When pigs fly they shade the earth slowing global warming

From 1993 until 2003 923 scientific journal articles were published on various aspects of global warming impact, process, pace, sources, etc.  100% of them confirmed global warming is real, it is here, it's getting hotter, it's killing stuff already and we are speeding it along.  These 923 articles are all based on scientific studies and data gathered from around the globe, by scientist from dozens of nations and governments, and from dozens of scientific fields related to our problem.  All the articles are written by people educated in the subject they write of, all the articles were peer reviewed, meaning you submit the article, and months if not years go by while others try to find something wrong with it which tosses it out.  100% agreed on the general trend.  Some differ on specifics but all agree it's real, it is now. Yet the deniers claim thousands of scientist object.

The myth has grown, and a deniers speakers industry has developed pretending the 923 papers were cherry picked, that in fact there were over 11,000 scientific papers and most showed no global warming.  After much hounding the deniers promoting this relented there were 43 papers which objected.  So, the scientist looked into it.  None of these papers were written by scientist working in the field they have a degree in, in fact most were not scientist at all but economist, hired writers who did no original research, and a smattering of TV weathermen, none as in zero were in peer reviewed journals.  100% of these 43 were in advertising vehicle commercial, local, or trade magazines, "oil drillers weekly"or some such things which will publish anything submitted for free if it reads well.

Still, we hear it is a debate, the ignorant news media think so, the GOP thinks so, but there is no debate among the people doing this research and writing these papers, they are all convinced by their observations and confident in their projections.  There is no debate in the Pentagon or the CIA, both say it will cause more failed states, migrations, wars.  Amazingly, because of this years storms fires and heat, the polls show the public is inching back, a few are giving up on the myth that high school drop outs, business majors and factory owners know more about what is happening than people who have studied it for years.  Hey, when pigs fly........

Vegan diet at 10 days, improvements already

10 days ago the wife and I decided to become (nearly) vegans.  The first actual change appears to be her blood pressure.  Her numbers move around but have been most often in the high 130's over mid 90's.  After 5 days they fell and have remained almost constant at 120 over 84, excellent numbers.

I stated (nearly) vegan, we still eat a few ounces of fish twice a week, and she uses eggs in some baking, and I dribble milk in my coffee, but that's about it.  If we are invited over for a dinner we won't turn down a small serving of meat, and we will still serve meat for special occasions.  

The poor people of the world eat vegan because they have to, hundreds of millions in India and parts of Asia eat vegan due to social/religious beliefs.  Contrary to knee jerk reaction it is not a potential health risk, a vitamin B-12 supplement is the only possible additional requirement.  I think we are eating better than ever, the delicious dishes from India, Japan, Mexico, Lebanon, Israel and Italy without meats number in the hundreds and are fantastic in taste and appearance, I believe we have better tasting meals now than we ever had in the past.  In fact I am sure of it, walk into a good produce section and look at all the fruit and vegi's, we are eating all of it, everything, and lots of it, except parsnips and coconut.  Some of these are expensive, but without the meat, so far it seems our costs are the same.  And if the wife can go off some of her many meds eventually, the cost will be less with our high co-pays.

The main reason we did this was to see if we could head off her on and off trouble with ulcerated colitis and my growing awareness of my muscle tremors, the blood pressure change is the first visible result, and a wonderful surprise to my wife.  This is a great cult.  

Birthday of Anna Politkovskaya

Journalist, Russian, made famous reporting the Chechnya war, of the crimes, rapes, selling of corpses to relatives, she attacked Vladimir Putin often, the military, the police, the judicial.  For this she was arrested many times, almost every time she published she was questioned, she was beaten, poisoned but lived through it and finally shot 3 times in the chest and once in the head in her apartment building as the elevator opened.
If I had 10% of her bravery, I could be a man.

Our democracy and it's reaction to Civil Disobedience

Mr. Tim Christopher wrote this letter from prison.  If you don't know him, google, or go to bidder70.org.

If I had ever doubted the power of words, Judge Benson made their importance all too clear at my sentencing last month. When he sentenced me to two years in prison plus three years probation, he admitted my offense "wasn't too bad." The problem, Judge Benson insisted, was my "continuing trail of statements" and my lack of regret. Apparently, all he really wanted was an apology, and for that, two years in prison could have been avoided. In fact, Judge Benson said that had it not been for the political statements I made in public, I would have avoided prosecution entirely. As is generally the case with civil disobedience, it was extremely important to the government that I come before the majesty of the court with my head bowed and express regret. So important, in fact, that an apology with proper genuflection is currently fair trade for a couple years in prison. Perhaps that's why most activist cases end in a plea bargain.

