Pollution Rules

According to an August 30, Washington Post article, the Bush Administration has drafted new regulation that would permit power plants to emit more pollution, of course under the guise of emitting less and improving the environment. Are these guys brilliant or what!

This is a classic move by the Dubya crew, and now with the Katrina disaster it will clearly not get any media coverage.

According to the article: "Under the new standard, a modernized plant's total emissions could rise if the upgrade allowed it to operate longer hours. In court filings, the EPA estimated in 2002 that an hourly standard would allow eight plants in five states -- including Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia -- to generate legally as much as 100,000 tons a year of pollutants that would be illegal under the existing New Source Review rule. That equals about a third of their total emissions."

It's just brilliant, change the language of an obscure regulation and you get your corporate donors, all out of major public view.

Remember When Gas was $3

Here it is the summer of 2025 and I remember way back in 2005, when that storm Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in August. It was a month of so after the oil companies reported record profits and the Iraq ("you're either with us or against us") war was still piling up bodies. Just before that storm gasoline was licking at the $2.75 mark but afterwards it shot up a good quarter. That was the last time I ever saw gas below 3 bucks. Of course now with gas holding steady at the $7.50 mark it just seems quaint!

Intellagint Desine

Dir Prezadent Bush,

I wuz so viry happy to here that you think intellagint desine shuld be tot in scool. I do not undirstand why peeple are
so confuzed. Everybuddy nows that Gawd creatid everythin' , I saw it in a muvee with that Rifel guy, Charly Hestin, and
piktures dont ly.

I also wint to the zoo the othir day and tried to talk to the monkeeys. They did not talk back at all but did spend
a lot of time picking each other's butts, so we can not be related to thim.

A Fan

PS I thawt you wuld like the pikture I found...some bad peeple say u look like a munkey...butt I dont think so

Diapers and Terrorists - Oh My!

A couple of news items grabbed my attention this week and just warmed my heart. First, those alert Germans sprung into action and had a bomb alert when an "electronic nappy" (diaper) set off an alarm. Apparently this gadget is supposed to beep when the little fellow let's loose in the nappy. According to the article this nappy ticked instead of beeped and the squad cars went into action.

From the "I'm tryin' to think but nothing is happenin' department" babies have been flagged by the terror watch list. Apparently their names were the same or similar to names on the "no fly list".

Just imagine what would have happened if the "no fly list" infant was wearing an electronic nappy!

It's Just Incidental Radiation

Ya gotta love Dubya's administration. That little $5.7 billion cleanup project in Hanford Washington, to clean up 30 years worth of radioactive waste seems to be going a little slower then expected. (Just as an aside I actually remember having a debate as a Senior in High School, like 30 years ago! (ahem) ...in which I clearly recall the Hanford site. ) anyway the idea is to place the radioactive sludge into a form of glass, to classify it, so that over that pesky 10,000 years during which the waste will remain toxic, won't leach into the ground.

The cleanup is going slow and is just a big problem. Sooooo the brilliant solution is to classify the stuff as "incidental radiation."
If it is classified that way they can just officially leave it where it is...are these genius' or what!

It's only $120 Billion Less

Amidst all the noise of the "war on terror" and the brew-haha about Karl Rove, no one is paying any attention to the little
$120 billion reduction in penalties sought against the tobacco companies. In the multi-year litigation still going on between the Feds and the tobacco industry, at the last minute the Justice Department, aka the Bush Administration, decided to ask the courts for a penalty of $10 billion, not $130 billion as generally advised.

According to a CBS news story:
The government asked Kessler [the judge] to require the companies to fund a five-year, $10 billion program, a fraction of the 25-year, $130 billion program suggested by government witness Michael C. Fiore, a University of Wisconsin medical professor.

Democrats and other administration critics claimed that top Justice Department officials pressured the lawyers handling the case to back off the more expensive anti-smoking campaign.