Regular readers may remember that I worked on George Peters' FacTapes during the 1990s, and although we never actually produced such a document, one of the topics on which George Peters wanted to gather facts was the then-current trial of Dr. Jack Kevorkian for "assisting suicide."
Thus rendering one popular quickie test of mental health absurd for several mentally healthy people he knew. "Have you ever thought about suicide?" Well, not as something we personally wanted to do just then, but definitely as a topic for an audio-book. Mostly we thought it was a bummer of a topic, and the fact that Mr. Peters was using Tegretol probably had something to do with his interest in the topic. And he said, yes, it did; he was using Tegretol for intense chronic pain, and if the pain reached the point where Tegretol didn't block it, he didn't want to "graduate" to morphine, he wanted to end the misery right then. And at least two of us said, rather forcefully, or shrilly (if you don't like the idea that women can and should say things forcefully), "Don't talk about that kind of thing in public! People will say your grandchildren have inherited 'depression' from you."
The question remains. In principle, in an abstract way, do we think people who are conscious and in pain have a right to euthanize themselves? If so, how far does that right extend?
I say it stops with the conscious patient. If someone feels suicidal under the influence of drugs s/he has recently used, we have a responsibility to tell them to wait and see how they feel when they're completely sober. (If they've used a class of drugs that includes street drugs the junkies have mostly abandoned because they were so fatal, of which LSD is the most infamous, and also certain popular prescription medications, I think these patients should wait a year before making any life and death decisions.) If someone still feels suicidal when s/he is stone cold sober, I think we have no right to force that person to keep breathing.
Argue with them, yes. Tell old people who've diagnosed themselves as terminal that their grandchildren need them, yes. But should we tell old people that their grandchildren somehow "need" to watch them lose the ability to think or speak, and keep the ability to feel unbearable pain, for months or years of howling agony? I don't think grandchildren need that, at all.
Does that imply that, if people are alive but not in their right minds, others have any right even to suggest suicide? (We're talking about senior citizens with Alzheimer's Disease here.) I say no. If they're not in unbearable pain, if they're still enjoying moments of joy, then the law should require health care providers to continue to supply those moments of joy. Who knows, a cure may be discovered...
Actually, I'm not sure that Alzheimer's Disease will ever be curable, but I have seen firsthand that fear of this disease makes people think seniors have it when they don't. You have to observe a patient carefully, under different conditions, to have any idea whether what looks like senile brainfog is actually a temporary reaction, either to a different disease or to medication used to treat that disease. Anyone who has been anesthetized or sedated, as it might be for a coloscopy or childbirth, is going to seem foggy for a few hours. What I see far too much of is an assumption that, although an eighteen-year-old would be equally foggy after a certain medical procedure, when an eighty-year-old is the one who's had the procedure people assume her or his foggy condition is permanent. Most of the time that's not true.
I've seen greedy relatives bring in psychiatrists to "examine" someone who's been freshly sedated, eager to pronounce the person incompetent. Erma Bombeck's bestselling books often referred to her mixing up her own children's names, but if a rich great-uncle mixes up the names of young relatives he's not seen in five years, he's incompetent! I have stood beside hospital beds and argued with these people. "She's not answering a question like that because she's too weak to say a whole sentence. If you'll ask her a few yes-or-no questions you'll see that she's fully aware of what's going on." So then the greedy relative tries to arrange for me not to be with the patient on the day the relative produces the psychiatric quack to certify the patient incompetent and take over full rights to "manage" the patient's property, transfer all his bank accounts to the relative's, start driving her car, whatever.
People like this are occasionally checked by fear that if their rich relative survives, s/he may be able to prove that s/he has recovered competence. Imagine how much easier life would be for greedy, evil people if they could not only claim the right to manage Uncle Richie's property, but also claim the right to terminate his life.
I say we can't allow this kind of thing. If you, in your current state of consciousness, seriously think you'd rather die than live through five or ten foggy years of "moments of joy" with Alzheimer's Disease, that is your prerogative, but please make your own arrangements for your own unassisted suicide. There are a variety of quick and reliable methods; this web site won't discuss them, but support groups like the Hemlock Society do.
Sane people have euthanized themselves...sometimes as ludicrously early as Sara Teasdale, whose horror of disability caused her to end her life when doctors agreed there was little chance of even a serious illness. More recently Carolyn Heilbrun promised to end her life when she reached retirement age, put off doing it for a few years, and then finally did euthanize herself rather than depend on Social Security.
One thing I said to George Peters, while he was praying for the quick natural end his life got in 2001, applies to others who want to make sure they don't live too long. You have a right to euthanize yourself when you believe your life is over anyway, and God may judge your motives and say "Well done thou good and faithful servant" for all I know, but you have no right to demand that anyone else participate in ending your life. That's cruelty to doctors.
Friday, February 8, 2013
Are Drone Aircraft Humane in War?
Senator King of Maine (no relation) makes a good point: In war, using unmanned "drone" aircraft to bombard enemies is indeed more humane than putting human beings on bomber planes.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/08/maine-senator-at-least-drones-are-a-more-humane-way-of-waging-war/
But two completely different issues seem to be under discussion in online discussions of "drones." Are these things being used to bombard strategic sites in enemy countries during a declared war, or are they being used for random surveillance and harassment of mostly law-abiding U.S. citizens, here in the U.S., in times of peace?
I think the comments below Becket Adams' article reflect this confusion, and I hope it's only confusion on the part of online readers who haven't been watching C-SPAN and aren't sure which use of drones is being debated. I hope our Congress at least are clearly delineating a difference between what you can do, in war, to people whose avowed goal is to destroy your supplies and/or kill you, and what you can do to your neighbor every day.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/08/maine-senator-at-least-drones-are-a-more-humane-way-of-waging-war/
But two completely different issues seem to be under discussion in online discussions of "drones." Are these things being used to bombard strategic sites in enemy countries during a declared war, or are they being used for random surveillance and harassment of mostly law-abiding U.S. citizens, here in the U.S., in times of peace?
I think the comments below Becket Adams' article reflect this confusion, and I hope it's only confusion on the part of online readers who haven't been watching C-SPAN and aren't sure which use of drones is being debated. I hope our Congress at least are clearly delineating a difference between what you can do, in war, to people whose avowed goal is to destroy your supplies and/or kill you, and what you can do to your neighbor every day.
SB 819 Update: Tourist Train
Virginia Senate Bill 819, which this web site doesn't like, passed the Senate by a vote of 35 to 5 and is now up for consideration by the House of Delegates.
How bad, exactly, is SB 819? This web site's judgment is based on the correspondence we've received from people who live in the jurisdictions mentioned. You can read the bill here:
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+SB819
I don't see anything truly horrible here--just another large outlay of funds on a project that's likely to prove unprofitable for the state, frankly--but people who live in Pocahontas and Tazewell and that part of the state say that it'll destroy businesses and cost jobs and interfere with people's right to live in their own homes, and since they're the ones who've been motivated to research all the implications tucked behind those links in the bill, this web site will take their word on that.
I also find the last paragraph strange. "Localities are hereby authorized to lend or donate money or other property or services to the Authority for any of its purposes. The locality making the grant or loan may restrict the use of such grants or loans to a specific project, within or outside that locality." This seems to restore authority to the legitimately elected officials in the affected communities, at least, but does it? If your town's economy is still enmeshed with the coal industry, God help you, and if the tourist train project will put dozens or hundreds of local voters and taxpayers out of work indefinitely, how precisely does this paragraph restore your town's or county's right to keep the tourist train project out of your town as long as a critical mass of those voters and taxpayers continue to work in the coal mines?
If you still hate this bill, and if your Delegate is on this short list, you may want to send him or her an e-mail. "Ingram (Chairman),Marshall, R.G.,Marshall, D.W.,Iaquinto,Crockett-Stark,Poindexter,Merricks,Knight,Morefield,Edmunds,Stolle,LeMunyon,Wilt,Morris,Hodges,Spruill,Ware, O.,McQuinn,Surovell,Kory,Torian,Krupicka". (I'm not sure where the spaces between those links went, but the system is designed, when lists of committee members are pasted between quotation marks, to give you readers a series of links each of which takes you to the appropriate legislator's page...and it seems to be working.)
How bad, exactly, is SB 819? This web site's judgment is based on the correspondence we've received from people who live in the jurisdictions mentioned. You can read the bill here:
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+SB819
I don't see anything truly horrible here--just another large outlay of funds on a project that's likely to prove unprofitable for the state, frankly--but people who live in Pocahontas and Tazewell and that part of the state say that it'll destroy businesses and cost jobs and interfere with people's right to live in their own homes, and since they're the ones who've been motivated to research all the implications tucked behind those links in the bill, this web site will take their word on that.
I also find the last paragraph strange. "Localities are hereby authorized to lend or donate money or other property or services to the Authority for any of its purposes. The locality making the grant or loan may restrict the use of such grants or loans to a specific project, within or outside that locality." This seems to restore authority to the legitimately elected officials in the affected communities, at least, but does it? If your town's economy is still enmeshed with the coal industry, God help you, and if the tourist train project will put dozens or hundreds of local voters and taxpayers out of work indefinitely, how precisely does this paragraph restore your town's or county's right to keep the tourist train project out of your town as long as a critical mass of those voters and taxpayers continue to work in the coal mines?
If you still hate this bill, and if your Delegate is on this short list, you may want to send him or her an e-mail. "Ingram (Chairman),Marshall, R.G.,Marshall, D.W.,Iaquinto,Crockett-Stark,Poindexter,Merricks,Knight,Morefield,Edmunds,Stolle,LeMunyon,Wilt,Morris,Hodges,Spruill,Ware, O.,McQuinn,Surovell,Kory,Torian,Krupicka". (I'm not sure where the spaces between those links went, but the system is designed, when lists of committee members are pasted between quotation marks, to give you readers a series of links each of which takes you to the appropriate legislator's page...and it seems to be working.)
Bill Carrico on Virginia's State Budget
E-mailed by Stuart Higley:
"Carrico Statement on Virginia Senate Passage of State Budget
Richmond –
Sen. Bill Carrico (R-Fries) released the following statement today after the
Virginia Senate voted 21-19 to pass their budget plan, which includes $14
million to open the River North Correctional Facility in Grayson
County:
“I am very pleased by the action taken in the Senate yesterday. The Senate budget
is good for the Commonwealth and good for Southwest Virginia. For the last
several years, we have worked tirelessly to secure the necessary funds to open
the River North Correctional Facility. Today, at long last, a budget has passed
that would fund the facility and put hundreds of Southwest Virginians back to
work. Work still remains to be done, and I look forward to working with Gov.
McDonnell and the House of Delegates to finalize our state budget.” "
"Carrico Statement on Virginia Senate Passage of State Budget
Richmond –
Sen. Bill Carrico (R-Fries) released the following statement today after the
Virginia Senate voted 21-19 to pass their budget plan, which includes $14
million to open the River North Correctional Facility in Grayson
County:
“I am very pleased by the action taken in the Senate yesterday. The Senate budget
is good for the Commonwealth and good for Southwest Virginia. For the last
several years, we have worked tirelessly to secure the necessary funds to open
the River North Correctional Facility. Today, at long last, a budget has passed
that would fund the facility and put hundreds of Southwest Virginians back to
work. Work still remains to be done, and I look forward to working with Gov.
McDonnell and the House of Delegates to finalize our state budget.” "
Another Gun Owner Fights Crime
This web site is not under a formal contractual obligation to dig up news stories in which private citizens use their personal weapons to prevent violent crime. We just get so many of them in the e-mail...what's special about Jason Howerton's latest report? Read it and see.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/07/gun-owner-shames-knife-wielding-robber-just-leave-your-knife-here-and-leave-and-he-does/
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/07/gun-owner-shames-knife-wielding-robber-just-leave-your-knife-here-and-leave-and-he-does/
Phenology: Northern States Brace for Big Snow
Actually the Weather Channel's anticipatory hysterics about the approaching snowstorm look as if Canada is going to catch it too, but in the U.S. we have this perception that for Canada no snowstorm could possibly be considered news. Anyway, what's newsworthy about "Snowstorm Nemo" seems to be that it's expected to be a test of what's been done toward rebuilding after "Hurricane Sandy." Snow is not expected to fall in Virginia. Once again, other people get disasters; we get rain.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/08/superstorm-nemo-expected-to-hit-the-northeast-how-bad-could-it-get/
Mike Opelka's article is worth scrolling through for its pictures of a similar storm thirty years ago. Those who remember Michael Dukakis may appreciate a picture of him as a young man...and note what he's not doing.
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/014816.html
Jim Macdonald's article is also worth reading. Hmm. Who are the audience for this post, exactly? Those who resemble then-Governor Dukakis thirty years ago, in a general way--young, strong, thick hair--normally have an instinctive feeling that snow, and snow days, are for going out and doing something with. Such as shovelling snow away from the sidewalks of people who are less active and healthy than we are. Sawing up fallen tree limbs is also fun, and then there's running errands for people who have been advised by their doctors not to go out in the snow. These activities give us an appetite for comfort foods like French Toast.
Since this web site seems to be stuck on the Republican side of things more often, these days, than we really want to be, let's pick up our theme: Fiscal Conservatives, Put Your Back Where Your Mouth Is. A little reminiscence may be in order.
Ten or fifteen years ago, Hyattsville, Maryland, got about two feet of snow. Officially I think it was less than two feet; what I remember is that our back stoop was 34" from the ground, and we couldn't see it out the window at all. My husband probably had multiple myeloma at the time, but hadn't started to feel it yet. Our residential neighborhood outside the city limits was on the third-priority list for official snow assistance efforts. We had, for reasons I never asked him to explain, three snow shovels, so we went out to clear a path. We looked at the street and were able to see tracks where the level of snow was much lower, where people had been driving on the snow. The snow had been compacted but had not yet frozen. And since we were having fun, we said, "Well, for pity's sake," and started clearing the snow away before it turned into ice.
