A Frackin' New Year!

Whee! Whoopie! It's a brand new year, one I've been hoping (and, there's a good chance) I won't live through because I don't wanna see what kind of damnblasted folderol The Powers That Be Princes of This-World have actually planned to make us, in Machiavellian fashion, roll with it and under it just glad that the 12/21/12 crap that they've been pushing for decades -Nostradamus! Ninurta! Naughty Comets! Mayan and old Book of Common Prayer calendars and Pope predictions running out, ayeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

My own default comfort zone explanation For It All is that da grate god Skientz has allegedly disovered that the Universe is expanding 'faster than they thought before', Which I think means them subatomic particles / electronic yinyangs are moving away from each other, causing disintegration and ensuing what the late, great Steve Allen called DUMPTH.

Anywaaaay, I'm back to bitching. (I do thank God for all the Good Stuff & Critters, including the real purty blessed pink 'n' turquoise sunsets the last few days, but oh PLEASE manifest Your YAH-SHUA Name and like totally & permanently RESCUE us!!!)

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Click here: 4.0-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes In Northeast Ohio

 Related: "Mort Zuckerman' fracking - Google Search... Will turn up the linked article below. Mort, on The McLaughlin Report, made fracking sound like Our Fossil Fuel Savior. I thought, Inve$$$$tor, perchance??!
Web profracks are heard to say (1) those environmentalists are gonna ruin everything because they're against fracking (2) Fracking is another cracked idea foisted upon us by environmentalists (3) Anti-fracking is an Ay-rab, OPEC plot.  We'll see.  After all, even if a lotta earthquakes don't come to Previously Stable Ground, there are lots of reasons to brace your water heater, not have shelves overhead, put your collectables behind doors on padding...   

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2011/12/02/zuckerman-with-fracking-american-can-escape-the-energy-trap

McDONALD, Ohio — Officials said Saturday they believe the latest earthquake activity in northeast Ohio is related to the injection of wastewater into the ground near a fault line, creating enough pressure to cause seismic activity.

The brine wastewater comes from drilling operations that use the so-called fracking process to extract gas from underground shale. But Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director Jim Zehringer said during a news teleconference that fracking is not causing the quakes.

