Friday 14 March 2008

A plan by the Environmental Protection Agency to close several of its 26 research libraries did not fully account for the impact on government staffers and the public, who rely on the libraries for hard-to-find environmental data, congressional investigators reported yesterday.

The report by the Government Accountability Office found that the EPA effort, begun in 2006 to comply with a $2 million funding cut sought by the White House, may have hurt access to materials and services in the 37-year-old library network.

Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, said the report reveals a “grim picture” of mismanagement at the EPA. The panel’s oversight and investigations subcommittees held a hearing on the reorganization yesterday.

The libraries provide technical information and documentation for enforcement cases and help EPA staff members track new environmental technologies and the health risks associated with dangerous chemicals.

They also are repositories of scientific information that is used to back up the agency’s positions on new regulations and environmental reports and data that are tapped by people such as developers and state and local officials. The collections include hard-to-find copies of documents on federal Superfund hazardous waste sites, water-quality data and the health of regional ecosystems.

We have work to do.

One thing, though, that does bother me is that the wife always has to be dragged before the press and the public to “stand by her man.” I would not ask this of my wife were I to find myself in Spitzer’s position.

It would be embarrassing to have the entire world see her kick the living shit out of me.

Now I’m getting the drift, as it were, of Spitzer’s situation.

Amber cascades all over today
Then we walk on a crooked catwalk
Only to be delayed
Bubbles of blue burst into two
Eaten up by the incoming tide
Of the new

Then we call to the man who walks on the water
We talk of a plan to stop all the slaughter in view
It’s in view

Granite charades are played in the rain
Till we fall through a sand castle window
To avoid the pain
Summer canoe paddles up to you
‘Cause it’s time for another beer run
Or something that’s equally true

Then we call to the man who walks on the water
We talk of a plan to stop all the slaughter in view

Then we call to the man who walks on the water
We talk of a plan to stop all the slaughter in view
It’s in view

sadly he was also intensely suffocated
by lust’s merchants of night-death,
his spirit cruelly hijacked by its oven,
ever his self by its onslaught flooded.
unfortunately the femme’s eyes of diamomazement,
her hair-silk and lips of merlot
eviscerated his reason and robbed him
of the elysian serenity of rationality.

lust kills, Lord, it ostracizes the spirit to fen,
it enmaggots the soul with howl,
and it inspires dissonance and cacophony within.
had i an abundance of luxo-wealth and rave-power, Lord,
it could very easily have been me
who was just now bludgeoned and decapitated,
me who was encompassed by the shadow,
me who was subsumed in night-thunder.

i pray more free from lust’s talons to be,
less surrounded by its paratroopers of slice,
its noxio-annoyo siren reduced to a whisper,
rather than an ocean-defeaned roar.

As for Willie Shakespear – what a funkster. Life has been quite a wondrous journey, even with the low valleys and pits and sometimes a little luck and pluck, I wish I had another 60 years – but maybe such sounds/words makes me an idiot, full of furious nothing.

;)

undoubtedly he was the best
attorney general in the nation,
no reason to believe that he would
not have become our most effective governor,
the sloth-merchants swine butchering,
their platmo-flash to smut-gold morphing.
a sudden tsunami of justice crashing,
a weird freak of sunshine
amid an oil-ocean of savàjo.

instead the ego’s wrath-talons
his soul dispossessed, obesified,
the gremlins of arrogance surrounding him,
all sorts of warlocks of pride gunning him.

please, Lord, heal this one of our leading politicians,
guide him back into the lumino-flash of mind-treasure,
return him to the fold of beato-bliss,
the flash-beacons surrounding him,
rather than the heinous lust-warts,
cherub-blithe, moon-kiss, and silverado,
instead of junk-jaws, witch-death and gash.

The document was produced by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But CDC administrators quickly distanced themselves from the work, saying that some of the science is weak, and that they released it after accusations of a cover-up.

CDC officials also said they have asked an independent scientific advisory organization — the Institute of Medicine — to review the drafts and give its own assessment of the work’s quality.

“We’re sending it to the best scientific body in the country. They can tell us whether we were justified or not” in having misgivings about the science, said Dr. Henry Falk, who oversees CDC research on environmental health hazards.

It’s unusual — but not unheard of — for the institute to review CDC research. It is expected to finish its assessment by the end of June, CDC officials said.

The CDC had been under fire from some congressmen for withholding the documents and for reassigning the scientist in charge of the project, Christopher De Rosa, to lesser duties.

Some lawmakers said they believe De Rosa was reassigned because he pushed for release of important information.

I wonder what are the numbers of men ,wife’s, daughters, son’s living along those lakes? Who told the CDC to hold this information? “Life is a tale told by an idiot — full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Especially when trying to tell truth to power.

I do think everyone’s actions and thoughts have real world consequences, and they act and think in ways that have real world consequences in terms of life, death, and suffering. Moreover, it’s almost trite to say, taking no position is equivalent to deferring to the powers that be.

Now, I honestly don’t know if I’ve finished with this post. It’s quite a while past my rigorous-thinking time, and I have to go. I do know, usually when I re-read my posts after 24 hours or more have passed, they seem far less extreme or unjustified. I hope they seem that way to others.

Smiley

You know the old cliche of the glass house and the stone – well, I know that I personally have wronged people and done some awful things in my time . . . so I feel that I have NO right to judge anyone else, for it would be blatant hypocrisy.

I agree with every word you wrote, and by the way I am an atheist
and not a religious zealot. Iam left of center too.
Spitzer has built his reputation and career as morality and propriety
crusader and took pride and gloated about busting prostituion rings
and puting prostitutes in jail. What a hyprocite and pretender he is.
What about his humiliated wife and daughters ?? What about the average citizens who thought they had an honest clean leader??!!
If he was setup or singled out then he deserved it because he displayed
an utter arrogance and poor judgement and . He thought himself invincible.

Uh-huh, I just sunk that low.