Monday, September 30, 2013

email ready to go to your congress rep.

http://campaigns.dailykos.com/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=592

Tell your rep to vote on a straight up budget bill.  Easy, click click done.

These kittens are helping science, now your turn, fight back.



let him without too many sins sell me a gallon

Sunoco named as the least evil gas refiner and seller.  Greenopia,  Green America, and Sierra Club, over the last few years have looked into this, and determined that Sunoco is not a climate denier, they voluntarily comply with a code of environmental conduct called CERES Principles, don't seem to hate hippies.
They are not a green company, they don't promote bikes and EV's.  But within their market they are the least evil.

None in my area, I see them sometimes on trips, will buy from them next chance.

the ocean on acid - chemical imperative

Chart, pay fucking attention here, top set is CO2, notice it is rising, bottom set is pH, note that it is lowering, note these two events happen in the same time frame.
The ocean absorbs CO2 from fossil fuel burning, chemical process of this lowers the pH.  Hydrogen ion's (look it up) are increased 26% in the last 150 years.
The ocean on acid means dead coral, no more clams, oysters, crabs, lobsters etc.  All those guys collect calcium from the water to form their exoskeleton.  As pH declines it becomes harder to create the shells, in fact the acidic seas are now obliged by chemical imperative to work full time to soften and dissolve calcium formations.
With warmer and more acidic seas, corals are dying in some areas, this will increase.  Shell fish growth is being slowed already, eventually their populations will decline, eaten by acid.

Are there any lights you could turn off?

Friday, September 27, 2013

Your doctor will not recommend this, they were trained in pills and surgery

8 year long Dr. Ornish study on prostate cancer - zero meat or eggs with increase in vegis for one year will reduce the size of the cancer, in some cases it is gone.
Another study, 3 spoons of ground flax seed on your cereal every morning, shows reduction in tumor size within a month, some are gone within 6 months.
What's the side effects of that?
Bladder cancer, zero meat and eggs, increase in cabbage, broccoli, kale, cauliflower, and dark green vegi's, cancer stops growing, in many cases it is reduced.
Breast cancer, the same.

Meat and eggs have a chemical in them that stimulates new blood vessel growth.  Cancer needs that, can only grow with its own blood supply.  Without these new sources it ceases to grow, and the vegi's listed above are known stimulants to the body's own cancer fighting ability.  Together these two diet changes starve the cancer of blood.
What's the side effect of that?  Certainly not loss of hair or vomiting, nor weakness.
This will not make any drug maker a penny.  You will not hear this from your doctor, they were trained in pills, treat the condition not the cause.

Want to save the Lynx?  Make sure

Kruz couldn't even get a majority of Repealicans to vote with him.

The 19 Republican senators who voted no were Mike Crapo (Idaho), Ted Cruz (Tex.), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Deb Fischer (Neb.), Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), Dean Heller (Nev.), James M. Inhofe (Okla.), Mike Lee (Utah), Jerry Moran (Kan.), Rand Paul (Ky.), Rob Portman (Ohio), James E. Risch (Idaho), Pat Roberts (Kan.), Marco Rubio (Fla.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), Richard C. Shelby (Ala.), Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.) and David Vitter (La.).

Only Kansas and Alabama had both Senators voting against allowing better health for Americans begin.  Only one female Senator (Neb) voted to keep women with pre-existing conditions from buying a health policy.  Blunt of Missouri not only voted for it, he is encouraging Missourians to sign up ASAP.

The effort in the Congress is a radical minority manufacturing a crises because they are losing and they hate , not dislike, they hate democrats, emigrants, minorities and poor and most of all the black family in the White House and losing to them is humiliating to a degree I don't think many of us understand.  Let it be.

7% of Americans are now vegetarians or vegans, why?

