Bad Deeds for 12-20-06

Republican Rep. Warns About First Muslim In Congress: “If American Citizens Don’t Wake Up There Will Likely Be Many More”

Follow-up to the above: Congressman Has “No Intention Of Apologizing”
Ask for an apology

Fox News Guest Says Joy Behar, Matt Damon & Keith Olbermann Should Be Rounded Up And Put In A Detention Center Because They’re Traitors

Republicans passed 520 tax favors for corporations on the last day of the Congressional session – In the last hours of the last day of Republican control they passed 520 tax favors for corporations. Mostly in the form of tariff relief on individual items purchased offshore ranging from shoes to boiled oysters. That’s another couple of $ billion the middle class will have to make up or borrow from China. To add insult to that injury, the bill makes it even more profitable to buy offshore things that were once made here by Americans.

EPA considers eliminating lead from pollution standards – Just because the Republicans no longer control congress doesn’t mean the party of compassion can’t continue to do damage. The EPA, which under Bush has become the Environmental Pollution Agency, is considering lifting the ban on tetra-ethyl-lead as a pollutant. The single most successful cleanup of the environment and they want to reverse it. Lead was an additive to gasoline to cheaply increase the octane rating.

EPA exempts cement plant’s mercury pollution – How about a helping of mercury to go with your lead? The EPA will exempt cement plants built in 2005 and earlier from mercury pollution standards. Heavy metals are particularly hard on children, which is why lead pigments were banned from paint in 1978. A baby can ingest enough lead chewing paint off the crib to be poisoned. That’s not a lot of lead folks.

“More Money Please,” Say the Rich
Justice Antonin Scalia says you can’t make ends meet on only $165,000 a year. My heart bleeds for him. I guess he’s jealous of the guys on Wall Street who will get bonuses totaling over $100 billion this year. To put that into perspective $100 billion would fund both the Department of Education and the Housing and Urban Development for 2007. How ‘bout that! Just the bonuses could fund two Federal Government Agencies. Yep, the economy is strong and getting stronger, at least for Bush’s base:
the Haves and the Have Mores. Meanwhile middle class income has slipped again.
Scalia can’t live on $165K
Wallstreet bonuses
2007 federal budget

New Global Warming ‘Time Bomb’ – Methane Bubbling Up From Permafrost – Methane a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide is being released from the permafrost at a rate five times faster than thought, according to a study being published Thursday in the journal Nature. The findings are based on new, more accurate measuring techniques. Scientists worry about a global warming vicious cycle that was not part of their already gloomy climate forecast: Warming already under way thaws permafrost, soil that has been continuously frozen for thousands of years. Thawed permafrost releases methane and carbon dioxide. Those gases reach the atmosphere and help trap heat on Earth in the greenhouse effect. The trapped heat thaws more permafrost and so on.

Regards,

Jim