Experts, and some of those near fracking operations, believe the process leaves them on shaky ground. Here's the first in a series I wrote for Consumer News:
http://consumernews.com/environment/fracking/shaky-ground-part-i-in-a-series-on-fracking-59749/
Monday, March 19, 2012
Live Strong
Hundred years old and look at those pipes:
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/friday-march-16-2012-photo-indian-body-builder-photo-103521411.html
Photo by Bikas Das, AP
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/friday-march-16-2012-photo-indian-body-builder-photo-103521411.html
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Fractivists Speak Out On Law
Good opinion piece on fracking that you should read in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette if you care about your kid's health, or your own health:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12071/1215612-109.stm?cmpid=newspanel
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12071/1215612-109.stm?cmpid=newspanel
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Municipalities Organize for Lawsuit Challenging State
A group of municipal leaders is considering challenging a state law that overturns local control of zoning related to natural gas drilling. The grassroots collection of local officials is looking to challenge the recently passed Pennsylvania House Bill 1950, which will charge natural gas drillers a per well fee, but which also largely removes the right of municipal leaders to enact zoning regulations on hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” for natural gas.
Last year, Forest Hills borough and the city of Pittsburgh passed laws prohibiting fracking, but under the new state law signed by Gov. Tom Corbett on Feb. 13, those regulations must be changed to comply with the state law.
Peters Township leaders spent years developing regulations on natural gas drilling, but the new law essentially trashes them. That doesn’t sit well with David Ball, a Peters councilman. Ball, along with Cecil Township supervisor Andrew Schrader and Robinson Township supervisor Brian Coppola, recently led a gathering of local officials that was held on Feb. 22 in Monroeville. At the meeting Ball, a metallurgical engineer, gave a summary to local leaders on HB 1950: “Regardless of what state politicians said, it does pre-empt local zoning control. It’s a one-size-fits-all state ordinance. The problem is, the requirements in our township are not the same as in others,” he said.
The three leaders of this fight represent the gamut of municipalities that are affected by the new state law. While Peters is suburban, with some open space, Cecil is a mix of open space and developed areas, and Robinson (in Washington County), is rural, with a lot of open space and some drilling activity. Despite their differences, leaders of the three municipalities share a concern that’s growing among municipalities in the Commonwealth—their inability to create laws that effectively govern natural gas drilling in their municipalities.
“The new law takes away a township’s ability to control where drilling takes place. It also makes it virtually impossible for the community planning of a township to occur,” Ball said. “Peters spent 2½ years developing a drilling ordinance that is specific to 40-acre sites. Now, you have to allow drilling anywhere.”
In many municipalities, there is a concern for parks, schools, home values and the quality of life of residents and business owners and workers. At the Feb. 22 meeting, officials from Monroeville, Murrysville, Lower Burrell and Forest Hills attended. Ball personally is not opposed to natural gas drilling, but Forest Hills Mayor Marty O’Malley, who attended the Monroeville meeting, is no fan. Though he didn’t vote on it, O’Malley favors the fracking ban that Forest Hills Council unanimously approved. The small borough, an eastern suburb outside Pittsburgh, soon will be in violation of state law unless it rescinds its anti-fracking ordinance. From the time of the enactment of the new state law, municipalities have just 120 days to change their zoning to comply with it.
“A number of township solicitors are trying to determine if there’s a legal strategy to fight it. If so, we’ll pursue it,” Ball said.
If it is fought, the legal battle should be a straightforward legal case in which municipalities will be arguing that the legislation passed by the state—and written by the drilling companies’ lawyers—violates the Pennsylvania Constitution, O’Malley said. “The state constitution mandates that elected officials are constitutionally bound to protect the water, the land and the air… We want 40 municipalities [involved in the lawsuit], not just four,” he said.
O’Malley has recommended that Forest Hills Council support the effort, which could cost the borough $1,000 to $2,000 to start.
Ball is opposed to laws that remove the rights of local leaders to regulate natural gas drilling. The new law allows natural gas compressor stations to be built 750 feet from a residential area, but the facilities operate around the clock and make a lot of noise, Ball said.
