Climate Change: Now Biggest Threat

     According to Elliott Negin Climate Change is the biggest threat to our economy and American way of life. I don't know that I am convinced but the real problem is that he is at Huffpost and not some paper like the Wall Street Journal so he is reaching the wrong audience. Very few deniers at Huffpost and most of them are the message board attack dogs. The real problem is there is no political dialog anymore on this subject. Threat and denial is now the conversation here in America.

 Brian

Missing Half the Solution

      I was reading Charles Murphy's The Great American Divide and I was struck by how he doesn't believe that those in the lower classes can do anything about the problem. Seems to me he is as guilty of being elitist as those he says caused the problems. Maybe he assumes that only upper middle class and rich people read the Wall Street Journal, but it seems to me that part of the problem is that this divide is caused by a lack of communication between the sides and if you propose a solution that only takes in one side then it can't be properly executed as you only are mobilizing one side. Without cooperation nothing but anger can happen. Just my take on things but at least he admits there is a problem.

Brian

SOPA Round 2

      Three more articles on SOPA and PIPA that I found later in the day as RCP finally caught up with the rest of the web. The print media never did and only Countdown with Keith Olbermann did in the visual media. The rest assume we are all to distracted by the other things we do on the web to notice. So for a real breakdown of what these bills are SOPA vs.  PIPA: Anti-Piracy bills, uproar explained is the best breakdown on what the bills do that I have seen. ZDNet with a list of who went black, and Brad Feldman with both an informed and heartfelt take on why he opposes these bills. I once asked a cop if I was in California or Russia and found out that they aren't a lot different, with the passage of these bills the question of whether we are in The United States or China will become a moot point.

Brian

SOPA Blackouts and Lost Freedoms

      The need for Blackouts to protest SOPA is a sad day for anyone who spends more than an hour a day on the internet. For more on SOPA protest see these articles - SOPA Blackout Seeks to Stop Internet Censorship Bill, The Truth About SOPA, Why We Go Black. My friends a Brutish & Short also went black in protest and I just want to take time to say that SOPA is just a logical extension of the rights we have been stripped of since 9/11. To get a better idea of those missing rights see 10 Reasons The U.S. is No Longer the Land of the Free, but suffice it so say that if the government wants to silence you they now have the power to do so in no uncertain terms. Your freedom is dependent upon you staying under the radar. As I like to say, Welcome to the Police State.

Brian

The Prognosticators Strike

      Americans are all about making predictions and I am a sucker for it also. So I found Karl Rove's predictions and a pretty cool rebuttal to his predictions.
      I personally think they are both a little wrong and will make a small prediction of my own with two qualifiers. If unemployment goes down in the last three months before the November election and is below 8.0%, Obama will win re-election with the house ending up very closely contested and the Republican majority being reduced to less than 5. The Senate will go Republican but only by one or two. Yes Obama will have some coattails but not enough to push Democrats over the top.

Brian

SOPA Hearings Bad News for Internet Users

        The best look at the SOPA hearings so far comes from humorist Alexandra Petri in her The Nightmarish SOPA Hearings as she describes all the horrors of letting old men who rarely use let alone have any idea how it works legislate for an industry they don't really understand. Also chipping in with a good look at SOPA is SOPA Hearing Cast Debate as Old Media Against New Media which gets most of the facts you need to know to you in a business like way. Also provides a link to one of the best songs ever



All in all it is a scary idea that the old men in our congress are being convinced that something needs to be done about this when the First Amendment is more than enough to cover this area.

Brian

Climate Change Exponent

      Not as much an ugly opinion as an ugly truth, Shock as Retreat of Arctic Sea Ice Releases Deadly Greenhouse Gas. Methane is what is being released and it works as a multiplier when it comes to increasing the temperature. So things could go bad a lot quicker than people think. Oops.


Brian

President's Speech

    The President's Speech itself was excellent and inspiring as we have come to expect from this President. The commentary about it was pretty much somewhere between partisan hamfisted praise ( EJ Dionne's Obama's New Square Deal) , moderate whining ( President Obama's Roosevelt Speech ) and conservative insistence that he still only wants to make the government bigger and more intrusive ( Obama's Rx: Bad News for Middle Class ). this cartoon was better commentary than anything else.

GOP's War on Labor Unions

     The real title should be The GOP's War on Labor Unions continues as this has been an on going battle since the 70's. What happened was Reagan convinced the Party of Lincoln to abandon the principles of Lincoln and instead embrace the land owners. Once the land owners were back in charge they got together with the factory owners and decided they didn't need no stinking laws saying they had to be fair and convinced the under educated that if the land owners and factory owners got richer it would trickle down to the masses. They then set the rules up so that it would be better to keep the money instead of trickling it down. Trickle down only works when capital gains taxes are high so that it is cheaper to reinvest than to keep the money. Oops they forgot to tell us about that. That is how we got here in a nutshell.

Brian

First Amendment Hijacked by Moneyed Interest

       This is the types of signs that have been removed from public discourse with the removal of the occupy protesters around the country. In First Amendment Hijacked by Moneyed Interest Reich looks at the speech part of the problem but it also indicates that out police work for those same moneyed interest.  He could have and probably should have said more on this subject as police intimidation can leave people home instead of on the streets protesting where they need to be.

