Archive for December 2008

Jen’s Update: Hanging in There

Entry by TRH from TN

GREETINGS JEN NATION!

Sis is resting comfortably on the couch across from me.

I guess since last report we exchanged Christmas gifts. Not surprisingly, our effort to “keep it small” failed — Mom, Matthew and Dad went out of their way to make this a special Christmas for all, especially my sister.

It took us a few hours Christmas evening to thoughtfully mow through all the gifts. Sis got some new pajamas, Yankee candles, an electric blanket, some audio books to pass the time … and hot cocoa, of course!

My mom shared a funny anecdote yesterday. My sister quietly woke up next to her and started blowing at her through pursed lips. “What are you doing?” my mom asked. Sis replied, “If I had hot cocoa, I’d be blowing on it.” Ha ha!

So Sis held up pretty well through all the Christmas festivities. It went too fast, but I think each of us paused at times to capture memories we’ll take with us.

She had a VERRRRY restless night Saturday, getting paranoid about having to go to the bathroom. Matthew helped her through it like a champ. My Mom and I relieved him on Sunday and eventually called the nurse as her discomfort persisted. Long story short, they were able to clean her out, so to speak, and we have her a little better regulated now.

Nurse Kim moved up her bi-weekly visit to Monday. Sis’s vital signs looked good, but one can plainly see a number of gradual changes: 1) she’s losing strength in her legs, 2) her feet are a lot colder, 3) her eyes look more withdrawn, 4) she’s sleeping most of the time now, and 5) she’s losing her appetite.

We huddled in the kitchen and Kim and the case worker were clearly concerned. No imminent danger per se — she didn’t discourage me from going back to Ohio — but it’s all quality time now. That was all obviously very hard on my Mom, whenever she let’s herself think of the finality of it all. But I keep urging her to stay in the moment and lean on us and God. It may not seem like all of this is God’s design, but it is somehow.

So we’ll see. Personally, and this isn’t a qualified opinion — I hope she’s energized by the NFL playoffs and can at least enjoy a possible Titans Super Bowl appearance. That’s a month. Only time will tell, and she’s already surprised us too many times to mention.

So we march bravely into 2009 with trust in God’s purpose and hidden meaning. Thanks for all your prayers and support in 2008 — we’ll all be thinking of you at 1am ET / 12a CT / 11p MT / 10p PT — ha ha — Love, TRH

Could America Break Apart?

The Coming Collapse of the United States

h/t Neatorama

This is going on out there in lala land, because I doubt that those in power would ever let it happen without killing everyone of us.

From a Wall Street Journal article by By ANDREW OSBORN

As if Things Weren’t Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.

In Moscow, Igor Panarin’s Forecasts Are All the Rage; America ‘Disintegrates’ in 2010

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces — with Alaska reverting to Russian control. [...]

In September 1998, he attended a conference in Linz, Austria, devoted to information warfare, the use of data to get an edge over a rival. It was there, in front of 400 fellow delegates, that he first presented his theory about the collapse of the U.S. in 2010.

“When I pushed the button on my computer and the map of the United States disintegrated, hundreds of people cried out in surprise,” he remembers. He says most in the audience were skeptical. “They didn’t believe me.”

At the end of the presentation, he says many delegates asked him to autograph copies of the map showing a dismembered U.S.

He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI analysts, he says. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

California will form the nucleus of what he calls “The Californian Republic,” and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of “The Texas Republic,” a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an “Atlantic America” that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls “The Central North American Republic.” Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

Zionism: The Cause Of America’s Moral Demise

There is no amount of death and carnage towards Arabs that will ever suffice for Israel’s blood lust. How Jewish people can put up with this is basically akin to how American’s “put up” with Bush and his illegal monstrous cabal. They are basically two peas in a pod. What is scary is that your savior Barack Obama is as much in the Zionist corner as Bush is (proving he is either a fool or a maniac like Bush).

It is time that we end our little relationship with this piss poor little country. It is time we stop funding their murderous rampage and threats of world annihilation. They have been nothing for us and has caused our reputation and standing in the world to fall apart.

It is time that we become Americans, again, for God’s sake. I’m sick and tired of being a pseudo Israeli. There is not a damned thing there that is important enough for me (or this country) to be killed over.

