Showing posts with label Forces of Nature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Forces of Nature. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Fed Up With Rick Perry

Presidential candidate Rick Perry, who last year co-authored a book that he entitled Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington, apparently isn’t all that “fed up.” According to this article in the Austin American-Statesman, today Rick Perry is “frustrated” that the federal government isn’t sending him the tools, manpower and capability that he feels he needs to fight the numerous wildfires that have sprung up in the past 3 days all over drought-stricken Texas.

From the Austin American-Statesman:
“Three days after fires started to burn in Central Texas, Gov. Rick Perry today expressed frustration that federal firefighting support, including equipment from Fort Hood, has yet to make its way to the firefighters.”
That’s right, Tea Party favorite Rick Perry wants federal assets to come to his aid, and right quick. And in his opinion the fires need to be fought now and “I don’t care who owns the asset.” That’s funny. Not funny ha-ha, funny strange. Because it is completely obvious to anyone who is paying attention that Rick Perry totally cares about who owns the asset. American taxpayers do. We pay taxes, not enough of them, but we do, to buy, maintain and operate these assets. You can’t have it both ways. Perry can’t on the one hand whine about federal intrusion into state affairs, and then on the other whine when the feds are slow to act in intruding into state affairs.

And there’s something else I’m concerned about. Where in the US Constitution does it dictate that the federal government must spring to an individual state’s aid in times of natural disaster? Rick “Read the 10th Amendment” Perry should well-know that “rhe powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

As far as I know, the US Constitution does not prohibit the States from fighting fires, so that power is reserved to the States. Were it not for the fact that the federal government goes out of its way to interfere and intrude on states that have suffered a natural disaster like fires, floods and earthquakes, this country would truly be a Libertarian Paradise where YOYO principles rule the day.

YOYO: You’re On Your Own.

So, yes, I am fed up, too. Fed up with Rick Perry.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Sometimes Rocks Fall

The forces of nature conspire to make rocks fall, it seems.

First you have the forces that Earth’s mantle exerts as it shoves cold oceanic plates underneath the lighter less dense continental rocks.

Then you have the nuclear forces that heat up the cold descending slabs, making them buoyant and they rise and emplace and inject themselves, renewed as they cool to igneous rocks in the cool continental crust.

Then the forces in Earth’s continental crust cause deformation of the crust, uplifting the granitic rocks that are then exposed to the air by subsequent erosion of the overburden.

Then the forces of gigantic ice sheets form and shape these hulking rocky tors into smooth U-shaped valleys with steep, nearly vertical walls.

And sometimes, yes, vertical walls.

Then the weakest force in the universe, gravity, carries the rocks down, calamitously, into the valley below – taking out a few Mercedes Benzes along the way.

So in Yosemite Valley yesterday, part of the Royal Arches, which overlooks the posh Ahwahnee Hotel fell into the valet parking lot at the hotel.

Unleashing another force of nature known as the auto insurance industry.