If you want a book that will open your eyes to the politics in the Environmental Protection Agency, “Poison Spring” is it. It is hard to believe how the chemical and big agriculture companies have corrupted this agency meant to protect us from the harm done by poisons called pesticides. We are poisoning the planet and ourselves at the same time. This is the big insane experiment!
At War
In case you have not noticed, we are in a world wide religious war. The Islamic ISIS radicals have vowed to raise the flag of Islam over the White House. They have proven to be barbaric, blood thirsty, and insane; yet claim to be carrying out the will of Allah in a war against infidels. In case you have not noticed, too, Islam is a religion of oppression of one kind or another where ever it dominates a society. The countries of Europe; particularly Germany, France, Spain, and England, have many problems from Islam believing immigrants. It can only get worse.
The United States has been spared so far. Why? Only because 3,000 miles of water separates us from the Eastern Hemisphere and because immigration has been limited. Yet, even in Muslim dominated communities in this country there is oppression of women, particularly. But, wait. The growing cancer will spread more to our hemisphere soon enough. The only hope is for our government and governments of other free countries to take decisive, firm, and aggressive military action against what is happening now in Iraq and Syria. If ISIS is not stopped there, there may be no stopping it.
American boots on the ground may not be needed, but intensive and aggressive air attacks with maned and drone aircraft must happen. We must arm the Kurds with modern 
weapons and use the airbase in their territory for our own aircraft. There is no room for being timid or being concerned about offending someone. The Kurds will fight if we arm them with superior weapons and give them as much air support as we can muster. If we don’t, we will eventually have American boots on the ground.
It is time to bring back napalm. This weapon may be one ISIS understands.They will respond to nothing but total destruction.
The Chinese Are Coming
Hang on to your farm land and your homes. The Chinese are on the move. In China, pollution has created an asthma epidemic, food safety scares are commonplace, and China’s economic pace ebbs. The country’s wealthiest are on the move and want a better life for themselves or their children. Over 9.3 million have immigrated in recent years.
The United States is the preferred destination. U.S. real estate has become the safe haven for wealth. In August, the largest real estate for sale database, Zillow, will begin publishing its information in Mandarin. Already, in 2013 Chinese buyers purchased about $11 billion of US properties.
In Manhattan, about half of all new condos are being purchased by Chinese nationals. They are purchasing businesses and agriculture land as well. One of the largest recent purchases was the snap up of Smithfield Foods, a giant US pork producer, by a Chinese company for $4.7 billion. Let’s face it, we owe the Chinese the company store. They are financing a huge amount of our country’s debt and climbing. There will come a day when they want their money back or will collect assets. Land is something they need for their overflowing population.
The Hellbender
You likely have never heard of the Hellbender salamander and just as likely don’t care. This critter is about as ugly as one could imagine. 
They grow to two or more feet long, are slimy looking, and live in swift-flowing streams, rocky rivers and streams. They live up to 30 years and are harmless to humans. And guess what….. they have more DNA than about anything else on the planet.
And they are a canary in the coal mine. Their populations are diminishing at alarming rates. The reasons are habitat degradation and water quality. The likely candidates for water quality problems are agriculture chemicals including fertilizers and toxic pesticides.
So, we have a heads up on what we are doing to nature. It is time to reverse course.
Israel
There has been much criticism around the world of what the Israel Defense Force is doing in Gaza. Our Secretary of Defense, John Kerry, is one of those critics. In two words, the critics should “ZIP IT!”
I cannot imagine what we would be doing in this country if thousands of rockets were being launched from Mexico into the United States. I think it would take about 5 minutes before our military would attack whomever and where ever launching would be happening. Israel has every right to seek out tunnels, people, rockets, and anything else that poses a threat to the people of that nation. They should not stop until all of the threat is destroyed. We wouldn’t.
No one wants innocents to perish. The problem is that Hamas is in control of that. All that would have happen is for the rockets to stop, the kidnappings to end, the tunneling to be collapsed, and the weapons to be melted down. Hamas has one goal: the destruction of Isreal. That is not going to happen.
The United States of America needs to quit mealy mouthing the situation and stand clearly and firmly with Israel. Period.
Illegals Again
There was a panel of talking heads on Fox News discussing the Mexican border mess. To a person, they severely criticized our vacationing “President” for lack of leadership. Obama is becoming so non-presidential it is cause for deep concern among people who do care about the United States of America and its government of, by, and for the people (allegedly).