Israel Warns America Yet Again-There’s “Hell To Pay” For Not Attacking Iran

Mark Glenn
World Prout Assembly
Dec 29, 2008

12/29/08 – “WPA” – To most, the language appears all-too-familiar and not unlike the childhood story of the “boy who cried wolf”. Indeed, it has all the hallmarks of the typical fear-mongering all have come to know all-too-well in recent years featuring a paranoid Zionist military commander working for a notoriously paranoid nation and warning of the next “holocaust” if everyone does not immediately stop what they are doing, pay strict attention and follow the prescribed course of action as laid down by the Jewish state.

Speaking recently at a conference at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, Israel’s Minister of Defense Ehud Barak sternly warned his audience (and the world at large) that “If Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, it could try to attack the United States,” specifying that if the Islamic Republic built “even a primitive nuclear weapon” similar to the one used in “destroying Hiroshima” that she would “not hesitate to load it on a ship, arm it with a detonator operated by GPS and sail it into a vital port on the east coast of North America.”

The first thing in his statement sticking out like a sore thumb is his confidence, stating UNEQUIVICALLY that Iran “Would not hesitate” in detonating a nuclear weapon against the world’s most powerful nation. This is the same United States by the way that presently has enough firepower parked off Iran’s coast to destroy her 1,000 times over. This in itself begs the following question-Is this yet another case of the organically unstable Zionist mindset that has become all-too-familiar these days or is there something else? In other words-What does he know that others-including the most sophisticated intelligence agencies working for the US government-don’t know?

It is understandable that some would shrug such rhetoric off, and particularly after the billion or so instances where every man, woman and child on the planet has had to endure the “He wants to wipe Israel off the map” shtick that got real old real fast after the first 500,000 times.

In this case however it would be unwise to assume this latest development involving the defense minister is just another case of bluff and bluster and of the Jewish state “crying wolf” with regards to some new Hitler or Haman. Barak is not just ANY defense minister, but the defense minister a theocratic/fascist enclave that is just DYING to get a war started with Iran. Judging by the news headlines, this is all there is these days within the one-track Zionist mindset. IRAN/IRAN/IRAN/IRAN….No, in this instance the smart money says that these dire predictions may very well take place in what is commonly referred to as a “self-fulfilling prophesy”.

Therefore, what those familiar with Israel’s history should conclude by Barak’s statement is that this is not just another case of empty fear mongering on the part of the Jewish state, but rather a clear and present threat, namely that if America does not do the bidding of the Jewish state by attacking Iran that Israel-out of her black hat of magic tricks-will pull one of her made-to-order false flag attacks against America in order to “get the ball rolling” in the right direction.

In other words, with the full blessings of every person, place or thing of measurable political power in the Jewish state including Israel’s intelligence service Mossad, Prime Minster Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister ‘Tzippy” Livni, what Barak was saying in effect to all the various spies, analysts, intelligence officers and diplomats working in virtually every nation of the world was that-

“If Uncle Sam does not get busy with the business of opening up a new front in our war against the Islamic world, we, the Jewish people, will detonate one of our several hundred nuclear warheads in an east coast American city that will then be blamed on Iran…”

And just in case something might have been “lost in translation” and the thick-headed Gentiles towards whom the threat was being made did not “get it,” Barak concluded his remarks with “We are not taking any option off the table, and we recommend the world not take any option off the table, and we mean what we say.”

Obviously those “options” still “on the table” include Israel resorting to the kind of business in which she has dirtied herself in the past, which just so happens to include attacking (or allowing to be attacked) American interests in order to pin the blame on someone else.

Those who dismiss the possibility that such a threat was indeed made by Israel should understand that there is a language used in the criminal underworld-both at the street level and in the more “sophisticated” world of modern politics-that is almost imperceptible to all except the “initiated”. To the average person phrases such as “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse” sound like perfectly innocuous, simple tidbits of business parlance like “a deal too good to pass up” rather than death threats. Someone sending a personal clothing item along with two dead fishes seems more like a college fraternity prank rather than an announcement that a certain someone now rests peacefully at the bottom of a large body of water.

In truth though, the meaning they convey is one of life and death- “Give us what we want if you want to stay alive…”

And likewise with political language employed by states such as Israel, a nation founded by gangsters with gangster money and built on top of a gangster ideology that justifies any criminal behavior as long as it benefits “la famiglia”. What appear to be harmless statements made by persons of noted importance such as Barak actually have a significance far deeper than what is superficially apparent to the average Joe, and even if this significance is lost on the average person merely trying to live an honest life and pay his/her bills, it most assuredly has not been lost on the spies, analysts, diplomats and others whose job is to read between the lines when threats are being made in pursuance of certain geo-political demands.

