Forest fires and EPA stupidity

The environmental nut-jobs have taken their brand of stupidity to new and previously unimagined heights. Check this out:

Lost in the images of aircraft dropping giant red plumes of retardant on a Colorado wildfire this week is the fact that the practice may not be legal under federal environmental laws.

A federal judge in July declared that the government's current plan for dropping retardant on fires is illegal, and he gave the U.S. Forest Service until the end of next year to find a more environmentally friendly alternative.

The aerial assaults have become a permanent fixture of television and media coverage of wildfires in recent years as planes and helicopters drop big loads of red chemicals over blazes. But environmentalists say the efforts are essentially public relations stunts that can send millions of gallons of hazardous chemicals into waterways while doing little to contain fires.
The Associated Press: Fire retardant drops come under scrutiny in West

So… Would the environmentalists prefer the fire? What about all the wildlife death that goes along with it? I don't think fires discriminate between endangered and non-endangered species.

Andy Stahl of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, argued his case by telling the court any farmer that puts fertilizer into a creek or river knows he can go to jail for it. It would appear this clueless idiot cannot tell the difference between farming and fire fighting. I wonder if any of these idiots considered the collateral damage from the forest fire. From what I remember the ash, heat thinned tree sap and charred debris poisons the streams and lakes far more thoroughly then over splash form a slurry drop.

What is even more shocking then Stahl's stupidity is that a federal judge actually signed off on it. Last July U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy gave the forest service to the end of 2012 to come up with something more environmentally friendly. Does that mean we have to stop slurry drops on wild fires beginning in 2013? If that is the case, California and the southwest are going to have a hellacious 2013 fire season.

So the environmentalists believe human lives and property are to be allowed to burn rather then risk collateral damage from a slurry drop. Think these clowns might want that slurry drop if they or their homes happened to be in the immediate path of a fire?

I wanted to pursue information on the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, but nothing comes up on Google other then the news stories about this case. Guess their idea of the web is something strung between two trees in a forest.

If our country goes down the crapper, one of the root causes is going to this casting aside common sense in favor of extremist ideology.

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I resent the fact that people in places like Boston, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco believe that they should be able to tell us how to live our lives, operate our businesses, and what to do with the land that we love and cherish.
- Wilford Brimley

ACORN busting film maker busted!

Decatur, AL - James O'Keefe made a name for himself with clandestine videos of ACORN staff members assisting what they believed to be a pimp. O'Keefe led the ACORN staffers to believe he wanted to set up a brothel and staff it with underage girls brought in from overseas. Most of the ACORN staff in several locations were only too happy to assist.

Alas, the young man with "60 Minutes" ambitions and no common sense stepped over a line and now finds himself in hot water. It seems that somehow he got it in his head that it would be a great idea to impersonate telephone repair people (can't say repairmen any more), enter Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's New Orleans office and play silly buggers with her office telephone system.

Activist James O'Keefe, 25, was already in the New Orleans office of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu on Monday when two of the accused showed up claiming to be telephone repairmen, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten's office said Tuesday. Letten says O'Keefe videoed them with his cellphone.

The two men, Robert Flanagan and Joseph Basel, both 24, asked the reception for and received access to the main phone at the desk, and later asked for access to a phone closet, Letten's office said. The men were directed to another office in the building, where they are again accused of misrepresenting themselves as telephone repairmen.

Federal agents arrested them later. A fourth man, Stan Dai, 24, was also arrested, but Letten's office said only that he assisted the others in planning, coordinating and preparing the operation.
USA Today

Not smart!

How can this Mike Wallace want-to-be forget who is in charge now? He had to know a target appeared on his forehead the day he busted the ACORN people.

Other then finding a way to shut down Fox News and any effective US intelligence operations, there is nothing US Attorney General Eric Holder would like more then to prosecute the snot nosed little brat that embarrassed his President's favorite community organization. Especially when it is a slam dunk case like this that will almost certainly draw jail time.

Let's see now...

• Criminal impersonation
• Felony tampering
• Criminal trespass
• Illegal wire tap (Depending on what they did.)
• There has to be some law about messing with a congress critter's office...
• No doubt there is something under new and shiny anti-terrorism statutes the government can throw at him.
• Felony stupid.
• One count of conspiracy to commit for each of the above

Ah, the impetuous nature of youth. You just have to love 'em while they get their life lessons under their belts. Hope O'Keefe hasn't got any plans for the next ten years or so. I don't see him getting a plea bargain on this one.

