My brother-in-law,and me, estranged in a strange land.

My wife talked to her brother a few days ago.  Retired with a few acres of farmland in central Kansas.  He said how sad he was at losing so many friends.  They shun him more and more, and he them.  He tells an example, recent early morning cafe talk with the small town locals as one after another ranted Obama should be impeached for the illegal bombing of Lybia.  He pointed out Reagan did the same, and in fact attempted to take out Quadaffe duck.  Some set in silence, but some said he was nuts that Reagan never did any such thing, they said they couldn't remember that, or pretended not to, he was really stunned at how nasty they got about his bringing up facts, he said he was really depressed by the encounter, couldn't understand why his friends react this way.
A few days after Congresswoman Gifford was shot in Arizona a business friend called, he often ranted that democrats in the house and senate should be marched outside and shot in the head on the Capital steps if they failed to convert on the spot, and loved to silence meetings asking who will shoot Obama?  When he called I ask him if he was happy about the shooting, oh no he said that was bad, but I said it's what you have wanted, oh no not me, he denied it for a while, finally he said well it shouldn't have happened like that and she was the wrong target.  Since then he rarely calls and we never lunch, business conversations are a bit curt.
Do these guys persecute us for their sins?
Well, the brother-in-law said he would like to move to another state, maybe people are not so hostile, I feel the same way these days, can't wait to retire and leave, which makes me wonder, are we going to become enclaves of like minded people, political segregation?

Fireworks from a town in Germany I lived in for many years.

It changes a great deal throughout the 11 minutes.  Watch it on youtube full screen.

GOP mathiosity kills the EPA? If education costs to much, try ignorance.

From Grist.com, The riders that would forbid the EPA  regulate greenhouse gases didn’t succeed in the Senate.  That hasn’t stopped Senate Republicans from declaring victory, though. There were four riders dealing with EPA powers; no single one got 60 votes, but they went ahead and added up all the senators who voted for any of the four. And there were 64 of those, so they won!

Yeah, somebody needs to watch Schoolhouse Rock again. And not just the one about how a bill becomes a law, but also some of the math bits, because climate-hatin’,dictator-lovin’ Jim Inhofe declared this a “90 percent” majority. For those of you who also need an elementary school refresher, there are 100 senators, and 64 out of 100 is 64 percent. But 90 percent of made-up statistics are “90 percent,” we find.

I'm giving you $130.00, buy some organic food with it.

If you don't remember anything else about The Yellow Fringe, remember I told you how to make  $130.00 with no investment or risk.

If you drive to work 5 days a week, or errands, your going to save at a minimum 0.1 US gallon of fuel each day even if you suck at most the suggestions below, that's $130 a year, and I could make you lots more, up to 30% if you get serious.  In Europe the car companies, yes even Ford, gives driving classes to improve your fuel savings.
Pay attention, take notes, it's your money:

1. Air up your damn tires, and tune up your car.  (the car company suggests a pressure for comfort, on the tire is the suggested safe maximum, I use something between those)
2. Look down the road and think, if the light turned red or traffic is backing up, coast to it, you also  save brake wear.
3. Fast starts in traffic, lane hopping, saves you 2.5 minutes in 20 min of city driving, and costs 35% more fuel.
4. Loose weight, clear the trunk, don't pick up fat hitchhikers, mpg goes down 2% per 100 lbs.
5. If traffic and distance are equal, take the smoothest surface road.
6. Cruise control saves fuel on flat land, on large hills it wastes fuel.
7. In good weather and if the car is in good condition, turn off engine on long stops.
8. If you need new tires and will keep the car for their life, pay the few dollars more for "low rolling resistant" tires, they pay for themselves.
9. Going out on errands, plan your route to have more right turns than left, lowers idle time.
10. At the big box store park out near the entrance, you need the 2 minute walk, and you won't have to back out to depart.

My hybrid Camry is rated at 34 mpg city and 36 hiway, I usually get 38 mpg for the whole tank, a few tanks were at 41.  Even if you have a hybrid you have to drive smart to keep your money.  A penny saved is a penny earned.  B. Franklin

US Supreme Court and the Sharia bikini.

US Supreme Court ruled today taxpayers have no standing to object to Arizona's decision to divert  money from their public education department to religious schools.  A conservative court said to tax payers the state may give your money to religious entities as it sees fit.  Separation of church and state is on life support now, and I expect it will die soon.  The remedy for this may be a backlash or legal challenge possible stimulated by Muslims, Hindu's and Witches demanding their cut of the pie.   If our tax money will now support Mormon schools and daycare at Our Lady of Perpetual Pedophilia, then we must also give it to the Madrassa.