Since that seems like such a good deal, some people are asking why I wasn't willing to shut my mouth and take it. But perhaps we should be asking why the government is willing to make such a deal. The most recent plea bargain they offered me was for as little as 30 days in jail. (I'm writing this on my 28th day.) So if they wanted to lock me up for two years, why would they let me walk for an apology and keeping my mouth shut for a while? On the other hand, if they wanted to sweep this under the rug, why would they cause such a stir by locking me up? Why do my words make that much of a difference?

With all criminal cases, of which 85 percent end in a plea bargain, the government has a strong incentive to avoid a trial: In addition to cutting the expense of a trial, a plea bargain helps concentrate power in the hands of government officials.

The revolutionaries who founded this country were deeply distrustful of a concentration of power, so among other precautions, they established citizen juries as the most important part of our legal system and insisted upon constitutional right to a jury trial. To avoid this inconvenience, those seeking concentrated power free from revolutionaries have minimized the role of citizens in our legal system. They have accomplished this by restricting what juries can hear, what they can decide upon, and most importantly, by avoiding jury trials all together. It is now accepted as a basic fact of our criminal justice system that a defendant who exercises his or her right to a jury trial will be punished at sentencing for doing so. Transferring power from citizens to government happens when the role of citizens gets eliminated in the process.

With civil disobedience cases, however, the government puts an extra value on an apology. By its very nature, civil disobedience is an act whose message is that the government and its laws are not the sole voice of moral authority. It is a statement that we the citizens recognize a higher moral code to which the law is no longer aligned, and we invite our fellow citizens to recognize the difference. A government truly of the people, for the people, and by the people is not threatened by citizens issuing such a challenge. But government whose authority depends on an ignorant or apathetic citizenry is threatened by every act of open civil disobedience, no matter how small. To regain that tiny piece of authority, the government either has to respond to the activist’s demands, or get the activist to back down with a public statement of regret. Otherwise, those little challenges to the moral authority of government start to add up.

Over the last couple hundred years of quelling dissent, the government has learned a few things about maintaining power. Sometimes it seems that the government has learned more from our social movement history than we as activists have. Their willingness to let a direct action off with a slap on the wrist while handing out two years for political statements comes from their understanding of the power of an individual. They know that one person, or even a small group, cannot have enough of a direct impact on our corporate giants to really alter things in our economy. They know that a single person can't have a meaningful direct impact on our political system. But our modern government is dismantling the First Amendment because they understand the very same thing our founding fathers did when they wrote it: What one person can do is to plant the seeds of love and outrage in the hearts of a movement. And if those hearts are fertile ground, those seeds of love and outrage will grow into a revolution.

Well this sounds like a good idea, tell Obama to do it.

This land is their land.

The American Dream, climb to a better station in life through education, hard work and fair play, that dream has gone missing, it needs to be on a milk carton.  Among the the industrial nations of Europe and throw in Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, the US is stuck next to Portugal now as the least likely place this dream can come true.   Also we are next to Portugal for the most disparity in wealth.  These two things are linked at the hip.  Give 95% of the money and assets to a couple million households and there is little chance the poor or middle class can move up, just staying level is a big success story now.  There are a couple of million uber-rich now who can if they wish finance a congressional or senate campaign, and do.   They own the best schools, the prime assets of this nation and the government.  This land is their land.

Anyone saying I don't vote  because it doesn't matter or there is no difference, is by setting it out voting for the GOP, lap dogs of the rich.

Some say the earth is not growing hotter,

some also said the earth was flat.

If a team of doctors said you need surgery or you will grow very ill,  would you instead listen to a business major or a factory owner who says no, just do the same stuff, the doctors don't know anything?

Words matter, and we better start using the right words.

Frank Luntz, the GOP's wordsmith has done them a hell of a job.  He would probably describe rape as an  asymmetrical pleasure experience.    He put out a letter a few years ago telling Republicans, if you can't avoid the subject, use the term "climate change", never "global warming.  It sounds harmless, no one is alarmed."  Then as soon as the term went into use, he said, "OK, now blame this new term on the environmentalist, claiming "global warming" wasn't working for them so they came up with this soft term to try to slip it past everyone.

Global Warming, that's what it is, use the correct term, people need to be alarmed.  Global fucking Warming!

Near vegan diet to stop tremors.

For a few years now we have been slowly eating less meat, and never that poison pig meat, but I have decided to go nearly vegan now.  Men in my family often get tremors in their hands starting in their 50's.  I have seen it so bad in one uncle he had difficulty keeping coffee in his cup when he lifted it, or food on his fork.  I am a young 60ish pup, and when tired, or under pressure, the hand shakes, and if I exert myself hard there is a little tremor in the arm muscle.

There are studies on this, and it's pretty clear.  Meat is the culprit.  In fact men who eat meat are 20 times as likely to develop shaking than vegetarians.  20 fold, thats worse than cigarettes, their risk multiplier for cancer is only 13 times.

