Category Archives: Uncategorized

New Jersey Delays Medical Marijuana 90 Days

New Jersey governor Chris Christie (R) has requested a postponement of six to 12 months to ensure that proper regulations and controls could be put in place.

Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D., Linden) said Wednesday he intends to introduce legislation Monday to grant the state 90 more days to implement the medical marijuana law, which was supposed to go into effect in July with marijuana distribution to start by October.

Link: N.J. medical marijuana to be delayed | Philadelphia Inquirer | 06/16/2010.

sSide Order

‘Freedom Flotilla’ sing-a-long.

Jail officers astonished by inmate’s contraband

Police in Wenatchee are surprised at the amount of contraband an inmate was able to smuggle into the jail rectally. The Wenatchee World said the man internally carried a cigarette lighter, rolling papers, a baggie of tobacco the size of a golf ball, a smaller baggie of marijuana, a 1-inch smoking pipe, a bottle of tattoo ink and eight tattoo needles.

Sgt. John Kruse said the volume of contraband left officers wondering.

A dogs day at the lake, the video.

And live from the ocean floor, Spillcam.

Demand For Biofuels Hurting Poorer Nations

This is not a new subject, just an example of what happens when governments fail to learn from their mistakes. It’s what happens when foodstuffs are used in biofuel production.

Families from Pakistan to Argentina to Congo are being battered by surging food prices that are dragging more people into poverty, fueling political tensions and forcing some to give up eating meat, fruit and even tomatoes.

With food costing up to 70 percent of family income in the poorest countries, rising prices are squeezing household budgets and threatening to worsen malnutrition, while inflation stays moderate in the United States and Europe. Compounding the problem in many countries: prices hardly fell from their peaks in 2008, when global food prices jumped in part due to a smaller U.S. wheat harvest and demand for crops to use in biofuels.

But it goes even further than that. In terms of the carbon footprint created in producing biofuels compared to that of fossil fuels, fossil fuels out-green biofuels. So how smart is it to do unnecessary harm to the environment while increasing food prices and hurting the poorer nations around the world?

More of history repeating itself happens when governments refuse to learn how markets operate and what happens to them when the government steps in with taxes and price controls.

Argentina’s government has responded with higher taxes, export limits, controls on supermarket prices of meat, wheat and corn, subsidies to food producers and pay hikes of 30 percent for union workers. The moves have temporarily eased the pain but beef producers have thinned their herds in response to government intervention and the price of meat has doubled in the last year.

“Before, we would eat meat three times a week. Now it’s once, with luck,” said Marta Esposito, a 45-year-old mother of two in Buenos Aires. “Tomatoes, don’t even talk about it. We eat whatever is the cheapest.”

The environmental movement really has to come clean on what their goal is. Is it to help the environment, or is it to handicap the United States?

Link: Surging costs hit food security in poorer nationsFossil Fuels Out-Green BiofuelsUnited Nations Warns Of Food Fight

Bee Pee In The Hot Seat

Now that crude oil from BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig is finally reaching the Florida Panhandle, the slow moving train wreck is becoming reality for what is referred to as The Emerald Coast.

I guess we can look forward to President Obama coming here to show how he feels our pain.

RicksBlog solicited alternative definitions for BP, formerly known as British Petroleum. Apparently, my suggestion did not meet his editorial standards. Actually there were two. One verbal, one visual.

What do you think of them?

Beyond Pissed

and

Help Is On The Way In Gulf Oil Leak, Part 2

This is a follow-up to Help Is On The Way In Gulf Oil Leak from two days ago. Written by Dr. Thomas B. Manton who went to Venice, LA to assess the situation and offer his expertise to the government in mitigating this disaster in the Gulf. Good news on that front could possibly be coming in the near future. Of course you will see it here and elsewhere when things become ‘official.’ But first this from Dr. Manton.

THE HUMAN FACE OF VENICE, LOUISIANA

The Pastor must take care of his/her Flock. That is what The Rev. Captain Jesse Morris has been doing for the last many years – through both the disaster of Hurricane Katrina and now the massive BP oil spill here in the Gulf just off the shores of this small fishing and oil servicing town.

On August 29th 2005 Katrina swooped in from the Gulf of Mexico and covered the place where we are now staying with 20 feet of water between the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. This town of Venice did not have one building standing here. Everything here has been built since the reconstruction of the town began in 2005-6. It has been a remarkable transformation that this town has gone through due to the energy and dedication and determination of its people.

Jesse Morris stands out as a shining example of this huge transformation. He would say that he did his duty as a Pastor and a shepherd to his flock. Yet his ingenuity and leadership guided so many people through the most difficult years of their lives and he continues to undertake that wonderful role during this time when so many of his flock (75% of his congregation are fisherman like him) have no prospect of work for years to come because of the pollution in the entire food chain. . If you are asking why can’t they be trained to do something else. Sixty percent of the fishermen cannot read or write and they are 4th or 5th or 6th generation of fishermen. Jesse’s father cannot read or write yet Jesse went to college and is a leader of the whole community. He is truly a remarkable human being.

In talking to Jesse and his lovely wife, Charlotte, this morning we learned that they were not permitted by the authorities to return to Venice until four weeks after the hurricane. They came back to the only building standing which was a composite structure made by a Calgary, Alberta based company – Sprung Instant Structure. Jesse immediately ordered new fabric for the structure….since the first one had survived, more or less, this category 5 hurricane. The new fabric arrived just 22 days after they ordered it from Canada and was a life saver since all the major relief organizations were working out of that building – the Red Cross, Salvation Army, United Way and a church relief organization.

Volunteers started to arrive and first it was a trickle and then a flood. Thousands came from all over North America to see how they could help. All of them had to be fed as they cleaned up the 250 lots within the first three months for the devastated citizens of this small fishing village. The volunteers came from church groups across the country, especially the Mennonites. The Amish came not only from Pennsylvania where they are famous but also from many parts of this great country. They rebuilt the church and lived in it as long as they didn’t have any other place to bed down….sometimes 50 to a room getting cots from the US Army and others. They served over 100,000 hot meals to these volunteers who had come at their own expense from all across the United States and Canada. They rebuilt 25 homes and built from scratch 13 new homes. The Amish set the record of building one of the homes in two weeks.

While this brave man and his family were helping people back into their homes, he and his family were given a trailer from FEMA. Within a month or six weeks the FEMA bureaucrats decided that Jesse and his family were not deserving of being in this trailer and told him to leave. After that, the trailer remained empty. That is how uncaring and unfeeling some bureaucrats can be. They then say – we are just following the rules.

Jesse, his family and his church folks were just following what GOD has commanded “when you saw us hungry – you feed us, when you saw us without a roof over us, you gave us shelter, when you saw us in sickness – healed us…..”

Now it was as if the experience of Katrina was just a warm up to the task Jesse and his flock are now facing. With 75% of his congregation fishermen, they were blocked from doing what generations of their families had done before them – fishing.

Three days after the BP rig burned and disappeared below the waves; Jesse got his church together and said we are going to have to prepare for the worst. Jesse was determined, in the great American tradition, that nobody was going to be dependent on government handouts and they were going to work for what they get. Early on Jesse, being an entrepreneur in addition to a Pastor and fisherman, said everyone coming here will need to eat. He now serves 1,350 meals per day as box lunches for the people that are the workers going out to clean up this huge mess.

Workers are being hired from all over this part of the country at a starting salary of $22.50 per hour being paid for by BP. They might work or they might not work, depending on BP. The last several days most of them were paid for sitting waiting for the call from BP. The dispersants that BP has been using – some of which have been banned by the UK government for use in British waters, but approved by the US EPA, have made many workers sick. Therefore, when the level of dispersants and oil which they are to disperse get to really toxic levels, BP pays thousands of people to sit on the shore.

Jesse’s flock want to keep doing what they have been doing for many years – work in their chosen profession FISHING. As mentioned above, they all want to work. Now they are working to prepare and serve meals – so many of Jesse’s flock are involved. They do this in the hope that someday it might be possible for their congregation to once again return to fishing – the livelihood known by their members as well as generations before them. These folks are the “salt of the earth”. They are honest, hardworking, and have always wanted to get paid for an honest-days’ work. They are not interested in hand-outs. They have been dealt a bad hand these last few years and have been relying on their ingenuity and entrepreneurship to change gears and find new work.

Jesse and his flock never asked for anyone’s pity. They have used the tools that God gave them to make a new life for themselves when a huge hurricane or massive oil spill crossed their path and prevented them from earning a living like they have before.

By now you might wonder how you could help this brave and resilient group who do not complain but just want to work to provide a living for they and their families. Go to www.cajununlimted.com

On this Memorial Day weekend may the LORD bless this community who have been through so much and come out of it standing on their feet. There are many others like them, but I have the privilege of meeting them and my life has been enriched by them. GOD BLESS THEM!

Dr. Thomas B. Manton, former President and CEO of the International Oil Spill Control Corporation, now living in Florida and wanting to save it from the oil spill.

Pakistan Wins M.R.I.O.T.D. Award

The proverbial chickens are coming home to roost in Pakistan, and possibly to a radical mosque near you.

You may recall a few weeks ago, the comedy TV show ‘South Park’ included a character representing Mohammed wearing a bear suit. It was totally in character for South Park to do something like that, since they take no prisoners and pull no punches. They make fun of everyone and everything. Religious figures, political figures, whoever or whatever.

Some Muslim somewhere complained, and surprise! South Park producers caved. (no pun intended) They blocked out the character in repeat showings of that episode.

Then another person put up a Facebook page called ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day’ where you could apparently draw or upload your representation of Mohammed.

For those who don’t know, Mohammed for a Muslim is like Christ, God, or Buddah for other people. Except that Mohammed is from this earth and regarded as a prophet by Muslims. I don’t know if he had a job or trade, just that he was a prophet. No miracle birth, wise men, etc.. The other difference is that some Muslims get their shorts in a wad real quick when someone puts up an image and calls it Mohammed. Some get so extreme as to commit murder over it, which, by what I’ve seen in the Koran, is against Mohammed’s teachings. Go figure.

There is an interesting element to this religion in that some-one’s faith can be so shaken by a drawing or a picture that it would cause them to go crazy. This does not happen in any other religion that I know of. These same radicals have drawn stupid pictures of Christ and the Virgin Mary and those whose religion is not referred to as a ‘religion of peace’ just blow it off as a crazy picture drawn by an insensitive bastard and move on with their life. Don’t know why they can not do the same.

So Pakistan, literally facing attack and suicide bombers from the radical elements of Islam on a daily basis, had blocked Facebook from the country. And for that, Pakistan wins the Most Ridiculous Item Of The Day award.

Links: Facebook page that led to Pakistani ban removedMohammed Image ArchiveVirgin Mary South Park CartoonCartoon wars

aSide Order

The flooding in Tennessee has taken 30 lives so far. Nashville is under water. The inaction by the Obama administration is simply astounding.

And just why do you think that is?

The boys at Red State Update call for help from fellow Americans. Not from Washington.

A sure sign of spring is when the girls start showing their navels.