Power Outage and Other Thoughts

Well, after several years of no power outages to be speaking about (since Hurricane Isabel), we have been without power for about 15 +/- hrs.

Thank God for batteries; here at the house and at Verizon Wireless – otherwise I wouldn’t be able to check on news, weather, or other articles today.

Since there isn’t much else I am able to do this morning, I was checking the news related articles.

Here are some random thoughts…

Of course areas with greater population density get power back first .. It’s financially and publicity wise of top priority… Sigh.

Being on the grid for rural areas may not make sense, but it does make dollars… People, and not just in rural areas really need to think about that. Maybe it is time to think of alternative solutions to the Grid. Think about it… Think of the chaos of no electricity for whatever reason … War, weather, economic unrest, etc. Do you have sustainable alternatives?

Beatles. Apparently, John Lenin’s wife and apparently other Beatles member estates and likely Paul too, are still unhappy with their piece of the pie possibilities on the Apple iTunes Music Store. What is it with them anyway?

I understand that they want more money/control? But come on, this is a music store for pity’s sake! If they want to make money on their music, why not be in the largest music store out there?

We were talking about this and I was saying, this would be as stupid as going to an old style record store and not being able to buy The Beatles, and I was told that is what happened! There were record stores that weren’t allowed to carry The Beatles albums! They have always been unreasonable about who can sell their music and at what price! Unbelievable.

Well, I have an answer for them. If they want to be buttheads, I just won’t buy their music from ANY music outlet that is allowed to sell their music. Period. I have had it with egotistical people who think ‘they are all that’.

9.5% Unemployment. Even with the job increases in July.

Tons of banks, corporations, small businesses going under. Even Barnes & Noble selling out and the have been around for 100 yrs or more… This is nuts.

Businesses leaving the country. Maybe it is time to institute some of Austalia’s philosophies on jobs, what can be sold here, etc?

Our own government gives our tax dollars to bail out companies and banks that apparently have managed to squander it in many cases, and still aren’t giving the relief to the public that was promised, and now often still going bankrupt!

And who will pay for that? The taxpayers! From every angle possible; from interest rates, to prices at stores, to their businesses failing, to inflation, to higher taxes, ultimately, for something none of us little people – the taxpayers – have even authorized ‘our’ government to do … The taxpayers should never have been burdened with this. If a company or bank is gonna fail, let them!! Before we all go under with them!

Ron Paul we cannot afford our Empire anymore

Ron Paul we cannot afford our Empire anymore (YouTube)

Clash in Alabama Over Tennessee Coal Ash

Clash in Alabama Over Tennessee Coal Ash (NYTimes)

Almost every day, a train pulls into a rail yard in rural Alabama, hauling 8,500 tons of a disaster that occurred 350 miles away to a final resting place, the Arrowhead Landfill here in Perry County, which is very poor and almost 70 percent black.

This ‘windfall’ of dumping all this dangerous coal ash in their landfill will “add more than $3 million to their County’s budget of about $4.5 million” the article goes on to say. This little Alabama county has an unemployment rate of 17 percent and only a chosen few really were able to get any work from this so called ‘windfall’ for the County.

Some of us here in Dendron, Virginia, in Surry County, where ODEC proposes to build a 1,500 MW coal fired power plant with a coal ash/fly ash landfill in our little town’s back yard have been wondering the same thing some of Perry County residents have been wondering:

But some residents worry that their leaders are taking a short-term view, and that their community has been too easily persuaded to take on a wealthier, whiter community’s problem. “Money ain’t worth everything,” said Mary Gibson Holley, 74, a black retired teacher in Uniontown. “In the long run, they ain’t looking about what this could do to the community if something goes wrong.”

And in just one of many parallels between the thinking in Perry County Alabama, and here in Surry County:

County leaders, who are mostly black, bristle at accusations of environmental injustice, saying that the ash is perfectly safe and that criticism has been fostered by outsiders, or even competitors who wanted the ash disposal contract for themselves.

And this:

But in Perry County, a lack of trust has permeated the debate. Residents said they feared equipment failure, flooding, tornadoes or lack of oversight at the landfill, where the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, whose notably lax regulation of coal ash permits most landfills to use it as a cover material for other waste, will be responsible for enforcement.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Cownan River Map that includes the Blackwater River system in Virginia that flows to the Arlbemerle Sound, NC.

One of the major differences is the distance to the water table in Perry County and here in Dendron in Surry County. Here in Dendron, that water table is only about 4 feet (and many are still on their own wells in the surrounding area of the County), and wetlands are on at least two sides of the proposed site within contamination distance to the Blackwater River system that flows to the Albemerle Sound, NC:

The Blackwater River was a transportation route in the 17th and 18th centuries, connecting the Chesapeake Bay settlements with the Albemarle Settlements. It was one of the few rivers of colonial Virginia that did not empty into Chesapeake Bay yet lay close to the colony’s oldest settlements on the James River. Settlements in the Blackwater’s drainage basin were founded very early in Virginia’s history. As a result, the Blackwater River became one of the early migration routes southward from the James River into the region then called Southside Virginia, and beyond into the Albemarle District of Carolina (later North Carolina). Today’s usual definition of Southside differs somewhat from that of colonial times.

Of course, ODEC wants to build a 15 mile pipeline directly to the James River for ingress and egress of water for cooling.

One of the other major differences between Perry County and here in Dendron is the railroad cars. The railroad cars here in Dendron will bring in the coal to ‘make’ the coal ash to be stored in the landfill and when that gets full, to find some place to take the coal ash off their hands, like Perry County, or golf greens in other Counties, or maybe put it in concrete to build things all over the place.

Must read article.

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Fewer Taxes for Real Economic Stimulus

Fewer Taxes for Real Economic Stimulus (Ron Pauls’ Texas Straight Talk)

Taxes are the issue this week as Americans struggle to make the April 15th deadline to file their returns. It is a good time to contemplate the effects of big government and what it does to our country. The income tax is one of the most egregious encroachments on our liberties today. It is a form of involuntary servitude, which was supposed to have been outlawed by the 13th Amendment.

Much more in the article! Must read.

Time to Remember Joe Louis

I remember reading about Joe Louis, the boxing champ from Detroit back in the 30s and 40s.

And what I remember reading most was that he had a heart as big as all outdoors, and the IRS basically destroyed his life.

If you are not familiar with Joe Louis’ story, you might want to read the DetNews.com article.

…Joe Louis died on April 12, 1981. He was 66.

Ronald Reagan waived the eligibility rules for burial at Arlington National Cemetery, and Louis was buried there with full military honors on April 21, 1981.

The whole country mourned his passing. President Reagan praised his instinctive patriotism and extraordinary accomplishments.

Thomas Sowell praised his dignity, his gentlemanliness, sportsmanship and humor, the ‘unbought grace of life’ that was his gift.

“He was our Sampson; he was our David. With toughness he destroyed our enemy, with kindness he soothed our wounds and revived our psyche.” — Jesse Jackson

“Joe never lost his common touch, his love of Detroit. He stood for everything that was good about Detroit.” — Coleman Young

“Our loss is Heaven’s gain; he was a great fighter, and a great champion in and out of the ring. He was symbolic to all people, young and old, black and white.”– Jersey Joe Walcott

With the deficit and spending and bailouts, BONUS CHECKS FOR THE BANKING CARTELS out of our taxes, etc… who’s next in line to be destroyed?

Don’t think it will be the banks and corporations that mishandled things, but are supposedly ‘too big to fail’ ….. no, I think one will need to look MUCH closer to home.

Have to say it again … Ron Paul was right!

Ron Paul once said, “I lean toward a flat tax, but I want to make it real flat: like zero.”

