So, we finally begin to learn how/when Cheney (that's pronounced phuck!) sold this country out!  

The Halliburton Loophole

Content taken from Burning Question: What Would Life Be Like Without the Halliburton Loophole:

“The loop­hole refers to the Energy Pol­icy Act of 2005, which exempts the hydraulic frac­tur­ing process, also known as frack­ing, from fed­eral over­sight under the Safe Drink­ing Water Act of 1974.

Then Vice Pres­i­dent Dick Cheney did have a hand in get­ting the exemp­tion put into the Energy Pol­icy Act.

Gawd bless uncle dickie...always watching out for our best interests! Waddaguy!

He chaired Pres­i­dent Bush’s Energy Pol­icy Task Force, which rec­om­mended frack­ing be excluded.

Oh yeah...Gotta exclude fracking...

And Cheney is a for­mer Hal­libur­ton exec­u­tive.

Oh? I was unaware of that...I thought he was a weaver. 

Hal­libur­ton, by the way, began frack­ing in the 1940’s to extract for oil. 

But the use of frack­ing, com­bined with hor­i­zon­tal drilling, has only recently been used to mine shale gas.

The loop­hole does have an excep­tion.  

If drilling com­pa­nies use diesel fuel to frack a well, they do have to get a fed­eral permit.

Also amended in the 2005 Energy Pol­icy Act was the Clean Water Act. 

Con­gress enacted the CWA back in 1972 as a way to reg­u­late dis­charges into the country’s rivers and streams. 

The CWA was amended in 1987 to include storm water run-off. 

But oil and gas pro­duc­tion are exempted from those reg­u­la­tions. 

And in the 2005 Energy Pol­icy Act, those exemp­tions included oil and gas con­struc­tion. 

Envi­ron­men­tal­ists worry about run-off from well pads, pipelines and con­struc­tion sites.

With­out fed­eral over­sight, it’s up to the states to reg­u­late gas drilling.”

“And it’s not just the Clean Water Act, and the Safe Drink­ing Water Act that exempt the oil and gas indus­try. 

The Clean Air Act, passed by Con­gress in 1970, exempts oil and gas wells from aggre­ga­tion. 

That means, each well site is con­sid­ered an indi­vid­ual source of pol­lu­tants, and does not take into account all of the well sites in a spe­cific area.

When it comes to the han­dling of waste water, or frack water, that too is exempt from a fed­eral statute called the Resource Con­ser­va­tion and Recov­ery Act. 

The RCRA tracks indus­trial wastes from “cra­dle to grave.” 

But when it comes to the oil and gas indus­try, as long as the waste water is on the drill site, or being trans­ported, it is not con­sid­ered haz­ardous. 

This also applies to drilling mud. 

That’s why trucks car­ry­ing waste water, which con­tains high lev­els of salts, toxic chem­i­cals, as well as radioac­tive mate­r­ial, may be labeled “resid­ual waste.”

The National Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­icy Act, or NEPA, requires fed­eral agen­cies to do envi­ron­men­tal impact state­ments if major indus­trial projects would impact the envi­ron­ment. 

But the Energy Pol­icy Act of 2005 rel­e­gated oil and gas oper­a­tions to a less strin­gent process.

Finally, the Toxic Release Inven­tory requires indus­tries to report toxic chem­i­cals to the EPA. 

But the oil and gas indus­try are exempt from this reporting.”

RESOURCES:
Read the Complete Energy Policy Act of 2005
State of the Law:

 Federal, State and Local Regulation of Hydrofracturing, 

(Kathleen Dachille, JD)

I'm sorry folks, I've lost my sense of humor tonite...this bastard is just so evil!

EVIL + STUPID = Ch Ch Ch Cheney and Dumbo

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RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE,

YOU FUX!

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When Same-Sex Marriage Was a Christian Rite

Contrary to myth, Christianity's concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual.

Prof. John Boswell, the late Chairman of Yale University’s history department, discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient Christian church liturgical documents, there were also ceremonies called the "Office of Same-Sex Union" (10th and 11th century), and the "Order for Uniting Two Men" (11th and 12th century).

These church rites had all the symbols of a heterosexual marriage: the whole community gathered in a church, a blessing of the couple before the altar was conducted with their right hands joined, holy vows were exchanged, a priest officiated in the taking of the Eucharist and a wedding feast for the guests was celebrated afterwards.

These elements all appear in contemporary illustrations of the holy union of the Byzantine Warrior-Emperor, Basil the First (867-886 CE) and his companion John.

A Kiev art museum contains a curious icon from St. Catherine's Monastery on Mt. Sinai in Israel.

It shows two robed Christian saints. Between them is a traditional Roman ‘pronubus’ (a best man), overseeing a wedding.

The pronubus is Christ.

The married couple are both men.

Is the icon suggesting that a gay "wedding" is being sanctified by Christ himself?

The idea seems shocking.

But the full answer comes from other early Christian sources about the two men featured in the icon, St. Sergius and St. Bacchus, two Roman soldiers who were Christian martyrs.

These two officers in the Roman army incurred the anger of Emperor Maximian when they were exposed as ‘secret Christians’ by refusing to enter a pagan temple.

Both were sent to Syria circa 303 CE where Bacchus is thought to have died while being flogged.

Sergius survived torture but was later beheaded.

Beheaded? Wow! Everything old is new again.

Legend says that Bacchus appeared to the dying Sergius as an angel, telling him to be brave because they would soon be reunited in heaven.

While the pairing of saints, particularly in the early Christian church, was not unusual, the association of these two men was regarded as particularly intimate.

