Sunday, June 03, 2012

And The Best Part Is, He Put Scorn Quotes Around "Science-Based"

"He" is a real live, genuine college professor, with a Ph.D. (in a science, not English Lit or Education) and everything, sort of guy you'd think might be into that whole "science" thing, a fellow one might address as Dr. Lame, and he tells us that Dick Nixon's worst legacy, the poor, beat-up Environmental Protection Agency, has been reduced by intense lobbying and the horrors of Congressional oversight (you remember, that thing we elect Congressbeings to do?) to quivering like a high-bred chihuahua, hiding under the front stairs, wetting themselves. (Sound crazy? Sound disrespectful of actual victims of actual abuse? You're not the only one thinking that.)

Yes, amazingly, that "abused child" is very same agency you and I know as the gang who kicked the Sacketts out of their dream home before the foundation was dug. 'Cos the building lot -- in among others already built on -- was a "wetland." Threatened them with huge fines unless they turned it back into a scrubby vacant lot at their own expense. The EPA maintained the agency didn't have to answer for it in court, they'd made a decision and that was that: comply now or be fined and still have to comply. Eventually, the U. S. Supreme Court disagreed, at least on the "couldn't be taken to court over it" part -- and so now the happy couple, having already had to argue their way to the top, has the Court's blessing go sue...a Federal Agency with an army of attorneys and pet experts. Here's one pair of citizens experience of Dr. Lame's "Agency...too terrified to do it's job:"
“The EPA used bullying and threats of terrifying fines, and has made our life hell for the past five years. It said we could not go to court and challenge their bogus claim that our small lot had ‘wetlands’ on it. As this nightmare went on, we rubbed our eyes and started to wonder if we were living in some totalitarian country.”
Yeah, poor little EPA. Being forced to use "'science-based' studies" and actually stand up in court and defend their takings of private property, instead of relying on speculation and deeeeep intuitions about Mother Gaia.

My heart fair bleeds.

Or does that count as the unapproved discharge of an untested biologically-active fluid?

8 comments:

fast richard said...

With a BA in Agriculture, an MS in Entomology, and a PhD in Public Administration, I'm not sure how convinced I should be of his scientific credentials. He sounds like one of the agenda driven, politically motivated types that have infested academia at least since I drifted in and out of college. His writing certainly doesn't sound like that of someone who is as rigorous as the best science professors I remember.

Roberta X said...

:) ...I wonder how much corn he's grown. Or picked bugs off of.

Anonymous said...

Sounds vaguely like a Royal Navy officer of a century or so ago lamenting that those interfering busy-bodies in Parliament outlawed flogging.

How is it that, after the horrors of the twentieth century brought about by the excesses of State power, people still pine for MORE of it???

Anonymous said...

That PhD was a bug studyier at Univ of Arizona while I was there.

Now me, I just did computer a bit of programming for Dr. Shaffer as he rewrote the evolutionary biology field to add chaotic population dynamics. (often using various bees as data sources).

Didn't see his name on any of the papers that did that.

By the way, I have it on good authority that grabbing bees off the edge of a hive, thrusting a thermocouple into them (in less than a second to get accurate temperature) and then dropping the corpse into formaldehyde to prevent the whole hive from being enraged while wearing bee keeper's garb in the heat of Arizona summer is a real tough gig.

Roberta X said...

"Just lay back and think of Science?" H'mm. Still a tough gig -- even all beekeepered up, and job description that starts with, "First, grab a live bee..." is setting a pretty high bar.

Stingray said...

Not only would it count as unapproved discharge, but as soon as it's detected you'll be compelled to implement best management practices to mitigate run-on and run-off to the site of the discharge as well as mitigate sediment transport and erosion potential (erosion potential score to be calculated later but not later than 14 days after the discharge event). Further you will have to collect two (2) samples from separate discharge events of intensity of .25"/30 minutes or greater within 14 days of said event for testing, but with events not within 14 days of each other. After completing a site discharge pollution prevention plan to be submitted May 1 each year for the lifespan of the discharge site....

The sick part is I basically copied and pasted that from a work related email. If you'll pardon my French, fuck the EPA until they bleed and then make 'em follow their own regs on pain of further fucking.

NotClauswitz said...

I mowed the law at the EPA once ages ago, cheap day-labor, used a lousy gas-powered mower that blew smoke everywhere - terribly inefficient.

Ted N said...

EPA and TSA agents, managers and all staff go into the woodchipper at a 1:1 ratio, until one agency is out of personnel. Then the rest of the remaining agency go into the 'chipper.

Burn 'em all, the horrid little bastards.