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Yosemite under Orion's gaze

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Blogpost to be named later


Never impose your language on people you wish to reach. Abbie Hoffman

Kind of tough getting back into the swing after the long roadie, have to settle down easy as they say. Grab some disjointed low hanging fruit and not get too literate.

So Steve Bannon was a Deadhead? Horrors. I wrote an article on the subject of racist republicans proclaiming eternal allegiance to the dead quite a few years ago. Here it is. Whatever I said then.

Seriously, it always cracks me up to hear the same guys now talking about Friedrich Hayak, in Bannon's case Toynbee or Raspail, cutting off Grandma's food stamps and the superiority of the Aryan race are maybe the same ones that you once saw bobbing their heads to Ramble on Rose during the first set and snorting up half of the annual Andean snowfall supply.

It used to be, enjoy the music, be kind, don't hurt anybody and don't step on the grass, Sam. Not lets bring on the fourth Reich. Jerry would be very unhappy with you, Steve. You weren't the one that got into that bad batch of the black hits with Ann Coulter were you? They were supposed to be off limits.

I know far too many radically gop deadheads. One guy who was lit up on liquid acid for two decades and more who turned his own son in for smoking pot. The kid did six months in the slam. A tripster that once cut Elston Gunn's lawn and now loves the Orange one.

Hard to figure people once espousing a band that tolerated recreational drug use, gays, bi's, tri's and whatevers, religious beliefs of all stripes, not to mention personal freedom and responsibility, turning into such total dicks. Whose party wants to roll back all sorts of rights and pleasures that you take for granted.

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Good article at Politico on Trump and the new dictator chic.

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Cutting mine safety inspections in Coal Country. Goodbye Meals on Wheels. Trump slashes funds for EPA, State Department, the complete elimination of the $3 billion Community Development Block Grant program, USAID, what am I forgetting? NEA, PBS, etc. Let Exxon and Duke run the country, for god's sakes, they have your best interests at heart and companies will police themselves.

Tough to stick it to the elderly on food at the same time we are jacking their insurance payments up to 20k or so a year. But don't worry folks. They will just do without and die quicker and your Malthusian problems are solved! And remember, if the stock market is up, everything is good!

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Everybody is writing about the health care bill and I certainly don't need to join the party. But I find it funny that the act in three parts bill is getting more conservative in the house to placate the "Freedom" wing right before it is slated to get real moderate for the Senate Republicans. Getting dizzy.

Lets get another thing straight. There is no federal law right now forbidding health insurers to cross state lines. You can't insure the old, weak and infirm without participation of the young and healthy in a mandate of some sort.

Lot of bullshit out there. Obamacare could be fixed with both hands on the oars but it is not in a death spiral and enjoys the support of the majority, not that that means anything anymore. Obamacare premiums went up for three percent of the population, not a huge plurality. In any case, the Republican "cure" is much worse than the disease. Ho hum, doesn't matter, they promised...

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Has Russia penetrated the United States Spy System? The NERDS and Vault 7.

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Was Monsanto colluding with the EPA on the severity of Glyphosate dangers? Dying scientist Marion Copley appeared to think exactly that. I created this logo years ago. Found it on the internet where I left it.
Dr. Copley’s letter points at corruption within EPA; she asks that Mr. Rowland consider her scientific assertions rather that “play your political conniving games with the science to favor the registrants [pesticide manufacturers].” Dr. Copley confronts Mr. Rowland with allegations that he and Anna Lowit, who still works at EPA, “intimidated staff on CARC and changed HIARC and HASPOC final reports to favor industry.” Dr. Copley’s letter closes with an additional accusation toward Ms. Lowit: “If anyone in OPP is taking bribes, it is her.” She requests that Mr. Rowland “for once do the right thing and don’t make decisions based on how it affects your bonus.”
Dr. Copley’s letter, discovered after the filing of this Motion, substantiates many of Plaintiffs’ suspicions regarding EPA’s improper relationship with Monsanto. It highlights the need to take the testimony of Mr. Rowland on these issues now. Plaintiffs have explored the issues as much as they can with party witnesses; indeed, several witnesses acknowledge knowing Mr. Rowland but are unable (or unwilling) to provide any details of his relationship with Monsanto.
Dr. Copley’s dying request was that Mr. Rowland “for once do the right thing and don’t make decisions based on how it affects your bonus. You and Anna Lowit intimidated staff on CARC and changed HIARC and HASPOC final reports to favor industry.”
More here at Bloomberg. 
The Environmental Protection Agency official who was in charge of evaluating the cancer risk of Monsanto Co.’s Roundup allegedly bragged to a company executive that he deserved a medal if he could kill another agency’s investigation into the herbicide’s key chemical.
The boast was made during an April 2015 phone conversation, according to farmers and others who say they’ve been sickened by the weed killer. After leaving his job as a manager in the EPA’s pesticide division last year, Jess Rowland has become a central figure in more than 20 lawsuits in the U.S. accusing the company of failing to warn consumers and regulators of the risk that its glyphosate-based herbicide can cause non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
“If I can kill this I should get a medal,” Rowland told a Monsanto regulatory affairs manager who recounted the conversation in an email to his colleagues, according to a court filing made public Tuesday. The company was seeking Rowland’s help stopping an investigation of glyphosate by a separate office, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, that is part of the U.S. Health and Human Service Department, according to the filing.
A federal judge overseeing the glyphosate litigation in San Francisco said last month he’s inclined to order Rowland to submit to questioning by lawyers for the plaintiffs, who contend he had a "highly suspicious" relationship with Monsanto. Rowland oversaw a committee that found insufficient evidence to conclude glyphosate causes cancer and quit last year shortly after his report was leaked to the press.

While Scott Pruitt denies human complicity in climate change as well as the phenomenon of mercury poisoning over at EPA, atmospheric C02 rises to a record rate. Yea!
Atmospheric CO2 levels measured at the Mauna Loa Baseline Atmospheric Observatory in Hawaii, the world’s marquee site for carbon dioxide monitoring, soared by a record-breaking 3 parts per million in both 2015 and 2016, according to data that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released on Friday.
Carbon dioxide concentrations measured at the facility hit 405.1 parts per million last year, the agency said, adding that similar observations had been recorded at dozens of other sites all over the world.
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Trump administration rolling back Obama era requirements that energy companies disclose the chemicals that they use when fracking on public land. Surprised?

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I think that's all I've got. Bob DeGoff told me that he can no longer send my blog to his friends, it upsets them. Sorry, Bob.

Didn't get shit done today with the exception of an oil change, frame repair, mailed a package, not much else. Need a day off, wanted to go out to the desert and photograph wildflowers but it may not happen. Tomorrow I get to deal with another car dealership.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'd rather fight than switch.