[BUT]

BUT I just boosted up my posts ROFL

 

instead of 56, I can't get senior discounts  

Why not? Senior discounts are given to those age 55 and up in this state.

I get dyslexic and write my age as 65

I'm not dyslexic but I still goof up on my age.  

I get the impression that the ACLU has other motives for wanting this turned down.


Thursday, October 27, 2005

ACLU Challenging ABQ Voter ID Ordinance


Associated Press
      The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico sued the city of Albuquerque on Thursday over its new voter ID ordinance, contending it's unconstitutional.
    The ordinance, approved by voters Oct. 4, requires people who vote at the polls to present a current, valid identification card that includes their name and photograph. People who vote absentee are exempt from photo ID requirements.
    "Why should people who actually show their faces at the polling place suffer more rigorous identification requirements than someone who votes from a distance?'' said Peter Simonson, executive director of the ACLU. "It doesn't make sense. We're creating two classes of voters. The Constitution doesn't permit that.''
    Mark Shoesmith, an assistant city attorney, said the city could not comment because officials had not seen the lawsuit.
    However, he said the ordinance contains fail-safe procedures to make sure people get to vote — even if they lack a photo ID — by using paper provisional ballots. A canvassing board later counts those that are ruled valid.
    "You always get a provisional ballot as a last recourse,'' Shoesmith said.
    Voters then have a number of options to make sure their ballot gets counted.
    Shoesmith said the ordinance gives people up to 10 days after an election to present photo identification at the city clerk's office. People who don't have a photo ID can present two types of non-photo identification with their name and address or sign an affidavit verifying their identity. After the city verifies the person is registered to vote, the city issues a photo ID, he said.
    In addition, people who object to having their photo taken can sign an affidavit saying so, he said.
    "You can get your photo ID from us before election day, on election day or within 10 days after the election for your provisional ballot to count,'' Shoesmith said.
    The ACLU's Simonson said, however, "if you're poor or homeless, there's a good chance you don't have any of the permissible forms of identification.''
    "Wealth shouldn't determine your ability to participate in democracy,'' he said in a news release. "Americans shouldn't have to jump through unnecessary hoops to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right to vote.''
    Earlier Thursday, a federal appeals court refused to let Georgia demand photo identification from all voters at the polls. Last week, a federal judge barred Georgia from enforcing a new photo-ID law during local elections next month, saying it amounted to an unconstitutional poll tax that could prevent poor people, blacks and the elderly from voting. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to lift the stay.
    Georgia's law does not allow alternative forms of identification. Under it, voters have to show either a driver's license or a state-issued photo ID, available for up to $35. Previously, voters could show Social Security cards, birth certificates and utility bills.

proof: DW managed to get senior discounts  
I'm not just talking about fruit loops

 

DW is still the biggest serial poster. He is pulling ahead by 20-30 posts each day and I have 116 to go to pass the next poster.

Here I am 48, and I get a senior discount.

DW How did you manage to qualify for a senior citizen discount at 48?

That is a good question.

Pastor Roger Said:

uhh ...  would you believe premature old age?


I don't qualify for senior citizen discounts for another 3 months.

I qualify and I still can't afford it.  

Sorry bep's, I can't afford it either, but when the Church heads on out. I do go out with them, and eat, in fellowship with them.

I can't afford the senior citizen discounts either.  

[POST NUT]

You are now an official serial poster

I would rather be a cereal poster. (Food for thought.)  

You are, you're a POST NUT

post nut bananas

I though it was, Post Banana-Nut.

Nope. The post nut just went bananas.

It's not anti-religion .....  it's anti-Christian. The ACLU and CAIR are actually happy about this decision as it is at least winning a part of their battle.

Galapagos Volcano Erupts for Third Day
Galapagos Volcano Erupts for Third Day but Experts Say It Not a Threat to Humans, Animals
By GONZALO SOLANO
The Associated Press

QUITO, Ecuador - A volcano on the largest of the Galapagos Islands erupted for the third straight day Tuesday, but experts said it didn't threaten villagers on the island or the super-sized tortoises that gave the remote archipelago its name.

Oscar Carvajal, chief technician of the Galapagos National Park on Isabela island, said tortoises and land iguanas were not threatened because the lava flows were down the northeast slopes of Sierra Negra volcano where there were no animal populations.

"The lava flows have not affected the species because they are on the other side. There are no problems with tortoises or land iguanas. Only a small amount of vegetation has been burned in the interior of the caldron and on the flanks," Carvajal said.

The 4,920-foot high Sierra Negra volcano began erupting late Saturday, sending three rivers of spectacular lava flow down its northeastern slopes.