It is no secret Israel wants (demands) Iran’s destruction and wants it done by non-Jews. Israel is a nation founded on 21st century BC ideas while at the same time trying to make these ideas work in a 21st century AD world. All the war, invasion, rape, conquest, plagues, smiting and bloodshed that are the meat and potatoes of the Old Testament are as much the principles upon which the Jewish state was founded as “We hold these truths to be self evident” are the bedrock of the American nation. The hysteria characterizing Israel’s reaction to the National Intelligence Estimate released in December 2007 by the 16 most powerful intelligence agencies working for the US government that stated categorically and unequivocally that Iran had no nuclear weapons program since 2003 betrayed the irrational, bloodlust mindset driving Israel and her desire to see her ancient Persian enemies destroyed as recounted in the Old Testament story found in the Book of Esther.

Therefore, Iran MUST be attacked, no ifs, ands or buts about it. In a day and age when the Jewish state needs these periodic clashes in order to achieve an otherwise-impossible sense of cohesiveness within an organically fractured, irrational and self-devouring political creature such as Israel, a re-enactment of Persia’s (Iran’s) defeat by God’s chosen people as occurred in the book of Esther does wonders in putting to rest any discussion concerning the “propriety” of the Jewish state’s existence.

As far as a nuclear attack on an east coast American city itself, the results of such an attack-apart from the human cost-would be incalculable in terms of economics and political instability. At a time when-not just America, but indeed the entire world-is so precariously perched at the edge of an abyss that threatens economic, political and social chaos, an American city going up in a mushroom cloud would set in motion a chain reaction the results of which are not difficult to imagine. The resulting meltdown would take-not just years, but more than likely generations to recover.

And once again, just as in 9/11, Israel-through one or many of her carefully ‘chosen’ spokespersons-would then go before world media with barely contained smirks and giggles and say “Well, don’t blame us, we warned you something like this was going to happen” . In the same flavor as the 5 dancing Israeli’s seen filming the destruction of the Twin Towers or Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks following 9/11 that the attacks on America resulting in the deaths of over 3,000 were “good” in that they would generate “immediate sympathy” for Israel, so too would the Jewish state capitalize on the event and shake her finger in the world’s face and say “tsk, tsk, tsk…should have paid better attention to the warnings we gave…” In the meantime, American leaders would be scrambling to deal with-not only the apocalyptic situation at hand, but as well the loss of public confidence in their ability to lead.

What is noteworthy about this latest threat is the fact that it is a follow-up to threats made directly to George Bush back in May when he visited the Jewish state to help celebrate Israel’s 60-year orgy of uninterrupted violence and bloodshed against the Gentiles who have suffered the unfortunate “honor” of living in such close proximity to God’s chosen people. Before the soles of his shoes had even gotten dirty after stepping on the hallowed ground of Israel he was met at the Ben Gurion airport by the “Men in Black”-meaning the Orthodox Rabbis-who then accosted him with a list of commandments and threats, all cryptic and apocalyptic in their nature, about what the leader of the free world would be facing if he was found slacking off with regards to his “duties” to the Jewish state. A partial list of their demands and threats included reminding him that “God ordained the nations of the world to strengthen the nation of Israel” while telling him to forget the idea of running away from his duty of making war against Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon, specifying that American troops be used to protect the “Divine rights of the nation of Israel, and remove from her any threat.” The consequences of not doing these things were clear-”destruction” and “Certain doom” that would “endanger all life on earth” and capping off their threats with “Your fate and that of all those with you hangs in the balance of the destiny of our land…”

..and about 5 months later-BATTA-BOOM!!!-out of seemingly nowhere, the economy of the United States enters a storm not seen since 1929. Indeed, it seemed as if the rabbis had friends in “high places”-protégé’s of Moses no doubt-who had the power to make such plagues happen. As a result of the economic turmoil that resulted in loss of jobs and a housing crisis without precedent since the great depression, George Bush, his party and his legacy found themselves swirling down the political sewer like a piece of used toilet paper.