Why the increase in people swearing off meat, because of a growing awareness that a diet extremely low, or void of; meat, eggs, dairy and processed foods can prevent almost all the modern diseases, maybe even the "republican". This film discusses some of the diseases that can be halted and reversed with diet. I'm not talking about supplements and vitamins, almost all of which are unneeded, and of little use compared to eating a broad variety of fruits vegis nuts and grains. I have a friend with diabetes, the insulin swings, the pills, one day he said bullshit, bought a bike and a stand, rides 1 hour every night outside or on the stand, except for a Friday night fish or chicken dinner, zero meat, all plants, exercise and plants. In a few months his diabetes was almost gone, in a year no evidence of it, stopped all pills 3 or 4 years ago, he knows he cannot stop, the bike circles his block 50 times every night, he says the neighbors hate seeing him and his bike, and he feels so free and strong, done with the finger pokes and downer feeling of the disease.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Polar bear cherry goes to, Coal.

Nordic Orion, the first ever "bulk" freighter to sail the Arctic, the Northwest Passage.  From British Columbia to Finland, loaded with coal.  It couldn't have been more ironic.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Iran is hurting, sanctions are screwing their economy

I noticed in the news some comments from Israel about the possible thawing of Iran/USA relations and the whole WMD situation there.  The Jewish state is very negative and promoting caution on moving forward, they seem worried rather than hopeful.
My take on this, they are going to try to derail this through PR scare stories and cranking up the Jewish lobby against doing anything.  As much as they fear Iran with a bomb, they fear Iran as a less scary neighbor.  They need scary neighbors, their whole economy is propped up by foreign aid because they have scary neighbors.  If this think falls flat, I will always suspect they somehow played a part in it.

Net-in-yahoo (SP?) shouldn't expect too many back door favors, the CIA named them the #2 most active nation spying on the US, and he, "yahoo", openly tried to help get Romney elected and threw a couple of tantrums on visits to the US before the election about not getting to see Obama when "he" wanted to.

Canadian Ted Kruiz misunderstands complex plot of book

 Ted, here's the crux of the story, Sam-i-am's unusual offering, once tried, was well liked.  Ted, a Rhodes Scholar?

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Air pollution, killing you softly.

Soot, car exhaust, cigar smoke, coal smoke, fly ash drift, all might cause or contribute to Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome.

When we breath that crap in, those itzy tintzy teeny little hairs in your nose tubes and lungs covered in mucus slime catch some of the diesel and coal smoke.  Some of that is transported, coughed and wheezed to the throat, and yum, we swallow it.  So some of the pollution we breath gets sent through the guts.  We knew the heart and lung suffered, it appears they have company.

In Canada hospitals a study has been done that found more people with these three gut diseases/conditions show up on days of high pollution.  It also shows people living in areas of heavy auto exhaust have these conditions at a higher rate.  Either this crap is causing these issues, or is setting up a condition where the bacteria in the gut is out of kilter.  This either causes, or allows the auto immune system and/or bacteria to attack the gut.  Not sure yet whats going on, but the pointer is starting to drift toward air pollution as the villain in one more of the many diseases we endure because we haven't kicked the fossil fuel habit.   (Yes, I know there are other reasons for these diseases besides pollution, some have a hereditary predisposition, some have a vengeful god.)

Air up your damn tires, turn off your damn lights, my wife needs your help after several years of ulcerative colitis, there's no cure for it.

Monday, September 23, 2013

One thing leads to another.

This,
eventually causes.......
this.
 It's simple, everyone knows that.


Why go backward on health care?

Sunday a Mr. Edwards wrote this open letter in the Wichita paper:

   The Affordable Care Act went into effect on Jan 1, 2011, for those of us who are seniors and on Medicare, I, for one, like it.
   I am now eligible for a new yearly wellness exam with my doctor.  My prostate cancer screenings and diabetes screening tests are now covered.  My wife's pap tests and mammograms are now covered, as well as her recent colonoscopy.  Our flu shots are now covered.  We have not seen any dramatic changes in our insurance premiums.  We still have the same doctors we have had for the past 38 years.
   I reached the Medicare Part D prescription gap (the doughnut hole) in April, but thanks to Obamacare the gap is being closed.  It saved me $1,316 in July and will same me the same amount in October.
Why in the world would I want to repeal Obamacare or defund it?  Why would I want to go backward?  Why would I want to start all over again, particularly with our current do nothing Congress?  It took us 50 years to get this far.  Unfortunately, a lot of seniors do not realize that they have been benefiting from Obamacare for the past two years.