Both of us already had a few grey hairs here and there, but one is never too old to act childish about snow. By the time I started to feel tired, other people had noticed that fun was being had, and were out with their snow shovels too. We were able to clear the street in front of only three houses. Other people did the rest of the block.
Later the children went out and did creative things with the chunks of packed snow in their yards, but the adults all seemed to feel that we'd put in a day's work and could spend the rest of the day burning fallen oak limbs in our fireplaces, and sipping cocoa, and--if gluten-tolerant, anyway--eating French Toast. (You can buy gluten-free bread that will keep its shape as French Toast, if you really want it to, but personally I'd rather just pop corn.) We did these things all weekend long, with occasional breaks for exercise and snow-inspired childishness.
So then by the time the Washington Post, which we were then receiving on Sundays only, came to the door right on schedule, they'd already received a letter from some slob in some other suburb (name withheld out of compassion for other residents of his neighborhood) whining because, with all the higher priorities on their list, the city had not got a snowplow out to his door yet. Well, in order to have got this letter into a newspaper that had been printed on Saturday, he must have written it in time for the Friday mail. The letter did not mention any disability. For all I know this guy was whining, instead of out having fun like us, because he was spending every minute sitting beside a sick child's artificial respiration device, but he said nothing about it. He presented himself as the metropolitan area's biggest and party-poopinest wimp.
Urban snow thus gives us an opportunity to tell a difference between Real Conservatives and--well, one can't call them liberals--Whiny Wimps...at least up to age 40 or 50. Identification is not always as easy as it looks, because some young people with thick black hair have disabilities that don't show, and that particularly includes the ones who get hung up on their stereotypes about people with thin or white hair. However, as a general rule: Real Conservatives enjoy snowstorms. Wimps whine and wail for someone else to shovel them out.
Eventually, there's no specific cut-off age, at eighty-five Oogesti still has as much fun with snow as anyone else and at twenty-five one of my college buddies (who had rheumatic fever as a child) already had a pacemaker, but most of us are eventually advised by doctors to cut back on having fun with snow. This web site has not forgotten its physically disabled readers. We have now given you three nice snow-related stories to read, and we hope you're having fun...tending your fires, popping corn, making French Toast or fudge or whatever, singing nonsense songs, or perhaps, like Grandma Bonnie Peters, watching the rain fall on the hibiscus buds in Florida.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/08/superstorm-nemo-expected-to-hit-the-northeast-how-bad-could-it-get/
Mike Opelka's article is worth scrolling through for its pictures of a similar storm thirty years ago. Those who remember Michael Dukakis may appreciate a picture of him as a young man...and note what he's not doing.
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/014816.html
Jim Macdonald's article is also worth reading. Hmm. Who are the audience for this post, exactly? Those who resemble then-Governor Dukakis thirty years ago, in a general way--young, strong, thick hair--normally have an instinctive feeling that snow, and snow days, are for going out and doing something with. Such as shovelling snow away from the sidewalks of people who are less active and healthy than we are. Sawing up fallen tree limbs is also fun, and then there's running errands for people who have been advised by their doctors not to go out in the snow. These activities give us an appetite for comfort foods like French Toast.
Since this web site seems to be stuck on the Republican side of things more often, these days, than we really want to be, let's pick up our theme: Fiscal Conservatives, Put Your Back Where Your Mouth Is. A little reminiscence may be in order.
Ten or fifteen years ago, Hyattsville, Maryland, got about two feet of snow. Officially I think it was less than two feet; what I remember is that our back stoop was 34" from the ground, and we couldn't see it out the window at all. My husband probably had multiple myeloma at the time, but hadn't started to feel it yet. Our residential neighborhood outside the city limits was on the third-priority list for official snow assistance efforts. We had, for reasons I never asked him to explain, three snow shovels, so we went out to clear a path. We looked at the street and were able to see tracks where the level of snow was much lower, where people had been driving on the snow. The snow had been compacted but had not yet frozen. And since we were having fun, we said, "Well, for pity's sake," and started clearing the snow away before it turned into ice.
Both of us already had a few grey hairs here and there, but one is never too old to act childish about snow. By the time I started to feel tired, other people had noticed that fun was being had, and were out with their snow shovels too. We were able to clear the street in front of only three houses. Other people did the rest of the block.
Later the children went out and did creative things with the chunks of packed snow in their yards, but the adults all seemed to feel that we'd put in a day's work and could spend the rest of the day burning fallen oak limbs in our fireplaces, and sipping cocoa, and--if gluten-tolerant, anyway--eating French Toast. (You can buy gluten-free bread that will keep its shape as French Toast, if you really want it to, but personally I'd rather just pop corn.) We did these things all weekend long, with occasional breaks for exercise and snow-inspired childishness.
So then by the time the Washington Post, which we were then receiving on Sundays only, came to the door right on schedule, they'd already received a letter from some slob in some other suburb (name withheld out of compassion for other residents of his neighborhood) whining because, with all the higher priorities on their list, the city had not got a snowplow out to his door yet. Well, in order to have got this letter into a newspaper that had been printed on Saturday, he must have written it in time for the Friday mail. The letter did not mention any disability. For all I know this guy was whining, instead of out having fun like us, because he was spending every minute sitting beside a sick child's artificial respiration device, but he said nothing about it. He presented himself as the metropolitan area's biggest and party-poopinest wimp.
Urban snow thus gives us an opportunity to tell a difference between Real Conservatives and--well, one can't call them liberals--Whiny Wimps...at least up to age 40 or 50. Identification is not always as easy as it looks, because some young people with thick black hair have disabilities that don't show, and that particularly includes the ones who get hung up on their stereotypes about people with thin or white hair. However, as a general rule: Real Conservatives enjoy snowstorms. Wimps whine and wail for someone else to shovel them out.
Eventually, there's no specific cut-off age, at eighty-five Oogesti still has as much fun with snow as anyone else and at twenty-five one of my college buddies (who had rheumatic fever as a child) already had a pacemaker, but most of us are eventually advised by doctors to cut back on having fun with snow. This web site has not forgotten its physically disabled readers. We have now given you three nice snow-related stories to read, and we hope you're having fun...tending your fires, popping corn, making French Toast or fudge or whatever, singing nonsense songs, or perhaps, like Grandma Bonnie Peters, watching the rain fall on the hibiscus buds in Florida.
Meet the C.E.O. of Whole Foods
Glenn Beck shares transcripts of a radio interview with Whole Foods C.E.O. John Mackey. Very interesting.
Down below the first ad picture, in discussing his book Conscious Capitalism, Mackey provides a good enough explanation (without a direct reference) of a philosophy I've tried to summarize as "seeking the Highest Good of all." We don't really want to succeed by trampling over everyone else, even when that seems necessary. We want others to get what they want, too, when that does not directly harm us, and we prefer to get what we want without doing harm to others.
Then there's the idea Beck put in the headline...
http://www.glennbeck.com/2013/02/07/glenn-interviews-whole-foods-ceo-john-mackey/
I have to admit I don't find books about business management the most enjoyable reads, even when they're written by Sam Walton, but if you want to read about business management Mackey is certainly a role model for these times...and Conscious Capitalism sounds likely to be more interesting than your typical book about business management.
Down below the first ad picture, in discussing his book Conscious Capitalism, Mackey provides a good enough explanation (without a direct reference) of a philosophy I've tried to summarize as "seeking the Highest Good of all." We don't really want to succeed by trampling over everyone else, even when that seems necessary. We want others to get what they want, too, when that does not directly harm us, and we prefer to get what we want without doing harm to others.
Then there's the idea Beck put in the headline...
http://www.glennbeck.com/2013/02/07/glenn-interviews-whole-foods-ceo-john-mackey/
I have to admit I don't find books about business management the most enjoyable reads, even when they're written by Sam Walton, but if you want to read about business management Mackey is certainly a role model for these times...and Conscious Capitalism sounds likely to be more interesting than your typical book about business management.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
HJ 654: The Good News
Just in time to sign off on a hopeful note, here is Delegate Lingamfelter and friends' mostly symbolic, but excellent, position statement on Agenda 21:
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HJ654
Here is the Senate Committee who most need to know how much you like it: "McDougle (Chairman), Stosch, Norment, Martin, Hanger, Newman, Watkins, Ruff, Wagner, Obenshain, Smith, Colgan, Saslaw, Howell, Lucas, Vogel."
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HJ654
Here is the Senate Committee who most need to know how much you like it: "McDougle (Chairman), Stosch, Norment, Martin, Hanger, Newman, Watkins, Ruff, Wagner, Obenshain, Smith, Colgan, Saslaw, Howell, Lucas, Vogel."
HB 2326 Update (Discouraging)
Virginia House Bill 2326 authorizes unelected "regional planning commissions" to dictate what citizens and local government do.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB2326
Note especially this heinous, un-American clause: "In developing the regional strategic plan, the planning district commission shall seek input from a wide range of organizations in the region, including local governing bodies, the business community and citizen organizations." From whom was that again? Where in the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, or the Constitution of Virginia do we find anything about government by "organizations"?
This web site opposes HB 2326. People who support this web site oppose HB 2326; opposing HB 2326 is what they support this web site for. This web site is my livelihood, and although it's not a very lively livelihood, its existence--and mine--prove that there exists a substantial body of opposition to HB 2326 in Southwestern Virginia. (There are those who would like this web site to support the hypothesis that there's a comparable amount of interest in frugal living, gluten-free recipes, or Bible studies. Well, I'm sorry...in the shikataganai sense.)
http://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2013/01/hb-2326-regional-planning-commissions.html
To be fair, that part about government by unelected and unaccountable "organizations" is not the new addition to existing law that's under consideration as our legislators vote on HB 2326. HB 2326 fails to remove government by "organizations" from existing law, but what it would change, if enacted, would be allowing "multi-state organizations" to take over the government of parts of Virginia that are close to a border line. Here is the proposed change:
"In planning districts in which regional planning also is conducted by multi-state councils of government, each planning district commission may prepare a regional strategic plan for the guidance of the district. If prepared in accordance with this section, such plan shall conform with the requirements of subsection A and also shall include references to the relevant provisions of the most current regional strategic plan prepared by the multi-state council of governments that includes any of the area comprising the planning district."
The insignificance of this change in a basically bad law is probably why so many of our Delegates voted for it. Sometimes people in Gate City like being enmeshed with Kingsport, Tennessee, and people in Bristol, Virginia, like being enmeshed with Bristol, Tennessee, and so on. Allowing planning commissions to reflect this historic and popularly supported enmeshment can be considered a legitimate response to the will of the electorate--once you've allowed planning commissions to exist at all. And allowing planning commissions to reflect the enmeshment of communities on both sides of a state line is all this winter's legislators are really to be blamed for.
That said, the position of this web site is that planning commissions are inherently bad enough that we would have preferred that our Delegates not even read down to the part about the multi-state councils. The opening lines about reenacting the law that authorized planning commissions to exist should have generated automatic "Nays."
The Senate Committee currently considering HB 2326 consists of State Senators "Smith (Chairman), Marsh, Lucas, Martin, Hanger, Puller, Ruff, Herring, Locke, Marsden, Stanley, Blevins, Miller, Ebbin, Favola." If one of them represents you, clicking on his or her name should open a web page that links to his or her e-mail address.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB2326
Note especially this heinous, un-American clause: "In developing the regional strategic plan, the planning district commission shall seek input from a wide range of organizations in the region, including local governing bodies, the business community and citizen organizations." From whom was that again? Where in the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, or the Constitution of Virginia do we find anything about government by "organizations"?
This web site opposes HB 2326. People who support this web site oppose HB 2326; opposing HB 2326 is what they support this web site for. This web site is my livelihood, and although it's not a very lively livelihood, its existence--and mine--prove that there exists a substantial body of opposition to HB 2326 in Southwestern Virginia. (There are those who would like this web site to support the hypothesis that there's a comparable amount of interest in frugal living, gluten-free recipes, or Bible studies. Well, I'm sorry...in the shikataganai sense.)
http://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2013/01/hb-2326-regional-planning-commissions.html
To be fair, that part about government by unelected and unaccountable "organizations" is not the new addition to existing law that's under consideration as our legislators vote on HB 2326. HB 2326 fails to remove government by "organizations" from existing law, but what it would change, if enacted, would be allowing "multi-state organizations" to take over the government of parts of Virginia that are close to a border line. Here is the proposed change:
"In planning districts in which regional planning also is conducted by multi-state councils of government, each planning district commission may prepare a regional strategic plan for the guidance of the district. If prepared in accordance with this section, such plan shall conform with the requirements of subsection A and also shall include references to the relevant provisions of the most current regional strategic plan prepared by the multi-state council of governments that includes any of the area comprising the planning district."
The insignificance of this change in a basically bad law is probably why so many of our Delegates voted for it. Sometimes people in Gate City like being enmeshed with Kingsport, Tennessee, and people in Bristol, Virginia, like being enmeshed with Bristol, Tennessee, and so on. Allowing planning commissions to reflect this historic and popularly supported enmeshment can be considered a legitimate response to the will of the electorate--once you've allowed planning commissions to exist at all. And allowing planning commissions to reflect the enmeshment of communities on both sides of a state line is all this winter's legislators are really to be blamed for.
That said, the position of this web site is that planning commissions are inherently bad enough that we would have preferred that our Delegates not even read down to the part about the multi-state councils. The opening lines about reenacting the law that authorized planning commissions to exist should have generated automatic "Nays."
The Senate Committee currently considering HB 2326 consists of State Senators "Smith (Chairman), Marsh, Lucas, Martin, Hanger, Puller, Ruff, Herring, Locke, Marsden, Stanley, Blevins, Miller, Ebbin, Favola." If one of them represents you, clicking on his or her name should open a web page that links to his or her e-mail address.
