An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
Archive for Environment
Say Whut???
2 fifth-grade boys competent to stand trial on murder conspiracy charge
A northeast Washington judge has found two boys, ages 10 and 11, competent to stand trial in juvenile court on a murder conspiracy charge.
Stevens County Prosecutor Tim Rasmussen says the fifth-graders had a handwritten plan listing seven steps leading up to the planned killing of a female classmate. That list was submitted as evidence at their mental capacity hearing Friday.
A county judge ruled that the boys understood the nature and consequences of their actions. They pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit murder, witness tampering and juvenile possession of a firearm.
I have surely woken up on the wrong planet, and would very much like to go home now! Where would two fifth graders even come up with such an idea? Is it being taught in the schools now, and no one thought to inform the parents, as they’ve failed to do with so many other issues. Did they see little kids planning such a horrible crime on the tv? Did they read it in a book? Or perhaps, their parents failed to teach them right from wrong? I’m going to say there is a very strong possibility that the last one had a great deal to do with this horrific scenario. Kids just don’t seem to have a foundation in morality, which comes from the home, and apparently, actions like this will become all the more common place as the left continues to undermine faith….TRUE faith.
Two more questions. How does a 10 and 11 year old tamper with a witness, and where on God’s green earth did they get a gun? They certainly couldn’t go out and buy one legally, so perhaps they stole it, which again, points to a lack of a moral upbringing?
Frack ‘Em!
I’m not really sure when the federal government decided the U.S. Constitution no longer applied to them. I really don’t know the exact date that it became an over bloated entity, determined to micromanage every single aspect of American life. But happen, it did. During my lifetime, it was the creation of Nixon’s EPA. True, there were companies that didn’t care what their factories were doing to the surrounding countryside. Was it intentional? Actually, I believe it was ignorance. Now, we don’t need this unelected agency, nor do we need the ‘mommies and daddies’ in Congress dictating who does, and does not get to live the “American Dream”.
This is 2013, and we have a government with the 1930s and 1940s mindset of Nazi Germany, stating who can work, and who can not; where they can work, and where they can not. Contrary to what many keep repeating, this is NOT a democracy. It is a Constitutional Republican, meaning that the government is limited in it’s powers. North Dakota is a shining example of what this nation COULD be, again, if only the federal government, and it’s unelected minions, would get the hell out of the way, and remember ….. THEY work for US. WE dictate what they can, and can NOT do. One thing they can NOT do, is dictate the minutiae of our lives, our businesses, and our faith. NOR do they have the ability to limit those rights that are God given, as in providing for our families, within the confines of common sense laws.
Now, how about we start building some brand spankin’ new refineries to deal with all this new energy coming our way, eh? And in the meantime, we can thumb our noses at the terrorist supporting ‘oil rich’ muzzie nations, K?
Get the Federal Government Out of the Natural Gas Business
The Foundry
In North Dakota, people have jobs. That state led the nation in job creation last year, and its unemployment rate is only 3.2 percent (compared to the national rate of 7.9 percent). Why?
One word: energy.
As Nicolas Loris, Heritage’s Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow, writes in a forthcoming paper:
Technological advancements in directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing have led to an abundance of natural gas production in the United States that is fundamentally changing the energy landscape. The result has been more jobs, economic growth, and consistently low domestic natural gas prices in what has known to be a historically volatile market.
Despite media misinformation and Hollywood portrayals like Promised Land, the fact remains that hydraulic fracturing, also called fracking, is being done responsibly and is revitalizing local economies like Williston, North Dakota.
Loris notes that the United States has more than a century’s worth of natural gas beneath its soil at current consumption rates. With more than 12 million Americans out of work, you would think that an economic boom like this would be welcomed—but once again, the federal government is standing in the way.
Too Many Jack Wagons in D.C.
Whoops—’Cash for Clunkers’ Actually Hurt the Environment
According to E Magazine, the “Clunkers” program, which is officially known as the Car Allowance Rebates System (CARS), produced tons of unnecessary waste while doing little to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
The program’s first mistake seems to have been its focus on car shredding, instead of car recycling. With 690,000 vehicles traded in, that’s a pretty big mistake.