Friday, September 20, 2013

3 good deeds you missed from Obama.

*A few weeks ago Obama and China's top dude signed an agreement to halt the use of HFC's, a propellant and refrigerant, a greenhouse gas
*On the way to Moscow las month, Obama spent a day in Sweden with the heads of all the Scandinavian countries; Finland-Denmark-Sweden-Norway-Iceland and signed an agreement their governments would not directly finance building coal fired power plants.
*In Moscow Putin and Obama signed an agreement to work together for a world wide ban of HFC in upcoming global environmental conference.

Halting the use of Freon has reversed the loss of ozone.  Science was correct, cut off the harmful pollutant and things will improve.  Now HFC's are the second or third most prevalent greenhouse gas, and one we now have replacements available for.  This is an easy fix, and HFC's don't linger for decades as CO2 does, it's the low hanging fruit that will reward us in most of our lifetimes.

I don't know if Congress has to OK these 3 events, if so, they will all be trashed.

Dirty coal, clean coal, make up your mind

Today EPA trotted out a "proposed" CO2 emission standards for new coal fired generation plants.  1,100 pounds per MWh (megawatt-hour, million watts constant for 1 hour).  Currently most plants cough out 1,800 pounds.  ("proposal", this is not a regulation yet)

The fossil fuel industry runs TV and newspaper adds daily all over the nation preaching about clean coal and the new ways employed to make it good for you and your asthmatic kids, and this isn't the end of it, we see scientist in lab coats and engineers in hard hats are working on an even cleaner future.  Because this is all about you, and spotted cows and puppies and walks in the gentle rain.

But, already the industry and the GOP say this proposal is too much.  Can't be done, too expensive.  So, is it clean coal or not?  Make up your mind.  Either the shit can't be made safe or it can,  you said it can, now you say it can't.

There is a bit of a scam here as well, smoke and mirror smoke, some of the most recent new plants built, and not many have been built in the last 3 or 4 years in the US, produce at around 800 lbs/CO2/MWh.  Whats going on?  Thats lower than EPA wants and the industry says is impossible?  Is the EPA and industry trying to protect some builder of plants that uses old boiler technology so he can still build one more somewhere????  Berry berry curious kemo-sabi!  And what about old plants, some of them are exempt from any and all controls, lets  either put a condom on these or shut them down.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Republicans will cave-in again to Obama.

The GOP cannot kill Obama Care.  40 times they tried and failed.  41 if you count the presidential election.  42 if you count the vote that passed it into law.  A recent poll ask registered voters should it be killed?  Even Republicans that hate it at a rate of abut 50% said no, only a few percent said kill it.   I don't get it, but OK, thats good.  I think they actually know deep down that it will help a lot of people.

As for the GOP plan to shut down the gov.  do it, fucking do it do it do it.  After a few days the WhiteHouse will still not let you kill Obama Care, you lose again, and you have to cave, beaten by a black President.   And this time you have a lot of people pissed off, lots of things will grind to a halt, and it's going to hurt businesses who feed those workers, truckers who deliver to the gov., firms that pave our hiways, the list includes every type of business.  And maybe, just maybe you can lower the nations credit ratings again, that ought to really make your business friends pissed when that kicks in.

They remind me of the guy who fell from the top of a high apartment building.  As he fell past each window the inhabitants ask him, "how's it going?"  He always gave the same answer, "So far, it's going great".

Pope of hope.

Pope Francis faulted the Roman Catholic church for focusing too much on gays, abortion and contraception, saying the church has become "obsessed" with those issues to the detriment of its larger mission to be "home for all,".

Are you listening GOP and GOP Catholics, BACK THE FUCK OFF A LITTLE, OK?

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Here's to the hair in your haggis

5.2 million live in Scotland.  Diabetes has come to Scotland the last few years, a new disease to the highlands, this disease of choice is sweeping away kidneys, eyes, limbs, lives.  The "modern", that's what's ailing'em.  They no longer roam the hills and eat vegetables and coarse grains, nope, it's soft drinks and meat, white bread and chips, and a car.  Diabetes is costing their health plan hundreds of millions now every year.