HB 2209: Soil & Water Conservation Board
Virginia House Bill 2209, which has passed the House of Delegates and crossed over to the Senate, authorizes another panel of unelected people to dictate how farmers should manage their "soil nutrients."
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB2209H1
I'll say one thing on behalf of this bill: unlike some similar authorizations of cash outlays for which the voters probably would not have voted, HB 2209 does begin with a refreshing acknowledgment that some farmers "are not required to have a certified nutrient management plan."
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB2209H1
I'll say one thing on behalf of this bill: unlike some similar authorizations of cash outlays for which the voters probably would not have voted, HB 2209 does begin with a refreshing acknowledgment that some farmers "are not required to have a certified nutrient management plan."
HB 1790, SB 1138: Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium
Virginia House Bill 1790, which proposes to authorize a group of acclaimed scientists as a "Nuclear Energy Consortium" to oversee use of nuclear energy in Virginia, has been passed by the House of Delegates and the Senate, and is currently "on calendar." It's on the verge of becoming law. Senate Bill 1138 is virtually identical:
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB1790S1
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+SB1138S1
Oh, right! Just what we need! Given that the Cold War didn't really end, that the world refuses to learn anything from the collapse of one socialist regime after another, that a critical number of people inside and outside the United States continue to place blind religious faith in Big Government's ability to do whatever God refuses to do about their emotional "needs," maybe we do need more nukes.
I'll bet half of you out there in cyberspace don't even remember Life With Nukes. Mutual Assured Destruction. The Russians hated us, to the extent they loved and hated what they were told to love and hate, and to a similar extent we hated them, and the only thing keeping us from war with what really was once our military and economic match was that each side had the nuclear technology to destroy the other. World War III was likely to break out any day; when it did break out the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. would, like the Kilkenny cats, have destroyed each other, so instead of two powerful countries with nuclear bombs there wouldn't be any. Oh, and the rest of the world wouldn't be a very pleasant place any more, either.
"Nobody wants to go back to that! This Consortium will be using nuclear energy to, well, replace coal, to power electric lights and Metrorail trains and other things everybody likes."
Oh, right. Everybody has liked those things, and no doubt everybody will still like them, until the next earthquake and nuclear, er, uh, accident. So it won't be the Russians who blow us up; it'll be our own beloved Mod. Con. This is so reassuring and makes such a difference.
Actually, as I read the bills that e-friends have identified as "Agenda 21," I am seriously starting to miss the nukes. What people like George H. Bush, who signed a lot of "Agenda 21" documents while President, and Barbara Kingsolver, who emoted about how just plain mean of us it was not to have taken those documents more seriously, understood "Agenda 21" to be about was a commitment for the United States to pollute less. That would have been fine. And everybody's been trying to pollute less; the cars have filters--walking behind a car hardly ever makes you feel sick, the way it used to do--and the industrial plants have "scrubbers" and so on. That, however, is not what "Agenda 21" was all about. It was also a commitment for the United States to become less affluent, to appease the envy of other people around the world. Hence the craziness of its more recent manifestations, the "Even giving up cars wouldn't be enough, Americans must give up horses and private land ownership and any individual control over their own homes, Americans must become huddled disease-plagued masses like the rest of the world!" fanaticism. And as long as the rest of the world is at that level of unenlightenment, maybe we the United States do need to be the nation with the most and the biggest and the baddest nuclear devices, and we need to point some of them at the nations from which the demands that we join the failed socialist economies of the world are coming at any given time.
I can't believe I said that. No good liberal child of the 1960s would ever have said that. Not without reading proposed legislation that takes the hate and envy embodied in "Agenda 21" seriously, as a rule for us to live by, anyway.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB1790S1
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+SB1138S1
Oh, right! Just what we need! Given that the Cold War didn't really end, that the world refuses to learn anything from the collapse of one socialist regime after another, that a critical number of people inside and outside the United States continue to place blind religious faith in Big Government's ability to do whatever God refuses to do about their emotional "needs," maybe we do need more nukes.
I'll bet half of you out there in cyberspace don't even remember Life With Nukes. Mutual Assured Destruction. The Russians hated us, to the extent they loved and hated what they were told to love and hate, and to a similar extent we hated them, and the only thing keeping us from war with what really was once our military and economic match was that each side had the nuclear technology to destroy the other. World War III was likely to break out any day; when it did break out the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. would, like the Kilkenny cats, have destroyed each other, so instead of two powerful countries with nuclear bombs there wouldn't be any. Oh, and the rest of the world wouldn't be a very pleasant place any more, either.
"Nobody wants to go back to that! This Consortium will be using nuclear energy to, well, replace coal, to power electric lights and Metrorail trains and other things everybody likes."
Oh, right. Everybody has liked those things, and no doubt everybody will still like them, until the next earthquake and nuclear, er, uh, accident. So it won't be the Russians who blow us up; it'll be our own beloved Mod. Con. This is so reassuring and makes such a difference.
Actually, as I read the bills that e-friends have identified as "Agenda 21," I am seriously starting to miss the nukes. What people like George H. Bush, who signed a lot of "Agenda 21" documents while President, and Barbara Kingsolver, who emoted about how just plain mean of us it was not to have taken those documents more seriously, understood "Agenda 21" to be about was a commitment for the United States to pollute less. That would have been fine. And everybody's been trying to pollute less; the cars have filters--walking behind a car hardly ever makes you feel sick, the way it used to do--and the industrial plants have "scrubbers" and so on. That, however, is not what "Agenda 21" was all about. It was also a commitment for the United States to become less affluent, to appease the envy of other people around the world. Hence the craziness of its more recent manifestations, the "Even giving up cars wouldn't be enough, Americans must give up horses and private land ownership and any individual control over their own homes, Americans must become huddled disease-plagued masses like the rest of the world!" fanaticism. And as long as the rest of the world is at that level of unenlightenment, maybe we the United States do need to be the nation with the most and the biggest and the baddest nuclear devices, and we need to point some of them at the nations from which the demands that we join the failed socialist economies of the world are coming at any given time.
I can't believe I said that. No good liberal child of the 1960s would ever have said that. Not without reading proposed legislation that takes the hate and envy embodied in "Agenda 21" seriously, as a rule for us to live by, anyway.
HB 1757: Wetland and Stream Replacement Fund
Virginia House Bill 1757 appears to be yet another attempt to spend money in the hope of proactively addressing a problem that would respond better to a negative, judgmental approach. It creates a "Wetland and Stream Replacement Fund."
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB1757EH1
What happened to enforcing existing laws against pollution? Verify that water is being polluted, and start slapping fines on the property owners until they sell the property to someone who wants to do something more wholesome with it. Why do we need to add a new, expensive Fund to that? I can understand why, all right. Take a real-world example of how it'd work, and you'll see why some people read HB 1757 as an "Agenda 21" scheme to destroy all that makes the United States what we are.
For example, yesterday I mentioned the phenomenon of bad neighbors who pasture cattle above a mountain spring and abandon the carcasses of illegally killed deer in the spring branch. I know who owns the cattle. I don't know that the same individual is to blame for the illegally killed deer. The family are privately working on it. We shouldn't have to work on it; we pay taxes in order to let trained, armed police officers work on it. They don't care. We do. What I know for sure is that the spring from which the Cat Sanctuary gets water has been polluted, and nobody from the Cat Sanctuary has been doing it.
Enforcing existing laws would be inconvenient. It would mean that the sheriff's deputies would have to get out of their cars and prowl around the mountain, stalking silent, stealthy, possibly violent poachers. The sheriff's deputies don't particularly enjoy doing this and, when called to investigate damage to a property owner's water line at 4 a.m., they seem about as sleepy and grumpy as the offended property owner is. If there's no bleeding body to transport and no stolen diamonds to track down, why should they have to write a report, they grumble. Who blames them?
So we get what this web site's Tea Party contacts identify as Agenda 21, or whatever its proponents are currently calling the unhelpful alternative kind of suggestions. "Well, of course people who work during the day tend to fall asleep at night, and although that's what they are paid to do we understand that the sheriff's deputies don't enjoy chasing outlaws around the mountain at night either. Why should private citizens, especially old ladies, have to live on a beautiful mountain near a sparkling mountain spring. Let's 'plan' something more efficient. Let's throw some money at a conservation group, and perhaps they can persuade the old ladies to move into a retirement project in town somewhere, and 'preserve' that beautiful mountain for some wolves and bears, who will probably scare away the poachers."
On paper, to the "planners," these things sound very wise. Of course, in practice, people whose home is on a mountain don't thrive in retirement projects. Probably the "planners" think we're no loss. This is an overcrowded country and many people think the part of the population that most needs thinning is the old ladies. Well, naturally the position of this web site is that the part of the population that most needs thinning is the part that naturally tends to thin itself--the violent mental cases. However, if transferred to retirement projects against our wills, some old ladies may become violent mental cases; there's always that possibility.
And the legitimate hunters we know shoot squirrels and coyotes for fun, so to them the words "wolves and bears" mean "Bring the appropriate ammunition." Probably the poachers do too; I've seen that they strip the meat off deer carcasses they leave lying about, presumably in order to eat it, and committed carnivores say there's a lot of good eating on a bear.
There is an international drug trade in the United States. So far, gangsters aren't raising marijuana and manufacturing drugs on farms owned by private families. That's partly because it's so much easier for them to do those things on state property, which is less often patrolled by owners and managers.
Meanwhile, although a reasonable number of pure, wild nature preserves are sustainable and a delight to the public, there is a limit to the number of nature preserves the state can afford. Sooner or later, and I hope it's later than my lifetime, a bankrupt state will get a deal it can't refuse on those nature preserves. We've seen logging, and not very efficient, sustainable, or enlightened sorts of logging, in National Forests. We'll probably see strip mining in those "preserved" former farms.
If conserving Virginia's resources is the goal, I think our legislature might do better to work on ways to keep every possible acre of land in the hands of private owners, with particular attention to those whose ancestral ties to the land go back furthest...and keep land out of the hands of nonprofit organizations, which tend to be more short-lived and less dependable.
HB 1757 passed the House and is currently before a committee in the Senate. If one of the following State Senators is supposed to represent you, you may want to suggest that he (or she) be cautious about giving taxpayers' money to unprofitable, er, nonprofit organizations. The committee members are Senators "Hanger (Chairman), Watkins, Puckett, Ruff, Blevins, Obenshain, McEachin, Petersen, Northam, Stuart, Marsden, Stanley, Black, Miller, Ebbin." (Don't you love the way lis.virginia.gov prints each name as a link you can use to e-mail your Senator?)
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB1757EH1
What happened to enforcing existing laws against pollution? Verify that water is being polluted, and start slapping fines on the property owners until they sell the property to someone who wants to do something more wholesome with it. Why do we need to add a new, expensive Fund to that? I can understand why, all right. Take a real-world example of how it'd work, and you'll see why some people read HB 1757 as an "Agenda 21" scheme to destroy all that makes the United States what we are.
For example, yesterday I mentioned the phenomenon of bad neighbors who pasture cattle above a mountain spring and abandon the carcasses of illegally killed deer in the spring branch. I know who owns the cattle. I don't know that the same individual is to blame for the illegally killed deer. The family are privately working on it. We shouldn't have to work on it; we pay taxes in order to let trained, armed police officers work on it. They don't care. We do. What I know for sure is that the spring from which the Cat Sanctuary gets water has been polluted, and nobody from the Cat Sanctuary has been doing it.
Enforcing existing laws would be inconvenient. It would mean that the sheriff's deputies would have to get out of their cars and prowl around the mountain, stalking silent, stealthy, possibly violent poachers. The sheriff's deputies don't particularly enjoy doing this and, when called to investigate damage to a property owner's water line at 4 a.m., they seem about as sleepy and grumpy as the offended property owner is. If there's no bleeding body to transport and no stolen diamonds to track down, why should they have to write a report, they grumble. Who blames them?
So we get what this web site's Tea Party contacts identify as Agenda 21, or whatever its proponents are currently calling the unhelpful alternative kind of suggestions. "Well, of course people who work during the day tend to fall asleep at night, and although that's what they are paid to do we understand that the sheriff's deputies don't enjoy chasing outlaws around the mountain at night either. Why should private citizens, especially old ladies, have to live on a beautiful mountain near a sparkling mountain spring. Let's 'plan' something more efficient. Let's throw some money at a conservation group, and perhaps they can persuade the old ladies to move into a retirement project in town somewhere, and 'preserve' that beautiful mountain for some wolves and bears, who will probably scare away the poachers."
On paper, to the "planners," these things sound very wise. Of course, in practice, people whose home is on a mountain don't thrive in retirement projects. Probably the "planners" think we're no loss. This is an overcrowded country and many people think the part of the population that most needs thinning is the old ladies. Well, naturally the position of this web site is that the part of the population that most needs thinning is the part that naturally tends to thin itself--the violent mental cases. However, if transferred to retirement projects against our wills, some old ladies may become violent mental cases; there's always that possibility.
And the legitimate hunters we know shoot squirrels and coyotes for fun, so to them the words "wolves and bears" mean "Bring the appropriate ammunition." Probably the poachers do too; I've seen that they strip the meat off deer carcasses they leave lying about, presumably in order to eat it, and committed carnivores say there's a lot of good eating on a bear.
There is an international drug trade in the United States. So far, gangsters aren't raising marijuana and manufacturing drugs on farms owned by private families. That's partly because it's so much easier for them to do those things on state property, which is less often patrolled by owners and managers.
Meanwhile, although a reasonable number of pure, wild nature preserves are sustainable and a delight to the public, there is a limit to the number of nature preserves the state can afford. Sooner or later, and I hope it's later than my lifetime, a bankrupt state will get a deal it can't refuse on those nature preserves. We've seen logging, and not very efficient, sustainable, or enlightened sorts of logging, in National Forests. We'll probably see strip mining in those "preserved" former farms.