According to the Automotive Recyclers Association (ARA), automobiles are almost completely recyclable, down to their engine oil and brake fluid. But many of the “Cash for Clunkers” cars were never sent to recycling facilities. The agency reports that the cars’ engines were instead destroyed by federal mandate, in order to prevent dealers from illicitly reselling the vehicles later.
The remaining parts of each car could then be put up for auction, but program guidelines also required that after 180 days, no matter how much of the car was left, the parts woud be sent to a junkyard and shredded.
And they are just now figuring this out? This is something that people with actual common sense already knew! Just more proof that Demtards are too stupid to breathe without instructions, and WAY too stupid to hold elected office. Apparently, not a one of ‘em ever sits down and considers the ramifications of their actions. Hence, we’re in a whole heap of hurt due to the asininity of politicians.
Trying To Pull Heads Out Of Hinders
fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air,
and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Now, I don’t know for sure, since I wasn’t there, but it appears to me that God gave man dominion over the earth, to use the resources available to improve his lot in life. Did man make a mess of things? Oh sure…as most ignorant, and self centered human beings will do. However, we learned that dumping poisons in the rivers was not such a good idea, and have cleaned up the mess, and today, our country is pretty much one of the cleanest on the planet.
Sadly, that doesn’t seem good enough for some bureaucratic types, with no REAL knowledge of how things actually work. When I first heard about regulating, and controlling the output of CO2, first, my chin dropped, then I had one hell of a belly laugh….at THEIR expense. And these are the people we’re suppose to trust with our environment? Whatcha wanna bet a whole slew of ‘em live in areas that are mostly made up of concrete and steel….like NYC? Chicago? Los Angeles? And we’re suppose to stop breathing because they’re so stupid, they believe living like ants is a good thing? Sad….very sad. Someone might want to inform them of what I learned in elementary school…..that plants DEPEND on our CO2, and we depend on their oxygen. Dolts!
We actually have a great many resources at our disposal, and would still be a prosperous nation if we didn’t have morons at the helm. Organizations like the EPA have done more harm to the country, and the planet, than anyone thought possible. But you know that demented liberal mindset….they’re right, reality is wrong, and all must suffer for their decisions.
Just a personal aside: Meat is for eating, and fur and leather is for wearing!
Can Conservatives Be Environmentalists?
The Foundry
Efforts to protect the environment in America have ignored the most powerful force for improving the environment: free people. The results of these misguided policies have been higher energy prices, lower incomes, less access to resources, and technological stagnation—often failing to produce tangible environmental benefits.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
The Heritage Foundation, in collaboration with fellow experts on the environment, has published a new benchmark for progress: the American Conservation Ethic.
The Ethic reflects every American’s aspiration to make the environment cleaner, healthier, and safer for future generations. It is based on eight basic principles that were first published in 1996 and provides a roadmap to environmentally sound prosperity.
Much of the policy that has come to guide American actions on the environment is not based on scientific integrity. Heritage’s Dr. David Kreutzer and Dr. Roy Spencer, a climatologist formerly with NASA who is a research scientist at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, examine this in a chapter on carbon dioxide:
Any discussion of carbon dioxide regulation must begin by noting two facts: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 emissions have likely contributed to the observed warming of the past 50 years. The calls for CO2 regulation, however, are not based on these facts; rather, the current regulatory hysteria is the result of misinformation regarding the projected future levels of warming, as well as exaggerations over how much any future warming could be attributed to anthropogenic CO2. In addition, extreme weather events are increasingly attributed to anthropogenic CO2 emissions, despite a lack of evidence for any long-term change in these events.
Each chapter analyzes the effectiveness of the policies the U.S. has been pursuing and makes recommendations for moving forward with smart solutions that fix the problems of years past, protect and bolster individual property rights, and provide real benefits. The American Conservation Ethic addresses these major issues:
- Expansion of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The current EPA is on an unprecedented regulatory spree that jeopardizes electric reliability, jobs, U.S. competitiveness, and state economies. How can we reform it?
