alBAHquerque

A Poke in the Eye with a Sharp Stick

It seems I misunderestimated Don Harris. Somehow, I had the impression he is a Right Wing whacko out to “Take Back The Courts.” He seemed to be a student of Karl Rove when he smeared his opponent last fall. And, yet, here he is, doing something I don’t find disgusting — in fact, I thank him for his efforts.

In my own tiny way, I’ve been waging this battle for a while. I’ve posted a few pictures of the grotesqueness businesses will shove in your face — ah, the beloved unfettered Market. Recently, I’ve gathered a few photos under the category “alBAHquerque” (here and at Flickr) — so far, I am the only one to use that tag. With luck, it will become historical documentation of just how stupid we were and how we sometimes stand up to the Market. mjh

ABQjournal: Councilor Wants Cell-Phone Towers to Blend With Their Surroundings Journal Staff Report

Irritated by massive cell-phone towers?

City Councilor Don Harris wants to do something about it.

He said Friday that he plans to introduce an ordinance requiring that towers in Albuquerque be concealed to limit their impact on the environment.

“One of the things that makes Albuquerque great is our vistas,” Harris said in a written announcement. “We must act now before our landscape is forever changed.”

Under his bill, new wireless telecommunications towers would have to be concealed when they are constructed. Existing towers would have five years to comply with the ordinance.

ABQjournal: Can You Hear Me Now? Hide That Cell Tower Abqjournal Editorial

Nobody ever comes back from vacation saying “you should have seen the cell-phone towers.” Nobody flashes photos of their kids standing next to one. Nobody lobbies to get one in their backyard.

Why would they? While most of us use a cell phone [mjh: I do not], we don’t want to look at all the hardware that makes it work. A New Mexico sunset loses a little something when viewed through a forest of metal poles.

Albuquerque has a chance to become the cell-tower city different, a place where towers are heard and not seen, under a proposal by City Councilor Don Harris.

NADA - New American Dark Ages

Is That a Bottle of Viagra in Your Pocket Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

1 Comment

Can there be a better poster child for the Radical Right than Lush Limbaugh? I’m not talking about his impotence — there’s no shame in that, unless you’ve built your entire culture around your “strength.” I’m not talking about his repeated drug abuse — we’re all one pill away from that, which is precisely where the Drug Industry wants us. I’m talking about deception, both self- and public. It’s not just hypocrisy, which is what we call flexibility we can’t stand. It’s LYING, endless lying. It’s like Wm Bennett berating us all for our declining morals but having no trouble excusing his own gambling addiction. It’s like Tom DeLay moralizing and genuflecting while filling his own pockets and subverting democracy. This isn’t just “A Culture of Corruption,” this is a gang of out of control thugs and thieves. It’s the Puritans At Tammany Hall. It’s disgusting.

At the same time, the only thing that makes incipient American Fascism tolerable is seeing Conservatives fall victim to it. Gotta check every prescription — you could be an Enemy Combatant in the War On Whatever. Anything you do can and will be used against you. mjh

PS: I don’t really want to know, and yet, I can’t help but think about the missing pills and Lush’s time in the Dominican Republic. Anybody know where Ann Coulter was this weekend?

MiamiHerald.com | 06/27/2006 | Rush Limbaugh halted over Viagra at airport BY CASEY WOODS, The Miami Herald

A Customs inspector going through the baggage of conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh on Monday afternoon found 29 small blue tablets — a supply of the impotence drug Viagra.

Trouble is, the name on the bottle wasn’t Limbaugh’s.

”Limbaugh said it was for his own personal use and that the name on it was his doctor’s,” said Sgt. Pete Palenzuela, a spokesman for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

Possession of drugs prescribed to someone else is a second-degree misdemeanor.

Limbaugh, 55, arrived on a private plane at Palm Beach International Airport from the Dominican Republic at 2 p.m. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents discovered the drug while making a routine inspection of his bags. The agents turned the investigation over to deputies from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

loco

Dendahl Is For Drilling Valle Vidal — And Out of Touch With Most of Us

Valle Vidal Vote
House Panel Votes to Protect Valle Vidal

A key House committee voted Wednesday to protect the Valle Vidal— 102,000 acres in New Mexico’s Carson National Forest— from gas drilling.

“This is a huge step forward in the process to protect one of New Mexico’s most precious gems,” said Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., who authored the measure. “Protecting the Valle Vidal means preserving for New Mexico and the nation a land rich in history and culture and abundant in wildlife.”

The U.S. Forest Service, which manages the Valle Vidal, has been considering whether to open 40,000 acres of the land to coal-bed methane drilling.

