"Stealing" From Others and Giving to Himself

Last week, the Times published a great piece about living on the edge of poverty. I hope we can see more like it because there are many myths that need to be destroyed. The article points out one that always bothers me: people on food stamps are lazy and don't work. Not true. Most people on food stamps are considered working poor and can't afford to do anything beyond paying for their house. That's why they need money for food.

Here's another giant pile of bullshit.

Surrounded by corn and soybean farms — including one owned by the local Republican congressman, Representative Stephen Fincher — Dyersburg, about 75 miles north of Memphis, provides an eye-opening view into Washington’s food stamp debate. Mr. Fincher, who was elected in 2010 on a Tea Party wave and collected nearly $3.5 million in farm subsidies from the government from 1999 to 2012, recently voted for a farm bill that omitted food stamps.

 “The role of citizens, of Christianity, of humanity, is to take care of each other, not for Washington to steal from those in the country and give to others in the country,” Mr. Fincher, whose office did not respond to interview requests, said after his vote in May. In response to a Democrat who invoked the Bible during the food stamp debate in Congress, Mr. Fincher cited his own biblical phrase. “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat,” he said.

So, subsidies and handouts are just fine for him but no food for the poor. How very Christian of him. By his logic, he himself took from others and gave to..himself!! Kinda cool how that worked out.

In addition, I'll never understand how elected members of Congress fail to recognize that the United States government has the power to tax. Calling it "stealing" is simply an adolescent blurt rooted in a flat out lie.

Good Words

“Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.” ~George Washington (letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792)

The Limited God

Recently, I have realized that my non belief in Republican Jesus is too simple a way to characterize my distaste for the beliefs of most conservative Christians. Over the last couple of weeks, I've thought about how to expand my critique of their child like view of the Bible and have come to the conclusion that they start from a point of a very limited God.

For them, it's all about being naughty and hoping that the authority will forgive them. They are incredibly vain in assuming that we, as human beings, are the most important things in God's universe (especially our sexual habits which I will never understand as the Bible rarely talks about sex). One of my recent posts shows that if look at the percentage of time man has been on the earth as a part of the age of the earth...well...we really aren't all that important. Now, I know the Bible says we are but that was written by men so, honestly, would we expect anything less than such vanity?

Compare the small percentage of time man has been on the earth to to the age of the universe and we seem even less significant which is astounding. This general theme is explored in the wonderful Terrence Malick film entitled The Tree of Life. If you haven't seen this film, I highly recommend it. Here is the trailer.



All of this makes me ask the question...how significant are we to God? Given how long the universe has been around...how big it is...how it's very likely that there is plenty of life out there we have not yet discovered...how long the earth has been around...how big it is...how there is life on this planet we have not yet discovered...where do we fit in? God obviously has a wide variety and high number of other things with which to handle. Of course, it's God so H/She can deal with it:)

Generally speaking, starting with faith is good idea. My faith tells me that the most important thing we can do is love one another as we would want to be loved. We can care for each other and help out the poor and the sick, individually and collectively, privately or publicly. Doing His works and greater than these...

We don't do a very good job with the Golden Rule these days but we are better than we used to be. In some ways, we are ready to take the next step in human evolution and that's just what I think God wants us to do. We are very close to technology extending life indefinitely. Think of what it's like to be a parent. You want your children to do better than you did in every aspect of life (money, friendship, love, school, career). God wants the same thing for us. Science is indeed a part of God's creation so we need to take that as far as we can. Why limit ourselves/ Again, doing His works and greater than these...

I think our culture is on the cusp of a shift. It's time to shrug off thousand year old perceptions of God and not be content with having such a simple approach to our creator. The people that believe in Republican Jesus have a hostile fear of progress in just about every aspect of our society and that needs to left behind in history's dustbin along with the heavenly sphere, flat earth, and leech bleed believers.

We are clearly a small part of God's vision and we need to imagine how we, his children, might grow to a bigger role. Again, isn't what all parents want of their offspring?

Still Stagnate

Emmanuel Saez from UC Berkeley has released his latest report on inequality and it reminds me that I need to finish off my last three installments of Joseph Stiglitz. I'll have Part Eight up sometime next week, perfectly timed as well as the title of that chapter is "The Battle of the Budget."

