BROKEST CITY IN AMERICA – My Hometown is #1

I’ve watched over the last 4 years, and sometimes wrote and commented about how ‘bad’ things are in my neck of the woods. Some understood what I was talking about as they’ve watched many in their own areas struggle to make ends meet during this most recent depression. However, I dont think many understood completely what I was seeing in my area.

The city I grew up in, Columbus Georgia, which I now live 15 miles to the north of has been hit hard. While the local news along with the mainstream news continues to paint a rosy picture, many know the rose is dead.

Columbus Georgia in it’s heyday was a bustling textile / mill town. It was also called a military town due to the adjacent Fort Benning Georgia. In all respects it is now only a military town. The mills shout down and moved off shore. What local business that remained through the years, many have closed their doors, unable to compete with the big box stores, or off shored the labor as well.

There are a few big name companies in Columbus Georgia. Few of them hire folk that worked in the mills due to lack of formal education, or who recently left the military and stuck around. We have AFLAC which insures more than 60 million people worldwide. We have TSYS the largest processor of merchant acquirers and bank credit card issuers. We have Synovus which is a a financial services company. Synovus laid off 850 employees and closed multiple bank branches in early 2011. We have what is left of the W. C. Bradley Co. the maker of ‘Char-Broil grill’. I say what is left because W. C. Bradley moved Char-Broil grill production from Georgia to China in 2006. The Char-Broil division is still headquartered in Columbus but the jobs are in China. Columbus is also the birth place of Coca Cola and RC Cola. My how times have changed.

To be honest with you, there isn’t much left around here other than civilian employment at the Army base, Ft. Benning. This was one of the main reasons I am so pissed off about the illegal immigration situation in this country, let alone my neck of the woods. No jobs, yet they let the illegals stay and take them. I mentioned this countless times on my old blog. If it weren’t for Ft. Benning, as much as I hate the military industrial complex [MIC], Columbus in my eyes would have been another Detroit. Detroit is number 18 on the list, which I might add, most of us have heard how bad it is/was in Detroit the past year or so. Ghost town

Over on The Daily Beast, they have just released a list of 30, what they call ‘America’s Brokest Cities’. Four of Americas brokest cities reside in Georgia and many more are throughout the southeast.

VIA The Daily Beast

To find the most struggling cities in the country, we used three data points weighted equally: the most recently available unemployment rate (August 2011), median household income, and average debt. Data is from a recent report by Experian and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average credit score for each city is included in the gallery, though not taken into account to determine the final ranking. If this data is any indication, the cities struggling the most right now—the ones that may take the longest to recover—are clustered in the South and along the Pacific Coast.

#1, Columbus, Ga.

Unemployment: 9.8%

Median household income: $36,553

Average personal debt: $27,928

Average credit score: 721

#10, Augusta, Ga.

Unemployment: 9.6%

Median household income: $44,477

Average personal debt: $26,204

Average credit score: 709

#14, Macon, Ga.

Unemployment: 10.4%

Median household income: $37,507

Average personal debt: $23,775

Average credit score: 715

#25, Savannah, Ga.

Unemployment: 9.5%

Median household income: $46,755

Average personal debt: $25,561

Average credit score: 716

Of course the 1% in Columbus dont see it that way. Of course they have no idea what the other 99% are going through. Here is what the current Mayor has to say.

Via wtvm.com [local Columbus GA news station]

Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson called the article "patently absurd" and "irresponsible".

"We know for certain that their data is wrong. The median income figure and the employment rate are not correct. Accordingly, we have no reason to believe their so-called ‘personal debt' level is current. Probably the most telling error is that even using their own incorrect data, their math is wrong. So, by the article's own alleged three-pronged criteria, Columbus is not the ‘brokest' on the list, much less America," Mayor Tomlinson explains.

"The numbers presented show there is no rational basis for the approach used. The slightest change, such as using the more accepted debt-to-income ratio instead of the personal debt amount dramatically adjusts the ranking. Including the referenced, but mysteriously excluded, ‘credit score' in the computation also dramatically adjusts the ranking. If there was any legitimate statistical point to be made here, the rankings would not fluctuate so when similar or related data is used", continued Mayor Tomlinson.

Yep, just like the rest of the 1%, 'those numbers are wrong'.

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All posts are opinions meant to foster comment, reporting, teaching & study under the “fair use doctrine” in Sec. 107 of U.S. Code Title 17. No statement of fact is made or should be implied. Ads appearing on this blog are solely the product of the advertiser and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BuehlahMan’s Revolt or WordPress.com

Fiat Justitia Ruat Caelum

“Let Justice Be Done Though The Heavens Fall“

~ Georgia Supreme Court Motto

I felt, way back when I wrote about Troy Davis, that something was bogus. Now he is about to be killed when there is ample evidence that he is innocent. 7 of the 9 witnesses have recanted and there is no physical evidence that links him to the crime.

Search for: “If I knew then, what I know now, Troy Davis would not be on death row”

There’s no time for fancy words. They are going to kill Troy Davis on September 21st, 2011. Please find any petition you can, on the Internet—Amnesty International is hosting one—and sign it.

http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=6oJCLQPA…

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All posts are opinions meant to foster comment, reporting, teaching & study under the “fair use doctrine” in Sec. 107 of U.S. Code Title 17. No statement of fact is made or should be implied. Ads appearing on this blog are solely the product of the advertiser and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BuehlahMan’s Revolt or WordPress.com

 

B’Man’s Redneck Watch: Chickens In BuelahWorld

I saw this video from Luke Rudkowski (seen on AdamVsThe Man.com) and it touched home because my survival plan includes raising chickens and their eggs for my family. My good ole buddy, Korn Likker, is a chicken expert extraordinaire and has offered to help me get set up and show me the ropes. So, when I see this type of stuff happening, it worries me that even my little ole country town may begin to outlaw such a thing (at this time it is not against the law):

As reported on AdamVsTheMan.com
Luke Rudkowski reports for the suburbs of Atlanta Georgia about the traitorous laws against its citizens.

Hey, Likker, when we gonna get started on my pen?

On another note, my garden is doing great. Going to eat our first cabbage and onion from it today. Also wanted to share with you the miscellaneous herbs (basil, cilantro, oregano, parsley and chives) and my container potato experiment. These two potato plants are 4 times the size of any I planted in the garden.

And, finally, a little ditty I saw on Youtube that fits the subject matter:

If you like what you see here at The Revolt, please subscribe via Email subscription or by the RSS Feed button found on the upper right hand corner of this page and/or hit the Share Button at the bottom of the post to share via various means.

All posts are opinions meant to foster comment, reporting, teaching & study under the “fair use doctrine” in Sec. 107 of U.S. Code Title 17. No statement of fact is made or should be implied. Ads appearing on this blog are solely the product of the advertiser and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BuehlahMan’s Revolt or WordPress.com

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• 11 Contemporary Chicken Coops – From Urban Hen Houses to Green Chicken Coops (TrendHunter.com) (trendhunter.com)
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There are no words….

Don’t Stop With Georgia: Use Redstate’s Guillotine on ALL the reTHUGlicans and demoRATs

I got another update from Erick at Redstate this morning and boy is that guy frustrated with his beloved GOP. He’s all upset this morning with the Georgia GOP and is suggesting that the Georgia Republican representatives of note should be beheaded all at once.

In 2002, Republicans took over the Georgia State Senate and Governor’s Mansion for the first time since the Civil War.

In 2004, the GOP took over the State House of Representatives.

In 2006, the GOP completed its take over of the State of Georgia, capturing the Lt. Governor’s seat, the Secretary of State’s Office, and solidifying its hold on the legislature.

In 2008, when the GOP was crumbling everywhere, it was a banner Republican year in Georgia.

In 2010, the Republicans might be annihilated from the State of Georgia. They would deserve it.

A Lt. Governor caught with his pants down, a Speaker of the House who tried to commit suicide, and a host of potential leaders waiting in the wings all with adultery problems – the GOP deserves destruction in Georgia if it does not clean its own house immediately.

Put simply, while breaking out the guillotine to chop off Speaker Glenn Richardson’s head, the Georgia Republican Party needs to line up Mark Burkhalter, Ben Harbin, Casey Cagle, and a few others behind him. Do it all at one time.

Cleaning up all the blood at once will be far cheaper in the long run.

The timeline is quite telling to me. It appears that this little changeover could be directly correlated with the Georgians beginning to see that these two parties are both shams. Erick knows this but gets paid to continue the divide and to foster as many far right religious fanatical freaks, as possible, no matter how far removed from anything Christ would have.

You know, its one thing to use the figurative language of beheading, but Erick is pretty close to stepping across the figurative line. But no worries, Erick Erickson is only as dangerous as his rhetoric. Anyone knows that. He is nothing more than a shill for the most ravenous fools in politics, so the vast majority pay him no mind whatsoever. But it is an amazing thing for such a God fearing man as he to suggest, isn’t it?

But, this little outburst is important for another reason. It shows the frustration that these idiots have with their dying America-killing brand.

And die it should. Quick.

But don’t stop with Georgia or even the reTHUGlican party. As far as I am concerned, Erick and all you other red meaters out there, take out the demoRATS at the same time so the real America-nurturing citizens can bring sanity back to our country. For the fact is that you fucking nutbags and the ObamaManiacs are a detriment to this country and if anyone needs their figurative heads cut off, let’s get all you nutcases at one time.

I need to point out that had Erick pitched a fit for all the other corrupt, immoral and criminal reTHUGlicans that have been highlighted for their behavior just in the past 3 years, Erick would have very few people to support (his Party would have already died from its immorality). So, this little outcry means little when the man keeps his mouth shut the majority of time in complicit coverup of his coffers and those he must protect.