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"Here's your sign…"
- Bill Engvall

More liberal scoffing at analyzing the health care bill before voting on it

Today I caught a sound bite from one by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (Twit-RI), comparing reading the 2000+ page health care bill to a 13 year old girl blowing through a Harry Potter novel. That's an interesting take on it.

For the sake of argument, let's have a look at the difference.

A Harry Potter book runs in sequence, is cohesive and makes sense. Everything you need is right there in the same book and given to you in a logical sequence. That means that by the time you get to page 341, you have everything you need to make sense of what you are reading on that page.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (Twit-NV) Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is not quite so simple. For example, have a look at the first page of proposed legislation after the index.

1 TITLE I—QUALITY, AFFORDABLE
2 HEALTH CARE FOR ALL
3 AMERICANS
4 Subtitle A—Immediate Improve
5 ments in Health Care Coverage
6 for All Americans
7 SEC. 1001. AMENDMENTS TO THE PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE
8 ACT.
9 Part A of title XXVII of the Public Health Service
10 Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg et seq.) is amended—
11 (1) by striking the part heading and inserting
12 the following:
13 ‘‘PART A—INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP MARKET
14 REFORMS’’;
15 (2) by redesignating sections 2704 through
16 2707 as sections 2725 through 2728, respectively;
17 (3) by redesignating sections 2711 through
18 2713 as sections 2731 through 2733, respectively;
19 (4) by redesignating sections 2721 through
20 2723 as sections 2735 through 2737, respectively;
21 and
22 (5) by inserting after section 2702, the fol
23 lowing:

You got all that, right? And that is just the fist page. The entire bill reads just like that. Don't believe me? Click the link and look for yourself.

There is a reason that legislators need time to not just read, but interpret anything they are going to vote on. In this case the proposed health care legislation will make changes made in almost every section of federal law from the Tax Code to Education to Social Security.  Properly interpreting the bill requires constant reference to vastly divergent parts of the United States Code to see what effect each and every one of those changes has on the existing law

Never forget that the only thing worse then a bad law is a badly written law.

The senator's suggestion that reading the healthcare bill compares favorably to a Harry Potter reading binge is complete bullshit. That leads us to one of two possibilities:

1. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (Twit-RI) really believes what he said. If that is the case he demonstrated in a highly public manner that he never personally read a bill in which case he has no place in U.S. Senate passing laws over the rest of us.
2. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (Twit-RI) intentionally set out to deceive the public. If this is the case, he has no place in U.S. Senate passing laws over the rest of us.

It is sometimes insulting to see just how stupid some of our congress critters think we are. But then again, we do keep electing them.

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Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.
- Otto von Bismarck

Fines for not having health insurance? Oh Hell no!

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) has an interesting idea to get universal health insurance coverage in the United States. He proposes fines on people that do not have health insurance. Read it for yourself.

The fines would be the stick to enforce a proposed requirement that all Americans get health insurance, much as auto coverage is now mandatory. The penalties would start at $750 a year for individuals, and $1,500 for families. Households making more than three times the federal poverty level - about $66,000 for a family of four - would face the maximum fines. For families, it would be $3,800, and for individuals, $950.

Baucus would offer carrots as well: tax credits to help pay premiums for households making up to three times the poverty level, and for small employers paying about average middle-class wages. People working for companies that offer coverage could avoid the fines by signing up.
The Associated Press: Fines proposed for going without health insurance

So lets see now…

We all know how well mandatory liability insurance on cars worked. 100% compliance and low prices across the board, right?

And if you lose your job and your insurance, big fine! Oh yeah, that's going to help. Just what every man and woman out of works needs is one more worry.

Do you think this policy will apply to illegal aliens too? It will be fun to watch Uncle Sam try to collect those fines. The feds will probably be at least as successful as the traffic courts and insurance companies that are chasing illegal aliens that have car accidents without the benefit of auto insurance.

Actually, to me it seems Sen. Baucus stumbled across a sure fire way to turn the tide of public opinion in favor of a government option. Think about it, if you are flat broke, unemployed and facing a yearly $1500 fine, a free ride from Uncle Sam suddenly looks really good.

Come on 2010, it is well past time to clean house.

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Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.
- Voltaire

Wells Fargo sues itself.

St. Louis, MO - Under the heading of "stupidity knows no bounds" we have a Fox Business Channel web site story about how Wells Fargo is suing itself in a foreclosure matter.

No, really. I'm serious. Read on…

As holder of the first, Wells Fargo is suing all other lien holders, including the holder of the second, which is itself.

"The primary reason is to clear title and ownership interest in a property to prepare it for sale," Waetke said in an email exchange. "So it really is not Wells Fargo vs. Wells Fargo."