Saez's latest report has quite a bit of useful information, including...

Top 1% incomes grew by 31.4% while bottom 99% incomes grew only by 0.4% from 2009 to 2012. Hence, the top 1% captured 95% of the income gains in the first three years of the recovery. From 2009 to 2010, top 1% grew fast and then stagnated from 2010 to 2011. Bottom 99% stagnated both from 2009 to 2010 and from 2010 to 2011. In 2012, top 1% incomes increased sharply by 19.6% while bottom 99% incomes grew only by 1.0%. 

So, what does all this mean?

Top 1% incomes are close to full recovery while bottom 99% incomes have hardly started to recover. 

Shocking, I know:)

Saez notes that after the Great Depression, there were policy changes that reduced this income concentration. Today, however, there have been none. Again, I'm shocked.

On page seven, the data shows that during the Clinton administration, the wealthy did quite well, increasing their income by 98 percent! Yet, so did the 99 percent, who saw their income increase by 20 percent. Now, take a look at the Bush Years. It's apparent that the policy changes under his administration favored the wealthy and even then, underperfomed compared to Bill Clinton. The collapse of 2008 seems to have permanently stagnated the income of 99 percent of Americans.

We simply can't have an economy like this. Two thirds of our economy is consumer spending and there just aren't enough people spending. They don't have any extra money.

So, what do we do now? Well, any policy changes are going to be nearly impossible to pass with the Republicans hell bent on the president failing. They certainly don't want any successes on his watch as that would really drive home the contrast between the utter failure of George W. Bush and any potential gains under Barack Obama. In fact, our economy is doing mildly better and that's just about all they can tolerate as they still have to have something negative to caterwaul about.

In some ways, I hope that we elect a moderate Republican so he or she can do all the things that Barack Obama was not allowed to do because of adolescent temper tantrums.

Are Our Kids too Fat to Defend Our Country?

How do you get conservatives to express concern for the health and well-being of our kids? Appeal to their fear and selfishness, according to a study at the University of Minnesota.

Obesity is a serious problem in this country. But conservatives don't think the government should do anything about it, even though rampant obesity drives up Medicaid and Medicare costs, sends paupers in diabetic shock to hospital emergency rooms (which the rest of us pay for), costs employers billions of hours in lost productivity, clogs doctors' waiting rooms with people whose medical problems all boil down to being too fat, and fills the aisles of Walmart with slow, waddling oafs who are so wide you can't get by them.

Conservatives tend to blame kids and parents for childhood obesity. They don't hold fast-food, soda and snack manufacturers responsible -- even though these companies are pushers for the gateway drugs to morbid obesity. Conservatives in general don't think the government should address the problem at all. But the study found that there is a way to change conservatives' minds: point out that obesity in children will severely hamper our military readiness.

Our data [suggest] that a message linking a problem traditionally considered under the domain of public health to national defense has the potential to shift public opinion among conservatives. This message was likely effective because of its novelty, and also because it tapped into values beyond those — such as equality and social responsibility — that are typically associated with public health.

What exactly are those values?  Conservatives like to pretend they embrace patriotism and love of freedom. But it's now revealed that fear and selfishness drive them. They're afraid that if our kids are too fat to serve in the military, they won't be able to interpose themselves between us and all them A-rab terrorists. (It's also interesting to note that more blacks serve proportionately in the Army -- 21% of soldiers are African American, while blacks constitute only 12.4% of the general population. Why? It's one of the few ways out of endemic poverty.).

So, conservatives don't give a damn about American children or blacks unless they need them to save their bacon, or protect oil company interests in the Middle East.

I don't usually give a lot of credence to studies like this. But years of mouthing from conservative "thought leaders" convinces me it's true. Rush Limbaugh dismissively derides Michelle Obama's efforts to encourage children to exercise and eat better. Sarah Palin screams bloody murder when it's suggested that kids shouldn't be eating cookies in the classroom. All conservatives bitch endlessly about the "nanny state" when states pass laws that ban candy and soda machines in schools, and prevent companies like McDonalds and Pizza Hut from setting up shop on school campuses.

As I'm sure that "big fat idiot" Rush Limbaugh knows from personal experience, being fat has less to do with willpower and more to do with biology. Our bodies are specifically built to store fat in times of plenty in preparation for times of famine. This propensity to store fat saved our ancestors but is killing us.

Yes, we should be responsible for what we stick in our own mouths. But most people -- especially the poor, who are generally more obese than the wealthy -- are at the mercy of the giant companies that control our food supply. They produce what's most profitable for them, not what's best for the health of the American people, giving the poor no choice about what they eat.

Good Words

“If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.” ~George Washington (letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia, May 1789)

Hmm...

Yesterday I put up a post about how I'm only going to engage in comments if people have something new, interesting and not adolescent to contribute. The posts with the most hits since then? The ones with no comments.

In addition, our hit rate for the site overall seems to have doubled as well with very few people reading the comments section of the posts since then. My post about the comments section got the least amount of hits and the renewable energy and soldier posts got the most.

Best blogging decision I ever made...

Voices in My Head

Evidence the illogic, hypocrisy, and coercion of the state's secular "neutrality." Western democracies continue to head towards demanding ultimate allegiance to the state. Any who refuse will be eventually treated as the enemies of peace and unity--(Reverend Jim, Facebook friend).

Man, we still have a long way to go in this country...

China Caves

The excuse "China does whatever it wants in terms of carbon emissions so why can't we?" can no longer be used.

The plan, released by the State Council, China’s cabinet, filled in a broad outline that the government had issued this year. It represents the most concrete response yet by the Communist Party and the government to growing criticism over allowing the country’s air, soil and water to degrade to abysmal levels because of corruption and unchecked economic growth.

It's only a matter of time now before the rest of the world realizes how bad climate change due to carbon emissions is for economic stability.

Amen, Soldier

Check out the soldier that comes in to this video at about the 5 minute mark. A true hero...

 

Making Natural Gas out of Thin Air

Mark's post about the people of Boulder challenging Xcel Energy's power generation monopoly and replacing coal with with renewables and natural gas finally prodded me into writing a post I'd had on the back burner for a while.

Here's the question: What if you could use wind power to literally generate natural gas out of thin air?

People in the energy industry invariably criticize "tree-huggers" as naive about the vagaries of power generation. Renewable energy sources are too unreliable, the old argument goes. What do you do when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine? You have to keep power generation and consumption balanced or the grid collapses. Often, they claim, sun and wind generate too much electricity when you don't need it, and since you can't store it it just goes to waste.

First off, the excess power argument is flat wrong with solar. Solar generates the most power when we need it the most: at peak load times during the heat of the day. Solar is perfect for places like the American West, which get a lot of sun and use massive amounts of air conditioning.

Wind power -- and hydro for that matter -- do generate a lot of electricity during off-peak hours, and in places like the Dakotas that are distant from major population centers.

The question is how to store that energy for later use. If you could save it for later and use it for load balancing, the argument against wind completely falls apart.

Battery technology isn't up to snuff: too expensive and too small-scale. So there have been grand suggestions to use the excess electricity to compress air into vast underground caverns or pump water uphill into reservoirs, which could be used to turn turbines to generate electricity later. These solutions take a lot of space and have negative environmental and safety considerations.

But there's something else you can do with electricity: make hydrogen. A company in Germany is building a pilot plant to do exactly this. Their plan to pump hydrogen into natural gas pipelines seems a bit odd, but the basic idea is quite interesting.

Hydrogen can be produced by electrolysis, which uses electricity to separate the hydrogen and oxygen in water. This hydrogen could simply be burned against to make electricity (producing water), or to power fuel cells. These fuel cells can be used to generate electricity directly (which is what NASA did on the Space Shuttle Apollo moon missions), or they could be used to power cars that run on fuel cells (remember that song and dance from the George W. Bush days?). The International Space Station also uses electrolysis to generate oxygen (they vent the excess hydrogen into space).

One problem with hydrogen is that there isn't a lot of infrastructure for storing, transporting and distributing it. However, we do have a lot of infrastructure for natural gas (methane). So we could take this one step further, and produce methane.

Using what's called the Sabatier process hydrogen (H₂) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) can be combined to produce methane and water:

CO₂ + 4H₂ → CH₄ + 2H₂O

NASA is looking at using this reaction in the International Space Station to make a more closed life support system that recycles the CO₂ that astronauts exhale into water, and to make propellant for the return from a Mars mission.
Though NASA's space applications sound distant, these processes aren't fancy pie-in-the-sky physics pushing the boundaries of engineering like thermonuclear fusion. They're basic, centuries-old chemistry that mirror the natural processes of respiration, photosynthesis and bacterial decay. This kind of power generation would give us the ability to balance loads as well as produce fuels for cooking and transportation, all with zero carbon footprint.

There's a certain amount of inefficiency generating natural gas this way. But even so, it's still more efficient than blasting off mountaintops to expose coal seams, using millions of gallons of oil to mine the coal, then millions more gallons of oil to restore the mountaintops, then millions more gallons of oil to ship the coal across country to run power plants that belch out CO2, carcinogenic particulates, sulfur dioxide and mercury.

When their backs are against the wall, climate change skeptics always retreat with, "Well, if the climate really is warming, we'll just adapt. Humans are amazingly inventive when pressed."

I agree, we are inventive. But isn't it better to adapt before the emergency becomes dire, resources become scarce, floods and droughts become endemic, Miami and New York are inundated, famine becomes widespread, and wars over dwindling energy resources suck up our the time, energy and money?

The Case Against Attacking Syria in Two and a Half Words

It's getting rather irritating for Americans to be lectured by despots and dictators. Earlier this week Bashar al-Assad appeared on American television telling us why invading Syria was bad. Now Vladimir Putin published an editorial in The New York Times saying the same thing.

These two tyrants have a point that can be summarized in two and a half words: George W. Bush.

George W. Bush blew all our credibility when he invaded Iraq based on the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Since then no one -- not even the American people -- will trust any American president when he claims that we must attack a murderous thug who has been gassing his own people.

Republicans have been claiming that Obama weakened the presidency by going to Congress to ask permission to retaliate militarily against Syria for using Sarin gas. Why is it weakness to obey the Constitution, which specifies that only Congress has the power to go to war? The truth is, Bush destroyed America's moral high ground when he fabricated evidence about Saddam's WMDs and lied about Iraq's involvement in 9/11.

Since then Obama has been saddled with Bush's wars, Bush's domestic spying programs, Bush's torture, Bush's Guantanamo, Bush's indefinite detentions, and so on. As Republicans keep telling us, once a federal program is entrenched, it's all but impossible to get rid of it. To wit: President Obama tried to close Guantanamo, but Congress stopped him cold.

No matter what his personal convictions, the president becomes a prisoner of precedent and his predecessors' pecadilloes.

Bush's blunders have now made it all but impossible for us to get an international consensus for action against Syria. Our closest allies were burned (Britain in particular) over and over by Bush and Cheney's machinations, and no one else trusts a word we say.

We actually did this right once upon a time. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990, George H. W. Bush got overwhelming international cooperation to oust him. By February 1991 Saddam's military was destroyed and he was ejected from Kuwait. It's ironic that that president's son and his secretary of defense learned absolutely nothing from this great success.

Conservatives like to say they'd rather be feared than liked. Now that the Bush's misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan have burned out the American military, we're neither feared nor liked.

The Future of Renewable Energy

It's going to be interesting to see what happens in Boulder over the next few years. Something else that struck me about this video. Isn't the action of these residents, in no small way, a rally against big government? They are assuming local control of their power and shunning the government sponsored monopoly. Perhaps this is a way we could find some common ground in the renewable energy debate.

Time For A Change

This time of year brings with it reflection and a desire for change. When I started this blog eight years ago (after four years of it being an email list started on the day after the 9/11 attacks), September has always been when I have felt the most like shifting gears and trying something new. This year it's clear that the comments section is what is most in need of change.

One of the first things they tell you when you start your own blog is to engage in the comments section. With only 150-200 regular readers, it makes sense that most don't comment, given that only a few people comment on much larger hit sites.  I've always tried to spur discussion but I've noticed that the posts that get the most hits are the ones without the long comments threads.  This is largely due to the fact that the same 3-5 people leave comments. All of them are migrants from a right wing gun blog (the one that I was recently asked to leave by vote) and they...well...they are complete dicks. There's just no sugar coating it anymore. I've tried to be fair over the years with them but they play a never ending childish and dishonest game that has left me completely disgusted.