- Regulating carbon dioxide. Though it is colorless, odorless, non-toxic, and critical to photosynthesis, carbon dioxide (CO2) has been rebranded as a pollutant harmful to human health. This transformation—based on exaggeration and misinformation—is now fueling misguided calls for CO2 regulation.
- Property ownership and land management. The federal government owns nearly one-third of the United States, and it continues to take more through regulatory takings of private property. There is no way the government can manage that amount of land with good stewardship. Recent Supreme Court decisions have undermined individual property rights, pointing to a need for Congress to act to protect what the Framers of the Constitution called “the guardian of every other right.”
- Effectiveness of environmental legislation. The Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and Endangered Species Act have been governing much of environmental policy for the last few decades. This has given experts time to assess the consequences—both intended and unintended—of these laws. The authors address ways that these laws are now out of sync with the environmental, political, social, and economic realities of today, and what should be done about it.
- Thinking globally, acting locally. How does the United Nations affect environmental policy here in America? The authors address the need for local and regional management of environmental issues so that those closest to the resources are responsible for managing them.
What is the point of environmental policy? The Ethic states that:
Environmental policies should inspire people to be good stewards. Through human creativity, we develop new sources of needed materials, more efficient means of collecting them, or substitutes for them—as well as the technology necessary to do so.
Economic growth is positively correlated with life expectancy, which is one of the most critical measurements of environmental policies—are people better off? There is a direct and positive relationship between free-market economies and a clean, healthy, and safe environment. Ownership inspires stewardship. To put this to work for our Earth and our people, we must work to decouple conservation policies from government regulation.
Go to the American Conservation Ethic
Frack You Environazis!
The Energy Revolution and Its Discontents
The Foundry
With all the gloomy economic news coming out of late, one bright spot flew under the radar last week: the United States is poised to be the proverbial center of the energy universe.
A recent study by Harvard Research Fellow Leonardo Maugeri found that the United States’ incredible shale reserves represent “the most important revolution in the oil sector in decades.”
Thanks to the technological revolution brought about by the combined use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, the U.S. is now exploiting its huge and virtually untouched shale and tight oil fields, whose production – although still in its infancy – is already skyrocketing in North Dakota and Texas.
Few Americans are more cognizant of this energy revolution’s possibilities than those who live in the towns sitting above the nation’s largest shale formations. The Heritage Foundation traveled to Willison, North Dakota, above the massive Bakken shale, to hear first-hand how the oil boom there has improved residents’ lives.
But there are forces looking to undermine North Dakota’s oil boom. “The area that we worry the most about would be the federal government and regulations,” explained Willison Mayor Ward Koeser, “specifically the Environmental Protection Agency.”
When “Green” Becomes Red
- It is quite obvious to me that few in the Obama administration, if any, are familiar with crucifixion.
Crucifixion was not only one of the most disgraceful forms of death, it was one of the most dreaded methods of execution in the ancient world. Accounts of crucifixions are recorded among early civilizations, most likely originating with the Persians and then spreading to the Assyrians, Scythians, Carthaginians, Germans, Celts and Britons. This type of capitol punishment was primarily reserved for traitors, captive armies, slaves and the worst of criminals. (source)
We bandy about words to the point where they lose all meaning. One good example would be ‘racism’, a word so overused, and misapplied, it has lost much of it’s impact. For the Obama administration to use the word crucify in relation to energy, particularly the gas and oil industry, is totally mind boggling.
Obama’s Crucifixion of “Big Oil”
The Foundry
If it ever was a secret, it’s not a secret any longer: The Obama Administration is on a vindictive campaign to injure America’s oil and gas industry. The proof materialized last week when video of an Environmental Protection Agency official revealed the White House’s vicious attitude toward the very industries that supply the American people a reliable, affordable energy source. Yesterday, that official fell on his sword and resigned to spare the president any further embarrassment from the truth he disclosed.