It's done we are in the cult, my wife has ulcerated colitis, so she was eager to try vegan to see if it helps.

I will keep you posted if it works or not to slow my tremors or helps her intestinal trouble.  Our cholesterol numbers are good though they did jump up a bit last year, this will also be a test to see if those improve, every thing I read say they will.  Oh, I already like the clean up, it's less work to scrub pans if there was no meat in them.

Momma Cass  didn't choke on asparagus did she? 

Turning the safety net into a cage seems to be the goal.

"Prohibit contraception so women get pregnant.   Ban abortion so they carry to term, no matter the risk.  Get rid of welfare so they can't afford to keep the baby.  Eliminate foster care so there's nowhere for the child to go.  Yes, cutting "entitlement" programs is definitely the answer."

Anonymous, from a post on opinion line "Wichita Eagle".

An alternative to organ donations

Classic huh, the jolly fat cook. (OK I deleted the picture, it was gross) This guy needs to lose his car, the bacon burgers, fries, slurpes and bike to work, have an apple and celery.  If he can live a few more years they'll have his feet in a dumpster with the other dibetic amputated appendages.  I think we ought to add another choice to the list of potential after life uses for bodies.  Besides donating organs, why not rendering for energy?

If my old cow dies I call the rendering plant. They show up in a truck full of death and with a gaff to the fetlock winch bossie through the muck and up the ramp. A few hours later she's melting and ducking paddles in a swimming pool size pot of hooves hair and fat. Fat burns.

Think of the natural resources moldering in shady cemeteries from sea to shining sea, while 6' above the nation pines ignorantly for Bachman's $2 gas. Ironic isn't it, a huge source of fat and oil waddles and rocks on sore knees and swollen feet in the malls, or glides past to the hissing of oxygen tubes and rumps lopped over the sides of battery driven shopping carts on the frozen treat isles. Of course we can't have some ghoul show up to winch room temperature uncle Billy out of his lazy-boy, down the steps and aboard with the blow fly maggots, that could put the neighbors off their delivered pizza. But if we could mount a patriotic movement for the fat-soo's of America to give back to the nation when they've watched their last American Idol episode, to turn in that precious oil they harbor, to be a natural resource, wow! Iran, Venezuela, the Saudi's, screw all of you, we got fat to burn hidden away in polyester stretch pants and quad X large T-shirts everywhere we turn, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a blistered collection of stretchmarks struggling to get through their car door. Instead of funeral expense the family might make a few bucks on grease.


Render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's, but render Uncle Billy unto Southwest By-Products and Energy.

Energy that survives, is attractive, and is affordable.

The earthquake in the northeast did not stop solar panels from producing electons, it did not take any wind mills off line, it did knock at least one nuke plant out of operation, shut down automatically and must be inspected before restart, an expensive project.

Germany has installed a mind boggleing 1.8 GW of solar panels last year on homes and business roofs and parking lots.  Dispersment of small energy sources insures less impact from natural disasters.  100,000 people are working in green energy industry in Germany, and they are becoming less dependant on foriegn suppliers.  Our Congress though believes that is all bullshit.  

Persistent Cloaca

Skin rash, sleep problems, gout, depression, migraines, here's the cure

Over the years, many of those who stalk the blogs here have written about severe weight problems, rashes, headaches, sleep trouble, high cholesterol, diabetes, joint trouble, viagra dependancy and so on.  There is a cure, it is easy easy easy.  If you have Netflix, watch "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead".  A funny and educational documentary that will give you the secret to cure your ills and turn you into a hot stud or chick again. http://youtu.be/x9SGWcZwk7c

Oh yea, and I'm a fricken oil baron too, so there!

Today your going to learn just a little about owning a share of an oil well.  The first thing to understand is I don't do a god damn thing but watch the mail box for checks, I cash them, then buy wine.  That's all I do in the oil industry.  But it isn't all wine and roses, because hanging over me is the the constant fear that one day the oil will run out.  I bet you didn't know that, that oil isn't forever, it will run out, but the industry won't talk about that to the public.  Now, to compensate me for the day I no longer get a check for doing absolutely not a fucking thing, I get a 15% tax deduction on the oil money, called a "depletion allowance".  Now that may seem unfair, but if you ever get in a situation where you get something for nothing you'll understand the need of the oil industry and well owners, the fucking tension just wears on you every day.