If conserving Virginia's resources is the goal, I think our legislature might do better to work on ways to keep every possible acre of land in the hands of private owners, with particular attention to those whose ancestral ties to the land go back furthest...and keep land out of the hands of nonprofit organizations, which tend to be more short-lived and less dependable.
HB 1757 passed the House and is currently before a committee in the Senate. If one of the following State Senators is supposed to represent you, you may want to suggest that he (or she) be cautious about giving taxpayers' money to unprofitable, er, nonprofit organizations. The committee members are Senators "Hanger (Chairman), Watkins, Puckett, Ruff, Blevins, Obenshain, McEachin, Petersen, Northam, Stuart, Marsden, Stanley, Black, Miller, Ebbin." (Don't you love the way lis.virginia.gov prints each name as a link you can use to e-mail your Senator?)
HB 1398: Unclaimed Tax Credits
Virginia House Bill 1398 passed the House of Delegates by a solid majority. Note that this is not the piece of legislation that gives out tax credits to farmers who donate land to "conservation" or "preservation" groups. This is merely an addition to existing legislation, to the effect that, if farmers don't fall for the sales pitch and claim the tax credits, the state will give money to the same groups.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB1398H1
My, my, isn't it wonderful that we are all so rich, that our economy is just booming and our state revenue coffers bursting with money, so that we can afford this kind of thing. No need to...oh, say, f'rinstance, support "fresh air" programs to help offset the disadvantages of inner-city life for children, or medical expense funds to help treat the damage done by moving children off the farms and into the inner cities. I am just frilled frou an' frou to live in such a munificent State.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB1398H1
My, my, isn't it wonderful that we are all so rich, that our economy is just booming and our state revenue coffers bursting with money, so that we can afford this kind of thing. No need to...oh, say, f'rinstance, support "fresh air" programs to help offset the disadvantages of inner-city life for children, or medical expense funds to help treat the damage done by moving children off the farms and into the inner cities. I am just frilled frou an' frou to live in such a munificent State.
SB 1309: Soil and Water Conservation Board
Virginia Senate Bill 1309 passed the State Senate by a unanimous vote, passed a House committee vote, and is likely to become law. It authorizes a panel of unelected persons known as the Soil and Water Conservation Board to "convene stakeholder groups" of representatives of various organizations--including farmers' organizations, how thoughtful of them!--to "plan" how farmers should "manage nutrients."
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+SB1309S1
Is this Agenda 21? Are death panels only one step behind? Who knows. Is this even a scheme to adapt "cap and trade" to farming, so that big industrial-type "farms" can continue to pollute as long as Grandma is not allowed to keep a few hens and sell the eggs? Who knows. This is a substantial expenditure of money that meets no urgent need, offers no great advantage, and anticipates a degree of economic stabilization or growth that seems unlikely to materialize in the near future. Even if the sole effect of SB 1309 were to create a few jobs, I'm not sure why our legislature was so quick to agree that we can afford to create those jobs.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+SB1309S1
Is this Agenda 21? Are death panels only one step behind? Who knows. Is this even a scheme to adapt "cap and trade" to farming, so that big industrial-type "farms" can continue to pollute as long as Grandma is not allowed to keep a few hens and sell the eggs? Who knows. This is a substantial expenditure of money that meets no urgent need, offers no great advantage, and anticipates a degree of economic stabilization or growth that seems unlikely to materialize in the near future. Even if the sole effect of SB 1309 were to create a few jobs, I'm not sure why our legislature was so quick to agree that we can afford to create those jobs.
Phenology: Night Heron
Floodwaters are subsiding in Scott County, Virginia, but yesterday on the way to the computer center I saw an unusual bird flying to the top of a big tree. Crow? Too big, and not black enough, even against the sun. That red-tailed hawk I've been observing all winter? No; when perched it turned in such a way as to show its beak, then stretched out its neck. It was a small heron with black wings and a yellowish breast.
As if trying to make identifying it easier, the bird then answered a crow that was caw-cawing across the street. It was clearly echoing the crow's caws, not making the "croak" or "skeow" noises that identify the Green Heron.
There are two different, but not very different, species of Night Herons in the Eastern United States. Here's the one that is also found in Europe:
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-crowned_Night-Heron/id
And here's the one that's distinctly American:
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Yellow-crowned_Night-Heron/id
I wasn't close enough to see the "crown" feathers at the top of its head, but after checking out both Cornell fact pages linked above, I think the voice sounded more like the Yellow-crowned. Hard to be sure. The herons recorded at the Cornell web site were not talking to crows.
As if trying to make identifying it easier, the bird then answered a crow that was caw-cawing across the street. It was clearly echoing the crow's caws, not making the "croak" or "skeow" noises that identify the Green Heron.
There are two different, but not very different, species of Night Herons in the Eastern United States. Here's the one that is also found in Europe:
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-crowned_Night-Heron/id
And here's the one that's distinctly American:
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Yellow-crowned_Night-Heron/id
I wasn't close enough to see the "crown" feathers at the top of its head, but after checking out both Cornell fact pages linked above, I think the voice sounded more like the Yellow-crowned. Hard to be sure. The herons recorded at the Cornell web site were not talking to crows.
Tea Parties Are Growths, Socialism Is AIDS
As every primary school student knows, the magic cure for the sense of humiliation that comes from being called a nasty name is to recite a Magic Poem. Different verses are used at different schools, but at my school the formula used to be "Twinkle, twinkle, little star, what you say is what you are."
Karl Rove, reports Mytheos Holt, has called the Tea Party movement "a cancer" that damages the political future of anyone it supports. Karl Rove has never been exactly Mr. Popularity. It would be easy to make a case that what he says is what he is.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/06/why-are-some-conservatives-targeting-the-tea-party-as-a-cancer/
If you're a Tea Partier and someone vaps you with some reference to Karl Rove's name-calling, I recommend the Verbal Self-Defense move that begins with, "You're absolutely right." Because the Tea Party is a real grassroots movement, some organizations and individuals identified as Tea Parties have been undesirable. Why argue? There's no national organization with requirements and regulations. Anybody can be a Tea Party. The merits of your Tea Party have nothing to do with the demerits of someone else's. Tea Parties are growing cells. Some may well be malignant, some are healthy but not what you'd prefer to have, and some are what our Body Politic not only wants for comfort but needs for survival.
Then move back to the facts: the United States can't afford to keep on blowing out money in all directions as if it were still 1950, and by now we've seen that socialist movements are AIDS. Some kill fast, some slowly, and some have left a few infected nations still moving around--but everyone can see they're ill.
Karl Rove, reports Mytheos Holt, has called the Tea Party movement "a cancer" that damages the political future of anyone it supports. Karl Rove has never been exactly Mr. Popularity. It would be easy to make a case that what he says is what he is.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/06/why-are-some-conservatives-targeting-the-tea-party-as-a-cancer/
If you're a Tea Partier and someone vaps you with some reference to Karl Rove's name-calling, I recommend the Verbal Self-Defense move that begins with, "You're absolutely right." Because the Tea Party is a real grassroots movement, some organizations and individuals identified as Tea Parties have been undesirable. Why argue? There's no national organization with requirements and regulations. Anybody can be a Tea Party. The merits of your Tea Party have nothing to do with the demerits of someone else's. Tea Parties are growing cells. Some may well be malignant, some are healthy but not what you'd prefer to have, and some are what our Body Politic not only wants for comfort but needs for survival.
Then move back to the facts: the United States can't afford to keep on blowing out money in all directions as if it were still 1950, and by now we've seen that socialist movements are AIDS. Some kill fast, some slowly, and some have left a few infected nations still moving around--but everyone can see they're ill.
Blowing Out Candles on Birthday Cakes May Be...
In Australia, Mike Opelka reports a government warning that blowing out the candles on a birthday cake may adversely affect the health of others who might eat the cake:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/06/no-more-blowing-out-candles-on-birthday-cakes-do-we-have-a-new-nanny-state-champion/
No mention of whether this was the result of a tax-funded large-scale study to settle the question of how successfully all those tiny flames kill the germs in the birthday person's breath. I'll say this though. Birthday parties are for families. Family members have already been exposed to the germs in the birthday person's breath.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/06/no-more-blowing-out-candles-on-birthday-cakes-do-we-have-a-new-nanny-state-champion/
No mention of whether this was the result of a tax-funded large-scale study to settle the question of how successfully all those tiny flames kill the germs in the birthday person's breath. I'll say this though. Birthday parties are for families. Family members have already been exposed to the germs in the birthday person's breath.
HB 1828: Acquiring Land for Railroads
Virginia House Bill 1828 will, if enacted (and it probably will be), authorize the state to buy land for railroads, specifically for passenger trains intended to encourage more people to ride trains instead of driving.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB1828
For those who choose to live in and near cities, rail service is definitely a plus. And government doesn't need to encourage people to ride the train when they can...all it takes is an hour or two inching along Route 66 in bumper-to-bumper traffic, while those cute little four-to-eight-car Metrorail trains whir past you every three to six minutes, and you're checking your watch and saying, "Dang, if we'd parked at the Metro station we'd be home now."
And if you spend a lot of time commuting between two corners of Virginia...well, when I did that, Greyhound had this wonderful red-eye express bus that left Bristol around 11 p.m., stopped for fuel in Roanoke, and reached D.C. around 6 a.m. Great if your home was near Bristol. Nobody else seemed especially partial to this bus and at last report Greyhound wasn't running it any more. Now people whose homes are near Bristol can join the rest of Virginia in noticing how quick, easy, and even pleasant it is to travel between D.C. and Pittsburgh or Harpers Ferry by train, and why can't we go home this way too? It used to be possible; we had passenger trains in Southwest Virginia when I was a kid. Some of the rails were torn up and converted to little-used "trails." Very few if any old railroads have become part of private homes, stores, or gardens, and it wouldn't give much inconvenience to many people if Virginia had at least a local connecting train in every town, again, the way we had up into the 1970s.
However, although my legislators like the idea of bringing back the trains, and so do I, fair disclosure: some Tea Party contacts suspect that Agenda 21 will worm into the railroad revival plan somehow. Personally I feel less worried about that than about the observed facts: Metrorail trains and Amtrak trains are fun to ride, but Metro and Amtrak have, er, not exactly become profitable, or even fully self-supporting. In the case of Metro there is an obvious correlation between unprofitability and management by guys who opted for snazzy new bells and whistles over maintaining the working parts of the system, with results that can literally be described as a train wreck, or train wrecks; I don't know how much of the financial problem is due to this mismanagement, or whether it's possible for a passenger rail system to be profitable these days.
HB 1828 has passed the House and passed a committee vote in the State Senate unanimously. It's going to be hard to stop this "train," if that's what you were wanting to do. An ever-increasing number of Americans really shouldn't drive but have more freedom to travel, and interest in touring the state, than they have ever had before. Try to keep them (us) from getting train travel back, and you'll sound like Scrooge on steroids. This web site recommends sharing your Agenda 21 concerns with people in your community to make sure that re-connecting your town to rail service does not turn out to entail anything less pleasant.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB1828
For those who choose to live in and near cities, rail service is definitely a plus. And government doesn't need to encourage people to ride the train when they can...all it takes is an hour or two inching along Route 66 in bumper-to-bumper traffic, while those cute little four-to-eight-car Metrorail trains whir past you every three to six minutes, and you're checking your watch and saying, "Dang, if we'd parked at the Metro station we'd be home now."
And if you spend a lot of time commuting between two corners of Virginia...well, when I did that, Greyhound had this wonderful red-eye express bus that left Bristol around 11 p.m., stopped for fuel in Roanoke, and reached D.C. around 6 a.m. Great if your home was near Bristol. Nobody else seemed especially partial to this bus and at last report Greyhound wasn't running it any more. Now people whose homes are near Bristol can join the rest of Virginia in noticing how quick, easy, and even pleasant it is to travel between D.C. and Pittsburgh or Harpers Ferry by train, and why can't we go home this way too? It used to be possible; we had passenger trains in Southwest Virginia when I was a kid. Some of the rails were torn up and converted to little-used "trails." Very few if any old railroads have become part of private homes, stores, or gardens, and it wouldn't give much inconvenience to many people if Virginia had at least a local connecting train in every town, again, the way we had up into the 1970s.
However, although my legislators like the idea of bringing back the trains, and so do I, fair disclosure: some Tea Party contacts suspect that Agenda 21 will worm into the railroad revival plan somehow. Personally I feel less worried about that than about the observed facts: Metrorail trains and Amtrak trains are fun to ride, but Metro and Amtrak have, er, not exactly become profitable, or even fully self-supporting. In the case of Metro there is an obvious correlation between unprofitability and management by guys who opted for snazzy new bells and whistles over maintaining the working parts of the system, with results that can literally be described as a train wreck, or train wrecks; I don't know how much of the financial problem is due to this mismanagement, or whether it's possible for a passenger rail system to be profitable these days.
HB 1828 has passed the House and passed a committee vote in the State Senate unanimously. It's going to be hard to stop this "train," if that's what you were wanting to do. An ever-increasing number of Americans really shouldn't drive but have more freedom to travel, and interest in touring the state, than they have ever had before. Try to keep them (us) from getting train travel back, and you'll sound like Scrooge on steroids. This web site recommends sharing your Agenda 21 concerns with people in your community to make sure that re-connecting your town to rail service does not turn out to entail anything less pleasant.