Note:  A few days ago Kansas passed a law stating that Kansas's laws are the law of Kansas and Islamic Shria law is not and never will be.  Wow, glad they cleared that up!  But this says something else.  This says the Republican's in overwhelming control of the legislature believe religious laws can supersede state laws.  Yet, they moved to selectively eliminate it for one minority.  This action points out the far-rights religious intentions are like the bikini conundrum, "what you see is important, what you don's see is critical".

Drilling rigs idle, leases and permits unused, I say use'm or lose'm.

Dead turtles aren't so unusual, and ducks.  This is what drill baby drill looks like.  I don't know if you get out in the country much, but in oil producing areas, it's not uncommon, leaking collection tanks and dead animals in the oil and saltwater mess.   

Obama had decided we should sell more permits, drill more wells to solve our energy problems and reduce imports.   It is true domestic oil could reduce imports.  So could shifting to transportation, buildings, neighborhoods, factories that use less fuel.  

It turns out, oil companies are sitting on the lease, or rights, to drill more wells now than they have equipment to drill in the next several years.  Not only that, much equipment is idle, unused when it could be drilling (weekly drill rig count is available in oil industry news).  They want more permits for what, to hold as assets?  The biggest players are importing Saudi oil when they could have been drilling here on permits they have held for years.  This is what corporations do for us, send our money offshore rather than make production here, and speculate.  Our situation with imports is the fault of the oil companies, our situation of consumption is our own problem, and this can be fixed by us, if we will.   In fact, you could turn the brightness down right now on your computer screen, and save a couple of watts. 

About 3 years ago a tornado hit Greensburg Kansas, town of about 1,000, it killed a few but knocked down every tree, home and almost every business.  They rebuilt as a green city.  The greenest in the nation, all the buildings built have been far above standards for conservation of energy, many are Leed certified, even homes.  The John Deere dealer's building is LEED certified and his energy bills are $30,000 less a year than before.  For homeowners and firms, the payback is 2 to 5 years, fter that, it puts money in their pocket.  The city put up windmills, and there are a few solar panels about, energy stingy lighting on the streets and in public buildings.  It's very encouraging what can be done without oil corporations.  Greensburg officials are often contacted by cities after a disaster, they want to know how to rebuild quickly, and as a green community.

What do you think, should we ask oil companies to drill or give up leases after a few years?  Should we just bypass and ignore the oil corporations and go to a less oil dependent economy?

Another Scopes Trial, this time it's Global Warming

No more surprises, or I blow my brains out

In the Reichwing congress (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch), the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology continued this week it's Scopes trial of Science.  Yesterday the GOP brought in their big gun.  One of the top climate deniers to testify on his research into the hundreds of thousands of temperature readings gathered since thermometers were made.  Their "ringer" Richard Muller has been looking at NOAA, NASA and a set of European data.  His part in the drama was to show up and proclaim the GOP and Koch to be right, there was a conspiracy of junk science, the info bogus.  I wrote about this a while back that he had concluded the opposite of what he had been chosen for. I guess the GOP don't read the Yellow Fringe.

In the past Muller had been a darling of the GOP, Koch and the Chamber.  But shockingly, he said something else, he said "the datasets are tightly correlated with each other, they show a distinct warming trend.  We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups.....I believe that some of the most worrisome biases are less of a problem than I had previously thought".    Republican lawmakers fell slackjawed, stunned.  They faced a traitor, WTF.   Eventually one recovered and launched into a diatribe on shoddy science holding up a copy of a 1970 Time magazine predicting cooling.  So there, HA Ha ha.

Kerry Emanuel of MIT also testifying yesterday called out the Time mag. and the surrounding argument of cooling and warned Congress of picking unreviewed or very old studies and those who wrote them to champion their cause, saying "politicians who make mascots of mavericks are invariably engaging in advocacy".  This set a number of them on the edge of their seats, they were clearly hot.   The irony sank  in as aids whispered in committee members ears, Emanuel is a Republican. 

Koch and the fossil fuel industry will not let the beatdown at their Scopes trial on science change anything.  But the GOP global warming denial has been further isolated descredited as lies, and mascots with talking points, and no facts.