Science?
GOP talking points on greenhouse gases say otherwise.
For Boehner, the issue, as defined by Dr. Limbaugh, is laughable.
Another leading Republican cites God's promise to Noah.
Yeah, science.
I wonder how many times we'll be seeing that phrase in headlines to come?
Hat tip...er, tip o' the crown...to Rich Eggleston for the graphic, via Facebook.
Maybe this is the next Scott Walker Billboard photo, given his imperious cancellation of the train and now the plan to put all agency rule approvals in his office?
These are the people for whom a defeat for President Barack Obama trumps national security.
Good think they could only muster a 28-member caucus to unsuccessfully block START.
And, for good measure, Obama ends the year with another win.
They all look, regrettably, on target, except that one about the legislature's administrative rules committee being busy.
But then again, who but the new Emperor would have been nervy enough to suggest that committee's main task be replaced by East Wing Executive decrees?
Did we have an election, or a coup d'etat?
The next stop, after abolishing legislative oversight of rule-making: and moving that power to the Governor Hugo Chavez-style - - just get rid of the leggies altogether.
Check and balances? Who needs 'em? In fact, just cut out the middlemen/women altogether and move the DNR over to the WMC, where there is no balance, but plenty of checks.
I did use the word "imperious" to describe his cancellation of the train, but didn't mean to give our new maximum leader any ideas.
And a graphic idea has surfaced to illustrate this Walker move.
• Beloit - Automation Solutions of America
Brookfield - Engineering Specialists
• Glendale - Sedia, Inc.
• Green Bay - Northern Electric
• Madison - Mohawk
• Milton - R & M Manufacturing
• Milwaukee - Motive Equipment, The Braun Corporation, Kracor, Rockwell Automation, Technical Metal Specialities, Monarch
• Mosinee - Arrow Global
• New Berlin - A & A Manufacturing Company
• Pewaukee - Midwest Engineered Group
• Sussex - Liberty Electric
• Twin Lakes - Five Star Fabricating
• Waukesha - Weldall
• Waupaca - Dura Glass Industries
* Oak Creek -Milwaukee Composites \
The answer: Talgo, Inc., according to this WTMJ-TV4 news story.
Remember, this is what Scott Walker called "victory."
Dan Vrakas wants I-94 widened to four lanes in each direction from the Marquette Interchange to Western Waukesha County - - despite data that says otherwise.
That would probably double the billions already projected (and unfunded, of course) for widening the corridor to three lanes.
And take out who knows how many more homes, businesses and graves already threatened at three cemeteries near Miller Park.
Just another example of the brain congestion that happens when conservatives talk about highway spending.
The Wisconsin Democracy Project posts an interesting item about the re-election campaign being run by State Supreme Court Justice David Prosser.
The Milwaukee Water Works, responding to inquiries and reporting this weekend about a toxic metal showing up in a sample of drinking water in Milwaukee and other communities (Madison, according to the national report, seems to have a worse situation), has sent me this statement and will post it on its website.
Consumer Information about Chromium-VI -- Dec. 20, 2010
There is a news story today about a study by an environmental advocacy group that says America’s drinking water is contaminated with Chromium-VI or Hexavalent Chromium, a chemical that came to national attention in the 2000 feature film Erin Brockovich. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) released a report on its recent study of Chromium-VI, as found in water samples the EWG gathered from many cities that have previously detected Total Chromium. The EWG wants the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set a legal limit for Chromium-VI and require water utilities to test for the chemical.
Consumers can be assured Milwaukee drinking water meets all EPA regulatory requirements for safe and healthful drinking water. The Milwaukee Water Works (MWW) is committed to protecting public health.
The EPA, in its Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), regulates Total Chromium in the finished water leaving the treatment plants. The allowable limit per EPA is 100 micrograms/L or parts per billion. The EPA does not currently regulate Chromium-VI.
The Milwaukee Water Works tests annually for Total Chromium as required by the SDWA. The most recent test in 2010 found no Total Chromium. The detection limit for MWW analyses for Total Chromium is 2 micrograms/L, so MWW reports <2 micrograms/L (less than 2 micrograms/L). In previous years, Total Chromium was measured between none detectable and 9 micrograms/L. MWW has not previously tested specifically for Chromium-VI, but has arranged to test for it in the finished water and distribution system.
EPA is evaluating new health effects data on Chromium-VI. The evaluation is expected to be completed in late 2011. MWW is prepared to respond in a way that protects public health and meets federal and state standards.