Talking with a poor cousin a while back he objected to this and wanted to know why he couldn't get 15% off his taxes since like an oil well might poop out some day, his job might poop out, or he might poop out and couldn't work.  Well, need I point out he wears his baseball hat a little off center.  You see, he is trading his labor for money, if the company moves or lays him off, if he can't work, well it's his fault, he put the effort out, he made the choice, he tried, so he takes the hit man and the government don't owe him any anxiety tax deduction for something that ain't happened yet.  But you see, I bet your catching on now, I don't do anything for that oil check, no risk, no effort and it could yank to a stop one day, I could be without a freebe I want real bad, standing at the curb with my dick out waiting on checks that never show,  therefore I need a tax break now for the day it will stop.  See, makes sense now don't it?  The taxpayers of America decided to pay a little extra so we "oil tycoons" could get some certainty, cause god knows Obama don't give us certainty, if we had that we would invest in America, buy shares in other oil wells and do even more of nothing for it while you kick in the balance on the debt.  If you think your paying taxes for oil barons is helping America, then write your congressman and senator and ask for more of that.

(Inherited a share of a well drilled 1933, a 1/372 share of it.  Nets us $200 to $300 a year, see, I'm a tycoon.  Very few wells last this long.)

Right now the oil industry is pushing hard to crush the science about pollution and global warming and to  increase the deductions.  Another thing, Bachmann says she will get drillers busy and lower gas to $2 a gal.  Oil is traded globally, local production can not lower the price until it dilutes the world volume, and the infrastructure and equipment needed does not exist in the US, the estimate if we drilled everywhere possible as fast as we could in the US, it would be 2030 before the impact would amount to a few cents at the pump, remember oil prices are dictated by the world not bat shit crazy women.

Lightening rods on churches, a bald face lack of faith.

1) In Kansas the Christianista Gov. Brownback is sending back federal money left and right rather than spend it in his own state, the latest is for the arts.  He fired the state arts council, locked the offices which brought millions in Fed $'s to underwrite orchestra's visiting small towns, city arts projects, visiting musicians camps for kids, etc.  He named a group of rich white guys who have paintings over their fireplaces to be a non employed state appointed arts council.  No dice say art charities and umbrella groups from around the nation, this group has no accreditation, they are pulling Kansas bound exhibits, shows, music lessons and camps.  Where does this leave Kansas small towns?  The church choir is the only form of "art"  available now, perhaps the goal all along.  War on art stinks.

1.1) Sarge sent me a link to news of the oldest fossil ever found, 3.4 billion years found in Australian limestone.  They are single cell creatures that lived on sulphur in a time when the moon orbited close to earth and the tides were gigantic.   If you do the math, this may exceed the 4,000 years believed by some to have passed from when "who laid the chunk" to Pontius Pilate enabling the church leaders of Judea to squash a movement focusing on the disenfranchised and needy and opposing the business temple relationship. Like the true distance between us and our rotten egg breath ancestors awash in poison tides, there is a chasm between what the beginnings of Christianity promised and the convoluted thousand mouthed 600 club angst of the day cage fight for dollars and votes that is contemporary American religion, smells like sulfur at both ends of this timeline.

White mans moccasins and Greenpeace

Greenpeace like Ralph Nader has done a lot for consumers, though Ralph gave us Bush 43 which I will never forgive him for.  But, moving on.....

Nike, Puma, Adidas are the giants of sports wear for the foot, and sports wear has morphed into everyday wear.  But, the shit is poision in it's manufacture process, on your foot, and you soak it up yes folks your body's a sponge.  Lastly, its still poison when you pitch it in the lake.

A few months ago, Greenpeace launched an attack on all three shoe makers after they all rejected their requests to get the toxins out.  Publicity, protests, email complaints and some limited boycotts worked.  A few days ago Puma broke ranks from the shoe cartel.  This week Nike did the same, announcing it's plan to detox it's products in the coming year.  Adidas now is alone, and will have to do the same, the other two will begin to advertise their poison vapor free shoes next year.

Now if Greenpeace could just do something about the sewage spill in the GOP race.

Road tirp

OK, I'm on the road again.  Getting 38.8 mpg on the tank I have almost burned up, one before that was 35.4, so I jumped on the tire gauge and found I had a low one, fixed it and sha-zam, the camry hybrid rides again.  Had to drive all over Iowa for business, wore out my radio scan function trying to find something besides thumper anthems and preachers begging for money, this state has swung right at least on the airwaves.

BAck home by Fri night if the money holds out.

Both Bush and Obama adm, told Perry he was working with a Chinese spy

http://wonkette.com/451238/rick-perry-running-for-president-of-chinese-cyber-espionage#more-451238

He was even told not to open emails from them, so, he helped them set up a business in Texas. Texas miracle.