So, this group is a prime example of Ass-Kissing Sycophants from the “other” party (just so you understand that I don’t only grind my ax towards the faux liberals out there). It is this fake, citizen-brainwashing two party system that needs to go. Not just one or the other party. They are but one Corporatist owned party that do the bidding of Big Money. Period.

The sooner you get that thru your skulls, the better.

Till then, let’s give thanks.

Priorities, Tennesseans: Cut The Kids First… THEN The Poor Adults

Don’t you just love that new, expensive Afghan “Final Push” strategy? And that we are still in Iraq shitting money down that hole while Big Oil reaps the benefits? And that we are building 7 bases in Columbia? That our budget equals about ONE HALF of the WORLD’S military spending? And that we pour money into other countries and their military in amounts unfathomable, especially in our economic circumstances?

Yet, we have “representatives” at every level of government that are implementing cuts to the citizenry’s needs and will not even mention the details of the questions outlined above. We already heard about California paying tax refunds in IOU’s and cutting back on their health care coverage of children. But now it is hitting everywhere, especially close to home.

Tennessee congress has cut off new applicants to CoverKids:

Tennessee suspends enrollment in children’s low-income health care plan

By Tom Eley
3 December 2009

This week, a particularly graphic example of this came from Tennessee, where it has been announced that the state’s health insurance plan for children from low-income families, CoverKids, will no longer accept new applicants. The Tennessee legislature has not appropriated enough money for the program to meet rising demand, even though state spending is matched 3-to-1 by the federal government through the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP. State officials have so far refused to tap into the CoverKids program’s own “rainy day fund,” saying this would be fiscally irresponsible.

In addition, Tennessee will also no longer accept applicants for its health coverage for low-income adults, CoverTN, which is jointly funded by employers, employees, and the state.

In the twelve months ending in October, 110,000 Tennesseans lost their health coverage, mostly as a result of layoffs. Over 10 percent of the workforce is unemployed. And Tennessee’s decision to refuse further low-income applicants also coincides with the ending of a short-term COBRA aid program, by which the federal government contributed about two thirds of the cost of insurance plans so laid off workers could maintain their employer-based plans.

CoverKids complements the state’s Medicaid program, TennCare, which helps to provide coverage primarily for the extremely poor and disabled.

“This is a scary place for babies if CoverKids is gone,” Sandra Neely of Spring Hill told the Tennessean. Neely used TennCare to help her three-year-old granddaughter save an injured tooth. With CoverKids no longer accepting applicants, the family may be without insurance if they earn more money.

“Without CoverKids, there will be no insurance out there for children who are on the borderline of poverty, for the people in the middle who work but don’t have or can’t afford insurance,” Neely said.

“In the midst of an economic crisis putting so many middle-class families on the brink, our state’s policy decisions push them over,” Michele Johnson of the Tennessee Justice Center said to the Tennessean. “The citizens of this state will be paying for these cuts in fiscal and human terms for decades.”

Tennessee faces a $1.5 billion deficit in its $29 billion budget. In freezing out new CHIP applicants it follows California, which rejected new applications between June and September.

These cuts expose once again the reactionary character of President Obama’s proposed health care overhaul, which will call on the states to provide expanded Medicaid coverage without providing further federal funding. As unemployment increases and the COBRA coverage extension ends, the solvency of the states’ Medicaid, CHIP, and other low-income health coverage plans is in increasing doubt…

And it isn’t just Tennessee, my fine southern friends:

…

• The Georgia legislature may convene in early January to enact an additional $400 million in cuts, its Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Jack Hill said on December 1. The state has already cut $3 billion from its budget in the past year, with Governor Sonny Perdue recently putting in place $900 million in cuts that included three-day furloughs of teachers and state workers. More furloughs and layoffs are anticipated to meet the new deficit.

• The Missouri Department of Transportation said Tuesday it will lay off 100 workers and transfer the savings toward its contribution to workers’ retirement plans, which has an unfunded liability of $1.6 billion.

• On Tuesday North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue told reporters that the state’s Medicaid program is already $150 million over budget for the first quarter of the current fiscal year, largely due to unemployment.

• Kentucky will attempt to save $20 million this year by cutting educational funding for preschool programs and curriculum for gifted students.

• A cost-cutting commission in Louisiana said this week that government agencies should seek to reduce the state workforce by 15,000 over three years through layoffs and attrition.

• Mississippi took in $25 million less than it had projected for November, Governor Haley Barbour’s office announced on Tuesday. It is $136.6 million short of projections for the first five months of its fiscal year. A new round of cuts is expected within days.

So, my dear redneck brethren, how can you justify in your mind spending all this money on people EVERYWHERE else in the world and we cut off the most helpless and needy among us?

Gotta “balance the budget”, but not reign in a dime of foreign military payouts that amount to well over 1/2 of the US’s budget and 1/2 of the military spending of the world?

