Excerpt from an email.
So I wrote this to a friend and figured I'd blog it, spelling errors and all.
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That was also my luck that i went back in the days (Clinton years- Rubinomics... Treasury Secretary Rubin who wasn't an idiot like the clowns now) when the US dollar was still a good currency. I think that is what is so upsetting too, to know that I need a dollar fifty to buy ONE euro whereas it used to cost me only like 95 cents! I mean damn! Heck when I was in London it was still only dollar sixty for a Pound not two dollars. It's like we can go, but it would cost us soo much money for basic things. On the other hand the exchange should be attracting more Europeans to come here and spend their currency, help boost our reserves, but NO they have to be annoyed with us by the way we've behaved so they don't want to come and visit as much and spend money like they used to do. Obama was on Face the Nation and he was defending his Popularity in Europe (because in America a candidate has to defend himself when he is popular in other countries) and his defense was that he didn't get Applause when he criticized European "anti-Americanism". I mean jee whiz, he didn't get applause when he told Europeans that they were wrong to be critical of US government behavior... hmm... fascinating. Cheney and others basically denounced France and Germany when they didn't just toe our line and yet Obama is supposed to denounce Europeans for their "anti-Americanism". Also how he expects that they need to "step up" and help us in Iraq. This is especially funny given that none other than Colin Powell once said "you break it you own it" as in we messed up Iraq so we should own it, but Obama expects that Americans will appreciate how he DEMANDED that Europeans help us out of our mess.
I think what I hate most about this country is that we are most ignorant, self-involved people on Earth. I mean not a single politician could stand up and hope to win a national election by telling us the truth, YET we rip on "indulgent" parents who don't criticize their children or discipline them. UM, so parents are supposed to be harsh disciplinarians, smacking down their kids when they act up, but America is perfect and we are not allowed to ever point the stupid things we do or smack down out country when it does things wrong. It is amazing. Of course even funnier is the people who scream the loudest about how those who criticize the United States "don't love their country" are the same ones that profess that true love for children is "tough love." Hypocritical a-holes.....
Alright sorry a rant. It shows by Obama is a strong candidate. he knows how to kiss the ass of ignorati (as I call the more ignorant, xenophobic, jingoistic- and often proclaiming "Christian"- among us), and not dare to tell us the truth. Of course this he share with McCain who tells us in his commercials how "dangerous" everything is and how he will protect us. This country will never get better until we reward honest candidates. Funny that we denounce politicians as liars, and yet we don't like to hear the truth and denounce them for that too. Truth-tellers don't get elected. Our country is just broken and I despair of being able to fix it. Maybe i should just move to Europe. It's not that they are perfect, by any means, but they at least take to the streets and get their government's out when stuff goes wrong. We don't. We just whine and then elect the next Democrat or Republican who promises to change 10% of the problem.
Labels: Obama kissing-up Europe Truth Lies pandering
Falling Gas Prices and "Sending Messages"
So gas prices fell slightly recently and John McCain said that it was because president Bush lifted the ban on off-shore oil drilling. Well, if this is true, it would be based on the perception that someday we might have oil of our own, since it would take a decade or more to actually have any oil (probably after we finished wiping out polar bears and other forms of wildlife in toxic spills and disasters).
Well, assuming for a second that McCain's logic is sound, that the OPEC people began releasing more light, sweet crude because they wanted to placate us and make us stop planning to one day drill and one day in a decade or so have some little bit MORE oil of our own, since we do produce oil, and also since major oil companies hold dozens of off-shore leases which they don't even bother using already, then we see something else. If the fear that we might no longer be dependent upon OPEC oil is making them open up the spigot can you imagine if we seriously tried to show the world that we were going to go off oil altogether, foreign and domestic? If that were the case not only would OPEC open more spigots, but ExxonMobil and other Big Oil American companies with endless record profits skinned off of our backs would also start using their existing leases to open their spigots. We might have the perfect storm where EVERYONE, not just Saudis and Venezuelans and Nigerians were trying to flood the market with enough oil to make us forget such silly things as clean, renewable power like wind, solar and biomass.
