October Surprise

“Hey, Slick, you got an October surprise for us?” Sid D. Complex greeted me.

“Matter of fact I got a couple, Sid. Where you been keeping yourself?”

“Nose to the grindstone, ol’ buddy, you know how that goes”, declared Sid.

“Are you down with this election?” I asked.

“No point in voting”, said Sid. “As usual, nobody’s running against the local incumbents. Voting here ain’t worth losing time, and catching the boss’s frown.”

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Vote NO, NO, NO in NOvember

The total cost of Congressional appropriations for the invasion and occupation of Iraq since 2003 has risen to a third of a trillion dollars. The portion of that 333 billion that Ozaukee County taxpayers have to pay is 117 million dollars. But those numbers don’t mean much to most of us. So I’m breaking it down here for mulling over a coffee or a beer or at the kitchen table.

117 million dollars comes to a dollar a second just from Ozaukee County taxpayers, just for the war in Iraq. A dollar every second for the last three and a half years. 117 million dollars averages close to three thousand dollars per household, so far.

A Clear and Present Danger to the Alaska Peninsula

There’s an awful looming threat of a huge Metallic Sulfide Mining District proposed in the grand, wild, and immensely productive Alaska Peninsula. We can afford no delay in alerting people to the environmental dangers posed by SULFIDES, in the proposed Pebble mining project. Just the opening phase of the Pebble proposal would entail a sulfuric acid generating tailings pond the size of Manhattan Island, impounded by an earthen dam larger than the Three Gorges Dam being built in China.

I comment here about
(I.) sulfide mining chemistry,
(II.) the Wisconsin Metallic Sulfide Mining Moratorium, and
(III.) genetic engineering in sulfide mining.

I hope these brief notes contribute positively to community awareness.