Priorities, anyone?

Click to enlarge

Ed Is Screwed

Ed from Not Another CONspiracy (a once friend and confidant) can rejoice today since his GOP run state has been very busy prepping him and the rest off the Sheople in Georgia for forced vaccinations. Linked by PrisonPlanet, to EarthJive‘s post that gets into the details of this bill. Are you ready to roll up your sleeves?

Groundwork Laid for Mandatory Vaccination in Georgia

On April 28, 2009 Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue signed House Bill 217 (“the/this Bill”). It is imperative that all citizens of Georgia read this Bill, as it is now law. It can be found at the following link:
http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2009_10/versions/hb217_HB_217_AP_10.htm

Listed below are a few, not all, of the powers granted to the state government. Each item in bold print is taken directly from the Bill.

1. Physicians are given the right to “authorize the use of influenza vaccine orders for a group of patients”.

In the Bill, there is no definition provided for ‘group of patients’. Thus a group of patients could be residents of a certain county, students of a school, children of a certain age group, adults of a certain age group, ANYONE.

2. “No physician who complies with the provisions of this code shall be subject to criminal or civil liability or discipline for 1) entering into an influenza agreement with a pharmacist or nurse, 2) issuing an influenza vaccine order”.

Any physician who follows this code is exempt from any legal recourse.

3. “Consent of the child’s parent or legal guardian shall be a condition precedent to the administration of an influenza vaccine to a child under the age of 18.”

In an effort to define “Condition Precedent,” The University of Chicago School of Law states that:

• “To the extent that the non-occurrence of a condition would cause disproportionate forfeiture (in this case the possibility of forfeiture of public health due to the H1N1 flu) a court may excuse the condition…”

May a court excuse a promise? No. Again, according to the University of Chicago Law School:

• “If a term is described as a promise rather than a condition precedent, both parties would still owe the duties pledged to each other.” The wording in the LAW is clearly stated as a condition precedent – not a promise.

Thus, the particular wording of this law allows for the Physician (at the direction of the state government) to disregard the Parent’s wishes.

• University of Chicago interpretation of Condition Precedent:
  http://home.uchicago.edu/~jmellis/condition%20precedent.html

4. “Notwithstanding any law to the contrary, a nurse acting pursuant to an influenza vaccine protocol agreement as provided in this Code section may possess and transport influenza vaccine and epinephrine”.

The above item allows a nurse to travel with the vaccine.

Where is the nurse taking it? To a school? To your home? No further clarification is provided.

The final section of this bill states: “All laws and parts of laws in conflict with this Act are repealed,” so there is no law to the contrary.

Taken as a whole, this Bill allows mandatory vaccination of any person if the Government deems it necessary, even in the person’s own home.

Are you Georgia rednecks gonna put up with this? Are you ready to roll up the sleeves and allow these maniacs to plunge unproven and unsafe substances into your body? There is a petition you can sign to stop this, but I am not sure if the Sheoplicity has finally taken full reign of your senses. It apparently has with Ed.

At the same time, guess what is being planned? Our wonderful government is now considering (over and above the mandatory state law listed above and in Massachusetts) that they will also put you in jail AND charge you $25,000 fine enforced by the IRS if you refuse to purchase health insurance.

From NaturalNews:

(NaturalNews) There’s a popular video circulating on the ‘net right now about how to escape handcuffs without using a key. Americans are watching the video to bone up on essential skills that will soon be needed for health care reform, it seems, since the new laws that are about to be put in place call for Americans to be arrested and thrown in jail if they refuse to buy health insurance.

This has now been confirmed by Tom Barthold, the Chief of Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation. And it’s not merely about jail time; it’s also about the $25,000 fine that could be levied by the IRS against individuals who refuse to buy health insurance.

That this is even being considered just boggles the mind. If a person is too broke to afford health insurance right now, how are they supposed to be able to buy it after paying a $25,000 fine and spending a year in prison?

As Paul Craig Roberts brilliantly pointed out in a recent essay, this is like trying to solve the homeless problem by forcing homeless people to buy a home, then throwing them in prison when they can’t afford to.

Now let’s put this in perspective. Over 250 people in my home town (children) have been diagnosed with H1N1 and most, if not all are over it within a few days. My own sister-in-law’s family had it for 2-3 days and its over. I have yet to meet a person who has contracted the H1N1, so as far as I know, I have not been exposed. But my work has me meeting and shaking hands of people all over the southeast USA (am leaving for Little Rock at lunch today, as a matter of fact). I suppose one never knows, but we DO know that the normal everyday flu is more virulent and dangerous than this H1N1.

I am taking personal precautions to avoid transmittal to me. I have been cleaning my hands religiously, especially after interacting with someone (shaking hands, etc). I am taking 2,000iu of Vitamin D3 (I have considered raising this). I also take a multivitamin that has selenium and calcium (the calcium helps break down the Vitamin D).

