0711 am 'Get This' news

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07/11/07 Get This
Chris Andreae
 

  1. 1. Galloping Consumption: Record temperatures all over Oregon yesterday.  Troutdale, fr’instance hit 102.  Same goes for Portland.  But let’s remember, this is weather, not climate change.  The heat is just a hint of what kind of a world we have created for future generations.  And biodiesel is only going to make the situation worse.  It takes petrochemical byproducts to produce – I’ve said it before – high-octane fertilizers to grow that biomass.  “Record temperatures”?   It’s the Consumption, Stupid.  But Americans would rather by a Prius than cut back on anything.
  2. The A/P story is that natural gas prices are going to hold steady in Oregon.  Translation:  Brace yourself for another announcement about the developing Liquefied Natural Gas cloud that is building up over the State ready to rain down fireballs and they won’t be of “freedom.”  No.  Every time the media mentions natural gas, remember, to read the smoke signals…
  3. More than 650 thousand acres of forestland in the Cascades east of Salem are restricted to public use.  Mainly the stupider sorts of public use, actually.  (A solid case could be made for closing forests to everyone and just give nature a break from the pervading rationale:  ‘If you can ride a bicycle through it then why not an ATV?  If you can fly fish, then how about shooting a wolf or two?’  And the cascade of exceptionalism is unleashed…)
  4. Burns is burning.
  5. Gordon Smith backs troop withdrawal.
  6. Gawd Gets It Right For Once:  Texas is suffering floods of truly “biblical” proportions.  And it probably isn’t because the almighty is “punishing gays”, as is customarily believed in the Lone Star State. 
  7. The Bureau of Land Management is going ahead with plans to allow oil and gas drilling on Alaska’s North Slope.  This is a region that isn’t exactly bristling with condos, but is nonetheless important to migratory birds and caribou and other forms of Democrats.  While the wailing and gnashing of teeth in Washington continues to entertain the nation, another tract of wilderness is on its way to being reduced to Deadlands.
  8. Idaho’s prisoners are being ‘extraordinarily rendered’ to a particularly vicious prison in Texas.   Val Verde Correctional Facility is an affront to human integrity, an obscene cesspit crawling with sadistic brainless guards, inconceivable filth and diseases ‘not found in nature.’   On the plus side, it is making parent company GEO Group’s shareholders filthy rich.   The cracks in America are almost wide enough for a person to crawl through to freedom…
  9. Here’s why the FBI is going through all your records, real estate transactions, motor vehicle accidents, internet use, employment and credit information, medical records – the lot:  They are looking for terrorists, insurance cheats and crooked pharmacists.  So those of you who are not terrorists, insurance scammers and prescription drug dealers, Let’s party!
  10.  The dollar is losing out to the euro.  (So now is a good time to get your front teeth gold-plated…It’s like money in the bank!)
  11. Senate Democrats are serious about cutting off Dick ‘Dimples’ Cheney’s allowance.  Won’t put a dent in the VP’s lifestyle; the energy lobby will keep buying his gas until the road runs out and the well runs dry.
  12. Virginia Democratic Representative Jim Moran is throwing his hat into the ‘Impeach Cheney’ ring.  Cheney’s approval rating was 13% back in May…But if he did something about his hair, loosened his tie and smiled more (Looking at the guy makes one ask, ‘Is it a gas bubble or angina?’) it might help.  Dick that’s why Gawd made ‘personal trainers’ for.
  13. Turns out that “executive privilege” might not be able to stop Congress from compelling Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor to testify.  Taylor, let the record show, says that she would just love to testify, but she has to wash her hair…)
  14. That’s What They All Say Dept:  President Bush’s most recent Surgeon General says the administration censored him for political reasons on hot-button issues such as the ‘morning after’ pill and abstinence only sex ed.  Richard Carmona wasn’t even allowed to make a speech at the Special Olympics because the White House thought it would benefit a political opponent.  Next up:  Kentucky cardiologist, James Holsinger, who, I believe we can safely say, will do a heckuva job.
  15. Bush says he will veto legislation setting a deadline for troop withdrawal from Iraq.  (But, hell, why not just let it pass and then use a signing statement to override it?)  Besides, the troops in Iraq are just treading water until it’s time to attack Iran, which will be as soon as Syria and Israel have at it, which will be when the American Israeli lobby gives Washington the heads-up, which will be when the Mossad orchestrates a trigger incident, which could be this autumn when the weather is nicer…So it goes… 
  16. In downtown Baghdad today there was what the media is pleased to call a “barrage” on the hallowed Green Zone.  Three people were killed.  One was an American and therefore got killed worst than the other two.  (Three  guys walk up to the Pearly Gates, an Iraqi, an American and a ‘third country national’.  St. Pete tells the Iraqi Come on in.  You’ve already been to Hell.  He tells the ‘third country national’ that Heaven counts as four and you only get three.  And he tells the American he’s in the wrong place and sends him back to Iraq.)
  17. Calling Harry Potter:  The Pentagon says that we are just imagining that there are soon to be three aircraft carriers in the Gulf.  What looks like the USS Enterprise steaming towards Iran is really just the USS Nimitz on its way out.  So that makes two air+craft carriers in the Gulf.  and they are really just there for “show”….
  18. The Waco-like situation in Pakistan is over.  Cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi is dead and I guess things are back to normal in Islamabad.  Just pretend nothing happened.
  19. In Mexico, leftist rebels have been blowing up oil pipelines.  (Had they been doing so in Oregon, we could have referred to them as ‘ecoterrorists.  But they don’t.  So we can’t.)  We’ve already pissed-off Our Neighbor to the South just about as much as we possibly can….
  20. And China – a nation that knows a thing or two about dealing with officials who have fallen out of favor with the Powers that Be – has executed its food and drug safety chief.  Hear that you slackers at the FDA?

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