Corps Of Engineers Speaks: People Call BS

♦ The Article : taken from baxterbulletin.com

A new policy passed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will require marinas in Southern Missouri and most of Arkansas to replace polystyrene foam underneath docks with a more environmentally friendly material.

The new rule surprised local marina owners, who say they were not notified a change was being considered.

 Local marina owners say their businesses, and other related businesses such as boat dealers, will be drastically affected by the rule.

“It will either put me out of business or I’ll have to triple the stall rental over five years,” said Ricky Eastwold, who owns Bull Shoals Lake Boat Dock with his family. He received a letter dated Aug. 8 from the Corps notifying him of the change, he said.

A preliminary estimate for replacing the foam for the 800-stall marina is between $1.5 million and $2 million, Eastwold said. He said about 80 percent of the boat dock’s renters are on a fixed income, indicating they may not be able to afford a higher stall rental.

“The Corps’ decision is final,” he said. “It’s their land and their lease.”

Other marina owners also are calculating the cost for replacing the foam.

Kathy Grace, co-owner of Cranfield Boat Dock, said she received an estimate for her 350-stall boat dock in March at a cost of more than $600,000.

“If we double stall rent, it might pay it off, but there will be no profit and we’ll lose one-fourth of stall rents,” Grace said, who has owned Cranfield Boat Dock with her husband, Bob, for nearly 40 years. “We do not know what to do.”

As far as the aesthetic concern, Grace said Norfork Lake is beautiful and clean.

The Corps added commercial boat docks into a policy that went into effect in 1993, requiring private docks to replace the foam when it wore out, said U.S. Corps of Engineers spokesman P.J. Spaul.

Former Little Rock District engineer Col. Wally Walters updated the policy this summer to decrease pollutants in the district, increase safety and improve aesthetics, Spaul said. In June, Walters was reassigned to the Pentagon and Col. Donald “Ed” Jackson Jr. took his place.

The Little Rock District includes southern Missouri and most of Arkansas. Northern Arkansas and Southern Missouri lakes in the district include Bull Shoals Lake, Norfork Lake, Beaver Lake, Table Rock Lake and Clearwater Lake.

The policy will require marina owners in the district to replace the white polystyrene foam with encapsulated dock floats, which is plastic-coated polystyrene foam. New boat docks are required to have encapsulated foam, he said.

Corps officials say a time frame has not been set and marinas will gradually replace the existing material as it wears out. Spaul indicated that probably will be at least 10 years or for the duration of the marina’s Corps lease.

Encapsulated foam is more resistant to fragmenting and is resistant to gasoline, Spaul said, adding the product also is more expensive. Spaul said loose beads and chunks of foam break off from non-encapsulated foam, float toward the shore and are not biodegradable. He also said when fuel comes into contact with the foam, it becomes toxic.

The Corps plans to conduct a meeting Thursday with area marina owners only to discuss how to implement the changes, he said.

Area boat docks and marinas also are passing out fliers urging people to contact their U.S. senators and representatives to share their opinions on the policy.

♦ The Arguement:

I guess this should be part 2 to Why The Government Can Tell You What To Do.  I’m not a big boat guy, I don’t even do a lot of fishing, but I can see where the gripes are coming from.  Basically, without any sort of representation or notice, the US Army Corps of Engineers Col. Wally Walters required that all marinas replace their standard styrofoam (polystyrene) floatation device-thingies with plastic-covered styrofoam (polystyrene) floatation device-thingies.  Why?  To prevent the chunks that inevitably get removed from floating around in the lake, or from mixing with gasoline to create a ‘toxic’ substance.  (I think gas+styrofoam=napalm, but I’m not a chemist and I’m not a terrorist, so don’t quote me on that.)

Sure, this is a good idea.  This process will make the lake shores a bit (some would say unnoticablely) cleaner, and might in the long run protect the ecology of the lakes.  But at what cost to the people themselves, having to outfit new floatation if not new dock structures entirely?  Walters signed this updated requirement in June, and is working in the Pentagon right now.  Lucky for him because the man who took his place, Col. Ed Jackson Jr., is going to be dealing with the backlash of hundreds of businesses being stuck with heavy losses to impliment this until-now unheard of plan.  Where are the studies that show this sort of thing is required, for the Corps to require it of people?  What could be forced on the public next for the sake of ‘ecological purity and beautification’?  Because while this might seem like it only affects the owners of the docks and marinas themselves, the public of Baxter County will very likely suffer.

