Friday, September 17, 2010

Fighting to Protect Consumers


Good luck to ya, Ma'am! You were like the canary in the coal mine, foretelling this mess, so I imagine you are the right person for the job. It's a tough job, though. I wouldn't want to rub shoulders with the likes of Blankfein, Dimon, or Pandit. It'd probably drive me to drinkin', as my grandmother used to say (when she wasn't pulling her socks up).



May the wind be at your back.

Cheers!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Orrin Hatch Compares Obama To Bernie Madoff When It Comes To Fixing Economy


And asking Orrin Hatch to prognosticate on the source of our economic woes is like asking Pee Wee Herman for wardrobe advice...just don't.



I didn't just compare Orrin to Pee Wee, did I?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Chamber of Commerce: Without Shame or Sense

Well said. What amazes me is that the Chamber doesn't even bother to be objective. If they did, they wouldn't shill for companies pitching antiquated, planet wrecking technologies. They'd shill for renewable energy, public transportation, unions (and not free trade), and nationalized health care. All things that would expand our economy by expanding prosperity to more of us, rather than fewer, as entrenched, capitalized conservatives would have it.



Let's start living in the 21st century. Let's build stuff here, pay people decently to do it, and give them the health care they need to live. We can't afford not to.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Moved to a new address...

http://completelybaked.blogspot.com/

4 States Prepare Legal Assault On California's Climate Law


"We are going to test the limits of how much you can constrain interstate commerce in the name of climate change," Stenehjem said.



So, in this brilliant attorney's addled mind, interstate commerce trumps public health and safety? What if I live in California and want to sell some pot in North Dakota? Can I do that? If this guy Stenehjem says no, he's constraining interstate commerce in the name of whatever values Mr. Stenehjem would cite to justify his anti-pot attitude.



No, this isn't about interstate commerce at all. It's about easy money for coal company executives, and free-flowing campaign contributions for lap dog politicians.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Does praying help when you got no job, you're flat broke, and you got one foot in the gutter?

I really hope so, because if you lack the capital to feed at the hedge fund trough, prayer seems to be the only remedy offered to the impoverished by overfed, conservative lawmakers these days.
And, the Republican, pro-tax cut, me-first, tea-party patriots amongst us sure seem to think prayer is the answer... here's a tribute to the genuine piety they offer every day for the rest of us to take inspiration from. I'm thinking of pure, upstanding guys like Rep. John Boehner, here. Take it, Janis...

"Mercedes Benz"


Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,
So Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a color TV ?
Dialing For Dollars is trying to find me.
I wait for delivery each day until three,
So oh Lord, won't you buy me a color TV ?

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a night on the town ?
I'm counting on you, Lord, please don't let me down.
Prove that you love me and buy the next round,
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a night on the town ?

Everybody!
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends,
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,
So oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?

That's it!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Clean Energy Stimulus

Time magazine published an article, "How the Stimulus Is Changing America," about the positive effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and noted the success of its "green" components.

Here the article mentions an entrepreneur who benefited from the $787 billion stimulus package:
The green industrial revolution begins with gee-whiz companies like A123 Systems of Watertown, Mass. Founded in 2001 by MIT nanotechnology geeks who landed a $100,000 federal grant, A123 grew into a global player in the lithium-ion battery market, with 1,800 employees and five factories in China. It has won $249 million to build two plants in Michigan, where it will help supply the first generation of mass-market electric cars. At least four of A123's suppliers received stimulus money too. The Administration is also financing three of the world's first electric-car plants, including a $529 million loan to help Fisker Automotive reopen a shuttered General Motors factory in Delaware (Biden's home state) to build sedans powered by A123 batteries. Another A123 customer, Navistar, got cash to build electric trucks in Indiana. And since electric vehicles need juice, the stimulus will also boost the number of U.S. battery-charging stations by 3,200%.
"Without government, there's no way we would've done this in the U.S.," A123 chief technology officer Bart Riley told TIME. "But now you're going to see the industry reach critical mass here."
Note, Mr. Riley points out that his business depended on government assistance. Fine, but let's keep that in mind when Republicans tell us that all we need is an "free market," unfettered by the government.

The article goes on:
That's why the Recovery Act is funding dozens of smart-grid approaches. For instance, A123 is providing truckloads of batteries for a grid-storage project in California and recycled electric-car batteries for a similar effort in Detroit. "If we can show the utilities this stuff works," says Riley, "it will take off on its own."
Stimulus money is being used for other worthwhile purposes as well:
The Recovery Act is weatherizing 250,000 homes this year. It gave homeowners rebates for energy-efficient appliances, much as the Cash for Clunkers program subsidized fuel-efficient cars. It's retrofitting juice-sucking server farms, factories and power plants; financing research into superefficient lighting, windows and machinery; and funneling billions into state and local efficiency efforts. (See TIME's special report "Obama's Agenda: Get America Back on Track.")
It will also retrofit 3 in 4 federal buildings. The U.S. government is the nation's largest energy consumer, so this will save big money while boosting demand for geothermal heat pumps, LED lighting and other energy-saving products. "We're so huge, we make markets," says Bob Peck, the General Services Administration's public-buildings commissioner. GSA's 93-year-old headquarters, now featuring clunky window air conditioners and wires duct-taped to ceilings, will get energy optimized heating, cooling and lighting systems, glass facades with solar membranes and a green roof; the makeover should cut its energy use 55%. It might even beta-test stimulus-funded windows that harvest sunlight. "We'll be the proving ground for innovation in the building industry," Peck says. "It all starts with renovating the government."

With an open mind, and a little courage, we could transform this country into a place that offers broad prosperity, and a healthy future for the planet. But, it's the open mind and courage part that I worry about.

Read the whole article, maybe it'll inspire you. Or, maybe you're already too poisoned by toxic rhetoric from the frightened right...

How CO2 and Other Greenhouse Gases Trap Heat

Below is a really simple, elegant, brief explanation of the Greenhouse Effect:
It is true that there are several important greenhouse gasses. CO2 is one of them, but methane (CH4) and water vapor are also important. CO2 is the one that human activity may influence the most and therefore gets a lot of attention in the climate debate, while water vapor changes due to natural phenomena - and as a consequence of possible manmade heating.