The flood of people crossing the border must stop. We are told most are from south of Mexico and that they ride trains from the southern Mexican border north to the United States border where they easily cross. How about sending a couple of drones down the rail lines into southern Mexico and taking a couple of pot shots at the tracks the trains run on. This would put a quick and serious halt to train traffic. Of course, Mexico would not like this much, but at this point they are doing nothing but facilitating transit of people; so who cares what they might think or do. Are they going to invade us? Hardly.
One of these days, people who are terrorists in disguise will be among the crowd making it into the United States. It may take another catastrophe like 9/11 to get action.
Now we hear that in addition to the people crossing, they bring all sorts of diseases along with them like tuberculosis, scabies, chicken pox, and who knows what else; maybe even Ebola. And we are scattering people all over the country without health checks. If the illegal had a phone number with them, we are making the call for pickup. We do not even check the identity or legality of those doing the picking up.
Honestly, I think we may have gone insane. We are on a very self destructive path. If we don’t secure the border — and that means slam it shut — soon, it will be too late.
CAFO's
In case you don’t know what “CAFO” stands for, it is “confinement animal feeding operation”. It is claimed to be part of agriculture but in actuality it is an animal factory and should be classified as small industrial rather than agriculture.
I attended a day long conference on CAFO’s on Saturday. Most of the conference was focused on animal waste — that’s crap or poop or feces or dodo or sh–! It is a huge problem; many more times greater than the human waste in a given area. And to think that none of it is processed through a waste treatment plant as is human waste. What do you think happens to it? It gets stored in huge lagoons or in underground tanks until such a time it is spread on our agriculture crop lands. It carries with it disease organisms including antibiotic resistant ones since animals are typically dosed regularly with antibiotics (that is a whole other issue). It carries with it silage leachate, chemicals used in animal housing buildings, hormones, ammonia, heavy metals, and an abundant supply of nitrogen and phosphorous. All of this organic soup can easily contaminate ground water or be washed into nearby streams or drainage ways. What a mess….. and a sick one at that. It is not uncommon for land to receive more than the soil organisms can handle.
It gets worse. Indiana is the repository for some of the animal waste generated in Ohio. It is trucked in. It is supposed to be transferred to approved storage facilities, but too frequently gets disposed of into our streams.
Another factor is that too often the distance from a CAFO and its waste disposal is too close to commercial or residential neighbors. The odors can be oppressive and very unhealthy. Wells can become contaminated. The stink means there are things in the air that can be inhaled. Health is at risk. Would you like to live or bring children in such an environment? Stricter set back regulation are needed.
The crime of all of this is that if these operations were classified as small industrial, they would have to meet much more stringent regulations for operation and waste disposal. Some of the crap that is happening would not. Maybe it is time to push for that. Seems a reasonable answer to all but the “farmer” who operates one of these animal factories.
Presidential Character
In the days following 9/11, the world paused in grief and in honoring those who died in the collapse of the twin towers, at the Pentagon, and in a field in Pennsylvania. Now grief flowing from the blowing out of the sky of the Malaysian plane is palpable. The world grieves. There were people from many countries on that flight. Almost 200 were from the Netherlands. Bodies are now gradually being brought back to their homelands.
The passengers on that tragic flight included several from the United States of America. There are many in our country that feel the grief of the families of those who died from not only the USA but from around the world. That is, all but our President. He does not even have the decency to stop business as usual. He, today, is off to California for several fund raisers for the Democratic Party. He and the Party should be ashamed. Our country is better than that. It is too bad that our one most important leader is not.
I cannot wait for the time when he no longer holds the office of the Presidency. It cannot come soon enough.
Illegal Immigration Continued
I just took a hard look at a World Atlas. Allegedly, the flood of illegal alien “children” is coming from Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. In looking at the Atlas, it is crystal clear that the distance to Costa Rica (right next door), Panama, Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and even Peru is less than to the United States. And all of these countries speak Spanish, the native language of most of the illegal aliens crossing the southern United States border. If the claim that poverty and crime are the driving forces for emigration from the four countries mentioned, one has to wonder why the flood is not going south as well as north. I think the belief is the United States is the land of milk and honey. And everything is free. Otherwise why not “flee” to other countries as well. The closest country north is MEXICO. What are they doing to care for the “children” or stop them from coming north?
It seems to me that MEXICO is a giant problem. They are acting as a highway north. It is time for that to stop. We do have leverage on MEXICO. Use it. The stopping should be at the southern MEXICAN border, not the southern US border.
And, by the way, time for the US Marine in jail in MEXICO to come home, too. Obama seems to have done nothing about this either. He is busy on Martha’s Vineyard playing golf.
Slapped Down
This is a good one. The Supreme Court has spoken!