India way ahead of US on plastic bag issue

But India has to be. Seems plastic's insidious nature has not been so "hidden" to those in India.
Seems like India already realizes what we ignore still. Read this recent report:

"India Moves Away from Plastic Bags - 2: Rajasthan

Source: www.businessgreen.com

INDIA, July 28, 2010: India’s largest state has become the latest to announce a complete state-wide ban on the use of plastic bags this week. From the beginning of August the manufacture, storage, import, sale and transport of plastic carry-bags will be illegal in Rajasthan. No shopkeeper, retailer, trader, hawker or vendor will be allowed to supply goods to consumers in bags.

In Mumbai in 2005 India experienced massive monsoon flooding partially as a result of drains blocked by plastic bags, resulting in over 1000 deaths. Similar flooding happened in 1988 and 1998 in Bangladesh, which led to the banning of plastic bags in 2002.

Cows - sacred in India - frequently asphyxiate after trying to eat the bags."


Last year, in response to my recognition of the host of enduring problems caused by our conflagrate plastic use, I decided to consider the plastic content of every purchase that I make from now on. Try this. Start by remembering that, if you are around my parents age, plastics was a new material had a limited presence in our daily tools. Today, however, just try to buy something without plastic in it or around it. Makes you ask yourself what would chain discount stores be stocking were it not for plastic. Just try buying something in Walmart without plastic in the transaction.

Gay this, Gay that

I ask you, what is "gay marriage?"
This is a funny phrase that has been thrust about for the last decade or so. Funny because I have never heard anyone, not even the most vile and bigoted groups, call my federal tax payments "gay taxes." Or my eating out at local restaurants "gay dining." Or when I have my monthly you-know-what, I have never heard it called the "gay menstruation." Or how about when I got a graduate degree along with about 200 other people: is my degree supposed to be referred to as a "gay degree" or my education process as "gay learning?"
And how far back does that grammatical rule apply? Was my 9 month ride in my mothers womb a "gay gestation?" Or my birth a "gay delivery?" I suspect that my mother would have something to say about this, but it would probably be along the lines of "Shit my father says".
I mean, really, how stupid do journalists and reporters think we are? Do they think really think that we don't hear how they play to the bigots when they call "marriage" "gay marriage?" Enough is enough. Its simply "marriage" people, and the issue is that, for whatever reason, many of you want permission to think differently about a certain assumed class of people. Maybe you feel threatened by the success of the gay couple's relationship who live down the road from you, or by the financial success of your gay cousin, or by your own recurring cameos is what you think are "gay" dreams. Or maybe you just don't want someone who has no relation to you make decisions that you don't agree with. Whatever the reason, someone else getting married is, obviously, someone else's decision. Its not yours. You don't want me to fall under a "lesser" category when it comes to paying my taxes, or to send my mother to a different delivery ward when giving birth, do you? So, why do you insist on this "gay marriage" phrase? Its because the issue is really your own bigotry. Its not about the issue of marriage at all.

"Christianity-man's most destructive invention"

That's a bumper sticker I once saw. I am reminded of it now that Anne Rice has recently made public her disatisfaction with Christianity, but not with Christ. She deserves kudos for engaging the public in a conversation which is an unspoken "no-no". You know, that which "polite society" doesn't talk about, like political corruption, racial discrimination by blacks, and social bigotry. So Ms. Rice's public denouncement of this usurped moral construct is a brave opening for a much needed public discussion of the ways in which Christianity is used to hurt. See her dialogue at

www.facebook.com/annericefanpage

History provides for us a rich and deep source of guidance on how to tend to your relationship with your creator--the formal organization known as the church is not a Necessary component for those who acknowledge an internal moral compass. This history includes Christianity in that even texts like the gnostic gospels show that Christ taught individuals how to recognize their inherent relationship with a higher power--and to recognize it without the church's intervention. So Kudo's to Rice for personalizing her relationship with her creator and rejecting the tainted "misguidance" of interveners known today as Christians. Seems as if Lebanon County can use a few more Anne Rice-type followers of Christ and a few less "Christians".

Of Interest

In case the video above doesn't automatically appear here, go to this link

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/bell-calif-revolts-against-its-city-council/6uuuqg6

to see this msn news video. Pay particular attention to what Ms. Garcia says just after 6minutes into the video.

Obviously, appointed and elected officials working in "cahoots" and in a predatory manner is not limited to Pennsylvania, or even to Lebanon County politics. Admittedly, these intentional patterns of defrauding the taxpayer in order to maximize the officials' personal gains may not express themselves so egregiuosly here as they have in Bell, it still highlights that every taxpayer must be aware of the FACT that this IS going on, and that if you choose to ignore it, you are making that decision for your neighbors as well--you are choosing to let these politicians take your neighbor's money too. How is that democratic, ethical, or fair? How is it ethical that Bill Care collects a PUBLIC salary of around $110,000 a year when a truly significant portion of that work is really done for private entities, and that when he retires--ALL of that salary--even the work NOT done for public entities, is on the State Municipal Retirement burden and will be used to calculate his retirement benefits?

Here is a different video on the story from the LA Times.

*Salary calculations based on reports from Borough, Authority, Chautauqua Secretary Linda Bell: approx $30 hourly rate, averaging 590 hours of overtime a year, biweekly payroll invoicing, and budget documents. Assumptions were time and a half for some overtime, and double time for the rest. Also, although it doesn't appear that his income derived from "consulting" as a "water works" "expert" to local entities is included in this public payroll, it still must be factored in given that he routinely and regularly uses public resources--staff, equipment, infrastructure, etc., to "deliver" his private consultant services.