It worked in the 1980s after Reagan came into office. Jimmy Carter had challenged America to be free of oil and foreign oil by the 1990s. He was run out of town on a rail and suddenly the Saudis were pumping oil like there was no tomorrow (because there wouldn't have been for them. They'd have been strung up by their own people long ago if not for the mercenary armies and police forces they buy with our oil payments to keep the Kingdom "stable.") and prices dropped. Consequently we forgot all about Jimmy Carter's bold challenge, used him as joke fodder and hooked ourselves ever more deeply into the oil, which is now blowing up our economy as I write.
Taking McCain's logic as sound, if threatening to drill opened up foreign oil supplies than threatening to go off oil altogether should open EVERY spigot and drop prices quickly enough that we could completely forget about alternative energy until the next crisis. But oh yeah, that is the problem. McCain's logic is not sound. He is a crank, old fool speaking to audiences of people who, like him, don't know how to use computers or the internet or understand the economics of monopoly which allow these oil companies to squeeze every last dime out of us as our homes are foreclosed. Some basic economic theory could straighten this all out, but well economics pretends it's a science and like the real sciences, Americans are woefully ignorant of its rules, precepts and theories.
Labels: McCain energy oil science drilling alternative energy
The Fallacies of Messianic Presidencies.
I read a Maureen Dowd column lamenting how difficult it is to mock Barack Obama when a thought occured to me. She'd mentioned how many of his followers view him so seriously. as a messiah of sorts who will save our country and our economy, that they don't like jokes about him.
Ironically, or perhaps not, this brought me back to President George W Bush's second inaugural day. It was raining, as if the heavens were crying for the death and destruction which four more years of this sociopath and wrecker of nations was to bring. Well I don't even recall which of the big networks I was watching, but the reporter interviewed this older woman with a country accent about her feelings being at the Inauguration. As she visibly choked up and began crying she explained how blessed she was to be watching this man whom God had given the presidency to, and how blessed he was by God and all this other stuff linking God to Bush and God to her. Well two thoughts occur to me. Given all the blood on President Bush's hands, not mention floodwaters, do these Christians who believed him to be a God-inspired man still believe this even though his own people denounced them as "crazies"? We were carried into eight years of the most destructive and harmful presidency in US history (not for us since only about 10,000 Americans have died in terror attacks, flood, and wars of lies,- far fewer than died under Lincoln- but for the millions of Iraqis whose lives have been destroyed
and the economic destruction which will bring our country low and which is reverberating into the developing world in terms of famine and epidemics aided and abetted by American economic "choices."), by people who believed that this man was "God's servant" doing "God's work" and all sorts of other things I have heard.
Well another thought occurs to me. What if President Bush WAS put here by God? That disturbing idea suggests that God DOESN'T bless America anymore as our politicians love to say as people lose their lives and livelihoods at the feet of failed economic ideology and failed imperialistic schemes. If Bush was put here by God to help speed up global warming by denying it and drilling more oil, to destroy our military in an Iraqi quagmire, to allow our largest Southern port to be completely wiped out in floods, for the Plains to be wiped by tornadoes, floods and storms on a fairly continuous basis etc, then that means that God does not like us. If God picked President Bush, then God clearly does not like Americans or the United States. He clearly believes that our nation should be weakened and humbled. Considering that others of the Republican (religious) party have suggested that the United States is "the last, greatest hope of humankind."-Mitt Romney or "the greatest nation in the history of humanity, humankind"- Romney again- then it is a humbling that is long overdue. The hyperbolic statements of American politicians display an arrogance which is unparalleled in the world, and in light of our growing irrelevance as a power is also comical and farcical.
