Love street performers, this is 10 min. of the best ever, let'r rip, stand back from this computer and shake like a soft boiled egg.

What? Charity receipts are down?

In Kansas where I am imprisoned under the uber Catholic Pope Brownback, local charities are falling flat this Christmas season.  Cutting taxes on the rich, eliminating them on most businesses and farms, was to lead to great wealth for all of us.  Then there was cutting hell out of state government aid programs to the poor, kids, handicap, old, this too would lead to great wealth for all.  Trickle down at last has it's day in the sun.
Turns out the farmer and the franchise owner took his tax saving to the bank, he didn't hire more people.  And it turns out the poor give a lot to charity.  I worked a charity table once at a WallMart, almost every thing we got came from black and brown people and white people that looked like they would be eligible for the very charity we collected for.  Well dressed people walked right past.  Sure they write big checks once in a while, but the most comes in a hand full of change or a $5 bill from people who know what it would mean to get it themselves.  But as income disparity grows and 4 out of 6 in Kansasippi public* schools are poor, the poor don't even have enough to feel good about sharing through charity, so charities are short.
Enjoy.
*private and religious schools are thick as fleas on a rat now, we now have segregation of the poor into the public schools, and thats fair game for more cuts when you get low scores in a whole school full of hard-knock kids.

I'd do it again in a transplanted heart-beat

 

3 church groups working to slow pollution and warming

Pope Francis is is working on an official papal encyclical tackling the environment and humanity’s relationship to it.  He has already said if we destroy nature nature will destroy us.  Now, a group of Bishops, from every continent, have issued a letter in Lima Peru at the climate talks, calling on every government in the world to end fossil fuel use.  It also says the global economic systems are incompatible with long-term ecological sustainability.
Not a catholic, but I wish them well with this, it's about time the biggest Christian Church gets in the middle of this, only could it please be even more forceful and right away.  There are a lot of obident followers, I hope, I pray, they will get behind this immediately in the church, their local government, at their dinner tables.  
FYI, drag your church screaming into joining one of these groups, or you can do it on your own:
http://www.interfaithpowerandlight.org/ a coalition of churches and religions.
http://www.creationcare.org/ this is the evangelical environmental network, and they are growing and pressuring politicians and local governments, below is from their recent letter sent in support of EPA rules.

As pro-life Christians, we urge the EPA to protect life and God's creation by reducing carbon pollution and toxic emissions from existing coal burning power plants. We ask the EPA to provide maximum flexibility to states as to how they will cut emissions, including options such as a pollution fee that could cut other taxes. It is time for our leaders to act for the sake of our children's health, the most vulnerable among us, and His beautiful creation.

after WWII we hanged people that tortured

Some of you know Ron, aka Sarge aka One Angry Zebra, he penned some interesting information and point of view I include here that I agree with.

-----------------

While some may still claim that the heinous and barbaric acts committed by the CIA with their so called, "Enhanced Interrogation Program", saved lives; the report seems to debunk that. Do you realize that in 1945 we hanged a Japanese general in Manila for using "water torture" on allied prisoners of war? What happened to us after 9/11 to become like the North Vietnamese who tortured Jeremiah Denton, James Stockwell, Robinson Risner, and yes, John McCain among countless others one of special interest being 1Lt Lance Scott Sijan, USAF, who was awarded the CMH posthumously for gallantry will prisoner of war.

It is common knowledge that the whole CIA rendition program was to accomplish two things; establish a credible link between Saddam Hussein and the events of 9/11 to justify invading Iraq. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11 has been reported to have been water- boarded over a hundred times. Why? Because, he and Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and others were constantly, in sometimes a pathetic way, try to convince We The People that was true. KSM, never gave GW what he wanted because he couldn't; it was a lie....

Folks, we trashed the Geneva Convention and by our actions shamed America. Can  you even imagine how those still alive that suffered torture by our enemies view this? Think about the Japanese Battan Death March, the German Stalags, The Hanoi Hilton, the crew of the USS Pueblo; we as Americans were enraged by the way those evil men treated our people!  We should share that same rage against those that shamed America before the world with their barbaric conduct and demand punishment for all of those involved. It is time to do what is right!

Cops choking black men to death is legal

I don't know how much of this the minorities can take.  Literally hundreds of white cops have killed black men, kids, women, Mexicans, PuertoRicans the last few years, and not one (that I am aware of) was found guilty, and only a handfull ever went to trial.

Today the policeman we all saw walk up to a black New York man, choke him while the man begged that he couldn't breath, choked him until the man died right there in that couple minute video, that cop too will not even have to face a trial.  Frankly I think the civil rights movement has to swing back into action again to correct this,  just coasting along will not change anything.

Elected GOP officials are obliged to scorn this data.

The hottest year's global average are ranked by their record breaking position on the left.  The little chart of over 150 years indicates the total climb is about 1°C, or in excess of 2°F.  Oh is that so much?  Add 2° to your body temp, or your kids, next time you get a fever, add 2°F onto that.  Willing to take that risk?  Plants and animals cannot live in these warmer conditions in the same way or in the same numbers as they do now  
Don't get confused by the chart, the high temps are on the left.All honors and credits to Met.

Refreshing isn't exactly the right term

Setting in the snow Miss Indoor Health soon learns her polka-dot bikini is very absorbent.

best food pyramid, double it.

The food pyramid on the left is nutritional, those things you should consume in high volumes are backgrounded in green.  Those things that cause obesity, cholesterol, heart attacks, cancer, diabetes, erectile dysfunction, nerve damage and so on near the peak of the pyramid should be eaten in small amounts, or not at all.
The pyramid at the right counts the ecological impact of each item through things such as the amount of water and acreage and consumables (feed, chemicals, meds) used to produce, fuel to deliver it, energy  to harvest, butcher, package, cool or freeze, and finally to cook it.  Again the green background items are the winners, the safest for the earths resources and environment.
Wow, many of the same items that are good for us are good for the environment.  Excuse me, I'm headed to the kitchen for an orange.