"The seismic events are not a direct result of fracking," he said.

~~~Not direct, huh? But maybe only like a car slipping on ice runs into another car that runs into you?~~~

Environmentalists and property owners who live near gas drilling wells have questioned the safety of fracking to the environment and public health. Federal regulators have declared the technology safe, however.

Zehringer said four injection wells within a five-mile radius of an already shuttered well in Youngstown will remain inactive while further scientific research is conducted.

A 4.0 magnitude quake Saturday afternoon in McDonald, outside of Youngstown, was the 11th in a series of minor earthquakes in area, many of which have struck near the Youngstown injection well. The quake caused no serious injuries or property damage, Zehringer said.

Thousands of gallons of brine were injected into the well daily until its owner, Northstar Disposal Services LLC, agreed Friday to stop injecting brine into the earth as a precaution while authorities assess any potential links to the quakes.

Michael Hansen of the Ohio Seismic Network said Saturday that more quakes are possible, most likely small ones, until the pressure at the fault line has been completely relieved.

The temblor Saturday appeared to be stronger than others, which generally had a magnitude of 2.7 or lower. Some residents reported feeling trembling farther south into Columbiana County and east into western Pennsylvania.

Area residents said a loud boom accompanied the shaking. It sent some stunned residents running for cover as bookshelves shook and pictures and lamps fell from tables.

A few miles from the epicenter, Charles Kihm said he was preparing food in his kitchen when he heard a noise and thought a vehicle had hit his Austintown home.

"It really shook, and it rumbled, like there was a sound," said Kihm, 82. "It was loud. It didn't last long. But it really scared me."

There are 177 similar injection wells around the state, and the Youngstown-area well has been the only site with seismic activity, the department said. Zehringer said that to shut down all of the wells because of seismic activity near one would be an overreaction.

Patti Gorcheff, who lives about 15 miles from the epicenter, said her dogs started barking inexplicably Saturday and the ornaments on her Christmas tree began to shake. Her husband thought he heard the sound of some sort of blast.

"This is the biggest one we've had so far," said Gorcheff, a North Lima resident who has raised concerns about quakes and drilling-related activity in the region. "I hope this is a wake-up call."

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Dear Ms Gorcheff: A 4.0 is what we, on the facetiously-named 'Pacific' Coast call an Oh, Doggonit, I Guess That Was a Quake, Please God Let That Be IT, and Not a Prequel to a REAL One.

Safety, Peace, and Clean Truth to us all!!!

Also~

http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2011/12/30/103-year-old-woman-that-faced-eviction-gets-new-lease-on-life/?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-nb%7Cdl9%7Csec3_lnk1%26pLid%3D124000

The Sherriff Andy Taylor Effect

Crawling out of the pits of suffocating illness, this will probably be my last post for the year. Minus: Too tired to do any kind of comprehensive memorial. Plus: Too tired (even!) for my usual sociopolitical jeremiads.


Now I'm kinda late -a year late, and not a dollar to my name - to say hey to the Golden Anniversary of The Andy Griffith Show. But (who knows?) I may be the first to 'publish' a little-recognized phenomenon. A phenomenon I dearly love, honor and treasure. God bless the TAGS originators and the wonderful authors (and their characters, storylines and tone) inspired by The Andy Griffith Show.

That's right, it's a self-lucent gem of a sub-sub-sub-sub genre of fiction: Mystery/Detective > Cozy > Humorous > Rural: The great ensemble TV show Barney Miller took Mayberry spirit to an urban PD, and there were some semi-cozy TV series featuring rural law enforcers, fish in or out of their accustomed waters, but these were more children of Matt Dillon than of Andy Taylor.

AND ANDY TAYLOR BEGAT: Joan Hess's ARLY HANKS OF MAGGODY, M.C. Beaton's HAMISH MACBETH, Bill Crider's DAN RHODES, and Rhys Bowen's EVAN EVANS. There may be more. If there are, I want to find them! I hope this genre will go on and on, till Jesus comes back and rids existence of badguyness. If you haven't had the pleasure of this deceptively folksy and casual constabulary, detect your way to your local libraries and booksellers, and go for it!

Now, see here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andy_Griffith_Show

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayberry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Canyon_Park ~'Myers Lake' WARNING: Innumerable visitors have been helplessly seized by the compulsion to whistle the TAGS 'Fishin' Hole' ditty.

Outrageously, there is no Wikipedia page for the great JOAN HESS. You might ought to try these:

http://www.maggody.com/ ... http://www.maggody.com/joanbio.htm Y'all be sure to look into Ms. Hess's CLAIRE MALLOY series, too!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arly_Hanks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Chesney (a.k.a. M.C. Beaton)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Crider (To their shame, Mr Crider is not on the Alvin, Texas, or Alvin Community College pages. What is it with towns and colleges ignoring their authors... Especially when most of us would probably never have heard of the places 'cept for their noble scribes?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Quin-Harkin (a.k.a. Rhys Bowen)

