Thanks,
The only way...
One thing that I've noticed about the environmental 'debate' surrounding oil usage and foreign oil is that it seems to center around reducing oil consumption. Nobody talks about the exchange that oild companies have and that there is no way to boycott a single provider of oil. As it turns out, the only way to eliminate foreign oil is to eliminate oil.
I hear that if only we could get a 30mpg average nationwide we could give up foreign oil! That would be true if we simply stopped trading oil as soon as we were within the limits of our national production. The oil industry is private though, and will try to get the cheapest oil they can. Guess where that comes from? It's not local!
It used to be (meaning until VERY recently) that they only way you could stop using oil, at least for transportation, was by riding a bike or living in California. Alternatively, you could find a person to convert your car to electric or do it yourself.
In recent years though, electric car production has taken center stage. The Chevy Volt, Tesla Model S, Nissan Leaf, and Aptera coupe are all soon to be available. Nearly all of them are affordable too! (I'm talkin' to you Chevy) You have to take the cost of operation into account when you look at these vehicles as well. Equivalent fuel cost for an electric car is roughly ten cents per gallon so calculate that savings over gas per month. Also remove oil changes from your budget. for me that's an extra 100 dollars per month. So I could afford a payment of up to 100 dollars more per month, which raises the price of the vehicle I could buy.
That said, some of the vehicles, like the Nissan Leaf, will be priced more like a Honda Civic to begin with, so it's all savings.
It's not just fuel...
It's not just oil to burn that costs us. It's millions of plastic products like plastic bags that must be eliminated. Chico Bags, Flip & Tumble, and ecoBags all provide replacements for shopping bags, produce bags, and various other bags. Drinking straws are made from stainless steel, polycarbinate or glass and are dishwasher safe.
Bottled water likely doesn't use recycled plastic either. Use a stainless steel bottle with filtered water instead. In any case before you use a plastic product, look for ecoFriendly alternatives.
Remember, the only way to eliminate foreign oil and make America more secure, is to eliminate oil. At least the kind you have to drill for.
Give me bankruptcy or give me death?
The Status Quo- Insurance Scam.
I work in the medical field and healthcare reform is a great idea. It's about time.
I've sat by powerless, while many people have died in my care waiting for insurance companies to authorize non-formulary medications or treatments. Most people are healthy and don't realize how small the list of authorized formulary items is, until it's too late. Bankruptcy or Death is not what Americans should have to choose between. Health Security should be a right.
Even greedy self-loathing hypocrites whom don't like being GUARANTEED protection will someday need more than they can afford, so then, its illness or bankruptcy or DEATH for themselves or a loved one. Anyone who has tried calling an insurance company knows the truth. There is almost no regulation and mostly people just dance in circles with the insurance companies until it is too late. Time is on the insurance companies’ side. For them, time is money and for us or our families it may be a matter of health or death.
So...Here I am, a non-activist where politics are concerned, but now I believe the conservative elements in this country have just gone too far! Their orchestrated disruptions of open political debate are a threat to the free speech rights of all the rest of us, and at the very least, we must deplore those tactics.
What is worse is the obvious sub-text of their actions: they are actually promoting the undermining of the effectiveness of the Obama administration. Why would they do this? Do they not realize that would mean a severe diminishing of the US world-wide, that our international security and world-wide economic efforts would also be undermined? But, then on reflection, they aren't being entirely rational.
It is sad to see how people who might otherwise be decent have had their fears mobilized and how they are manipulated by the powerful business interests that simply do not want health care reform at any price--because reform would affect the huge profits they realize from the current so-called "free market" system. Let's face it--there is nothing open about the current health care insurance marketing system; it works to fix prices and bar very ill patients who would be costly for them!
I believe in free markets in general and the American entreprenurial profit system, but not at the cost of the lives of the elderly and uninsured.
“The North appears to have launched a ground-to-ship missile into the East Sea shortly after 9pm Tuesday,” said the unnamed defence official. Pyongyang had already launched two missiles from its east coast earlier on Tuesday, after firing three on Monday.
With tensions on the Korean peninsula high, South Korea said it would join a US-led initiative to intercept ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction, a move that Pyongyang has previously warned it would consider “an act of war”.
They shot them into the ocean over and over. North Korea shoots off six missiles and we stand around saying, “Hey, stop that or we’re going to stop the shipment of solid gold Mercedes that you like so much.” I don’t know what type of diplomacy this is but, you bring that weak game to the playground and you won’t last a day.
By the way, all of the countries have said once before, “This is a provocative act and won’t be tolerated,” the first time they shoot it. After the sixth time they say, “lets just ignore them, maybe they will go away.”
How do you deter an enemy who is willing to kill himself in order to kill you? You strike at something more important to him than his own life. Defining that will be easy for me. The next question is can America be as ruthless as our enemies?
The time has come to end the fruitless and unsustainable effort to search and destroy every cave in Afghanistan and bomb every campground in bordering Pakistan. It’s counterproductive anyway.
What will put the fear of America into terrorist masterminds and those who would follow their orders is simple and radical revenge. Masterminds have families: Cousins, brothers and fathers. Eliminate them. All at once, or one at a time, it works just as well. The ones who survive an initial “hunt” will go into hiding. Having some adult male relatives killed and the rest hiding out in caves will demoralize masterminds and their loved ones. You cannot work and support your women like that. You can’t make more baby masterminds that way. You cannot continue the blood line. The women and children will pressure them to stop their plotting and bombing.
People want to leave a familial legacy, and they can’t do that under those circumstances over the long term.
Should America do that? Yes. Do we have the “intestinal fortitude” and sustainable motivation? I don’t think so. But we should, and it shouldn’t take another terrorist attack to get us there.
For the last seven years the CIA has been kidnapping people from other nations and torturing them. Why not just go in there and quietly shoot them to death?
Frankly, by not killing women or children the way those terrorists routinely do, we can even claim the moral high ground.
Beaurocracies have a way of moving and swaying with legislation and the tide of public opinion, but this could turn out to be a good thing! Especially if we could plug up the huge vacuums of common sense in our nation's flood of money to questionably disabled individuals in our country.
We are so interested in being Politically Correct in paying out millions every year to questionably "disabled" folk, including children, that Disability may be part of our economic problems. The fiscal drain is but a sign of some very strange tendencies, for us to care more about how our government "appears" to be taking care of individuals, while letting our economic infrastruture crumble about us.
This runs concurrently with lack of health care to so many Americans, including those on Disability. By making the drastic transition to the wonderfully efficient and actually healthy National Healthcare system that's modelled by Great Britain and Europe for starters, but finding the application that would work best for our country, we could surely solve 2 problems, ie.bad healthcare and an enabling system of Disability, in 1 fellow swoop.
We need to give credit where credit is deserved: NAME this economic crisis after the man most responsible for it's creation.
$10 trillion deficit is what we had at the end of the Bush administration. In eight years, Bush more than DOUBLED all the indebtedness America had accrued in more than 200 years.
This is more than a talking point, this is a necessary reminder that should be made every day, so that the notoriously SHORT memories of Americans shall be stimulated on a regular basis.
One of my Groups also has a blog - check out what we are doing:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/HydePark53rdSt60615
While reading Thomas Friedman's book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" with CNN on in the background, it struck me that I've heard a number of reporters repeat teh phrase: "The campaign is over, and now it's time to govern."Not to put too fine a point on it, but, as the saying goes, "What planet are they from?"; the election campaign is over, but the campaign to maintain electoral support never ends.This is very closely tied in with the necessity to "green" America for the following reason: given that it is both well-known, and well-documented, that terrorism is funded by oil revenues (often called "petrodollars", I cannot comprehend why we, the American people, are not being provuided with public-service messages clearly and simply illustrating not only teh facts recarding that funding, but also, the fact that, when the CAFE standards were eliminated in the 1980's, that alone directly led to the US wasting as much oil as optimistic estimates say is located beneath ANWAR. In our rush to absolve ourselves of any and all responsibility, we as a people and government have long deluded ourselves that buying gas-guzzling SUVs and energy-wasting homes was a matter of "freedom", when it has, in fact, been the major vehicle for funding attempts to eliminate our true freedom.President Obama has ntoed that we have an economic struggle ahead of us, and he has intimated that energy-independence is both an economic issue and a national security issue. I do not think, however, that either aspect has at all been sufficiently communicated to the populace, not by a long shot. Perhaps we have become so sensitized to the mere mention of the word "propaganda" that we've allowed small minds to convince us the airwaves belong exclusively to commercial advertising (with snippets of programing squeezed in-between to keep us watchign the advertising). If this is so, then some improtant lessons from history have been either ignored, or deliberately swept under the proverbial carpet. I think it is not merely a "good idea", but rather, imperative that the oil-terrorism connection be communicated to the American people, and to all people in the West. The potential tyranny of energy has been well-illoustrated by Russia's having plunged Europeans into an icebath, so to speak, by cutting off the flow of natural gas. We, as a people, must either return to the realization that it is not the size of one's car or the square-footage of one's home that gives life value and makes it worth living; to reject that realization will mean that, by pursuing the Madison Avenue illusion of freedom as "purchasing choice", we will sell our true freedom to petrofascists.
Let us look at these things logically. I like logic. It is as good a place to start as any. When conducting an investigation in theory, one starts with what one knows, and applies facts from the best predictor of the future, “history”. One also applies rational assertions that are open to debate from anybody who comes up with another more rational assertion. This technique can be applied even when dealing with irrational subjects, because even they have to yield to the laws of nature, science, and the trends of sociology.
So with that in mind. Here is the question that I would like to explore. What was it that al Qaeda wanted to accomplish by the actions of 9-11? Of course as a follow up, how successful was it?
Senator Dodd went rogue and inserted some crazy stuff into the new law, so the President will need to be creative. Perhaps we are looking for HEROES to run our troubled banks. A lot of wealthy patriots have made great financial sacrifices to serve in the Obama Administration. Like-minded people who don’t want to go through the vetting process and insane pubic humiliation of being outed on every little tax related or other embarrassment can now serve their country without becoming federal employees but while still consenting to be paid wages not all that far above that.
I see nothing different Obama has said or done since 2004 and today -- perhaps Gregg's understanding of it morphed overnight between the time he was begging for the job and yesterday, when it came time to vote on the stimulus plan. Gregg seems to claim otherwise.
Obama should have known Gregg either hasn't the courage of his convictions or , far more likely, hasn't got any deeply held beliefs other than politics. We demand omniscience! How DARE the President not realize a man like Gregg would say anything to further his own personal ambitions?
There's something wrong with a vetting process that cannot discern that a politically savvy adult who somehow got himself repeatedly elected to the US Senate would claim to have turned his back on Petty Partisan Politics but actually lack the moral fortitude to stand by his decision.
-- Stimulus -- Keep it simple!
Halve Employer and Employee payroll taxes for small to large sized business for 1 to 2 years. Increase the Employer Tax reduction based on the level of health and retirement benefits provided to their employees.
This provides real and tangible salary stimulus increases to consumers while simultaneously adding incentive for employers to retain and provide health and retirement benefits to their workforce. Universal healthcare options can be later offered for additional savings to the employer once universal heath care services are in place.
Invest stimulus in transportation infrastructure; Road, Rail, Air and Sea, emphasizing security both environmental and homeland.
Invest in education infrastructure; facility and teachers with increase focus on early childhood services.
Provide low interest housing to all teachers, fire and police employees and military personnel.
-- Cash Flow --
Tax each trade/transaction in the Stock market approximately $0.50. This tax provides government revenue in both bull and bear markets. This would create around 1 trillion dollars per year using a current rough daily average of the Dow Jones alone. This may have a potential beneficial side effect of limiting stock trade volatility.
Increase taxes on large sized US corporations who operate globally but don't comply with US environmental and labor laws. Tariff foreign imports from International companies that don't recognize US/Global environmental and labour laws or that are uncompetitively subsidized by their governments..
Eliminate offshore tax shelters for US Corporations.
The Department of Homeland Security has determined that the current threat level is “Orange”. Travelers have heard that in airports for years now without a change. To me, this represents the current lack of communication between the Federal Government and ordinary citizens. By always being at “Orange” the government has neither told us what the real dangers, nor the reasons for the danger.
I hope that the Obama administration follows through on its promise to have an ongoing dialog with the people, and create transparency in government. A changing threat level to match actual risk, would be one small step towards that goal. To see the treat level change to Blue, or Yellow, or even Red would give travelers actual information about the terrorist situations. This accompanied with an explanation for the changes would also help normal citizens actually take part in the security process, and in the our new government.
(Can I say 'circa' if it's in the future?)
Democrats won't be controlling the Senate after 2010.
They rushed like lemmings to declare they'd never accept Blago's appointee.
A little time and forethought should have enabled them to reason that in order to create the illusion of innocence Blagojevich would be likely to find someone eminently qualified, of stellar reputation and far removed from the (alleged) illegal activities.
That would only be in his own best interests. And if there is one thing we have learned about Blago, it is that his own best interests are his first and last consideration in decision-making.