Carvajal said the lava expelled Tuesday was considerably less. He said most of the lava was flowing from a fissure at the top of the volcano back into the interior.

Park and local authorities say Puerto Villamil, the island's only village with 2,000 inhabitants, is also out of danger because it is located south of the volcano.

Puerto Villamil mayor Pablo Gordillo said authorities have taken precautions and were ready to evacuate people by sea and air if necessary.

Patricio Roman, a technician at Ecuador's Geophysics Institute, said the eruption of Sierra Negra was a normal process for islands that are of volcanic origin. He said the archipelago, made up of 13 islands, only four of which have human inhabitants, is still young enough in geological terms to be in a process of formation.

"Sierra Negra volcano is very active, one of the most active volcanos in the Galapagos, and the Galapagos are considered one of the most active volcano centers in the world," he said.

"The Galapagos Islands are what geologists know as a hot point, a point that draws magma from the depths," he said.

Sierra Negra last erupted in 1979, but in May of this year La Cumbre volcano on nearby Fernandina island, which is uninhabited, erupted with water vapor, gas and ash. Another volcano on Isabela, Cerro Azul, erupted in 1998.

The Galapagos Islands, located 625 miles off Ecuador's Pacific coast, were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

They are known for their flora and fauna, including marine iguanas, blue-footed boobies and giant tortoises that live up to 150 years of age. The islands' unique wildlife inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Popping Rocks Reveal New Volcano
By Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News

type size: [A] [A] [A]

Oct. 27, 2005 — Noisy popping rocks hauled up from the deep Pacific seafloor off northern Mexico appear to be from a very young undersea volcano, say U.S. and Mexican geologists.

Some of the weird and scientifically valuable gas-charged volcanic rocks were first discovered in the same area in 1960, but no one had been able to find them again until now.

It took some careful and persistent dredging of the 10,500-foot-deep (3,200-meters) seafloor by a bi-national crew of students and researchers near what is called Popcorn Ridge, 200 miles south of San Diego near Guadalupe Island, to relocate the remarkably loud rocks.

"People don't know how many volcanoes there are off the coast here," said Dana Vukajlovich, one of the chief scientists on the cruise, organized by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.

Another Scripps oceanographer, Dale Krause, who first found the popping rocks 45 years ago.

The rocks pop because they contain pressurized pockets of gases that had bubbled out of the rock when it was molten and erupting from a submarine volcano, explained Vukajlovich.

But under intense pressure two miles underwater, the bubbles remained locked inside the lava rocks. Once brought to the surface, however, where the pressure is a small fraction as much, the high-pressure gases in pockets near the surfaces of the rocks broke through explosively.

"It's kind of like the sound of ice cracking in water," said Dana Vukajlovich, describing the racket made by spontaneous explosions of the rocks when they were brought aboard the Roger Revelle research vessel in early October.

Unlike ice in water, however, the rocks were was as loud as firecrackers, she said. "You could hear it over the sound of the machinery on deck." There were even small pieces of the rocks flying off, she said.

And while all the noise is exciting, it's not what makes them so valuable to scientists, she said.

"They're pretty rare," said geochemist David Graham of Oregon State University of the few sites where popping rocks have been found worldwide. "They're typically found on relatively slow-spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridges."

That's an undersea rift zone where the crust of the Earth is being pulled in opposite directions and there are many volcanoes spewing out molten rock to fill the gap.

The rocks from what Vukajlovich's crew has dubbed the Krause Volcano are the only popping rocks found outside the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, said Graham.

What the popping rocks offer scientists is a chance to study volcanic gases that may have come undisturbed from deep in the Earth, said Graham.

While chemical analyses are just getting started on the Krause Volcano rocks, similar Atlantic popping rocks contained primarily carbon dioxide gas, said Graham.

Of more interest, however, are smaller amounts of argon and helium, both "noble gases" that do not chemically react with any other elements. Argon and helium are leftovers from the heat-producing nuclear decay of larger elements deep inside the planet, he said.

How much of each gas that's found in the rocks could support or challenge theories about how the interior of the Earth is heated.

"It helps in understanding the thermal budget of the Earth," said Graham.

And since argon tends to escape rocks more quickly than helium, the amounts of both in the Krause Volcano rocks will give a clue to how quickly the magma that made the rocks moved up from the Earth's mantle.

If, for instance, there's a lot of argon, it's more likely the rocks made a quick trip up. "We're hoping it's very well preserved gas from the mantle," Vukajlovich said.

