Galt's Gulch
17

Brothers, You Asked For It!

Posted by BradHarrington 9 years, 1 month ago to Politics
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The original title for this rant was "Brothers, You Asked For It!", but the Wyoming Tribune Eagle editors changed it. ARRRRGGH! Editors. <huge grin>

When I finally get off my butt and get my blog going again, I will restore the proper title. This ran today...

Also, I see tons of comments on previous posts, most of which are quite thought-provoking and beg for response. Tomorrow, people! It's been a long week and I'm gonna fade off to bed.

Make it a great night!

With Regards,
Brad Harrington
brad@bradandbarbie.com
SOURCE URL: http://wyomingnews.com/articles/2015/03/13/opinion/guest_column/01column_03-13-15.txt#.VQN3_-GgtEo

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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 9 years, 1 month ago
    This story from Cheyenne is the start of a repeat of what happened at Love Canal. Occidental Petroleum had done some remediation of this area. Local/county officials and the EPA forced the land to be sold to the local/county government. Occidental insisted in that forced "agreement" that the land never be used again. The county sold the land at least a decade later to a developer, who then built homes on it, and shockingly (not), the new homeowners started to have health problems.
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    • Posted by sumitch 9 years, 1 month ago
      I believe there was a movie about a chemically polluted land site starring Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich?).
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      • Posted by plusaf 9 years, 1 month ago
        That, I believe, was about some contaminated aquifer in California. Reason Magazine did a cover-page article on Love Canal many years back, and yes, the gist of it was that the previous owners tried to make it painfully clear that the land WAS hazardous and NOBODY should EVER build on it, but after the land WAS resold and developed as private homes, they went after the chemical company as "the guilty party."

        Government rug-sweeping and lack of honesty and taking responsibility to perfection.
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    • Posted by khalling 9 years, 1 month ago

      https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=f91...
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      • Posted by $ jbrenner 9 years, 1 month ago
        The health problems of those at Love Canal were definitely greatly exaggerated. The point is that EPA has a bad history of doing what they are doing in Cheyenne. My father, Mobil's first environmental engineer, told me many Superfund stories when I was young.
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        • Posted by khalling 9 years, 1 month ago
          same was the case of Times Beach outside of St. Louis. The area was condemned, a former EPA official who said that low levels of dioxins were not harmful was sentenced to 4 months in federal prison. It is now owned by the feds and operated as a state park. Only one building remains from a once thriving community of 1500 people. From wikipedia:
          Several months after the evacuation, the American Medical Association (AMA) publicly criticized the news media for spreading unscientific information about dioxin and the health hazards associated with it. The AMA stated that there was no evidence of adverse consequences from low-level dioxin exposure. Subsequent studies of potentially exposed people from Times Beach and some other contaminated locations in Missouri have revealed no adverse health outcomes that can be directly linked to dioxin.[8] In a study conducted by the CDC and the Missouri Division of Health, no cases of chloracne, a common symptom of dioxin poisoning, were observed in Times Beach residents.[7] By May of 1991, Dr. Vernon Houk, the director of the CDC’s Center for Environmental Health, had come to the same conclusion as the AMA. Although he had made the official recommendation to permanently relocate Times Beach residents in 1982, by 1991, he no longer believed that evacuation had been necessary.[13]
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          • Posted by $ jbrenner 9 years, 1 month ago
            I had forgotten Times Beach. Thanks for the reminder.
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            • Posted by plusaf 9 years, 1 month ago
              And the pollution of the Hudson River by GE some decades back... I'd read that leaving the pollutants where they were, under river silt, was probably a LOT safer than trying to dredge and remove them, as a lot of the hazardous materials could be stirred up and re-released into the river!

              Critical Thinking is Dead.
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              • Posted by $ jbrenner 9 years, 1 month ago
                My father's job during the 1970's and 1980's was to clean up Mobil Chemical's toxic waste sites before the government got involved. At the second that EPA was there, the cost of cleanup doubled. He told me several stories of how he was forced to dig up sites where contaminants had been legally disposed of when they were disposed, but had become illegal because of the Clean Water Act, RCRA, and TSCA. In the process of digging them up, of course, the contaminants were aerosolized. His solution was to incinerate everything possible so that no waste could be further traced.

                The "joint and several" law works like this. Let's say there are 50 companies that legally put their waste into a site. Each company is responsible FOREVER for the fate of the waste of all of their own plus all of everyone else's waste. Let us suppose that a now bankrupt company disposed of Hg or Pb in there in milligram quantities over the volume of the whole landfill. The entire site is deemed contaminated with Hg or Pb and must be treated as such. Now the EPA or environmental lawyers step in. You know they will go after the companies that have the deepest pockets (in that time, Mobil), and they argue endlessly over the issue to rack up as many billable hours as possible.

                Every year or so, he would show me a draft copy of the latest environmental legislation. It was his job to make sure that the limits that were established for waste disposal were physically achievable.
                Listening to my dad tell these stories almost monthly was what got me interested in chemical engineering.
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                • Posted by plusaf 9 years, 1 month ago
                  The concept of 'fixed-price contracts' for lawyers crossed my mind, but that's right up there with the likelihood of 'flat taxes' and 'balanced budgets,' eh?