The death star attacks the schools

I always liked his brother-in-law best

The wifes brother started freaking us out bout 7 years ago.  He reports Jesus shows up in his bedroom every once in a while, middle of the night, to give him directions, he and his wife are champion consumers,  I don't know where Jesus could stand, the house is not so much a set of rooms as it is trails through a wilderness of the fruits of Chinese manufacturing stacked to the window tops.  Talking to him is a lesson in religio-speak, everything is blessed, abundant, and the will of someone, apparently the diety lost up stairs in his junk.

I have a friend who's got a brother-in-law that freaks him out too.  The guy thinks space ships are stalking him.  But he ain't without his own resources, he found out that a triangle of a certain size and shape is something these buggers can't abide.  He has cardboard triangles under his car seat, bed, couch, in the bathroom.  When kidded about it he gets riled, and reminds my friend it's not bullshit, it works, they have not grabbed him.  It's an exciting life though, dashing into work and spending the day unprotected, at stores it's the same.  Wow.

Given the two, I like his brother-in-law best.  Lucky for him the deflector shield isn't a icosahedron, those damn things are hard to make.

if its so easy everyone would do it

In case you don't know, more people lose than win in the casino, Wall Street uses the same model.

The poor will always be with us, the Reichwing guarantees it.

KS Gov (R) Sam Brownback, ex just say no senator, a fundamentalist catholic from a small sect that is into  self flagellation, really, no need to make up shit when real stuff is as wierd.  Of the 49 governors invited to Prick Perry's religious threat conference in Dallas, Sam was the only gov to come.  The Kansas papers speculate he is noodling for VP.

Having been refreshed by praying for an unmerciful God to choke the living shit out of his enemies because they want to assist the poor and the rich to pay their share, Sam returned to Kansas to send back the US governments 30+ million for health care.  Kansas was one of 6 states awarded (and we applied for it) money to set up a data base the public could use to compare insurance prices and features.  It was to employ a group building it, benefit we the public as we use it, and be one of 6 learning test sites for the government to implement this as part of the health care system.  Sam though thought differently, he saw it as an intrusion into the free choice of insurance we now have, which works like that skunk video, the one with the poor fuckers head in a jar, can't hear, can't see, banging into shit, about to suffocate.  Sam also saw it as a jobs program which is a waste for lazy fucks.  Sam also claims he did it for the nation, since the Fed can't pay for the shit he voted for in his 16 years in Senate, he didn't want it spent here, among his own people, in his own towns.

Does self flagellation mean you have to try to impoverish and starve others?  Just asking, I have a hard time understanding religious zealots, I'm never sure how they get the signals of who god wants them to let suffer, and why would god use these fucks to turn middle class union members into homeless drifters with health problems unattended.  Maybe god just makes it up as he goes, for fun or something, maybe it's a test for us to wake up and see these fuckers are not getting wi-fi from god or jesus.   Fuck Rick Perrry, and Fuck Sam Brownback.

Why the name "the yellow fringe"?

It's time again for my 6 month posting of the source of "the yellow fringe". During the closing verse of this excellent musical treat maybe you will find the answer. Like the character in the piece, despite how it appears to some, I do love the country and it's flag, all the flag not just some of it, most tributes discriminate. I deplore all displays of flags which hint of commercial, political theatre, and religious uses of it disgust me most of all, any flag so abused need to be put out of it's misery, destroyed, such use is a perversion.

I saw Hair on stage in London, July 5th 1969

I love really good one man band performers

Hang with it, he sings in this piece as well.

My word search bears fruit.

For days I have been looking for a term that describes the condition millions in Americans now face, 30 million it is said in one or more of these situations:
Unemployed for 6 months or more - without health insurance - graduate and find nothing - behind on mortgage or rent - applying for food stamps for the first time - declared bankruptcy - homeless - struggling to keep a car - layed off late in life - took a loan at for-profit college and found it poorly taught and promised job placement a hoax - working part time minimum wage job that does not meet the costs to get their - living in ever more dangerous and unhealthy locations.

"Future proof".  Unless something is done soon, or the economy leaps suddenly, many of these people are future proof, their lives as contributors, tax payers and motivated citizen is at risk, and for their kids it's bleak, poverty spawns only a few success stories among kids.  And the "job creators", thats code for "the rich who may not be taxed no matter what" cannot see these people from their walled and gated community or their mega church in the burbs, in fact they do not believe the numbers are so many or the condition is so dire.

I think there is a carrying capacity, a tipping point, if we "future proof" too many of our citizens, well, did you ever set on a teeter totter when too many got on one side?

get some cool wind under your skirt in this warming climate

It's enough to make your thong wet, all that heat combined with record ignorance.

But, never fear, the GOP has bills in congress to stop  NOAA recording and storing weather data.   Some will write into law NOAA may not keep temperature records.  Sort of like it's a crime to know our own climate history, at least don't write it down.  It looks like the GOP will make it easier to buy a gun than a thermometer, the Mexican drug gangs will expand to smuggle  barometers and rain gauges?

