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Beautiful name... and somehow fitting for a filly. :3

Whata perffect name. How about some pics my beautiful friend ?

I am sure I had a ice lolly called that the other day!! Hmm

I've been known to block some people but only because they never stop messaging me on all of my accounts when I made it clear to them that I never want to speak to them again. However, if time goes on where they stop their harassment then I later unblock them.



I'm on 5 blocked lists, 18 on another account and 20 on my main account. :)

20 blocks? woah.I felt bad at first,but when I found that it is mostly one or two people,well it became clear.



You might block due to harrassment,but evidently not everyone does.

Used to be more than 20 that are on me but eh, I have fun. ;)

I was on 18 at one point on one profile, and all up at the moment, I'm on sixteen. :P People don't seem to realise that if I've blocked them it's only because I don't want their comments in my journal or them messaging me. I quite honestly have very few blocked, and they deserved it. :P

I have not and will not block anyone for spiteful reasons.



Oceanne, you're a better person than them, so haters be hatin'. :P

Oh hell no ,If I got to pay for it then its mine, if its on my land and it comes out of it, its mine .

Thats the scary part..no it isnt yours..look at this..



S.787 – The Clean Water Restoration Act and its potential impact in Arizona



Written by: Gregory McKim





A new bill to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to clarify the jurisdiction of the United States over waters of the United States has been proposed by Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin and currently has 24 co-sponsors in the senate. The bill was introduced and referred to the Environment and Public Works Committee on April 2nd, of 2009. The Open Congress web site dedicated to providing citizens information about the laws being made in Washington D.C. gives the following official summary of the bill:

“Clean Water Restoration Act – Amends the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (commonly known as the Clean Water Act) to replace the term “navigable waters” that are subject to such Act with the term “waters of the United States,” defined to mean all waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial seas, and all interstate and intrastate waters and their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds, and all impoundments of the foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters, or activities affecting them, are subject to the legislative power of Congress under the Constitution.” [1]

Among many design professionals in the land development and construction industry in Arizona there has always been a dubious understanding of the term “navigable waters” in the language describing “Waters of the U.S.” in the Clean Water Act. Arizona has very few perennial streams or rivers (streams flowing the entire year). Typically, excess rainfall that is not absorbed into the soil (percolation) collects in topographically depressed features called washes or arroyos that covey the storm water runoff to lower elevations. It is a long stretch to declare the majority of Arizona’s washes “navigable” for purposes of commerce or trade. However, due to extensive and some may say, over reaching policies, washes that have enough moisture to support over an acre of biological wildlife and vegetation typical of a “wetlands” area in more humid climates fall under jurisdiction of the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).

The federal government’s claim over wetlands is based on section 404 of the Clean Water Act of 1972, which regulates the “waters of the United States.” At first, this was not taken to include wetlands. However, in 1975, a district court concluded that the Act gave the government the authority to regulate waters “to the maximum extent possible.” This included the regulation of wetlands, and has led to some extreme cases of government interference in private property rights. [2]



A case of overreaching governmental action against a private landowner occurred against Mr. John Rapanos who fought an 18 year long battle against federal regulators for filling 54 acres of his 175 acre parcel of land with sand without a permit in order to make the land more profitable for development. Wilson was charged, convicted and sentenced to 21 months in prison and he and his company were fined $4 million. Wilson appealed the conviction, arguing there is was no apparent connection between his property and “U.S. Waters” since the property was over six miles from the Potomac River the nearest “navigable” water course. The US Supreme Court ruled in his favor on June 19, 2006 [3].



Soil, rainfall, temperature, and geologic conditions are some of the factors which combine to form a watershed and determine how surface water runoff collects and flows from higher elevations to lower elevations. Every state has unique watershed characteristics which form the surface runoff features and provide water which we use for domestic, agricultural and industrial purposes. For the majority of the history of our republic, water law and regulation has been a matter delegated to the states. For at least the last 4,000 years, people living in what is now Arizona have been actively manipulating the quantity, quality, timing and location of water. Arizonans have drilled wells to access ground water, built dams and reservoirs to store water, reduce flood damage, and to produce energy, and constructed canals to move water to fields and cities. [4]

Arguably our constitution was founded on the premise of natural rights. John Locke, one of the most influential philosophers of rationalist thought and a champion of natural rights wrote:



“[E]very Man has a property in his own Person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labor of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature placed it in, it hath by this labor something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men. For this labor being the unquestionable property of the laborer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others.” [5]

As Arizonans we might all confess that it is by our labor and efforts we provide for our families and add benefit to others in our state. A logical extension to this confession would be to declare that our state legislature and regulating bodies are better suited to developing and enforcing water quality regulations for our unique environment than federal regulating bodies that attempt to generalize the watershed characteristics of surface waters for the entire 50 states. Indeed through this generalization the language used to develop federal regulations oftentimes creates further ambiguity, confusion and taxpayer cost in cases where private landowners who wish to utilize their property are held in violation of generalized federal law. Wouldn’t it be more cost effective to allow each individual state to retain their 10th Amendment rights to regulate and govern the use of surface water according to their unique climate conditions and history?

