The American Trial Lawyers Association

The EPA has halted the permits on hundreds of mountaintop mining efforts, so that they can review the environmental impacts of this disastrous practice. Between 150 and 200 applications for new or expanded mountaintop removal operations are pending before the federal government. The permits are issued by the Army Corps of Engineers, an agency that has been criticized by environmental groups and has been sued for failing to thoroughly evaluate the environmental impact of mountaintop removal. Under the Clean Water Act, companies cannot discharge rock, dirt and other debris into streams unless they can show that it will not cause permanent damage to waterways or the fish and other wildlife that live in them. The EPA has the authority to override or veto any permit that is issued by the Corp., although as expected, it has rarely done so in the last 8 years. For those unfamiliar with this practice, mountaintop mining is when a company basically uses dynamite to blow the tops off of mountains to extract the coal from within. All of the debris caused by the blast runs off into nearby rivers or lakes, poisoning almost any living creature that calls those areas its home. Hopefully this action by the EPA will be the first of many that seek to reduce the amount of damage that we are inflicting on our environment.


In other news, a new study conducted in the UK shows that the human brain actually stops functioning rationally when presented with evidence from so-called “experts.” For example, when a bank manager or investment adviser recommends a financial decision, the brain tends to abdicate responsibility and defer to their authority with little independent thought, the study has suggested. Such expert advice suppresses activity in a neural circuit that is critical to sound decision-making and value judgments. People are likely to be especially susceptible to uncritical trust of experts in times of economic uncertainty, such as during the current recession. While the study mainly tested how people's brains react on financial matters, this study shows us some pretty significant data about how people handle responsibility. For example, if an expert tells them that global warming isn't real, the person no longer has to feel burdened by that threat, even though the expert they're listening to isn't really an expert. Its the classic American tradition of shifting responsibility to someone else.


And finally today, the GOP has a message for Dick Cheney – SHUT UP! That's right. The GOP is growing increasingly frustrated with the former Vice President who has come out of hiding recently during a spate of TV interviews, and the rest of the Republican Party isn't happy about this. Congressional Republicans are telling Dick Cheney to go back to his undisclosed location and leave them alone to rebuild the Republican Party without his input. Republican lawmakers say he's hurting GOP efforts to reinvent itself after back-to-back electoral embarrassments. Republican Congressman John Duncan from Tennessee said quote, “He became so unpopular while he was in the White House that it would probably be better for us politically if he wouldn't be so public...But he has the right to speak out since he's a private citizen.” The problem actually isn't with Cheney, but with the GOP as a whole. Cheney is a perfect example of what the GOP stands for, and because of that, we need to make every effort to post his face on every TV news show, on every blog, and bring him up in as many conversations as possible. Cheney did exactly what the GOP wanted, and now its come back to bite them on the ass.

Labels: Brain, Coal, Dick Cheney, Environment, EPA, Farron Cousins, GOP, Mountaintop Mining, Rational Thinking, Republican Party, Study, UK