Thursday - September 03, 2009

Making progress

Ok, I’ve had a couple days to rest my aching back, so it’s time to really get to work unpacking stuff.

We were able to renew the lease on this place that we’re in, so at least we won’t be homeless in a month. Phew.  And at the same time we talked with our landlord about buying this unit. He has come up with a price, but due to various factors he’s going to have to knock at least 12% off that amount to even begin to be competitive with the current market. Hell, he didn’t even account for the savings involved in a direct sale by owner; the realtor commission on one of these condos is ten grand. So that idea may not work, but heck, we were just talking, not making a serious offer. We’ll see.

So right now I’ve got laundry to do, and then it’s time to hit the pile of boxes. Sorry for the lack of posting, although the political situation hasn’t really changed. ObamaCare is still a crock, Cap & Trade is still an idiotic idea, we’re all taxed way too much by an ever more intrusive nanny state government, etc. And I’m rather annoyed that Obama held such a big party for Ramadan. Son of a gun. I’m not at all happy that the first day back to school for all our children will be an Obama Indoctrination Festival.

And just for more fun, it turns out that Lisa Jackson, former head of the NJ EPA, and now appointed by Obama to run the EPA for the whole country, was a total noob:

Federal officials are criticizing how New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection operates, a report in the Record said.

An Environmental Protection Agency audit found “significant shortcomings,” especially in the DEP’s division that handles contaminated site cleanups. The EPA said the site remediation program lacks oversight, and the DEP takes contractors hired by polluters at their word without checking.

The report also found the agency has failed to take corrective action to fix problems uncovered in a 2005 audit.

A federal audit of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection identified what it called “significant shortcomings” in how the DEP operates, especially in the division that handles contaminated site cleanups.

The DEP’s site remediation program doesn’t provide proper oversight of contaminated site cleanups because program officers don’t follow up with field audits or internal assessments, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency report, released Thursday.

The EPA faulted the DEP officials for failing to verify what the private contractors of polluters told them about site cleanups. The DEP officials even told the EPA during interviews that the contractors were “certified professionals and taken at their word,” the report said.

To environmentalists, that detail was among the most alarming elements of the report. “This report is basically the EPA telling the DEP that they’re not doing their job. They’re just taking the word of consultants to the polluters without checking up on them,” said Jeff Tittel, director of the Sierra Club’s New Jersey chapter. “This shows the DEP is broken. The EPA may have to send in their own investigators to review contaminated sites.”

The report also noted that more than three years after the DEP listed corrective actions it would take to repair problems identified in a 2005 federal audit, most of those changes have still not been made.

Isn’t that wonderful? But hey, look at Obama, appointing a woman to a position of high authority. That’s all that matters, right?

h/t to Right,WingNut!

Posted by Drew458     on 09/03/2009 at 11:28 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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