The environment and climate change. We [the planet, the country and our state] are so screwed.
Three articles on this topic, none of them good news. The first is Paul Krugman from the NYTimes who dissects the Republican hearings in the House on climate change that were held last week, and what a farce they were.....excellent article, depressing news......
Of course, it’s actually the climate deniers who have the agenda, and nobody who’s been following this discussion believed for a moment that they would accept a result confirming global warming. But it’s worth stepping back for a moment and thinking not just about the science here, but about the morality.
For years now, large numbers of prominent scientists have been warning, with increasing urgency, that if we continue with business as usual, the results will be very bad, perhaps catastrophic. They could be wrong. But if you’re going to assert that they are in fact wrong, you have a moral responsibility to approach the topic with high seriousness and an open mind. After all, if the scientists are right, you’ll be doing a great deal of damage.
The second is a lament on the Obama administrations pathetic record on climate change and the environment, and how President Weenie is about to cave to the Republicans and big business and not allow the EPA enforce any of the existing [and weak] rules about emissions....
President Barack Obama's relationship with environmentalists sits on thin ice after a major league meltdown over whether he will really defend their biggest demand: EPA climate change rules.
Tensions have crossed into the danger zone between the two camps after a year of cross-ups, including the failure to get a cap-and-trade bill through the Senate and Obama’s embrace of what historically have been green no-no’s like oil drilling and nuclear power.
Angst grew this week after Obama failed to use a major energy policy speech at Georgetown University to explicitly back the EPA's global warming agenda. Then, in what might have begun as a misunderstanding over acronyms, the AP reported that the president was leaning on House Democrats to accept a GOP-authored budget rider that would thwart EPA's greenhouse gas regulations.
The White House furiously denied the story, but the fate of the budget debate over the next eight days could govern the relationship between the administration and environmental community through the 2012 election.
The third is of course about Florida: an editorial in the St. Petersburg Times on how our Governor and the Florida Legislature are gutting anything to do with the environment to let polluters and developers have free reign.....
It really makes you think, doesn't it. What is the point of any of us recycling our plastics and consumables when your state government doesn't care about energy saving or anything "green". Waste Management, a giant corporation, picks up the recycling - how do you know they don't just dump it in the lake or something. If it's cheaper to do that, they would do it......
Why cut watering your lawn to once a week during the dry season just so that your local water authority, the St. Johns WMD, can keep allowing Niagara Bottling Co. to suck 500,000 gallons a day out of the aquifer. Just keep paying your water bills so corporations can get water for free.......
It goes on and on.....they give the corporations whatever they want in exchange for campaign donations, and stick us, the middle class, with the bill.
But keep watching Fox, you'll feel better because you'll get cranked about 1/ Muslims 2/ Abortions 3/ Gays 4/ Mexicans etc. etc. etc and forget about the corruption.......
Republican Gov. Rick Scott and the GOP-led Legislature appear bent on destroying Florida's environment and overturning decades of efforts to protect it by governors and lawmakers from both political parties. They would give developers free rein to pave over what's left, prevent local communities from cleaning up bays and rivers and enable homeowners to dump raw sewage into the drinking water supply. They want to delegate planning issues to local governments where developers can more easily win — and grab statewide control over issues such as fertilizing lawns to prevent local restrictions. In the rush to create jobs and lure businesses, they are making Florida less attractive as a place to live and work.
A bill already headed to the governor's desk revives the 2009 law that guts growth management and reverses more than 25 years of efforts. A trial court overturned the earlier law, so legislators chopped many of its components into smaller pieces.
A teen fails Spanish class, for patriotic reasons.....Onion News has the story.....
Rachael Maddow and Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican Party, trade barbs and argue in 10 minutes of surprisingly lively television......good discussion....
Wow. WOW.
Carl Hiaasen in the Miami Herald explains the current agenda of the Florida Legislature in clear, pithy terms.....if you want to see what's coming down the pike for all of us in this formerly great state, read on....I'll give you the opening paragraphs.....but the corruption after 12 years of Republican domination of the process in Florida is deep and so corrosive they don't care any more.
It used to be the media would expose some scandal or another and something would be done about it, normally by the judicial process. Now even that is politicised....and corrupt.
Again - we are so screwed.....
I once referred to a past Legislature as a festival of whores, which in retrospect was a vile insult to the world’s oldest profession.
Today’s lackluster assemblage in Tallahassee is possibly the worst in modern times, and cannot fairly be compared to anything except a rodeo of phonies and pimps. It’s impossible to remember a governor and lawmakers who were more virulently anti-consumer, and more slavishly submissive to big business.
The list of who’s getting screwed in the state budget battle is long and sadly familiar: the schools, college students, foster children, the poor, the elderly, the sick and the jobless. The happiest faces, of course. belong to lobbyists for corporations, insurance companies and utilities, who are getting almost everything they want.
It’s astounding that so many voters were suckered into thinking that this new generation of Republicans was going to fight for the common man instead of the fats cats and their special interests.
What a joke. The so-called leadership was plainly bought and paid for by the time their shoes hit the steps of the Capitol.
Change of pace for the music videos - here's a really nice one, a country song from Miranda Lambert "The House That Made Me"........get the kleenex out.......
Todays British travel jokes....
From Thomas Cook Holidays - Listing some of the guest's complaints during
the season.....
1. "I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local store does
the season.....
1. "I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local store does
not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts."
2. "It's lazy of the local shopkeepers to close in the afternoons. I often
2. "It's lazy of the local shopkeepers to close in the afternoons. I often
needed to buy things during 'siesta' time - this should be banned."
3. "On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost
3. "On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost
every restaurant served curry. I don't like spicy food at all."
4. "We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to
4. "We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to
bring our swimming costumes and towels."
5. A tourist at a top African game lodge over looking a water hole, who
5. A tourist at a top African game lodge over looking a water hole, who
spotted a visibly aroused elephant, complained that the sight of this
rampant beast ruined his honeymoon by making him feel 'inadequate'.
6. A woman threatened to call police after claiming that she'd been locked
6. A woman threatened to call police after claiming that she'd been locked
in by staff, when in fact, she had mistaken the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the
back of the door as a warning to remain in the room.
7. "The beach was too sandy."
8. "We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure
7. "The beach was too sandy."
8. "We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure
shows the sand as yellow, but it was white."
9. A guest at a Novotel in Australia complained his soup was too thick and
9. A guest at a Novotel in Australia complained his soup was too thick and
strong. He was inadvertently slurping the gravy at the time.
10. "Topless sunbathing on the beach should be banned. The holiday was
10. "Topless sunbathing on the beach should be banned. The holiday was
ruined as my husband spent all day looking at other women."
11. "We bought 'Ray-Ban' sunglasses for five Euros (£3.50) from a street
11. "We bought 'Ray-Ban' sunglasses for five Euros (£3.50) from a street
trader, only to find out they were fake."
12. "No-one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled."
13. "There was no egg slicer in the apartment..."
14. "We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as
12. "No-one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled."
13. "There was no egg slicer in the apartment..."
14. "We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as
they were all Spanish..."
15. "The roads were uneven.."
16. "It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It only took
15. "The roads were uneven.."
16. "It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It only took
the Americans only three hours to get home."
17. "I compared the size of our one-bedroom apartment to our friends' three-bedroom
17. "I compared the size of our one-bedroom apartment to our friends' three-bedroom
apartment and ours was significantly smaller."
18. "The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the accommodation'.
18. "The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the accommodation'.
We're trainee hairdressers - will we be okay staying here?"
19. "There are too many Spanish people. The receptionist speaks Spanish.
19. "There are too many Spanish people. The receptionist speaks Spanish.
The food is Spanish. Too many foreigners."
20. "We had to queue outside with no air-conditioning."
21. "It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly
20. "We had to queue outside with no air-conditioning."
21. "It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly
guests before we travel."
22. "I was bitten by a mosquito - no-one said they could bite."
23. "My fiancé and I booked a twin-bedded room but we were placed in a
22. "I was bitten by a mosquito - no-one said they could bite."
23. "My fiancé and I booked a twin-bedded room but we were placed in a
double-bedded room. We now hold you responsible for the fact that I find
myself pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room
that we booked."
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