How to beat earmarks

SOURCE: Associated Press, Jan. 25, 2011:

QUOTE (not in its entirety):

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama's top ally in the Senate Tuesday brusquely rejected the president's call for a ban on the practice of stuffing home state projects known as earmarks into spending bills. [Top ally, being Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev]…

…The earmark ban is one of the few areas where Obama and tea party activists are in agreement, but Reid said the idea unfairly "takes power away from the legislative branch of government. And I think that's the wrong thing to do."

:UNQUOTE.

My response posted to this Yahoo article yesterday:

QUOTE:

"...but Reid said the idea unfairly 'takes power away from the legislative branch of government...'"

No it doesn’t, and Reid is being dishonest by claiming otherwise. What earmarking does, in its present format, is to attach unrelated projects to larger bills. This is an attempt to sneak them in, flying under the radar.

Maybe [Speaker of the House] Boehner could try this as a trial balloon: Arrange for the House to vote on a Bill entitled “Earmarks” and have that Bill contain nothing else. That would provide a nice fat target for the Reps to shoot down. So as not to embarrass anybody, that Bill (though entitled Earmarks) wouldn’t actually list any. It would be just a blank piece of paper with a title.

Symbolically, this would allow the House to send a message to the Senate: Since all spending bills have to originate in the House, if you want us to consider any earmarks, you go ahead and draft an Earmarks-only bill and send it to us for “original consideration” – as if we’d drafted it.

An additional message to the Senate from the House: Rots of ruck.

Steven Searle for US President in 2012
“Reid is an embarrassment to the legislative process – trying to sneak pork past us, indeed!”

:UNQUOTE.

Messages in bottles cast adrift at sea

Why should I even bother trying to respond to news articles posted on Yahoo? These responses are read by so precious few.

I liken what I do to what a shipwrecked sailor would do on a deserted island: Put messages in bottles, toss them into the ocean, and hope for the best. Yes, the odds are poor that anyone will ever get these messages. But if I do nothing, there’s no chance at all. It’s not that I have political ambitions forcing me, with burning desire, to seek a large and public stage. I’m just trying to get a message out. Even if only a few people “get it,” that’s good enough for me.

Besides, unless we – even with our small, powerless voices – say something to contradict pompous, lying, powerful fools like Senator Reid, they’ll assume people don’t see through them. And they’ll assume, if they have the last word, that they’re right. Never, ever let a moron have the last word or else he'll end up thinking he’s right. Humiliate the powerful, even with small gestures. That, I assure you, won’t be our only recourse. It will be only the beginning of massive changes to come. But one must start somewhere.

Steven Searle for US President in 2012

Founder of The Independent Contractors’ Party

“Nevadans are afraid of voting against Reid, since (without his powerful intervention) they’re afraid the feds (which own 85% of Nevada, anyway) will turn that state into a nuclear waste dumping zone. Sad to say, they may well have a point.”

Topic of Cancer

THESIS:  Increased cancer rates can be attributed to the "cancerous" growth rates we seek in our economic structures.

What is cancer? Wikipedia states: "Cancer...is a class of diseases in which a group of cells displays [my emphasis] uncontrolled growth (division beyond the normal limits), [and] invasion (intrusion on and destruction of adjacent tissues)..."-  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer

Let's think for a moment about that bit concerning uncontrolled growth. Don't we lust after that kind of growth in our economies? And don't we consider that to be good? Isn't rapid (shall we say "cancerous?") growth in our investment portfolios considered the ideal? Only on rare occasion will anyone ever think: "Rapid growth in one area of our economy could be detrimental to other areas."

Even more rarely will anyone think: "Rapid growth in the economy as a whole could be detrimental to the entire body politic in the long run." Cancerous rates of economic growth, to continue the comparison, can be invasive in Wikipedia's sense - that is, they could be intrusive and destroy other aspects of society. All of which gave me pause when I saw this headline:

"Global cancer rates could increase by 50% to 15 million by 2020" - so claims a report bearing that title on the website of the World Health Organization  [ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2003/pr27/en/ ]

Slow down, you're moving too fast

I know far too many people who have become virtual whirling dervishes. Their bodies might not rotate as do those of the famed Turkish "dancers." But their minds do - spinning ever more quickly, all in the name of "faster, faster, time is money." Most people fault carcinogens in the environment, but I will also fault mindset. That is, the kind of person who willing puts himself on the rat race's ever-accelerating treadmill is the kind of person who, shall we say, opens himself up to the effects of cancerous influences.

Cancer doesn't scare me, but it probably should. I'm the only member of my immediate family who hasn't been afflicted with cancer. My mother-in-law and father-in-law both died of cancer. My best friend had throat cancer. And I've heard from people I work with and from others in my circle of acquaintances who have had bouts or known of others in those straits.

So, why doesn't cancer scare me? If I am ever told that I have cancer, I can assure you one of my thoughts will be:

"Oh well. I've benefited all my life from the prosperity which cancerous (economic) growth has offered. So why should I be spared from having to pay the piper?"

Not that I'm a brave man – I'm not. Many things scare me, but I try to see how the things that happen to us fit into a larger scheme. Perhaps cancer will come my way, perhaps not. But in the meantime, I don't seek cancerous growth, I don't have a hurried mind, I'm not into manic acquisition, I'm more into give-give-give than take-take-take.

There's a lot to be said for the importance of one's state of mind. Maybe that won't ward off the cancer which might come my way, but meanwhile I do enjoy the serenity bestowed by trying to cultivate a more relaxed outlook. And there's a lot to be said for meanwhile.

And then there's the matter of nuclear waste

I had a nightmare once about how the US will decide, in the not-too-distant future, to dispose of its harzardous nuclear waste. Send to each and every citizen, via first class mail, his or her share of that waste and let them figure out what to do with it.

Something has to be done and no other plan will be agreed upon. Once there was talk of using the state of Nevada as a central burial ground. But ever since Harry Reid, Nevada's senior senator, eventually became Senate Majority Leader, Nevada has been spared.

It's funny how politics works, motivated in its own way by cancerous concerns.

Steven Searle for U.S. President in 2012

Founder of The Independent Contractors’ Party

"Actually, anything that gnaws at our peace of mind can undermine our immune system, opening the way to a variety of cancers - some literal, others figurative yet just as deadly" - Steve.