Badlands Journal
Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice
A rouge pall, like the Delta peat fires of old at twilight, hangs over Merced County.
According to Supervisor Mike Nelson, the "socialists" were out this morning at the supervisors' meeting. A group advocating agricultural preservation were arguing against parcel splits for ranchettes between Gustine and Santa Nella.
And I thought I saw Eugene Debs highballing down the Santa Fe tracks last night.
The Valley seems frozen at the moment, although its credit is leaking from subprime loan foreclosures and the milk price is up so people are buying replacement heifers. Perhaps, the leaders have been shaken somewhat by the consequences of their rapacious land-use decisions, by which local lenders, developers, realtors and landowners gained enormously to the detriment of larger financial institutions that bought so much locally generated bad debt. And to the detriment of so many others, closer by, hung out to dry by the big swindle.
vanitas vanitatum dixt Ecclesiates, vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas ... omnia tempus habent et suis spatiis transeunt universa sub caelo ... tempus destruendi et tempus aedificandi...
-- Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3.
The chamber needs to move forward and advocate for business, including the planned Wal-Mart distribution center. Good-paying jobs are needed in Merced, with people here making money to fill all the vacant homes, Wells said. -- Merced Sun-Star, June 19, 2007
6-22-07
Modesto Bee
Rules Committee position gives Blue Dog's bark more bite...Dennis Cardoza, 18th Congressional District, which includes part of Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties and all of Merced County
http://www.modbee.com/opinion/community/story/13715696p-14302358c.html
...McNerney's bill would authorize $90 million a year between 2008 and 2012 to support geothermal research at two centers, one in the West and the other in the East.
"There's definitely a chance that one of the plants would be located in Northern California," McNerney said. "It's important that the rocks are suitable for this. They must have fissures and cracks so you can circulate water through them."
"It's tough to get any particular issue dealt with in a very rapid fashion short of declaring war on somebody," Cardoza told CBS 5 on May 31st. "We don't move that fast in Congress." -- CBS5.com, June 19, 2007
Mark Arax, a fine writer of Armenian descent from Fresno, tried to tell Los Angeles about the truth about the Armenian genocide. The announcement of his departure from the Los Angeles Times, his article unpublished, comes as Israel plans its invasion of the Gaza Strip to wipe out Hamas, the democratically elected Palestinian government. Hollywood and AIPAC notwithstanding, we welcome him back to the Valley and we hope he will write a similar article on the genocide against the Assyrians, so many of their descendants residing in Turlock.
The United States has 3,066 counties, represented by the National Association of Counties. Its 50 states have 50 governors, represented by the National Governors Association.
"In exchange for having a seat at the table, you agree that at the end of the day, you're all going to be on the same page..."That does not mean I'm a lackey for Nancy Pelosi." --Rep. Dennis "I'm No Nancy Boy" Cardoza, Shrimp Slayer-Merced.
It would be funny if this was a script for a baseball comedy film called "Bull Durham." Unfortunately, this guy is our US congressman during the most corrupt moment of political history since the McKinley administration. But Madame McClatchy's dutiful stenographer, Mike Doyle, takes it all down, word for meaningless word.
It will happen this way, now that the news cycle is over. One day, probably on a weekend this month, the Department of Homeland Security will announce that the UC/Bechtel/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory proposal to place a biodanger level-4 lab near Tracy at Site 300, an LLNL bombing range already laced with depleted uranium and tritium, will make the short list for biowarfare pork. LLNL also recently announced that it will be releasing eight times as much radioactivity in bomb tests this year on Site 300.