The benefits of fossil fuel

That's a 2013 train wreck and explosion, tank cars full of North Dakota shale oil.  This scene is happening now every few days somewhere in the US with our aging gas pipes, oil pipelines, trains, gas stations, refineries, tank farms.  We had a truck blow up with a load of gas on a bridge, they had to do major work on the bridge, the heat damaged so much of the concrete.  Then in Hutchinson Kansas a few years ago underground salt caverns were pumped full of natural gas for storage, it found a way to the surface and got into an old mainstreet brick two story building and blew the shit out of it and burned for weeks.

Wind farm and solar farm disasters never go beyond the single unit affected.  Towns don't burn, people aren't evacuated.   So far a dangerous spill of wind and sunshine hasn't been reported.

When food rots for oil and coal company profits.

I bet you didn't know that wheat, corn, soybeans and milo are stuck in the great plains instead of on their way to markets and foreign buyers.  Oh, why?
Because oh dear uninformed one.  Coal and tar sand oil is buying up the intervals/capacity on the railroads.  Tar sand oil from Canada and shale oil from the Dakotas has the money to buy it.  Rail capacity is dependent on crossings and rail yard timings, these are the chokepoints.  You can only run so many trains over some of these nodes.

Well China has been buying less coal for the last few months, and maybe, just maybe the drop in oil price will slow the movement of these very expensive and low profit oils.  I don't think people realize what it means, we are shutting off our food supply to move fossil fuel around.

Replace dirty energy fuels with wind and solar and we can move our grain to market again, and the dangerous side effect will be clean air and lower energy prices.  Wind is cheaper energy than coal.

new NBC peacock

Technically that would be a peahen.

Wisconsin raised your rates $84 a yr, thats a lot of cheese.

Capitalism at it's best!  Utilities are government regulated monopolies, never forget that. They may be investor or private owned business like we are suppose to revere, but it's anything but a free market, and above all it wants to prevent a free market.

Wisconsin just approved a monthly fixed charge increase (some call it a connection charge) from $9 to $16 a month.  Also they approved lowering the price per kilowatt used, and (there's more) increasing the fee if you have a solar panel and lowering the price they will pay you for excess energy they take off your investment into self reliance and energy security.  Why all this raising and lowering at the same time?

This is to punish people who find ways to keep their own money through conservation, energy efficient bulbs and appliances.  So, if your an old guy on a fixed income and found a way to send less to the power company, they just said "fuck you old fart you now owe us more than you been saving with your LED's, ha!
This shift from charging what you use to a charge for just being alive has another target, wind farms. The lowest cost energy you can get now is new wind farms.  But by lowering the Kwh rate it makes them "look" a little higher than they were, it doesn't change that coal and nukes are even higher but this is to take a little shine off.  If winds lower charges are now a smaller percent of your overall bill then they will be less likely to lower the total won't they?   So, a little accounting trick, ha!
Then there is the tax on solar.  That's is what the Arizona, Utah and Nevada libertarian party calls these utility charges they stick on you if they spot a solar panel or you ask for a net metering connection.  This is to make solar unattractive, because at the moment home owned solar is less than utility supplied power.  I say use the libertarian argument, the sun that falls on my house is mine, and legislators should not be preventing competition or working for government regulated monopolies against home owners.
What can you do if these rate structures visit your wallet?  It doesn't change the main fact, you can keep more of your money from Mr. Monopoly utility by conserving - an 11 watt bulb (yesterdays 60) will still pay for it's self in a couple of years, after that you save.  Next time you buy a TV get the energy stingy one, my new TV (first in 15 years) uses $7 of energy a year (at 5 hr/day), some use 3 times that and cost the same.  A architect friend of mine says you can wire part of your house as stand alone, run your solar panel/battery back-up to those rooms alone, they are off the grid, screw'm.

Wisconsin today, your state tomorrow.  ALEC and the Utilities lobbies are behind this, to prevent a free market in energy, to empty your wallet, to keep us tied to fossil fuels. Oh, and if I lived in Wisconsin, I would be in front of my state legislator asking him why he thinks my sun shine belongs to the power company, and I would be shopping for insulation, a water heater jacket, and more LED bulbs.

Brunhilda, so beautiful

surprise

China if you only knew

Tired of hearing that China will cheat on the agreement made with the US on curbing pollution?  Worried China is untrustworthy?

In the words of an Italian business associate of mine, “OK, now I splain you”.  

Damn near everything in Ace Hardware to WallMart is made in China.  It got here by negotiated contracts, delivery deadlines, and guess what, it made it on time, they did what they were suppose to.  They did the same thing for Boeing and Airbus, they supply major components to both.  From McDonalds to my local farm co-op selling grain to them, there is no trustworthy issue.  They do what they agree to.

This CO2 target is good business for China.  A good percentage of solar power products and some wind power hardware come from China. Since the announcement India has indicated it will get onboard too, and Denmark already a convert announced it will go all the way to 100% green in a few years.  All this means an increase in the production of these products and falling prices through economy of scale.  Lower cost renewable energy will lower the cost of manufacturing and living in China.  Already at an advantage this is going to make them even more competitive.  It will drive down prices for all of us.

If you have seen the pictures of pollution in China, and read how much farm land is polluted from intense fallout and run-off from manufacturers and power plants there is no question, even an authoritarian government has to say stop, lives are being shortened and importantly it is embarrassing the hell out of them when the business world beats a path to China and comes home with a smog hangover and sore throat. They don’t like it, it’s all about saving face.

