dangerous -- helping them deal with a civil order problem. But if we can give them the space by helping them deal with the civil order problem to get this de jure reconciliation in place, then I think you can see the transition to the kind of posture that a lot of people talk about as acceptable for American policy. But we can't just get over where we are and go there now."

Does anyone not remember Yugoslavia??? Oil, control, bid swinging dicks and little "what happens next" vision. This administration is single-minded and incompetent. And not willing to sacrifice. Or ask others to. Just shop and be happy.

Why aren't people more furious? Oh yeah, they are working two manufacturing jobs (read Mickey Dees) to pay for things like food and rent that one job could pay for before free trade became popular.

rojo

Friday, June 08, 2007

Irony!

Never having been to the new creation Museum, where the Earth's 6,000 year history is detailed and Adam and Eve frolic with velociraptors, I can't imagine that they hired an actor to play Adam who, shall we say, has indefinite leanings.

"For the Creation Museum, I did what I did as an actor. It doesn't necessarily mean I believe in evolution or a believe in creation," Linden said. "I'm hired to get a point across. On the flip side, if I was hired to play a murderer, that doesn't mean I'd go out and kill somebody. It's make-believe."

Ah, commitment. But, he is an actor. You would think that before hiring someone to play Adam that the Museum may have checked his past, given the controversial nature of the views of the museum, and maybe found out the man also went by the name Bedroom Acrobat. D'oh.

By the way, Bedroomacrobat.com is now being reconstructed and disavows any relationship with Eric Linden. Eric has a press release on his site disavowing relationship with that site.

And, who cares, except the owners of the museum. I guess it is hard to find hard-bodies who are creationists.

rojo

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Culture Wars

Lately, I have seen many emails forwarded to me by concerned citizens on how Muslims can’t really be Americans because they placed their God above the God of all. I deleted many, but finally responded to one person (oh heck, maybe reply to all means a lot of people read it, but I doubt it) and stated that maybe if you believed in your Christian God and pledged your allegiance to him, you couldn’t be an American either.

And now I see this on the Intertubes—

The Ten Commandments and Theocracy

Category:
Posted on: June 6, 2007 9:19 AM, by Ed Brayton

Via EbonMuse's site, I found a link to the Society for the Practical Establishment and Perpetuation of the Ten Commandments, a boldly theocratic organization that calls for voiding the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the establishment of a society governed by Biblical law. The site is run by Robert T. Lee, who says:

Only the Creator of the heavens and the earth to whom all mankind are responsible can properly govern them; and He has graciously given them His most wise, noble, righteous and perfect moral Laws by which all people are responsible to perfectly conform in thought word and deed - in every detail of their lives. His righteous Laws are the only ones which have ever and will ever exist that can definitely work for the total good of every society. Any people who reject His most perfect and holy Laws, that is, the TEN COMMANDMENTS, do so to both their corporeal destruction and eternal damnation.

And they're just getting warmed up:

It is conformity to the established laws of evil and the lack of moral laws, moral penalties and rewards that's the cause of all that's awry in any society. Therefore the performance of true righteousness is the one and only answer to both preventing and ridding a society of every single thing that's amiss therein. If America will ever cease to wallow in its constitutional depravity, its government and people will have to come to the point where they are willing to accept their constitution as being the thoroughly depraved document that it is, officially and perpetually annul it along with its Bill of Rights, and officially embrace the moral laws of God as the foundation and supreme law of the land and legislate against all that's contrary to true morality. America must come to understand that its constitution is not really the Bible. It is a document that manifests America's self-righteousness, foolishness, and blindness.

But the stench of America's depravity is getting worse. In no way could this be happening if the nation is being truthfully governed by true moral principles. The principles upon which America was founded and is being governed are those that are perfectly antithetical to true morality. As long as it continues to be governed by such, it will continue to be governed by nothing more than the established laws of evil which deceptively appear as righteousness.

Do government officials and those who hold public trust truly know what they take an oath of office to do when they take the oath to uphold and defend the manmade constitution of the United States? And do blind patriots know what it truly means to faithfully abide by the spirit of such a manmade constitution? To uphold and defend the constitution and its Bill of Rights is to defend principles that are the governing principles of the kingdom of Satan. Any law that is antithetical to the TEN COMMANDMENTS is always satanic.