Brian

Dangerous Bill Would Threaten Legitimate Websites

    I am sitting here in debate at whether this is bad, ugly or just both. Dangerous Bill Would Threaten Legitimate Websites is the title and it really does seem from the article that it would be unneeded and unnecessary legislation. (The current congress doesn't really pass anything but the way these things work by time it got somewhere there would be another do anything congress in). Worse it could pass the house now and the senate after 2012 after that body went Republican. More research needed of course but this would be a very bad bill as described.

Brian

Are We Reaching " Limits to Growth"

    Are We Reaching " Limits to Growth" is more of a scientific paper than an opinion piece so be sure that the radical right would attack it if they new about it. What it does is say that even without climate change things are going to get bad because we don't have enough stuff to support everyone who wants to live like us. Oops, sorry what we are doing is unsustainable so everyone is going to suffer. The only question is when and is the financial disaster actually the precursor that announces we have reached that point. The author is an actuary, who is someone who crunches numbers to let the insurance companies know how much to charge for what they are selling and still make a profit.

Brian

Welcome to the Police State

     Saw a conclusion in the Washington Post editorial on the clearing of Zuchcotti Park which stated " This morning’s action may not be what a police state looks like, but it’s certainly how one begins." and I was thinking I've known we live in a police state ever since I asked a cop whether I was in California or Russia and ended spending two nights in jail and paying a lawyer 500.00 dollars to get my sentence reduced to 6 months summary probation. My lawyer said I got off easy. After all, it is a benevolent police state. All the same, when the powers that be get annoyed enough the lash will come out. The free media may complain, but with politicians being owned by the corporations and the Patriot Act still in force, there is no doubt that anytime they want to put protesters in jail, they can. It seems to me that Wall Street just got tired of the people picking on them and decided to show them what type of state we really live in. Welcome to the realization. This is a police state, just well hidden.

Brian

Capitalism Vs The Climate

     Reading Capitalism Vs The Climate my first thought was is it really that bad? Followed by that sure is a lot of people having their life blown up. Being an expert at blowing up my life all on my own, having the world blow your life up has to be even worse. No wonder climate denial has gotten to be such a touchy and popular subject. This is full blown fear that everything you know and believe is wrong. That can cause some fight back. We will see if nature or common sense pounds them in the dirt first, but my guess is that nothing short of nature will do the job.

Brian

Pearls Before Breakfast

      Pearls Before Breakfast is a fascinating study of American Society in a nutshell and leaves me a little stunned, as I am just as guilty as these folks of being so focused on me, and getting where I am going on time, that I probably would have walked on by too. At most I would have dropped all the change in my pocket, or if no change a dollar in his case. I am left with questions? Why is it so important to get to your job on time? Is this why we seem arrogant to other countries because we are so sure what we are doing is too important to interrupt? Or are we scared little kids too worried about losing our job to think about anything that might distract us?
     By the way our mind is so wonderful at removing or lessening distractions that as write this I am also listening to the performance, and have singled out the violin from the distractions well enough to not really miss many notes at all. Aren't our minds a wonderful thing.

Brian

Excessive CEO Pay and Job Losses: Are They Linked?

     While reading Excessive CEO Pay and Job Losses: Are They Linked? all I could think was what took them so long? Of course they are linked. If the CEO is making more, and the shareholders are making more, than where is the extra going to come from? From the consumer, workers and out of the quality of what is being made. This is just common sense. About time someone started calling them out on it.

Brian

Two New Polls Show Why 2012 Will Be an Ugly Election

     Two New Polls Show Why 2012 Will be an Ugly Election is a pretty good analysis of what is an ugly trend in the electorate. It seems people are not able to understand how much government has become a part of their lives and because politics has become so monetized do not trust it. the good news is they don't trust either party and really at this point don't know who they really blame. I guess we really won't find out until next year but this really is kind of the worst of times for those who are part of the government.

Brian

How The Patriot Act Stripped Me of My First Amendment Rights

    How the Patriot Act Stripped Me of My first Amendment Rights is a straightforward first hand experience of the effects of fear legislation on your rights as an American citizen. Still in effect and making you no safer.

Brian

GOP Debate Boycott, Centers on Univision, Rubio

      This is so ugly I almost don't know where to begin. In GOP Debate Boycott, Centers on Univison, Rubio the author so misses the amount of corruption going on here that it makes the piece seem like a satire set up for Saturday Night Live. This starts with an almost unheard of anymore but straightforward piece on Rubio's relatives connections with crime figures. From there it just gets tawdrier and tawdrier. When does the corruption in the Republican party stop?

Brian

New Commerce Secretary

     We have a new Secretary of Commerce. In America Has a Commerce Secretary Again we see how much harder Obama has it at home than he does in the previous article on foreign policy. Five months to nominate a Commerce Secretary who doesn't have anything political to do until 2019. Huh? What about the judges needed to rule on the the lawsuits being brought up. They are taking much longer to confirm than five months. Oops! This is embarrassing that the senate is ignoring it's responsibilities to our country so badly.

Brian