Yet court documents clearly label "Wells Fargo Bank NA" as the plaintiff and "Wells Fargo Bank NA" as a defendant.

Fox Business Channel, Al Lewis: Wells Fargo Bank Sues Itself

Not only that, but Wells Fargo has engaged council to represent both sides of the argument.

Wells Fargo hired Florida Default Law Group., P.L., of Tampa, Fla., to file the lawsuit against itself.

And then Wells Fargo hired another Tampa law firm -- Kass, Shuler, Solomon, Spector, Foyle & Singer P.A. -- to defend itself against its own lawsuit, according to court documents.

Wells Fargo's defense lawyers even filed an answer to their client's own complaint.

"Defendant admits that it is the owner and holder of a mortgage encumbering the subject real property," the answer reads. "All other allegations of the complaint are denied."

Fox Business Channel, Al Lewis: Wells Fargo Bank Sues Itself

You just can't make this stuff up. No one would believe it.

And people wonder how banks could have been so stupid as to buy up all that sub-prime paper…

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Bankers - pillars of society who are going to hell if there is a God and He has been accurately quoted.
- John Ralston Saul

So much stupidity and no time to write…

Los Angeles, CA - Based on bits and pieces of various news items I've managed to catch over the couple weeks I've managed to figure out a few things.

We have some moron in Congress wanting to tax executive bonuses at 90%. There is another set of morons wanting to go after bonuses already paid out to people working for companies that accepted government money. Some combination of those congressional idiots wants to stop payouts of bonus money earned under the terms of employment contracts.

I'm not all that happy about CEOs getting multi-million dollar bonuses from a failing company. The problem is the terms of the contracts requires they be paid. The government bailed the company out and it did not fail. Therefore all those employment contracts are still valid enforceable by the courts if need be.

If we would have let the companies fail, we wouldn't be having this little tiff, would we?

Other members of Congress are hot to trot to limit executive compensation of corporations accepting government money to a grand total of $500,000 per year. Charley Wrangle, in his infinite capacity for complete ignorance, is proposing a bill that would extend the proposed executive salary cap to every corporation, not just the corporations accepting government money.

Yet another group of USDA Grade A Congressional idiots believes they can pass a law allowing bankruptcy judges to rewrite the terms of home mortgages to make them more favorable to the home owner. 

What do all these things have in common? They've all been tried in the past. Mostly during the Great Depression. Those laws that actually passed into law were promptly turned over by the courts. The high taxes simply drove desperately needed capitol of shore.

Companies that took government money accepted their own special brand of Hell. They deserve what ever happens to them for getting into bed with the US Government. There is no such thing as a quid without a pro quo when businesses, states, cities and counties accept government handouts.

For the rest of US Business, those that remained free and clear of government money and the sticky strings that go with it, none of these proposed steps into totalitarianism will stand a constitutional test.

From unconstitutional takings to running afoul the equal treatment provisions, each and everyone of these asinine will be struck down almost as fast as Congress can pass them. I think there is a one of three chance that even the companies on the government bail out programs will find some relief from the courts.

Alas, I would love to spend an afternoon researching all these things, getting quotes and finding case law on the matter. But the current job simply has not allowed the time. In fact my current time sheet shows a total of 181.5 hours over the last ten days ending yesterday.

Maybe later…

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"These two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

- Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee.

Laws and rules gone wild...

Durham, NC - From the national news briefs in today's Durham, NC Herald-Sun...

A 70 year old woman was arrested and suffered a broken nose at the hands of an Orem, UT police officer. Her crime: failing to properly maintain her lawn.

Two days after Independence Day, 70-year-old Betty Perry experienced an ordeal she said shouldn't be happening in America.

The retired military and U.S. government employee answered the door at her home Friday morning to talk with a police officer about her bone-dry lawn and ended up getting arrested and suffering a bloody nose.

"What have I done?" she asked. "I'm old now. I can't believe this."

The Orem police officer, as yet unnamed by city officials, cited Perry for violating a city ordinance with her "sadly neglected and dying landscape," which resembles dry hay.

When Perry refused to give her name and tried to walk inside to call her son, the officer tried to arrest her, police say. According to a police news release, while she was struggling, she tripped and fell on her doorstop, cutting open the bridge of her nose.

But Perry maintains the officer split her nose when he hit her with the set of handcuffs he was trying to restrain her with.

"As far as I'm concerned, he really abused me - he brutally abused me," Perry said. "For what?"