“I think drilling should be done in the right place and be done safely. I also think townships should retain the zoning control to determine where and how drilling is done,” Ball said.
The Peters councilman gave the state legislature more of a break than O’Malley, saying he believes politicians were misinformed on the bill and told by their leaders what was in the fracking legislation. But overturning his municipality's laws does smart.
“I worked very hard to develop a reasonable ordinance to control drilling… As councilmen, we have an obligation to protect the health, safety and welfare of the community. The state law took away control of what happens in our own township—including setbacks, hours of operation, pipelines, compressor stations and seismic testing,” Ball said.
Last year, Forest Hills borough and the city of Pittsburgh passed laws prohibiting fracking, but under the new state law signed by Gov. Tom Corbett on Feb. 13, those regulations must be changed to comply with the state law.
Peters Township leaders spent years developing regulations on natural gas drilling, but the new law essentially trashes them. That doesn’t sit well with David Ball, a Peters councilman. Ball, along with Cecil Township supervisor Andrew Schrader and Robinson Township supervisor Brian Coppola, recently led a gathering of local officials that was held on Feb. 22 in Monroeville. At the meeting Ball, a metallurgical engineer, gave a summary to local leaders on HB 1950: “Regardless of what state politicians said, it does pre-empt local zoning control. It’s a one-size-fits-all state ordinance. The problem is, the requirements in our township are not the same as in others,” he said.
The three leaders of this fight represent the gamut of municipalities that are affected by the new state law. While Peters is suburban, with some open space, Cecil is a mix of open space and developed areas, and Robinson (in Washington County), is rural, with a lot of open space and some drilling activity. Despite their differences, leaders of the three municipalities share a concern that’s growing among municipalities in the Commonwealth—their inability to create laws that effectively govern natural gas drilling in their municipalities.
“The new law takes away a township’s ability to control where drilling takes place. It also makes it virtually impossible for the community planning of a township to occur,” Ball said. “Peters spent 2½ years developing a drilling ordinance that is specific to 40-acre sites. Now, you have to allow drilling anywhere.”
In many municipalities, there is a concern for parks, schools, home values and the quality of life of residents and business owners and workers. At the Feb. 22 meeting, officials from Monroeville, Murrysville, Lower Burrell and Forest Hills attended. Ball personally is not opposed to natural gas drilling, but Forest Hills Mayor Marty O’Malley, who attended the Monroeville meeting, is no fan. Though he didn’t vote on it, O’Malley favors the fracking ban that Forest Hills Council unanimously approved. The small borough, an eastern suburb outside Pittsburgh, soon will be in violation of state law unless it rescinds its anti-fracking ordinance. From the time of the enactment of the new state law, municipalities have just 120 days to change their zoning to comply with it.
“A number of township solicitors are trying to determine if there’s a legal strategy to fight it. If so, we’ll pursue it,” Ball said.
If it is fought, the legal battle should be a straightforward legal case in which municipalities will be arguing that the legislation passed by the state—and written by the drilling companies’ lawyers—violates the Pennsylvania Constitution, O’Malley said. “The state constitution mandates that elected officials are constitutionally bound to protect the water, the land and the air… We want 40 municipalities [involved in the lawsuit], not just four,” he said.
O’Malley has recommended that Forest Hills Council support the effort, which could cost the borough $1,000 to $2,000 to start.
Ball is opposed to laws that remove the rights of local leaders to regulate natural gas drilling. The new law allows natural gas compressor stations to be built 750 feet from a residential area, but the facilities operate around the clock and make a lot of noise, Ball said.
“I think drilling should be done in the right place and be done safely. I also think townships should retain the zoning control to determine where and how drilling is done,” Ball said.
The Peters councilman gave the state legislature more of a break than O’Malley, saying he believes politicians were misinformed on the bill and told by their leaders what was in the fracking legislation. But overturning his municipality's laws does smart.
“I worked very hard to develop a reasonable ordinance to control drilling… As councilmen, we have an obligation to protect the health, safety and welfare of the community. The state law took away control of what happens in our own township—including setbacks, hours of operation, pipelines, compressor stations and seismic testing,” Ball said.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Drink Up
http://www.popcitymedia.com/features/craftbeer022912.aspx
Photo above: Church Brew Works crew. Below: Two of the four Full Pint Brewing owners.
Photos courtesy of Pop City.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Scribbling Elitists
"Journalists who say you should write newspaper stories at a reading level no higher than tenth grade are elitists." -Jonathan Barnes
Saturday, January 28, 2012
"Y" The Word Irks Me
"I think it's cute," the very pregnant thirty-something woman at the Squirrel Hill coffeehouse table next to mine said of the Y-word, or "yinser," as I tried to argue with her and Gary, a fifty-something New York transplant and acquaintance of mine who'd just used the slur to rip on someone.
When I’d called him on it he began arguing with me that the Y-word is appropriate as a slur, and that it's OK to use because it's also embraced by many Pittsburghers, who claim it represents a working class ethos of which they are proud. (Never mind that most of those same people have never painted their house on their own, repaired their roof, or picked up a wrench to fix their cars).
Ms. Preggo, a city native, folded her hands over her full, eight-months-pregnant belly and smiled smugly. "I don't mind it," she insisted.
Prior to the turn in conversation she had been complaining about what she was going to do for the next few weeks before giving birth, since she was off from work on maternity leave. Gary's suggestions that she go to Phipps Conservatory, or to Scaife Art Gallery or the Carnegie Museum fell on deaf ears, then somehow Gary brought up the word which triggers the chip on my shoulder like a sledgehammer to a sore toe.
I should explain.
Don't use the slur "yinzer" around me, even if you spell it in a way I think is phonetically correct--"yinser." I don't like the Y-word and never have, never will, and I won't accept people trying to embrace this stupid, derogatory tag.
People are surprised by the hostility I express when they use the Y-word and some no doubt are amused. But I must admit, it all goes back to the elitist schools I attended--Kiski School and Carnegie Mellon. Growing up in mostly working class Bellevue, there was very little elitism in my childhood world, since most of us didn't have a whole lot and most didn't look down on the rest as being inferior for having less. We were pretty much all in the same boat.
Then as an adolescent, I got into trouble and into the court system and Schuman Juvenile Detention Center, and my life changed. My parents sent me to a shrink of dubious character--a minister's wife, no less--and the smartest thing she ever did for me was suggest that a change of environment might be very helpful to keep me away from my hell-raising friends. So I ended up at Kiski--one of the last boy's boarding schools in the nation, run by a hard-ass guy named Jack Pidgeon, who was uncompromising in his expectation that every one of his "Kiski boys" would get as much as possible out of their boarding school experience. I became good friends with kids from the more affluent suburbs of Pittsburgh and some of those fellas introduced me to the "Y-word," using it as a pejorative for people from working class areas of Pittsburgh, like Dormont, for instance, who some of my high school friends claimed always had thick Pittsburgh accents.
On I went to Carnegie Mellon, receiving a partial athletic scholarship for football and a partial academic scholarship, since I'd worked hard at Kiski. I ended up becoming friends with some talented and kind individuals who I will simply refer to as Trustafarians, since they were (as I was) longhaired neo-hippie types, but unlike me, they were trust fund kids who never had to work but always had money with which to party. "Scooby" was one of them, and we became very close for a time, though he and I in some ways were as different as Caketown is from Greasertown.
"Jonny Yinser," he dubbed me, laughing when I’d say something in what he perceived as a particularly thick accent. "You're such a Yinser!" Scooby would say, cracking up. I put up with it because I liked him and knew he meant it with love, and I enjoyed hanging out with him. But Scooby was from Boston and he also liked to use to Y-word in its most negative sense, like when he was trying to get some paperwork through the CMU administration or do something elsewhere and a person with our proud Pittsburgh accent angered him and he’d say, "F-ing Yinsers can't do anything right!"
Some things never change, or rather, sometimes stupid things become the norm, like white suburban boys calling themselves the N-word while akwardly trying to rap, or suburbanites feigning a love for a working class ethos they’ve only heard of and never experienced.
