We’re Fracked! And Other Horrid Tales

Natural gas fracking: source

Michael McCarty, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Last week my wife and I attended a meeting regarding one energy company’s plans for natural gas drilling in our community near Silt, Colorado, on Colorado’s western slope. The small meeting room was packed, the tension high. The meeting had been announced in the paper on short notice, without regard to the previous requests of local community contacts for increased communication and appropriate notifications.

Area residents wanted to know just what was up, and how new drilling operations would affect their property and their lives. They were ready to do battle to protect themselves from the onslaught.

The top executive and main spokesman fairly well defused the situation by stating that there would be no new drilling activities north of the Colorado River in 2012. The public crowd seemed stunned, deflated, and perplexed. Had we not been told that drilling and fracking would occur in our area this year, and that it was imminent?

Most of the natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing operations in our area have taken place south of Highway I-70 and the Colorado River. The activities have been and continue to be intense. There have been consequences and environmental insults too numerous to mention here. Just recently it was announced that the Garfield County Commissioners moved to complete a study exploring a link between natural gas development and methane in the shallow groundwater deposits. An earlier phase of the study led one geological consultant to conclude that methane levels were increasing in domestic water wells because of gas development. It was later found that methane and methane compounds turned up in all six groundwater monitoring wells. 

Health Care, And The Altar of The Black Robe

Dees Illustration

Michael Patrick McCarty, Contributor
Activist Post

A lawyer I am not, but I do not require the skill of a legal sage to determine that the recent Obamacare decision has rocked the Tree of Liberty in this once great, united, United States of America.

The so-called “Supreme Court” has delivered a devious blow, and I can feel the treacherous poison of that dastardly deed drill deep into her anchoring roots.

I have long since lost patience with all aspects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In fact, I’m angry, and I don’t like that. I’m even angrier because I know that I should not have to be angry. The “Act” was unconstitutional when it was rammed down our throats without our approval. It was unconstitutional when it was sent to the Supreme Court for consideration, and it’s still unconstitutional today, no matter what they say. Even I know that.

Obamacare was put into effect with blunt force trauma, like a doctor performing intricate brain surgery with a long-handled shovel. The procedure cracked the skull and killed the patient with the first big swing, as surely as a surgically placed bullet from the gun of a skilled assassin. In this case the assassin wore a black robe, and his gun was a black ink pen held behind a tall bench in the highest court of the land.