Last week, Heritage’s Lachlan Markay reported on a video showing EPA Region VI Administrator Al Armendariz describe his agency’s “philosophy of enforcement” with respect to the regulation of oil and gas companies — likening it to brutal tactics employed by the ancient Roman army to intimidate its foes into submission. With a wry smile, Armendariz detailed the joy with which the EPA inflicts punishment on the disfavored industries:
It was kind of like how the Romans used to, you know, conquer the villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere and they’d find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them. And then, you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.
Lest there be any doubt, it’s worth reiterating the point — according to Armendariz, the EPA views its enforcement efforts as a violent crucifixion used to strong arm companies into submission. The Constitution bars cruel and unusual punishment, but evidently that doesn’t apply to the axe-wielding EPA when it comes to enforcing regulations.
ZoNation – Up To Know Good: Earth Day Edition
In Honor Of “Earth Day”
So…what time are we suppose to TURN ON EVERYTHING ELECTRICAL IN THE HOUSE? Morons. Honor the Creator…not the creation!
The Looming Doom
A REAL Man Made Problem
Experts fear diseases ‘impossible to treat’
Britain is facing a “massive” rise in antibiotic-resistant blood poisoning caused by the bacterium E.coli – bringing closer the spectre of diseases that are impossible to treat.
Experts say the growth of antibiotic resistance now poses as great a threat to global health as the emergence of new diseases such as Aids and pandemic flu.
Professor Peter Hawkey, a clinical microbiologist and chair of the Government’s antibiotic-resistance working group, said that antibiotic resistance had become medicine’s equivalent of climate change.
The “slow but insidious growth” of resistant organisms was threatening to turn common infections into untreatable diseases, he said. Already, an estimated 25,000 people die each year in the European Union from antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.
Ok, I gotta put my nickel’s worth in here. Do you know WHY there are antibiotic resistant bugs flourishing? It’s because people have gotten so damn germaphobic, our bodies can’t build up any resistance naturally. We are given antibiotics for every little thing, and then can’t understand why we still get sick. Our kids are no longer allowed to actually go outside, play and get dirty. Heaven forbid they would get a cut or scratch! We’ve had antibacterial cleaning products pushed on us, so our homes will be so clean, even one little germ can’t flourish. Pfft! We NEED germs! We NEED to become resistant by exposure to germs. All you people who are so dadburn obsessed with taking your kid to the doctor and pumping them full of antibiotics for a viral cold have turned your kids into a bunch of freakin’ wusses!
Are these dipwads really comparing this problem to ‘climate change’? Seriously? Hey….SFBs…the climate changes, on a regular basis. THIS problem, however, really IS manmade! Or mother made. Or sissy made. Or any other way you want to describe it! The more you obsess about germs in your home, the more you shove antibiotics down your and your kids throat, the more resistant you are going to be to any bug that comes along.
YEP! This is truly a man made issue! Now…what are we going to do about it? First, knock of the germaphobia in your own home. Let your kids get dirty. And for the love of all that’s holy, stop with the antibiotics for colds. They do not work on colds! Your common everyday cold is caused by a virus, and antibiotics do not work on virus’. So, knock it off! We have to build up our immunity and stop whining! People are dying because of this crap.
H/T: Mimosa
Destroying America
Domestic production eyed as gas prices head toward record-breaking height
President Obama’s re-elect team defended White House energy policy on Sunday as gas prices shoot toward the $4 mark and beyond, a level that could devastate voters’ pocketbooks as well as Obama’s chances for a second term.
Nationally, gas prices are $3.53 a gallon, up 25 cents since Jan. 1, and likely headed to $4.25 a gallon by late April. Republicans have demanded more oil production at home, as well as building the Keystone XL pipeline across the middle of the U.S. to allow oil from Canada to reach Texas refineries.