So, I say they are trustworthy on this agreement, it makes good business sense for them, and they have to do it for the health of the nation.  The exact numbers are not important, suffice it to say they will be installing thousands of wind turbines, and millions of rooftop panels and PV farms.  They are still building a coal plant a week, but this will taper off soon, and already they are closing some of their dirtiest oldest plants, resulting in a benefit if somewhat muted.  Last month they announced a $6 a ton on coal imports to drive up cost to impose efficiency.  Other things done recently (at least in some areas) carbon trading market, higher electric rates for the wealthy, local officials get promotion points if energy use goes down and air quality goes up in their region.

China is hacking us, bullying in the Pacific, spying, making counterfit products, kind of like a lot of nations did, or are.  But saving money through a new kind of energy economy is something they understand, the numbers and approach vary, but it will happen, and if it causes clean air then hey that’s a good deal.  And since their air pollution blows all the way to our west coast, it seems like encouraging them is a net good to us. 

And there’s still one more over arching reason to do this, national security through energy self reliance, that is China’s unstated and maybe most important goal.  And why isn’t it ours?  Self-reliance through fossil fuel is never possible, 60 years of claims elect me to fix it proves it can’t be done.  Like China we should be jumping all over Obama’s goal.  Screw the politics and oil wars.  But the GOP will try to kill this agreement.  All over the world in the last 2 weeks other countries are saying or hinting at getting on board, all but Putin’s Russia.  Is that the partner the GOP wants in their fight to kill clean energy, Putin?  Really?

Did you ever have this dream?

Another one I have is it's the last week of school and I just found out I had a class I never went to, and the final's are - - TOMORROW!

Corporatocracy! I hope you like it.

Yesterday, the House voted 229-191 to pass H.R. 1422, which would change the rules for appointing members to the Science Advisory Board (SAB), a group that gives scientific advice to the EPA Administrator.
This bill prohibits scientist from talking about their own research or work.  It also changes who is eligible to be on the SAB, Experts of Industry and Corporations would be eligible to serve, and in fact scientist who have used government grants to do work will be ineligible to serve.  
If this becomes law, industry will control the EPA.  Science is censored and cut out.
Welcome to a corporatocracy

Here is why so many cops are pissed off

Ever wonder why so many police are out of control?  Lead poisoning.  Ever wonder why so many gun nuts are so radical and excitable? Lead poisoning.  The source are the indoor shooting ranges.  Blood tests reveal police across the nation have high levels of lead in their blood, as do employees at shooting ranges, and visitors to indoor sites.
Lead leads to poor decision making skills and aggression, lower levels of intelligence, and life shortening diseases.
When a gun is fired, it sheds gasses and dust laden with lead, indoors it lingers airborne settles on everything in the building, including skin, lungs, clothes, hair, shoes, and it goes home with the shooter dosing their home and family.

http://www.columbian.com/news/2014/oct/19/workplace-lead-rules-rarely-enforced-gun-ranges/

Play it safe, never shake hands with a member of the NRA

ALEC looses 6 biggies in the last few weeks.

Koch and ebay is still there, google "cut ties with ALEC" to see a surprisingly big list that left ALEC the last 3 years.  Those that give a reason almost always list climate denial and gun support as their main reason.  ALEC if you don't know is a group that writes laws and hands them out to states and cities then buys votes to pass them.  The laws are always to benefit corporations, polluters, and the rich.

How much plastic surgery does it take

to have a horses ass?

Yea, you could say that, I'm excited to see ya.

Tell your farmer uncle look at this

All your Republican relatives living on those soybean farms or cattle ranches will want to know how much solar energy can save farmers, and protect them from local power failures.  And it's not a hippie magazine that did the study and wrote it.
http://cleantechnica.com/2014/11/15/farm-ranch-guide-talks-up-low-cost-solar-energy/
The link direct to the article is below, it wouldn't link, so copy/paste it.
http://www.farmandranchguide.com/news/agri-tech/solar-moves-beyond-early-adopters-in-upper-midwest/article_8f713c4a-6a87-11e4-a8e3-33615daaba45.html

China just insured us of falling energy prices

 A few days ago China and the US agreed to improving the environment, and thus the climate.  Clean air is good, keeping glaciers on the mountains is good.  But the right is pissed, war on coal and all that, some on the left says it is to weak, some of both says it will let China cheat.

Here's why it is good, really really a good deal for everyone.  Lower prices.  Yes, much lower prices, prices that will undercut oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear.  Why, how?   Well for starters the newest wind turbines are already the lowest form of energy and home solar is already lower than retail utility, and it's now sometimes competitive in solar farm wholesale situations too.  But with the economy of scale in the production wave coming our way to meet the goals of this agreement, prices will fall, a lot.  China may or may not meet the exact numbers of their goals but they are already dwarfing everyone else in their clean energy growth rate.  Add to that, last week they changed their electric rates, the rich, or people in a mansions or fancy apartment, or a company that makes a lot of money, your energy rates just went up.  They want even the rich to turn off the lights.  Also they just added a $6 a ton import duty on most coal to drive up costs at plants to stimulate conservation.

Then today, India announces they will stop importing coal in 3 years or less.  This is a stunner for Australia, their supplier.  Instead they will boost their own mines but mostly launch a giant wind and solar growth plan.
A sad note, in the US black lung suddenly jumped to numbers not seen since the 1970's.  Mines are cheating on their safety and health requirements, and no one is doing a damn thing about it, fines go unpaid, the Senate and Congress stand up for these bastards.  The industry will blow down a whole mountain ruining the community and wilderness, it will do little to prevent it's men from getting black lung, it's an industry that does not deserve to prosper.

Back to that war on coal thing.  It's actually a war on smoke, not coal.  You should know the laws gave each state a target to clean up air.  The utilities can buy scrubbers, and wind and solar, geo-thermal, what ever it takes to meet the standards, including closing coal fired plants if they don't want to install smokestack scrubbers.  These scrubbers are a product, industry here makes them, installs them, it's a business, it creates good jobs, and electric rates only go up a few pennys a month for each of us, don't listen to this shit about millions or billions it costs us, it lets you create jobs for a few cents, and you get clean air too. If they want they can still burn their beloved coal.