                  Thanks for sharing that story. Perfect example of another situation that probably can't be unwound.
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  • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
    Good article. You might have some fun in researching how much of that city code you reference comes from UN treaties signed in the last 30 years or so. I think it might surprise you.
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    • Posted by BradHarrington 9 years, 1 month ago
      Actually, I *have* done that research, and even wrote up a 5,000 word article (which I ran in my wife Barbie and I's newspaper at the time, "Liberty's Torch") summarizing my findings. I'd link you to it but we crashed the paper after the 2012 election. If I ever get off my ass and get my blog going again (I crashed it at the same time), I'll provide a link.

      ALL of the fire codes, nearly all of the electric codes, and most of the streets/highways codes derive from international bodies, nearly all of which - if you trace them down - can be tracked back to Agenda 21.

      And, of course, Cheyenne's major planning document, PlanCheyenne, was funded in part by the EPA and refers in its bibliography to several UN organizations. This kind of approach is consistent with what the internationalists have been doing ever since Agenda 21 was first promulgated, and - even though I can't run the entire piece I wrote here, I'll at least give you a paragraph on that approach:

      "Within the last 20 years, the two-pronged approach established by Agenda 21 advocates - the top-down approach of national mandates and grants coupled with the bottom-up approach of snaring local governments in ICLEI-style 'sustainability' nonsense - has had a tremendous impact on building and zoning codes throughout the United States, as well as right here in Cheyenne, Wyoming."

      The paragraphs that follow deliver the substance of the manner in which our very own local government here in Cheyenne has been snared by just that kind of nonsense - and all without having a flipping clue that it ever happened...

      Brad


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  • Posted by tkstone 9 years, 1 month ago
    As a city official who tries to keep government contained to a minimal role, I have to concur with Brad. The vast plurality of local government officials think nothing of taking fed dollars. They even say"It's better than spending our money" It makes me want to scream. I am not sure where they think it comes from. They probably just don't think. I do believe city government has its role; individual and property protection and street maintenance, but definitely not economic development. I would love to have a discussion sometime concerning the proper role for community. The gulch had enough people to have understood rules of conduct and agreements on the use of the vehicle and tractor as well as the airport. All classic city services can be privately provided, just because some choose to create a government to provide some services is not all bad. Limited government with proper controls can be effective.
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  • Posted by nln1219 9 years, 1 month ago
    I don't know why I read these articles other than to confirm the fact that our Government is made up of Sub-Amoebic half life forms. I have to be careful though...I am not being politically correct and totally unfair to the amoebas of the world.
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    • Posted by $ jlc 9 years, 1 month ago
      You are correct. Amoebas are too advanced - they are eucaryotic.

      One of my favorite epithets to hurl, low voiced, at an unreasonable person is: You have circular DNA!

      Jan, being helpful
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  • Posted by TeresaW 9 years, 1 month ago
    Hello Brad & Barbie  Welcome to the Gultch! (Thank you, Eudaimonia, for bringing them here)

    Per your use of the word ‘rant’:

    rant: to talk loudly and in a way that shows anger : to complain in a way that is unreasonable http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionar...

    verb 1. To speak or write in an angry or emotionally charged manner; rave. 2. To express at length a complaint or negative opinion. 3. To utter or express by ranting.
    n. noun 1. Angry, emotionally charged, or tediously negative speech or writing. a speech that was more rant than reason. 2. An example of such speech or writing. a rant against the university's policies. 3. Wild or uproarious merriment. https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search

    Yours is not a rant. I agree with Puzzlelady, it is “Superbly stated and reasoned.”, and look forward to following your future posts. Hope you post the article regarding the codes/Agenda 21 research.
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  • Posted by $ Stormi 9 years, 1 month ago
    Nicely put, great article! As a former Cheyenne resident, back when it was a cool town, I find this distressing. I have followed UN Agenda 21 for over 15 years, before it was so named. That is what is finding its way into your city regulations. Non governmental groups, trained at the UN, come in and "help" local officials set up all those regulations, which are then tweaked when the EPA, the Agenda 21 enforcer group, steps in, Check you Regional Planning Commission site and look for the tell tale links to sights with Smart Growth, Sustainable Cities, or Population Density in the title or description. Locals fall for this stuff, but they don't usually originate it. It is the death knell for private property rights.
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    • Posted by BradHarrington 9 years, 1 month ago
      You nailed it. And none of them have a clue that that's what has happened. They always like to accuse those of us who point that out as saying, "What, are you trying to tell us the City Council is a bunch of closet internationalists and we just don't know about it?"

      No, we never tried saying that... Just pointing out that 95 percent of the groups they have doing all their planning are connected to ICLEI, the ICC, etc. Ya might as well try conversing with a brick.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 1 month ago
    As we pass more and more laws, rules, and regulations, the purpose of government becomes increasingly blurred and more intrusive. Having the government do anything is akin to wading through a pool of quicksand, because the government is regulated by its own contrary laws which can be used for or against any given project or idea. If you can't get it done by a private entity, then forget about it, or do it yourself.
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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 1 month ago
    The problem with government is that its goals arent to serve the public as it claims. Its real goals are to serve itself and its minions and cronies. Thats why it never seems to actually accomplish its stated goals, but it always spends more money and it finds its way into the hands of the privileged cronies of the day
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  • Posted by $ puzzlelady 9 years, 1 month ago
    Superbly stated and reasoned. Too bad most bureaucrats are immune to logic and so full of their own do-goody delusions.

    Heinlein had it right, that to add any new law, 80% of the people had to agree, and to get rid of any old law, just 20% had to so vote. (My figures may be off a bit.) Otherwise rules proliferate till freedom ends, growing like a cancer and strangling human action--to the totalitarian terminus.
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