Rameses, Ptah-hotep, and More
Elizabeth Barrette shares a link to a reprint of an Ancient Egyptian collection, including a history or boast about the Pharaoh Rameses, religious teachings of Ptah-hotep, a guide to etiquette by someone called Ani, love poems, and more. If you read far enough you'll find the proverb of Ani that EB thought worth calling attention to: If a deaf person is present, keep silent.
http://www.digital.library.upenn.edu/women/edwards/pharaohs/pharaohs-6.html
http://www.digital.library.upenn.edu/women/edwards/pharaohs/pharaohs-6.html
A Whale of a Canoe Ride
Liz Klimas shares photos and video of a humpback whale playing with a canoe in which two fully wired humans were cruising:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/07/incredible-video-captures-humpback-whale-breaching-in-front-of-arizona-couple-canoeing-in-maui/
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/07/incredible-video-captures-humpback-whale-breaching-in-front-of-arizona-couple-canoeing-in-maui/
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
How HB 2048 Boggled the Delegates' Minds
This portion of an e-mail from Sandy Garst's Shenandoah Constitutionalists is priceless. It relates to a 49-page monster of an atrocious bill that I seriously doubt anybody could have read, and fully analyzed, in one month. I suspect the House of Delegates voted to pass HB 2048, which has been discussed here before, because they were stupefied by the obfuscatory quality of the writing.
The following breakdown of the vote sounds a little suspicious, and I have mixed feelings about sharing it, but if you've tried to read HB 2048 you can see how it is at least possible. If any Delegate claims it's not accurate, we'll retract it, but meanwhile it seems valuable as gallows humor...that would be the gallows of property rights in Virginia...
"Agenda 21: HB2048 The Agenda 21 "on steroids" Omnibus Bill Water quality; transfer of responsibility for administration of programs.
floor: 02/04/13 House: VOTE: PASSAGE (82-Y 17-N)
YEAS--Albo, Anderson, BaCote, Brink, Bulova, Byron, Carr, Cole, Comstock, Cosgrove, Cox, M.K., Crockett-Stark, Dance, Dudenhefer, Edmunds, Fariss, Filler-Corn, Garrett, Greason, Head, Helsel, Herring, Hester, Hope, Howell, A.T., Iaquinto, Ingram, James, Joannou, Johnson, Jones, Keam, Knight, Kory, Krupicka, Landes, LeMunyon, Lewis, Lingamfelter, Lopez, Loupassi, Marshall, D.W., Massie, May, McClellan, McQuinn, Merricks, Miller, Morris, Morrissey, O'Bannon, Orrock, Plum, Pogge, Poindexter, Purkey, Putney, Ramadan, Ransone, Robinson, Rust, Scott, E.T., Scott, J.M., Sherwood, Sickles, Spruill, Stolle, Surovell, Tata, Torian, Toscano, Tyler, Villanueva, Ward, Ware, O., Ware, R.L., Watts, Webert, Wilt, Wright, Yost, Mr. Speaker--82.
NAYS--Bell, Richard P., Bell, Robert B., Cline, Cox, J.A., Farrell, Gilbert, Habeeb, Hodges, Kilgore, Marshall, R.G., Minchew, Morefield, O'Quinn, Peace, Rush, Watson, Yancey--17.
ABSTENTIONS--0.
NOT VOTING--Hugo--1.
Delegate Crockett-Stark was recorded as yea. Intended to vote nay.Delegate Kilgore was recorded as nay. Intended to vote yea.Delegate Anderson was recorded as yea. Intended to vote nay.Delegate Lingamfelter was recorded as yea. Intended to vote nay."
I believe that this report is consistent with the life and work of Delegates Crockett-Stark and Lingamfelter. After the General Assembly, when our legislators get time to breathe, we can ask Delegate Kilgore whether he did in fact intend to vote yea to this abomination, and if so why, and also why, if there is anything good in these 49 pages of links and references and bad writing, the writers did not put it into a separate readable bill where it could be appreciated.
Delegate Kilgore is my third cousin once removed; he was four years ahead of me at school, thus not what might be called a close relative, but I have a lot of respect for his intelligence and general good will. I'm not pleased when Tea Party contacts impugn both--or find reasons to. I think it's possible that several Delegates' intelligence and good will may have been clouded by the sort of private problems that have tempted more than one family in Scott County to indulge in fascist fantasies.
I will share this much of something that has hitherto been an extended-family secret, and not even shared with most of the extended family. Delegate Kilgore is aware of the problems the Cat Sanctuary has had with a neighbor who has definitely done harm to our water supply (and to me, personally) and to the water supply of our townspeople in Gate City (who at least have a filtration and chlorination system, designed to prevent this kind of bad neighbors from doing harm to the townspeople's bodies). We discussed this last summer at some length. I think we are in agreement that people who run cattle above a mountain spring, spray pesticides around a mountain spring, park cars practically in the spring branch below a mountain spring, and dump animals killed out of season into the spring branch below a mountain spring, are bad neighbors; that they are not gentlemen; that they don't deserve to own land, and that, if they were to maim or kill themselves in the process of wreaking further damage on their own little patch of land, it would not be an entirely bad thing.
We are not the only people whose water supply has been endangered by bad neighbors. Other neighborhoods in Scott County have seen horrible things happen to what was supposedly minimally processed water straight out of mountain springs. It is possible that, somewhere in HB 2048, Delegate Kilgore saw some hope of help for his faithful constituents.
It is possible that he underestimated our ability and willingness to help ourselves...how else could anybody vote for a land grab? Conservative readers, remember Hurricane Sandy? If you want to sit back and watch TV when people need help, Big Government is going to have an excuse to step in and do things their way.
Residents of the Cat Sanctuary did not ask for any piece of legislation that would authorize land grabbing in order to "protect" people even from bad neighbors like this one. Bad neighbors can be better dealt with by good neighbors than by bigger government. From bad neighbors we can at least get the land back. Once Big Government gets title to a piece of land, it's lost to the decent law-abiding citizens of Virginia until Big Government goes bankrupt and sells the land to malevolent foreign interests. People lose their homes, their lives, their heritage...I'm starting to feel beleaguered here, and because I've had so little in life but my home and have so little else to lose, you do not want me feeling beleaguered...and the state loses its tax base! For pity's sake.
Attention Tea Partiers. If you want to be part of a demonstration of the American way to deal with bad neighbors who pollute mountain springs, tell Saloli. (Yes, what you can do will involve money first and publicity second.) We'll demonstrate, we'll discuss how the demonstration works, and we'll even try to share some pictures. We may need a little help from friends, but we do not need "help" from the likes of HB 2048.
The following breakdown of the vote sounds a little suspicious, and I have mixed feelings about sharing it, but if you've tried to read HB 2048 you can see how it is at least possible. If any Delegate claims it's not accurate, we'll retract it, but meanwhile it seems valuable as gallows humor...that would be the gallows of property rights in Virginia...
"Agenda 21: HB2048 The Agenda 21 "on steroids" Omnibus Bill Water quality; transfer of responsibility for administration of programs.
floor: 02/04/13 House: VOTE: PASSAGE (82-Y 17-N)
YEAS--Albo, Anderson, BaCote, Brink, Bulova, Byron, Carr, Cole, Comstock, Cosgrove, Cox, M.K., Crockett-Stark, Dance, Dudenhefer, Edmunds, Fariss, Filler-Corn, Garrett, Greason, Head, Helsel, Herring, Hester, Hope, Howell, A.T., Iaquinto, Ingram, James, Joannou, Johnson, Jones, Keam, Knight, Kory, Krupicka, Landes, LeMunyon, Lewis, Lingamfelter, Lopez, Loupassi, Marshall, D.W., Massie, May, McClellan, McQuinn, Merricks, Miller, Morris, Morrissey, O'Bannon, Orrock, Plum, Pogge, Poindexter, Purkey, Putney, Ramadan, Ransone, Robinson, Rust, Scott, E.T., Scott, J.M., Sherwood, Sickles, Spruill, Stolle, Surovell, Tata, Torian, Toscano, Tyler, Villanueva, Ward, Ware, O., Ware, R.L., Watts, Webert, Wilt, Wright, Yost, Mr. Speaker--82.
NAYS--Bell, Richard P., Bell, Robert B., Cline, Cox, J.A., Farrell, Gilbert, Habeeb, Hodges, Kilgore, Marshall, R.G., Minchew, Morefield, O'Quinn, Peace, Rush, Watson, Yancey--17.
ABSTENTIONS--0.
NOT VOTING--Hugo--1.
Delegate Crockett-Stark was recorded as yea. Intended to vote nay.Delegate Kilgore was recorded as nay. Intended to vote yea.Delegate Anderson was recorded as yea. Intended to vote nay.Delegate Lingamfelter was recorded as yea. Intended to vote nay."
I believe that this report is consistent with the life and work of Delegates Crockett-Stark and Lingamfelter. After the General Assembly, when our legislators get time to breathe, we can ask Delegate Kilgore whether he did in fact intend to vote yea to this abomination, and if so why, and also why, if there is anything good in these 49 pages of links and references and bad writing, the writers did not put it into a separate readable bill where it could be appreciated.
Delegate Kilgore is my third cousin once removed; he was four years ahead of me at school, thus not what might be called a close relative, but I have a lot of respect for his intelligence and general good will. I'm not pleased when Tea Party contacts impugn both--or find reasons to. I think it's possible that several Delegates' intelligence and good will may have been clouded by the sort of private problems that have tempted more than one family in Scott County to indulge in fascist fantasies.
I will share this much of something that has hitherto been an extended-family secret, and not even shared with most of the extended family. Delegate Kilgore is aware of the problems the Cat Sanctuary has had with a neighbor who has definitely done harm to our water supply (and to me, personally) and to the water supply of our townspeople in Gate City (who at least have a filtration and chlorination system, designed to prevent this kind of bad neighbors from doing harm to the townspeople's bodies). We discussed this last summer at some length. I think we are in agreement that people who run cattle above a mountain spring, spray pesticides around a mountain spring, park cars practically in the spring branch below a mountain spring, and dump animals killed out of season into the spring branch below a mountain spring, are bad neighbors; that they are not gentlemen; that they don't deserve to own land, and that, if they were to maim or kill themselves in the process of wreaking further damage on their own little patch of land, it would not be an entirely bad thing.
We are not the only people whose water supply has been endangered by bad neighbors. Other neighborhoods in Scott County have seen horrible things happen to what was supposedly minimally processed water straight out of mountain springs. It is possible that, somewhere in HB 2048, Delegate Kilgore saw some hope of help for his faithful constituents.
It is possible that he underestimated our ability and willingness to help ourselves...how else could anybody vote for a land grab? Conservative readers, remember Hurricane Sandy? If you want to sit back and watch TV when people need help, Big Government is going to have an excuse to step in and do things their way.
Residents of the Cat Sanctuary did not ask for any piece of legislation that would authorize land grabbing in order to "protect" people even from bad neighbors like this one. Bad neighbors can be better dealt with by good neighbors than by bigger government. From bad neighbors we can at least get the land back. Once Big Government gets title to a piece of land, it's lost to the decent law-abiding citizens of Virginia until Big Government goes bankrupt and sells the land to malevolent foreign interests. People lose their homes, their lives, their heritage...I'm starting to feel beleaguered here, and because I've had so little in life but my home and have so little else to lose, you do not want me feeling beleaguered...and the state loses its tax base! For pity's sake.
Attention Tea Partiers. If you want to be part of a demonstration of the American way to deal with bad neighbors who pollute mountain springs, tell Saloli. (Yes, what you can do will involve money first and publicity second.) We'll demonstrate, we'll discuss how the demonstration works, and we'll even try to share some pictures. We may need a little help from friends, but we do not need "help" from the likes of HB 2048.
HB 1871: Bullying Is Bad
Virginia House Bill 1871 crosses over from the House of Delegates to the Senate today and will, if enacted, define "bullying," as distinct from ordinary "teasing" or "horseplay," in terms of a "real or perceived power imbalance" between bullies and victims. And require teachers to Do Something About It. Teachers are so good at keeping children from making one another miserable.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB1871
When I was in elementary school we had a good working definition of "bullying." It wasn't precise, but it was clear; the mental picture associated with the word "bully" was a big kid beating up a little kid. That is something teachers can and should be required to Do Something About.
I remember being called as a witness in one case that involved what I still understand "bullying" to be. My brother, then in grade four, had intervened in an altercation between boys in grade three. My brother was a big strong healthy nine-year-old. The third grade boy he was trying to protect was a normal-sized healthy eight-year-old. The third grade boy he punched was a flunker, ten years old; if no longer quite as big as I was at twelve, he'd been bigger during the three years we'd known each other. Who was the bully? A teacher seriously tried to make the case that my brother was the bully, because the bigger third grade boy "is retarded." Not in a way that kept him from beating up smaller kids, I said; I would've thought twice about fighting with him myself. Anyway, this was the kind of interaction among children that justified some sort of interference by adults.
But when Delegate McClellan's definition of "bullying," quote, "includes cyber bullying" (absence of hyphen hers)...I confess, Gentle Readers, I am puzzled. How much damage can children do to each other over the Internet? How, without constant espionage, can teachers prevent children from writing or saying nasty things about each other? It may be hard to draw the line between protection and overprotection, but surely children can learn to defend themselves from the attacks of schoolmates who aren't even in the same building? I can see why this well-intentioned bill has been classified as "nannyism"...just a little editing, and it'd be a good bill.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB1871
When I was in elementary school we had a good working definition of "bullying." It wasn't precise, but it was clear; the mental picture associated with the word "bully" was a big kid beating up a little kid. That is something teachers can and should be required to Do Something About.
I remember being called as a witness in one case that involved what I still understand "bullying" to be. My brother, then in grade four, had intervened in an altercation between boys in grade three. My brother was a big strong healthy nine-year-old. The third grade boy he was trying to protect was a normal-sized healthy eight-year-old. The third grade boy he punched was a flunker, ten years old; if no longer quite as big as I was at twelve, he'd been bigger during the three years we'd known each other. Who was the bully? A teacher seriously tried to make the case that my brother was the bully, because the bigger third grade boy "is retarded." Not in a way that kept him from beating up smaller kids, I said; I would've thought twice about fighting with him myself. Anyway, this was the kind of interaction among children that justified some sort of interference by adults.