Yesterday a nuke electric plant on the Tennessee River had to close for the second time due to the river water temperature.  At 90°F it is not an efficient coolant.  That was not foreseen when they built the plant.  Without historical data, how can future builders know of  potential summer time shut downs.

In Austin TX, my son reports the ground temperature has climbed so high it heats the city water (in his neighborhood), you cannot get cool water from the tap, all showers are hot.  Now thats hot dirt ain't it, would you want to know it gets that hot if you were going to locate a business there?

If the GOP gets their way, they might, restricting scientific information will harm transportation, military, and agriculture, it will harm the nations GPD.   We are in a race to the bottom and they grease the slide every day with the darkness of ignorance and the fossil fuel agenda.   Shine the light of knowledge under there, I want to see all I can don't you?

Good luck Wisconsin

Tuesday Aug. 9th is the recall elections in Wisconsin, a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries.  Progressives try to blunt the corporatism and shattering of middle class jobs, the war on teachers and blunt force trauma by the Tea Bags and their shills the GOP.   Good luck Wisconsin progressives, if you have some success I will be greatly encouraged, if you take back control I will buy a 6 pack of Stevens Point or  Linenkugal and  tear into them and dream of the fine vacations I've had in the terminal moraine area, Watoma, Wild Rose.  Shit, you people dance like your killing snakes, wow.

Perry practices feudalism, steal from the poor . It's good to be King.

Rick Perry’s Christianity in action, reports the Houston Chronicle:

The participants at the prayer vigil organized by Gov. Rick Perry were treated to arctic blasts of the stuff Saturday, with Reliant Stadium’s 12,000 tons of air-conditioning keeping temperatures nippy. But as historic temperatures scorch Texas for the third straight month with triple-digit misery, $650 million collected from Texas electricity consumers to assist poor elderly and disabled citizens with their utility bills sits idly in a state bank account.

Instead of serving its intended humanitarian purpose, the state’s $650 million System Benefit Fund now serves a political one — permitting Perry and other Republican leaders to keep their “no new taxes” pledge.

In February, the Perry-appointed Public Utility Commission voted to reduce aid distributed from the fund, allowing its corpus to grow ever bigger. The fund, a big positive entry in the state comptroller’s ledger of the state’s fiscal condition, is now an essential tool in “balancing” the state’s budget.

7 miles away, another much larger rally got no national attention, 100,000 needy turned out at a convention center for assistance.  Houston’s first-ever, citywide back-to-school event at George R. Brown Convention Center, where free backpacks, school supplies, uniforms, haircut vouchers, immunizations, and fresh produce were provided.
 Further note about the much touted Texas miracle.  400k jobs, 1 million jobs, depends on what you read, but many of these jobs were not created by the A&M cheerleader boy.  They were stolen from other states by promises of free land, free utilities, tax holidays, stolen not created, and local tax payers can make up the dif. if needed.  Many of the jobs come from federal dollars; military bases, defense industry, the mint, highway projects, government offices.  Add to that the benefit to the economy of illegals, they work, they get paid dirt wages then run off for show.  Oil industry also has growth, as does alternative energy.  All this TX miracle does mean growth, much of it in the form of the largest (or 2nd) population of minimum wage earners in the nation, and, the unemployment is still high.  If oil prices had not soared, and jobs had not been stolen from other states, the growth would be in line with most other states.

What the President should have said

I just watched the Monday afternoon speech from the White House.  Obama never once looked at the camera, big big mistake, some advisor needs to correct that.  The speech was a call for the Congress to work together, as he knows they can, to solve the economic problems and show the world the government of the USA can do something besides block judges, appointments, and everything not approved by lobbyist of industry and the rich.  Bull shit speech, bull------shit.

The President has sung this song now for months, and we can see the impact it had on the tea bags.  The speech should have been......
My fellow Americans.  The Tea Party through ignorance and deliberate intent to collapse our government resulted in this nations credit rating lowered for the first time.  They hurt this nations economy, and I won't stand for it, and neither should the Republicans who know damn well how much fear and anxiety they can create.  It's time to defeat these strutting pricks, I urge Americans of both parties to raise money, back candidates, and run these bastards out, and Democrats should help republicans do it in the primaries.

He should then kick the podium over and yell, And fuck Rick Perry too.

How much money can one business get you to send to hostile nations?