Recently it was said for a fraction of that they could train and pay 40,000 physical therapist and dietitians, one for every 130 people and cure the population.  It would be cheaper and raise the quality of life.  Will they?

It's enough to make a dog eat grass

Haven't given a damn about the Miss America pageant for a long long time.  But this years event brought the worms out from under the corpse.  The cry here is the winner isn't even American, and it should have been Miss Kansas because............. she had tattoos, she knows how to kill, she has American values.
You can puke now.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Obama care gives workers more freedom to change jobs.

Kansas has one women in the congress, Jenkins by name, as hateful of the working class and poor as they come.  A couple days ago she said, if we don't cripple or kill Obama care and the public gets signed up, we will never be able to kill it.
That is the GOP fear, working class and poor will get something only they have now, security, options, protection, freedom.   ACA frees worker to change jobs easier when a chance comes along.  With ACA if you own your own plan thats one less worry, no more stuck by fear at the same place wondering will I have as good a health plan at the next job or not.  If the job is another state no problem, the yearly enrollment period (Oct-Dec) is waved if you: change jobs, move, marry, employee stops providing coverage, divorce you get 60 days from the event to sign up.

Canada is hiding recent science findings, why, how bad is it?

In less than 3 years Canada has gone from one of the greenest nations to a rouge-Petro-State awash with oil cash and passing laws against science.  Sound far fetched.  Another Kochopoly.  Recently a law was passed that scientist cannot discuss or share their findings on snow, climate, ice, CO2 and many other subjects.  Not with the public, media, not even with one another!  It is illegal for them to tell us if the snow is clean, or fouled with fox piss.  Do, and go to jail.
Today scientist protested in many Canadian cities.  One focal point is a study the government has deemed illegal to release, on snow.  Snow?  Turns out if you look at ancient snow you will find pollen and CO2 and other things attached to it, same with new snow.  Knowing the results of this study might indicate today we have more or less of some of these things, something Canada is afraid of letting the public know about.

What are they hiding, irrefutable proof?  Just how bad is it?

broken badly

Last weeks forecast for Sunday's Breaking Bad episode missed the mark on most items.

Last nights episode had too much cruelty for me.  I have less respect for the story and for the producers than before, this was low.  They needed a little Hitchcock in this episode, showing extreme savagery is less effective than not showing it, but implying it.  I will watch the final 2 episodes, but I look forward to them with less respect for the series and those associated with it.  To me now it is just one more show about killers, the shine left the diamond for me last night.  If it was on a pay for view channel, I would not watch the two remaining shows.

drive way work needed

Colorado rains.  There are thousands of homes scattered up in those steep neighborhoods and "in the sticks" that now have multiple bridges out, miles of washed out roads between them and work/food/services.  Many are without utilities now.  Some of these will not be fully and reconnected or have roads restored for a year, longer maybe.   I have been into that area, those canyons are deep narrow windy with raging creeks.  Engineers have taken years to carve a narrow 20 or 50 foot flat spot for traffic, now the mountain has slid in on it and the river undercut it.

The last 3 years that area suffered from horrible drought keeping the forest dry until fire burned it naked.  Now, as is common with global warming are these extreme weather events.  The flooding is far worse than it would have been without the fires.  Trees and brush hold back rain water in many ways, that benefit is gone in parts of this area.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

wife signed up today for the Obama Care account.

You can go to https://www.healthcare.gov/ and sign up for news on the new health care options.  You can set up an account, so your ready to go when it starts.  You cannot get into the account yet, but you set it up with passwords and so on.  Beginning in October you can then go in and find out what your insurance choices are and pick one.  Avoid the rush and the computer crashes of the first couple of weeks.

