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Open thread
- By Phillip Brownlee
- Posted Aug. 28, 2006 at 12:06 a.m.
- Filed under Open thread
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44 Comments
Thank you Randy Scholfield of the EAGLE’s editorial staff for today’s editorial, ENSURE WATER RESOURCES, the second in a series on protecting our Kansas water supplies. (The first editorial was in yesterday’s Sunday EAGLE.)
I might quibble with your description of the Equus Beds Aquifer up near Halstead as being a “vast reservoir of underground water” but it is being recharged. And it might eventually become the Wichita metro area’s main source of water if Cheney Lake should falter for lack of water flow from the north fork of the Ninnescah River.
This water situation does pose a threat to the well-being of southern and western Kansas and needs continuous attention from the media and public.
I dont’ care who thinks I’m crazy. Ken Lay is still alive. As the facts come out I really believe his “death” was orchestrated.
In 2004 a legal precedent was established that a person’s criminal record is “abated,” or wiped out, if he or she dies before having a chance to exhaust all appeals.
Seems just a bit convenient that now Ken Lays conviction will be overturned, just because he died. This will also save his estates from paying back any of the people they swindled.
It’s just too conveniently timed.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0828/p03s02-usju.html
The Equus Beds Recharge Project is no where close to be a sure thing as a long-term water supply for the city. The “reservoir” is not contained and the city’s water rights are secondary to mostly agricultural uses. As a community, we need to continue to explore new opportunities to develop alternative water sources or supplies.
Yesterday’s article about the meager compensation being offered to Episcopal Social Services for their building compared to that given for the Tabu bar should be looked into further. Episcopal gets offered LESS than tax appraisal while the bar gets 4 times more than appraisal. What gives?
This pattern seems to be playing out with other properties in the area. Is there a connection between WHO owns properties (and teir political connections) and what they are being offered?
IF YOU THINK ABORTION IS WRONG,PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO!!
http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2006/08/choose_life.php
I want to post a passage from the Book “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman. This will help you understand the difference between the two distinct political forces that seperate us in two different camps.
“… On one side are hope, optimism, freedom and prospects for a better life. On the other side, fear, pessimism, suffocating government regulations and a sense that the best times are in the past.”
I encourage people to read this book. It’s a wake up call to our fragile future.
But I belong in the camp of optimism and freedom.
Friedman is definitely a good observer of world events. His book and his columns are very well thought out.
That must be why the Times wants your credit card number before you read what he writes.
Ben! You should read his book. The scary truth about how many Americans and the way our public school system is set-up has made as fall extremely behind in the math and science field.
It is getting so bad that many American University students that graduate post graduate degrees in math and science fields are 100% foriegners. Not a single American.
Americans rank 17th in the world in the percentage of students in the Science, Math, and Engineering Field.
A tall telling sign is about a story of a teacher in PTA meetings, where she said that Eastern European and Asian parents are upset that the schools are not challenging thier kids enough and that the course work is too easy and they need to provide more homework, but the American parents complain to the teachers that their kids have too much homework, courses are too hard, and that kids need more play time to do Soccer and Ballet.
Sign of our times.
China graduates more engineers each year than there are people in the USA who own cell phones.
Tracy
Maybe we could all call them at once.
China make more cell phones than we shoot Arabs.
The US and Israel shoot more Arabs than China makes cell phones.
There are two approaches to determining the “value” of a building. Both were discussed in yesterday’s Eagle. I have no problem with the Club Tabu appraisal.
I know Joe. I used to TEACH science. Or at least try to!
Ralph – are you OK with the paltry sums being offered for Episcopal and for Baltran (sp?)electric?
Another “sign of the times” for Mr. Williams:
August 28, 2006Real Wages Fail to Match a Rise in ProductivityBy STEVEN GREENHOUSE and DAVID LEONHARDTWith the economy beginning to slow, the current expansion has a chance to become the first sustained period of economic growth since World War II that fails to offer a prolonged increase in real wages for most workers.
That situation is adding to fears among Republicans that the economy will hurt vulnerable incumbents in this year’s midterm elections even though overall growth has been healthy for much of the last five years.
The median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2 percent since 2003, after factoring in inflation. The drop has been especially notable, economists say, because productivity — the amount that an average worker produces in an hour and the basic wellspring of a nation’s living standards — has risen steadily over the same period.