Drove past Starbucks today, cars winding round the building in the heat.  A few months ago I wrote this:  Went to a business near by that sets next to Starbucks. I'm setting there and I see 6 cars in line at the drive-thru window. Not a very good consumer, only about 2 times a year do I go to Starbucks.  I walk in and plunk down $50 for a paper cup of coffee. I ask this kid about the cars. He says from 7am till 2pm there is always 1 at the window, usually the line is about 4. I don't have a stopwatch but I go outside and check my wristwatch, now there are 2, one leaves and immediately a new 2nd one arrives. This new 2nd car in line from roll up, order, to drive off takes about 5 minutes. Hmmmmmmm. 5 minutes at idle, hell that's zero MPG. New 4 cylinder cars burn 0.25 gal per hour at idle, larger 6 and 8 cylinder ones, older cars pickups and vans around 0.5 gal per hour. Since the cars in line are a mix, I say lets use 0.4 gph as average. Lets say there are always 2 cars there running for 5 minutes.
(Thanks to my math tutor Kevin from Notacynic, I made some changes, in blue.  Well the smart ass didn't find a math error, but a logic error, I had calculated 5 minutes per car with 2 in line, he pointed out the clock runs on only 2 in line regardless if they remain 5 minutes or longer, it's just two running constantly.  Still, the waste is significant, it's a lot of gas, a lot of pollution, a  lot of money.  Thanks Kevin, I'll buy you a beer, ha, I know you don't drink.  If someone else finds a mistake, keep it to yourself.)

 7 hours  07:00 - 14:00 
2 cars in line at all time
0.4 gph average idle burn rate
-------
5.6 gallons a day wasted at this one store up to 2pm
$21.50 at approx national average ($3.84 Reg)

364 number of work days store is open.
2,038 gallons a year are burned setting next to this building.
4,000 number of Starbucks with drive up window.
81,520 gallons needed if all stores with drive up have this volume.
$313,036.80 total cost
45% (of each $ at the pump that goes to foreign nations for crude oil)
-------
$140,866.56 amount of your wealth sent to foreign nations due to drive up window at just one coffee chain, for wildly overpriced coffee. 

Answer and grades to the Question, you did see this as a question didn't you? A) Make coffee at home or the office. B) Turn your car off and walk in, your fat ass shakes like a soft boiled egg already. C) There is no C. D) Get a car that doesn't burn more than 0.25 GPH or a hybrid or electric that burns Zero at idle. F) Set in line and send your money to people that hate our guts.

And the rest of the world is watching, and commenting

We may have kept the AAA rating on our bonds, but not our AAA rating of how the world views us, and this asset is perishable like soft fruit,  let it rot and you don't get it back.  Here is what others say of the recent debt ceiling brawl and the ugliness of it:
From Hindustan Times, "If routine has become Armageddon, the US cannot be counted on when the tough decisions are being made."  Indian Express op-ed takes aim at the most august of American institutions: "The United States is the home of what Americans like to say is the world's greatest constitution, but is in fact the world's most outdated." Sharma argues it was "written for an age before railroads".


Our banker, the Chinese, State wire service Xinhuaexpressed its dismay at the potential of a default in the run-up to the final debt decisions, calling the political brinkmanship in Washington "dangerously irresponsible" in an editorial last week and noting that the "ugliest part of the saga is that the well-being of many other countries is also in the impact zone when the donkey and the elephant fight."


The much trampled Greeks got their chance to take a swing, Greek broadsheet Ekathimerini writes that the United States today "displays all the signs of decadence that condemned all previous superpowers: Stability and prosperity allowed small groups to gather disproportionate power, and they then forced the state to serve their interests at the expense of those of society as a whole."


Russia, here we get labeled Parisites, for gobbling up the worlds resources then sucking up all the worlds credit to pay for it, leaving other nations at risk.


England's Guardian economic editor Larry Elliott compares the United States to a "tinpot Latin American dictatorship circa 1980" and calls it a "country where a plutocracy is firmly in control,"


The Germans are just scratching their heads wondering, how the fuck did we lose to these guys.

Cancer meds being rationed. In socialist Sweden or France? No, in USA.

Cancer drugs are suddenly in short supply, many people undergoing cemo right now are getting a portion, or none, of the life saving meds needed. Some reports say the shortage is in leukemia targeting drugs, others include drugs that treat bladder cancer. Most disturbing are reports that it impacts a number of cancer targeting drugs.

These drugs could be brought in from Germany or Holland, but the FDA is blocking this. So what went wrong? It turns out there is consolidation, capitalism taken to it’s inevitable end launched into the ultimate goal of eliminating competition via mergers & buy outs resulting in a frightfully tiny and vulnerable supplier base. Add to this the feeling in Congress for the past 30 years that regulations harm industry, who if given a monopoly would never never ever do something bone headed to harm their customers, like lower quality control or fail to build redundancy into their supply chain or have a back-up plan for life saving product lines.  We are to believe business managers will always self regulate and protect their customer.  Is this another harbinger of the future, scarce resources, no need for death panels now is there?

Funeral at 11.