But when Delegate McClellan's definition of "bullying," quote, "includes cyber bullying" (absence of hyphen hers)...I confess, Gentle Readers, I am puzzled. How much damage can children do to each other over the Internet? How, without constant espionage, can teachers prevent children from writing or saying nasty things about each other? It may be hard to draw the line between protection and overprotection, but surely children can learn to defend themselves from the attacks of schoolmates who aren't even in the same building? I can see why this well-intentioned bill has been classified as "nannyism"...just a little editing, and it'd be a good bill.
HJ 653: Joint Resolution to Oppose Obamacare
Virginia's House Joint Resolution 653, which passed the Senate by a vote of 69 to 28, expresses the state's resolution to oppose Obamacare.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HJ653
While this resolution doesn't satisfy anyone who had hoped for a positive alternative to Obamacare (showing that we have yet to reach a consensus on what the alternatives might include), it does at least express an opinion on which a majority of the Commonwealth agree. This web site thanks Delegate Lingamfelter, better known as the author of the original Boneta Bill, for HJ 653.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HJ653
While this resolution doesn't satisfy anyone who had hoped for a positive alternative to Obamacare (showing that we have yet to reach a consensus on what the alternatives might include), it does at least express an opinion on which a majority of the Commonwealth agree. This web site thanks Delegate Lingamfelter, better known as the author of the original Boneta Bill, for HJ 653.
SB 981: No Cell Phones in School Zones--While Driving
Virginia Senate Bill 981 was classified under "Nanny" by a Tea Party correspondent, but, upon reading the actual text, I like it. The bill (which passed the Senate and is currently in committee in the House) doesn't ban students and teachers from using cell phones in the school building; it bans drivers from using cell phones while driving around a school. And it specifically defines the banned phones as "hand-held," thus exempting headset phones that leave drivers free to steer their vehicles.
This web site has been calling for bans on the use of hand-held cell phones while driving for a long time. Pull over and talk, or hang up and drive. We have seen drivers hold these things in their one good hand and steer a truck, at full traffic speed, with an elbow, and we were frightened.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+SB981
This web site has been calling for bans on the use of hand-held cell phones while driving for a long time. Pull over and talk, or hang up and drive. We have seen drivers hold these things in their one good hand and steer a truck, at full traffic speed, with an elbow, and we were frightened.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+SB981
SB 1223 Requires Evaluation for Teachers
Virginia Senate Bill 1223, due to cross over to the House after passing the Senate unanimously, is an interesting bill. It's about public schools. It provides a procedure for evaluations and hearings, both to ensure that students are making progress and to ensure that teachers, principals, and superintendents are doing their jobs. So why does it open with a reference to a soil and water conservation board? Was this an accident, a deliberate bid for scrutiny by some of the more active Tea Parties, or a way to protect the jobs of an unnecessary group of unelected people by mentioning them in pieces of legislation other than the one that authorized their jobs to exist in the first place?
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+SB1223
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+SB1223
HB 2311 Expands Council on Higher Education
Virginia House Bill 2311 will probably be enacted into law (it passed the House of Delegates unanimously). It expands the size and expensiveness of the State Council on Higher Education:
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB2311H1
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB2311H1
Witch Hazel Photos
A blogger known as Quarryquest shares photos of witch hazel in its natural form...a shrub that starts producing small yellow flowers very early in spring. (In this case the word "witch" should have been spelled "wych," from an obsolete word for "showing signs of life"; like wych elm, witch hazel blooms early. Witch hazel was probably an herb used by traditional English healers, some of whom were called witches. Hence some confusion about the origin and correct spelling of the word.)
http://quarryquest.dreamwidth.org/90652.html
Thanks to Elizabeth Barrette for the link.
http://quarryquest.dreamwidth.org/90652.html
Thanks to Elizabeth Barrette for the link.
HB 2229 Passed the House
Virginia House Bill 2229 will, if enacted, authorize the state government to oppose that unconstitutional part of the National Defense Authorization Act about detaining a U.S. citizen without a trial. At least that's its stated purpose.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB2229H1
I wish I had more faith in the claim that merely filtering an unconstitutional encroachment on an individual's civil liberties past a lot of other individuals would effectively prevent such encroachment, a couple of elections down the road. I liked last year's version of this idea better.
This web site has not been giving much attention to bills and laws about the rights of criminals, on the assumption that people who intend to commit crimes should not be reading this web site anyway. If you want to commit robbery, rape, murder, or even identity theft, we recommend that you turn off the computer and get in some practice breaking rocks, which is what we think you should be doing with the rest of your life. But with the totalitarian tendencies our government is showing these days, maybe we should be more concerned about the rights of convicted felons. Who knows how long it will be before studying the Bible and the U.S. Constitution becomes a felony...
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB2229H1
I wish I had more faith in the claim that merely filtering an unconstitutional encroachment on an individual's civil liberties past a lot of other individuals would effectively prevent such encroachment, a couple of elections down the road. I liked last year's version of this idea better.
This web site has not been giving much attention to bills and laws about the rights of criminals, on the assumption that people who intend to commit crimes should not be reading this web site anyway. If you want to commit robbery, rape, murder, or even identity theft, we recommend that you turn off the computer and get in some practice breaking rocks, which is what we think you should be doing with the rest of your life. But with the totalitarian tendencies our government is showing these days, maybe we should be more concerned about the rights of convicted felons. Who knows how long it will be before studying the Bible and the U.S. Constitution becomes a felony...
HB 2012: Opposing Drones
Virginia House Bill 2012 is delightfully simple. It opposes the use of unmanned surveillance aircraft or "drones" to spy on people and businesses.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB2012
It passed the House by a vote of 83-16 and will cross over to the State Senate today.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB2012
It passed the House by a vote of 83-16 and will cross over to the State Senate today.
Legislative Update from Rob Bell
From Delegate Rob Bell, edited for format:
"Today was “crossover,” which is the last day that bills can pass the House and be sent over to the Senate. I was pleased that three of my bills to combat voter fraud passed.
"Today was “crossover,” which is the last day that bills can pass the House and be sent over to the Senate. I was pleased that three of my bills to combat voter fraud passed.
House Bill 1765 - Requires the State
Police to help identify felons among those who are registering to vote and to
help the State Board of Elections to identify felons that are already on the
voter rolls.
House Bill 1764 - Requires Virginia to
work with other states to ensure that no voter is registered in two states at
the same time.
House Bill 2331 - Gives the Virginia
Attorney General independent authority to prosecute violations of election laws,
instead of having to wait to be invited.
Additionally, Delegate
Mark Cole’s House Bill 1337 has passed the House of
Delegates, too. HB 1337 will stop some of the worst forms of voter fraud, by
eliminating a utility bill or bank statement as forms of
identification for voting. HB 1337 does not go as far as my House
Bill 1787 (which would have required no-exceptions photo ID). However, it does
improve our voting laws, and I support it."
Delegate Bell is a candidate for state attorney general. Campaign headquarters are:
Rob Bell for Attorney General
2309
Finch Ct * Charlottesville,
VA 22911 * (434) 981-7355
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
SB 922: State Health Department and Insurance
Virginia Senate Bill 922, which passed the Senate by a clear majority, is another maze of links authorizing the state health department to manage an insurance plan:
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+SB922ES1
Some Tea Parties are for it. Some are against it. Personally, I say it's another step away from a fiscally responsible, sustainable health care plan.
In view of an interesting e-mail exchange I had yesterday, I want to share this. I, personally, should be exempt from Obamacare, both because my cash income is still incredibly low (youall are welcome to do something about that) and because I object to it on religious grounds. And I'm fully qualified, if driven to it by Obamacare, to organize a church, with meetings and ministers and all, that has a rule against members participating in large-scale gambling schemes such as insurance. That is not what drives this web site's opposition to Obamacare. It's not just about me-me-me and how can I sit on more of my money.
I want to pay more taxes--not because I want more taxes to be collected, but because I want to be earning more money on which to pay taxes. And I want those taxes to be used to cover any medical treatment that may benefit any genuinely needy person. I think we as a society have some chance of achieving that goal if we pay only for the actual treatments that help keep people alive. I think we have no chance if we try to finance a universal insurance gamble.
This web site has previously chortled at the inadequacy of some legislative reactions to Obamacare (e.g. in http://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2013/01/hb-1314-identical-policies-that-dont.html). To be fair, as a Marshall partisan said yesterday, these may be perceived as steps in the direction of a more sustainable solution to the medical care problem. Right. I see anything that involves the insurance industry as a step away from a sustainable solution. Maybe you don't.
I say SB 922 is another inadequate effort that, if enacted, will only lead us into another fiscal morass, which is probably why Senator Carrico voted against it. I say this is a democracy and youall have a constitutional right to be wrong in any way that does not commandeer any support or participation from me. But if we lose a lot of public money on an insurance boondoggle, it will be much harder to create a sensible system that pays fair prices for actual medical help.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+SB922ES1
Some Tea Parties are for it. Some are against it. Personally, I say it's another step away from a fiscally responsible, sustainable health care plan.
In view of an interesting e-mail exchange I had yesterday, I want to share this. I, personally, should be exempt from Obamacare, both because my cash income is still incredibly low (youall are welcome to do something about that) and because I object to it on religious grounds. And I'm fully qualified, if driven to it by Obamacare, to organize a church, with meetings and ministers and all, that has a rule against members participating in large-scale gambling schemes such as insurance. That is not what drives this web site's opposition to Obamacare. It's not just about me-me-me and how can I sit on more of my money.
I want to pay more taxes--not because I want more taxes to be collected, but because I want to be earning more money on which to pay taxes. And I want those taxes to be used to cover any medical treatment that may benefit any genuinely needy person. I think we as a society have some chance of achieving that goal if we pay only for the actual treatments that help keep people alive. I think we have no chance if we try to finance a universal insurance gamble.
This web site has previously chortled at the inadequacy of some legislative reactions to Obamacare (e.g. in http://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2013/01/hb-1314-identical-policies-that-dont.html). To be fair, as a Marshall partisan said yesterday, these may be perceived as steps in the direction of a more sustainable solution to the medical care problem. Right. I see anything that involves the insurance industry as a step away from a sustainable solution. Maybe you don't.
I say SB 922 is another inadequate effort that, if enacted, will only lead us into another fiscal morass, which is probably why Senator Carrico voted against it. I say this is a democracy and youall have a constitutional right to be wrong in any way that does not commandeer any support or participation from me. But if we lose a lot of public money on an insurance boondoggle, it will be much harder to create a sensible system that pays fair prices for actual medical help.
Phenology: Flooded Valleys
I'm not sure where in the United States the blogger known as Earthspirits lives, but these high-water photos resemble what we've been seeing in southwestern Virginia lately:
http://earthspirits.dreamwidth.org/111680.html
Lots of streams up to or over their banks. Humidity remains high. Rain and snow keep falling.
Here in Gate City the temperature is comfortably up in the thirties (Fahrenheit of course), the weekend's snow is melting, roads are muddy. Rain was not falling, but was expected, when I left the house so I didn't bother carrying the laptop...it hardly worked fast enough to let me deal with half a dozen e-mails in four hours, yesterday, anyway. Of course, to be fair, the e-mails I opened first were full of links to pending bills...
http://earthspirits.dreamwidth.org/111680.html
Lots of streams up to or over their banks. Humidity remains high. Rain and snow keep falling.
Here in Gate City the temperature is comfortably up in the thirties (Fahrenheit of course), the weekend's snow is melting, roads are muddy. Rain was not falling, but was expected, when I left the house so I didn't bother carrying the laptop...it hardly worked fast enough to let me deal with half a dozen e-mails in four hours, yesterday, anyway. Of course, to be fair, the e-mails I opened first were full of links to pending bills...
HB 1852: Homemade Food Needs Warning Labels
Virginia House Bill 1852 passed the House of Delegates by a universal vote, 100-0, and I'm glad. The most obvious thing HB 1852 will do for most of you out there is that, if you like the taste of black walnuts but don't have time or space to bash those thick, hard, sharp, splintery inner shells with a hammer, you can now pay rural property owners to crack these nuts for you, instead of having to pay for the nuts in their shells and then probably not even finding time to open and eat them. All the farmers have to do is package these nuts (or honey, or home-canned pickles, or whatever) with a label warning you that they were prepared in an uninspected site--you're consuming them at your own risk.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB1852EH1
When enacted into law, as anything that passes the House unanimously should be, this bill will also give Virginia a commercial edge over Tennessee. Nice. In the long run it should merely restore common-sense legislation in Tennessee, but that's also nice.
We thank Delegate Orrock for HB 1852.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB1852EH1
When enacted into law, as anything that passes the House unanimously should be, this bill will also give Virginia a commercial edge over Tennessee. Nice. In the long run it should merely restore common-sense legislation in Tennessee, but that's also nice.
We thank Delegate Orrock for HB 1852.
Boneta Bill Passes House of Delegates 77-22
HURRAH!
While what just passed the House of Delegates is still the "weak" version of the Boneta Bill (giving land grabbers another year to harass individual farmers, and lacking the financial penalties for doing so), Virginia House Bill 1430 still deserves to become law.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB1430H1
Now we need another bill that restores the financial penalties for land grabbing.
While what just passed the House of Delegates is still the "weak" version of the Boneta Bill (giving land grabbers another year to harass individual farmers, and lacking the financial penalties for doing so), Virginia House Bill 1430 still deserves to become law.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB1430H1
Now we need another bill that restores the financial penalties for land grabbing.
SB 1029: Planning and Zoning
Virginia Senate Bill 1029 would, if enacted into law, not require communities to burden themselves with planning commissions and zoning ordinances, but...let's just say it's a far cry from the substitute I would have preferred, which would have banned all zoning ordinances, required "planning commission" members to live in the communities they want to "plan" and do their job entirely as volunteers, and required any "plans" made for the rest of the community to be read at a general meeting, by the person who proposed them, subject to public ridicule before a popular vote.