But can one seriously think that forcing poor people to buy insurance is a sane solution, when the average cost of Premiums alone is over $13,000 (and that is without any major health issues). Mine (family of three) was over $14,000/year in premiums… not to mention the deductible and out of pocket expenses that averaged around $23,000/year for the past three or four years.

Are these idiots paying attention to who their constituents are? Does the Georgia legislature truly believe that people can afford the piss-poor “service” they get? Does you elected leaders, Mr and Mrs Georgian, actually have a clue about your fight to survive without them forcing you into more poverty?

Get your head outta your ass and think about what is happening. They are going to force you into a non-value added system and imprison/fine you if you don’t.

So, if they are going to force health insurance on everyone, we need to get loud and express that ANY health coverage that will be for all, will be a Single Payer system. Time is up for the Health Insurance Company, except for those few idiots that believe we have the very best healthcare in the world (precisely the same way they think we have the very best manufacturing in the world). Are you all ignorant or retarded?

Dumbasses like Ed need to wake up and see what is coming. The people against Single Payer are instrumental in making the health insurance companies even richer and give them even more control over your lives.

I don’t expect the insane to recover, but I can wish.

Snap out of it Ed (and the rest of you rednecks).

Peanut Butter Recall Expands To Additional Products

That cramp you been feeling is from the peanut butter cookie you ate yesterday…

USA Today (1/19, Weise) reported, “FDA staff are working to track what products contain salmonella-tainted peanut butter and paste made in a Georgia manufacturing plant. So far, 474 people have been sickened in a 43-state salmonella outbreak that may have contributed to six deaths.” PCA’s plant in Blakely, Ga., “believed to be the source of the contamination, distributed a relatively small amount of the peanut butter and paste used to produce snacks and treats. … But PCA sold to at least 85 companies, some of which distributed to other food manufacturers.”

The Washington Post (1/20, Reinberg) reports the latest round of recalls followed an FDA “warning Saturday that consumers should avoid peanut butter products containing peanut butter or peanut butter paste while the salmonella outbreak probe continued. The U.S. health warning is focused on products made with peanut butter, like crackers, not jars of peanut butter on store shelves.”

The AP (1/18) reported, “Officials said new illnesses are still being reported in the outbreak investigation. Kellogg Co., which listed Peanut Corp. as one of its suppliers, has recalled 16 products. They include Austin and Keebler branded Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers, and some snack-size packs of Famous Amos Peanut Butter Cookies and Keebler Soft Batch Homestyle Peanut Butter Cookies.” In addition, “Perry’s Ice Cream Co., based in Akron, N.Y., said it was recalling select ice cream products containing peanut butter because of the PCA investigation” and “the Midwest supermarket chain Hy-Vee Inc. of West Des Moines, Iowa, said yesterday that it was voluntarily recalling products made in its bakery departments with peanut butter because they had the potential to be contaminated with salmonella.”

The Wall Street Journal (1/20) reports, “Ralcorp Frozen Bakery Products Inc. on Sunday announced that it’s recalling all Wal-Mart ‘Bakery’ brands of peanut-butter cookies, peanut-butter no-bake cookies and peanut-butter-fudge no-bake cookies.” The FDA said “consumers should avoid eating food containing peanut butter unless they know it isn’t linked to Peanut Corp., Lynchburg, Va.” The FDA is “inspecting some of the direct distributors, including King Nut Co. in Solon, Ohio, and is following the distribution chain to figure out which companies used Peanut Corp. products. The FDA is also asking companies to check their supply chain and tell consumers if their ingredients came from Peanut Corp.”

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!

Talk about ignorant and crazy!!

After Obama’s win, white backlash festers in US

By Patrik Jonsson Patrik Jonsson – Mon Nov 17, 3:00 am ET

AP

Atlanta – In rural Georgia, a group of high-schoolers gets a visit from the Secret Service after posting “inappropriate” comments about President-elect Barack Obama on the Web. In Raleigh, N.C., four college students admit to spraying race-tinged graffiti in a pedestrian tunnel after the election. On Nov. 6, a cross burns on the lawn of a biracial couple in Apolacon Township, Pa.

The election of America’s first black president has triggered more than 200 hate-related incidents, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center – a record in modern presidential elections. Moreover, the white nationalist movement, bemoaning an election that confirmed voters’ comfort with a multiracial demography, expects Mr. Obama’s election to be a potent recruiting tool – one that watchdog groups warn could give new impetus to a mostly defanged fringe element.

Most election-related threats have so far been little more than juvenile pranks. But the political marginalization of certain Southern whites, economic distress in rural areas, and a White House occupant who symbolizes a multiethnic United States could combine to produce a backlash against what some have heralded as the dawn of a postracial America. In some parts of the South, there’s even talk of secession.