NPR had 3 full time reporters covering the environment.  Last week they cut it to 1 who can work on it 1/2 his time.  Lets see, I seem to remember that as Bush 43 left office they demanded for npr to keep it's support they had to let a right winger head up NPR.  Talk about a sleeper cell of terrorist.

Fracking cost me money now

About 5 years ago oil and gas companies started fracking about 45 miles southeast of here.  About 4 years ago we started having earthquakes.  Wednesday we had a real boat ride, lots of rocking, I was getting an eye exam and the doors were slamming and the fat ladies working there were moaning and holding on.  It was in the mid 4's, 4.6 I think.  In the fracking area bricks fell off some buildings, here no damage.

This morning I called the insurance agent and added earthquake coverage.  It's currently only a few dollars a year, but he said they may yank the rate higher if the shaking continues.  So, now fracking actually costs me something.  My expenses and risks (still a big deductable on masonry damage) go up so a few oil guys can get rich.

Kansas Gov. Brownback early this year set up a 3 man panel to see if fracking and the earthquakes are related since they started in the same place at the same time. 2 oilmen and a geologist that spent his life working for an oil company were his picks.  "Probably not related, no solid evidence, it's just a random thing" said Pope Brownback of the report.  Breaking up the stoney arches and layers under our feet is like going under your house and shattering the foundation, things are going to sag, fall, settle, slip, crack, shake, your not going to like it.   Unrelated?  Like sugar and obesity!

Things going on around here.

It was cool yesterday afternoon, I got out and mowed the yard before dinner.  Really nice out.  Yellow leaves from 5 100ft+ cottonwoods near the house mulched nicely under the old mower, a few red leaves out front from a neighbors maple.  My maple has not changed yet, still green as are some of the mulberries, hackberries.  The redbuds are about half green leaves and half yellow with some falling.  The elms and dogwoods still green, the walnuts turned yellow long ago and are almost bare.  The grass is dry so I turned the well on this morning and the fescue looks greener already, sprinklers still running and the wind came up to 22mph blowing water all over the yard, a few late robins are running through the mist.

So far we haven't had a frost, it's really late in the year to be frost free here.  I need to put some oil on my wooden deck floor, I did the rails already.  I don't want to do it when it's under 50°f, the oil won't soak in good enough, I don't want it drying laying on the surface.  It's suppose to get up into the 50's for a couple hours but I think I'll wait for a day when it will get warmer and stay up for several hours.

I am struggling with my latest sculpture, a full sized realistic and accurate bust of Hermann Hesse, 17" tall, author of Steppenwolf, Sidhartha, Glass Bead Game, If the War Goes On. In Sidhartha a young man leaves on a life long journey seeking spirituality and self and in the end he finds it, one of my favorite books, set in the time of the Buddha, it's one of my favorite books and with his other books was widely read in the 1960's.   Hermann fled Germany with his Jewish wife and was given citizenship in Switzerland just before the war.  He has a wrinkled forehead that has given me fits.  I have put the wrinkles on and scraped them off 5 times.  Plus I made one of the best mouths of all time, it looked like it could talk, only to see later it was too far forward compared to his nose and chin, my tutor cut it off, I couldn't do it, the new mouth is in the right place now, it's well done, but it doesn't have that look, it's not as good, and messing with it is dangerous, I don't want to do the 5 times forehead wrinkles routine on the mans lips.

The wife is lurking around with projects in mind, something is about to happen I can feel it.

Robertson of 700 club tells their listeners invest in oil stocks, it's biblical

A few days ago I found an article about the life of fracked oil and gas wells.  Thousands of the 1.1 million active wells in the US are fracked, leading to the industry boasting of energy independence.  Don't get your hopes up that fossil fuel can do that.  Fracked wells have a terrible habit of dying young.  Within 2 years the (national) average well production falls about 50%, within another couple of years the output becomes uneconomical which means re-frack or cap.  At this rate the industry needs to replace over 1/4 the fracked wells a year to maintain current output.  The payback may fall short over time at this rate if oil prices fall further, and natural gas prices don't rise faster.  Seeing your investment wiped out due to charlatans advice and greed, well that's biblical.

Your fathers oil wells produced for at least 5 years, most lasted decades with a few approaching a century.  Why the change?  In dad's day, they were going after the easy to recover oil and gas, now we are into the expensive hard to get at era.  We need to leave it lay, nature put it where it wouldn't hurt us, and gave us wind and sunshine.  Next time you see an add about energy independence, watch to see how much they talk about renewables, more efficient lighting and transport, energy stingy standards for homes and appliances, energy efficient industrial equipment, - these things will get us to energy independence quicker than any other method.

Gas prices will go back up, forever up.

Oil prices have fallen, from $100 a barrel to $80.  Your price at the pump is coming down too.
Which leads me to point out that much of the American public will always act to ensure future damage to their finances are just a matter of time.
Consumers: As soon as gas prices went down, low mileage SUV's, pickups, and the general mix of poor energy effiecent cars jump in sales.
Oil price history:  Prices always go up.  They come down for a few months, some dips last 16 months, but the trend is up, forever up.
Oil producer strategy: Saudi Arabia and other big producers want to put a halt to fracking and oil sands operations all over the world. Adding to the supply coming from those new sources combined with lower demand due to so many low mileage cars being sold the last 5 years, has brought on lower prices.  In the past Saudi and others would cut production at this point to hold up prices.  This time they want it to fall.  Prices at $80 a barrel cools interest in those hard to recover resources such as oil shale, oil sands, fracking.  The industry says $77 is the point some operations will shut down.  If they can get it lower or hold it for months the drilling rigs will come out of the fields, some drillers will go out of business.  When they cut production prices will go back up but it will take years for drillers to return in great numbers to the field.
Sage advice: Buy the highest mileage vehicle you can, prices will go back up at the first international crisis or when big oil thinks they need the money.  I have an 08 Camry hybrid, get 39mpg, it paid for it's higher price (over the standard model) several years ago, and now that prices are low, wow, I really have low fuel bills.