My wife signed up a few days ago and has gotten a couple of emails about the process starting in October.    Our red state will not set one up so we use the federal one.  The site asks very little information when you sign up.  It's like buying a gun, way easier than registering to vote.  She can choose a plan and join from Oct. to March.  She will need her own insurance soon, either coming off my insurance, or if I retire she will be without.  She has lots of preexisting conditions and cannot get insurance on her own, very healthy but with a history insurance companies turn down, Obama care will be the only thing we can keep her insured with in the next 3 to 5 years.  It's either that or if she gets ill we crash our finances.

post shoot out breaking bad forecast

Here's the forecast:
Hispanic cop with Hank, dead.
Hank, most likely dead.
The gang find Walt injured, maybe unable to cook on his own.
The gang find Jessie unhurt hiding in the car.
The gang decides to kill Jessie but then Todd (the cooker) is either dead or wounded, unable to cook.
Gang decides to force Jessie to cook.
Gang holds Walt to his promise to cook one time for them.
Jessie and Walt hatch a plan to poison the gang during the cook using their favorite poison ricen since the gang refuses to wear air masks and hasmat suits during the cook.  Jessie and Walt escape.
Hanks wife decides to try to kill her sister when she finds out Hank is dead knowing that he had arrested Walt, it had to be Walt kill him.
Todds body is burned as a temp decoy to make it appear Walt is dead.

Alternative, Jessie crawls (during the confusion of shootout) to Walt's gun by the boulders) and kills Todd when they are about to kill off the wounded cops, thus making himself needed to cook for them.  The gang doesn't know they are standing on millions of hidden dollars, Jessie indicates he will blurt it out if Walt doesn't make them leave him alive after killing Todd.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

There has never been a dinner worth $50 in Wichita.

Class reunion coming up in a month.  $50 a head and a cash bar.  I gotta pay 50 smackers and then buy my own drink?  Look, I can afford it, won't hurt one bit.  But this is a bullshit deal.  This is designed to keep the bottom financial half of the class out if they had wanted to come.

I don't give a damn what they are serving, out here in Wichita there has never been a dinner worth $50.    This is a filtering device.  This is that "click" of well off kids that ran most of the functions back when the girls wore white panties, and most of them did pretty well the last couple decades, and so it's natural for them to book the event at the country club dining room.

To be fair, a night or two before this shendig they have a meet up at a bar, anyone can get in and the bar won't care if they are visiting and not buying.  I will go to that.   Still, this other thing galls me.  I want to go but it galls me.  The wife said she won't go.  I already passed the cut off date for $50, sign up late and it jumps to 55.  Shit, I don't eat meat normally, so 55 for rice or baked potato and a room temp salad?  $10 or $15 for a couple of mixed drinks I suppose.  Can't decide.  I might see some old friends, that would be nice.  But.

The Radical Rich gain again, at the nations expense

New figures out today:
*The top 1% in America pocketed nearly 20% of all the money paid out or earned last year.  1927 was the last time the disparity in income was this extreme.
*The top 10% took 50% of the income, dividends.
*The bottom 90% divide up the 30%, and none to fairly I might add.  The bottom 50% get damn near nothing.
It is not a benefit for our nation to have all the money controlled by a few thousand families.  No nation in history has ever done better because the flow of money went in one direction, to the top, none, not one example.  In fact action usually is taken to remedy the disparity, here between the wars it was done with legislation, elsewhere throughout history it is usually done through collapse or turmoil.  Tell me what is the overwhelming reason this should continue and how it will benefit the poor and the middle?  Please, someone tell me.

Yes I know, we have all those palaces in Europe and Asia to gawk at with our heads thrown back, but these are the ruins built on theft of labor and capital.  Tour of the chopping block at 11.

Listen to one of America's most respected investors on Keystone XL pipeline

"Deals have been cut, and America is cut out."

Monday, September 9, 2013

Canada, just another rogue petro-state

Canada has told Obama if he will permit the Keystone XL pipe to carry bitumen through our largest underground water source, they will adopt all of our standards for the environment.  Seeing how our standards now days are behind many other nations, and we don't trust or believe science, I'm not sure it would be any value for Canada to adopt our standards.

Corruption follows oil, look at every nation that grows rich on oil, the middle east, parts of Africa, Texas, Alaska.  Now Canada worries me, and as we frac our way to become an oil producing state, are we also "breaking bad"?

Tea party and Kochs on the opposite side of wind and solar now.

Green tea.  I like that, I don't like everything about it, but I like it.