The people who believe God sent us George W Bush are often the same people who believe in a punishing and wrathful God. If they are correct then their beliefs are consistent. We were too big, too morally sanctimonious and so God punished us with George W Bush. (God also seems to be punishing Iraq and Afghanistan but that is another blog post.) God wants to teach us humility so that we can once again reside in a land of "milk and honey." Unfortunately, since the Republican party is the party of religion and "individualism" (i.e. I was born rich, and daddy's friends gave me jobs, so somehow I "earned" it) this means that the current crop of deluded Republican businessmen are not the ones to lead us in humility since they are men of overweaning pride and arrogance. Mike Huckabee was the minister who might have displayed the humility God demands, but as we see, the religious portion of the party does not control it, so I am not optimistic the John McCain would help save us from God's wrath- assuming of course that the religious "God gave us Bush" Republicans are correct. Since McCain himself believes that he is such an awesome guy (see his campaign ads that talk about how "maverick" he is rather than explaining what he might actually do as president), he clearly has not learned any lessons in humility, but from one of the bottom achievers in his Naval Academy class who somehow (read: his important Admiral Daddy) ended up a Navy flier (one of the elites) and has no problem talking about how he earned everything (including his second millionaire heiress wife after ditching his first when she got too old for him) he is not the picture of Christian humility at all.
As for Obama. He is not a terrible guy, but the messianic urges driving people behind him should worry us. If this goes to his head, we might end up with the Democratic version of George W Bush, an insane, power-mad goof. At least Obama is smarter than Bush and actually did earn what he has (though of course with help from his friends as he will actually admit), but messiahs can be disappointing or at least I assume since no one talks about Bush's "Religious Base" much anymore, nor do they talk TO them either. Obama is definitely going to be better than McCain, but the logic of American politics means that he won't change as much as those "worshipping" him seem to think he will change. US politicians need a does of reality and a dose of humility and those politicians who preach this don't get anywhere. However, hyperbolic statements about the "greatest nation in the history of humankind" seem to resonate with Americans desperate to cling to something more tightly than their "Guns, God and Fear of Outsiders."
Labels: messiahs Obama Bush voters Romny arrogance humbling
Energy with Obama and McCain.
So it seems that both McCain and Obama have "energy plans." Well McCain's plan is basically let's do what we've already done despite the fact that I know global warming is going to kill us and my plan will just produce more global warming for years before I reduce it, possibly pushing us way beyond the tipping point. Of course he wants to drill for more oil, you know W style.... give oil companies who've been strangling our economy while reaping record profits even more of the same.
This is so stupid I can't even believe people are listening to him. Multiple people have repeated the claim which if true is even more damning that oil companies have only used 18% of their off-shore licenses already. If this is true, which it might be since I've heard from several reputable organizations, than McCain is in full pander mode, just utterly bending over for the companies who have caused these problems through their suppression of alternative energy research. (What I mean is that it is an open secret that oil companies buy up patents for technology which might challenge oil's dominance) It is a shame that McCain is pandering, but not unexpected given the way he's sucked up to all kinds of people from his own party who've smeared him over the years, particularly George W Bush who won South Carolina by starting the rumor through a "push poll" that McCain fathered "an illegitimate Black child." Of course given that Strom Thurmond did too and the good people of South Carolina kept sending him back to Congress suggests that this shouldn't have worked, but it did and President Bush got to steal the election from Gore in the fall rather than having a campaign about McCain and Gore. This probably could have not only saved McCain's soul but our nation's.
McCain has gone crazy the last eight years as his party has slimed and rejected him. He is like the son of an abusive father who aspires to be just like him despite being punched, knocked down and rejected by the same father. You feel bad for him, but don't want to have a lot to do with him. Given that the current president Bush already has used his father issues to warp this country the last thing we need is another damaged dysfunctional Republican in the White House. This brings us to Obama, raised by a single mom, who likely has his own father rejection issues, but who thus far seems to have put them behind him and used them as a source of strength not weakness and irrationality. His energy plan is the typical Democratic stuff. "Alternative energy" but don't be too rough and honest because we remember what happened to Jimmy Carter for telling it like it is to us. The sad truth of American politics is that you can't challenge the American people or tell them hard truths or else they will reject you. President Bush told us the best reaction to 9/11 was to go shopping and we did and ignored the looming economic crisis as we spiraled downward into debt and stupidity. They want quick fixes even ones that aren't quick (like drilling for more oil which wouldn't do anything for years and just delays the inevitable extinction of oil supplies). As we know the Democrats are the weird type of panderers in that they try to please everybody especially those people who aren't going to vote for them anyway. Republicans know that liberals won't vote for them so they just slime and disregard us, but Democrats suck up to Christianists and neo-fascists as if that will somehow get them votes from these psychos. Well I guess this is American politics in general, but it is particularly egregious for Democrats to not stand up when they are the opposition party called upon to OPPOSE the dominant party's ideas. Obama talks a beautiful game, but ultimately is just slightly more liberal than Clinton and not nearly as liberal as Edwards or Kucinich or Gravel.