Let’s see…when he took office 3 LOOOOOOONG years ago, gas was what….a buck 81, or at least in that vicinity. So, instead of using the resources we have right here, for AMERICANS, D’Bama makes it damn near impossible for U.S. companies to drill and refine, yet hands over billions, of OUR money, to companies that go bankrupt in a matter of months. Not to mention letting the Chinese drill in the gulf off OUR shores, and investing in a freakin’ Brazilian company, so we can BUY oil from another foreign source. Excuse me, but where is the logic in all this? Oh, that’s right….THERE IS NONE!
Obama rejected the plan, but one of his spokesmen, Robert Gibbs, said the president is looking to increase domestic energy production.
He’s got a damn funny way of showing it! 10 to 20 thousand jobs. Jobs that are desperately needed, and he suck ups to a bunch of yahoos who don’t have enough sense to piss out of a boot with the instructions on the heel. Give me a freakin’ break!
“Just on Friday, the Department of Interior issued permits that will expand our exploration in the Arctic. The president has increased our fuel efficiency and energy efficiency standards so we do use less energy, which will help drive down the price,” Gibbs said. “Our domestic oil production is at an eight-year high, and our use of foreign oil is at a 16-year low. So we’re making progress.”
Golly gee, the moron at the Department of Interior issued permits? To whom? How many? And when will those rigs that haven’t left the gulf going to be able to start pumping? Or have they all already left. Don’t hear much about that anymore. The EPA is running and ruining this country. The green tin foil hatters have more power over our energy production than a parent does over what the kid has for lunch. Does anyone else see a major problem here? We have gone through the rabbit hole and can’t find our way out! I vote we shoot the rabbits, have one huge BBQ and get on with living our own lives, and keeping the government OUT of EVERYTHING!
But John Hofmeister, former CEO of Shell Oil and founder of Citizens for Affordable Energy, told Fox News that oil production today is only 7 million barrels per day when it used to be 10 million per day.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!! Anybody home? Naw….they’re all out pushing for windmills that kills eagles, and solar panels that take up so much space, even that Boxer broad doesn’t want ‘em in her state! While Obama is shoveling OUR money to companies that have no hope of succeeding, investing in the future is what I think he called it, our present needs for energy is being totally ignored.
What happens when there is no oil/gas/energy? Well, the price of EVERYTHING goes up! It takes money to get products from point A, the factory that needs energy to run, to point B, where the consumer pays much higher prices because the company has to charge more to make up the difference in the cost of manufacturing and shipping! Now, if I, an lil’ ol’ broad in Podunk TN can figure this out….why can’t all those so called ‘intellectuals’ that the faker in chief has surrounding him get the BIG picture? Why? Because they don’t want to! They WANT to bankrupt the country! They WANT a completely different country, run totally by those who think they know what is best for everyone, and can run your life MUCH better than you can. And how are they doing that? Why, by crippling the entire country, of course! The more it costs to produce and distribute, the fewer jobs there are available. HELLOOOOOOO??!?!?!? Jack wagons!
Oh yeah…and Happy freakin’ Monday!
H/T: Tena
EPA – Destroying Jobs and Lives
EPA regulations violate constitutional rights
By Sen. Rand Paul
Since its creation in 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency has done more harm than good. EPA regulations cost more than 5 percent of our annual gross domestic product – the equivalent of the costs of defense and homeland security combined. Since EPA regulations have expanded, unemployment in America has increased by 33 percent. This abuse of power by the implementation of regulations infringes upon our basic constitutional rights.
There have been too frequent reports of individual rights being violated by abusive and power-hungry EPA bureaucrats. These regulations have hampered landowners’ ability to manage their private property as they please and have impaired job creation. Americans are suffering from the overreach of regulatory agencies such as the EPA.
ZoNation – Up To Know Good
The Dust Police
I came across something in an email recently that made me scratch my head….vigorously! My first thought…this must be some kind of mistake. No one with an ounce of common sense could possibly think they had a chance of regulating…………..DUST! Oh, but I was wrong. I finally got around to looking it up!