“Most of this movement is not violent, but there is a substantive underbelly that is violent and does try to make a bridge to people who feel disenfranchised,” says Brian Levin of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. “The question is: Will this swirl become a tornado or just an ill wind? We’re not there yet, but there’s dust on the horizon, a swirling of wind, and the atmospherics are getting put together for [conflict].”

Though postelection racist incidents haven’t posed any real danger to society or the president-elect, law enforcement is taking note.

“We’re trying to be out there at the cutting edge of this and trying to stay ahead of groups that are emerging,” says Special Agent Darrin Blackford, a spokesman for the Secret Service, which guards the US president.

“Anytime you start seeing [extremist propaganda] floating around, you have to be concerned,” adds Lt. Gary Thornberry of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, a member of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. “As far as it being an alarmist situation, I don’t see that yet. From a law enforcement point of view, you have to be careful, because it’s not illegal to have an ideology.”

After sparking conflict and showdowns in the 1990s – think Ruby Ridge, Waco, the Oklahoma City bombing – white supremacist and nationalist groups began this century largely splintered and powerless. Though high immigration levels helped boost the number of hate groups from 602 in 2000 to 888 in 2007, key leaders of such groups had died, been imprisoned, or were otherwise marginalized.

But postelection, at least two white nationalist websites – Stormfront and the Council of Conservative Citizens – report their servers have crashed because of heavy traffic. The League of the South, a secessionist group, says Web hits jumped from 50,000 a month to 300,000 since Nov. 4, and its phones are ringing off the hook.

“The vitriol is flailing out shotgun-style,” says Mr. Levin. “They recognize Obama as a tipping point, the perfect storm in the narrative of the hate world – the apocalypse that they’ve been moaning about has come true.”

Supremacist propaganda is already on the upswing. In Oklahoma, fringe groups have distributed anti-Obama propaganda through newspapers and taped it to home mail boxes. Ugly incidents such as cross-burnings, assassination betting pools, and Obama effigies are also being reported from Maine to Alabama.

The Ku Klux Klan has been tied to recent news events, as well. Two Tennessee men implicated for plotting to kill 88 black men, including Obama, were tied to the KKK chapter whose leader was convicted in a civil trial in Brandenburg, Ky., last week, for inciting violence. The murder last week in Louisiana of a KKK initiate, allegedly killed after trying to back out of joining, came at the hands of a new group called Sons of Dixie, authorities say.

“We’re not looking at a race war or anything close to it, but … what we are seeing now is undeniably a fairly major backlash by some subset of the white population,” says Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report in Montomgery, Ala. “Many whites feel that the country their forefathers built has been … stolen from them, so there’s in some places a real boiling rage, and that can only become worse as more people lose jobs.”

In an election in which barely 20 percent of native Southern whites in Deep South states voted for Obama, the newly apparent political clout of “outsiders” and people of color has been unnerving to some.

“In states like Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama, there was extraordinary racial polarization in the vote,” says Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. “Black Americans really do believe that Obama is going to represent their interests and views in ways that they haven’t been before, and, in the Deep South, whites feel exactly the opposite.”

But for nonviolent secessionist groups like the League of the South, the hope is for a more vigorous debate about the direction of the US and the South’s role in it, says Michael Tuggle, a League blogger in North Carolina.

Mr. Tuggle says his group isn’t looking for an 1860-style secession but, rather, a model that Spain, for one, is moving toward, in which “there’s a great deal of autonomy for constituent regions” – a foil to what is seen as unchecked, dangerous federal power in Washington.

“To a lot of people, the idea of secession doesn’t seem so crazy anymore,” says Tuggle. “People are talking about how left out they feel, … and they feel that something strange and radical has taken over our country.”

Parental Rights? Minors?

My son was 7 years old [ he is now 30] when I fought the fight at City Hall regarding “when and why were my parental rights about choice regarding what is best for my son taken away?” My ONLY issue then was he was in a Sex Ed Class that I knew nothing about– and was taught and ‘shown’ how to use an Oral Dam. I wanted pre-knowledge of the upcoming class and curriculm, as well as an op-out available if I chose to not have him attend. My entire point was ‘I had no rights’. THIS is why I posted this news story. I fully understand these parents anger and frustration. How about you?? Your kids???  really— forget about what the ad was for [or maybe not who knows]… the point is as parents they have no say over their minor daughter. Whatever law covers those who took the film, my question is why in the hell would it not exclude minors??

more about “MSNVideo.flv – Video – Photobucket – …“, posted with vodpod

video> http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m143/lrose48/?action=view&current=MSNVideo.flv

Ok– I confess, this is SO like me! lol

……. well at least it’s like me being ‘tech challenged’…

Those of us that just don’t get tech stuff!!