Picture, if you will, a marina housing 350 boats from both local and vacationing owners.  This marina has been in the community for quite some time, and has offered a relatively low cost for its boat housing services, inviting both citizen and visitor alike to keep their boat (and their business) in the area.  All of a sudden and without any provocation, the marina has to update their foam at a cost of five hundred-thousand dollars.  In order to keep their business afloat, the marina raises the cost of rent significantly, and the people who have housed their boats (and their business) within the area withdraw for greener (and less plastic) pastures.

I don’t have much more time to explain it, it just seems like a bad call without further explanation, research, and time to comply.  Think about it.

So I’m not posting the post, because it’s too stupid for me to replicate.

♦The Article: From CNN.com

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/08/27/michael.vick/index.html

♦The Arguement

What.

I know that we as Americans have some sort of internal breeding to be trained to wag our tails at the stimulus of celebrity, but is this even news?  I mean, yes, everyone knew that this ass-bastard was fighting pit bulls when the story first aired.  I mean, his ‘co-conspirators’ (as this is apparently a federal dogfighting conspiracy charge, good game CNN) already folded under the pressure.  How could all these people be conducting dogfights out of Vick’s home and Vick not know/be innocent of it?

 Whatever.

I think what gets me the most about this entire story isn’t the charging of a guilty man for crimes he committed once he finally admitted his guilt.  This story, like the Anna-Nicole circus, is an affront to the justice system, a scar on the face of our national media, and quite possibly, a cause for a number of people like myself to give themselves concussions from banging their heads against a wall.

 “What I did was very immature so that means I need to grow up,” he said.

I get the ball, I throw the ball!  A sentence of 12 to 18 months, are you serious?  That’s just insane!  I mean hell, Nicole Richie was only in jail for 98 minutes, and we’re gonna send a superstar like Michael Vick to prison for TWELVE TO EIGHTEEN MONTHS?

Someone sent me an email that said my first article/arguement was very well poised and well written, and that since then, the nature of my writings in general have started to go downhill.  I want you to browse the places I get my news from, the things that might have relevance to my topic audience, and I want you to try and understand.

This isn’t watergate class stuff I’m dealing with here.  I can’t make a sculpture out of shit.

But hey, if I could, maybe I could run in 2012.  Or become a NFL star Quarterback.

Why the government can tell you what to do: Part 1

♦The Article: Taken from www.baxterbulletin.com

LITTLE ROCK (AP) — States and cities around the nation are following Arkansas’ lead in protecting young children from close encounters with secondhand smoke while traveling on public streets and highways.

The Arkansas Legislature banned smoking in cars with young children quickly and quietly last year. Since the Arkansas law went into effect in July 2006, similar bans have been approved in Louisiana; Bangor, Maine; Rockland County, N.Y.; Puerto Rico and the Australian state of South Australia.

The bill, which bans smoking in passenger vehicles where a child younger than 6 is riding in a car seat, was backed by then state-Rep. Bob Mathis, D-Hot Springs.

“I’m very pleased about the snowball effect,” Mathis said. “It has brought an awareness to smoking around children, whether it’s in a car, at home, or anywhere else for that matter.”

The measure passed in an April 2006 special session that was primarily devoted to education funding, though the Legislature also passed an indoor workplace smoking ban.

“I am not on an anti-smoking crusade. In fact, I’m probably alive today because I quit,” said Mathis, who quit smoking more than two years ago. “I’m very proud of what has happened.”

Arkansas’ law is punishable by a $25 fine.

Dr. Carolyn Dresler, chief of the state Department of Health’s Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Program, said other laws that have followed are tougher.

“Arkansas set the bar low and others are looking to make it stricter,” Dresler said, noting that in Bangor smoking is illegal in vehicles with passengers younger than 18.

Mathis said some of his colleagues didn’t take him seriously – especially because he voted against the workplace smoking ban.