The thing that makes these molecules important for the greenhouse effect is their ability to absorb infrared light. When sunlight enters the atmosphere it is turned into heat in the surfaces it strikes and these surfaces re-radiate the energy as infrared light. Therefore, if the atmsophere becomes less transparent to infrared light, the heat cannot get out into space as easily as before and temperatures will rise in order to reestablish the temperature gradient needed to drive the infrared heat out past the obstacles.

You may think of a mountain stream where water flows downhill. If you push a boulder into the stream you will cause the water to rise behind the boulder, but after a while the same amount of water will flow past the boulder and downstream. Same thing with more IR absorbtion in the atmosphere. It will get hotter behind the obstacle (the IR-absorbing molecules in the air) but eventually a balance will be found where the same amount of energy flows into space as comes down from there.

In terms of the molecules themselves, it is the electronic structure that causes IR light to be absorbed. Atoms and molecules absorb light at specific wavelengths. Most molecules absorb light in broad bands or wavelength ranges, while atoms tend to absorb light in narrow regions or lines. The molecules therefore absorb over a wider range of frequencies and block more light this way. The details as to why the light is absorbed at infrared wavelengths and not in the X-ray range or vissible light, is complex to explain. It has to do with the structure of the molecules - the strengths of the bonds inside the molecule and the masses of the atoms in the molecule.

Masses on springs tend to oscillate with frequencies that are determined by how stiff the spring is and by how large a mass is attached. The same goes for the bonds (or springs) inside molecules - the vibrational frequency of molecules is determined by the spring strengths and the masses attached to the springs. Because of the many electrons interacting in complex molecules you get many possible modes of vibration and therefore many possible wavelengths at which light can be absorbed. This gives you the light-absorbing bands typical for molecular spectra.

By the way, the phrase 'greenhouse' effect is missused for molecules, because the effect of the glass on a greenhouse is not chiefly to stop infrared light getting out, but to stop warm air from blowing away from the inside of the house.

Peter Thejll, Staff, Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Danish Meteorological Institute

This isn't wildly difficult to understand. It's like a two-way mirror: you can see through it in one direction, but not in the other. Sunlight (visible and ultraviolet) travels into the atmosphere in the direction you can see through, but once in, its on the mirror side and can't get back out (infrared). So, it hangs around as heat. Done.

If you can honestly say that you think global warming science is a hoax, then the next time you think about traveling, you should walk, because airplanes are part of the same hoax. So is all of modern medicine: lab tests, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics (x-rays!, MRI's, CAT scans) -- all a hoax, of course. Get in touch with a witch doctor if you get sick, or injured (by one of those hoax-ey cars or airplanes).

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Tell Your Senators To Do Something

The Union of Concerned Scientists wants you to personalize and then send a letter to your Senators asking them not to interfere with the EPA's efforts to regulate greenhouse gasses, and to pass a real energy bill.

Here's my personalized section of the letter:
I am disgusted and dismayed that the Senate failed, once again, to create and pass useful legislation to mitigate global warming, and promote renewable energy.

I guess we could all just pray for divine intervention, because scientific reason and logic seem to have no bearing on the Congressional agenda. It's a good thing Galileo is not around these days. We'd probably cry havoc, and burn him at the stake.

Sadly, I don't think much good will come of praying for a solution when the the folks we elect are actively working to undermine real efforts to prevent the catastrophic effects of global warming, not to mention the long list of other environmental catastrophes that have resulted from our dim-witted reliance on coal and oil.

So, barring any hope for real lawmaking going on these days, it's more important than ever that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can at least try to limit global warming emissions under the Clean Air Act.

The EPA and the National Academy of Sciences confirm that global warming poses a significant threat to public health. Yet senators delay or block the EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate global warming emissions. That is gross malfeasance.
 Go ahead, click here to write to your Senators.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Yeah, We Can Stop Global Warming and Still Make Piles of Money

The Union of Concerned Scientists offers three informative, simple solutions for U.S. energy production that don't trash the environment, or leave a big bill for taxpayers to pick up for the clean up of nasty messes like the ones left behind by fossil energy producers.

I know BP, Shell, Exxon/Mobil, and our benighted Republican lawmaker say it can't be done. I wonder why they say that? (Hint: $$$)

Anyway, here's some links to the UCS articles you should read to be better informed about this tricky issue:

Cut 2030 Oil Consumption In Half

The Union of Concerned Scientists, smart folks, have devised a plan that cuts U.S. oil consumption in half by 2030. This is a big deal. It saves us 13.9 million barrels of oil per day. Let's say the price of oil stays flat, which it won't, but we'll assume here that it does. Take 13,900,000 barrels per day x $80, you get: $1,112,000,000 ($1.112 billion) per day in savings. Since 60% of oil imports currently come from other nations, that's $667, 200,000 that were not depositing in foreign treasuries...every day, or $20 billion a month we keep at home. Now, think for a second: we create a bunch of jobs building the new infrastructure and vehicles required for this plan to work, and we save $20 billion a month.

Can you think of something better we could do with $20 billion a month than give it to another country? I can. Education comes to mind...for our representatives who got us in this mess, and the people who voted for 'em. All those domestic jobs would be nice, too. And no more oil spills...ah, I'm just dreamin'.

See the plan at the UCS site: National Oil Savings Plan
and then sign the petition.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Keep Doing What We've Been Doing, Destroy the World...

Replace toxic coal and oil with renewable (non-nuclear) sources, and then dramatically increase energy efficiency (which dramatically decreases energy costs), and we end up with energy that: costs consumers little more than it does now, but it's less toxic to them; we get to keep the planet healthy; and we see 37 million new, well-paid jobs that can't be off-shored by 2030. Take into account fossil fuel jobs lost, we still see a net gain of 4.5 million jobs. And we generate $4.3 trillion in domestic revenue. That's domestic revenue not money sent to Canada and Saudia Arabia to buy oil (about 80% of imported oil comes from Canada), and we don't have to pay billions to clean up coal ash spills, and oil spills, and ruined mountains and streams in Appalachia, and dozens of other "externalities" that the fossil fuel industry let's tax payers pay for.

Which option do you think Congress will choose? That's easy, they choose business as usual, and destroy the planet. And that's because fossil fuel energy producers finance their elections. How about not re-electing these lobbyist-puppets if they don't get their act together and do something real to stop global warming? Nah, global warming's a hoax, right?