And there's the rub. Almost without exception, the intelligent people who use the Y-word want to use it in both senses: They want to call it a badge of honor and they want to use it in the elitist sense as well, as a bludgeon to insult people whom they think they're above. And when they are called out on this incongruity, and on the fact that many Pittsburghers detest the Y-word, they, like Gary, obstinately refuse to change their ways and refuse to accept that other people’s feelings matter enough for them to stop using one word in the English language.
I am talking about one single word here—I am not sayin you shouldn’t use “hat” or “mouse” or “pussy” or “wimp.” I am insisting that you be a real Pittsburgher, by not using a very specific slur to look down on your countrymen. And if I were talking about the “C-word”—a nasty slur used by some to refer to women—all the gals in the audience would agree. If the “N-word” were the axe I was grinding here, all the African-Americans reading these words would have my back. But since I am using an elitist word, based in class differences, many women and Blacks would disagree with me as stubbornly as people defend their religion and their children. That’s because in America, Land of the Fee and Home of the Knave, it’s always open season on lower class people. God may bless America, but the Deity leaves Americans to curse it on their own.
When I’d called him on it he began arguing with me that the Y-word is appropriate as a slur, and that it's OK to use because it's also embraced by many Pittsburghers, who claim it represents a working class ethos of which they are proud. (Never mind that most of those same people have never painted their house on their own, repaired their roof, or picked up a wrench to fix their cars).
Ms. Preggo, a city native, folded her hands over her full, eight-months-pregnant belly and smiled smugly. "I don't mind it," she insisted.
Prior to the turn in conversation she had been complaining about what she was going to do for the next few weeks before giving birth, since she was off from work on maternity leave. Gary's suggestions that she go to Phipps Conservatory, or to Scaife Art Gallery or the Carnegie Museum fell on deaf ears, then somehow Gary brought up the word which triggers the chip on my shoulder like a sledgehammer to a sore toe.
I should explain.
Don't use the slur "yinzer" around me, even if you spell it in a way I think is phonetically correct--"yinser." I don't like the Y-word and never have, never will, and I won't accept people trying to embrace this stupid, derogatory tag.
People are surprised by the hostility I express when they use the Y-word and some no doubt are amused. But I must admit, it all goes back to the elitist schools I attended--Kiski School and Carnegie Mellon. Growing up in mostly working class Bellevue, there was very little elitism in my childhood world, since most of us didn't have a whole lot and most didn't look down on the rest as being inferior for having less. We were pretty much all in the same boat.
Then as an adolescent, I got into trouble and into the court system and Schuman Juvenile Detention Center, and my life changed. My parents sent me to a shrink of dubious character--a minister's wife, no less--and the smartest thing she ever did for me was suggest that a change of environment might be very helpful to keep me away from my hell-raising friends. So I ended up at Kiski--one of the last boy's boarding schools in the nation, run by a hard-ass guy named Jack Pidgeon, who was uncompromising in his expectation that every one of his "Kiski boys" would get as much as possible out of their boarding school experience. I became good friends with kids from the more affluent suburbs of Pittsburgh and some of those fellas introduced me to the "Y-word," using it as a pejorative for people from working class areas of Pittsburgh, like Dormont, for instance, who some of my high school friends claimed always had thick Pittsburgh accents.
On I went to Carnegie Mellon, receiving a partial athletic scholarship for football and a partial academic scholarship, since I'd worked hard at Kiski. I ended up becoming friends with some talented and kind individuals who I will simply refer to as Trustafarians, since they were (as I was) longhaired neo-hippie types, but unlike me, they were trust fund kids who never had to work but always had money with which to party. "Scooby" was one of them, and we became very close for a time, though he and I in some ways were as different as Caketown is from Greasertown.
"Jonny Yinser," he dubbed me, laughing when I’d say something in what he perceived as a particularly thick accent. "You're such a Yinser!" Scooby would say, cracking up. I put up with it because I liked him and knew he meant it with love, and I enjoyed hanging out with him. But Scooby was from Boston and he also liked to use to Y-word in its most negative sense, like when he was trying to get some paperwork through the CMU administration or do something elsewhere and a person with our proud Pittsburgh accent angered him and he’d say, "F-ing Yinsers can't do anything right!"