They know they will lose the fossil fuel fight, but when, at what cost to the climate?

 Thats me helping people write letters on an i-pad to their state representatives to support wind and solar energy.  In a few days at the fair we got about 2,000, more than double last year.  A year ago we had several people come in to fuss about wind and solar, this year only 2 or 3, everyone else wants it and wants the legislature to stop trying to make it harder to build a clean energy future.

Below is what Shell Oil projects for all energy sources in 86 years.  Look at that, oil 10%, coal 3.9%.  I met a man who advises oil execs on global warming, he is not there to pump warm air up their skirts, they hire him to explain the latest actual science. He said the only thing they ever ask is not if it's real, but when will they be made to stop.  What we have to do is make them stop sooner not later, transition to a new economy, slow the disruption coming from heat, storms, reduced food production.  This is a Shell made chart.

Ban flights out of Texas, protect us from Ebola

GOP and some Dems want flights from Africa banned to save us from Ebola.  Only one guy came in so far that was unknown to have it.  But, they are tracking lots of people exposed who came out of Texas.  Fuck Rick Perry, stop flights out of Texas.

I think the reaction is a bit much folks.  So far 1 death in the US from Ebola and oh my gosh it's gonna kill us and it's that black Presidents fault.  Really, your worried about that.  50k to 60k a year die in US hospitals from infections caught in the frigg'n hospital, 30k a year die from getting the wrong meds or the wrong dose of the right meds.  Then the flu kills 10k to 40k a year, heart disease 600k, obesity/diabetes almost that.  Almost all of these could be prevented.  Ebola is nothing.  We should be asking hospitals to clean up, why the hell did my fater-in-law end up with 2 near deadly infections from a short hospital stay?  No wonder people get Ebola, the places are truly dirty.

"Pope Francis the liberal" beaten back by conservatives.

Gays will not be welcomed to the church.  Neither will divorced people or people living together yet unmarried.  The bishops rebelled, last week it looked like they would show some compassion, nope, scorn and bile instead.

Bobby Kennedy's speech, an amazing forward thinker

Speaking of stuff, like the quality of our political debates as Bobby mentioned. Gregg Orman the independent currently leading 73 yr old live long senator (R) Roberts. Orman has spent 3 million of his own money on the race so far, yet is outspent so far by 3 or 4 to 1 by the Republicans. Kansas is only 3 million total and very few vote here. By the time this is over I bet the cost per vote will be around a thousand. Orman is everything the Republicans stand for, rich, really nice guy, owns several businesses, started small, knows powerful people all over, yet they are attacking him for being all of these things. He was a republican at one time, so there you have it, traitor.

Then yesterday the Pentagon said oh it's getting hot, lives and money will be lost.

1880 to 2013

Ladies if you want it then dating the GOP ain't gonna get it.

news unfit for weak stomached republicans

It's been a wild few days of shocks to the system, especially if your system is Republican.

*Socialist Pope's synod has come out with the question for catholics, shouldn't we make nice with gays? They aren't going to do weddings, but it's a step forward in cutting off the hatred, and the step is too far for many on the right.

*Sept. was the hottest September ever globally.   Using the thousands of daily readings around the world.  Yea I know it was cool a few days where you live so your not convinced.

*Tesla's new model D is drag strip ready, 155mph, 0 - 60 3.2 seconds.  691 HP with a motor driving the front and another driving the rear.  Range is further too, 275 miles.  Extra range is due to 2 motors working in harmony adjusted every mili-second takes less power than one motor, even with the extra weight, it goes faster and farther.  I have a state house senator who owns a car dealership, he hates Tesla, this for sure made him puke, again.  Porsche, Viper, Shelby, Mustang, none of them beat this time.  Electric cars were up till now seen as a lady like car, an old persons car, a nerds car, now it is THE muscle car.  OH go on, Puke some more.  In fairness one Porsche 918 Spyder can beat it, but it costs $887,000, for one car, the Tesla is less than 10% of that.

*China announced last week a $6 a ton tax on imported coal.  They are suffering so much pollution they have to make changes.  These higher prices they say will force increased efficiency and cut waste in industry and residential use.  They also re-affirmed last months statement the rapid increase in building coal plants is coming to an end in a couple of years at which time they will accelerate the  closing of old plants, dirtiest first and so on.  So much for the plan to export hugh amounts of coal to China.  Wind and solar are growing fast too in China.

*India has decided instead of building an electric grid infrastructure into un-electrified regions they will get power to 400 million by small wind and solar farms.  Local distributed power near the customers.  This announcement killed several planned coal fired power plants.  Ouch GE, ouch Becktel, no smokestacks or boilers needed.

Republicans succeed when you don't vote.

Did BP drive up cost of seafood?

Well, I doubt it, I think all these fish are just better at hiding than they were before the gulf was covered in oil tar and fire.  Also I thing gulf fishermen are drunks now and don't fish much.  I bet the truth is there are more fish than ever now, yea that's it, those "-" signs were suppose to be "+'s".  Yea that's it, oil helps em hide so drunk fishermen can't find them.

What kind of people hunt dogs?

The EV's are coming, the EV's are coming.

Last year I noticed there was a Chevy Volt in a garage a couple blocks away.  Now another Electric Vehicle,  a Nissan Leaf is near by too.  Twice last month I saw a red Tesla model S gliding quietly through the area and onto the 4 lane arterial to the east.  I don't know the owners, but I met the guy living next to the Volt.  He said the women that has it ask if gas can go bad.  Volt has a gas engine that runs if the 40 mile range batteries are depleted.  She told him in the 6 months she had it she never used the gas engine, the tank  still full from the day she bought it. All her trips around town gets her home on stored power.  He told her she should use the gas engine and refill the tank every few months to be safe.