Read the press-release from ASES, and then read the report: Tackling climate change nets 4.5 million jobs

Fee and Dividend for Carbon Dioxide Reduction

Dr. James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has long warned of the disastrous and irreversible climate change that will occur if fossil fuels, especially coal, continue to be our primary energy source.

For the last year or two he has argued vigorously against cap and trade as a viable CO2 emissions reduction scheme, instead proposing a fee and dividend approach that would be paid by energy suppliers at the source (the mine, or port of entry), and transferred directly to consumers to compensate them for increased energy cost. Further, nations that export products to the U.S., but do not reduce CO2 emissions, would see import tariffs imposed on their products, with that revenue forwarded directly to consumers as well.

Up until now, I've been pretty sure that cap and trade was the only viable option for carbon reduction, since fee and dividend would surely be condemned by lobbyist-puppet Congressmen as a "vicious new energy tax designed to bankrupt American business, and finance Obama's ambition to turn America into socialist state." Well, Republicans did that with cap and trade, they vilified a purely market based solution. They called it tax and trade. Plus, cap and trade will be so watered down by Congress (caps set to low, offsets given a away to deep pocketed energy companies who finance campaigns), and it will be administered by the likes of Goldman Sachs, and their ilk, with big fees going to them, and little of the revenue returned to consumers who will suffer energy price increases (Hansen breaks it down). So, I figure, Hansen is probably right. Fee and dividend offers Congress the fewest opportunities to screw up, and dividends go to consumers, not Goldman Sachs.

Read James Hansen's  December 6, 2009 Op-Ed in the New York Times, "Cap and Fade". And then tell your representatives to do something real. Now. Your grandchildren will thank you. Too late is coming soon to a climate near you.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Do Something Real, Mr. President

A letter to the President, as requested by the Union of Concerned Scientists:

Dear President Obama,

We can use American ingenuity to end our dangerous dependence on oil. The Union of Concerned Scientists has developed a strong, comprehensive, science-based plan that can cut our projected oil use in half by 2030. Taking this step would keep billions of dollars in our economy, cut pollution, and protect our coasts from devastating oil spills. You can see the full plan here: www.ucsusa.org/OilSavingsPlan.


You were elected by Democrats and Independents, Mr. President. People who have wage-earning Americans' interests at heart, not capitalized investors in gated communities. Do something for people who work for a living, and do something to save this planet from a scourge of mass extinctions and economic displacement that will render the lives of future generation much less joyful and much less hopeful.

You must persuade members of Congress to put American citizens, and the planet ahead of their own parochial desire for reelection, and actually do so something real to obtain our energy supply from sustainable, renewable, domestic sources. Stop saying nice things, and then delivering watered down Potemkin plans. Do something real! That's why we elected you.

Thanks.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

A Conversation With VP Biden on Trade

Senator Hollings, you nailed all the high notes with your commentary on the Huffington Post. Thanks for your insight and persistence. I wish voters could catch your drift and quit buying into this business about free-markets and free trade.

Since May, I've been working way too much (a blessing) to read your posts, but I'm catching up now.

I have to quote a few key sections of your post, so they appear on my blog...they need emphasis.

"After adopting a seal, the first bill to pass the Congress in its history on July 4, 1789, was a protectionist tariff. And we financed and built these United States into an industrial power with "protectionism." We didn't pass the income tax until 1913. In 1900 the colony was richer than the Mother Country by $25 billion and had a GDP double the GDP of Germany and Russia combined, causing Teddy Roosevelt to exclaim: 'Thank God I'm not a Free Trader.'"
"The Obama Administration says the solution for jobs is educate, educate. We in South Carolina need a lot more education, but we have enough to create jobs -- producing the "ultimate driving machine" for BMW and the most advanced aircraft, the "Dreamliner," for Boeing. It's Washington that needs education."

And yes, bring on the VAT to promote domestic industry and exports.

Now, they're blaming President Obama for being anti-business and for not paying down deficits. He should eliminate the corporate tax and replace it with a 2% VAT. This will make him pro-business; bring in more revenues to pay down deficits, and promote exports. The vote in the Senate against McCain's VAT was an increase in taxes. The corporate tax beginning at 39% averages at 27%. A 2% VAT cuts corporate taxes for production 25%. And please call it for a vote. Now! Don't worry about a filibuster. Any voting against a 2% VAT to replace the corporate tax will be voting against the major reason to off-shore jobs; be voting against jobs; against cutting taxes; against promoting exports, against paying down the deficit, and against business. 

All truth, as far as I can tell. Why can't truth ever get traction in the morass of our political and media environment?

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Saturday, August 14, 2010

While GM Brags About Its Comeback, Auto Workers Go Begging

Articles in the New York Times (Detroit Goes From Gloom to Economic Bright Spot), and the Economist (GM prepares its getaway), praise GM's recovery, but the truth is, GM chose to retreat, rather than to fight to recover lost ground in terms of market share, salaries, or wages. In other words, they favored shareholders and executives over hourly workers, the people who actually earn the profits GM is so eager to brag about.

The auto industry shed 330,000 US jobs since 2008. And how many did they shed back in the eighties and nineties? And how many supplier jobs were lost that aren’t counted here?. I live in the suburbs of Detroit, and I can drive for miles past shuttered tool and die shops, and manufacturing plants. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a guy who had a well paid, skilled union job, and now he’s retired at fifty, or swinging a hammer for a living with no benefits. And these are the guys who actually know how to build things. Their fathers and grandfathers built our manufacturing base, and without their skills we’ll never re-build it. And if we don’t rebuild it, we’ll never have a real rebound in our economy that yields broad prosperity. We’ll just continue to get what we’ve been getting, a narrowing band of wealth at the top, and vast legions of un- or under-employed, under-skilled poor.

And now the big three brag they trimmed wages (starting wage in an American UAW plant is around $14). Adjusted for inflation, I bet that's less than the $5 a day Henry Ford offered workers when he reasoned that employees won't be consumers if you don't pay them a decent, livable wage.

The new CEO, GM board member, Dan Akerson, has worked recently for the Carlyle Group, the bottom feeding private equity firm that has spent the last twenty years burying US manufacturing firms in debt, and then selling off the firm's assets (asset stripping) for pennies on the dollar, to yield healthy profits for Carlyle's well-heeled, capitalized investors, and a decimated manufacturing base for the rest of us. What sort of future for GM's domestic employment does that portend?

