All going to shit department...

It hasn't been a great couple weeks. ISIS, Ebola, stock market dumping, seems like everything is going to shit. Personally I have been working my ass off, Palm Springs last week, Santa Barbara this week, my immune system has taken a serious hit and I have been suffering a terrible cold. Sixteen tons what do you get...

Today I read that the mosquito that carries yellow fever has been found in Southern California, hantavirus has been located in deer mice in Fallbrook, a hurricane is bearing down on the big island, and clowns are outraged over a new movie that is going to further stoke the fires of coulraphobia.

Oy.

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I have been having serious irrigation problems on my old ranch, after 40 years plus, stuff is breaking down. I was at Grangetto the other morning buying a gate valve when a guy was yammering about Obama bringing Ebola to this country because he has a vendetta against Texas. Brilliant strategy, Barack.

Seriously there was quite a disconnect this week. The same time Obama was mouthing that protocols were in place, the Texas nursing group was saying that there were in fact no protocols whatsoever and that it took three days to even get hazmat suits.

Of course the Texans have apologized. Not to hard to imagine Ebola starting to really work the exponential algorithm, start knocking people out like dominos. It's of course a different story when it starts killing white people. Then it is serious business. But if there were 100 people on the plane...Reminds me of a science fiction story I read once where a guy infected money with a toxin that ended up killing everybody. Greedy bastards couldn't keep their hands off it.

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Anyhow thinking about Texas made me think back to my recent trip through there, all of the pollution present in a place where any government regulation is hated and resisted and "bidness" is everything. Remember the fertilizer explosion in West, Texas? Think anything has changed?

I was thinking about this stuff because the Senate candidate from Iowa, Joni Ernst has been spouting off on all of the government agencies she wants to kill if elected. First the EPA.

“I do believe our states know best how to protect their natural resources,” the state senator said. “I believe this can be done at the state level, rather than at a national level with the federal EPA.”

I wrote last year about the problems with this local approach to environmental problems, specifically the problems in North Dakota where businesses are spilling oil like crazy or dumping radioactive waste in landfills. It is the wild west out there. Maybe a state like California could take care of its pollution problems but you think it will fly in Alaska, Wyoming or Mississippi?  Money always wins. Look what happened in North Carolina last year  with the coal ash. Ms. Ernst approach is a recipe for disaster.

And not content to kill the environment, she wants to do away with the Department of Education, the Clean Water Act and the IRS as well. Looks like she might win too.

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The Justice Department is fighting the release of video showing the force feeding of Guantanamo prisoners that a judge has granted permission to be released. Methinks it is going to look a hell of a lot like torture and this administration, ever conscious of optics and perception, would rather not deal with the expected blowback.

Same administration that did nothing when CIA operative Jose Rodriguez illegally burned the torture tapes and covered agency tracks. What a bunch of mealy mouthed pussies. If we are going to engage in this type of behavior let's all see what we are doing in the light of day. Maybe then we will all buy in.