The Milwaukee Water Works tests source and treated drinking water for over 500 contaminants even though the EPA requires tests for only 90. This is done as a precaution to ensure safe water, to collect baseline data for study and to meet future regulations. To ensure the public is fully aware of all water quality monitoring data, MWW publicizes it in the annual consumer confidence report and on its website.
The Milwaukee Water Works treats Lake Michigan water in a multiple-step process to remove illness-causing microorganisms and contaminants. The water is disinfected with ozone, a highly reactive gas that destroys microorganisms, removes taste and odor, and reduces byproducts from chlorine disinfection. Coagulation, settling, and biologically active filtration remove additional particles. Fluoride is added for dental health. Final chloramine disinfection ensures safe drinking water throughout the distribution system and at consumer faucets.
Jeff Wagner, an AM 620 WTMJ conservative talker, took righty talk radio's inherent contradictions to an all-time high this Monday morning as he worked his way through a fill-in slot for regular morning host Charlie Sykes.
Wagner was whining - - something of a pattern - - about the weekend news that a $44 million, three-month I-94 resurfacing from 32nd St. in Milwaukee all the way to Highway 16 in Waukesha County was going to substantially add to commuting times.
The story and a comment, here.
Complaining that highway work you support will make your commuting more difficult is like parking yourself at a buffet table and complaining that overeating makes your pants too tight.
Remember that Wagner and the other righty talkers were instrumental in killing the region's light rail option years ago - - an alternative aimed at highway congestion relief - - and which would have placed an operating train parallel to the very highway corridor that is scheduled for resurfacing.
A highway corridor, by the way, that will be torn up again when the full so-called freeway expansion and reconstruction plan that Wagner and the talkers all promoted finishes its multi-billion spending spree.
But set aside the talkers' culpability in condemning the region to highway spending and the repetitive delays these projects entail.
Wagner's instant solution to the disruptions that will come with the I-94 resurfacing?
The conservative solution?
Pressure Scott Walker, the highway-addicted incoming Governor to speed up the resurfacing work.
Which would entail overtime, and a higher price tag, right?
Tax-and-spend conservatives.
When it suits their personal needs.
It's water over the dam or under the bridge, but the Journal Sentinel looks at the allegation that the business community abandoned Talgo when the train maker needed political support against the derailers in Walkerstan - - and finds the charge "true."
The paper doesn't really lay the wood to the MMAC; the facts were not really in dispute - - I'd written as much a week ago, but it was MMAC President Tim Sheehy himself who who made the finding pretty much guaranteed when he said, "why beat a dead train."
The implications for the MMAC are far more serious than the finding itself, since "true" for Talgo's claim suggests otherwise and speaks volumes for the MMAC.
Sheehy took a pass on helping save a new business recruited to Milwaukee, and sacrificed jobs in the central city by choosing to protect first his partisan connections with Walker.
Like the WMC in Madison, these business groups are less these days about business representation or Main Street commercial advocacy, and more about insider connections with the big boys in the Republican Party.
Sheehy not only abandoned Talgo and its employment base in train assembly, he left by his own count half the MMAC members out in the cold, too.
If you're willing to stick it to 50% of your members, then why not go all the way to full disclosure and rename the group MMAC-GOP?
Not, that's not a misspelling.
And I didn't mean "vilification." though we will hear plenty of that when Scott Walker takes office as Governor of Wisconsin in two weeks and the GOP moves into the post January 3rd phase of Operation Blame Game.
I said Villainification, because Walker and his legislative lieutenants will repeatedly run down their villains' roll call - - Gov. Jim Doyle, Democrats, unions, liberals, President Barack Obama, the UW system, the City of Madison, the UW System, graspy minorities, the entire federal guvmint, regulators and regulations of every imaginable type and stripe, etc., ad nauseum, et al - - to paper over and otherwise rationalize away setbacks, simple mistakes or basic powerlessness when unpredictable events produce unpleasant or unplanned consequences.
Walker was a villainophile par excellence during his eight-plus years as Milwaukee County Executive, serving up, when needed - - Tom Ament - - the gift that kept on giving - - along with Lee Holloway, County Government in toto, unions, John Norquist, Tom Barrett, Jim Doyle, faded-from-memory contractors, stimulus dollars too juicy to turn down, various campaign workers, and any other scapegoat to deflect responsibility for his bad budgets, failed appointments, revenue shortfalls, inter-governmental glitches, service scandals, acts of God, or God knows what.
Then after dabbing a little lipstick on the pigs he'd taken to market - - away he'd go, motorcycling, Twittering and evading any responsibility for snoozing at the switch and succumbing to disinterest while preferring to running for Governor.
And thereby leaving Milwaukee County in worse shape than he'd found it.