I've decided after a few long threads in the last couple of weeks that it is a waste of time to engage these people any longer. If anyone has been reading these threads (and my stat counter shows that it's the same 6 people, btw), it's painfully obvious that nearly all of their comments are ridiculously adolescent and employ troll tactics that would not be allowed on most message boards and blogs. Their primary goal is to insult, scream, mouth foam, and denigrate anyone who doesn't agree with them. When the facts don't, it's instant rage that would dwarf a teenage temper tantrum. I get the fact that they see blogs as a place they can "win" because their ideology certainly isn't winning in the real world (see: outside of the bubble) but their willful ignorance, granite intransigence, and moonbattery has gotten so bad lately that I have realized it's utterly pointless to have discussions with them. In so many ways, this is the very definition of the Right today.

Their comments range from dick to asshole to 12 year old bully to psychotic mouth foamer unmoved by facts and undeterred by new information. They are so insecure that they have to stick together (despite obvious disagreements) for fear of losing the purity of MARKWRONG, MARKLOSE, never once questioning each other and having any sort of real debate with multiple sides. Odd, considering they bemoan collectives. Yet they are the ones that buy into the myth (again, 12 year old bully) that more people against one means a "win."

More frustrating (and highly immature) is their refusal to accept that they are the ones at fault combined with their insistence that I am actually the problem. Honestly, it's like I'm talking to my seventh graders in every discussion now. One need only look at the comments after this post to illustrate this point. There will be cries of "chicken" and links to Brave Sir Robin videos as well as long paragraphs which essentially amount to "No, You are!" It's the same shit over and over again and I am terribly bored with it.

Now, I'll always allow comments to be open and will continue to allow people to post their views (minus spam, of course) but I'm pretty much done with leaving comments unless I see some change. I'd rather spend my time writing posts then put up with the crap from these 3-5 individuals. Another reason for this change is that whenever a long comments thread develops, my hit count for that post goes down. People just aren't interested in hearing what these asshats have to say. I don't blame them and I'd rather have more people read my blog.

I understand now why Nikto rarely comments. He has always told me in the past that it's a waste of time. Indeed. I love a good debate and have certainly grown from a few of these discussions but now it's time to move on. And maybe the comments section will as well. Maybe some new commenters will start leaving comments. Maybe these 3-5 commenters will change and leave something new and interesting in which case I will respond. I sadly doubt that will happen, of course, given their hostile fear of progress and total lack of people skills. Obviously, they don't get along well in the real world and that's why they spend so much time posting here.

Without me around, I'll admit that it will be mildly amusing to watch them yell at air, kind of like the guy on the street you see pushing a shopping cart, listening to his short wave radio and screaming about communism.

Isn't that where they came from anyway?

12 Years

I've gone back and forth between putting something up on this 9/11 anniversary and not putting something up. There's something contrived and shallow marking this day simply because of ceremony. It should be from the heart, right? Not out of some sort of civic obligation. The people that died that day deserve more than just going through the motions. And I'm certainly not going to stop talking about the issues that are important to this country because of what religious extremists did to our country 12 years ago especially considering that we have our own religious extremists to deal with at home (hence, the post previous to this one).

The film below changed my mind about putting up a post about the 9/11 attacks. Like many Americans, the jumpers out of the World Trade Center have always haunted me. Who were they? What was their story? Would I have done the same thing? That is the subject matter of this 71 minute documentary which I highly recommend watching today.

It's an excellent tribute.



UPDATE:

The video above has been taken down from YouTube for copyright infringement. For more information on this film, click here. 

Making The Case

I thought the president made a compelling case tonight in why strikes against Syria might be necessary. Since it appears that Assad is caving, we might not have to act after all. My big takeaway from the speech is how this president is adamant about protecting children. Whether it's domestic policies aimed at curbing gun violence or protecting Syrian children from future chemical weapons attacks, he is firmly on the side of the children.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming days. Will Syria give up their chemical weapons and put them under UN control?