So what does the average, hourly-wage, taxpayer get for their bailout of GM? More competition for fewer jobs at a lower wage. And who gains besides shareholders and executives? A skeleton crew of engineering and management staff who glance over their shoulders every day, with the grim expectation that their job has been outsourced to someone in India earning 1/100 as much.

Friday, August 13, 2010

No, NAFTA Was Not President Clinton's Idea

(A reply to a comment on an article, "Rebuild America, Don't Sack It," by Robert L. Borosage, at the Huffington Post.)

Yes, Clinton signed NAFTA into law, but it was largely an initiative by Republican politicians, with George H.W. Bush out in front signing the initial draft. Republican politicians then positioned NAFTA as do or die for the American economy, and anyone who opposes it is an un-American, big government, anti-jobs, socialist.


I'll quote a bit of Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAFTA):
"In the U.S., Bush, who had worked to 'fast track' the signing prior to the end of his term, ran out of time and had to pass the required ratification and signing into law to incoming president Bill Clinton. Prior to sending it to the House of Representatives, Clinton introduced clauses to protect American workers and allay the concerns of many House members. It also required U.S. partners to adhere to environmental practices and regulations similar to its own."

And this was after the private equity, leveraged buyout, asset stripping frenzy of the tax and tariff-cutting Reagan years during which much of the U.S. industrial base was sold off for pennies on the dollar, and its jobs sent overseas by capitalized investors, who tend to vote Republican.


(And no, not everyone who votes Republican should be demonized, but it mostly Republican politicians who legislate in favor of a minority: capitalized investors; at the expense of the majority: hourly workers)
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Monday, August 2, 2010

Bush Appointee Upholds Virginia's Challenge to Affordable Care Act


     Virginia's attorney general, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, behaving like crass, self-interest obsessed Republicans do, seeks to have the Affordable Care Act, the health care reform bill passed last year by Congress, ruled unconstitutional. He contends that the health care law is unconstitutional because it exceeds the established bounds of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, and because it contradicts a recently passed Virginia law, Virginia Health Care Freedom Act, which makes it unlawful to require that Virginia citizens be covered by some form of health insurance...
1 HOUSE BILL NO. 10
2 Offered January 13, 2010
3 Prefiled December 7, 2009
4 A BILL to amend the Code of Virginia by adding a section numbered 38.2-302.1, relating to a person's
5 participation in a health care system or plan; Virginia Health Care Freedom Act.
6 ––––––––––
Patrons––Marshall, R.G., O'Bannon, Athey, Carrico, Cole, Cox, J.A., Cox, M.K., Edmunds, Garrett,
Gear, Gilbert, Greason, Howell, W.J., Johnson, Jones, Landes, Lingamfelter, Miller, J.H., Morgan,
Nixon, Oder, Pogge, Tata and Wright; Senators: Martin and Stuart
7 ––––––––––
8 Referred to Committee on Commerce and Labor
9 ––––––––––
10 Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:
11 1. That the Code of Virginia is amended by adding a section numbered 38.2-302.1 as follows:
12 § 38.2-302.1. Virginia Health Care Freedom Act.
13 No law shall restrict a person's natural right and power of contract to secure the blessings of liberty
14 to choose private health care systems or private plans. No law shall interfere with the right of a person
15 or entity to pay for lawful medical services to preserve life or health, nor shall any law impose a
16 penalty, tax, fee, or fine, of any type, to decline or to contract for health care coverage or to participate
17 in any particular health care system or plan, except as required by a court where an individual or entity
18 is a named party in a judicial dispute. Nothing herein shall be construed to expand, limit or otherwise
19 modify any determination of law regarding what constitutes lawful medical services within the
20 Commonwealth.
     This is just the sort of reactionary, obstructionist, big-business coddling, horseshit that Republican lawmakers have engaged in since the Democrats regained control of Congress. And it defies the best interests of the United States, especially the interests of its poorest citizens. You can be damn sure that Judge Hudson's and Ken T. Cuccinelli II's access to competent doctors, diagnoses, and care won't be obstructed, though. And you can be equally sure the Virginia Legislature did not pass their dumb ass act  because it would insure health care equity for all Virginia's citizens. No, Republicans don't give a damn about insuring that every citizen has access to competent health care, and they sure as hell don't give a damn about poor people. Republicans, the ones making laws anyway, don't even know what being poor feels like, or looks like, or smells like. Oh, they may have been poor once, but they've forgotten what being poor is all about, their words and deeds prove that. They think poor people are poor because they are lazy, self-indulgent, slobs who don't talk right, and don't dress right, and don't get their hair cut right, and that's why they are poor.

     But Republicans do manage to persuade impoverished and, astonishingly, middle-class citizens to support them. They do this with shameless appeals to primordial tribal instincts that dictate exclusion and destruction of outsiders who don’t share the tribe's dogma and rituals. Manipulative, self-serving leaders define the evil "other," and then blame the "other" for all the problems their deluded followers face. And these pompous, self-righteous, plutocrats maintain their followers delusions by preserving their ignorance: they insist that religious doctrine trumps facts, and that science and logic are the tools of godless infidels (isn't that the Taliban's argument, too?). Throughout, they contend that sacred principles are at stake, that it's not about the money. Well, if someone, especially a politician, tells you, “it's not about the money,” you can be absolutely damned sure it is.

     United States District Judge Henry E. Hudson, appointed by George W. Bush, wrote the following summary of his argument:
     In the complaint, the Commonwealth of Virginia (“the Commonwealth”) assails Section 1501 (or “Minimum Essential Coverage Provision”) on a number of fronts. First, the Commonwealth contends that requiring an otherwise unwilling individual to purchase a good or service from a private vendor is beyond the outer limits of the Commerce Clause. In the Commonwealth’s view, the failure -- or refusal -- of its citizens to elect to purchase health insurance is not “economic activity” and therefore is not subject to federal regulation under the Commerce Clause. Succinctly put, the Commonwealth defies the Secretary to point to any Commerce Clause jurisprudence extending its tentacles to an individual’s decision not to engage in economic activity. Furthermore, they argue that since Section 1501 exceeds this enumerated power, Congress cannot invoke either the Necessary and Proper Clause or its taxation powers to regulate such passive economic inactivity.
     I especially like the "tentacles" part. But I won't try to dissect the Judge's decision. That's been done much better by lots of qualified people. Here, for example, is a nice short article that does that: "Judge Preserves Constitutional Challenge to Individual Mandate." It's written by a professor at Yale Law School. Someone who will, no doubt, be filleted by the blowhards on Fox who will have nothing remotely substantive to say about the man's argument, but will surely malign his qualifications and character, and refer to him as an East Coast Liberal, which I suppose he is, or isn't, I don't know. Either way, tough shit, Fox.