►

Retro Essay– “…Under God…”

Retro Essay  from ‘Letters from America’

The pledge of allegiance

Monday mornings in almost every public elementary school in America the children rise and then they recite (or they could choose to listen to the class chanting) the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States. It’s a single sentence and this is how it goes:

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Last week it was announced in Washington that next February 2004 the nine justices of the Supreme Court will meet one morning and begin to consider the complaint of an atheist parent who says it’s against the Constitution that he should have to make his daughter listen to “a ritual proclaiming that there is a god”.

When it does come up I imagine the young atheist will have a hard time restraining himself from a cry of shame as he stands and watches the nine justices bow their heads in prayer, as is their custom.

What clause in the Constitution does he believe is being violated? Why the very first amendment, the first item in the Bill of Rights.

It is written in the most guileless English: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.

What could be simpler? What could be also vaguer? – The moment you reflect what the 18th Century meant by “establishment” for instance.

So many words have changed their meaning drastically since the 17th and 18th centuries – much of the Bible, much more of Shakespeare, is not understandable without explanatory footnotes.

To the Founding Fathers who wrote it “establishment” meant a religious sect.

What a pity they didn’t write the sentence the other way round: “Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. Oh but by the way, we’re not going as a nation to have a preferred sect, it’s too late for that, it would lead to endless dissension between the Congregationalists of Massachusetts and Connecticut, the Catholics of Maryland, the Quakers of Pennsylvania..

“So, to be clearly understood, gentlemen, let’s make it plain: we shall not have a national religion like the Church of England.

“That being so it must be made equally plain that no law of Congress can prohibit any man or woman practising his/her own religion freely, everywhere – in church, in the street, in Congress, at home, away – freely.”

For 150 years this reading was simply assumed by most people. As a learned history of the Supreme Court tells us: from the founding era at the end of the 18th Century, well into the 20th Century, religion was thought to be a significant and legitimate component of American public life.

By the 1940s, however, American public life had become largely secular.

One short, offhand sentence covers a tremendous fact: the decline of religious belief in the general population of the Western nations, deeper still in Europe.

In France in 1960 one family in three were weekly churchgoers. Today it’s one in eight.

In England today only six people in a hundred claim to be devoutly religious. In the United States the comparable devout figure is 65%.

But there’s been a dramatic increase in the Americans who don’t want religion to appear in any shape or form in public life.

Hence these continual appeals to the courts, from keeping religious symbols of any public building, all the way to banning the use of the word god in political speech.

To put it more formally, the atheists have gone bananas in the extent to which they misinterpret the first amendment – as you’ll see from the final appeal of this young father who wants “under God” taken out of the pledge of allegiance.

Well, let’s go back to the pledge and its invention.

It was composed by an ex-minister and published in a magazine called The Youth Companion.

When? That’s the point – 1892.

The Congress leapt at a happy idea. Since the upcoming 12th October marked the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of America, that would be the perfect day to introduce the chanting of the pledge as a daily ritual in the elementary schools.

And so it was. But no mention of under God. “One nation under God” did not appear until 1954.

Why 1954 I wondered? I never saw a story explaining why. I thought some digging was necessary and it’s turned out that a little digging produced a load of pay dirt.

In early 1954 at a conference of the four allied powers occupying Germany, the United States, Britain and France were all for reunifying Germany under one government.

The Soviets were absolutely opposed and had in Europe armies five times the size of the combined allied armies. So that was that.

Far away in French Indochina the French were collapsing against Vietnamese guerrillas fighting to be independent.

The French begged President Eisenhower to help with American troops. Eisenhower said no troops.

But he made an impassioned public assertion that the defeat of Communism in South East Asia was vital. That if one country went Communist the neighbours could fall too, like a row of dominoes.

This was a pressing fear in Washington at that time, fears for Malaysia, Indochina, for Burma and India.

Also 1954 was the heyday of a middle western senator who, after a high State Department official had been convicted of passing papers to the Soviet Union, launched an immensely popular campaign to root Communists out of American government.

He gave us alarming numbers but he never actually came up with a positive Communist who had not declared himself.

Nevertheless, such was the fear of the time that from Moscow to Asia “godless Communism” might prevail.

President Eisenhower, many public men and women, used that phrase over and over.

And it was by executive order on Flag Day 1954 that President Eisenhower ordered the pledge now to read “I pledge allegiance to the flag” and so on, “and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God indivisible.”

So far as the young protesting father’s concerned, the villain of the peace is not – as most people think – the Congress of the United States but the late, great Ike, supreme commander of the invading forces in Europe and later president of the United States.

If the young father wins surely somebody will then mount a crusade to have erased from all dollar bills of every denomination the sentence printed in brazen capital letters: “In God we trust”.

And if he wins that will entail destroying every bill and totally reprinting the United States currency.

It would cost the Treasury – the taxpayer, that is – well, it’s been figured maybe $7-8bn.

But what’s that to the average taxpayer? He’s already going to have to find 20 billions for tidying up Iraq.

A recent visitor from Europe remarked at some point how often in daily conversation here he had heard the passing phrase “just before 9/11″, or “about a month after September 11″, or “Oh, 11 September changed all that.”