Bidder 70

A while back, Tim DeChristopher from an area familiar with mountain top raping in Appalachia went to Utah to a government bid, to bid fr the rights to tear open the earth for oil or coal whatever you want, and picked up bidder paddle 70. He waved it a few times, which might have drove up the final bids on a few parcels against the Shells, BP's, Kochs and Massey's. Finally the bidding was stopped and he was declared to not have the money to pay for anything, the whole auction was declared null and void. The industry demanded the boy be killed and his arms be used to kill other environmentalist. During the investigation it was found the auction was illegal as not all the parcels offered were suppose to be offered, and there were industry finger prints on some of this. Never the less, Tim was found guilty, and jailed the instant he was found guilty. Tim got the absolute maximum; 2 years, 10K, 3 year supervised parole, the prosecutors and judge both making puffed up speeches as if they had caught public enemy #1.
Well you can decide for yourself, is he a hero, or something needing chased from the wilderness so the fossil fuel millionaires can haul the assets out of it unseen?
You can google the name and read the detail. You can watch the video below, he's a rebel rouser from the Grapes of Wrath school. You can write him at Tim DeChristopher, C/O Davis County Correctional Facility, PO Box 130, Farmington, Utah 840250-0130. I will write him one day, but at the moment I am not sure what I would say, it'll happen though. I write for amnesty international once in a while.

What happens in Africa stays in Africa

News moves slowly out of Africa, especially when it has to worm it's way past corrupt governments, industry thugs, local media bumpkins, and a disinterested western media and public.  It is now reported from Nov. 2008, a Shell oil spill in the Niger Delta flooded a swamp with oil, displacing 65,000 people who lived in, near by, or dependent upon the swamp for food and material.   The gulf oil spill did not displace more than a few, the losses were greater due to our bloated view of our self worth, but 69,000 refugees, thats a corporation caused hurricane or tsunami.
Try, try to conserve fuel, these problems are because of the market we piss our wealth into, and that too shall pass.

fascist general uniform for evenings in the White House

Here is another Cheerleader from Texas, totally undistinguished academically, an Aggie, a governor, a Republican, poor debater.  What harm could another Texas governor do?  ........  Texas A&M cheerleaders have a fetish for certain kinds of britches, cocksucker britches.

Fuck Rick Perry.  Perry is laying low, bundlers are lining up money to be given at the right time, he wants to stay out of sight of the press, he is a bit of a bumbler and this might hurt him when he battles the ship of fools in the primaries, but if history is a guide, it will help.   Rick has fun on weekends prancing and goose stepping in his fascist general costume.

Gig line is off on the belt buckle.
If first you don't secede, then try wearing cocksucker pants.
Fuck Rick Perry.

Drink of the day

Greek Banker:  Ouzo and Prune Juice 50/50, serve in large portions in a tall water glass with ice.

Read the financial news and gulp it down.  If the Congress defaults, order it by the pitcher & get home fast.

Who do you think will be Obama's next supreme court justice?

I see Obama as weak following the debt ceiling debacle.  Any one he names will be seen as dirty no matter their qualifications.


 I predict the only Supreme Court nominee he can get past the Senate now are either: 
Pat Buchanan, 
or "birther" lawyer Orly Taitz.


Who do you think he could get past this Senate?

No man is an island when it comes to climate change

Tomorrow's forecast for the central I-35 corridor Wichita to Waco, 114°F.  High temperatures are the enemy of all things mechanical, be prepared.  Cattle and horses in the field will lose a lot of weight tomorrow, some will lose their life.  Lakes throughout Oklahoma and parts of Kansas are off limits, toxic algae.  Deer now have a water borne disease expected to kill half of them by first frost.

I wrote a few days ago about a tundra fire in Alaska.  The BBC had a story over the weekend about that fire in 2007.  Scientist looking at it found a way to find how often fires like this occur.  Never before.  So far, reviewing data for about 5 thousand years, it has never happened (at least in the areas of Alaska  sampled).  Tundra in far north Alaska never burned before, it was always frozen, wet, and cold.  It's hard to see climate change taking place, but this photo is your chance.

Fukuyama, Japan, an industrial city of 460,0000 has every industry, every business committed to get off fossil fuel and to 100% solar within a couple of years, and all residential and transport in 3 or 4.  They are not alone, 35 Japanese cities are considering this, it's expected most all will do it.  Japan is moving to energy independence through immediately available and affordable technology.  We on the other hand believe wildly fluctuating prices for polluting oil purchased from our enemies, and coal torn from the earth and clouding our sky with poison is the wiser method.  

2011 is stacking up to be the most expensive year to date, natural disasters have taken 2 to 4 points off the GDP, and insurance rates will go up 70% or more over the next 5 years to recoup it.  Enjoy!