Severus, the Patriarch of Antioch (AD 512--518) explained that, "we should not separate in speech they [Sergius and Bacchus] who were joined in life."

This is not a case of simple "adelphopoiia."

In the definitive 10th century account of their lives, St. Sergius is openly celebrated as the "sweet companion and lover" of St. Bacchus.

Sergius and Bacchus's close relationship has led many modern scholars to believe they were lovers.

But the most compelling evidence for this view is that the oldest text of their martyrology, written in New Testament Greek describes them as "erastai,” or "lovers."

In other words, they were a male homosexual couple.

Their orientation and relationship was not only acknowledged, but it was fully accepted and celebrated by the early Christian church, which was far more tolerant than it is today.

Tell me about it.

Contrary to myth, Christianity's concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual.

Prof. John Boswell, the late Chairman of Yale University’s history department, discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient Christian church liturgical documents, there were also ceremonies called the "Office of Same-Sex Union" (10th and 11th century), and the "Order for Uniting Two Men" (11th and 12th century).

These church rites had all the symbols of a heterosexual marriage: the whole community gathered in a church, a blessing of the couple before the altar was conducted with their right hands joined, holy vows were exchanged, a priest officiated in the taking of the Eucharist and a wedding feast for the guests was celebrated afterwards.

These elements all appear in contemporary illustrations of the holy union of the Byzantine Warrior-Emperor, Basil the First (867-886 CE) and his companion John.

Such same gender Christian sanctified unions also took place in Ireland in the late 12thand/ early 13th century, as the chronicler Gerald of Wales (‘Geraldus Cambrensis’) recorded.

Same-sex unions in pre-modern Europe list in great detail some same gender ceremonies found in ancient church liturgical documents.

One Greek 13th century rite, "Order for Solemn Same-Sex Union", invoked St. Serge and St. Bacchus, and called on God to "vouchsafe unto these, Thy servants [N and N], the grace to love one another and to abide without hate and not be the cause of scandal all the days of their lives, with the help of the Holy Mother of God, and all Thy saints."

The ceremony concludes: "And they shall kiss the Holy Gospel and each other, and it shall be concluded."

Another 14th century Serbian Slavonic "Office of the Same Sex Union," uniting two men or two women, had the couple lay their right hands on the Gospel while having a crucifix placed in their left hands.

After kissing the Gospel, the couple were then required to kiss each other, after which the priest, having raised up the Eucharist, would give them both communion.

Records of Christian same sex unions have been discovered in such diverse archives as those in the Vatican, in St. Petersburg, in Paris, in Istanbul and in the Sinai, covering a thousand-years from the 8th to the 18th century.

The Dominican missionary and Prior, Jacques Goar (1601-1653), includes such ceremonies in a printed collection of Greek Orthodox prayer books, “Euchologion Sive Rituale Graecorum Complectens Ritus Et Ordines Divinae Liturgiae” (Paris, 1667).

While homosexuality was technically illegal from late Roman times, homophobic writings didn’t appear in Western Europe until the late 14th century. Even then, church-consecrated same sex unions continued to take place.

At St. John Lateran in Rome (traditionally the Pope's parish church) in 1578, as many as thirteen same-gender couples were joined during a high Mass and with the cooperation of the Vatican clergy, "taking communion together, using the same nuptial Scripture, after which they slept and ate together" according to a contemporary report.

Another woman-to-woman union is recorded in Dalmatia in the 18th century.

Prof. Boswell's academic study is so well researched and documented that it poses fundamental questions for both modern church leaders and heterosexual Christians about their own modern attitudes towards homosexuality.

For the Church to ignore the evidence in its own archives would be cowardly and deceptive.

The evidence convincingly shows that what the modern church claims has always been its unchanging attitude towards homosexuality is, in fact, nothing of the sort.

It proves that for the last two millennia, in parish churches and cathedrals throughout Christendom, from Ireland to Istanbul and even in the heart of Rome itself, homosexual relationships were accepted as valid expressions of a God-given love and commitment to another person, a love that could be celebrated, honored and blessed, through the Eucharist in the name of, and in the presence of, Jesus Christ.

from: http://anthropologist.livejournal.com/1314574.html

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MONEY IS NOT SPEECH!

CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE!

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Death of an American sniper

Did Chris Kyle's uncritical thinking in life, revealed in his bestselling memoir, contribute to his death?

By Laura Miller




Thursday, Feb 7, 2013--Christopher Scott Kyle was born and raised in Texas and was a United States Navy SEAL from 1999 to 2009.

He is currently known as the most successful sniper in American military history.

According to his book American Sniper, he had 160 confirmed kills (which was from 255 claimed kills).

A claimed kill refers to a shot where the round hits the target, but cannot confirm the kill.

Chris Kyle served as a Navy SEAL in 4 tours in the latest Iraq war.

For his bravery and military skills, he was awarded some of the highest medals in the US military multiple times including the Bronze and Silver Star.

Whilst in Iraq, the insurgents called him the "Devil of Ramadi" and offered a bounty for his head.

In a funny twist, they displayed pictures of him around the local area with the bounty but it was a picture of another sniper!

He was shot twice, and was involved in six IED attacks.

Chris needed to make a decision on family life or the military.

He had a small child that he did not know very well as he was overseas constantly.

This also put pressure on his marriage, so he decided to leave the SEALS and was honorably discharged in 2009.

After some time struggling with civilian life, he started a security company called CRAFT and wrote the New York Times bestselling book, American Sniper.

Unfortunately Chris Kyle was murdered at a shooting range by a US military veteran he was trying to help on February 2, 2013 in Texas.

A film has been made starring Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller and is called American Sniper.

It will be shown at the cinemas from the December 25, 2014.