Those who doubt Israel is capable (or willing) to go to such lengths need to better acquaint themselves with the USS Liberty, a US spy ship that-with complete foreknowledge of malice-was attacked by the air and naval forces of the Jewish state for 2 hours during the latter end of the 6 Day War. Israel’s obvious intention was that the ship be sunk, Egypt be blamed (in the same way as planned with the previously-unsuccessful “Lavon Affair”) resulting in a United States of America out for Arab blood, just as occurred following 9/11. As it was, F-4 Phantom jets-loaded for bear (meaning armed with nuclear weapons) were on their way to Cairo with orders to annihilate the capitol of Soviet-allied Egypt. It was only the miracle of Liberty’s refusal to sink-despite thousands of armor-piercing rounds, a thousand rockets, hundreds of gallons of napalm and 5 torpedoes-that prevented what would most likely have been a nuclear war between the United States and (what was at that time) the Soviet Union.

Dozens of other such examples of Israeli treachery against America abound, the most recent and notorious being her foreknowledge and direct involvement with the events on 9/11. Those who would scoff at the notion that the Jewish state is capable of doing such things-including detonating a nuclear weapon within an American city-should keep in mind that (just as she has said on more occasions than can be counted) she is not like other nations. In the words of her former Defense Minister Moshe Dayan she is “a dangerous mad dog” on one hand and yet on the other she is the “embodiment of God,” a “light among nations” and “joy of the entire earth” as her political/religious caretakers describe her. While the other nations of the earth operate under for-the-most-part rational plans for their existence, Israel does not. She is like any cult community like Jim Jones’ Guyana or David Koresh’s Waco, and in the event her little experiment begins to show signs of failure, her solution is simple-scrap the whole thing, meaning 6 billion souls on earth-so that Israel’s God “Yahweh” can start over again with a clean slate and, hopefully, “do it right” the next time and make good on His promise to make “His” chosen people rulers of the earth.

And lest some think all of this is pure speculation on the part of anti-Semites with over-active imaginations and who read more into the language of gangsters than what is actually there, let Martin Van Creveld, one of Israel’s most respected military historians speak on the matter at hand-

“We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force…. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that this will happen before Israel goes under.”

(c) 2008 Mark Glenn

Correspondent, American Free Press Newspaper

http://www.americanfreepress.net

nomorewarsforisrael@gmail.com

B’Man’s Hypocrite Watch: 2-Faced Bail Outs

What is the difference between accountability standards for the two different “Bail-outs”?

You tell me: Incompetence or venality?

Israel: America’s God

I don’t understand it and neither does most of the world. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why Americans have fallen for the lie (all has to do with fear and Nationalistic pride), but it just seems so idiotic that our foreign policy is driven by Israel and its neocon rule.

I know many Jewish people and this is NOT an attack on Jews. It is an attack on a rogue and dangerous leadershoip of a country (that basically mimics America’s leadership). Barack Obama is the same, if not worse than Bush. That should cause you to shudder, but I know how much you worship him, so…

Israel is driving our foreign policy and the faux Judeo-Christians fall for the murder and carnage as if it were God blessing them with manna.

I just don’t get it. If Americans Knew:

The most propagandized country on earth, the US

Sixty years of massive, ongoing, coldly calculated human rights abuses against the Palestinian people.

That’s the legacy of the State of Israel.

Americans pay the bills for this tyranny and our hopelessly corrupt news media and elected officials go along with it because it’s politically expedient.

Note: The videos of IfAmericansKnew.org are constantly removed by YouTube censors.

I have no idea how long this one will be up.

Richard Noggin’ Saturday: Tennessee Valley Authority

First thing to note is that they (TVA) are lying through their teeth, UNTIL the facts are dispersed throughout the country. They KNOW this is far worse than they have let on so far. There is a history with this area and this particular coal fire plant that we are NOT being told about. From Wikipedia:

The mouth of the Emory is into the Clinch River at the Tennessee Valley Authority‘s Kingston Power Plant, a coal-fired electric generation station initially developed during World War II, largely to power the uranium enrichment plants used to make the world’s first atomic bomb at nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Of course the heavy metals and poisons from the coal ash is bad enough, but this area was used as the ‘skunk works’ of the atomic bomb making. Who knows what kind of shit is buried in these ‘ponds’? This river feeds the Tennessee and that shit they dumped will eventually enter it. The metals and contaminants will be seen all the way to Kentucky… eventually.

I will also be willing to bet you that if you are a TVA customer (as I am) you will be the one paying for this mess. With your dollars and your health.