Senate Democrats have now pitted themselves against the Chicago Democratic Machine. Despite that Dick Durbin has lost touch with reality and thrown in with them, this is a battle Senate Democrats cannot and will not win. In this, there is no winning, only degrees of losing.
Should he be denied, Burris can run against any Illinois Democrat, including Durbin, and win.
As for that silly mausoleum? All politicians are narcissists. He's just 'concrete' about it.
Remember Republican Senator Ted Stevens who actually looked jurors in the eyes and told them he didn't notice people stuffing hundreds of thousands of dollars into his pockets. I dare say Bill Gates would notice if you stuffed a few hundred thousand dollars into his pockets. Ted Stevens,... now THAT'S a big ego!
It is also necessary to remember that this is the same US Senate that gave a seven-time convicted federal felon -- Ted Stevens -- a two-minute standing ovation, and two hours of praise-filled testimonials. And they are claiming to be observing their PRINCIPLES???
Republican and Democratic Senators must think we are stupid, stupid, stupid.
Imagine what would happen if the immediate and long-term success, and even viability, of the Republican Party depended on Barack Obama failing to pull America back into PROSPERITY. Oh, wait, we don't have to IMAGINE that because it happens to be the current condition.
While refusing to offer any better ideas, Republicans stand in adamant opposition to everything the President-Elect suggests, even without knowing any details. I have to admit, he's been somewhat vague.
History suggests that America's realization of a sense of success by spring of 2012 will mean the GOP will be broadly out of power for one to two generations.
Every month that another 600,000 Americans lose their jobs is the direct result of Republicans acting on what they see is their own best political interests. While one of their many changing SLOGANS last year was "America First", in truth it is plain that they hold the Republican Party's interests above those of America and our people.
Every day that our children continue to suffer from a declining educational system in which mediocrity is celebrated; every day that more taxpayers lose high wage jobs only to go on welfare food stamps and unemployment; every day that more and more Americans are forced to sign up to work at the country's largest employer WalMart whose own accidentally leaked internally study said 43% of their full-time employees are on welfare and food stamps; every day that we lose what little remains of our manufacturing base so that when we next need to really go to war like in WW2 we won't have car factories to swiftly convert to making fighter jets and tanks so we'll have to order them from CHINA which the most likely enemy in a real war; remember that Republicans see that as MERELY another day closer to the time when they regain power over the White House, Senate and House -- which if not for the horrendous disaster they have created over the last eight years might not be so terrifying.
America stopped keeping up with the demands for maintenance of our infrastructure with the Reagan administration. We were told that things like that "the free market" would take care of things like that, but tell that now to New Orleans and their crumbling levees, or Minnesota with their collapsed interstate bridge, or Kentucky with their billion gallons of toxic sludge that spilled out of a mine containment area.
America's best defense against precisely the current financial system collapse, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, enacted not coincidentally in the wake of the financial collapse of 1929, was REPEALED on the demands of deregulating Republicans -- with help from Bill Clinton in 1999. That law alone prevented financial institutions from becoming "too big to fail". That is, it kept each of the insurance, banking and real estate conglomerates within their own area. They could still become behemoths, but it's when they get into all three of those industries and start making up new ones that are totally unregulated like 'derivatives' that the failure of one company can bring down the American economy, even the world economic system.
The only thing the President-Elect can do to get us out of this disaster is to go back the way we came in, by resurrecting modern-day Glass-Steagall style regulations and stimulating the middle class segment of the system while taking back the giveaway tax cuts from the wealthiest 1% that over the last eight years gave money to people who already had more money than they knew how to spend. They squirreled it away someplace, or bought yachts built in Greece. Republicans love to claim that tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy leads to the creation of small businesses. In reality, it's Steve Jobs and Bill Gates when they had nothing who created small businesses that became leading world companies. Billionaires DON'T start small businesses, they BUY huge corporations then fire 50,000 or 100,000 employees to increase productivity and thus profits for themselves and large bonuses for the three to five top executives of each company. Oh, and they CUT wages of the few employees they do have to keep on.
That doesn't grow anything but unemployment and declining wages. Less taxpayers and more people surviving on public assistance.
If we don't stand up to these self-serving Republicans very few of us will have jobs in 2012, and they will be at WalMart. There won't be any real taxpayers to support the public assistance people need to get back into good paying jobs.
I'll get to the CRAZY DEMOCRATS on another post. I'll give you a hint that after 2012 Democrats will no longer be in control of the Senate.