     And here we go again. The big-business, Republican lapdogs in Congress couldn't defeat President Obama's health care reform via legislative maneuvers (though they did manage to water the bill down to the point of being nearly useless for the vast majority of middle-class Americans whom a little relief in the expenses column would benefit greatly), so they want to kill the bill with a thousand cuts. This will require the usual dimwitted, specious arguments about principal, and in defense of the sacred Constitution, and God himself -- Republicans always claim to be speaking for God -- and they will, with their chests puffed out, proudly stand in the way of children's lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness. They will make sure that poor, sick people who work three crummy, non-union, minimum-wage, no-benefit jobs do not visit doctors regularly, but instead put off medical care until it's too late, and then run to the hospital emergency room to die. And health insurance companies will continue to book record profits for their capitalized shareholders, because they will continue to deny lawful claims, and wear paying clients down with the perpetual run around, until -- sick and weary -- they quit pleading for help.

    That's what Republicans are talking about when they talk about principles.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

How many miners should die to save you 50 cents a day?

                                                                           source: Boston Globe
Why is it that really bad shit always has to happen before we get around to doing anything about the crooks and murderers in our midst. Is it greed? Fear? Laziness? I'm sick of people who say they can't afford 40 cents, or 50 cents, or 60 cents a day to make coal for electricity generation (90% of Appalachian coal is used to generate electricity) a thing of the past, to stop destroying the planet, to create good, safe, union jobs for these guys. Jobs building clean electricity supplies: improved efficiency, bio-gas, photovoltaics, super-flywheels, windmills -- local generation, local storage. Don't tell me we can't do it. We can. And clean renewables are a least cost solution. We're just too greedy, lazy, and afraid. And ignorant. Let's stop being those things for a while, and save our miner's lives, our own lives, our successors lives, and our planet. Stop believing the bullshit floated out there by liars who do nothing all day but protect their financial interests. Case in point, from "In Mine Safety, a Meek Watchdog":
Bruce H. Watzman, senior vice president of the National Mining Association, the industry’s main lobbying group, said the industry was deeply committed to worker safety, estimating that it had spent more than $800 million since 2006 to enhance safety measures nationwide. He cautioned against quick adoption of new regulations, which might add cost, without addressing what actually caused the explosion at Upper Big Branch.
“It is understandable there is additional scrutiny and that some will call for immediate action,” Mr. Watzman said. “But we need good, complete answers as to what happened. And those are not necessarily quick answers.”
I'd like this son of a bitch, along with Blankenship (Massey's CEO), to spend a few weeks in these mines. You can be damn sure there would be quick answers then.

And the miners and inspectors have had the answers for years, for ever:
“It’s always been my opinion that M.S.H.A. doesn’t use the powers it has,” said an inspector with more than 20 years of experience who did not want his name used because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
Miners say that despite ubiquitous “safety first” slogans, they face relentless pressure to run more coal, as production is called.
“These big mine companies push the envelope to the breaking point,” said Mark Gray, a 51-year-old miner from Harlan.
Making routine methane checks, hanging ventilation curtains and shoveling dangerous accumulations of coal dust — all required under federal rules — take time away from production.
In most mines, foremen are judged almost exclusively by the productivity of their crew, said Mr. Brannon, the 30-year-old miner from Kentucky. “I’ve worked for bosses that wanted it done right, and most of the time they didn’t boss for too long,” he added.
So read the whole article, and call your representatives, and your president, and tell them to fix our mines, and then fix our energy situation and create jobs people want and can hope to survive. Tell them it's worth 50 cents a day to you to prevent another 34 lives from being thrown away, to prevent what remains of middle class prosperity from being thrown away, to prevent Appalachia from being thrown away, to prevent the whole planet from being thrown away.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Mountaintop Removal: Strip Mining? Why call it mining?

When folks hear the word mining, they think of mine shafts. They think underground. They think pickaxes and hardhats and miner's lamps, and guys with smudged faces who trudge out of mine shaft elevators at the end of a backbreaking, lung-soiling shift.

They don't, I suspect, think of huge twenty story tall machines with names like "The Captain" scraping away entire mountain ranges, filling sparkling clear streams and creeks with sticky goo. They don't think of suffocated trout washed up on stream banks; poisoned, bloated raccoons; and starving deer searching in vain for vegetation to graze. And they don't think of multi-generational families that go back three hundred years on a stretch of land -- a wooded mountainside, or a verdant holler pasture -- driven out, destitute, landless and depressed. But that's what strip mining is today. And that's what people who run the strip mining business choose to do every day: get up in the morning, and destroy the world  -- for families, wildlife and national posterity.

So, I say, let's not call it strip mining. Let's call it...  
coal landscRaping.

And watch The Jeff Bigger's video if you don't believe me:

Roxana Saberi: Resistance Is Not Futile

    Hasan Sarbakhshian/AP  
 
After being imprisoned in Iran under false pretenses, Roxana Saberi confessed to crimes she did not commit, then had second thoughts -- she decided it was better to be in prison with a clear conscience than to be free with a muddied conscience -- and she recanted her confession. Which infuriated and humiliated her captors. Good for her. She stood up for what's right, and persevered. I think that makes her a model for courage.

Here's NPR, Fresh Air's Terri Gross interview with her:
Roxana Saberi: Caught 'Between Two Worlds'

Whatever you think you know about her, if you haven't heard this interview yet, you'll be impressed and inspired...to stand up for what's right.