Benjamin Barr, former Constitutional Policy Analyst, for the Goldwater Institute has recently brought this issue to the fore in his article, “Muddy Waters: Deconstructing the Clean Water Act in Arizona”[6]. In the Executive Summary of this article he states:

“Arizona faces an environmental challenge: take responsibility for its own environmental management or cede authority to the federal government. For some time, there has been a decided preference for the latter. With that acquiescence come substantial problems for the state. This study examines one such problem: the heavy-handed regulation of water in one of the nation’s driest states.



The impulse to legislate tougher federal environmental laws reigns eternal in the halls of Congress. As that impulse grows, so too do the negative consequences for states that must operate under these ambitious programs. Well intentioned laws, such as the Clean Water Act (CWA), operate in a one-size-fits-all manner, ignorant of the vast environmental differences between Fargo, North Dakota, and Tucson, Arizona. As a result, Arizonans pay the price with less innovative and appropriate local environmental regulation and increased burdens due to unnecessary federal oversight.”

In this age where private interests seem to dominate legislation written by members of our congress one wonders if the programs congress creates serve our interests for a clean and useful environment or whether the bills and programs written in confusing and difficult to follow language benefit vast corporations who can afford large teams of legal professionals and paid environmental permit specialists.

The answer to generalized and overreaching federal programs which may seem to protect our environment but come at the expense of failing to protect our individual rights as defined by the Constitution of the United States may lie in the 10th Amendment to the Constitution: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Additional Resources:

The University of Arizona Watershed Stewardship Guide (ASWG)

The Tenth Amendment Center

Austrian Economics – The Ludwig von Mises Institute



[1] http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-s787/actions

[2] Relief for Landowners? Mises Daily: Friday, September 22, 2000 by Mark Brandly http://mises.org/daily/511

[3] A Wetlands Victory (For Now) Mises Daily: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 by Mila Cobanov



http://mises.org/daily/2244



[4] Watershed Basics Part I: Water Resources By Kim McReynolds, Susan Pater, & Kristine Uhlman



http://ag.arizona.edu/watershedsteward/resources/docs/guide/(8)Hydrology.pdf



[5] John Locke – An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extant and End of Civil Government

[6] Muddy Waters: Deconstructing the Clean Water Act in Arizona by Benjamin Barr. Goldwater Institute Policy No. 221, January 29, 2008

Horrible. But personally, I don't think it will take hold, and/or the gov't won't really push it, as everyone in the US would go competely crazy with anger, resulting in complete chaos.

Wow

Blue Gold and this appears very real...water is being drained and sold. I was watching something about this in my country and it made references to USA and there decreasing water supplies..



There is also stuff on youtube called Blue Gold - World Water Wars 1/9

I hope that your dress is okay...I'll admit that I laughed...lol! Sorry!

:::points::::



ok bad joke.



I feel the pain, the spots we do get into for the life of a pretty dress :)

OK.. I'm sorry but LOL

It sounds like the ceremony was good though.

LOL dont worry about laughing,I laughed at myself too.Could you imagine having to sit like that all night then open the door for someone? Wait,I wouldnt have been able to open the door.

It was rediculous!

If you had only asked.



I would always make myself available to help you out of your dress...

hehe It sounded like a comedy scene.

Went to go help my mom out for the weekend. We caught and killed two copperheads and a rattler.

Ssssspooky.I have killed a copperhead here once too.It was at night .





This wasnt anything to be afraid of though..it was a Black Rat.7 feet it measured.They are good to have around normally,but we have a batch of bitty kitties and until they are bigger,we dont want a snake getting any of our mousers!

We have small snakes here in the UK and only one which can kill which hasn't for a long time.

Kitties! :D ♥



We have lots of snakes here. THey live under the house, or so we think. It's a good thing we got our puppy while they're going into hibernation.