Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kazan on April 16, 2004, 02:33:39 pm
-
I'm reading "****whacked" and now I just learned soemthing that we should all be afraid of, very afraid.
Until 1995 there was a tax on all chemical producing coporations called the "SuperFund Tax" - it filled the coffers of the "SuperFund" which is what the EPA pays for cleanup with. The SuperFund tax was killed by Newt Gingrich in 1995, Bill Clinton could not get the republican congress to reestablish it.
Once there was $3+ Billion in the SuperFund, now there is $23 million, and no new money coming it. They cannot even pay for cleaning up one of the superfund sites.
Add to this the following
Until recently there was an independant EPA Ombudsmen's office. The Ombudsmen answered to nobody but himself and could stick his foot up the EPA butt so hard that he could get them to do what needed to be done. This was the person you turned to if the EPA was going to do something galactically stupid like burn waste that they haven't properly analyzed and containers things like mercury.
Now under **** & Cheney the man who was Ombudsman for more than a decade, a native american who kicked a lot of but around the EPA and once said "I used to think that the government mistreaed only Indians. I now know they mistreat all Americans." (which he was ordered to retract and said: NO -- his name was Bob Martin)
The ombudsmen used to derive it's power from being a seperate entity, not anymore. The current administration made the office answerable to the director of the EPA - Bob Martin promptly resigned in protest. Infact they did it when he was travelling on EPA business - they raided his office like imperial stormtroopers, stole every document, computer, etc and changed the locks to prevent him from continuing to work off his cellphone and laptop.
Now we have an EPA that is bed with big business and answers to no-one but big business and their monkey man in the white house.
Say hello to cancer.
-
This doesnt suprise me at all.
-
:wtf: That's ****ty news Kaz :(
Well. Europe can pretty much give up on getting any Enivornmental concessions from the US now. They'll be so busy covering things up they'll never have time to expose anything :(
-
Say hello to cancer and goodbye to an unspoilt Alaskan wilderness, right?
I can't believe that they wanted to have an ombudsman answerable to the body he's meant to oversee. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
-
Is anyone surprised by this?
The sad thing is that it's unlikely to ever change, because of that magical phrase - 'campaign contributors'.
Even worse, it'll probably happen over here soon enough, too.
Bah.
-
Kaz, read "Best Democracy Money can Buy". It has a few chapters dealing with various environmental wheelings and dealings. I've got it in electronic form, so just PM me if you're interested....
....uhh interested in buying it legally that is. I can recommend some quality stores.
:nervous: :nervous:
-
well it's time to force total campaign finance reform that outright bans corporate contributions over a certain ammount (say $2000? :P)
or even better - all contributions go into a single pool which gets evenly divided out amongst the major candidates
they're not allowed to us personal assets to run their campaigns - unless they put those personal assets into the pool and get back their 1/n portion of it (n being number of eligible candidates)
-
Originally posted by Kazan
well it's time to force total campaign finance reform that outright bans corporate contributions over a certain ammount (say $2000? :P)
or even better - all contributions go into a single pool which gets evenly divided out amongst the major candidates
they're not allowed to us personal assets to run their campaigns - unless they put those personal assets into the pool and get back their 1/n portion of it (n being number of eligible candidates)
That would be a good thing to do.
It sure would decrease the corruption atleast.
But ofcourse....getting anyone in power to actually DO this..
-
Let's remove the bureaucracy. Who's in the mood for a bit of revolution?
-
**** söltet erschiessen
-
The thing about the Superfund, as I understand it, was that certain parties in the Congress were raiding it for their pet projects and it would have been bankrupt by now. If it had been better protected from misuse I'm sure it would still exist.
This is one, among many, many and still more reason's that all Federally elected positions should have Term Rates.
-
No, it's another reason why they should administer an IQ test to all voters, the world over. Anyone under 120 gets banned from voting and/or killed.
-
an0n, if they did that even you wouldn't be able to vote.
But I would. ;7
-
You do realize that most of HLP is well above average, right? Most people here seem to have an IQ of about 130.
-
/me was 138, 4-5 years ago
-
:wtf: Could've fooled me...I'm 123 last I checked, of course that was 7 years ago.;)
-
Internet tests don't count.
-
136, last time I checked, but it was a cheesy online one (english by the way), so...
FreeSpacers tend to have much higher IQ's. Hell, just the SCP crew alone would grant the FS community with a pretty high average. :D
-
I'm at about 137, but I haven't actually taken an official monitored test.
-
i've taken two officially administered tests
well over 180 is all they'll tell me (both were government ordered :nervous: )
-
Cancer, eh? Well, I think I'll die of a heart attack before I get cancer.
And I'm about 165...
-
Yeah were one of those rare pockets of intelligence...virtually everyone is some kind of academic or planning to be or even if they do not have formal university or college training they are the kind of person who would expand their mind anyways and consider something more than just when they should drive to the store to buy some more milk.
We are what Noam Chompsky (a guy I generally don't like but he says some good stuff from time to time) calls the 20% of the population that the governments spend most of its time trying to convince. The other 80% is already convinced and it doesn't take much...
I say it and I keep saying it but it'll take a major ecological distaster to get the governments of the world to wake the hell up and start doing something about it. Western ideals don't have to die and western life doesn't have to go away but there needs to be changes to the way that our nations conduct themselves and I believe it will solve alot problems...but it will also require some sacrifices. Still...as it stands right now...we've got plenty of new clean energy sources available now or in the near future. With the right kind of investment they would be cheap, easy to use, easy to maintain, and with incredibly reduced environmental impact.
I'm a realist...its likely that cutting greenhouse emmisions to zero would be impossible unless we go back to farming (even then its impossible - think of the cows) but we can reduce it to such a level that the Earth can more than handel the levels (its a complex system and it works very efficiently to maintain stability). But the current practices of governments everywhere are appauling and this is yet another example of total stupidity and lack of clear long term focus.
-
Governments can't think further than their own wallets.
That which gives the biggest profit is what they will do and whatever side effects it may have or cause is of no concern, since they will be making money.
sadly enough this is how it looks like with most givernments today...