TCM Remembers ~ Film Personalities Who Died in 2011

http://www.altfg.com/blog/movie/elizabeth-taylor-farley-granger-tcm-remembers-2011-peter-falk/

TCM does it classy, if not always completely.  Copyrighted, so use link -- or watch TCM pretty often before the end of the year.  R.I.P., y'all.

Naive About Bigotry

I didn't think someone as vehemently against aliens taking US Citizens' jobs, as pro-moratorium-on-ALL-except-worst-case-refugee-immigration, and as approving of some kinds of TSA-type 'profiling' as I* would be all that naive about remaining bigotry entrenched in this country.  Can even I be all that Left Coast multiculturalist? :

Item 1:  (BTW:  I am an old female used to be 20-30 lbs overweight [but carried it well:  Muscles & bazooms! now deflated/gone south] throughout adulthood but now 'the right weight' through the old-fashioned way: Poverty and illness.  I was never a chubby-chaser, except from the perverted POV of the 'can't be too thin' sticks-for-brains.)  Found out that there's an overwhelming prejudice against 'big'/'plus size'/portly men - or even lowfat big muscle-y guys!  Outside of erotic fat fetishism (& I didn't go there!) there is simply no recognition online that big (except tall stringbeans) men can be handsome.  BUT THEY SOOOOOOO CAN!!!  Image search fashion houses for plus sizes and such, and they'll still show you jackets made for planks.  Try 'handsome fat man' and the best you can get are affectionate pix of well-padded tomcats.  WTF?!  'Give me some men who are stout-hearted men...'  Have we already forgotten those 9/11 heroes, so often real-life grey and girthy (with 'too much' nose and 'too little' chin and unlovely skin...)?  I want to be able to see (fully and nicely dressed, in gentlemanly situations) you BHMs with 60-inch chests.  From 'pixel pundits' to rappers to athletes and opera stars, you're obviously out there.  Why in the name of Santy Claus can you not be recognized as nice-looking men????!!!

Item 2:  National coverage of Rick Perry's Iowa campaign ads saying what a Christian he is (fortunately for him, Iowa's not 'the Show Me State'!) as opposed to Obama's 'anti-religious agenda.'  It took me some time to figure out what that meant.  Couldn't fly on old settled stuff like school prayer and abortion, except for morons who don't realize what was (a) long settled (b) untouched by Bam (c) no FN business of the Prezdint anyhow.  Obviously wasn't the real Christian pacifist and/or progressive and/or populist view of BHO as a Trojan Horse for Goldman Sachs 'n' all.  Oh.  It's the GAAAAAAAY thing!  Even though Bam doesn't support gay marriage, and he footdragged on repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, he hasn't had his panties in a paranoid bunch over the fear and horror and supreme danger of some people doing what is elsewhere hailed as Socially Responsible Stuff - which they kept on doing, de facto, anyway - LEGITMATELY.  Oh!  CODE-SPEAK.  =}}gag{{= !!  What kinda 'New Testament' those people readin', anyway?       

*And yes, admittedly 'having kooties' toward so much that is the culture of China...

Further Adventures in MULTICULTURAL Alliances

Remember when Bush said, '- it won't be our kind of democracy...'?

Click here: Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan President, Pardons Imprisoned Rape Victim

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday pardoned an Afghan woman serving a 12-year prison sentence for having sex out of wedlock after she was raped by a relative.


Karzai's office said in a statement that the woman and her attacker have agreed to marry. That would reverse an earlier decision by the 19-year-old woman, who had previously refused a judge's offer of freedom if she agreed to marry the rapist.

Her plight was highlighted in a documentary that the European Union blocked because it feared the women featured in the film would be in danger if it were shown.

More than 5,000 people recently signed a petition urging Karzai to release the woman. She had the man's child while in prison and raised her daughter behind bars, which is common among women imprisoned in Afghanistan.

A statement released by Karzai's office says that after hearing from judicial officials, the decision was made to forgive the rest of the sentence she received for having sex out of wedlock, a crime in Afghanistan. The presidential statement did not say when the woman was to be released or how much prison time had been pardoned.

The woman told The Associated Press in an interview last month that she had hoped that attention generated by the EU film might help her get released. With the film blocked, she said that she was losing hope and considering marrying her rapist as a way out. She said her attacker was pressuring her to stop giving interviews.

About half of the 300 to 400 women jailed in Afghanistan are imprisoned for so-called "moral crimes" such as sex outside marriage, or running away from their husbands, according to reports by the United Nations and research organizations. Fleeing husbands isn't considered a crime in Afghanistan.

The EU welcomed the woman's release.

"Her case has served to highlight the plight of Afghan women, who 10 years after the overthrow of the Taliban regime often continue to suffer in unimaginable conditions, deprived of even the most basic human rights," the European Union's Ambassador and Special Representative to Afghanistan, Vygaudas Usackas, said.