People don't drive as far as they think, most trips to work, school, shop, church, or bar are  less than 40.  All the builders are working on, and will in a year or so have cars in the 100+, even 200+ range.

You don't need Paul Revere to tell you EV's are coming, the Kochs and others are fighting it, they see it coming, it means less gas sold.  The question is will we let them slow it down in states with laws that inhibit EV sales with higher taxes on EV's and hybrids or keeping Tesla out of some states.  Well, Ford has partnered with KB Homes, the largest house and apartment builder in the nation.  KBH will now wire all their homes to be ready for adding an EV charger, so the buyer if they later buy an EV can just plug in the charger that plugs to the EV, you need not pull any wires or hire an electrician.  Tesla give buyers of the "S" free recharges for life.  Today Honda and Solar City announced $50+ million program for Honda EV customers, lowering their costs if they add solar panels to charge the new EV.  Even if you or I can't get in on these programs now, they solve some of the problems for the buyer, pushing up sales, lowering prices, reducing pollution. Thats good for all of us. We might be able to afford an EV sooner than we thought.

You need to let your state house rep and senator know you oppose adding taxes to these cars, and you oppose the trend of making net metering* less attractive with more taxes, charges, regulations, limits.  The sun that falls on your house is yours, if you invest to turn it into energy, then bugger-off Mr. Utility, bugger-off ALEC, AFP, Chamber, Kochs.  It's your sunshine, protect it or the Koch's will make it so expensive you won't be able to use it.
*Net Metering, the meter than runs both directions, when you generate your own watts, if you have excess it credits you, lowering your utility bill.  Some states are now doing the utilites and Koch's work to the detriment of homeowners and small businesses.

like to wager on a little game of pool?

make history, or be vilified by it

skip the add in 3 seconds.

Colorado water to be given to Kansas, are you really that stoned?

Tri-state (a utility) plans to dodge the environmental plans of Colorado by buying dirty electricity from Kansas.  Together with coal interest, and Kansas anti-environmental politicians they plan on making it with smokey coal.  The partner in this plan to pollute is Sunflower Electric's Holcomb plant.  Sunflower got a $534 million loan from taxpayers in the 1980's to build the plant, never paid it back, the unpaid debt ran to over $900 million when in 2009 the agricultural department stepped in and forgave the loan.  Ha, don't bitch about Solyndra, a smaller loan v 1980's $'s, and we did recover some of it, no body told you that did they?  You my dear citizen paid for the plant dusting Kansas with lead and mercury while all these years Sunflower raised rates and paid share holders handsome dividends.  Sunflower reportedly flirted with bankruptcy a number of times over the years, and this my friends is the poorly managed corporation that both Tri-State, along with the Kansas and Colorado legislature in the state houses and in DC are pushing pushing pushing to be given a 2 to 3 BILLION $ loan for a hugh new coal fired plant.  So, lined up the money, political muscle, fuel, oh how about water?  Coal needs rivers, but Holcomb has very little water, years of boiling it off for the current plant  and local irrigation has plunged the water table nearly dry.   No fear, Tri-state has found a few farmers in Colorado stupid enough to sell the water to Tri-state, who will flush it to Kansas.  As that water is sent to Kansas to be boiled off, eastern Colorado farms, towns and industry are doomed as the acquifer is mined out.

In the last 35 years businesses have seen (by region) 300 to 600% increase in their energy costs. Natural gas, gasoline, diesel, electricity, all of these sources are subsidized by tax payers.  While we pay these guys to overcharge us and yank the market prices around, they use their hired legislators to block wind and solar, block battery research, community sourcing, net metering.  We're paying for this?

Colorado should be making these welfare corporations build a wind or solar farm in your own state, you get the jobs, the royalties, and Kansas won't be boiling off the water needed for Rocky Ford watermelons.

Colorado to make history illegal to know.

OK, not illegal, but....... the state this week voted a new cirriculum for high school history that will block any "uncomfortable or wish it wasn't so" history to be taught.  Only the happy stuff, free market triumphs, patriotic stuff.
Earlier this week Denver teachers had a sick call in day, yesterday students walked out of a number of high schools and protested what they call "censored education" and creating a "secret history to be determined by conservatives".
I wonder if they will expel students for asking about Watergate, or Tea Pot Dome, the New Deal, or the  whore house George Washington and his officers frequented?  Maybe the gun screening at the door will also look for old history books, with their stories of race riots and slave ships?

immaculate sunshine runuth over

Foggy-cloudy-rainy Germany gets lots of it's energy from solar panels, far more than we currently do.  Germany is north of almost everything we have except snowbilly Alaska.  Yet you see every state can produce just from this one source as much energy as they currently consume . At the start of WWII we jumped within a year or so from hundreds to producing 50,000 airplanes a year.  The climate deniers wind up their "it's a hoax" speech by telling you even if it you want to you can't suddenly build enough solar panels and wind turbines, hybrid cars, low energy appliances and home insulation to impact the climate in the way scientist suggest.  Hitler and the Japanese military underestimated American industry too.  It is totally possible.  Lobby your city and county to increase the insulation requirements on new construction and renovations.  All this is possible with your participation, none of it without it.

Take a dump, look out the window, drink orange juice, but don't hit.

This picture in it's full size said NFL then under that, Get your game face on!
I never once saw any of my family even extended family hit one another, or any of our women look like they had ever been hit.  So, I don't get it, why do big ones want to beat the little ones?  WE argue, get all bent out of shape, but no one ever had a bloody nose from it, go outside, go to bed, get busy on something, listen to some calm music.  Things clear up.   You don't need a game face.

In the mean time Fox and Rush Limpball are telling the other side, that somehow it's not so bad, it's the liberals way of telling that makes it seem that way.