The granola and organic wine environmentalist have teamed up with the tea party and libertarians.  The Green Tea Party, (actually a group of tea baggers now call themselves this) and people for clean energy found some common language that brought them together, and some in the GOP are rather shocked, and a bit worried.

Here's the language.  Why can't we use the sunshine that falls on our house or property?  Why must we buy from a monopoly when we could make our own energy?  Let me tell the utility I want to buy solar, wind or coal fired energy.  If I make extra energy why can't I sell it to the neighbor?

In Georgia together they fought the GOP controlled state energy board and legislation as well as the Kochs and allies and won.  Georgia will probably mandate more solar and wind  from utilities and you can choose the source, and with coal prices higher this year, people will opt for wind and solar.  In Wisconsin they are beating back a set of rules on solar home installations.  In Arizona the utilites and fossil fuel boys are crying about growing home solar systems, asking the state to change net metering, cutting the rate paid in order to discourage home solar units, the fight is on and it looks like the green tea party and the tree huggers are going to keep net metering at the current rate.

Now I do understand the problem for utilities if lots of customers produce their own power and only buy at night, or in small amounts.  They have the power grid cost, cables to repair, tree trimming etc to pay for.  I propose that if you install a large solar system and buy little from them, they be allowed to raise your monthly service charge.  Call it an insurance policy for those black stormy days or if your PV hits a hickup, you will have access to the energy you need.  This higher service charge for solar owners can pay for the grid infrastructure, while the solar owner still has a lot of independence and saves money overall.  Sure, finding a fair price for this will be a cat fight, but what isn't.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Try Ecosia, environmental mission in the shape of a web browser

Google pisses me off.  On the one hand they are installing solar energy farms, buying wind energy, building server farms in energy stingy buildings, and are preparing to build underwater power lines to bring offshore wind into the grid.  I think they are carbon neutral.   BUT..... they also fund a couple of climate denial groups associated with coal and oil that spread doubt about science and slow clean energy technologies.

Ecosia is a search engine that I started using, it's nearly as good as google.  http://www.ecosia.org/   Ecosia is run totally on wind and solar, and they buy wind and solar credits to cover your computer, in other words, when you do a search, they overcompensate with clean energy purchases to make your search carbon neutral even though your power comes from Timbuk-fucking-2 coal plant.

Plus.... the money they make, 80% of it is spent buying and planting trees in Brazil in an area that was clear cut and left to erode.  Why Brazil, cause thats the best carbon sink forest location, it's heavily damaged and money goes a long ways there, a dollar plants a lot of trees.  The planting is in conjunction with Nature Conservancy, and other hippies, the planting is being done in a way to create jungle corridors across barren areas to restore animals ability to move about and correct the clear cut impact of leaving islands of wildlife cut off.

Plus 2..... if you shop on line, read their how to instructions, some merchants, they are flagged, will pay Ecosia a commission which they use to plant trees and buy even more energy credits.  So far my searches there have created revenue for Ecosia sufficient to plant 6 trees one time, 2 another.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

A case for pollution tax, at point of entry.

Who will pay for your asthma or cancer treatment if a fracking well pops up down the street?  Who pays for the landfills heaped like mountains at the edge of our cities?  Who will pay for global warming causing rising sea levels flooding beach front homes and towns?  Who pays for crop losses caused by ever more frequent extreme weather events?   We do through our rising health care costs, higher insurance costs, higher food price, earlier death, tidal flood walls and pumps.  The cost is already thought to be in the dozens of billions yearly in the US, many trillions around the globe.

Regulations against pollution and laws governing factories and cars farm chemicals and activities are hard fought, take years to implement, but they seem to work, though it is hit and miss, fixing one thing exempting another, yet new products and processes come in among us and it takes decades to knock down the bad ones.  It works, a little.

Cap and trade, and carbon credits and carbon markets also work, sort of, but not always and not everywhere.