Found at The New York Times (h/t C&L)

A coal ash spill in eastern Tennessee that experts were already calling the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States is more than three times larger than initially estimated, according to an updated survey by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Officials at the authority initially said that about 1.7 million cubic yards of wet coal ash had spilled when the earthen retaining wall of an ash pond at the Kingston Fossil Plant, about 40 miles west of Knoxville, gave way on Monday. But on Thursday they released the results of an aerial survey that showed the actual amount was 5.4 million cubic yards, or enough to flood more than 3,000 acres one foot deep.

The amount now said to have been spilled is larger than the amount the authority initially said was in the pond, 2.6 million cubic yards…

…Mr. Moulton said on Friday that the levels exceeded safety limits for drinking water, but that both metals were filtered out by water treatment processes.

Mercury and arsenic, he said, were “barely detectable” in the samples.

The ash pond was adjacent to the Emory River and near a residential area, where three houses were destroyed by the tide of muddy ash. Water sampled several miles downstream from the spill was safe to drink, but its iron and manganese content exceeded the secondary drinking water standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency, which govern taste and odor but not potential health effects, Mr. Moulton said.

Neither the authority nor the E.P.A. has released the results of tests of soil or the ash itself. Authority officials have said that the ash is not harmful, and the authority has not warned residents of potential dangers, though federal studies show that coal ash can contain dangerous levels of heavy metals and carcinogens.

“You’re not going to be endangered by touching the ash material,” said Barbara Martocci, a spokeswoman for the T.V.A. “You’d have to eat it. You have to get it in your body.”

The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation also released a statement saying there was no indication of risk unless the ash was ingested.

My first thought, the first thing that BuelahLady said and the thing that Susie at C&L noted was that we not only “eat” the shit, we ingest this poison by “breathing” it.

Duh!

Pacman Jones: ‘Who Do I Have To Kill To Get Reinstated Into The NFL?

This dude really wants to play ball:

DALLAS—Noting that it has been over a year since his supposed one-year suspension from the NFL for his involvement in off-the-field criminal incidents, cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones wondered aloud Monday as to whom he had to kill to begin playing football again. “Man, what does [NFL commissioner Robert] Goodell want me to do, straight up gank someone? Choke someone out? Knife a guy? Put a bullet through some dude’s earhole? Because I’m willing to do whatever it takes,” Jones said to reporters present to watch him move into his new Dallas home. “Just say a name and the man is dead before you put the phone down, I want to play so bad.” Goodell said he would be glad to meet with Jones before camp begins in order to discuss his future and stressed that Jones should please not kill him.

h/t The Onion

Jen’s Update: Christmas Gift For The Ages

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Guest Entry from Kathy

Merry Christmas to all our family and friends!

We are so blessed to have each of you. Last night we gave each other the gift of being together and it was so special. Notre Dame was on and Jennifer would sit up and ask, “Mom,” in her soft voice, “what is there sweet to eat? Can I have just one more?”

She’s enduring quite a bit of pain from the pressure in her head but hardly ever complains. When I look in her eyes, God is definitely with us.

Jennifer has taught me so much about love and caring — what a Christmas gift for the ages.

Today we are going over to Matt & Jennifer’s for our Christmas meal, then we will follow Jennifer’s lead as we exchange a few gifts and enjoy each other.

This Christmas is filled with some tears, laughter and being thankful that God has given us one more Christmas together — what a blessing.

Thank you all so much for your prayers and guestbook entries — they mean so much to us and keep us going. — Love, Kathy

Read Journal

The First Christmas: What It Has Become

From the JFC Show (beware, BuelahLady was offended):

Jen’s Update: Christmas Reflection

Christmas Reflection, Jen Update

Entry by TRH from TN

Greetings JEN NATION!

I spent all of yesterday with my sister, enabling my Mom & Dad to go shopping in Murfreesboro and Matthew to run some errands.

Sis’s social worker Kristene stopped by late morning for a private visit with my sister. Kristene works with Lazarus House Home Hospice, bringing years of experience relating to those God is drawing home to Himself. She is adept at having the deep, probing conversations with my sister that are hard for us, pinpointing where she is spiritually and her remaining aspirations in this life.

Then Nurse Kim came by in the afternoon, documenting Sis’s extreme headache from Sunday and checking her vitals. Kim and Matthew discussed contingencies if another such headache occurred. We have a good cache of hospital strength painkillers, and nurses are on call 24/7 if that proves insufficient.

