Aug

25

Financial Statements…

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I am going to be busy for the next few days as we try to nail down our living arrangements before Friday. We’ve set a sort of “personal goal” to have something permanent lined up as soon as possible.

While I work on our finances and make sure we have enough money to pay for our next home, take a moment to see how much your government is spending…

 

Just for grins, use the above chart to dissect Christopher Hayes’ statement that our current and future deficits are caused by “three things: the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush tax cuts and the recession.”

Two of those three things — the wars and tax cuts — were in effect from 2003 through 2007. Do you see alarming deficits or trends from 2003 through 2007 in the above chart? No. In fact, the trend through 2007 is shrinking deficits. What you see is a significant upward tick in 2008, and then an explosion in 2009. Now, what might have happened between 2007 and 2008, and then 2009?

If I worked my budget the way the Democrats have been working with our economy, I would be moving into Bill Gates’ house and you’d all be paying for it!!! Aren’t you glad I’m not a Democrat?!?

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Aug

16

Finally. Something That Makes Sense!

Category: Opinions, Our Nation | 1 Comment | 218 words | Print

Did you see the news?

The Los Angeles Times published an analysis of teacher effectiveness in the Los Angeles School District.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said Monday that parents have a right to know if their children’s teachers are effective, endorsing the public release of information about how well individual teachers fare at raising their students’ test scores.

“What’s there to hide?” Duncan said in an interview one day after The Times published an analysis of teacher effectiveness in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest school system. “In education, we’ve been scared to talk about success.”

Parents support the idea. People everywhere support the idea. The teacher’s union doesn’t.

The Los Angeles teachers union urged a boycott of the paper to protest the public disclosure of the data, and other labor leaders also objected.

“Publishing the database … is irresponsible and disrespectful to the hard-working teachers of Los Angeles,” David Sanchez, president of the California Teachers Assn., said in a statement.

Oh no! How could they let this happen? How could someone release information about the performance of public school teachers to the … public? Holding public educators accountable to the public. Imagine the thought.

Finally, something that makes sense!

Kudos to the Los Angeles Times on this one.

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Jul

30

That Rain Doesn’t Belong To You!

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I am taking a break tonight, but you need to read this article.

Collecting rain in a rain barrel may be illegal in your state.

Many of the freedoms we enjoy here in the U.S. are quickly eroding as the nation transforms from the land of the free into the land of the enslaved, but what I’m about to share with you takes the assault on our freedoms to a whole new level. You may not be aware of this, but many Western states, including Utah, Washington and Colorado, have long outlawed individuals from collecting rainwater on their own properties because, according to officials, that rain belongs to someone else.

Read more at Natural News.

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Jul

29

Ignoring The Truth For 15 Minutes

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While attempting to prove she has “overcome” her racism toward white farmers, Shirley Sherrod has now taken the next obvious step along her path to self-destruction. She is planning on suing Andrew Breitbart because the Obama administration over reacted and fired her innappropriately.

Ousted Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod said Thursday she will sue a conservative blogger who posted a video edited in a way that made her appear racist.

Sherrod was forced to resign last week as director of rural development in Georgia after Andrew Breitbart posted the edited video online. In the full video, Sherrod, who is black, spoke to a local NAACP group about racial reconciliation and overcoming her initial reluctance to help a white farmer.

Why is Sherrod suing Breitbart? His video was used to criticize the NAACP, not Sherrod. Is it his fault that the Obama administration is so scared of racial issues that they were trigger happy when they fired her? No, it’s not.

Personally, I am sick of this story, and this will be the last time I post anything about Shirley Sherrod, or her racist husband, Charles.

The video shows her making the statements she made, and the crowd reacting the way they did. Period. She’s a moron for suing Breitbart. The truth is the truth, if she can’t handle the truth then she never should have been in the position she was in.

Just imagine if a white person had made the same statements about a black farmer, and a white crowd reacted the way the NAACP crowd did. This would be a whole different story and heads would already be served up on platters.

On top of it all, she is going to drag this out into court. For what? Oh, that’s right, she needs her 15 minutes, and this past couple weeks just hasn’t been enough, I guess. Disgusting.

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Jul

27

Massachusetts Will Soon Be Seeing Red

Category: Our Nation, Politics, Society | Leave a Comment | 404 words | Print

Did you hear what happened in Massachusetts today?