As a result, wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960’s. UBS, the investment bank, recently described the current period as “the golden era of profitability.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/business/28wages.html?ei=5094&en=eae4ab9ab2ce13d5&hp=&ex=1156824000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
Since “9/11 + Saddam” was so successful, it is time to start this classical conditioning program:”Republicans + Corporate America”"Republicans + Corporate America”"Repbulicans + Corporate America”… ad nauseum …
“But I belong in the camp of optimism and freedom.”
So you’re a liberal, huh, Joe?
I’m gonna remember that Joeism the next time he starts waving his arms and ranting about scary terrorists.
Or the next time he starts ranting about “fascist Christians”And the next time he blithers about smokers, farmers, unions, working people etc etc.
how about optimism tempered with realism. In other words, I HOPE UCLA wins the national championship this year but I’m not going to bet the farm on it.
Ben,
I’m with you. Optimism without realism is living in the clouds, and one is sure to be disappointed.
If somebody would form a Realist Party, I’d join in the NY minute.
In interviews Friedman speaks to the need to temper optimism with realism. Also to the need to act to facilitate optimistic results.
http://www.nypress.com/18/16/news&columns/taibbi.cfm
So I tried not to think about it. But when I heard the book was actually coming out, I started to worry. Among other things, I knew I would be asked to write the review. The usual ratio of Friedman criticism is 2:1, i.e., two human words to make sense of each single word of Friedmanese. Friedman is such a genius of literary incompetence that even his most innocent passages invite feature-length essays. I’ll give you an example, drawn at random from The World Is Flat. On page 174, Friedman is describing a flight he took on Southwest Airlines from Baltimore to Hartford, Connecticut. (Friedman never forgets to name the company or the brand name; if he had written The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa would have awoken from uneasy dreams in a Sealy Posturepedic.) Here’s what he says:
I stomped off, went through security, bought a Cinnabon, and glumly sat at the back of the B line, waiting to be herded on board so that I could hunt for space in the overhead bins.
Forget the Cinnabon. Name me a herd animal that hunts. Name me one.
I don’t have a problem with the appraisals. The $$ being offered are straight property value and not the income approach. It’s somewhat luck of the draw. Unfortunately for them, it’s how the rules are set up.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=13&ItemID=10669
The Doha round negotiations collapsed once again at the Mini Ministerial in Geneva on 23rd July 2006. Martin Khor of Third World Network reports from Geneva that when asked of the Doha Round is dead or in intensive care, Mr. Kamal Nath, India’s Commerce Minister, said it is somewhere between intensive care in hospital and the crematorium. Peter Mandelson, the EU Trade Commissioner told the press following suspension of WTO negotiations, “we have missed the last exit on the motorway.”
The U.S. is being identified by all as responsible for the collapse of talks, by its refusal to reduce its agricultural subsidies. The US and its corporations were the driving force behind two agreements of the Uruguay Round, which have the highest impact on the poor of the Third World. The Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement has increased the cost of seeds and medicine by promoting monopolies. Thousands of Indian farmers have committed suicides due to debts resulting from a new dependence on costly yet unreliable hybrid and Bt cotton sold by Monsanto and its Indian partners. The Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) has destroyed agricultural livelihoods of millions of peasants and food security of the world’s poor.
Victory is mine!
This is a very thought-provoking, informative thread. Keep up the good work!
Quote of the Day:
“We have conquered many of the neighboring tribes of Indians, but we have never thought of holding them in subjection—never of incorporating them into our Union… I know further, sir, that we have never dreamt of incorporating into our Union any but the Caucasian race—the free white race. To incorporate Mexico would be the very first instance of the kind of incorporating an Indian race; for more than half of the Mexicans are Indians, and the other is composed chiefly of mixed tribes. I protest against such a union as that! Ours, sir, is the Government of a white race. The greatest misfortunes of Spanish America are to be traced to the fatal error of placing these colored races on an equality with the white race. That error destroyed the social arrangement which formed the basis of society… Sir, it is a remarkable fact, that in the whole history of man, as far as my knowledge extends, there is no instance whatever of any civilized colored races being found equal to the establishment of free popular government, although by far the largest portion of the human family is composed of these races… Are we to associate with ourselves as equals, companions, and fellow-citizens, the Indians and mixed race of Mexico? Sir, I should consider such a thing as fatal to our institutions.” John C. Calhoun (hero, prophet and martyr!)