Unpaved rural roads are a source of pollution. Erosion of unpaved roadways occurs when soil particles are loosened and carried away from the roadway base, ditch, or road bank by water, wind, traffic, or other transport means. Exposed soils, high runoff velocities and volumes, sandy or silty soil types, and poor compaction increase the potential for erosion.
Loosened soil particles are carried from the road bed and into the roadway drainage system. Particles most often settle out where they diminish the carrying capacity of the ditch, and in turn cause roadway flooding, which subsequently leads to more roadway erosion. Most of the eroded soil, however, ultimately ends up in streams and rivers where it diminishes channel capacity, causing more frequent and severe flooding; destroys aquatic and riparian habitat; and has other adverse effects on water quality and water-related activities.
You city folk sure are funny!
“If there’s ever been rural America, that’s what rural America is,” said Nebraska hog farmer Danny Kluthe. “You know? It’s dirt out here, and with dirt you’ve got dust.”
The Environmental Protection Agency is looking to tighten standards for the amount of harmful particles in the air, facing opposition from U.S. farming groups who call it an unrealistic attempt to regulate dust.
I’m sorry, but you just don’t control dust! Well, unless you want to make it mud, and then it’s not dust anymore. The complete lack of common sense within the EPA is nothing new, but I think even they have go completely over the deep end. You have farms. You have farm roads. You have dirt. Without dirt, you don’t have farms. With no farms, there would be no need for a farm road, but you’d get mighty damn hungry!
If Congress is serious about cutting spending, the EPA should be one the first to go! If you ever wonder why we never make any serious progress, on ANYTHING, you might want to take a real good look at the idiots who actually believe you can control DUST!
Gotta love this:
Environmental groups say these tiny elements could be harmful if not deadly for people, causing cardiovascular or respiratory problems.
More ignorant city folk! I wonder if they realize there has been dust ever since God separated the water from the dry land and called Earth! (Genesis 1:9-10)
But technically, EPA can’t use common sense if it clashes with science, as their assessments are required to be purely scientific and mindless of ramifications, said John Walke, clean air director at the National Resources Defense Council.
Well, technically, the EPA is full of idiots! Who truly believes you can’t mix science and common sense? Evidently, the environazis!
Fraud
BP’s money buys Gulf Coast some wild items
Tasers. Brand-new SUVs. A top-of-the-line iPad. A fully loaded laptop. In the year since the Gulf oil spill, officials along the coast have gone on a spending spree with BP money, dropping tens of millions of dollars on gadgets and other gear — much of which had little to do with the cleanup, an Associated Press investigation shows.
Hey…as long as it’s not their money, politicians don’t give a flip, and just LOVE to spend. The problem is….how does an iPad help clean up the mess? Can SUVs provide jobs for Gulf Coast residents? Did they have to taze oil covered birds to get the cleaned off?
In sleepy Ocean Springs, Miss., reserve police officers got Tasers. The sewer department in nearby Gulfport bought a $300,000 vacuum truck that never sucked up a drop of oil. Biloxi, Miss., bought 14 SUVs. A parish president in Louisiana got herself a deluxe iPad, her spokesman a $3,100 laptop. And a county in Florida spent $560,000 on rock concerts to promote its oil-free beaches.
There was, and is, a lot of inefficiency going on down there. Instead rock concerts, don’t they think that $560K could have put a lot of kids to work cleaning up the beaches? Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve of the mind that these communities that wasted money on so much BS needs to give it back. Not to BP, obviously, but put it back into a fund that actually is being used for clean up, helping those who have been affected by the spill, and apologize to the public at large for being such self serving assholes!
Some officials also lavished lucrative contracts on campaign donors and others. A Florida county commissioner’s girlfriend, for instance, opened up a public relations firm a few weeks after the spill and soon landed more than $14,000 of the tiny county’s $236,000 cut of BP cash for a month’s work.
Waste and fraud. A politician’s life blood! Is it any wonder that people are totally disgusted by ALL OF THEM?
