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.

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.

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.

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...

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.