Viva La Raza Blanco!!!!
All such racists should go back to Europe where they belong. What gives them or you the right to commit genocide for your precious “white race”?
John C. Calhoun . . . wasn’t he the Vice President of the Confederacy?
I guess if one has nothing else to be proud of, one can be proud of his “race.”
The last refuge of an idiot.
Also the social services vs. the sleazy bar valuation is totally screwed.
If nothing else, it shows that the county had woefully under appraised Tabu and lost beaucoup tax dollars and way over appraised the Social services (which probably doesn’t pay taxes anyway . . . ).
Providence ain’t just a city in Rhode Island, people. :)
V.L.R.B!!!
Not to cange the subject but I can not find a blog for this to fit.
Folks, we need to take a step back and look at this situation objectively, I believe both sides are being played for a fool for the entertainment of a person from California. Here is the facts as I understand them from several sources when I google the subjects. Please let me know if some are in error.
This person has been to a lot of city meetings and complaining almost ever since he got to Mead.
The city had unpaid water bill against the property he purchased. I understand that the city was kind enough to forgive the lien. Try that in L.A..
He has disagreement with the local newspaper. (The only thing positive in his favor.) I was unable to find what the disagreements were.
He says the flag is to him a reminder of his son. Why is his son not living with him?
He is not flying the flag to support Gay rights.
It is my opinion that he could be doing it to cause trouble and entertain himself. He is getting the Gay Groups across the US to support him and I hear to send him flags and money.
All the time he could be just sitting back and laughing his head off on how he got these two groups fighting each other. He could in my opinion even be the one who sent or had be sent the letter to Fred Phelps asking him to come to Mead.
I don’t think he likes Mead and he is playing the Gay groups for suckers to get back at Mead and the Gay groups are falling for it.
Right Angle–
The CIA shot Kennedy from the grassy knoll because he was going to spill the beans about the space aliens in Rozwell too.
It is great publicity.
Joke of the Day:
How many lesbians does it take to change a lightbulb?
Answer: Four, of course; one to screw in the bulb, one to hold the ladder and two to film the documentary.
V.L.R.B!!
Ian, one of these days they’re going to come get you, lol!
Capn,ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS, of Georgia was vice president of the Southern Confederacy.http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Jefferson_Davis_Vice_Stephens.htm
Why do you have such a bigoted problem with the south? The Civil War ended over 100 years ago. Why can’t you get over it?
a letter written to
http://www.bartcop.com/
Facts:
Bush is the first President in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.He has appointed more convicted criminals to his administration than any President in U.S. history.
He has broken more international treaties than any President in U.S. history and has withdrawnthe US from the UN Human Rights Commission, the World Court of Law, and the Geneva Conventions.
He has lied us into wars, failed us on security, embarrassed us with fratboy behavior on the world stage,bankrupted our national surplus, enriched contributors and henchmen, rewarded incompetence andcriminality, shredded constitutional rights, and…oh I could go on and on, but it just makes me sick.
Even sicker yet, he still gets all of you to laugh and fawn at your inane press conferences.
You have monolithicly failed us. Why have you done this?
Mike DFarmington Hills, MI
That about sums it up.
Damn, looks like I was right again about Karr not really being the killer of Ramsey. Bush will probably grant him the medal of freedom for distracting media attention away from the court ruling that Bush & Co. were guilty of violating the 4th Amendment concerning warentless searches (a crime punishable by jail time which Bush will refuse to follow because dictators are above the law).
XXX,
Because Confederate traitors were racists bastards that repudiated everything good America stands for?
Yeah, that’s pretty much it.
But in all fairness, their sin is America’s original sin.
George Washington didn’t free his slaves until he died in his will. And even then Martha didn’t let them go for awhile. Jefferson never freed his slaves including his own black children.
When Haiti rose against France, they turned to the US for help. The US of course didn’t help them because the uprising had been led by slaves.
You can’t support a slave uprising in Haiti when 1/3rd of the people in the US are living in slavery.
Probably the President with the worst civil rights record in the 20th century was Woodrow Wilson, the Yankee Democrat. His views on racial equality were positively medieval, he was a disgrace to the office.
So, there’s a lot of blame to go around, I’ll give you that . . .
Capn,
It is a damned shame that stymie and buckwheat carr didn’t pay you a visit as well.
viva La Raza Blanco!!