The Massachusetts Legislature has approved a new law intended to bypass the Electoral College system and ensure that the winner of the presidential election is determined by the national popular vote.

Yes, you read that correctly. The Massachusetts Legislature essentially took the election of the President of the United States out of the hands of the citizens of Massachusetts. You see, no matter who they vote for in the 2012 election, all electoral votes for Massachusetts will be awarded to the candidate which receives the most popular votes, nationwide!

The bill, which passed on a 28-to-9 vote, now heads to Democratic Governor Deval Patrick’s desk. The governor has said in the past that he supports the bill, said his spokeswoman Kim Haberlin.

Under the law, which was enacted by the House last week, all 12 of the state’s electoral votes would be awarded to the candidate who receives the most votes nationally.

This is idea is actually stupid. Plain and simple. If you want to pass a law that awards your electoral votes based on the popular vote within your state, that’s one thing, but this has nothing to do with the people of Massachusetts, or their vote. If the people of Ohio, Florida, or any other swing state end up taking a candidate over the top with the popular vote, the state of Massachusetts is going to award their electoral votes to that candidate, whether or not that candidate did well in the popular vote.

Massachusetts isn’t alone either. Illinois, Hawaii, Maryland, and Washington have also adopted the same law.

I can hardly wait to see the newscasts on election night 2012. When Illinois, Maryland, Hawaii, and Washington are all painted red because the citizens of those states allowed their legislature to elect “the other guy”.

The current Electoral College system is confusing and causes presidential candidates to focus unduly on a handful of battleground states, supporters say. They also say that the popular vote winner has lost in four of the nation’s 56 elections.

Wow. Four times in 56 elections. I can understand some people wanting to abolish the electoral college, but this bill is way over the top. The first time Massachusetts goes red on the map because of this law, the people will stand up and demand it be repealed. Just watch.

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Jul

24

Three Months Later: Oil Spill Links

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It’s been about a week since I posted anything about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, so I am going to post all of the links I have been saving for the past few days.

Air Quality Data For Workers

Oil Spill Dispersant Literature

BP Selling Alaska Oil Stake

Gulf Coast Must Act Now

BP Affixes New Cap On Gulf Oil Well

Will the Gulf Oil Spill Affect Birds That Nest in Our Backyards?

Corexit Cuts Survival Rates By 50%

Toxic Dispersants Near Gulf Harm Humans and Wildlife

82 people treated for suspected oil-related illnesses

Independent Gulf Coast Water Testing

 

Capped BP Oil Well May be Leaking in Wellbore

BP Pushes Doctored Image of “Command Center”

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Jul

18

Sunday Silence

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Jul

14

I Am America

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Jul

10

Saturday Oil Spill Summary – 81 Days In

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While BP says they are making another attempt that could “permanently cap the well, and capture all of the oil”, let’s look back on the past few days and see what’s really going on.

Obama Rejected Again

On Thursday, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals told the Obama Administration to take a flying leap where deepwater drilling bans are concerned.

A U.S. appeals court on Thursday rejected the Obama administration’s request to stay a lower court decision to lift a six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the wake of the BP Plc oil spill.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, based in New Orleans, ruled about an hour after hearing arguments.
Its decision will likely prompt the Interior Department to quickly issue a revised moratorium order on deepwater drilling below 500 feet to address concerns raised by the federal courts.

If there is one thing the Obama Administration does well, is scramble. It seems they’re always trying to cover their asses or find an alternative solution with every single thing they put their grubby little hands on.

Once Again, Late To Their Own Party

How many stories have we heard about BP involving them dragging their feet?

Helix, the Houston-based owner of floating oil platforms and subsea wells, offered its Helix Producer I vessel in late April to help BP collect oil that has been gushing from the Macondo well since an April 20 rig explosion that killed 11 workers, Chief Executive Officer Owen Kratz said today in an interview. BP initially declined the offer, he said.

BP notified Helix June 10 that it wanted to lease the Helix Producer I platform to augment two other vessels that are receiving oil from the Macondo well, Kratz said. The delay meant Helix had to construct a collection tube from spare parts that will be plugged into a pipe just one-sixth the diameter of the main opening atop the well, he said.