Why U.S. Energy Policy Is Never Smart Policy

From "Proliferation, Oil, and Climate: Solving for Pattern," by Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute:
"One false assumption about energy can distort and even defeat policies vital to paramount national interests. The December 2009 Copenhagen climate conference proved again how pricing carbon and winning international collaboration are hard if policymakers, pundits, and most citizens assume climate protection will be costly. That assumption focuses debate on cost, burden, and sacrifice: what will climate protection cost, is it worth it, and who will pay? Yet the assumption is backwards: business experience shows that climate protection is not costly but profitable, because saving fuel costs less than buying fuel. Changing the conversation to profits, jobs, and competitive advantage sweetens the politics so much that any remaining resistance will melt faster than the glaciers. Moreover, whether you care most about security, prosperity, or environment, and whatever you think about climate science, you should do exactly the same things about energy, so focusing on outcomes, not motives, can forge a broad consensus. The climate discussion is stranded far from this clarity, simplicity, and accuracy—because of that one wrong assumption."
Read the whole article, it's an eye opener if you think saving the climate, creating jobs, and quitting coal need to cost money rather than yield broad economic prosperity.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Organizing for America Asked Me To Write A Note To My Representative...

...encouraging support for health care reform.

Here it is:

I'm a strong supporter of health reform because the U.S. is crumbling toward bankruptcy due to our perennial inability to adequately address any of the big issues that face us: export of our jobs, no energy policy, eroding environmental management, degraded food supply protection, and last but not least, pathetic provision of health care.

All of these problems occur because our politicians are beholden to venal corporate interests who perceive proper attention to these matters as impediments to profit. I hope you can prove me wrong on this one issue -- health care -- this Sunday, March 21. And then go further and bring us the public option, generic drugs...and finally, universal single-payer coverage. That, given how often I hear politicians praise the preeminence of our democratic governance, is the least you could do, considering the overwhelming popular support for decent health care.

Please see my message to you, along with the stories and photos of other Americans from your district and across the nation, at http://my.barackobama.com/HereFor
or, read my vitriolic blog at http://cyclopsvuethinks.blogspot.com/

Thank you.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N ( No. 08-205 )

This case, in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that corporations share the same rights as citizens, is such a monumental boondoggle of judicial activism on the part of the Court's morally and ethically corrupt conservative majority that I thought Justice Stevens' passionate dissent deserved additional airing. For its brazen disregard of legal precedents to achieve a desired outcome, this decision is only matched for its depraved indifference to morality by one other infamous case: "GEORGE W. BUSH, et al., PETITIONERS v.ALBERT GORE, Jr., et al." -- the case in which George W. Bush stole the 2000 election from Al Gore with the help of the eagerly compliant and easily corrupted conservative Supremes.

You can read Justice Stevens' entire dissent here:
Opinion of STEVENS, J. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, No. 08–205, CITIZENS UNITED, APPELLANT v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION

(Click "more..." [below] to read a bit of Justice Stevens' dissent...)

JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG,
JUSTICE BREYER, and JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR join, concurring
in part and dissenting in part.
The real issue in this case concerns how, not if, the
appellant may finance its electioneering. Citizens United
is a wealthy nonprofit corporation that runs a political
action committee (PAC) with millions of dollars in assets.
Under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002
(BCRA), it could have used those assets to televise and
promote Hillary: The Movie wherever and whenever it
wanted to. It also could have spent unrestricted sums to
broadcast Hillary at any time other than the 30 days
before the last primary election. Neither Citizens United’s
nor any other corporation’s speech has been “banned,”
ante, at 1. All that the parties dispute is whether Citizens
United had a right to use the funds in its general treasury
to pay for broadcasts during the 30-day period. The notion
that the First Amendment dictates an affirmative answer
to that question is, in my judgment, profoundly misguided.
Even more misguided is the notion that the Court must
rewrite the law relating to campaign expenditures by forprofit
corporations and unions to decide this case.
The basic premise underlying the Court’s ruling is its
iteration, and constant reiteration, of the proposition that
the First Amendment bars regulatory distinctions based
on a speaker’s identity, including its “identity” as a corporation.
While that glittering generality has rhetorical
appeal, it is not a correct statement of the law. Nor does it
tell us when a corporation may engage in electioneering
that some of its shareholders oppose. It does not even
resolve the specific question whether Citizens United may
be required to finance some of its messages with the
money in its PAC. The conceit that corporations must be
treated identically to natural persons in the political
sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify
the Court’s disposition of this case.
In the context of election to public office, the distinction
between corporate and human speakers is significant.
Although they make enormous contributions to our society,
corporations are not actually members of it. They
cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed
and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may
conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of
eligible voters. The financial resources, legal structure,
and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate
concerns about their role in the electoral process.
Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if
not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to
guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate
spending in local and national races.
The majority’s approach to corporate electioneering
marks a dramatic break from our past. Congress has
placed special limitations on campaign spending by corporations
ever since the passage of the Tillman Act in 1907,
ch. 420, 34 Stat. 864. We have unanimously concluded
that this “reflects a permissible assessment of the dangers
posed by those entities to the electoral process,” FEC v.
National Right to Work Comm., 459 U. S. 197, 209 (1982)
(NRWC), and have accepted the “legislative judgment that
the special characteristics of the corporate structure require
particularly careful regulation,” id., at 209–210. The
Court today rejects a century of history when it treats the
distinction between corporate and individual campaign
spending as an invidious novelty born of Austin v. Michigan
Chamber of Commerce, 494 U. S. 652 (1990). Relying
largely on individual dissenting opinions, the majority
blazes through our precedents, overruling or disavowing a
body of case law including FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life,
Inc., 551 U. S. 449 (2007) (WRTL), McConnell v. FEC, 540
U. S. 93 (2003), FEC v. Beaumont, 539 U. S. 146 (2003),
FEC v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Inc., 479 U. S. 238
(1986) (MCFL), NRWC, 459 U. S. 197, and California
Medical Assn. v. FEC, 453 U. S. 182 (1981).
In his landmark concurrence in Ashwander v. TVA, 297
U. S. 288, 346 (1936), Justice Brandeis stressed the importance
of adhering to rules the Court has “developed . . . for
its own governance” when deciding constitutional questions.
Because departures from those rules always enhance
the risk of error, I shall review the background of
this case in some detail before explaining why the Court’s
analysis rests on a faulty understanding of Austin and
McConnell and of our campaign finance jurisprudence
more generally .1 I regret the length of what follows, but
the importance and novelty of the Court’s opinion require
a full response. Although I concur in the Court’s decision
to sustain BCRA’s disclosure provisions and join Part IV
of its opinion, I emphatically dissent from its principal
holding.

