Archive for March, 2007

Water: Fight, or Just Fix It

Author: yinn

Mar 16

Recently I’ve been writing about the April referendum that asks whether most of DeKalb, Boone and McHenry counties should form the Kishwaukee Valley Water Authority (KVWA). “Water Law Needs Overhaul” looks at current applications of the Illinois Water Authorities Act and implications for KVWA; and “Care & Feeding of Aquifers” explores groundwater issues discussed recently by a panel hosted by DeKalb County’s Planning & Zoning Commission. Dr. Jack Wittman, a hydrologist and president of a drought-planning company, was there and has now clarified his views in the Midweek, our local weekly paper.

Wittman is based in Indiana but grew up around here. He seems to be interested both as a professional and as a former neighbor. As  described in the “aquifer” article, as part of the panel he was reluctant to stray from the elements of planning to get into the politics. This is not so in his Midweek op-ed piece.

It is my opinion that the proposed Kishwaukee Valley Water Authority is a certain formula for a [sic] jurisdictional fights that will continue for the next 50 years. With the possibilities of drought and the certainties of regional growth, DeKalb County should dodge the fight and deal with the problem. The way to gets things done is to roll up your sleeves and figure it out. Simple, straight, common sense.

Read the rest of this entry

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Filed under: Energy & Environment, Growth, Local Campaigns, Political Campaigns

Obama And JP Morgan

Author: treesfieldssky

Mar 11

Money may not be the root of all evil but it may be the downfall of any politician who has the audacity to hope to be a true representative of the people. Take Senator Obama as an example.

Obama projects a populist persona to the public, but is the Harvard trained lawyer with over $100,000 invested in JP Morgan Chase (According to his financial disclosure form filed in May of 2006) the real Obama? This is the same JP Morgan Company that has donated over $50,000 to Obama’s campaign. (According to Opensecrets.org

Mr. Obama has assests with the same JP Morgan Chase Company that is the largest financial backer of BlueLinx Holdings Inc., the largest wood distributor in the United States. The same BlueLinx that investigations by Greenpeace and Rainforset Action Network has shown is illegally exporting timber out of “Indonesia’s critically endangered rainforests,” according to CorpWatch.org. The same Indonesia of Senator Obama’s childhood. Read the rest of this entry

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Filed under: National Campaigns, National/International, Political Campaigns

Recycle by Mail

Author: yinn

Mar 7

The City of DeKalb now has a program to recycle old cell phones and inkjet printer cartridges. Either print the form at the link and send it in, or just call Public Works (number also at the link) for a mail-in bag.

A lot of our schools collect the inkjet cartridges as fundraising projects but if you don’t have a school nearby with a collection box and/or don’t want to wait for the next county-wide hazardous waste collection day this might be the way to go to keep stuff like this out of our landfills.

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Filed under: Community Resources, Energy & Environment

Libby, Cheney & Guilt

Author: yinn

Mar 7

Mideast scholar and blogger Juan Cole has today reprinted his timeline of events that eventually led to the conviction yesterday of Dick Cheney’s loyal aide Irving Lewis “Scooter” Libby on lying, obstruction of justice and perjury charges. Complete with photos and other illustrations, it’s in an easy-to-follow storybook form and amusing where it’s not enraging.

Once upon a time, a former agent of Italian military intelligence named Rocco Martino, who had had some experience in the African country of Niger, came into possession of some forged, fraudulent documents. These alleged Iraqi purchases of yellowcake uranium in 1999. In fact, the signatures were of Nigerien officials who had been in power a decade earlier, in the late 1980s.

So they were clumsy forgeries. Martino passed them on to the Italian magazine Panorama, which passed them to the US embassy.

Tantalizingly, President George W. Bush’s chief political adviser, Karl Rove, has an indirect connection to Italian intelligence. Rove’s chief adviser on Iran policy is Neoconservative wildman and notorious warmonger Michael Ledeen, who has a longstanding connection to the darker corners of Italian intelligence. Read the rest of this entry

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Filed under: National/International

“7 Countries in 5 Years”

Author: yinn

Mar 5

Retired four-star general Wesley Clark was interviewed last week for Democracy Now! Radio, and I haven’t seen any news organizations pick up this story. Here is a piece of the transcript:

…What I did warn about when I testified in front of Congress in 2002, I said if you want to worry about a state, it shouldn’t be Iraq, it should be Iran. But this government, our administration, wanted to worry about Iraq, not Iran.

I knew why, because I had been through the Pentagon right after 9/11. About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.” I said, “Well, you’re too busy.” He said, “No, no.” He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?” He said, “I don’t know.” Read the rest of this entry

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Filed under: National/International

Care & Feeding of Aquifers

Author: yinn

Mar 1

Dr. Jack Wittman, hydrologist and drought planner, says that you start tackling water supply issues by answering a couple of simple questions:

  • How much water do we need?
  • How much water do we have?

    • It’s an exercise in budgeting, really, yet we have not answered these questions–and we have the water authority referendum (covering most of DeKalb, Boone and McHenry counties) to vote on next month. Is the Kishwaukee Valley Water Authority (KVWA) the right way to respond to planning and management needs? In order to make a recommendation one way or the other to the DeKalb County Board, its Planning & Zoning Committee last night hosted an informational panel on water supply issues that included Dr. Wittman along with Dr. Colin Booth, a hydrogeologist from NIU.

    Dr. Wittman didn’t delve far into the actual water authority question except to suggest that he’s seen good resource management done at the county level of government and he supports some sort of regional planning as well. Dr. Booth, impeccably academic, would not touch politics at all. Two attorneys on the panel and a few agenda-toting audience members provided advocacy for both sides. However, the stars of the two-hours-plus discussion definitely were the scientists with their educational presentations. Following are some of the issues brought out that should be factored into further deliberations. Read the rest of this entry

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    Filed under: Energy & Environment, Growth, Local Campaigns, Political Campaigns