1126 am 'Get This' news

11/26/07 Get This
Chris Andreae
 

1. Now that voters finally have come to an understanding of what’s at stake, Oregon is going to work on its sadly tarnished image as a place where people care about the land that sustains them.  Too bad Measure 37 had to become a permanent chapter in the sad saga of “lessons learned”…
2. Follow the Money – Into The Woods:  The Bush administration has bitten its own tail here.  What happened.  There is no money for federal timber payments that keep the infrastructure afloat in towns that formerly had sustained themselves by clear-cutting all the way to the bank.  But the Bush administration pulled the tax tablecloth out from under virtually every socially progressive piece of legislation in the country.  So even though the guv’mint has given itself carte blanche to cut down the last remaining forests in the Pacific Northwest, there isn’t enough money to cut a fucking Christmas tree.  (And let’s not forget, we’re talking about cutting trees on public land….)
3. Meanwhile back in Wallowa County, a tiny timber – the company, not the trees – concern is setting up shop.  With support from a local non-profit, Community Smallwood Solutions is setting out to safeguard the watershed, provide living wage jobs and maybe even turn a buck.
4. Climate Change:  It’s what makes species invade.   With the strange change in the weather, foreign flora and fauna have moved in.  (I say, don’t give them drivers licenses:  It’ll just encourage them…)
5. Breaching the dams on the Snake River – in addition to making a life or death difference to salmon – would also save the lives of whales.  (But of course “tradition” says killing the enormous endangered mammals is still legit.  Yeah right…Slavery was once a “tradition”; foot-binding?  “Tradition”;  Wiping out the carrier pigeon?  “Tradition”…I can continue…)
6. Wave energy is coming to a beach near you.  And why not?  After all, we have done a fair job of wiping out the fish by destroying streams and rivers in the dubious name of progress, we have created gigantic ‘Dead Zones’ off our coasts and we drag the seafloor scrapping up whatever survived the other forms of brainless exploitation.  Now, comes …wave energy!  Which – like the ethanol hoax – sounds green enough.  Until you take a look at what it will  to the last of the West Coast’s fish…
7. But you don’t have to tap-out the ocean in the name of your energy needs.  There’s geothermal.  Costs a bit more to install.  But when oil is five dollars a barrel and the sun, wind and waves aren’t coming through, just wait:  You’ll be under the house digging trenches for those heat-giving “pipes of life”…
8. The fires in Malibu are somewhat under control.   (Another nightmare to keep California awake at night:  Picture the Southland when Santa Ana winds blow all year round…It could easily happen when the water finally does run out and the Central Valley turns into a dust bowl.
9. The Fools On The Hill:  In federal courts and on Capitol Hill, challenges are brewing to a snea-key strategy Bush is using to shield his secret surveillance program.  (By the time all of the Bush regime’s secrets are revealed, we will be several generations deep into Idiocracy, and we may never return, may not be able to find our way out, may no longer even care about escape, prison can be so comfortable….  No one will remember what the world looked like from above ground…)
10. Fran Townsend – another senior advisor to George Bush – is resigning.  And it’s onward and upward into the stratospherically lucrative sphere of private defense contracting.  Little Fran is on her way…From minding the “counterterrorism and domestic security” store,  she’s a surefire candidate for the job of protecting Halliburton’s corporate bunker in the UAE. …From Dubya to Dubai in the blink of an eye…
11. Trent Lott is leaving too.  Trent can run the dog-fighting and corn whiskey franchise in Doha.  All those Good Ol’ Boy’s be there...After the Party’s Over…
12. Hate crime is on the rise.
13. Sicko:   Flu drugs will keep you on your feet so you can go to work, but some of the elixirs will also make you crazier than if you had gone to work sick with the flu in the first place…
14. Getting Syria’s:  Yes, Syria is going to participate in the administration’s absurd holiday diplomacy pantomime.  The Middle East conference is designed to accomplish two things:  One, it will create an automatic rubberstamp machine, okaying Israeli expansion over every square of Palestinian land.  And secondly, it is supposed to create the illusion that George Bush & Cronies have some vague notion of diplomacy.  The world knows that this isn’t about peace or negotiation or even diplomacy, for that matter….No…It’s a PR stunt at a bankrupt used car dealership.
15. Hamas got it right:  Bush’s Annapolis Ice Cream Social at best will change nothing and is likely to increase the violence because, Hey, nobody likes to get jerked-off all in the name of keeping the Emperor from sagging…
16. The Troop Surge is Dead !  Long Live the Troop surge!  On the heels of this announcement comes the not-so-surprising news that the Iraqi government has asked the US to be a “permanent presence”  in-county. (Gosh, we thought they’d never ask…)  Here’s the quote:  “Iraq’s government, seeking protection against foreign threats and internal coups will offer the US long-term troop presence in return for US security guarantees.”  Wha???  First the only “foreign threat” to Iraq is America and the “coup” is over.  Why else do we have the world’s biggest embassy in Baghdad???  Further:  Parse that quote and see where it takes you…
17. Riots in Moscow:  It’s beginning to look a lot like the old Soviet Union.
18. There’s a New Sheriff In Town:  Actually it’s the old sheriff, Nawaz Sharif and he’s going to kick some Musharr-ass.  Pakistan’s military and civilian leader is not going to “take it all off” – just the Army uniform part and strategically rearrange a few medals…
19. Rudd Awakening:  And Australia’s John Howard lost to Labor party leader Kevin Rudd.  (Res ipsa loquitor, as the saying goes...