Now, you should read the whole thing, if for no other reason than to reaffirm your conviction that someone out there still gives a shit about trivial things like the integrity of the Constitution, and the institutions it establishes, not to mention simple morality and ethics, of which the Supreme Court's conservative majority are acutely devoid. more...

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Ruination of the Everglades...

 ... and other bright Republican Business Opportunities

 This story appeared in the New York Times, last week:
Deal to Save Everglades May Help Sugar Firm


And when I found out what a great job Governor Crist is doing on behalf of United States Sugar, I had to sit right down and write the good governor a letter:
Dear Governor Crist,

I want to thank you for your proud defense of the Everglades. Your courage is exemplary and typical of your party's indefatigable leadership. As steadfast, Republican, free-market acolytes so often do, you funnel public money into private hands with aplomb -- the filling of the United States Sugar, and Gunster Law coffers is no exception. I'm sure you are proud of this notable accomplishment, and I'm sure your family is, too. On down through the generations, your descendants can look back, and fondly reflect upon your selfless sacrifice, which turned that once useless, unprofitable, wasteland of drinking-water and wildlife into vast tracts of pollution riddled, over-sized monuments of McMansion indulgence.

Keep up the good work, Governor. We're all going places with you out in front.
 And then I couldn't resist posting a comment on the article, too:
Classic Republican behavior when public money is put at their disposal: socialized medicine for self-inflicted corporate injury. There are absolutely no limits to the volumes of taxpayer money Republicans are willing to funnel into the grossly negligent and blissfully incompetent hands of Republican businessmen who find themselves utterly incapable of running any manner of business, small or large, without public, socialized financial subsidy to rescue them from their own brilliant investment decisions. The solitude of jail is too good for Bush, Crist, Mieux, Buker, et al, but public humiliation -- if they are capable of feeling shame -- might be a good start. Thanks for an informative, but depressing story, Messrs. Van Natta & Cave.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

A Consumer Bill Gives Exemption on Payday Loans

 So, there's this Senator from Tennessee named Corker, whose buddy, W. Allan Jones, starts up a "payday" loan company in 1993, cleverly named "Checks Into Cash," that cleverly robs thousands who live paycheck-to-paycheck of their inadequate paychecks. The good senator stands up to the injustice of regulation and protects his buddy's business from unfair, socialist legislation that would limit a lender's options for robbing these hard-working wage earners of their hard-earned wages (pity W. Allan Jones and his "Payday" colleagues -- cue the violins).

Read an article that outlines Senator Corker's efforts, and eagerness to accept campaign contributions from this hard hit benevolent industry:  A Consumer Bill Gives Exemption on Payday Loans

Of course, here's my irascible comment:
So, if you can't pay back the loan whose 400% interest just consumed your last three paychecks, and a guy with a crowbar shows up at your door and breaks your kneecaps, and you can't afford health insurance, so you die a slow, painful death of gangrene, and your wife and kids end up on the street because they can't make the rent, and a pimp comes along and drags your daughter off to prostitute her, and your son knocks over a liquor store to come up with rent money to put a roof over your now alcoholic wife's head, but instead goes to jail, so now your wife ends up in the mental ward of a city hospital, and your daughter turns up dead of a heroine overdose...it's all good, right? It's just free-market capitalism, in which government has no business intervening, and these four people are just low-rent-losers who deserve their Dickensian fate, and this could never happen to the family of a clever guy like Senator Corker, right?
 Bravo, Senators.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Mayor of Taiji, Japan: In Order to Respect Culture, One Must Condone Brutal Slaughter

        Fishermen in Taiji hunt both dolphins and small whales (source: BBC, AP)

In a BBC article entitled, "Oscar win for film of dolphin hunt in Japan's Taiji" the mayor spoke out in defense of his town's traditional brutality.

In response to "The Cove" winning Best-Documentary at the 2010 Academy Awards, the mayor of Taiji, Japan, home of the aforementioned cove and its morally deficient fishermen (sorry, I usually give fishers and farmers the benefit of the doubt -- not this time), suggested "that the hunt was legal in Japan and called for respect for the traditions of different cultures."

Yeah, right. And genocide in Rawanda should be met with respect for that culture's traditional hacking off of the limbs of tribal enemies, be they women, children, innocent men, what have you.

Sometimes you just have to recognize that your traditions are morally indefensible, change them, and move on.

Cheers for "The Cove."

Republican Business -- Ever Corrupt

Republican wizards of finance have found yet another means to defraud taxpayers and enrich themselves, whilst turning our natural landscape into an uninhabitable, open-sewer. Once again our nation's chief proponents of the free market, Republican politicians and business executives, extend their snouts into the public trough, as they run yet another business into the ground and bury it with debt. This time it's United States Sugar, in Florida. Here's the story:  Deal to Save Everglades May Help Sugar Firm.

And here's my comment:

Classic Republican behavior when public money is put at their disposal: socialized medicine for self-inflicted corporate injury. There are absolutely no limits to the volumes of taxpayer money Republicans are willing to funnel into the grossly negligent and blissfully incompetent hands of Republican businessmen who find themselves utterly incapable of running any manner of business, small or large, without public, socialized financial subsidy to rescue them from their own brilliant investment decisions. The solitude of jail is too good for Bush, Crist, Mieux, Buker, et al, but public humiliation -- if they are capable of feeling shame -- might be a good start.

Thanks for an informative, but depressing story, Messrs. Van Natta & Cave.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Financial Industry Executives Not Feeling the President's Love

My comments on a NY Times article, "Irked, Wall St. Hedges Its Bet on Democrats":

"Republicans are rushing to capitalize on what they call Wall Street’s 'buyer’s remorse' with the Democrats. And industry executives and lobbyists are warning Democrats that if Mr. Obama keeps attacking Wall Street 'fat cats,' they may fight back by withholding their cash."

Of course Republicans are capitalizing on industry executives remorse. That's what they do best: run the economy into the ground -- this time by irresponsibly borrowing money to offset the cost of deficit inducing tax cuts, wars, and Medicare inflation (Part D) -- then blame Democrats for the debt. The banking crisis, too, was induced by Republican recklessness -- it was they who lobbied hard for the rollback of Glass-Steagall, and one of their own who brought us unregulated derivatives via a dead of the night, two days before Christmas amendment to an appropriations bill that had nothing to with derivative regulation (right upstanding, that was, Sen. Gramm.).

