Category Archives: Law

Fracking panel report –Cape Breton University, Nova Scotia

A reader wondered how Nova Scotia’s fracking ban would result in safer oil and gas company drilling operations instead of just balkanizing the world into fracking permitted and prohibited zones. Actually, Energy Minister Andrew Younger said:

“This way, people will know before it’s allowed — if it’s ever allowed — there will be a full debate in the Legislature.”

And the panel report that was the proximate cause of the ban, by the Nova Scotia Hydraulic Fracturing review, led by President Dr. David Wheeler, explicitly is for: Continue reading →

Nova Scotia banned fracking; will southeast U.S. ban fracked methane pipelines?

Yesterday Nova Scotia announced a ban on fracking. Will local or state governments in the southeast, now threatened by the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline, ban such pipelines? Especially since FERC has now directed Sabal Trail to examine routes through Americus, Cordele, Ashburn, Tifton, Adel, Valdosta, and even Thomasville, in addition to the ones it already proposed through Dougherty, Colquitt, Brooks, and Lowndes Counties?

Sierra Club Canada wrote about public meetings in its Media Release of 28 August 2014, Government of Nova Scotia Needs to Ban Fracking,

“Public meetings held by the panel were attended by an overwhelming majority of well-informed citizens who had deep concerns about fracking,” according to [Gretchen] Fitzgerald, “Those concerns should be met with the type of leadership they deserve: an immediate, legally binding ban.”

And the Nova Scotia government listened. Bruce Erskine wrote for The Herald Business 3 September 2014, Nova Scotia to ban fracking, posting a video in which you can hear Energy Minister Andrew Younger say: Continue reading →

Nydia Tisdale’s video of being arrested for videoing a public event

The deputy is on camera refusing to identify himself as he holds her down. The best he’d do was “You’ll see it on the warrant”.

Background here, including a candidate laughing as she cries “Help!”

-jsq

Quitman 10+2 third trial

“Thank you for not plea bargaining” said George Boston Rhynes starting his series of videos on the ongoing third trial of Lula Smart of the Quitman 10+2. No newspapers, radio, or TV reporters at this trial about voters’ rights. But George is there.

Here’s George’s first report: Continue reading →

Nydia Tisdale’s offense: she sat in the front row

Landowner Johnny Burt’s excuse for having Nydia Tisdale ejected from an event advertised as a public campaign rally:

“She promptly sat down on the front row on the end where she would be right in their face and was making everybody uncomfortable.”

Shades of Ashley Paulk’s excuse for wanting that illegal bill of attainder Continue reading →

Nydia Tisdale forcibly ejected from Republican rally in Dawsonville

State Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens reportedly asked Nydia Tisdale “I don’t know why you’re videotaping” and was recorded moments later laughing as she yelled for help while a deputy forcibly ejected her from a political rally in front of Governor Nathan Deal and U.S. Senate candidate David Perdue.

Jim Galloway and Greg Bluestein wrote for the AJC yesterday, Videographer ousted from GOP event, and Sam Olens speaks up, that Attorney General Sam Olens was the only speaker at that rally to mention the incident later: Continue reading →

Riverview development next to Withlacoochee River? @ GLPC 2014-07-28

A flood plain rezoning next to the Withlacoochee river came back from 2011, at the 28 July 2014 Planning Commission meeting, which voted unanimously for, as did the Valdosta City Council later.

7. VA-2014-05 Riverview Development LLC

Video. This is parcel 0074 088 on North Valdosta Road behind Music Funeral Home, next to Langdale Park, on the other side of the Withlacoochee River from Foxborough.

City Planner Matt Martin said only a tiny part of the property was in the floodplain of the Withlacoochee River. Continue reading →

Family Dollar on Roger Budd property near Francis Lake in Lake Park? @ GLPC 2014-07-28

Opposition started arising to Roger Budd’s request to rezone to put another Family Dollar near Francis Lake in Lake Park, at the 28 July 2014 Planning Commission meeting, which voted 5 to 2 with one abstention to recommend a compromise solution.

6. REZ-2014-14 Roger Budd Jr

Video. County Planner Jason Davenport said he had received no indications of any opposition. And one GLPC member asked the developer’s presenter whether residents of Francis Lake had been notified.

Yet J.D. Carroll spoke against, Continue reading →

Quitman 10+2 third trial set for 19 August 2014

Will three strikes against the prosecution make it give up on trying to convict the Quitman 10+2? Dear prosecutor, we know you read this blog, because you asked potential jurors at Lula Smart’s second trial,

Have you read or talked to or followed a blog called “On the Lake Front?”

So, dear prosecutor, when is enough enough?

Fannie MJ Gibs notes that Quitman Free press posted on facebook yesterday:

The retrial voter fraud case has been set for August 19 at Brooks County Courthouse. See this week’s issue for details.

So far as I know, Quitman Free Press only prints on paper and does not post any articles online, so we have to guess they’re referring to the Quitman 10.

When George Rhynes first posted about the arrests of the Quitman 10 in December 2010, he remarked:

Today’s arrest will surely end up in the courts.

Who would have expected it to be in the courts three times?

In July 2012, the Chair of the Brooks County Board of Elections tried to throw George Boston Rhynes out of her board’s meeting Continue reading →

Children, cancer clusters, citizen water tests @ GA EPD 2014-07-17

Citizens are not convinced EPA, GA-EPD, and GA Dept. of Health are doing enough to find what’s causing widespread sickness and death in Waycross, GA. They asked questions and provided data and anecdotes for more than an hour, demanding more testing and answers, at a meeting about the Seven Out Superfund and other air and water contamination, for example from CSX and AGL.

Georgia Department of Health did offer a new survey, with local help. She also offered to send a local health dept. rep. right out whenever they were alerted a certain site stunk after rains. EPA and GA-EPD admitted there was a problem and said they were trying to fix it, which is a step forward from their preliminary Waycross meeting last November. But not a big enough step or quick enough to satisfy Waycross people who are or who know many who are sick or dying.

They asked very insightful questions, about Continue reading →