The oil leak itself is the only thing quick and efficient that BP has done since April 20th.

Covering Up The Safety Excellence of BP

If it wasn’t for the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, BP would have been on-track to receive a 2010 safety commendation from the Minerals and Management Service! You go BP!

Shortly after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, we reported that the Minerals Management Service canceled its annual “Safety Award for Excellence” luncheon, which—rather embarrassingly—included BP as one of the finalists for a 2010 safety commendation. The SAFE event was never held, and MMS never did get around to announcing a winner.

Now Energy & Environment reports that the Department of Interior has scrubbed the evidence of BP’s finalist-status from its website.

I bet the staff over at the Department of the Interior are wishing they could whitewash BP’s entire existence from the minds of people everywhere.

Gulf Oil Spill Panel To Look At Root Causes

Don’t you just love that headline? Idiots I tell ya. It’s pretty obvious why the oil is spilling. Instead of looking at the cause, maybe they should focus on the solution?

The new presidential oil spill commission will focus on how safety, government oversight and the ability to clean up spills haven’t kept up with advances in drilling technology, the panel’s leaders say.

Oil Spill Workers Are Being Exposed To Some Nasty Stuff

Workers in the Gulf are being exposed to 2-butoxyethanol, and their lives are being put at risk.

In an under-the-radar release of new test results for its Gulf of Mexico oil spill workers, BP PLC is reporting potentially hazardous exposures to a now-discontinued dispersant chemical — a substance blamed for contributing to chronic health problems after the Exxon Valdez cleanup — among more than 20 percent of offshore responders.

They’re testing for more and more chemicals, but for some workers, it may be a little too late.

It just goes to prove, what you don’t know might kill you.

The Flyover by John L. Wathen

Here’s a longer version of a video I featured the other day. Pay attention people, this problem is NOT going away anytime soon.

 

No Freedom Of The Press On Federal Wildlife Refuge Property

Check out this video from Citizen Tube.

 

Apparently this same suspension of the First Amendment is being enforced near BP properties as well.

 

More Links You Should Read

As if I haven’t posted enough for you to read and digest tonight, you may want to look at these links as well.

More oil coming ashore near Mobile Bay

It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt

Air quality poses risk to some people

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Jul

7

78 Days Later: The DeepWater Horizon Oil Spill

Category: Our Nation, Society | Leave a Comment | 384 words | Print

Oil Is Not Hazardous

Oil in the water is making workers sick. Oil in your water, would make you sick. Yet, oil in a landfill is “not considered hazardous”.

Tons of oil-contaminated sand and debris arrived in a convoy of Waste Management trucks at Magnolia Landfill on Friday, a scene repeated at other landfills in the region.

Scott Hughes, spokesman for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, said Friday that three landfills in the state — Magnolia, Chastang in Mount Vernon, and Allied Waste Services Timberlands in Brewton — had been approved by the agency to take oil waste scraped and cleared from beaches.

Various forms of oil — tarballs, mousse, patties and globs — continue to be removed from shorelines by heavy equipment and by crews armed with shovels and plastic bags.

Late this week, oil struck all 32 miles of Gulf-front beaches in Baldwin County.

Hughes said the waste is not considered hazardous, by landfill standards.

How long do you think it will be until someone announces the bags containing the oil have been breached and the ground water has been contaminated with… get this… oil?

There Is No Clean Water

The farther out you travel, the more oil you find. Is there any clean water remaining in the Gulf of Mexico?

 

Corexit May Be Damaging Our Food Supply

Check out these two videos, then check your own backyard.

 

 

Oil Is Seeping Into Lake Pontchartrain

Because of the ineffective leadership in the White House, this beautiful body of water is at risk.

For the first time since the accident, oil from the ruptured well is seeping into Lake Pontchartrain, threatening another environmental disaster for the huge body of water that was rescued from pollution in 1990s to become, once more, a bountiful fishing ground and a popular spot for boating and swimming.

Five Million Buoyant Particles

Check out this research from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

 

Fire In Your Throat

What happens if you don’t use a respirator down near the Gulf?

 

Mr. Sandman, Bring Me The Truth

Is BP trucking in sand to cover up the truth? Sounds like a sand job to me.

 

I wonder what would be happening right now if the Obama Administration had actually started working in the Gulf rather than the golf course two months ago.

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