Now, after financial industry executives, in collusion with a corrupt Republican party, bring the country to it's knees, they have the unmitigated gall to complain they are not receiving due deference from the President? I think withholding their contributions to the President and funneling them to Republicans might be the best thing they could do to reelect this President. Make sure those contributions are plucked from taxpayer bailout money, too. Thanks, again, oh captains of industry. Wow.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Trade War vs. Culture War

A comment on Senator Fritz Hollings article in the Huffington Post, "Can we sustain?":

Bravo, Senator Hollings. I wish the President would impose that 10% tariff as Nixon did.

But with a feckless and cowardly Democratic Congress failing every time to get his back, I think there's little chance the President will succeed with any intelligent measures to combat the relentless offshoring of our prosperity and economic future. Too many greed-motivated bankers, and their Republican toadies, stand to benefit from it. Ever since President Reagan ran up record deficits and began the sell off of manufacturing jobs, we've been on this path toward impoverishment of the middle class, and concentration of wealth.

And still Republicans manage to align voters in their favor with division and distraction, while picking the pockets of wage earners and handing the ill-gotten gains over to the capitalized rich (as tax cuts). Middle class and poor Republican voters are being done to, but good, and Democrats still can't figure out how to tell that story. Trade wars just can't compete with culture wars in the minds of an intellectually lazy and ill-informed electorate.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Republicans and the Deficit Reduction Tragedy

     Since President Reagan's days, Republicans have capitalized on the disasters they've created, and our national debt disaster will be no different. Reagan laid the groundwork for our collective bankruptcy with his "starve the beast" tax cuts, and leveraged-buyout, manufacturing job off-shoring, pro-sweatshop, tariff cutting, import-everything, union-breaking, pseudo-free-trade initiatives. Through these means, Reagan managed to blithely foster the sell off of our proud, thriving industrial base that was built with the blood, sweat, and tears of union labor. These venal initiative enriched bankers a hundred times over, but shattered unions, wage-growth, and future prospects for the middle-class. This was trickle down economics.
     Now, Republicans will trot out the same old, tired war horses: more tax cuts for the capitalized rich, and more off-shoring of the anemic remains of our manufacturing infrastructure (private equity funds, anyone?), while singing the praises of a free-market economy that never existed, and the virtues of free-trade that depends on the silent complicity of overseas, penny-a-day, wage-slaves working amidst environmental degradation that recklessly afflicts the entire planet with deadly toxins.
     As long as Republican campaign contributors can make a quick buck in the sell out of our hard won middle-class avenues of prosperity -- manufacturing jobs and fair home mortgages; and as long as bought and paid for Republican politicians can secure the promise of bonus-padded sinecures when they bail out of politics, it's all good to them. They'll be safe in their gated communities, right?

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Another letter...

...this time to my good senators:

I urge you to support, even strengthen, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.

If we hope for future prosperity even remotely resembling what most Americans have come to expect, then we need a progressive and aggressive energy policy. Despite prevailing mythology, a policy that embraces renewable energy and rejects fossil fuel need not be expensive or untimely. The technology exists now to transition smoothly -- via the creation of myriad jobs implementing the transition -- from a dirty, archaic, inefficient carbon-based economy to a clean, modern, efficient renewable-based economy. It's easy, effective, and profitable. The only thing that stands in the way are intransigent corporate interests.

Please find the courage to lead this nation into the future. Thanks!

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Bread & Circus



First thing I see while sipping my home made 20cent cappuccino this morning? This: "Banks Prepare for Bigger Bonuses, and Public’s Wrath." Well, well. Prepared for wrath, are they? Their car service bundles them to and from the office in Hummers, now, so they can run down any protesting riffraff? They've converted unused bedroom number four in their Park Avenue triplex into a food pantry stocked with beluga caviar, triple-creme brie, english biscuits, and Moet et Chandon.

Nobody earns $600,000 dollars a year (average Goldman-Sachs payout), much less $68 million. They steal it. There's no other explanation. It's just a question of not getting caught. Yet. These folks are a state sanctioned mob, a government sponsored Cosa Nostra, and one day the riffraff will wise up just like they did in France back in 1789.

Picture a very talented carpenter who does quite well -- he earns $60,000. How is it conceivable that the average trader at Goldman works ten times as hard -- much less more than 1000 times as hard like Mr. Blankfein does -- without ever creating anything tangible?

“There is nothing I’ve seen that gives me the slightest feeling that these people have learned anything from the crisis,” Mr. Reed said. “They just don’t get it. They are off in a different world.”
And that's from a from Mr. Reed, a founder of Citigroup.

These folks pick our pockets, leaving our country a battered, impoverished wasteland. One day we'll figure out (remember?) that to create real wealth, you have to create something real, or directly facilitate the creation of something real, and then export it (see industrial revolution, China, India, S. Korea, or -- feeling optimistic -- renewable energy technology). For now, it's bread and circus.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Leave the fish in the sea...


(source: NY Times)            
I don't know about you, but I think these majestic animals are a lot more majestic when they're swimming around the ocean, even if I can't see 'em. A dead tuna is just an insult -- to the fish, to our self-respect, to all the delusions of dignity we entertain.  Tuna are evolutionary wonders: they are warm-blooded (rare for fish), and that warmth makes them fast -- up to 70kph (43mph). And they get big: a fish was sold on January 04, 2010 that weighed 232 kilos (513 lbs.) for $177,000 (Giant Tuna Fetches $177, 000 at Japanese Auction). What a waste of money and fish. These astonishing creatures are headed for extinction, or at least a severe crash, which will make them curiosities that our descendants will see in pictures. Our sorry offspring will marvel at the ephemeral image on their screen, while they try in vain to visualize these proud fish swiftly roaming the planet. Sorry, kids, we at 'em.

Can we not show a little humility and self-restraint? No one has the "right" to destroy a species, and anyone who fishes them or eats them is culpable. Would it kill us to eat more prolific species that are lower on the food chain (and less riddled with heavy metals)? No. Will we? Probably not. It's a classic "tragedy of the commons," and tragedies never end well, do they?

Happy New Year.