“I felt that people that own a business or restaurant should still be able to decide how they want their business to be run,” he said. “If people knew beforehand a restaurant was a smoke-free place they could choose not to go there.”

But the House and Senate eventually passed the ban on smoking in cars, thanks to help from fellow lawmakers who stood up for the measure.

“No one really gave me a chance,” Mathis said. “I felt like it was a very legitimate piece of legislation and I’m proud of what happened.”

 

♦The Arguement

Okay.  So, I’m torn on this legislature, and I’m more than a little pissed off about it.  I’m a smoker, for who knows how many years now, and I take offense to this kind of stuff because it directly affects me.

Sure, banning smoking in public places to protect the public health, whatever.  But why is that law specific to the age of twenty one?  Why can I buy cigarettes at eighteen, smoke cigarettes most anywhere at eighteen, but I can’t go into a smoking restaurant until I’m twenty one?  Doesn’t make any sense to me, but hey, neither do bluebirds or politicians.

So now, after sneaking that one past us, raising up some taxes, they pull this number.  You’re not allowed to smoke inside a vehicle with a child younger than the age of six in the car with you.  Who the hell comes up with this stuff?  Did they pull six years old out of the air at random?  At seven, are your lungs more immune to second hand smoke?  While yes, a parent introducing their child to second hand smoke might be in the wrong, it isn’t, and it’s not supposed to be, the government’s right to decide that.

 And that’s just what they’re doing.

All the while, stroking their egos.

I don’t normally make blatant fun of people, but…

♦The Article – Taken from CNN.com

Teen Christians campaign against pop culture

(CNN) — At one point in Jared Hutchins’ young life, the Beatles were a big problem.

“I had to stop listening to them for a while,” said Hutchins, who lives in Cumming, Georgia, and plays the piano, guitar and harmonica. He said the group’s world view “had a negative effect on me,” and made him irritable and angry.

“God owns my life, not the Beatles,” he said simply. Although Hutchins said he enjoys a wide range of music — from Pink Floyd and Arcade Fire to Christian bands such as Hillsong United — he said he has to be careful of what music he listens to, for the same reason he temporarily turned off the Beatles.

Hutchins, a 16-year-old graced with poise and thoughtfulness, is one of many teenagers who say that some part of popular culture, with its ubiquitous references to sex, drugs and violence, has harmed him.

Last year, Hutchins and his Christian youth group attended an Acquire the Fire rally in Atlanta, Georgia, he said. Acquire the Fire — regional rallies held across the country — and BattleCry — the larger rallies held this year in only three cities — are the products of the evangelical Christian organization Teen Mania.

One part concert, one part Christian revival, the rallies seek to “stage a reverse revolution” against secular popular culture. They have the pull of headlining rock concerts, drawing thousands of people regardless of the region of the country, the month of year or the day of the week. The audiences are nearly always predominantly teenagers and young adults.

From 2006 to 2007, a total of 127,830 people attended the 34 Acquire the Fire rallies, and 71,414 people attended the three BattleCry events held in San Francisco, California; Detroit, Michigan; and Bristow, Virginia, according to Teen Mania.

For Hutchins, who said he struggled in his early adolescence to fit in and be cool before having a personal experience with God about four years ago, the organization’s message is exactly right.

“We don’t have to be branded by the culture, we are branded by God,” he said. “Be who God created you to be.”

But the glossy, glamorous appeal of popular culture too often obscures that path to God, Teen Mania followers say.

And so, Ron Luce, the 46-year-old founder of the organization, has waged a modern-day crusade against “purveyors of popular culture,” whom he has condemned as “the enemy.” More than two decades old, Teen Mania estimates it has reached more than 2 million teens with its message “of living completely for Christ.”

The organization is sprawling. In addition to its live stadium rallies, there are BattleCry shirts and hats, mobile screen savers, books and a television program. There are international mission trips — Hutchins attended one in Tijuana, Mexico, this summer. There is even a Teen Mania internship, a one-year program called the Honor Academy, based in Lindale, Texas.

In the live events, Luce couples the earnest appeal of a young father with a preacher’s ability to mobilize a crowd. He weaves disturbing statistics about teenagers amid his gospel.

Today’s teenagers are in crisis, he says.

“Kids are hurting,” he said. And of those who he feels inflict these moral wounds, Luce said, “We call them terrorists, virtue terrorists, that are destroying our kids.”

“They’re raping virgin teenage America on the sidewalk, and everybody’s walking by and acting like everything’s OK. And it’s just not OK.”

“We’re fighting for those who don’t know they have a voice, that are being manipulated by our pop culture indulging in things that, really, they’re not mature enough to be thinking about yet,” Luce told CNN. “Kids are hurting,” he said. And of those who he feels inflict these moral wounds, Luce said, “We call them terrorists, virtue terrorists, that are destroying our kids.”

“They’re raping virgin teenage America on the sidewalk, and everybody’s walking by and acting like everything’s OK. And it’s just not OK.”

To some, Luce’s rhetoric is off-putting, hateful and divisive. Opponents point to his views on homosexuality — not “in God’s plan” — and abortion — the “ending of a precious life” — and say Luce is imposing conservative values on vulnerable teenagers.

It is this criticism that Luce and his followers confronted head-on in March at BattleCry San Francisco.

There, in arguably the most liberal city in the United States, protesters, armed with megaphones and poster board signs, rallied against BattleCry on the steps of City Hall as the Christian teenagers circled and prayed in a demonstration of their own.

“Ron Luce is a liar!” one protester shouted. “Let me hear you say Christian fascist,” another yelled.

Luce and the youths, some as young as 11, also raised their voices.

“God, I ask that as we do this BattleCry, Lord, that you would reveal yourself to the teenagers, God, here, God,” Mindy Peterson, shouted. Peterson is a member of Teen Mania’s Honor Academy. Afterward, Peterson railed against what she said was the protesters’ mischaracterization of BattleCry.

“These people think that our war is against other people. They think that our war is against man. And our war isn’t. Our war’s against … the pain in teenagers’ hearts, like depression, alcoholism. Those things that — that are, like, tearing our teenagers apart,” she said.

While much milder in his terms, Hutchins agrees. “We’re a generation that is kind of troubled,” he said. Luce wants to “rescue the hearts of our generation,” he added.

And of the critics’ contention that the rallies, the organization, the message is neo-conservatism wrapped in Biblical verse? Hutchins smiles, nods patiently. “I don’t go because I have a political agenda,” he said, adding that his friends don’t, either.

“Mostly, what we’re concerned with is Jesus.”

♦The Arguement

Okay, so, I was really tempted just to write ‘lol, what?’ here, and be done with it, but as I re-read the article again, I found I had something to say.

These people, this ‘Teen Mania’ organization, is trying to fight a ‘war’ against an enemy that is indestructible.  It’s invincibility is based in the fact that it isn’t real.  Pop culture as the enemy?  The mass media blazing about that sex, drugs, and rock and roll are cool, and the theoretical ‘raping of virgin teenage America’ or whatever the hell these people are talking about, it’s not real, and therefore it can’t be beaten.

What do you mean, it isn’t real?  I know the question is in your head.  The media, the super high status celebrities that impress on us that everything they do is cool, that it’s okay, whatever; this doesn’t change our internal inborn compass of right and wrong.  These zealots, for lack of a better word, don’t seem to understand that even if they were to somehow totally destroy the depraved images and concepts coming across in ‘pop culture’, they would never destroy our inner demons, the things that are already inside of us that cause us to stray from whatever path it is we’re supposed to follow in the first place.  Man is, in its creation, a flawed being.  All pop culture is doing is giving matches to a person who is already totally on fire.  The choice, and ultimately, the amount of influence made on the individual, is in their own hands.

But I digress.

What tickles me more than anything about this whole ordeal, is that by thwarting the great evils of pop culture, they are in turn breeding their own.  And while their ‘pop culture’ might be right for them, it may not be right for everybody else.  If you disagree with the disturbing images on TV, turn it off.  If the radio is blaring out swear words far too many times per song, change the station. 

But the glossy, glamorous appeal of popular culture too often obscures that path to God, Teen Mania followers say.So, let me get this straight.  To persuade people from the flash and glitter of ‘pop culture’, to clean up their path to God, you’re gonna hold rallies with hundreds of thousands of people, pass out merchandise, scream about a particular message and cheer along with your fans?Sounds a lot like a rock show, to me.

Also, I had to throw this in at the end, because I thought of it a bit late.

 The BEATLES are too hardcore for you?

 Are you SERIOUS?

Group seeks to ban unmarried from adopting, foster parenting

♦ THE ARTICLE  – From the Baxter Bulletin

LITTLE ROCK (AP) — A conservative group hopes a ballot item that would ban unmarried couples from adopting or foster parenting children will effectively reinstate a ban on gay foster parents overturned by the state’s highest court. The head of the Arkansas Family Council said Thursday that the broader ban would withstand court challenges better than a measure focusing only on gays and lesbians.

 “We looked at what was likely to be pretty bulletproof when it came to constitutional challenges,” said Jerry Cox, the council’s executive director and president.

The council hopes to place the proposed act on the November 2008 ballot. It has submitted the proposal to Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, who is reviewing the measure. The council this year pushed unsuccessfully for legislation that would have banned gay people from fostering or adopting children.

Cox said the ban did not specifically target homosexuals partly because the group believed cohabiting heterosexuals are not safe for children, either. If approved by voters, the ban would take effect Jan. 1, 2009.

Cox’s group has been pushing for a ban on gay parents to be reinstated after it was overturned by the state Supreme Court last year.

Legislation barring any unmarried couple from fostering or adopting children passed the state Senate but failed before the House Judiciary Committee during this year’s session. Gov. Mike Beebe said earlier this year the measure — which was written by the council — had constitutional problems and did not offer equal protection to all people.

Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample would not comment on the proposal.

Rita Sklar, the state director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said broadening the ban beyond just gay couples doesn’t make it any less vulnerable to a constitutional challenge.

“It doesn’t make it better,” Sklar said Thursday. “There’s nothing better about including a lot more families who are going to have private decisions made for them by the government.”

Cox said the group provided the written proposal to the attorney general’s office on Tuesday. If McDaniel’s office approves the wording of the popular name and ballot title of the proposal, the Family Council would need 61,947 signatures of registered voters to place the issue on the ballot. That number represents 8 percent of the votes cast for governor in the 2006 election.

It would have until July to submit the signatures to the secretary of state’s office.

Cox said the group is drafting a guide to adopting and fostering children that it plans to distribute along with petitions if McDaniel approves the ballot title.

“That will enable the people to say on the one hand we’re circulating those petitions to prevent children going to home that aren’t safe, but also that there’s a need for good foster homes in the state. There’s a need for children to be adopted,” Cox said.

In 2004, Cox’s group backed a constitutional amendment overwhelmingly approved by voters that defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

♦THE ARGUEMENT 

So cutting past the obvious laughable parts of this issue.  This group, I think it’s the ‘Arkansas Family Council’, has decided that unwed couples aren’t fit for adoption or foster parenting situations.  It’s putting the thing to petition, and hoping that it comes up in the November 2008 ballot.

 What, exactly, does all this mean?

It means that in this apparent attempt to further limit the rights of same-sex couples looking to take care of children, this group will push to bar those singular individuals who seek either adopted children, or foster children, from doing so.  I only say ‘apparent attempt to further limit the rights of same-sex couples’ because the article states: The council this year pushed unsuccessfully for legislation that would have banned gay people from fostering or adopting children.

Who is this random group of individuals, caught up in their own agenda, to say that single parents can’t raise kids they didn’t produce?  I personally grew up in a single parent home, and while I wasn’t adopted or the product of the foster parent system, I don’t imagine these kids (on the whole, mind you) would recieve any less love and attention from their newly acquired parents, be they a single person, a married couple, or a ‘cohabitating heterosexuals’.  I would wager, that in some cases, these kids might be better off, due to the screening processes (however lax) required for adoption or placement as a ‘foster home’.

The issue here isn’t the covert attack on gay rights, no matter how they spin it.  What these individuals are doing in their ignorance, is putting children out of a potentially good home.