So this is the way I am thinking about the energy plan. Ideally, the Apollo Alliance plan would be our wholesale strategy, but since it is not, I have a new idea. We should build nuclear power plants. Ok that's not new, what is new is my idea for that plan: we should only build them in states whose representatives are stalwart supporters of the plan, such as Alabama, Idaho, Mississippi, Texas etc. Besides the fact that the people will get what they want, nuclear power plants in their own backyard, we can perhaps have some of those states like Alabama and Mississippi and Idaho which are net recipients of federal money (as in they get more money from the Feds than they pay in taxes despite being fiercely opposed to taxes), contribute to the whole country. They will have lesser power needs so they can produce surplus nuclear electricity and provide it to states like New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and California which pay more taxes than they ever get back from the Federal government and provide more economic activity for our national economic health. I would suspect that this would be a win win. Jobs at nuclear power plants would be a boon to these job poor states as well.
As for John McCain's other proposal, to suspend all gas taxes. That is another stupid pander. Our federal highway money comes from gas taxes, and without that money more bridges would collapse like in Minneapolis and the roads would end up destroying cars and trucks. I was in Louisiana when the state was being punished for keeping an 18-year-old drinking age by losing Federal Highway money. The roads were HORRIBLE, like driving in the third world. If McCain got his way (which he knows he wouldn't so this is a no risk proposal for him) we'd either go further into debt because we'd borrow the money to maintain the roads, or our roads would collapse. Since his excuse is that the trucking industry is suffering from high gas prices, I wonder what the impact would be of driving trailer trucks on crumbling roads. I suspect more blowouts leading to higher tire costs, more accidents leading to more destruction of property and life, and of course more late deliveries so a net loss to the trucking industry. Far be it for McCain (or Obama for that matter though this isn't his proposal) to tell the straight truth about this. Of course, even this depends upon the oil companies instantly lowering their prices to compensate for their cut tax costs. I suspect we'd see a gradual and thus illegal decrease in prices which would mean extra money from our pockets into oil company coffers as they slowly brought gas prices in line with costs, plus some excuses for why they couldn't just reduce the gas prices overnight as they should do if the taxes were eliminated overnight; these would be excuses which, no doubt, McCain and other Republicans would be happy to repeat to us since oil companies fund their campaigns.
We waited too long to do this, to recognize this problem of oil dependency. I mean I understand it because the mass of the American people wouldn't have spent more to begin changing things during the Clinton boom years, but that is when we could have done it. Clinton, of course, was neutered (though sadly if he'd been physically neutered than he couldn't have been politically neutered) by his stupidity and so couldn't (or wouldn't) challenge us to fix our problem back when gas prices were low and we had money, so now we are stuck with this mess. I mean sadly, there is an advantage to Bush's stupidity. By destroying Iraq he brought us to the crisis point quickly (rather than waiting until the environmental crisis) so that we are now more willing to do things to fix it, but of course that wasn't his plan.
Anyway this is disorganized, but I will say one last thing, Corn ethanol is not an answer. That is just stupid. It is summer and I saw 4 ears of white corn for $3 on sale at Acme! I mean that is insane. I used to get corn 4 for a dollar in-season, but now corn costs TRIPLE that and since Free Markets dictate growing more corn to take advantage we don't have other sorts of vegetables and what not which constitute a healthy diet. Living in a country that is the fattest on Earth this is definitely a problem. In other words, oil problem leads to FAKE ethanol solution which drives up food costs, which cuts into healthy food options which contributes to fatter citizens which contributes to more health problems which contributes to higher health costs on a system that doesn't even insure those most vulnerable to dietary problems means even higher insurance costs. So yeah high gas prices are literally going to drive up insurance premiums which will make companies less willing to provide it and will price it further out of reach of those lower income people who eat cheap unhealthy food. What a disaster!