However, all of our State Senators voted to pass SB 1029:
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+SB1029S1
If you want to see something added to this bill ensuring that local governments have the right to reject any and all forms of "planning" and zoning, contact your Delegate now.
However, all of our State Senators voted to pass SB 1029:
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+SB1029S1
If you want to see something added to this bill ensuring that local governments have the right to reject any and all forms of "planning" and zoning, contact your Delegate now.
HB 2190: Localities May Aggravate Effects of HB 2048
Virginia House Bill 2190 would, if enacted into law, allow local governments, e.g. Fauquier County, to make themselves more burdensome to citizens than HB 2048 requires them to be, in the name of "stormwater management":
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB2190H1
It passed the House. I can see how this one might have seemed like a useful compromise, but if you support individual property rights, you won't like it.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+HB2190H1
It passed the House. I can see how this one might have seemed like a useful compromise, but if you support individual property rights, you won't like it.
Bay State Boondoggle (Obamacare Update)
Congressman Morgan Griffith seems to have adopted a reculer pour mieux sauter approach to his commitment to getting Obamacare repealed before it goes into effect. At least a one-splinter-at-a-time approach seems likely to eliminate some of the most atrocious aspects of Obamacare. This one is getting bipartisan support, according to Congressman Griffith's E-Newsletter:
"As we discuss federal spending and policies that should reflect common-sense American values, I should point out that the Affordable Care Act – also known as Obamacare – includes a provision that doesn’t treat each of the respective States equally.
Before he was sworn in to serve as our Secretary of State, then-Senator John Kerry (D-MA) had a Medicare provision added to Obamacare that allowed for Medicare wage index changes to be paid for out of a national pool of money instead of out of each State’s allocation. Urban hospitals in a State cannot get paid less than rural hospitals. If a State – like Massachusetts – has just one rural hospital receiving a special rural reimbursement rate, every hospital in that State receives the higher reimbursement.
Massachusetts’ Nantucket Cottage Hospital is a 19-bed hospital on an island where the median home price is more than $1 million. This hospital pays more in wages – perhaps because of the wealth of the island’s inhabitants and visitors – than your typical hospital in Virginia’s Ninth District. The Nantucket Cottage Hospital receives the higher reimbursement rate, and accordingly, so do all of Massachusetts’ hospitals. Because of Senator Kerry’s provision, Virginia’s Ninth District – with a median income of less than $40,000 – is helping to pay for the health care of Massachusetts’ residents and visitors.
This doesn’t seem right to me. Does it seem right to you?
The good news is last week, a bill was introduced in the Senate that would repeal Senator Kerry’s provision and reverse this problematic and unfair windfall – the “Bay State Boondoggle.” It has already collected bipartisan support, including the support of Senator Mark Warner (D-VA).
I’m told that the House Committee on Ways and Means is working on legislation to repeal the provision. I will be sure to work for this and other common-sense proposals to improve the Obama administration’s health care law."
It's always a pleasure to be able to thank Senator Warner, too, for his good work.
"As we discuss federal spending and policies that should reflect common-sense American values, I should point out that the Affordable Care Act – also known as Obamacare – includes a provision that doesn’t treat each of the respective States equally.
Before he was sworn in to serve as our Secretary of State, then-Senator John Kerry (D-MA) had a Medicare provision added to Obamacare that allowed for Medicare wage index changes to be paid for out of a national pool of money instead of out of each State’s allocation. Urban hospitals in a State cannot get paid less than rural hospitals. If a State – like Massachusetts – has just one rural hospital receiving a special rural reimbursement rate, every hospital in that State receives the higher reimbursement.
Massachusetts’ Nantucket Cottage Hospital is a 19-bed hospital on an island where the median home price is more than $1 million. This hospital pays more in wages – perhaps because of the wealth of the island’s inhabitants and visitors – than your typical hospital in Virginia’s Ninth District. The Nantucket Cottage Hospital receives the higher reimbursement rate, and accordingly, so do all of Massachusetts’ hospitals. Because of Senator Kerry’s provision, Virginia’s Ninth District – with a median income of less than $40,000 – is helping to pay for the health care of Massachusetts’ residents and visitors.
This doesn’t seem right to me. Does it seem right to you?
The good news is last week, a bill was introduced in the Senate that would repeal Senator Kerry’s provision and reverse this problematic and unfair windfall – the “Bay State Boondoggle.” It has already collected bipartisan support, including the support of Senator Mark Warner (D-VA).
I’m told that the House Committee on Ways and Means is working on legislation to repeal the provision. I will be sure to work for this and other common-sense proposals to improve the Obama administration’s health care law."
It's always a pleasure to be able to thank Senator Warner, too, for his good work.
HB 2048 Passes House (Call Your State Senator)
Virginia House Bill 2048 consists of 49 pages of verbiage and references to other documents, about one-third of which can be accessed via Internet links if you take the time. It has been disputed in our House of Delegates. It has been "engrossed," or substantially rewritten. According to e-friends who claim to have read the whole thing with all its links and references (I make no such claim), it still basically says that, if you own property, the fact that "stormwater" may run off it (as it might be after this weekend's snowstorm) gives the state a right to grab it. Only it says it in such an eye-glazing mess of minutiae that our House of Delegates passed it by vote.
The following Delegates had enough fortitude to say no to this atrocity: "Bell, Richard P., Bell, Robert B., Cline, Cox, J.A., Farrell, Gilbert, Habeeb, Hodges, Kilgore, Marshall, R.G., Minchew, Morefield, O'Quinn, Peace, Rush, Watson, Yancey." This is not a "usual suspects" list who usually vote the same way, and I'm not sure whether all of them opposed HB 2048 for the same reasons. Even if your Delegate opposed HB 2048 because s/he habitually votes against anything that prints out to more than ten pages, that's a respectable reason, and this web site recommends sending thanks to him or her.
If your Delegate voted for it, this is more likely to mean that s/he fell asleep than that s/he is a bad Delegate. Politicians tend to be extroverts. Extroverts tend to be easily hypnotized. You can probably use this information during the next year.
I'm not going to claim that I've checked all the links and references in any version of HB 2048. I'm not going to ask you to do that, or claim that you have. Instead I recommend keeping your opposition to this bill on a level everybody, however legislation-fatigued, can understand. It calls for the state to pay more money to unelected people to perform a service without which the Commonwealth of Virginia has survived for over 200 years. We are not experiencing an unprecedented economic boom that would justify the state's employment of any unelected people without which we could possibly survive. Therefore, whatever its ramifications, HB 2048 is a bad bill.
The following Delegates had enough fortitude to say no to this atrocity: "Bell, Richard P., Bell, Robert B., Cline, Cox, J.A., Farrell, Gilbert, Habeeb, Hodges, Kilgore, Marshall, R.G., Minchew, Morefield, O'Quinn, Peace, Rush, Watson, Yancey." This is not a "usual suspects" list who usually vote the same way, and I'm not sure whether all of them opposed HB 2048 for the same reasons. Even if your Delegate opposed HB 2048 because s/he habitually votes against anything that prints out to more than ten pages, that's a respectable reason, and this web site recommends sending thanks to him or her.
If your Delegate voted for it, this is more likely to mean that s/he fell asleep than that s/he is a bad Delegate. Politicians tend to be extroverts. Extroverts tend to be easily hypnotized. You can probably use this information during the next year.
I'm not going to claim that I've checked all the links and references in any version of HB 2048. I'm not going to ask you to do that, or claim that you have. Instead I recommend keeping your opposition to this bill on a level everybody, however legislation-fatigued, can understand. It calls for the state to pay more money to unelected people to perform a service without which the Commonwealth of Virginia has survived for over 200 years. We are not experiencing an unprecedented economic boom that would justify the state's employment of any unelected people without which we could possibly survive. Therefore, whatever its ramifications, HB 2048 is a bad bill.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Kilgore and O'Quinn Oppose National Heritage Area
I can't listen to the audio document Patricia Evans just e-mailed to prove it, but this is good news (in the sense of progress toward a consensus: Virginia Delegates Terry Kilgore and Israel O'Quinn have stated that they don't support the designation of most of Southwestern Virginia as a "National Heritage Area."
I want a link here. I want the honorable gentlemen's very words! It's important because the Virginia Star reported that, at an earlier point in time before people had looked more closely at a well-intentioned proposal that seemed likely to accomplish good things, both Delegates and Congressman Griffith had supported the "National Heritage Area" designation, which would bring all of Scott County under the control of a tourism-promoting organization (to which some members of this web site happen to belong).
Read more about the effects of designating a National Heritage Area:
http://www.websmithnet.com/nhar1_13.pdf
Gena Greene posts photos not articles...but you don't want her "planning" your whole life in Scott County, Gentle Readers; she'd want to make it a Class 1 misdemeanor to wear a sweater that wasn't hand-knitted in the U.S.A., and then whatever would we throw on when crawling around in crawl spaces under frozen water pipes?
Karen Bracken e-mailed a link you can use to weigh in on the National Heritage Area bill pending in the U.S. Congress. This bill is U.S. HR 445. Google's new "Popvox" web site is nationwide, and will interest bill readers in and outside Virginia:
https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/113/hr445
I want a link here. I want the honorable gentlemen's very words! It's important because the Virginia Star reported that, at an earlier point in time before people had looked more closely at a well-intentioned proposal that seemed likely to accomplish good things, both Delegates and Congressman Griffith had supported the "National Heritage Area" designation, which would bring all of Scott County under the control of a tourism-promoting organization (to which some members of this web site happen to belong).
Read more about the effects of designating a National Heritage Area:
http://www.websmithnet.com/nhar1_13.pdf
Gena Greene posts photos not articles...but you don't want her "planning" your whole life in Scott County, Gentle Readers; she'd want to make it a Class 1 misdemeanor to wear a sweater that wasn't hand-knitted in the U.S.A., and then whatever would we throw on when crawling around in crawl spaces under frozen water pipes?
Karen Bracken e-mailed a link you can use to weigh in on the National Heritage Area bill pending in the U.S. Congress. This bill is U.S. HR 445. Google's new "Popvox" web site is nationwide, and will interest bill readers in and outside Virginia:
https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/113/hr445
Prizes for Visitors to Portland, Oregon
How can you unload worn-out paperback copies of recent bestsellers, be thanked, help homeless people, and possibly win a prize, all at one time? Check out this Street Books web page.
(Note to future readers: if you're reading this after March 2013, this link may not work--it looks like one of those temporary web address things.)
(Note to future readers: if you're reading this after March 2013, this link may not work--it looks like one of those temporary web address things.)
Virginia Has a Budget but What About the Rest of the U.S.?
Documentation of the first clause from State Senator Carrico:
"Carrico: Senate Finance Committee Includes Grayson County Prison in Budget
This past week, the House of Representatives passed legislation in hopes of
breaking the budget logjam and to push the Senate into passing its first budget
proposal in nearly four years.
The House has passed a budget resolution the last four years - two were under
Democrat leadership, two were under Republican leadership. In the House, we
intend to pass a budget again this year. Given that the Senate hasn’t passed a
budget and thus outlined their plan in nearly four years, I am eager to see how
they will deal with creating a plan to solve our debt and deficit problem. Once
we are able to review their long-overdue budget proposal, we can look for the
middle ground.
After our “No Budget, No Pay Act” plan was unveiled, members of the Democrat
majority in the Senate confirmed their intentions to finally put forth a budget
proposal; a plan to pay for the spending they support.
When asked recently about the Senate’s plans to pass a budget, Senator Chuck
Schumer (D-NY), Vice Chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus, said “It’s a great
opportunity to get us some more revenues to help, in part, deal with
sequestration and deal with the debt issue.”
It is important to note that, unless they intend to heavily tax the middle
class, the Senate cannot solve our debt and deficit problem with tax increases
alone.
Furthermore, I suspect to get the votes needed for their plan to pass the
Senate, the Democrat leadership will have to include spending cuts in its budget
proposal. The cuts will likely include cuts to defense spending, but a
long-range plan will have to be more than defense cuts and tax increases.
It is important that we work together to create a plan to solve our debt and
deficit problem. In good conscience, we cannot place an anchor around the necks
of our children’s and grandchildren’s financial well-being. We must have a
common-sense plan that protects our children’s future.
I am hopeful the Senate plan will make clear their goals and priorities in
solving our nation’s problems. We have put plans to solve the nation’s problems
on the table. It’s high time they do so as well. I look forward to working
across the aisle and across the chambers for these solutions.
Traveling staff office hours
Friday morning, my staff and I held traveling office hours in the Clifton
Forge Library’s Michael W. Armstrong Community Room. Mike was a classmate of
mine at Emory and Henry College, where we pledged the Beta Lambda Zeta
fraternity together. He served as the Clifton Forge Library Director from 1985
until his unfortunate passing in 2001. Being in the Clifton Forge Library,
where Mike dedicated so many years, was a poignant reminder of his great
character.
My staff and I travel regularly through the district to meet with constituents and help interact with federal agencies. For more information on February’s traveling staff office hours, please visit my website, www.morgangriffith.house.gov.
"Carrico: Senate Finance Committee Includes Grayson County Prison in Budget
Richmond
– Sen. Bill Carrico (R-Fries), who sits
on the powerful Finance Committee in the Virginia Senate, traveled to Richmond
on Sunday as the committee met to pass its budget for the biennium.
“I am thrilled to
announce that the budget that passed the Finance Committee today includes funds
to open the Grayson County prison on January 1, 2014,” Carrico said. “This is
another positive step in a very long process, and I will fight to ensure that
funding for the facility remains as the budget moves through the General
Assembly.”
