We only have power in the present

As we get into more favorable weather (one hesitates to use the term “summer” just yet) I realize that there are just too many tasks that need doing.  Even though it is now dusk until midnight, and full daylight before 5, my personal energy resource has already become overwhelmed.

I will continue to post throughout the summer on Fridays with an occasional random post here and there as befits the situation. Thanks for visiting the blog and I hope your own summer is productive and rewarding.

Memorial Day 2011

Palin Nixed From Rapture “A” List

Just in case you want to be a little more prepared for the Rapture check:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/may/20/2

Doctors Without Decency

From thinkprogress.org:

Conservatives have slung all kinds of hyperbolic, outlandish, and phony attacks on attempts to provide health care to all Americans over the years, but tea party darling Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) may have taken the cake today when he equated universal health care with slavery. Speaking at a Senate Health, Education, and Labor Committee hearing, Paul argued that if you believe people should have a right to health care, you believe in enslaving doctors, nurses, and hospital janitors:

PAUL: With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses.

Basically, once you imply a belief in a right to someone’s services — do you have a right to plumbing? Do you have a right to water? Do you have right to food? — you’re basically saying you believe in slavery.

I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to health care. You have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be.

Original article:    http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/11/rand-paul-health-care-slavery/

The Mouth That Poured

GOP 2012 Presidential Hair Apparent

Not Afraid of Hypocricy

And speaking of double standards….

(NaturalNews) The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced yesterday that it is ceasing its special monitoring protocols in the US for radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan, despite the fact that no real progress at the plant has been made, and threats to the US are persistent. At the same time as the EPA announcement, foreign reports also indicate that levels of radiation in Pacific waters near the Fukushima plant are now up to 1,000 times normal levels, with no real indication of where this radioactive water is flowing.

The EPA has stated that radiation levels in the US related to the Fukushima incident have been “consistently decreasing,” and that the agency no longer needs to regularly test food, air, and water for radiation in the manner that it has been. In fact, the agency is so confident that it states in its announcement that “[t]he next round of milk and drinking water sampling will take place in approximately three months.”

But just a few weeks ago, EPA data revealed that several milk and water samples from across the country were testing positive with dangerously high levels of radiation. Iodine-131, Cesium-134, and Cesium-137 — all of which are being emitted from Fukushima — had been turning up in the US in escalating amounts (http://www.naturalnews.com/032048_r…).

On top of this, the EPA was never even testing for all the different types of radiation being emitted from Fukushima in the first place. EPA data sheets reveal that the agency was never testing for uranium or plutonium, and none of its water supply tests involved testing for anything other than radioactive Iodine-131. But everything is just fine, they say, and further testing is unnecessary.

Meanwhile, foreign reports reveal that water samples recently taken from the Pacific Ocean near Fukushima are testing up to 1,000 times normal radiation levels, and at depths of nearly 100 feet.

It has also been revealed that up until yesterday, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which owns the crippled Fukushima plant, as well as the Japanese government, had been concealing crucial radiation information to allegedly avoid mass panic (http://enenews.com/official-japanes…). Part of this information shows radioactive Cesium-137 and Iodine-131 spreading all across the US Pacific Northwest on May 5 (http://enenews.com/fukushima-foreca…).

Sources for this story include:

http://www.epa.gov/japan2011/data-u…

http://english.chosun.com/site/data…

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032291_Fukushima_radiation_monitoring.html#ixzz1Lb013800

Who Owns Water?

Many of my friends do not have water flowing into their homes- this is not at all unusual in Alaska. Many people rely on hauling water from a stream or spring or some collect the rainwater falling off of their roofs. Some time ago I read that in Washington State the state claims to own even the rainwater (and we all thought that was pretty wacky)… It’s spring breakup here and although there is still snow on the ground its melting fast and melting snow has to go somewhere. We have lots of (laboriously dug) ditches around the property and (if you count the small duck pond) we have or are developing 3 ponds.

My “outside” work increases exponentially as the weather improves and a fair amount of that work has been to develop a way to handle the way we deal with water.

Having said all of that, I found this article very interesting:

(NaturalNews) On Wednesday, April 27, the Obama administration’s US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and US Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) jointly released a new draft guidance for the federal Clean Water Act that aims to dramatically expand both the scope of what constitutes a “water source,” as well as the legal power federal agencies can exert over those water sources.

If enacted, the proposal will basically allow the EPA and ACE to control any stream, pond, or even puddle that they determine “has a physical, chemical or biological connection” to any larger body of water, which includes even privately-owned water sources.

One of the biggest impacts of the guidance will be to reverse previous Supreme Court decisions that have established the proper constitutional limits on the scope of federal government regulatory authority over not only water, but other natural resources.

By undoing these decisions, the EPA and ACE will essentially be giving themselves a free pass to arbitrarily develop and establish their own rules, and they will be able to do so without proper congressional approval.

“Under this new guidance, a bureaucrat at the EPA will be able to dictate radical new rules,” said US Congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ). “This is just another example of the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to circumvent Congress and develop rules and regulations that far exceed the authority granted to the agency under existing public law.”

The EPA and ACE, of course, claim that expanded jurisdiction is needed to protect water from pollution and other contaminants. But given how the EPA has already given pollution exemptions to companies like Monsanto in the past, as well as allowed millions of gallons of toxic COREXIT to be dumped into the Gulf of Mexico during the BP disaster, it is clear that protecting water is not necessarily the EPA’s primary agenda. Instead, the draft actually takes more control away from individual citizens, and gives it to corrupt bureaucrats — all in the name of protecting water quality and promoting public health.

“Through vague definitions and broad interpretations laid out in this draft guidance, EPA and the Corps have once again shown little regard for the practical implications of their actions or Congress’ intentions under the CWA,” said Ashley Lyon, Deputy Environmental Counsel for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. “Despite a letter from 170 members of Congress opposing the guidance, EPA and the Corps have crowned themselves kings of every drop of water in the country – except maybe a backyard swimming pool.”

The agencies are accepting public comment on the proposal for 60 days:
http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/guida…

You can also read the entire proposal for yourself here:
http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/guida…
Sources for this story include:

http://www.cattlenetwork.com/cattle…

http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/guida…

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032278_water_supplies_EPA.html#ixzz1LP6V8bWF

Original article: http://www.naturalnews.com/032278_water_supplies_EPA.html

DIM-DUBYA and the DISTRACTIONS

Although just two days ago I was floundering around in waist high snow (and it happened that it snowed a bit that day as well) the writing is on the wall: Spring is coming!  In my world that means that with the reappearance of actual ground that it’s time to switch gears and get organized so that our very brief summer turns out to be a success.     I will be posting the piece I’ve been working on soon, but just not yet. In the meantime (possibly inspired by the recent media frenzy over the royal wedding) We look back at the good old days of Dim-Dubya and the Distractions.