I often try to accentuate the positive on this site, because my sister still gives us so much to feel good about. The reality though is unmistakable — this will almost certainly be her last Christmas, with us anyway. Both Kim & Kristene agree Sis is down to month(s).

But we can’t be selfish, because can you imagine Christmas in heaven???? No long lines, no mall traffic (ha), being reunited with all your loved ones, in all your health and glory, and Jesus and Mary themselves? Sis would be the lucky one in 2009, though we’d miss her terribly.

I think I’ve said it before, but I almost can’t remember her pre-cancer. For so many years, she bore it bravely. I’d tell people, “You wouldn’t know by seeing her or talking to her.” But this year has been hard. She has lost so many freedoms she worked so hard to maintain.

So many of you may not get the chance to personally say goodbye, and I apologize for that. If we walked into her living room right now, it might strike you as a holy place where you don’t raise your voice. You might just sit down across from her in silence, reflecting on where she is and what we’re supposed to take away from it. She might stir from her reclined position and Titans stadium blanket, seeing who you were or asking for a cookie.

She cannot stand up on her own anymore; Matthew and I are the only two people on the planet she trusts to lend her a hand. She cannot go to the bathroom without a wheelchair and the same assistance … or bathe herself. Her left fist is permanently clenched with cramping pain she has learned to tolerate. In recent weeks her right eye has closed. Her vision is not very good, and she’s bloated from inactivity and the cocktail of drugs that keeps her comfortable. She needs to be fed anything that requires utensils.

But we try not to dwell on all that. You’d recognize her because her personality still comes shining through. She asks all visitors how they’re doing and makes them feel welcome. Such courage and grace.

So many good people in the world have lost loved ones this year, and some will yet today. Given that we are humbly blessed. In the vast scheme of eternity, even those of us who will live to a ripe old age are only here for a little while. We enter this world with nothing, and leave with nothing except the difference we’ve made in others’ lives.

Maybe that’s why I’ve struggled this year to visit shopping malls and merrily shred wrapping paper like years past, and no doubt future — because God is giving me a keen sense of what it’s about.

Shocking as it may be (ha), I hope to start a family, and some year down the road we’ll be buried in all the trappings of the season, my parents lavishing their grandkids with gifts. Then we’ll think back to Christmas 2008, as my sister’s memory permeates the room, and all will be put in perspective.

Cherish your loved ones this week — may God be with you all. — Love, TRH

Clean Coal? Riiight…

I have lived within a few miles of this river the vast majority of my life. The issue here is that this particular pond was built way back when people simply didn’t give much of a shit about protecting the environment from pollutants, or to hold those accountable that pump mercury and other horrific carcinogens into their “containment” ponds. If this appears as bad as it seems, this could be devastating to the people in this region, especially along the river.

Yeah, we need more coal plants, nuclear plants, etc… forget solar and geo-thermal, wave power, hydrogen, etc. Let’s invest in the few things that if something does go wrong, it only ruins our lives forever.

Beware Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Kentucky… This could be very bad.

From The Tennessean (h/t CommonDreams)

Flood of Sludge Breaks TVA Dike

Collapse poses risk of toxic ash

by Anne Paine and Colby Sledge

HARRIMAN, Tenn. – Millions of yards of ashy sludge broke through a dike at TVA’s Kingston coal-fired plant Monday, covering hundreds of acres, knocking one home off its foundation and putting environmentalists on edge about toxic chemicals that may be seeping into the ground and flowing downriver.

One neighboring family said the disaster was no surprise because they have watched the 1960s-era ash pond’s mini-blowouts off and on for years.

About 2.6 million cubic yards of slurry – enough to fill 798 Olympic-size swimming pools – rolled out of the pond Monday, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Cleanup will take at least several weeks, or, in a worst-case scenario, years.

The ash slide, which began just before 1 a.m., covered as many as 400 acres as deep as 6 feet. The wave of ash and mud toppled power lines, covered Swan Pond Road and ruptured a gas line. It damaged 12 homes, and one person had to be rescued, though no one was seriously hurt.

Much remains to be determined, including why this happened, said Tom Kilgore, president and CEO of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

“I fully suspect that the amount of rain we’ve had in the last eight to 10 days, plus the freezing weather … might have had something to do with this,” he said in a news conference Monday on the site.

The area received almost 5 inches of rain this month, compared with the usual 2.8 inches. Freeze and thaw cycles may have undermined the sides of the pond. The last formal report on the condition of the 40-acre pond – an unlined, earthen structure – was issued in January and was unavailable Monday, officials said.

Neighbors Don and Jil Smith, who have lived near the pond for eight years, said that nearly every year TVA has cleaned up what they termed “baby blowouts.”

Ashen liquid similar to that seen on a much larger scale in Monday’s disaster came from the dike, they said.

“It would start gushing this gray ooze,” said Don Smith, whose home escaped harm. “They’d work on it for weeks and weeks.

“They can say this is a one-time thing, but I don’t think people are going to believe them.”

The U.S. Coast Guard, EPA, Tennessee Emergency Management Agency and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation were among agencies that responded to the emergency.

Toxic irritants possible

Coal is burned to produce electricity at the Kingston Fossil Plant, notable for its tall towers seen along Interstate 40 near the Harriman exit in Roane County.

Water is added to the ash, which is the consistency of face powder, for pumping it to the pond. The ash is settled out in that pond before the sludge is moved to other, drier ponds, Kilgore said.

Coal ash can carry toxic substances that include mercury, arsenic and lead, according to a federal study. The amount of poisons in TVA’s ashy wastes that could irritate skin, trigger allergies and even cause cancer or neurological problems could not be determined Monday, officials said.

Viewed from above, the scene looked like the aftermath of a tsunami, with swirls of dirtied water stretching for hundreds of acres on the land, and muddied water in the Emory River.

The Emory leads to the Clinch, which flows into the Tennessee.

Workers sampled river water Monday, with results expected back today, but didn’t sample the dunelike drifts of muddy ash.

That could begin today, officials said, and the potential magnitude of the problem could make this a federally declared Superfund site. That would mean close monitoring and a deep, costly cleanup requiring years of work.

“We’ll be sampling for metals in the ground to see what kind of impact that had,” said Laura Niles, a spokeswoman for the EPA in Atlanta.

“Hopefully, it won’t be as bad as creating a Superfund site, but it depends on what is found.”

Stephen Smith, with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy in Knoxville, said those concerned about water and air quality have tried for years to press for tighter regulation of the ash.

The heavy metals in coal – including mercury and other toxic substances – concentrate in the ash when burned, he said.

“You know where that is now,” he said. “It’s in that stuff that’s all over those people’s houses now.”

Chemicals and metals from coal ash have contaminated drinking water in several states, made people and animals sick in New Mexico, and tainted fish in Texas and elsewhere, according to Lisa Evans, an attorney with Earthjustice, a nonprofit national environmental law firm that follows the issue.

“It’s discouraging because this is an easy problem to fix,” she said.

Ash could be recycled by using it to make concrete and at the very least should be placed in lined, state-of-the-art landfills, she said.

Plant is still operating

TVA’s Kilgore said that chemicals in the ash are of concern, but that the situation is probably safe. The power plant is still operating, sending the ash to a larger pond on the site.

“There are levels of chemicals in there that we are concerned about,” Kilgore said. “We don’t think there’s anything immediate of danger because most of that’s contained, but that’s why we have sampling folks out.”

Officials were monitoring a water intake that serves Kingston City and is only a few miles downstream from the Kingston plant, but said no problem had been noted there as of Monday afternoon.

The power producer, which oversees the Tennessee River system, had slowed river flow in the area, releasing less water from key dams, so the pollution might be better contained for possible cleanup.

TVA has insurance for an event like this, spokeswoman Barbara Martucci said, but what the cleanup cost is and how much insurance will pay remains to be determined.

Otherwise, ratepayers in Tennessee could bear much of the costs. TVA provides virtually all the electricity in the state, along with parts of six others.

B’Man’s Christmas Wishes: Santa Boot Camp

Click The Picture

I told BuelahLady that I wanted to go to Santa School so I could supplement our income every year. The older I get, the more my beard goes gray, the more I sort of look like Santa. But then I found out what Santa Boot Camp is all about and I am having second thoughts.

The REAL Christmas Tree

This video is one of the very best when it comes to tracing how and why cannabis became illegal. As many times as I have written about this subject, until this video, I never had a really full description of the history of it to share. This is well worth the 10 minute watch for anyone in agreement or not. It lays out the histroy (explaining that in the 1600′s the first marijuana law on this continent was to MAKE citizens grow it). Hypocrisy at its finest.

Also, isn’t funny how hemp can be demonized before WW2, undemonized for the war effort, then re-demonized afterwards (and Americans just go along as the sheople they are). Isn’t it funny how 4/5′s of the Canadian war fight money goes to cannabis, and only 1/5 to hard drugs?

Every committee formed and report generated (even Nixon’s, who began the war on drugs which really took off under Reagan) says that cannabis is not harmful and does NOT do what Reefer Madness scared everybody into thinking it did. Yet, they still enforce the bogus “war”.

I will also point out that there has been only one person who has come here to argue this subject with me and that person could not debate, nor would he read the many instances of information links I have added to virtually every blog post on the subject. I implore anyone to debate this subject with me, for I know I am 100% correct. You can’t win. America can’t win as long as it is ilegal.

Cannabis is illegal for one reason and one reason only. Big Money.

It is all a lie, just like everything else out of their mouths, people.

The sooner we change this, the sooner American’s lives begin to get better. From BrassCheckTV:

The illegal green tree

Why?

Why is the massively valuable and versatile hemp plant illegal in the United States?

Three reasons.

Making hemo illegal:

1. Provides make-work for a vast army of “law enforcers” who then are available to be used for other social control work

2. Protects the market share of numerous well organized lobbies: alcohol makers, plastics and chemical manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, and cotton growers (still a powerful economic force in America 200 + years after the Civil War.)

3. Gives fascist minded politicians yet another way to control the population

B’Man’s Christmas Wishes: Gaseous Gorilla Gift Giving

Chessington World of Adventures recently had to deal with a King Pong of a smelly situation I linked to and wrote about last week here. Apparently Brussels sprouts cause gorillas to fart horrendously noxious gas bombs that were driving away customers, so they decided stop feeding them during open hours.

Now, since I love sprouts so much, I find this repulsive on its face, so I immediately felt something needed to be done. Before I freaked the monkey shit out on them, I read this:

Zoo keepers will now give the usual diet of vegetables, fruits, nuts and leaves during opening hours but will add the sprouts in the evenings and let them trumpet to their hearts content.

Thank goodness. At least they are going to feed them sprouts after closing hours. (Did anyone else notice the reference to a trumpet in there? Are these farts obnoxiously LOUD, as well?)

I also noted that they are going to forgo the new rules and give these gorillas a special Christmas gift.

You see, miracles DO happen at Christmas time.

Smell my finger

What would I do without my “News you cannot possible use“?

BuelahMan’s Solution For Our Failed Economy

I say we start a “Bush Shoe” company and sell shoes in the US (I have seriously wanted to order a pair). Can you imagine the influx of capital into the system of those who want to buy.

Put the chimp on a dunk booth pedestal and our worries are over. Add acid, instead of water and we bail out the world:

Robert Tait in Istanbul
The Guardian
Monday 22 December 2008

Their deployment as a makeshift missile robbed President George Bush of his dignity and landed their owner in jail. But the world’s most notorious pair of shoes have yielded an unexpected bonanza for a Turkish shoemaker.

Ramazan Baydan, owner of the Istanbul-based Baydan Shoe Company, has been swamped with orders from across the world, after insisting that his company produced the black leather shoes which the Iraqi journalist Muntazar al-Zaidi threw at Bush during a press conference in Baghdad last Sunday.

Baydan has recruited an extra 100 staff to meet orders for 300,000 pairs of Model 271 – more than four times the shoe’s normal annual sale – following an outpouring of support for Zaidi’s act, which was intended as a protest, but led to his arrest by Iraqi security forces.

Orders have come mainly from the US and Britain, and from neighbouring Muslim countries, he said.

Around 120,000 pairs have been ordered from Iraq, while a US company has placed a request for 18,000. A British firm is understood to have offered to serve as European distributor for the shoes, which have been on the market since 1999 and sell at around £28 in Turkey. A sharp rise in orders has been recorded in Syria, Egypt and Iran, where the main shoemaker’s federation has offered to provide Zaidi and his family with a lifetime’s supply of shoes.

To meet the mood of the marketplace, Baydan is planning to rename the model “the Bush Shoe” or “Bye-Bye Bush”.

“We’ve been selling these shoes for years but, thanks to Bush, orders are flying in like crazy. We’ve even hired an agency to look at television advertising,” he said.

Zaidi has been in custody since the shoe-throwing incident, amid claims that he has been badly beaten. He faces a possible jail sentence for insulting a foreign leader, but has reportedly apologised and requested a pardon from Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.