Have you noticed the price of gas is going down? It is down to $2.35 here and is expected to keep going down. The price of gas went up due to the hurricane damage to both oil platforms in the Gulf and to refineries in the area. Despite all this damage the oil companies are expecting record profits this year.

Between the years 2000 and 2004, oil companies have generated annual profits of $24 billion. In the year 2005 industry is likely to generate profit exceeding the forecast of $63 billion.

That is a profit of more than double for the prior years yet gas prices still went up.

The Bush administration, facing increasing pressure from Congress to ease the impact of record energy costs, today ruled out a special tax on oil profits. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, responding to a question at a Senate hearing about a Deutsche Bank analyst report saying the White House might offer a plan to tax oil companies to help low-income families pay heating bills, said he wouldn't favor any such levy.

The Bush administration, meanwhile, said it expected the industry to invest in refineries to make more gasoline and heating oil.

"These companies are turning in record profits -- they have a responsibility to expand refining capacity," U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman told a Senate Energy Committee hearing on hurricane damage to the industry.

Another thing that is being done is to release more areas for drilling of prior restricted areas. One of these areas is in Alaska where there is a well that is bigger than any found in the Middle East.

With all these profits there was no valid reason to increase prices and prices should go back down dramatically. With the increased supply prices should be down to an all time minimum.

_______________________________

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Drilling in waters near Florida gets boost

In a move that could affect Florida's coastline, the U.S. House moved toward easing an offshore drilling ban and opening up an Alaska wildlife refuge.

From Herald Staff and Wire Reports

WASHINGTON - A House committee on Wednesday approved a measure that would clear the way for oil and gas drilling in currently off-limits coastal waters closer to Florida's coast and in an Alaska wildlife refuge.

Supporters of the legislation argued that with natural-gas and crude-oil prices soaring and domestic supplies tight, it is time to end the 24-year federal ban that has blocked energy development along virtually all of the country's coastal waters outside the central and western Gulf of Mexico.

One provision of the bill, which will be wrapped into a massive budget package, would allow states that want drilling within 125 miles of their shores a waiver from the federal moratorium that has been in effect since 1981.

EFFECT ON GULF LEASE

Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., chairman of the House Resources Committee, said the provision would continue to protect Florida by limiting the development of an area in the eastern Gulf known as Lease 181, close to the Florida Panhandle.

The lease, which holds a huge potential for natural-gas development, is not under the general moratorium, but the Interior Department has said it would not allow its development until 2007 under an agreement with Gov. Jeb Bush.

The House provision would open the lease immediately, but bar development of about one-fourth of the area that falls within 125 miles of Florida's coast. Bush has endorsed that provision as a compromise that would give the state a 125-mile buffer zone, but some members of the Florida congressional delegation remain opposed to it.

Rep. Clay Shaw, a Fort Lauderdale Republican and delegation chairman, has not taken a position on this bill, and will schedule a meeting next week for the delegation to take up the issue, said spokeswoman Gail Gitcho.

`BAD PRECEDENT'

Mark Ferrulo, director of the Florida Public Interest Research Group, blasted the bill as ``a bad precedent that will put rigs closer to Florida.''

''And for the first time, the Florida delegation has been fractured on this issue,'' Ferrulo said. ``If they are united, they can defeat this.''

COMMITTEE VOTE

The measure, which also would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska to oil companies, was approved 24-15 by the House Resources Committee in a largely party-line vote. There are no Florida members of the committee.

[AGE.]

I know I haven't been on for long periods of time for the last few days, (been trying to finish some translation for my church), but I haven't seen Pastor Roger, is he OK? Does anyone know how his brother is doing?

He is fine, his son took his computer to add memory to it....

Are you sure about the fine part? I tried to get him to take care of my memory problem, too. He said that was beyond his expertise.

Your memory, my dear Pastor Roger, may have something to do with a thing called AGE. Only in the Kingdom of God will it be repaired.

uhh ...  would you believe premature old age?


I don't qualify for senior citizen discounts for another 3 months.

well that's better than 7 years.

better??

[AGE.]

I know I haven't been on for long periods of time for the last few days, (been trying to finish some translation for my church), but I haven't seen Pastor Roger, is he OK? Does anyone know how his brother is doing?

He is fine, his son took his computer to add memory to it....

Are you sure about the fine part? I tried to get him to take care of my memory problem, too. He said that was beyond his expertise.

Your memory, my dear Pastor Roger, may have something to do with a thing called AGE. Only in the Kingdom of God will it be repaired.

uhh ...  would you believe premature old age?


I don't qualify for senior citizen discounts for another 3 months.