A GOP group worth recommending, and joining.

75% of the wind energy capacity• is in congressional districts held by the GOP.  67% of the manufacturers supplying wind energy are in GOP held congressional districts.  Wind energy means lots of jobs and millions in payments to counties and landowners (royalties just like oil).

So why do Republican politicians vote against the better interest of their own districts businesses and ratepayers?  While Republican voters favor renewable energy sources at 60% to 70% depending on the area, elected state and federal GOP office holders favor it at only 15% to 20%.  Answer is pressure and money from the Koch's, coal companies, railroads, oil, natural gas, all want to stall the inevitable success of all renewables.  The cost to the public is higher utility bills by sticking with old technology, and more pollution.  You must tell your representatives at every level, even townships, how you feel, and what you expect from them, be polite, passionate, and firm.

I work with regional group Climate and Energy Project and a national group Operation Free, both work to educate the public and increase interest in moving the economy towards clean safe lower cost energy sources**  Friday I met the mid states coordinator for a Republican group doing the same, RedStateRenewables.org.  Encourage the Repubs in your circle to look, learn, join and support this group.  Operation Free is a military veterans group, linked at the upper left corner of this blog, click the shield.

*"wind energy capacity" means areas where winds blow strong enough and often enough to produce power at a profit over the years.
** wind and solar are now at parity with fossil fuel in most areas, lower in some.

ISIS waterboards journalist and foreigners they catch.

No big deal, it's not torture.  Cheney and Bush swear it's not, Fox swears it's not.

each coal, gas, and nuclear power plants use more than that

clean coal adds prohibited

The UK (as in England Scotland etc.) they have been suffering a nightly barrage of bullshit adverts on the tele about clean coal.  Well that ends.  It's deemed false advertising says the government, there is no such thing as clean coal.  It's dirty and kills when mined, hauled, burned, it's ash is handled.
I wish they were banned in the US.

And I might add, the so called Obama war on coal is a war on smoke, if you scrub the smoke you can burn all you want.  Thankfully yesterday in Memphis one of the nations dirtiest coal fired plants was given a death sentence.  No later than Dec. 31 2018 the fire will go out, replaced by natural gas plant and clean wind energy.    The NG plant is not good news though so long as fracking and habitual and willful methane leaks are allowed in the industry.

Don't give your trash collector your High Tech Trash

 
E-waste.  High Tech Trash.  Did you know in Japan almost all of it is recycled.  In the US almost all of it goes to the land fill.  Why are we throwing away the richest ore stream in the world?

10 to 20 ounces of gold per ton is in this stuff.  No gold mine in the world has ore that rich.  It also has large amounts of silver, hugh amounts of copper, some aluminum, platinum and trace amounts of rare exotics.  It also contains hugh amounts of lead, mercury, fire retardants and dozens of highly poison and crippling chemicals.

Where is it? Computers, cell phones, microwaves, copiers, fax machines, DVD players, TV's, music players of every sort large and tiny, coffee makers, alarm radios, hair dryer, pocket calculators, game player, GPS, digital camera, batteries, ect.  We each have 20 to 70 of these things and throw one out every few weeks.

There are a number of firms in the US processing this, but it's a drop in the bucket, Europe is processing far more, and safely.  Asia is the destination for much of this, but rather than in grinders and furnaces it's done with kids burning and cooking down components, killing them. Well that's an issue, but for us the issue is to handle it safely in our community.  On a recent trip to Arkansas I passed a house surrounded by junk cars, not unusual there, but I noticed a half dozen TV's and old computers laying in the weeds, not good, nor is sending it to landfills.

The materials in these devices cannot be gotten out by you or me, taking them apart is even dangerous, break a circuit board and you get showered by microscopic doses of mercury, lead and fire retardant chemicals and heavy metals.  You have got to turn them over to a recycler.  A few appliance stores will take them back, a few manufactures will pay shipping, but for the most part you need to keep your eyes peeled for a community recycle day, or like I have near my home a recycle center, though they only take computers cell phones copiers and fax machines and batteries, at least it's a start.  I stop over there 2 or 3 times a year with my contribution.

Recycling of is a hugh net savings to the world when dealing with dangerous metals and chemicals, material used to produce a "chip" amounts to 630 times the mass of the final product.  As a teenager a friend of mine had a TV in the pasture, we set it on a brush pile, lit it on fire and threw bricks at it till the hot thing broke.  What a disaster, though we didn't know, those old TV's had several pounds of lead dust in them, and mercury vapor.  Breaking it in a roaring fire updraft surely was a disaster we made unaware of.  By the way, mercury floats for 1 year, no part of the world is without mercury pollution, it's found in polar bears.

Climate Science - 1824 to the present

The Short History:

• 1824 - Joseph Fourier discovered the greenhouse effect.
• 1859 - John Tyndall discovered that H₂O and CO₂ absorb infrared confirming the Fourier greenhouse effect.
• 1896 - Svante Arrhenius proposed human CO₂ emissions would prevent earth from entering next ice age (challenged 1906).
• 1950’s Guy Callendar found H2O and CO2 did not overlap all spectra bands, therefore warming from CO₂expected (countered the 1906 objections against Arrhenius).
• 1955 - Hans Suess identified the isotopic signature of industrial based CO₂ emissions.
• 1956 - Gilbert Plass calculated adding CO₂ would significantly change radiation balance.
• 1957 - Revelle/Suess suggested oceans would absorb less CO₂ causing more global warming than predicted.
• 1958/60’s - Charles David Keeling proved CO₂ was increasing in the atmosphere.
• 70’s/80’s Suke Manabe and James Hansen began modeling climate projections.
• Current: NCAR, GISS, Hadley, CRU, RSS TLT, UAH, MSU, Glacier Melt, Sea Level Rise, Latitudinal Shift all confirm models.