Anyway this is enough. I know I hardly have any links or specific but I suspect a quick google search will find my evidence easily enough so if you don't believe me I challenge you to find the evidence to disprove me. It will not be that easy and I will no doubt have an answer to your challenge. I am not burdened as politicians are by having to provide simplistic stupid answers to the ignorati.
Labels: energy plans Obama McCain
Let's not forget salmonella...
I wrote the other day about our inability to feed ourselves.... well I was just reminded by NBC news this morning that tomatoes were infected with salmonella, and this falls months after spinach was infected with e. coli. So not only can't we feed ourselves properly, but our veggies are even full of bacteria and viruses so what food we do produce here is dangerous and unhealthy. Our FDA can't even figure out where the viruses originated. They aren't even sure if the salmonella (also known the virus you get from chicken and eggs) originated with tomatoes. I mean damn. We are running out of healthy and safe food. I just don't know what to do anymore.
Labels: agriculture agribusiness health sickness
More on McCain's "Leadership" Credentials
This needs to be taken with a grain of salt of course, but there are links to outside sources and information. Nonetheless there are serious questions here which need addressing.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-klein/mccains-secret-questionab_b_107409.html
Labels: McCain link
The Structural Agricultural Problem.
So I have though about this a lot and of course feel the need to finally write it down a few minutes after devouring a Plum which traveled across the country from California to me.
Our agriculture is a mess. Ethanol has of course exacerbated this problem by encouraging even more people to grow corn, but it is not the cause of it. Corn Syrup certainly is. We grow so much corn to the exclusion of so much else that we've gotten ourselves trapped. Corn Syrup sweetens our food more than basic sugar (The stupid Cuban embargo is probably part of this but not all). I once saw someone refer to soda/pop/cola whatever you call it as nothing more than Corn Juice and well it pretty much is. We grow corn to drink, corn to feed our cows and pigs, corn feed our cars. What this means is that we have little agricultural diversity. I look at other countries, those ones we condemn for providing subsidies (subsidies which we do provide to cotton, tobacco and given Ethanol and other things to corn as well) and they have a richer diversity of agricultural produce.
What do we have? California. Lucky for us, California is a large state with a huge diversity of produce, but it can't feed us all in this country. We cannot feed ourselves a healthy balanced diet just from our own production. We still have apples in New York and Washington, but I've spent the last ten years watching Orange groves in Florida be demolished to give way to the newest McMansion developments which now stand largely empty thanks to stupid housing policies and mortgage policies. A totally free market just seems to lead to a lot of waste and the "corrections" which we wait for to deliver us from corporate stupidity usually punish us, the regular people and not the corporate people who got us into this mess. So I guess free markets work great for CEOs, but not for us, but then again, the Federal budget is chock full of "programs" which are subsidies in other names which often just like corporate pockets. If subsidies are bad for markets than I would have to say, that maybe for profit (which of course goes directly to big Agribusiness concerns like Archer Daniels Midland) but for providing a rich, varied and healthy diet to the citizens of this country subsidies might be just the answer. Of course, the subsidies we provide for cotton which is useful I will admit and tobacco which ends up costing on the production side to grow it and from the ruined soil it leaves behind, to the massive health costs we have to pay for people dying from smoking the leaves of this plant. Can you imagine if all of our tobacco fields were turned over to grow veggies? We'd probably cut cancer and emphysema deaths while providing a boost in health veggie consumption which might help us slim down since we are the fattest nation on Earth because of these unhealthy consumption patterns.
So perhaps, we need to just yank the subsidies from ADM, R.J. Reynolds and other big Agricultural corporations, and redirect them to healthy diverse agriculture production. In this way we might also reduce the carbon footprint of having to transplant basic produce which we can produce everywhere but only produce in California and then truck across country. Imagine Iowans able to eat lettuce, and onions and fruit produced in their backyards rather than the infinite fields of corn. Imagine our cattle able to eat other than just corn to fatten them up. They'd be less fatty and more healthy. Well I guess this is just a pipe dream because too many Senators and House members are committed to these subsidies for their home districts/states to the detriment of a sane nationwide agricultural policy.
Labels: agriculture subsidies corn agribusiness health