And if it needs to be more explicit what they want to see done, they spell it out quite bluntly:

Instead of a people seeking to govern themselves, the most noble and civic thing they can do in establishing their nation or society, or in laying down laws by which the structure of their governments and their inhabitants must conform is to wholeheartedly embrace the moral laws of God as their constitutions, without ever seeking to amend such morality; and all proposed bills, laws, statutes, ordinances, judgments and customs be based on the moral laws of God while vigorously enforcing such morality.

Source http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/06/the_ten_commandments_and_theoc.php

That backs up my theory, but why don’t Christians use the Sermon on the Mount instead of Leviticus and the TEN COMMANDMENTS. If you go to the website where these quotes were taken you can find a great site where justice is meted out. Might as well say “Stone the Bastard.” I know I was brought up Catholic and learned more Catechism than the Bible, but I never remember Christ saying “Stone Them!!!!!” There was something about guilt and throwing first.

What the hell is wrong with these Christians?

rojo

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

I see the EPA is up to its old tricks again. What is a navigable water and what is considered a wetland have been downgraded again.

This will decrease the amount of protection marginal flows, seasonal flows and particularly wetlands receive under the Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Act protects all navigable waters. How many marginal wetland are really navigable? What this will do is place an unfunded mandate (where is Jeff Gannon when we need him? Oh wait, he was funded. He was a prostitute. I wonder who he visited all those times in the White House? It would be fun to know what Christian lawmaker he was making his bitch. but I digress) -- yes, an unfunded mandate on State and county environmental protection departments as they will have to protect these areas as the Feds won't.

Now, let's say you were a developer in an area where there may be few environmental activists. And you want to fill in a swamp (er, wetland) to place a development near a freeway. You could go the county and say in your environmental impact statement we will rid you of pesky mosquitoes and lower the chance of West Nile virus and lower your expenses by eliminating your need to monitor for that and mosquito control. Oh yes, don't mind the red wing blackbirds, herons, etc. we will be displacing. They will just move elsewhere. And this is if the county actually requires environmental impact statements. Just stating that the possibility of abuse exists, maybe. And maybe county officials are cheaper to bribe than federal officials. maybe. Or maybe county and city officials want economic development and they may be more biased than federal officials. maybe.

But what really bothers me here in Colorado is that if the definition of navigable waters gets further downgraded, how many waters in Colorado, where you sometimes jump across rivers (they start here in the mountains and don't gain breadth until you get out to the plains) would truly be navigable, kayaks not withstanding? And many streams are seasonal depending upon snow melt. In a state where irrigation canals and senior water rights prevail (yes, Ralston Creek and Clear Creek were dried up four years ago by irrigation diversions--keeping grass green is much more important than fish life) how much can a stream be diverted before it is considered non-navigable and therefore not worthy of protection?

and even in Denver, the Burlington Canal (I think) along the bike path can take so much of the flow of the Platte River that the river will be dry until the effluent outfall of the Denver Metro Wastewater Plant actually starts a flow again. Yes, this does happen. This allows lawyers to lobby the State Environmental Agency to lower pollution standards (not navigable, no water) and the State is short-handed (republican congress cut budget, watch for Tabor amendments in your States--they suck. Tax payers Bill of Rights they are not. They are just an excuse to cut government funding.) Who has more money and time? developers or overworked and underpaid State employees who work for civil service?

Just think of these implications for a minute and let me know if gutting the Clean Water Act seems like such a good idea.

One other small rant. I mentioned Denver Metro WWTP. It gets the flow from almost the whole Denver area. Big plants are easier and MUCH CHEAPER to regulate and keep in compliance rather than many small ones. Except remember lobbyists cost money and bigger plants can afford lawyers more readily than small ones. But I mentioned that many area creeks run dry in the summer because of irrigation. Ralston Creek and Clear Creek had many small wastewater plants on their banks in the past--Arvada, Wheat Ridge, Northwest Lakewood, some small mobile home parks off of Federal Ave. All these at one time contributed flow to the creeks. Now their flow is diverted to the east side of Denver, depriving the stream of flow. I am sure that no one adjusted the irrigation rights to accommodate the change in flows. This really needs to be a consideration for semi-arid areas.

Oh, and if a river like the Platte receives much of its flow from a wastewater plant after irrigation diversions, how many male fish are there in the river? One study shows an 80% ratio of female to male.

Or intersexed fish?

rojo