------------

"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed."   Mahatma Gandhi

1955 is when we found out there are two kinds of  CO_2, one that is constant and naturally occurring, moving from plant to sky to sea and round again. it has been hammered by sun light for eons.  The other is from underground coal, oil and gas, from millions of years hidden from the sun and it contains a different isotope than the other, it carries a marker, a fingerprint known as C14.  This is pollution, this is what is rising in our atmosphere, not the naturally occurring form but this one, one that was stored out of harms way by nature.  This is the cause of global warming, it can be identified and counted, this is why we know we are the cause of a change in the worlds ecosystems due to new weather patterns that will almost certainly bring a lower standard of comfort to humans and decimate much of nature as we know it.  In it's place will come poison ivy and mosquitos.  

Every coal burning power plant has an ash dump.

Toxic coal ash dust at the Making Money Having Fun Landfill in Bokoshe, OK.

And some coal ash is radioactive.  Even terrorist don't have a way to expose us to radioactive material as effectively as our own utilities.  1) Strive to use less energy (don't give money to a polluting monopoly). 2) Ask your state house representative and senator to sponsor a Coal Ash Fugitive Dust Control law.

Screw Chiquita Bananas

Chiquita announced they will move from the US, to a lower tax haven.  NEVER WILL I BUY ANOTHER BUNCH of their fruit.  Not one.  Guaranteed.  I have a number of brands I don't buy, and I stick to it like glue.  Boycott is my vote.  Vote with your pocketbook, do not give them a penny.  Tell your store manager and the produce manager you want a different brand, tell them other stores carries a different brand.

Assholes, American corps don't pay much tax as it is.

Lewis Black on the godly rights a-hole slamming Robin Williams

Lewis Black

August 13 at 4:35am · 

FUCK YOU Rush Limbaugh. Your statements were beyond cruel and stupid. They were intolerable. Enough is enough from you. You are an idiot. Don't you ever demean the death of another human being. He was my friend. You disgust me.

Where is all that stock market money going?

In the rare moments lately that the right isn't claiming voter fraud solar energy and little kids from south of the border are only minutes from killing this nation once and for all, you will probably hear this.  Obama is spending every dime we have, dems are running up the debt, government is unstable and should not be in charge of the money, wall street and the rich should.   Am I right?  OK.

Then where is all that money going in the last two months when trillions have been pulled from the stock market, corporate bonds and mutual funds.  It's going into government bonds.  Government bonds, yes, US government bonds.

Doesn't sound like the government is so scary after all.  The stock market dipped due to so much money headed to the security of Obama's US government.   And, a-n-d, fucking AND, the national debt has been cut by over 50% since 2011.  50%.  Anyone hear about this?  Anyone hear how fast the debt is shrinking?  Fox?  Anyone?

And low, the angle of death said, "die, die, die you ignorant proteus".

A group of conservatives and religious zealots are calling on Sarah Palin to form a new party to attack and destroy the GOP.  Yes, do it.  Open the gates of hell.

War, huh, what is it good for?

A general was shot dead today in Afghanistan.  I wish it didn't happen, I wish he was alright.  But it pisses me off that the news launches into a life story of him and his family, his service history.  All those thousands that died with a low rank insignia on their uniform, they were equal to him, no evening news or front page story for them.  We should have been out of there already, let those people get back to their tribal customs, thats what they want.  It's a lifestyle that does not fit us, it's harsh, mean, but it fits them, let them return to it.

Blue Iowa

These wind mills will make hundreds of millions of dollars of clean energy over the next 30 years, at prices lower than coal and usually lower than natural gas. Wind and solar energy, both from free immaculate sun light.

Bet you didn't know oil spills don't cause pollution, firemen do.

Near the farm passes a whole raft of pipelines, not on my land, but near, so I get these safety mailers all the time warning about digging and so on.  Look at this statement from NuStar, one of the biggest pipe owners, it's under the header Health Hazards as advice if there is a leak.  "Inhalation or contact with material may irritate or burn skin and eyes.  Fire may produce irritating, corrosive and/or toxic gases.  Vapors may cause dizziness or suffocation.  Runoff from fire control or dilution water may cause pollution"
I'm glad to know all this, it's good info.  But did you notice that the oil spill doesn't cause pollution, it's firemen's water that pollutes.  So, maybe they stay at the station, let it burn, then there's no pollution.

007's Pussy Galore was dangerous, but look at this.

I'm not making this up.  Wunderpus photogenicus, is not the name of a new porn movie, or the female star of it, though it's a great name for one.   While James Bond might have escaped lasers headed for his crotch, he would be Hard pressed to get away from Wunderpus photogenicus, who prefers to kill by gripping and sucking until the victim is strangled.  Boy, I do like a firm grip and the sensation of a negative atmosphere, but no thanks baby.  This bad girl goes after other species of oct-o-pie mostly.

Christian Taliban gives church ultimatum.

First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans had some visitors Sunday.  Protesters disrupted the service.  In town to protest at abortion clinics, the same group linked to Dr. Tillers murder in a Wichita Kansas church a few years ago.  
Protesters ran around screaming "repent, this is not a real religion", and ranting about abortion.  Universalist are neutral on many issues, one being women's right to make decisions on their own lives.  They do not oppose abortion, nor do they promote it, but believe the women must possess the right to decide.  
As a sometime attendee at Unitarian services, I am not surprised the church was and will probably now become a nation wide target of ridicule and maybe more protests by the Christian Taliban.  The church promotes creative ways of thinking, charity to the poor and children as Jesus taught, tolerance for gays, for other religions, support of the arts, higher education, care for the environment*.  Often they invite other religions to speak at services, and incorporate some of the more tolerant features of various beliefs and traditions in services.
Had this been Muslim's screaming in a Southern Baptist church, Fox would report it as terrorism.   
*Unitarian Universalist is one of the several denominations in the US that have voted to divest their investments from fossil fuels and associated industries.