I tried to explain to him how we felt personally outraged, what a traumatic event it was and perhaps one you could not feel if you saw it on television from 3,000 miles away.

To have had this feeling and find it still there deep inside, since we were never told that American intelligence agents had foiled plotted atrocities as large and murderous as the bombing of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

How I wish I had read two years ago a piece I came on the other night when I picked up one of my standby bedtime books, Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi.

He’s writing about a recollection of life in the South where he’d spent so much time of his youth.

This passage, however, is about a sharp distinction between social conversation in the North and the South in the decade after the end of the Civil War. I imagine this piece must have been written about late 1870s or 1880.

“In the North one hears the war mentioned in social conversation once a month, sometimes once a week but as a distinct subject for talk it has long been relieved of duty.

“Given a company of six gentlemen, four possibly five were not in the field at all. Add six ladies and you will have added six people who saw little of the dread realities of the war and ran out of talk about it years ago.

“The case is very different in the South. There every man you meet was in the war and every lady you meet saw the war. The interest in the war is still vivid and constant, it’s what AD is, elsewhere they date from it.

“Things happened ‘since the war’ or ‘during the war’ or ‘about two years after the war’.

“You can’t talk pale, inconsequent matters when you’ve got a crimson fact in your head that you’re burning to fetch out. This gives the inexperienced stranger better than anything else the sense of what a vast and comprehensive calamity invasion is.”

Invasion is the key word. We felt that the bombing of the Towers and the Pentagon was an invasion of this country.

We came, as perhaps Europeans could not, to feel that this was the beginning of a war, of the Third World War and an alarming novelty of war: one against a worldwide enemy who is invisible

She stands before the powder keg with a match,,,

Chicago Sun-Times 10/08

Sarah’s Silent says much!

‘South Pacific” is a morality play for our time. Sarah Palin is the Ensign Nellie Forbush — an All-American girl as racist, this time a racist with her eye on the White House. She can stir up crowds to shout “Kill him!” at the mention of the presidential candidate of the other party a couple of weeks before the national election.

In the restaurant, before I walked over to the theater, all the conversations were about the election — New Yorkers speak loudly in their noisy city for fear they will not be heard. The common opinion was that they didn’t know enough about Barack Obama to make a decision about him — as if there were not two books about his life. That plea implies that they don’t know enough about him to accept his strange name or his skin color. It is, of course, impossible that they could ever know enough. He isn’t one of us.

It is all part of a plan cooked up by John McCain to turn the major issue in the election from the economy to the character of the Democratic candidate. At this stage of the contest, I don’t think “kitchen-sink strategy” (as in “we’ll throw the kitchen sink at him”) will change the outcome of the election. I don’t believe the polls that suggest a possible Obama landslide. Playing the race card explicitly merely guarantees what I have thought from the beginning — racism in this country precludes the possibility of a sepia-colored man becoming president. However, the last-ditch attack on him guarantees that McCain and Palin will be blamed as the candidates who were content to hear crowds calling for the death of Obama. Their silence regarding standing before people calling for the ‘death, lynching…of ”… and the calling Obama a “traitor”– tells much about them both internally.

Ensign Nellie Forbush (the incomparable Kelli O’Hara) finds redemption at the end of South Pacific. She turns to her true love and escapes the obligation to wait for the enchanted evening on which he might suddenly might appear across a crowded room. For Sarah Palin, such an easy escape hardly seems possible. How can she ever justify silence when she heard a cry for lynching? To provoke a racist– to allow the flame to be fanned– to be a part of what all America fears down deep because of the underbelly of our Nation, there are no words for her. No, none at all.

McCain increasingly acts like an angry, befuddled cancer survivor and treats his rival like a field n—– who is just barely human. He does not talk to him, will not shake hands with him, will not even look at him, walks behind him when he is speaking to distract the audience. Obama’s languid, legs-crossed security on the bar stool must infuriate McCain all the more. Who does he think he is? He has no right to run for president and McCain does. Has not he served his country all his life? Has not he traveled the whole world? Has not he been involved in every major event of the last four decades? Does he not know everyone who is worth knowing? And what does his rival have to offer besides intolerable arrogance? Black skin and glib language? Is not Obama the one who is playing the race card? Therefore he must be exposed as what he is — a pushy fellow with a glib tongue who has no right to challenge a great American like John McCain.

McCain has little time left. He has been been cheated in other elections. Troubled and distracted, he has forgotten his strong words about honor. When one is faced with a shallow man who is running on the basis of his skin color, one can hardly worry about personal honor.

Now the furies are gathering.

One World Monitary System… my, my

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20081018/D93T3NOO1.html

I sort of always knew that America was the nation spoken about that would be the last one to turn against Israel; as well as a bunch of other things to come.. and I guess also I got taken back a bit by reading this article. I guess the end game is being played and yes, we are among the players.