The government at almost all levels want to add tax, upon tax: new proposed driving tax, cigarette/tobacco tax increases (but it will help ‘the children’), alcohol tax increases, gas taxes, green taxes, income taxes, manufacturing taxes, etc., etc., etc., and all the unintended consequences of each one.

We get taxed on so many levels these days that it is hard to tally the total tax burden on already struggling Citizens.

Does this sound like taxes we as Citizens would ask for? I think not. Sounds like taxation without representation when the Senate and House add taxes that The People would never agree to directly.

Seems like we are back in the days before we broke from English rule due in large part to oppressive taxes.

In this economy, these unwanted, obsessive taxes are unthinkable … but they think, they push, and they enact. It is really bad when people who don’t live in the real world make the rules for everyone. Between taxes, bailouts, stock market shenanigans, and more, this is very rapidly becoming a national disaster.

Ron Paul was right then, and he is still right about it today.

Auto Execs Fly Corporate Jets to D.C., Tin Cups in Hand

Auto Execs Fly Corporate Jets to D.C., Tin Cups in Hand (WashingtonPost)

There are 24 daily nonstop flights from Detroit to the Washington area. Richard Wagoner, Alan Mulally and Robert Nardelli probably should have taken one of them.

Instead, the chief executives of the Big Three automakers opted to fly their company jets to the capital for their hearings this week before the Senate and House — an ill-timed display of corporate excess for a trio of executives begging for an additional $25 billion from the public trough this week.

“There’s a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hands,” Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.) advised the pampered executives at a hearing yesterday. “It’s almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high-hat and tuxedo. . . . I mean, couldn’t you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled or something to get here?”

What a load of horse hockey!

If they didn’t need to fly coach, or ride Greyhound, why do they need our tax money to bail them out?! When most of us can’t afford to fly coach much less ride Greyhound half way across the country? Most of us couldn’t even afford to DRIVE OURSELVES half way across the country.

I am so disgusted, I could just puke.

Thought for the Day – November 7, 2008

Thought for the Day – November 7, 2008

The great critic of the income tax, Frank Chodorov wrote “Whichever way you turn this amendment, you come up with the fact that it gives the government a prior lien on all the property produced by its subjects.”[24] The United States government “unashamedly proclaims the doctrine of collectivized wealth. . . . That which it does not take is a concession.”[25]

It was with great honesty that Frank Chodorov lamented, “America is no longer the America of the Declaration of Independence.”

The Origin of the Income Tax (Mises.org)

I started thinking about the Income Tax when I was reading about yet another bailout candidate, re-bailout candidate today … The Auto Industry in CNN Money today. The important stuff for tax payers is in the last four paragraphs.

U.S. Titanic by Jim Quinn

U.S. Titanic by Jim Quinn

On Thursday morning, September 18, 2008 a tragedy almost befell the 450 billionaires and 3,000,000 millionaires that live in the United States. The billionaires were on their way to becoming millionaires and the millionaires were about to leave the club. Luckily, Hank Paulson, U.S. Treasury Secretary, felt their pain. His $700 million portfolio was probably taking a bit of a haircut too. There are 305 million people living in the United States. The net worth of all the households in the U.S. as of June 30, 2008 was $56 trillion. The 450 billionaires have a net worth of approximately $1 trillion and the 3,000,000 millionaires have a net worth of approximately $11 trillion. So, 1% of the population currently owns 21% of the net worth in this country. Many of these billionaires and millionaires have accumulated their wealth by managing other people’s money. The customers never have the yachts. The money managers have the yachts. The 1% ruling elite are deciding the fate of your grandchildren in Washington D.C. this week out of public view. The ruling elite have the most to lose. Whose best interest do you think they are looking out for?

Excellent question. Much more in the article. Thanks Tweeny for the heads up on this article.

Be sure to read through to below the Titanic analogy because “We the People” are being sold a bill of goods and being required to sign an unlimited power of attorney to supposedly bailout, errr, ‘rescue’ the country from certain death.