Did you ever hear him utter the equivalent of "my bad?"
After the facade collapse at O'Donnell Park this summer that killed a 15-year-old boy, it was revealed that Milwaukee County had no system in place to regularly inspect County facilities.
What was Walker's response, given that he had been County Executive for more than eight years?
He made it a two-fer (I'll highlight them so you don't miss 'em):
"Walker said Tuesday that his administration had inherited the current inspection system and had started to take steps to improve it even before the tragic accident at the O'Donnell Park parking facility last June. He also said he had suggested one change in a prior budget that was rejected by the County Board."Full story here.
[See Milwaukee Water Works Update, below at bottom]:
If accurate, a disturbing report.
From WGN's Breaking News Center:
"Cancer-causing metal found in Chicago-area tap water
I have a question in by email to the Milwaukee Water Works about the story - - an earlier version appeared in The Washington Post about the metal being found in drinking water there, and in suburban Bethesda - - and I am sure there will be more information available Monday.The cancer-causing metal made infamous by the movie "Erin Brockovich" is turning up in tap water from Chicago and more than two dozen other cities, according to a new study that urges federal regulators to adopt tougher standards.A handful of other cities were significantly above the proposed California limit, including Norman, Okla.; Honolulu; Riverside, Calif., and Madison, Wis., according to a report to be released Monday.
Even though scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Toxicology Program have linked the ingestion of hexavalent chromium to cancer, the EPA doesn't require Chicago or other cities to test for the toxic metal. Nor does the EPA limit the dangerous form of chromium in drinking water.
To take a snapshot of what is flowing through taps across the nation, the Environmental Working Group hired an independent laboratory that found the metal in treated drinking water from 31 cities. The amount in Lake Michigan Chicago water pumped to 7 million people in Chicago and its suburbs was 0.18 parts per billion, three times higher than a safety limit California officials proposed last year.
Levels in Milwaukee water were the same as in Chicago."
Consumer Information about Chromium-VI -- Dec. 20, 2010
There is a news story today about a study by an environmental advocacy group that says America’s drinking water is contaminated with Chromium-VI or Hexavalent Chromium, a chemical that came to national attention in the 2000 feature film Erin Brockovich. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) released a report on its recent study of Chromium-VI, as found in water samples the EWG gathered from many cities that have previously detected Total Chromium. The EWG wants the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set a legal limit for Chromium-VI and require water utilities to test for the chemical.
Consumers can be assured Milwaukee drinking water meets all EPA regulatory requirements for safe and healthful drinking water. The Milwaukee Water Works (MWW) is committed to protecting public health.
The EPA, in its Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), regulates Total Chromium in the finished water leaving the treatment plants. The allowable limit per EPA is 100 micrograms/L or parts per billion. The EPA does not currently regulate Chromium-VI.
The Milwaukee Water Works tests annually for Total Chromium as required by the SDWA. The most recent test in 2010 found no Total Chromium. The detection limit for MWW analyses for Total Chromium is 2 micrograms/L, so MWW reports <2 micrograms/L (less than 2 micrograms/L). In previous years, Total Chromium was measured between none detectable and 9 micrograms/L. MWW has not previously tested specifically for Chromium-VI, but has arranged to test for it in the finished water and distribution system.
EPA is evaluating new health effects data on Chromium-VI. The evaluation is expected to be completed in late 2011. MWW is prepared to respond in a way that protects public health and meets federal and state standards.
The Milwaukee Water Works tests source and treated drinking water for over 500 contaminants even though the EPA requires tests for only 90. This is done as a precaution to ensure safe water, to collect baseline data for study and to meet future regulations. To ensure the public is fully aware of all water quality monitoring data, MWW publicizes it in the annual consumer confidence report and on its website.
The Milwaukee Water Works treats Lake Michigan water in a multiple-step process to remove illness-causing microorganisms and contaminants. The water is disinfected with ozone, a highly reactive gas that destroys microorganisms, removes taste and odor, and reduces byproducts from chlorine disinfection. Coagulation, settling, and biologically active filtration remove additional particles. Fluoride is added for dental health. Final chloramine disinfection ensures safe drinking water throughout the distribution system and at consumer faucets.
From the noted author and scholar: definitely worth the read.
Retrofit its huge fleet of trucks for other purposes, like air quality monitoring.
Best idea to come out of the postal service since the Forever stamp. Hat tip to postal rate commissioner Ruth Goldway.
Where light rail and Amtrak are not options because Scott Walker and talk radio say we can't afford them - - so get ready to idle away more of your valuable time when gas could be approaching $4-a-gallon.