The Forest Service solicited public opinion on the proposal and received 54,000 responses, only nine of which supported drilling in the area, according to an analysis by the Coalition for the Valle Vidal, which opposes opening up the Valle Vidal to gas drilling.

The Valle Vidal, located in Taos and Colfax counties, is home to one of the largest elk herds in the state and has been described as an outdoorsman’s paradise.

Udall also said the Valle Vidal was home to some of America’s earliest inhabitants— including Native Americans, Spanish settlers and myriad forms of wildlife.

“I believe we have a responsibility to protect it for future generations,” he said.

The Valle Vidal tract was donated to the Forest Service in 1982 by Pennzoil Co., which never drilled in the area.

Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., who sits on the resources committee, said Wednesday he supported the protection.

Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., became a co-sponsor of the measure after it passed the committee Wednesday. She had previously declined to publicly support or oppose the legislation, saying she wanted to study the matter and hear public feedback.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M, has sponsored similar legislation in the Senate, but Sen. Pete Domenici, chairman of the Senate Energy Natural Resources Committee, has not yet declared a position on the Valle Vidal Protection Act.

With so many in favor of preserving and protecting Valle Vidal, read what John Dendahl thinks. mjh

mjh’s blog — Perspectives

Dendahl wrote:

There are myriad reasons familiar to nearly all of us why we should develop domestic sources of oil and natural gas. Despite dated, obstructionist hype, the needed development can — and will — go hand-in-hand with sound environmental protection.

If Ted Turner and the Audubon Society can write contracts with producers that protect their land and water, so can the U.S. Forest Service and the BLM.

Richardson needs to tell his “environmentalist” pals to take a long, enjoyable hike…

mjh’s blog — I’m not laughing with Dimdahl, I’m laughing at him

Dendahl wrote:

Laugh of the Month: Richardson remains obstinate. Despite environment-friendly natural gas production on super-enviro Ted Turner’s Vermejo Park Ranch next door, drilling for natural gas in the Valle Vidal is vigorously opposed by some special interests. Vowing to do all he can to prevent Valle Vidal drilling, Richardson recently told the opponents, “We are not going to stand for special-interest management of the public domain.” Say what?

mjh’s blog — we know 21st-century technology guarantees the land’s protection

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski said:

But if Arctic oil development was going to harm the environment or wildlife, then I would agree opening it would not be worth the cost. But the vast majority of Alaskans, including Alaska’s Eskimos who know it best, support ANWR’s development because we know 21st-century technology guarantees the land’s protection.

Just before this happened:

More than 200,000 gallons of crude leaked from a ruptured transit line onto the tundra in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, making the spill discovered earlier this month the largest ever on the North Slope, according to an official estimate released Friday.

The estimated spill size of 202,000 to 267,000 gallons far surpasses the 38,000 gallons spilled in 2001, officials said. …

Dump Duhbya

Ignorant of History? Say Anything

In Hungary, Bush Salutes Anti-Soviet Revolt of ’56 By Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post Staff Writer

The president sought to draw parallels between Hungary’s transition from dictatorship to democracy and the U.S. enterprise in Iraq, where the administration is struggling to help launch a democratically elected government. …

Aniko Kellner, a 34-year-old graduate student at Central European University, noted how the Western powers failed to come to the aid of Hungary when the popular rebellion was crushed by the Soviet Union. At the time, the United States was preoccupied with the Suez crisis and had no interest in pressing for a confrontation with Moscow.

For Bush to praise a revolt that the United States did not support “is a very tricky thing,” Kellner observed. “For Hungarians, it could be seen as unintentional cynicism.” …

“There is a contradiction here,” said Tibor Varady, a Budapest lawyer who helped organize protests Thursday while Bush was speaking. “The revolution in 1956 ended with occupation by the Soviets. The problem is today George Bush stands for occupation. He has not represented freedom.”
– – – – –

World War II and Iraq: Polls Apart? By Al Kamen

White House press secretary Tony Snow , on CNN’s “Late Edition” on Sunday, said: “The president understands peoples’ impatience — not impatience, but how a war can wear on a nation. He understands that. If somebody had taken a poll in the Battle of the Bulge, I dare say people would have said, ‘Wow, my goodness, what are we doing here?’ But you cannot conduct a war based on polls.”

In fact, there was a poll taken by Gallup from Dec. 31, 1944, to Jan. 4, 1945 — three years into that war and right in the middle of the bloody Battle of the Bulge, where U.S. casualties were estimated between 70,000 and 80,000. It found that 73 percent of Americans would refuse to make peace with Adolf Hitler if he offered it and that 86 percent of Americans thought there was no chance that we would lose the war in Europe.

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams