Contributors

Thursday, January 05, 2012

Frack in Haste...

The United States is enjoying a renaissance of natural gas exploration with the increased use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract the gas. There is now a glut of natural gas (methane) on the American market, and prices are way down from what they were a few years ago.

Thus, natural gas is becoming a bigger component of our energy future. It's more efficient and cleaner than coal, producing less CO2 and other toxic waste products like mercury and ash. It's a lot easier to distribute and is much more flexible: it can be used to heat homes, power vehicles and even as a fuel for high-efficiency fuel cells. Because natural gas-fired power plants can be turned on and off almost instantly, they are a necessary adjunct for wind- and solar-generated electricity to balance load. Finally, methane can be produced by biological processes, which means it could eventually become a renewable energy source. So, methane-based technology has great potential.


But this natural gas renaissance is starting to look like the dark ages for some. People who live near fracking operations have had their well water contaminated by methane and carcinogenic chemicals, and many earthquakes have occurred in these areas.


The other day an earthquake occurred in Ohio near a fracking operation. The biggest earthquake ever recorded in Oklahoma occurred Nov. 5 near a fracking operation. Another series of earthquakes occurred in England, and the company says fracking was the cause.

That fracking causes earthquakes is now a well-established fact. Scientists have even developed a model that predicts the size of the earthquakes caused by fracking: basically, the more fluid you inject into the earth, the bigger the quake.

Earthquakes are a relatively new concern with fracking. The best-known problems occur when methane or fracking fluids get into the aquifer and contaminate well water. Sometimes the methane reaches such high concentrations that water coming out of a faucet will burn (as shown in Gasland).

Fracking typically involves injecting huge quantities of fracking fluids into shale beds at high temperature and pressure. The shale breaks up and releases the methane. The fracking fluids consist of water and sand, and the fracking companies' "trade-secret-protected" mix of chemicals, which often include carcinogens like benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene, xylene, and naphthalene. Many people who live near fracking operations blame their unusually high incidence of cancer and other diseases on fracking.

Fracking companies continue to insist that fracking is completely safe, and doesn't contaminate ground water. However, it's already been proved that fracking has contaminated ground water in some cases in Wyoming.

An article in Scientific American entitled "The Truth about Fracking" goes into the subject at length. (Note: Scientific American gets a ton of ad revenue from Shell Oil and car companies, so they're probably giving their sponsors a fair shake editorially.)

The frackers' argument is that fracking is completely safe because natural gas beds are far below aquifers, often separated by thousands of feet of rock. Their contention is that it's impossible for fracking fluids to contaminate aquifers because there's just no way to get there.

The problem with this argument is that it ignores practical realities. Fracking involves punching a hole through the earth into a shale bed, much like an oil well. Just like an oil well, a fracking well needs to be cemented. But fracking wells frequently pass right through an aquifer. If the cementing job is done poorly there will be leaks, like the bad cement job on the oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. That caused millions of gallons of crude oil to spill into the ocean. When fracking fluids are injected into a poorly cemented well, the high pressure can force toxic fluids and methane into the aquifer.

But there are causes other than bad cementing: fracking often occurs in areas that have already been drilled for oil or natural gas, often for more than a century. Many of the older wells have cement jobs that have failed, and the oldest wells have no cementing at all. Fracking fluids and methane can find their way up through the older wells, many of which no one even knows are there.

Additionally, vertical faults occur in the earth naturally. These aren't a problem normally, because the methane is bound in the shale and won't seep into the aquifer. But when fracking fluids are injected and the shale is broken up, the fluids and the methane can travel up through the natural faults, poisoning well water.

And sometimes, as was the case in Wyoming, the shale beds are shallow and the aquifers are deep and fracking occurs right in the aquifer.

It isn't fracking that causes the contamination, these frackers say, it's a problem caused by someone else doing a bad cementing job, not sealing old oil wells properly, or that they just didn't know that there was an old well or a vertical fault. They can't be blamed for their ignorance.

Now they're saying that fracking didn't cause the Ohio earthquake:
The brine wastewater comes from drilling operations that use the so-called fracking process to extract gas from underground shale. But Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director Jim Zehringer said during a news teleconference that fracking is not causing the quakes. 
"The seismic events are not a direct result of fracking," he said.
That is, the earthquake was caused by injecting used fracking fluids into the ground. They do this to get rid of the highly toxic fluids, because they can't dump them in a river, or spray them onto the land. And they don't want to spend the money to actually purify the contaminated water.

The companies are still insisting that fracking is completely safe and doesn't cause earthquakes or well water contamination. Instead they blame bad cementing, unknowable geology and drilling history, or fracking fluid disposal. Therefore they shouldn't be held responsible for poisoned water, cancers and earthquakes.

That's like the guy who says fracking, in the Battlestar Galactica sense, doesn't cause pregnancy. It's the broken condom, the woman's fault for not using a diaphragm, or the sperm's fault for traveling an unknown and circuitous path through the cervix and uterus, or the egg's fault for appearing at the wrong time. Therefore he shouldn't be responsible for child support.

To say that fracking doesn't cause earthquakes or aquifer contamination is the worst kind of lying by technicality. If they weren't fracking, there would be no earthquakes and poisoned groundwater.

Fracking should be limited to areas where it's safe and won't contaminate groudwater. Fracking fluids should not contain carcinogens and should be uniquely tagged so we can determine the source of contamination. Frackers should be required to post bonds before drilling to cover potential damages, because they'll just declare bankruptcy if  they screw up. Used fracking fluids should be purified so the cleaned water can be safely returned to the environment without having to inject it deep into the earth where it can never be used again, and incidentally cause earthquakes.

Yes, all of these things will make fracked gas cost more. The price of fracked gas should reflect its total cost to society, so that its costs can be better compared to other sources of energy. Right now fracking is another example of companies making private profit with a socialized risk. (Because mineral rights and land ownership are frequently decoupled, many people whose land is being fracked aren't even getting paid for it.)

In many states there has been a big push to get fracking as fast as possible, without making annoying regulations to prevent people from getting cancer. Some of these frackers claim to have a hundred years of natural gas reserves. If that's the case, then what's the rush? Why not take the time to do this right?

But some are questioning the size of the claims of U.S. reserves. There may be only a half to a fifth as much gas in the ground as these frackers are claiming. But why would they lie?
In addition to the uncertainty about shale gas resources and productivity, there are other lingering questions. For one thing, on an averaged annual basis, shale gas has been unprofitable since 2008. Wildcatters—those who explore and sink the first wells in a new location—have been taking on a great deal of debt and risk to discover the plays and produce them at a loss, in hopes that larger, well-funded players will buy them out later. It’s not clear that this gamble will ever pay off.
In other words, these frackers have every incentive to cut corners and lie about the size of their reserves in order to cash in quick and leave someone else holding an empty bag.

But just because we need natural gas doesn't mean we should let these frackers rape our land, poison our water, and turn the very earth beneath our feet into jello.

We should take the time to develop our natural gas reserves the right way. Technology will continue to develop and we may be able to develop fields safely in the future that we'd only screw up if we tried to exploit them now.

If we frack in haste, we won't be able to repent at leisure.

Wednesday, January 04, 2012

In The Bubble

Seriously, what planet do these people live on?

Iowa Post Mortem

I think the results last night in Iowa speak volumes. The GOP is split into three distinct groups. First, you have the business wing/old guard who support Mitt Romney, the winner by a mere 8 votes. Then you have Rick Santorum who represents the conservative evangelical and came in second. Finally, the libertarian wing, represented by Ron Paul who came in third but managed to garner 28, 219 votes (around 3,000 less than Romney and Santorum). I honestly thought that Paul would pull it out considering the lack of campaigning Romney has done in Iowa. If he had won, though, the Iowa Caucuses would've become less relevant and more of a joke. I certainly wouldn't want that as most of my in laws live there and I have grown quite fond of the Hawkeye state.

This split tells me that the right is going to have some serious problems on its hand in the future. Taken alone, each of these wings can't mount a national election capable of beating most Democrats. And they don't seem to function well together with the libertarian wing despising the old guard as much as they do the Democrats. This libertarian wing is also filled with young people who don't much like social conservatism either and they're honest about it as opposed to the old guard who snickers behind their backs at how useful the conservative Christians are as puppets. Yet, they all need each other in order to be a party. It's this sort of dysfunction that usually erodes families to the point of very serious problems.

I still say the Mittster is going to be the nominee but it won't be easy. Two thirds of the base simply don't like him. But they are at least united in their hatred of Blackie McHitler who is on a mission to steal their luggage so at least that's something.

Tuesday, January 03, 2012

A True Gem

Krugman's recent piece on debt is a true gem and, more or less, torpedoes much of the doom and gloom we hear from conservatives and libertarians these days. He makes several key points which are worthy of highlighting.

First there is the central question of who owns our debt. Ask someone on the street and their first answer will likely be China. Of course, this is what the media and right wing pundits have conditioned them to believe but it's simply not true. In fact, the majority of our debt is owned by...us. Here is how it all breaks down.

Hong Kong: $121.9 billion (0.9 percent)
Caribbean banking centers: $148.3 (1 percent)
Taiwan: $153.4 billion (1.1 percent)
Brazil: $211.4 billion (1.5 percent)
Oil exporting countries: $229.8 billion (1.6 percent)
Mutual funds: $300.5 billion (2 percent)
Commercial banks: $301.8 billion (2.1 percent)
State, local and federal retirement funds: $320.9 billion (2.2 percent)
Money market mutual funds: $337.7 billion (2.4 percent)
United Kingdom: $346.5 billion (2.4 percent)
Private pension funds: $504.7 billion (3.5 percent)
State and local governments: $506.1 billion (3.5 percent)
Japan: $912.4 billion (6.4 percent)
U.S. households: $959.4 billion (6.6 percent)
China: $1.16 trillion (8 percent)
The U.S. Treasury: $1.63 trillion (11.3 percent)
Social Security trust fund: $2.67 trillion (19 percent)

So America owes foreigners about $4.5 trillion in debt. But America owes America $9.8 trillion.


Even the issue of foreigners holding our debt is offset by US claims on foreigners. Here's a chart that Krugman provides.





















The blue line represents income from assets abroad and the red line represents payments on foreign owned assets. Since these assets often take the form of subsidiary US corporations, they often give a higher rate of return than do our liabilities as foreigners tend to put their money in safe, low yield assets, as Krugman notes.

The other thing that makes the doom and gloom crowd predict that we will all be thrown into a boiling pit of sewage is running debt to GDP of 100 percent (as we likely will for the next few years). Yet this chart says otherwise.
















Look at all those years of 100 percent (and much higher) debt to GDP in the UK. Are they in a boiling pit of sewage? No. It makes you wonder how much of their current shift towards austerity is politically based as opposed to reality based. I certainly wonder that here although in our case it's more about "winning the argument" and "proving the Democrats wrong."

So, as Krugman aptly notes, nobody understands debt. Those who say that the government should just "live within its means like ordinary Americans do" don't understand that people owe their debt to a bank. American owes its debt to itself which is a very different thing.


First, families have to pay back their debt. Governments don’t — all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their tax base. The debt from World War II was never repaid; it just became increasingly irrelevant as the U.S. economy grew, and with it the income subject to taxation. 

Second — and this is the point almost nobody seems to get — an over-borrowed family owes money to someone else; U.S. debt is, to a large extent, money we owe to ourselves. This was clearly true of the debt incurred to win World War II. Taxpayers were on the hook for a debt that was significantly bigger, as a percentage of G.D.P., than debt today; but that debt was also owned by taxpayers, such as all the people who bought savings bonds. So the debt didn’t make postwar America poorer. In particular, the debt didn’t prevent the postwar generation from experiencing the biggest rise in incomes and living standards in our nation’s history.

Exactly right.

Where he is exactly wrong, though, is with this line.

So yes, debt matters. But right now, other things matter more. We need more, not less, government spending to get us out of our unemployment trap. And the wrongheaded, ill-informed obsession with debt is standing in the way.

Spend more than we are now? Or much more? How much? Where? This seems too vague and doesn't make much sense considering the unemployment has dropped in the last few months without increased spending. While I don't think we need the Draconian cuts called for by many on the right, we also don't need increased spending. In fact, we could cut spending in the Big Three (Defense, Social Security, Medicare) in a number of ways that won't erode employment as much as Krugman thinks and do quite a bit to reduce our long term debt and deficit. Throw in the end of subsides and tax cuts on the wealthy and things look even better. So, on this point, I simply can't agree with him.

But he is right about everything else. The next time a conservative or libertarian friend starts foaming at the mouth about our debt and how it's going to destroy us, show them this information, tell them to stop reading right wing blogs, and take a fucking chill pill.

Iowa Caucuses Today

It's caucus day today in Iowa and, even though Mitt Romney has pulled ahead in some polls. I'm still saying the Ron Paul wins it. It looks like Rick Santorum (?) has surged late in the game and might make a decent showing as well. I also think that Bachmann is going to have some sort of psychotic meltdown in the next week or so and really embarrass the Republicans. She's not well in the head and losing is going to send her into a weird place.

I'll be post an update later tonight with the results.

Monday, January 02, 2012

Will He Win?

As we look ahead to this election year, one of the first questions that arises is will the president win re-election?  More importantly, do his accomplishments demonstrate that he deserves to win re-election? On this latter question, I say yes and this list (along with some other things I will be talking about over the next year) is why he has been a good president and should be elected to a second term.

I'll be talking about some of those 159 achievements over the course of the year and why they are significant but let's take a look at that first question: will he win? At this point, I really don't know.

I'd like to be optimistic and say that he will win considering the clown show that is currently going on with the GOP primaries. But I'm not sure I have that much faith in American's ability to overcome their fear and apathy, the two things that are currently working against the president. Of course, it certainly depends on the GOP nominee. For me, this simply comes down to Romney and not Romney.

First, let's take a look at the 2012 Electoral Map The interactive function allows you to click on the states and assign the votes to either party. Now imagine that any candidate besides Romney is the nominee. By my calculations, Obama wins 232 and Not Romney wins 184, leaving Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Iowa, Wisconsin,  Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida as tossups. Likely a few of these will go Obama but I'm being conservative here. In looking at these numbers, all the president needs is 38 votes and he has it. This could come from winning the western states, Iowa and Wisconsin. Or the last two and Virginia and North Carolina while losing all the western states as well as Florida and Ohio. Obviously, he will not lose this many states so if it is Not Romney, the president wins handily.

But if the nominee is Romney, the map gets tougher for the president. Now, he has 196 and Romney has 195 with the Mittster taking Arizona out of tossup and winning it as well as putting Pennsylvania and Michigan into the tossup column. So, we're looking at 11 states that are going to be tighter than a frog's ass and where, I believe, the election is going to be won or lost. At this point in time, either candidate could win any of these states. Of course, I'm not taking into consideration conservative distrust/apathy towards Mitt Romney which will likely affect voter turnout in some of these states. But I am confident that the completely irrational hatred that people have towards the president will drive them to the polls.

Reset the map and tell me what you think. How will this all play out?

Sunday, January 01, 2012

New Year's Day

Saturday, December 31, 2011

The Best of 2011

What a great year for music, film and television. There were so many great entries in each category that it was very hard for me to choose this year. But I still managed to do it so here are my picks

MUSIC

Both the track of the year and the album of the year are from the same group this year. Pala, by Friendly Fires is an absolute corker of a record. The soundtrack to my summer and, indeed, the entire year. I think I have played this disc at least 200 times start to finish since it came out and I still find layers to it previously unheard. Pala sets a mood that is sorely lacking today, not just in music, but in our culture in general. I'm not entirely certain I can describe it in words but it's reminiscent of what the most gorgeous flower would sound like as it blooms...in a club at 1:30am with piles of sweaty bodies writhing around to massive and thumping beats. And if it could tell Robert Browning-esque love stories. Like their self titled first release, Pala deserves to be forever enshrined in any Hall of Fame.

And "Blue Cassette" is not simply the best track of 2011, but one of the best of all time. Friendly Fires really outdid themselves with this stunning song that waxes nostalgic about cassette tapes and lost love. My heart melts every single time I listen to it.



FILM 
I had the toughest time with this one. Three films came out at the beginning of the year that made my inner geek howl with delight. The Adjustment Bureau, Limitless, and Source Code were all amazing and for several months, I was toggling back and forth between these three as my pick for Best Film of 2011.

But then the Woodman released Midnight in Paris and it was all over. This film crushed me on a number of levels and I think it is one of the most romantic films of all time...right up there with Casablanca. Plus, any film that describes the Tea Party as "crypto-fascist zombie airheads" is going to get my nod!


TELEVISION
Most of you know that I am big sci-fi, comic book, fantasy geek and for the past three years I have watched Fox's Fringe develop into a truly magnificent show. The third season saw the series really hit its stride. Alternate realities...time travel...ancient machines of doom...creepy, weird and fucked up shit...romance and love...and Walter (wonderfully played by John Noble) being Walter. If you haven't seen this show, start watching it immediately.



Those are my picks for 2011. How about you?

Friday, December 30, 2011

How it All Ends

Among the columnists I usually read, Charles Krauthammer is the one who most reliably galls me. But the other day he wrote a thoughtful column in the Washington Post about why we haven't discovered other intelligent life in the universe.

In the article Krauthammer discusses the Drake equation. The most troublesome term in the equation is the lifetime of a civilization. Krauthammer raises the concern that we don't find other civilizations because they quickly destroy themselves after reaching a high level of technology, when fanatical nut-jobs create plagues, or worse:
And forget the psychopaths: Why, a mere 17 years after Homo sapiens — born 200,000 years ago — discovered atomic power, those most stable and sober states, America and the Soviet Union, came within inches of mutual annihilation.
I finished the article pleasantly surprised that Krauthammer had written it. But the first reader comment was a snide snipe at President Obama and that spoiled my mood immediately. But it got me thinking.

The paragraph above mentions that Homo sapiens emerged 200,000 years ago. The time can't be exact, though the fossil evidence and genetic analysis give us similar numbers coming at the question from different directions.

But the irony is that the Republican candidates for president -- save Jon Huntsman, who has no chance of winning the nomination -- have just fallen all over themselves to assure Republican caucus-goers in Iowa that they don't believe in evolution. Which means they don't believe that Homo sapiens arrived on the scene hundreds of thousands of years ago as Krauthammer stated.

Now, it's obvious that Krauthammer will support any one of these candidates over Obama in the next election. Yet he knows that they have all just rejected one of the most basic tenets of modern science in favor of a 3,000-year-old Egyptian creation myth. How can you trust someone to be president who will make critical environmental and foreign policy decisions based on fairy tales?

Well, because they won't. I'm sure Krauthammer, like all of us, knows that most of these candidates don't really believe that the earth was created by God in six days 6,000 years ago. We all know they're lying when they say they don't believe evolution is true. We know they're just saying it to please bible-thumping fundamentalists, who vote in large numbers. And the candidates know intelligent people will know they're just lying to curry favor. Just like we all know they're lying when they say that humans have no role in global warming. And we all know they're lying when they say that lowering taxes raises government revenues.

And that's what galls me most about guys like Krauthammer. They know better, but they go along with the lie for temporary political advantage. They're smart, well-read, educated people. Yet when their candidates stand there and lie about basic facts to sharpen the political divide  —  often reversing positions they themselves took only a few months or years ago — the Krauthammers go along with them.

Which leads me to the sad conclusion that civilizations actually meet their doom when otherwise intelligent people go along with the lies that demagogues tell to spur their populations into action against their enemies, foreign and domestic, causing them to unleash the universally destructive forces of fratricide.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Where is the Republican Outrage?

A sign posted outside a row of temples tells women they cannot walk on the sidewalk outside their doors. An eight-year-old girl who dared walk there is spat on by adult men who call her a whore. Members of this ultra-conservative sect throw rocks and eggs at police. More than 60% of the male members of this sect live on welfare, spending all their time studying holy books, whose restrictive laws they wish to impose on the whole country.

Are these temples madrasahs? Is this country Pakistan or Saudi Arabia? Are these men Muslims? Do they want to impose Sharia law? No, no, no and no.

The temples are synagogues in Beit Shemesh, Israel. The eight-year-old girl is Naama Margolese, who wears glasses, long sleeves and a skirt as she walks by the synagogues on her way to her religious school. The men are haredim, ultra-conservative Orthodox Jews, who spend all their time studying the Torah.

The haredim make up about 10% of the Israeli population, but they have much bigger families on average, made possible by welfare benefits and child allowances. Many in Israel are concerned:
“We have a few years to get our act together,” warned Dan Ben-David, an economist and director of the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, an independent research institute. 
“If not, there will be a point of no return.” 
Several months ago the center issued a report that caused widespread alarm: If current trends continue, it said, 78 percent of primary school children in Israel by 2040 will be either ultra-Orthodox or Arab.
In short, Israel is in danger of becoming like Saudi Arabia, only with the Torah replacing the Koran.

One would think such stories would raise concerns among Republican candidates for president. The United States sends billions of dollars in foreign aid to Israel. I'd expect Rick Perry and Ron Paul to be asking, "Why should my tax dollars help finance all these Torah-reading, high-birth-rate, silly-hat-wearing welfare bums?" But the current field of Republicans have been falling over each other trying to curry favor with Israel and bash President Obama's Middle East policies. Newt Gingrich went so far as to call the Palestinians an "invented people" in his attempts to undermine their push for statehood.

Israel is an important ally in the Middle East, a reliable democratic partner. But after winning an the unprovoked war launched against them, they are still occupying territories they seized more than 40 years ago and are in the process of permanently taking land away from people who have lived on it for centuries. Whether those original inhabitants call themselves Palestinians or Arabs or Philistines is irrelevant. Israel has legitimate security needs, but their sometimes indiscriminate use of force and collective punishments of the people in Gaza and the West Bank have at times been as oppressive as any totalitarian regime in the region. The small, ultra-conservative religious parties in Israel have made it impossible for Israel to resolve the issue, keeping Palestinians prisoners in their own homes. All these things are corroding the soul of Israel.

It would be wrong to condemn all of Israel for the actions of the haredim and the settlers stealing Palestinian land. Just as it's wrong to condemn all Muslims for the actions of Al Qaeda and Iran. Or to blame all of American Christianity for the actions of militias who plot to kill judges, police officers and IRS employees.

I was at a party a couple of months ago where a man recalled fellow Jews welcoming the support of American fundamentalist Christians. He cautioned them against believing Christian Zionists are true allies of Israel. The impetus for their support of Israel does not arise from their love of the Jews, he said, but from their wish to fulfill their interpretations of prophecies in the Bible.

They say they believe these prophecies foretell that when Jerusalem is restored as the capital of Israel Jesus will return and the battle of Armageddon will be joined. That is, these fundamentalist Christians wish to see Jerusalem restored only to be destroyed in the fiery end of the world.

But once Jerusalem becomes the capital of Israel, and the world does not end, will these false friends of Israel become impatient for the Rapture? Will they point to the above stories and turn on the Jews, casting them in exactly the same light that they cast Muslims today: fanatical, intolerant, wishing to impose their laws on others? And will they once again heap upon Jews the scurrilous epithets they freely used not so long ago? And, one wonders, have they ever stopped thinking them?

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Is Lying Protected Speech?

Next month buying airline tickets should become less misleading:
Beginning Jan. 24, the Transportation Department will enforce a rule requiring that any advertised price for air travel include all government taxes and fees. For the last 25 years, the department has allowed airlines and travel agencies to list government-imposed fees separately, resulting in a paragraph of fine print disclaimers about charges that can add 20 percent or more to a ticket’s price.
It seems reasonable to have a more uniform way of advertising ticket prices, since the fees and taxes on air travel aren't as well-known as things like sales tax.

And before anyone gets on their high horse about "government fees," those fees pay for the airport, FAA flight controllers, TSA inspectors, and all the infrastructure that makes it possible for the airlines to do business. Fees on people using government services are preferable to funding them from general revenues, aren't they?

But the fact is, the government fees are actually small potatoes compared to the other fees airlines charge:
Spirit has built its business around advertising $9 fares, then charging additional fees for checked and carry-on bags, advance seat assignments and now a “passenger usage fee” of up to $17 each way for tickets booked online.
Since no one will ever pay $9 to fly on Spirit, advertising a $9 fare is a bald-faced lie. But several airlines are suing to stop the new regulations:
"We think it’s unnecessary and violates the First Amendment," said David Berg, general counsel at Airlines for America. “The D.O.T. simply has not been able to justify that the current advertising is misleading in any way to support a restriction on free speech.”
Does the First Amendment really guarantee companies the right to lie in their advertisements? And now the airlines are saying that the new rule restricts their right to political speech. Are the airlines really saying that "political speech" is lying, and therefore all lies are protected speech?

Spirit has trotted out the hoary old "burdensome consumer protection regulations" argument:
[I]n its S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Spirit cited “burdensome consumer protection regulations” as a risk factor for its business model, saying, “We are evaluating the actions we will be required to take to implement these rules, and we believe it is unlikely that we will be able to meet the 2012 compliance deadline in every respect.”
Apparently, since everyone "knows" that Spirit's $9-fare business model is based on lying, somehow that makes it acceptable. What does that say about business ethics in this country?

A lot of people are outraged by these sorts of government regulations. Their anger would be better directed at the liars and cheats who make these regulations necessary in the first place.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Racist?

Recently I had this link sent to me (from one of Kevin Baker's followers) which contained the following quote.

I know that Obummer is taking yet another multi-million dollar vacation with First Wookie to Hawaii on the tax-payer tab.

Is referring to the First Lady as a hairy, giant ape-like creature racist? Again, just checking my gauge to make sure I'm not race baiting.

Monday, December 26, 2011

The Federal Deficit Through The Years

Eight Days Away

We are now eight days away from the Iowa caucuses and I predict that Ron Paul is going to win that election with Mitt Romney coming in second. Paul's ground troops are well positioned in many key counties and his supporters are fervent. I also think that we'll see a couple of the lower tier candidates drop out although Michele might stick around and make things interesting from an emotionally hysterical drama angle.

What are your thoughts? Who wins Iowa?

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Christmas Night

"Always on Christmas night there was music. An uncle played the fiddle, a cousin sang "Cherry Ripe," and another uncle sang "Drake's Drum." It was very warm in the little house. Auntie Hannah, who had got on to the parsnip wine, sang a song about Bleeding Hearts and Death, and then another in which she said her heart was like a Bird's Nest; and then everybody laughed again; and then I went to bed. Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steady falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept. " (taken from A Child's Christmas In Wales by Dylan Thomas)

Saturday, December 24, 2011

An Eve's Reminder

"One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six." (taken from A Child's Christmas In Wales by Dylan Thomas)

Friday, December 23, 2011

In the Zeitgeist

Making folks on the right blow a bowel is a pretty easy thing these days. But, boy oh boy, did a big one explode after this came out.

Time's Person of the Year was The Protester.

They spent most of the last few months trying to shift the narrative away from what is clearly a losing battle for them (inequality). It's a real stinker largely because it's true.

And it's obviously resonated with people. There is very little doubt in my mind that this will be the center issue of the election next year and is now part of the zeitgeist.

But if you read the article more closely you will see that it's not just the 99 percenters that are highlighted. This is an international movement of people with various concerns that have realized that they still have a voice. A Facebook page literally changed the government in Egypt. Libya has a new government. Syria won't be far behind.

All in all, this is a good thing. Change is tough for folks on the right and they don't like to bend much. Yet, as the tide turns, I think many of them are going to realize that if our country is going to remain significant in the world, we are going to have to address the issue of inequality. I'm not a huge fan of Larry Summers and it's fairly clear he had a hand in the Economic Collapse of 2008 but his recent piece in the Washington Post is an excellent primer on how to combat our rising inequality.I'll be talking more about this in the coming weeks as I break out each point and discuss whether or not it's feasible.

In the meantime, well done, people of the Earth. You shouted and now our leaders have to listen.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

The Elite Sense of Entitlement

Like many first-tier airlines, Delta has clubs at airports where members can find a quiet place to plug in their laptops and get free wi-fi, a safe and convenient place to stash their luggage while waiting for their flights, and a comfortable place to rest and get drinks and snacks. It was nice: my wife and I used it a couple of times when she worked for a company that had memberships for their execs.

Recently the airline has discounted the cost of entry through various promotions. Normally it costs $450/year or $50/day to gain entry, but Delta has recently made it cheaper to visit  the exclusive lounge by making half-off and $89 five-visit passes available on Groupon.

This has not gone over well with many of Delta's most-frequent fliers:
"The cheaper they make it for somebody to go in, the more it's like the regular concourse," said Rick King, a technology executive at Thomson Reuters. "If it's like the regular concourse, the benefits for me go down." 
King, who gets in the lounges free with his Diamond Medallion status, worries that more visitors could make it harder to grab seats with his colleagues before his flights. Some fliers have complained that it's already too packed during peak flying times, with passengers having to wait in line for orange juice in the morning. 
"It's like a Greyhound Bus depot. Way too crowded," said Edward Bertsch, a Minnesota IT security consultant. "The club to a certain extent should be a club. It shouldn't be a profit center for the rest of Delta."
Why is Delta doing this?
[The airline] said the expansion into Groupon aims to attract the website's loyal clientele of younger female shoppers. Delta said 54 percent of the Groupon buyers were women and 70 percent were ages 26 to 50.
Like my wife, the majority of the mostly older, mostly male execs in the club probably have their memberships paid for by their employers. The majority of the Groupon customers are probably paying for these one-off memberships with their own money. Why are old men on the corporate dole more deserving of a nice quiet place to wait for their flight than young women who pay their own way?

Airlines are having a tough time of it, charging extra for checking bags, extra carry-on luggage and seat assignments away from the lavatories, ditching food service in coach, and so on. Yet these pampered execs don't think the airline should try to make money from club rooms that stand empty most of the day.

Conservatives have long criticized "liberal elites" for being snobbish and disconnected from the concerns of real Americans. But corporate elites are even richer, more snobbish, and more disconnected from the realities of every-day life. When they fly they go business class, with wide seats, ample leg room and sometimes even beds. They board first, get special check-in lines with no invasive TSA security checks, have private lounges, and get fed decent food. Yes, it costs more. But they're not actually paying for it, their companies are. And since the companies deduct travel from their taxes as a business expense, the rest of us are really paying for all these fabulous perqs.

Now that their cushy private airport hangouts are being forcibly stripped from them by penny-pinching airlines, the trials and tribulations of dealing with the unwashed masses are just too much for these high-flying execs. But the airlines will be sorry: these titans of industry won't take this lying down. They'll go back to flying their own private corporate jets to avoid waiting in line for their orange juice.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Did They Get The Memo?

Well, it looks like the new saviors of the Republic in the US House of Representatives didn't get the memo on how to govern. 

Republicans have also achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter, although he's spent most of his Presidency promoting tax increases and he would hit the economy with one of the largest tax increases ever in 2013. This should be impossible.

Yes, it should. I've been watching with mouth agape as the House does the exact same fucking thing they did in 1995 which resulted in President Clinton winning a second term in 1996. I mean, when you piss of the Wall Street Journal...well...your butt is seriously in a satchel now!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

This Is Going To Be Really Tough

If Mitt Romney is the nominee, it's going to be very difficult for me to go after him because I like him so much personally. Granted, I only know him by his media personality but I can't help but find him endearing on a number of levels. The video below is a great example of why I feel this way.

Number 9 just about made me wet my pants.