He said the EU hoped the same mercy would be extended to other women serving similar terms. Usackas said he planned to raise the issue of Afghan women's rights at an international conference on Afghanistan Dec. 5 in Bonn, Germany.

Some of the most severe restrictions women faced under the Taliban, like a ban on attending schools and having to have a male escort to venture outside the home, were done away with when the radical Islamic movement was driven from power in 2001. But Afghanistan remains a deeply conservative and male-dominated society, meaning women are still sold to husbands and rights enshrined in law are often ignored in practice.

'Commerials' vs. ATM Fees

Governments constrict, restrict, compel, commandeer, conscript and corrupt their citizens as 'the price of freedom'.  The medical industry extorts, experiments and tortures patients, expecting from them not only crippling and sometimes impossible fees, but thanks and reverence.  BANKS supposedly exist primarily to hold safe the money and valuables of those who use them, taking in exchange a chance to use this massed lucre to play it prudently in  low-risk, high-earning ventures, sharing profits with those whose money they hold.  But now they hold YOUR money hostage, gamble wildly with it, and make you pay ruthless ransom to release any of it back to you -and take the taxes you paid for the ostensible services of your government (even if they are foreign or super-national) to 'save' them as of unquestionably, untouchably vital to the world.

Click here: Clinton Townsend's ATM Fee Fix: Watch Ads Instead Of Paying Charge    

B of A: Family Wrongly Booted From Home Returns To Wreckage

Click here: Family Wrongly Booted From Home Returns To Wreckage

AOL Real Estate By Teke Wiggin Posted Dec 1st 2011 10:20AM  ~~~Click on above to access other links within article.

Amid the avalanche of foreclosure proceedings unleashed by the housing crisis, thousands of families may have been illegally booted from their homes.



The story of the King family, recently reported by WLUK FOX 11, offers a nightmare scenario of the hardship a family may be forced to endure because of such practices.


The Kings returned this fall to their old home in the town of Clayton, Wis., to find it in utter ruin: The basement was flooded in eight feet of water, the walls covered with mold and the kitchen littered with mouse droppings.


Their ill-fated home had sat unoccupied for more than a year, after the family succumbed to pressure from Bank of America, who notified them that their home would be subject to foreclosure because they had missed a mortgage payment. The Kings, who have eight children, knew that they had actually made their payments but gave in to the bank in order to shelter their children from the rocky proceedings.


"We didn't want to further traumatize our children by having a sheriff show up," Christina King told WLUK.


Originally, in 2009, the family had applied for the Home Affordable Modification Program, an initiative launched by the Obama administration that allows qualified borrowers to receive interest rate reductions on their mortgages. The program, which was recently modified so that it could reach more beleaguered homeowners, would have provided significant relief to the Kings by reducing their rate from 10 percent to 4 percent.


But after a year of cooperating with the bank under the terms of the program, the Kings were informed that they had missed a payment during the program's trial period. Then a steady tide of foreclosure notices arrived, prompting the family to move into a rental property.


Fast forward by about a year, to when the family receives a notice from Bank of America.


"In a previous letter to you, we told you that ... you missed a Trial Period Plan Payment. However, this was incorrect," it reads, according to WLUK. The letter also reportedly informs the family that their mortgage actually was approved for HARP.


The Kings return home, perhaps thinking that their long streak of misfortune may finally have come to an end. Not so. They find a house that has fallen into such disrepair that a contractor estimates that the cost of fixing it exceeds its value.


"It's really awful, it's really awful what was done to us," King told WLUK.


Unfortunately, the story of the Kings is only one of many examples of families who have suffered unjustly at the hands of mortgage lenders.


The practice of "robosigning," which refers to a range of foreclosure paperwork abuses, has launched various probes around the country, including an investigation led by a broad coalition of state attorneys general which reportedly could end up costing banks upward of $20 billion in a settlement. Setting a precedent, Nevada recently filed criminal charges for robosigning by indicting two staffers at a mortgage company for directing employees to falsely notarize foreclosure documents and forge signatures.


And these proceedings have had a very real impact on homeowners. One homeowner in Pittsburgh had her home -- and her parrot -- mistakenly seized by Bank of America, while another family in Houston faced foreclosure simply because their property title wasn't properly transferred.


Victims of Robo-Signing: Fight the Machine!


Foreclosure Mill That Mocked Homeless Going Out of Business


Fed Cracks Down on Online Mortgage Scams As Probe Widens