Werner Heisenberg was a Nobel prize winner and one of the great scientists of the 20th century. He was almost shot in Switzerland by a catcher for the Boston Red Sox acting under orders of the U.S. government. The catcher changed his mind at the last moment, however.
Month: March 2016
DEP Math Doesn’t Add Up
DEP Math Doesn’t Add Up
By Leo Knepper
First, a little background. In 2010, the EPA in Washington, DC imposed regulations governing nutrients that made their way into the Chesapeake Bay. The Susquehanna River is part of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed; giving the EPA authority over nearly half of Pennsylvania’s landmass due to the various tributaries feeding into the Susquehanna. The cost to Pennsylvania taxpayers to meet the EPA’s mandates will be nearly $5.6 billion over the next 10 years under the current reduction system. Here is where the Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), John Quigley comes into play.
Earlier in March, Quigley was questioned about the cost savings Pennsylvania taxpayers might enjoy if the nutrient reduction targets were achieved using competitive bidding via the private sector versus the current model that is driven by large-scale government infrastructure spending. A rebuttal from The Coalition for Affordable Bay Solutions (CABS) neatly summarized the duplicity of Quigley’s response:
“…[I]f $2 per lb. nitrogen reduction credits from riparian buffers are available to meet the Bay mandate . . . [then] the total cost to meet the 24 million lbs. of nitrogen mandates would be $48 million annually. Yet the Secretary continues to state that the most reliable estimate of the resources required to meet the mandate is $5.6 billion including operations and maintenance through 2025.”
The numbers that Quigley uses to argue against competitive bidding total $480 million over 10 years, but at the same time, he is stating that the DEP needs more money because the cost will be $5.6 billion in the same period. Both statements cannot be true.
In further researching the subject, we reviewed a 2013 report completed by the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee (LCBF) that found using a competitive bid process would reduce the cost to taxpayers by 80-85 percent versus maintaining the status quo. It is no surprise that the competitive bidding option would save taxpayers money. However, it is unfortunate that the Secretary of the DEP would oppose a more cost effective method for complying with a federal mandate.
Unless the EPA reverses course on Chesapeake Bay Watershed requirements, Pennsylvania taxpayers will have to pay to comply. The question is how much money it will take to comply. To reduce costs, Pennsylvania must embrace a competitive bidding program. Currently, there is legislation in the Senate (SB 724) that would set up the necessary legal framework. We will monitor the legislation and keep you informed on its progress.
Mr. Knepper is executive director of Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania.
DEP Math Doesn’t Add Up
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 3-30-16
Crayons make great emergency candles. They burn for about 30 minutes.
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 3-30-16
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 3-29-16
The Vikings practiced human sacrifice. They really weren’t nice people.
Vikings practiced human sacrifice — William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 3-29-16
Hillary Abortions
Hillary Abortions — If you think Ted Cruz has problems with the stories being spread about his sex life, check out Kyle Olson’s expose regarding the lady that the Democrat establishment wants to foist on us.
It puts to bed in a conclusive way the long-pondered question “Is Hillary how she is because Bill does what he does or does Bill do what he does because Hillary is the way she is?”
Reading it, we actually felt sorry for the old Arkansas Love Machine.
Olson’s source is Sally Miller, a former Miss Arkansas who was one of Slick Willie’s girlfriends and who knew Hillary also.
Sally says Hillary is cold, calculating and interested solely in herself. She said she had several abortions and was talked into keeping Chelsea by Bill for political reasons. She said she was a lesbian who does not like men.
One does have to admit this is a lot easier to buy than Cruz as a Latin lover.
Hillary Abortions
William Lawrence Sr. Omnibit 3-28-16
Romans used urine as mouthwash. Really. They also used to wash their togas. It made them really white, supposedly.
Urine as mouthwash — William Lawrence Sr. Omnibit 3-28-16
Big Soda Shafts America Too
Big Soda Shafts America — Joseph DiStefano of Philly.com notes in his story about Big Soda’s response to Philadelphia’s proposed soft-drink tax that Coca-Cola Co.’s tax rate is now less than 25 percent of its income while in the late ’90s it was 36 percent.
PepsiCo dropped from 34 percent to 23 percent.
Why?
In Coke’s case, it is because it has shifted plants and earnings to lower-tax countries and accepted “tax incentive grants” from nations like Brazil and Swaziland.
Pepsi baldly explained their strategy in 2005 declaring “We intend to continue to reinvest earnings outside the U.S.”
The Donald is looking pretty good right now.
By the way hipsters, these guys are pikers compared to Apple.
Big Soda Shafts America Too
Christos Voskrese 2016
Christos Voskrese 2016 — Christos voskrese, which means Christ has Risen, is the Easter greeting in Church Slavonic which brings the response Voistinu voskrese or Indeed, He has risen.
Easter, of course, celebrates the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus and the salvation of Man. The date for Easter is the Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox, which is always reckoned, regardless of astronomical observations, to be March 21 as per the Western churches that use the Gregorian calendar, so Easter always falls between March 22 and April 25.
The dating for Easter correlates with the means the Jews once used to set the date for Passover, which correlates with Scripture since Scripture indicates that the Crucifixion of the Lord occurred as the lambs were being slaughtered for the celebration of that holiday. In fact, in most Western languages the name for the day is a cognate of the Pesach which is the Hebrew name for Passover. In Latin it would be Pascha so Paschal lamb would be Passover lamb.
In English and German, the word comes from Eostre month, which was basically April, and which the pagans who spoke Germanic languages had named for the goddess Eostre much as our own March and April are named for the Greek god and goddess Mars and Aphrodite, respectively. In Slavic, the holiday is called “Great Night” (Velikonoce in Slovak) or “Great Day” (Velikden in Ukrainian). There are some caveats regarding the date. The Eastern churches that use the Julian calendar set the equinox at April 3, and, of course, the spring equinox is based on that of the Northern Hemisphere.
So, Christos Voskrese 2016.
Christos Voskrese 2016
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 3-26-16
What in the United States is generally called Holy Saturday is called Saturday of Light by Coptic Christians and Black Saturday in the Phillippines.
It commemorates the day that Jesus Christ’s body lay in the tomb and the Harrowing of Hell in which the Lord descended into Hell and brought salvation to all of the righteous who had died since the beginning of the world.
Holy Saturday William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 3-26-16
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 3-25-16
So why do they call the day commemorating Christ’s Crucifixion “good”? Nobody’s sure. It most likely comes from German either as Gottes Freitag i.e. God’s Friday or Gute Freitag i.e. Good Friday with “good” being used synonymously with “holy.”
For what it’s worth, the Germans today call it Karfreitag or Mourning Friday.