The Senate Finance
Committee passed a state budget that includes approximately $14 million allowing
the River North Correctional Facility to open at the beginning of 2014. The
budget now moves to the full Senate, where votes will be taken on amendments and
the budget itself.
The inclusion of funds
for the facility is the latest in a string of victories this year. Just last
month, Gov. Bob McDonnell included the same level of funding for the prison in
his suggested budget. The House of Delegates is expected to follow suit in the
days to come. Because there seems to be universal agreement on opening the
prison, Carrico is optimistic, although he acknowledges work remains to be
done.
“We still have a long
way to go,” said Carrico. “But every step brings us closer to opening the
facility and putting hundreds of Southwest Virginians to work. I am hopeful we
can close the deal this session.”"
For those who may have wondered, Senator Carrico is not spending the taxpayers' valuable time during a legislative session reading and sending e-mail all day, nor does he habitually refer to himself in the third person. His press releases are written, and e-mail is handled, by Stuart Higley.
Now, from U.S. Congressman Morgan Griffith, who has gone on record as willing to accept a pay cut in order to help balance the federal budget:
"Monday, January 28, 2013
–
No Budget, No Pay
No Budget, No Pay
My staff and I travel regularly through the district to meet with constituents and help interact with federal agencies. For more information on February’s traveling staff office hours, please visit my website, www.morgangriffith.house.gov.
As always, if
you have questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to call my Abingdon office
at 276-525-1405 or my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671. To reach my office
via email, please visit my website at www.morgangriffith.house.gov. "
Attention Tea Party correspondents. Our Congressman is not perfect (nor are we), but he's getting some things right. Virginia voters, please thank him.
Friday, February 1, 2013
Phenology: More Black Ice, and Disappointments
It was too cold for much snow to fall, last night. A little powder stuck on the grass. The "wet-weather spring" that's started seeping down the road below the Cat Sanctuary, due to flooding and rising water tables, is running clear, cold water that washed off the snow. Most paved, salted roads are clear. Back roads, like the mostly unpaved road below the Cat Sanctuary, are spotted with the dreaded, lustrous, transparent "black ice" that's almost impossible to see while driving. It should be easier to see the ice by now; the air's not warm enough to melt anything, but the sun is blazing.
The Nickelsville computer center is linked to Gate City by a two-lane state highway (legal for alternative vehicle use, but no shoulders, berms, or sidewalks) that crosses a one-lane bridge (no sidewalks) located in between two long, dramatic downgrades. Bridges freeze first. If the operators of the building had asked me whether a worker who has to drive across that bridge should go to work today, I would have said no. No way. Nobody should have to drive across that bridge in bad weather because of me. The worker who was scheduled to go in today mentioned yesterday that she wouldn't go in if there was any snow. I didn't expect she'd be there, but someone here was kind enough to check before I came in, and confirmed that the Nickelsville computer center would open on schedule.
I said to myself, "Right. People who are already in Nickelsville would know how bad their bridge is. If they're willing to work, the bridge is probably no more hazardous than usual. If it's not bad today, it probably won't be any worse tonight; the snow is over." So I sat down and waited for the endlessly annoying "call bus" which is all we have in the way of public transportation, having allowed a so-called charity to destroy the flourishing locally owned taxi service...don't get me started.
Well, I hope Nickelsville residents are enjoying the computers...because the "call bus" that's supposed to have taken me to the computer center is not running today. Why are buses, most of which run on perfectly clear, dry, salt-stained roads, not running, while a building located along a road that may well become unfit for use is open? Go figure.
Nothing left to do but enjoy a bit of whimsy: Iris, the kitten had rhinotracheitis in December and refuses to adjust to cold weather, has had something to do with this. My four-pound dominatrix has Powers. Along with grabbing me and/or darting in through the door every time I went in or out this morning, nonverbally saying "You've had two days to work already! Today you should sit by the fire with me!", she also put some sort of hex on the morning chores that caused them to take twice as long as usual to do. And now this. Iris Must Be Obeyed.
Somebody out there is saying, "Excuses, excuses. When is this web site going to go through the bills in the Virginia General Assembly, one by one, and comment on each one, as it did last year? If all this web site is going to do is second the motions already being made by other people, what use is it?" Well...actually I have done some of the one-by-one stuff, reading a couple hundred bills that didn't seem to be of special interest to this web site. In terms of passing or blocking bills I think it's valuable to weigh in on the ones that mean a lot to other people as well as us. For personal reasons discussed in the pertinent articles I've given more attention to alternative transportation than our other Tea Party contacts have, and some of them have given more attention to some other issues than this web site has; this site is still independent. And I will haul the laptop into town and take more long, independent looks at more bills when the weather and timing permit.
Be warned, though: there are those who don't want citizen bill readers to read their legislation, and they have tried a few tricks--messing up the order in which bills appear on the legislature's web site (none of that wonderful 1-2-3 order we saw last year), burying bad ideas under masses of verbiage guaranteed to make any normal person's eyes glaze over, and hustling bad bills through the voting process before any of us had time to weigh in. This web site won't catch all of the bad ones. There will be more times when, as yesterday, all I can tell you is that one of your legislators already voted just the way you wanted him or her not to vote, because the only people who had sent him or her messages about a bill were our mutual political enemies.
Disappointment? Er, uh...I hate to break the news, if this is news to you, but a good half of the comments I posted on bills last winter were obsolete by the time they were written. I was still learning my way around lis.virginia.gov and didn't know how to check the status of the bills I was reading, for pity's sake. So this year, we can go back and revisit the low-priority bills in the spring and summer if you really want to, but I'm not going to make a full-time job of arguing for or against dead pieces of proposed legislation. Life is short; my eyes are aging. I'm only trying to read live bills this year.
Want to speed up this web site's attention to issues that matter to you? Tell Saloli. If you work most efficiently, as I do, reading and typing, you too can visit lis.virginia.gov, use the "Bills and Resolutions" button on the left to search for words or numbers, by all means use the "history" button on each bill's page to find out whether it's dead or alive, and tip us off. If you work most efficiently watching and listening to videos, you can watch the Lege live on TV and report to us (you may have noticed we don't watch TV or videos much). That readers or correspondents are interested in an issue doesn't guarantee that we will be, but it significantly improves the odds. And if it's really important to you, you can always indicate that you're willing to let your thoughts be posted free of charge.
The Nickelsville computer center is linked to Gate City by a two-lane state highway (legal for alternative vehicle use, but no shoulders, berms, or sidewalks) that crosses a one-lane bridge (no sidewalks) located in between two long, dramatic downgrades. Bridges freeze first. If the operators of the building had asked me whether a worker who has to drive across that bridge should go to work today, I would have said no. No way. Nobody should have to drive across that bridge in bad weather because of me. The worker who was scheduled to go in today mentioned yesterday that she wouldn't go in if there was any snow. I didn't expect she'd be there, but someone here was kind enough to check before I came in, and confirmed that the Nickelsville computer center would open on schedule.
I said to myself, "Right. People who are already in Nickelsville would know how bad their bridge is. If they're willing to work, the bridge is probably no more hazardous than usual. If it's not bad today, it probably won't be any worse tonight; the snow is over." So I sat down and waited for the endlessly annoying "call bus" which is all we have in the way of public transportation, having allowed a so-called charity to destroy the flourishing locally owned taxi service...don't get me started.
Well, I hope Nickelsville residents are enjoying the computers...because the "call bus" that's supposed to have taken me to the computer center is not running today. Why are buses, most of which run on perfectly clear, dry, salt-stained roads, not running, while a building located along a road that may well become unfit for use is open? Go figure.
Nothing left to do but enjoy a bit of whimsy: Iris, the kitten had rhinotracheitis in December and refuses to adjust to cold weather, has had something to do with this. My four-pound dominatrix has Powers. Along with grabbing me and/or darting in through the door every time I went in or out this morning, nonverbally saying "You've had two days to work already! Today you should sit by the fire with me!", she also put some sort of hex on the morning chores that caused them to take twice as long as usual to do. And now this. Iris Must Be Obeyed.
Somebody out there is saying, "Excuses, excuses. When is this web site going to go through the bills in the Virginia General Assembly, one by one, and comment on each one, as it did last year? If all this web site is going to do is second the motions already being made by other people, what use is it?" Well...actually I have done some of the one-by-one stuff, reading a couple hundred bills that didn't seem to be of special interest to this web site. In terms of passing or blocking bills I think it's valuable to weigh in on the ones that mean a lot to other people as well as us. For personal reasons discussed in the pertinent articles I've given more attention to alternative transportation than our other Tea Party contacts have, and some of them have given more attention to some other issues than this web site has; this site is still independent. And I will haul the laptop into town and take more long, independent looks at more bills when the weather and timing permit.
Be warned, though: there are those who don't want citizen bill readers to read their legislation, and they have tried a few tricks--messing up the order in which bills appear on the legislature's web site (none of that wonderful 1-2-3 order we saw last year), burying bad ideas under masses of verbiage guaranteed to make any normal person's eyes glaze over, and hustling bad bills through the voting process before any of us had time to weigh in. This web site won't catch all of the bad ones. There will be more times when, as yesterday, all I can tell you is that one of your legislators already voted just the way you wanted him or her not to vote, because the only people who had sent him or her messages about a bill were our mutual political enemies.
Disappointment? Er, uh...I hate to break the news, if this is news to you, but a good half of the comments I posted on bills last winter were obsolete by the time they were written. I was still learning my way around lis.virginia.gov and didn't know how to check the status of the bills I was reading, for pity's sake. So this year, we can go back and revisit the low-priority bills in the spring and summer if you really want to, but I'm not going to make a full-time job of arguing for or against dead pieces of proposed legislation. Life is short; my eyes are aging. I'm only trying to read live bills this year.
Want to speed up this web site's attention to issues that matter to you? Tell Saloli. If you work most efficiently, as I do, reading and typing, you too can visit lis.virginia.gov, use the "Bills and Resolutions" button on the left to search for words or numbers, by all means use the "history" button on each bill's page to find out whether it's dead or alive, and tip us off. If you work most efficiently watching and listening to videos, you can watch the Lege live on TV and report to us (you may have noticed we don't watch TV or videos much). That readers or correspondents are interested in an issue doesn't guarantee that we will be, but it significantly improves the odds. And if it's really important to you, you can always indicate that you're willing to let your thoughts be posted free of charge.
Graffiti Officially Enshrined as Art
Ah, the 1980s: No sooner was a Metro station or tunnel built than graffiti by "Cool Disco Dan" showed up around it. Back then, we thought spray-painting your name on other people's walls was, like, a misdemeanor at least.
Clinton Yates reports on the long-term outcome of Dan Hogg's graffiti habit:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/artists-are-fired-up-over-donut-shops-use-of-cool-disco-dans-name/2013/01/31/b08409c4-6bcb-11e2-8740-9b58f43c191a_story.html?wpisrc=nl_lunchln
Clinton Yates reports on the long-term outcome of Dan Hogg's graffiti habit:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/artists-are-fired-up-over-donut-shops-use-of-cool-disco-dans-name/2013/01/31/b08409c4-6bcb-11e2-8740-9b58f43c191a_story.html?wpisrc=nl_lunchln
Correction: Highway System More Discriminatory Than I Said It Was
A king can be wrong. An editor can be wrong. An editor whose screen name is "King" can be wrong. And yesterday, while rereading a first draft only once, quickly, before posting it, I posted something that was seriously wrong.
I wrote that, in order to get from Gate City to Kingsport without using an interstate highway, a person would have to go all the way to Bristol--about sixty miles out of the way.
Actually, there is a gap in the mountains between Gate City and Bristol, through which a back road leads to the far end of Kingsport. Depending on where the person works, this might not be a serious inconvenience. Some commuters who go to the Eastman Chemical factory, Target Plaza, and other job sites on that side of town find it more convenient to use the Bloomingdale road.
However, a more serious obstacle to the driver of a slow-moving alternative vehicle would be that, for about a mile outside downtown Gate City, Routes 58 and 23 converge. And they converge again between Gate City and Clinchport (from which a two-lane road goes into Hawkins County, Tennessee, taking the commuter to Kingsport only fifteen or twenty miles out of the way). Thus, so far as I know, it is not possible to get from Gate City to Kingsport without using an interstate highway...unless you're able to walk across the Clinch Mountain, which is a challenge for serious hikers and involves crossing private property.
Thus, banning alternative vehicles from interstate highways amounts to severe economic discrimination against residents of Gate City, and should be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. To avoid discrimination, all interstate highways need to designate separate lanes for slower-moving traffic...and they need to protect users of these lanes from violent road ragers by installing at least one cubic foot of concrete along every foot of the dividing line, all the way.
I wrote that, in order to get from Gate City to Kingsport without using an interstate highway, a person would have to go all the way to Bristol--about sixty miles out of the way.
Actually, there is a gap in the mountains between Gate City and Bristol, through which a back road leads to the far end of Kingsport. Depending on where the person works, this might not be a serious inconvenience. Some commuters who go to the Eastman Chemical factory, Target Plaza, and other job sites on that side of town find it more convenient to use the Bloomingdale road.
However, a more serious obstacle to the driver of a slow-moving alternative vehicle would be that, for about a mile outside downtown Gate City, Routes 58 and 23 converge. And they converge again between Gate City and Clinchport (from which a two-lane road goes into Hawkins County, Tennessee, taking the commuter to Kingsport only fifteen or twenty miles out of the way). Thus, so far as I know, it is not possible to get from Gate City to Kingsport without using an interstate highway...unless you're able to walk across the Clinch Mountain, which is a challenge for serious hikers and involves crossing private property.
Thus, banning alternative vehicles from interstate highways amounts to severe economic discrimination against residents of Gate City, and should be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. To avoid discrimination, all interstate highways need to designate separate lanes for slower-moving traffic...and they need to protect users of these lanes from violent road ragers by installing at least one cubic foot of concrete along every foot of the dividing line, all the way.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