The easiest and most democratic would be a pollution or carbon fee at the point of entry.  Slap a fee on every ton of coal, puff of gas, gallon of oil, ton of ore.  Thats the end of it.  The cost will find it's way into every product proportionally.  Companies will pass the cost on from the coal miners shovel and from the well head.  This will make some products more expensive, a few a lot more expensive.  Manufacturers who find a way to transport products and make and package products with less of this taxed oil or lead in it will have a decisive market advantage.  The innovation to get off these highly taxed raw products will clean up the planet.  Products imported from nations not using this system will be taxed to compensate as if they had.

The tax collected will be used for two things, part of it will be issued as a payment as Alaska does with oil profits, yearly everyone gets the same check, same value.  This will level the field for low income people to purchase goods that at least in the first few years may be high priced.  The rest will be used to clean up pollution in the worst areas.

The fee on fossil fuels and pollutants at their point of entry into the economy along with rebate will prime the market to cure much of this problem.  Manufacturers will lower their cost by cleaning up their products, consumers will migrate their purchasing to those products of lower price due to the lower content of harmful and wasteful products.  Markets cannot fix themselves, they are imperfect, biased to profit and market share, not for any other purpose.  With these two modifications, a re-purposing, the market will for the near future fix our problem.  Later on, it will find a way to subvert it, but for now, this could work.


More junk science from the Fringe, love bugs.

Spiders make meadows grow by increasing fear.  ???  Grasshoppers eat all types of plants in these meadows, unchecked they sometimes harm, even destroy them.  Where spiders are prevalent plants grow more and have overall better health.  It's more complex than just the spiders eat grasshoppers, reducing the number of grazing insects.  The real benefit is they make grasshoppers wary, hoppers spend more time exercising their survival instinct, on alert and moving from area to area.  Grasshopper in the vicinity of spiders consume less, but even more importantly they eat less at one place or on one plant.  Like pruning for higher fruit production, if done in small amounts it actually stimulates the plant to add growth and fruit, if overdone the plant suffers.  Taken further, if sprayed for pests, the resident spiders are killed, grasshoppers are nomads.  Killing the defenders the chemicals actually deliver a safe grazing meadow for the new hoppers, without predators they do terrible damage.  If noticed the farmer or gardner may spray again, now we poisoned our food source twice with little benefit.
I have read that organic grape (wine) farms are crawling with spiders, they even bring in certain types to get started.  Likewise, the best defense against bugs in your house are spiders outside it, do not run around spraying spiders on your eves or foundation, these guys are catching critters that will get in otherwise.  Right now a huge spider has a web high over the front door sidewalk from the eve to a red leaf maple, almost every morning he is wrapping up some flies and moths when I go out for the paper.

This same scientific exercise was observed to work the same with elk and wolf, elk spend less time eating a meadow to the ground and more time watching and walking about if wolf are in the area.  Who would have thought predators help the health of meadows.  Don't panic hunters, the elks weight stayed about the same, they still eat enough, just cut back on the binge grazing.

Ants running up and down your downspout, resist spraying them.  Termites and ants are not friends, a healthy population of ants around the foundation discourages termites.

As for bug spray, Lowes has sprays made from lemon grass and one from spearment and chilis.  They kill most bugs fast and they are not poison to us or pets.  Yes I spray bugs, but rarely, and never with chemicals, just these things.  If you like to watch stuff die, squirt lemon grass oil on a spider and watch, drop, run, die, as fast as black flag.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Watts up - shocking low risk investment.

If you buy a PV solar system installed on your house, how long for the payback, is it a good investment?

S&P 50 year return is 9.9%.  The chart shows the best 16 states for payback.  Variations due to: cost, amount of light, local tax breaks, cost of purchased electricity and net metering rates.

I'm not going to give a lesson on the incredible power of compounding interest, but god damn man even if you have to count on your toes you see the top states on this chart will have a full return on investment in 4 to 6 years.  Even #16 Florida is around a 10 - 11 year payback.  After that your leck-trcity is free.

This kind of stuff depresses the fossil fuel boys.


Mister Ornery, where are you?

Clicked the link to MO, Blogger says the blog has been removed, end of statement.  Our New Zealand connection is gone.  New Zealand has just come through the warmest winter ever recorded, very little cold weather, maybe the Kochs don't want us to communicate with them or we would learn that global warming is here, now.  Good luck MO!