The officer called for backup, because he was driving a truck, and the now-handcuffed Perry was taken to a holding facility in Orem. She was not given water or allowed to wash her hands or call her son, she said.

"After being booked, supervisors became aware of the circumstances and immediately released the woman and returned her to her home on the basis that there were other options available to handle this situation besides making an arrest and holding the woman in jail," Orem police Lt. Doug Edwards wrote in the news release.
The Salt Lake City Tribune: Bloody nose for having a dry lawn

And a sixth grade student got a four month sentence to an alternative school for writing "I love Alex" in an already graffiti infested area. That's four months with the gang banger want-to-be, drug using, gun toting kids.

Shelby Sendelbach, a sixth-grader in the Katy Independent School District, was read her rights, ticketed and punished with a mandatory four-month assignment to an alternative school because she wrote "I love Alex" on a gymnasium wall with a baby blue Sharpie.

The graffiti offense is a Level 4 infraction in the district's discipline plan, along with making terroristic threats, possessing dangerous drugs, and assaulting with bodily injury. Only a Level 5 — for murder, possessing firearms, committing aggravated or sexual assault, arson or other felonies — is more severe.
The Houston Chronicle: Writing on school wall gets Katy sixth-grader pulled

What has gone so terribly wrong in this country that a 70 year old woman can be injured, handcuffed and dragged from her home over a badly maintained lawn. What has happened to our school systems that resolving discipline problems frequently involves the police department and the politically correct version of reform school?

This has got to stop...

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For some reason, I seem to be bothered whenever I see acts of injustice and assaults on people's civil liberties. I imagine what I write in the future will follow in that vein. Whether it's fiction or non-fiction.
- Iris Chang

I almost killed a child tonight

Ft. Myers, FL - Tonight I came too damn close to hitting and quite probably killing a child with the satellite tuck. I was just pulling the truck out of the parking spaces behind the restaurant that fed me tonight. The child, somewhere between toddler and kindergarten age, came from the right and slightly to the rear of the cab passenger side door, running diagonally across the parking lot. He could not have picked a better approach to remain invisible to me.

At the angle the child approached the truck it was only by pure chance that I saw his head pass through my field of view over the right side of the hood. In that instant he vanished out of view in front of the truck, behind the hood.

I stood on the brakes and clutch. Roughly 30,000 lbs of kinetic energy lurched to a sudden, noisy halt.

A year long second of dread passed...

"Oh my God!" I thought... "Was that a thud or weight shifting on the springs?"

He came back into view on my side of the truck, running around to stop outside my window. He looked up at me smiling. A few seconds later, I began to breath again. My hand shot out and popped the parking brake. My foot came off the brakes, the truck blew off a fantastic quantity of air.

And then the shaking began...

I rolled the window down and asked the child what he wanted. Completely oblivious to how close he came to death, his reply was simple, "Can I see your truck?"

"Where is you mother," I asked.

He basically pointed through the truck, back in the direction he came from. Shaking violently now, I climbed out of the cab and told the child that I cannot show the truck to him without his mother being there. I suggested that we go see her. We made it half way back down the side of the restaurant before mama bear came around the corner looking for her wayward child. She called him and he ran to her.

I told her he ran in front of the truck. She said, "Oh, he really likes big trucks."

By this time papa bear joined us. I explained that I almost didn't see him and it was a very close call. I suggested that maybe she should keep a better hold on him.

"Well, you really shouldn't have a truck that size in a public parking lot," She replied.

Papa bear agreed with her.

Based on attitude and further conversation it seems that in their world, I am at fault here. From their perspective there was absolutely no problem with the fact their 3-4 year old boy took off and no one noticed until I was walking him back to the front of the restaurant. With a major dose of adrenaline coursing through my system it's a miracle my mouth remained under control as long as it did.

During this part of the conversation another couple came around the corner looking for these folks. I asked them to take the child for a walk so I might speak with the parents privately. They did so.

The experiences from years working EMS and then some time with the coroner's office make for excellent reference material when telling stories. Exactly what I said to mama and papa bear is not important. I'm not sure if I could remember it all anyway. I finished with, "And keep always in your heart, there are things worse then being dead. But don't take my word for it, visit the vegetable ward at any hospital and see for yourself."

She looked like she was going to be sick. He looked as if he'd been punched in the stomach. That is the way I left them.

The consequences of not taking that one last glance at the right hand mirror are still running laps around my head tonight. The vision of that child disappearing from sight under the hood plays unbidden through my mind at random intervals. Maybe writing all this out will capture that demon so I can get some sleep.

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"There but for the grace of God..."
- Just about everyone who's had a close shave.