Some things never change, or rather, sometimes stupid things become the norm, like white suburban boys calling themselves the N-word while akwardly trying to rap, or suburbanites feigning a love for a working class ethos they’ve only heard of and never experienced.
And there's the rub. Almost without exception, the intelligent people who use the Y-word want to use it in both senses: They want to call it a badge of honor and they want to use it in the elitist sense as well, as a bludgeon to insult people whom they think they're above. And when they are called out on this incongruity, and on the fact that many Pittsburghers detest the Y-word, they, like Gary, obstinately refuse to change their ways and refuse to accept that other people’s feelings matter enough for them to stop using one word in the English language.
I am talking about one single word here—I am not sayin you shouldn’t use “hat” or “mouse” or “pussy” or “wimp.” I am insisting that you be a real Pittsburgher, by not using a very specific slur to look down on your countrymen. And if I were talking about the “C-word”—a nasty slur used by some to refer to women—all the gals in the audience would agree. If the “N-word” were the axe I was grinding here, all the African-Americans reading these words would have my back. But since I am using an elitist word, based in class differences, many women and Blacks would disagree with me as stubbornly as people defend their religion and their children. That’s because in America, Land of the Fee and Home of the Knave, it’s always open season on lower class people. God may bless America, but the Deity leaves Americans to curse it on their own.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Burn This Blog
You may think I am a flake, a wing-nut, a corner-chattering wacko, but maybe I still inform or entertain you some here on Barnestormin, so you check in from time to time. Whatever your reasons for reading, I am glad that you do. But would you like it if this blog were shut down because I am not in full agreement with the way things are run locally, statewide and nationally in the good old US of A? Probably not, even if you often disagree with me. Most of us would recognize I have a Free Speech right to say what I think here on my blog.
But not Big Brother, who’d rather the Political Elite and Corporate Elite get to control what I can say, especially if it goes against what they think about things like drug use, income disparities, or other unpopular topics. I am completely opposed to the Drug War, because it is a war of sanctioned human rights abuses, in the name of safety but truly waged for the safety of the elite.
Why all the preaching? Because a would-be law could result in Barnestormin going dark, since the legislation would allow the government to shut this blog down for taking any of a number of unpopular stances, or even for linking to copyrighted material, such as the following:
“Why is the U.S. government working so feverishly to crush independent, truthful information on the internet? Because the globalist controllers realize that the internet is the last bastion of freedom in a world run by global elite corporatists.
“While the global elite own and run the mainstream (corporate whore) media, and they own Congress, and they own all the influential non-profits such as the wholly corrupt American Cancer Society, they do not yet control the internet!”
http://www.naturalnews.com/034682_SOPA_online_piracy_protest.html#ixzz1jqEf6HNK
But we don’t have submit to this oligarchy, and we don’t have to yield to this proposed draconian law. We can kill SOPA before it’s passed. Contact your legislator and tell him why you hate this bill and that you will vote to fire him if he votes for it. Let’s make this legislation a hot potato that politicians fear to touch.
But not Big Brother, who’d rather the Political Elite and Corporate Elite get to control what I can say, especially if it goes against what they think about things like drug use, income disparities, or other unpopular topics. I am completely opposed to the Drug War, because it is a war of sanctioned human rights abuses, in the name of safety but truly waged for the safety of the elite.
Why all the preaching? Because a would-be law could result in Barnestormin going dark, since the legislation would allow the government to shut this blog down for taking any of a number of unpopular stances, or even for linking to copyrighted material, such as the following:
“Why is the U.S. government working so feverishly to crush independent, truthful information on the internet? Because the globalist controllers realize that the internet is the last bastion of freedom in a world run by global elite corporatists.
“While the global elite own and run the mainstream (corporate whore) media, and they own Congress, and they own all the influential non-profits such as the wholly corrupt American Cancer Society, they do not yet control the internet!”
http://www.naturalnews.com/034682_SOPA_online_piracy_protest.html#ixzz1jqEf6HNK
But we don’t have submit to this oligarchy, and we don’t have to yield to this proposed draconian law. We can kill SOPA before it’s passed. Contact your legislator and tell him why you hate this bill and that you will vote to fire him if he votes for it. Let’s make this legislation a hot potato that politicians fear to touch.
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