Viva la Revolution!

Wiretapping you can believe in

What a difference six months makes.

During the run-up to the election, then-Senator Obama argued repeatedly against the Bush Administration’s illegal and unethical warrantless wiretapping program and lamented the same administration’s repeated use of the so-called “state’s secrets” privelege.  From barackobama.com:

Secrecy Dominates Government Actions: The Bush administration has ignored public disclosure rules and has invoked a legal tool known as the “state secrets” privilege more than any other previous administration to get cases thrown out of civil court.

But that was then, and this, as they say, is now.  President Obama apparently now thinks the same “state’s secrets” privelege invoked by the Bush crowd actually is kind of useful after all.  President Obama’s own Department of Justice recently issued a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed against the NSA by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, claiming that allowing the case to continue would “cause exceptionally grave harm to national security”.

This is exactly the position that the Bush crowd took regarding wiretapping.  Unfortunately, the Obama administration takes it a step further, alleging that the government can be held immune from lawsuits relating to warrantless wiretapping.  It’s something called “sovereign immunity”; in other words, you can’t sue the king for violations of his own laws.

This is shocking and saddening to see.  I expected better from President Obama than this mindless continuation of Bush’s worst mistakes.

Shameless merchandising

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Shirts, hats and tote bags also available.  More coming soon.  Show your rebellion against lameness!

Always Low Morals: Wal-Mart pressures employees to vote Republican

Like we didn’t see this coming…

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Friday it has warned U.S. store managers in recent weeks about the possible consequences of a labor-friendly bill backed by Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama that would make it easier for workers to form unions.

But the retailer, which has kept its U.S. stores free of unions, stressed it was not telling employees how to vote.

The Wall Street Journal reported that about a dozen employees who attended meetings in seven states said executives had told them that unionization could force Wal-Mart to cut jobs as labor costs rise, and that employees would have to pay hefty union dues and get nothing in return.

The Journal said Wal-Mart human-resources managers who run the meetings do not specifically tell attendees how to vote in November’s presidential election, but they make it clear that voting for Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in.

“If anyone representing Wal-Mart gave the impression we were telling associates how to vote, they were wrong and acting without approval,” Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar said.  (Reuters, 1 Aug 08)

Wal-Mart, of course, is well known both for its anti-union activities and its lack of support for workers’ rights, so this comes as no surprise to anyone.  It’s also one of the nation’s largest employers, so for them to raise the specter of layoffs and personnel cuts during a time of economic uncertainty is tantamount to extortion.

The fact is, with or without unionization, Wal-Mart will continue to rake it in.  They just won’t be able to do it by exploiting their employees the way they have in recent years.

Always low morals, always Wal-Mart.

Energy Independence

These days everyone seems to be talking about “energy independence”. The ever-rising price of oil is dragging the costs of everything upward with it, as anyone who’s been to the grocery store lately knows. I predict as well that the costs of toys, computers and nearly everything else made from petroleum plastics will begin rising as well, sooner rather than later. So the cost of oil affects nearly every aspect of daily life. And keeping your personal cost of living down is not a simple matter of driving less or turning the thermostat down a couple of notches. It takes, on average, over 900 gallons of petroleum to feed each and every American, every year. That includes the oil used in farm implements, fertilizers and transportation of food to market. When you factor in the amount of oil and petroleum the average family uses each year – about 1,500 gallons – you begin to understand the scope of our problem.

So we need, as a nation, to come up with a comprehensive solution to the problem, and fast. As I stated in an earlier post, we’ve had 30 years to do something about this. Experts (geologists, not Republican propagandists) have been predicting this for nearly 80 years. The scientific data are clear – we will run out of exploitable oil. The signs are already there. Production reached a peak in 2004-2005 and has been dropping since. It’s not happening because of “profiteering” or “greed”, either. It’s happening because of one simple, incontrovertible fact – that to pump oil from a well, you need pressure within that well. The more you pump, the lower the pressure becomes. Eventually the well reaches a point of no return, where it becomes economically unfeasible and physically impossible to extract any more oil from the hole. You can use other substances to re-create that back pressure (water, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen are common methods) but It turns out that even with advanced drilling and pumping techniques, only about half of the total oil in any given well can be extracted (Deffeys, 2005). The rest will remain underground, tantalizingly out of reach.

Two years ago in his state of the union address, President Bush said that America is “addicted to oil”. It’s not just America – the entire world economy revolves around the black stuff. Today there is no developed or developing country on Earth that does not either import or export it. We are all dependent on oil.

Our response to this current crisis has been mixed. For almost his entire presidency, Bush has been pushing to open up the Alaskan Northern Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil exploration and drilling. Environmentalists have been just as consistently and fanatically opposed to it. It’s become such a hot topic it’s hard to have a rational discussion about it. Those on the exploration side of the fence seem to think opening up ANWR will be the Holy Grail that will save us from dependence on foreign oil; conservationists think pipelines and oil wells in Alaska will destroy a pristine and beautiful landscape. The reality is, even if we’d started drilling ANWR six years ago, the price of oil would still be where it is today. Production would just now be getting started at full capacity, and third world demand for oil would still be driving the prices upward. Exploiting yet another undeveloped landscape in our desperate search for our favorite drug will not save us from the inevitable crash; it will only delay it.

The same goes for offshore drilling. Even if we could “wave a magic wand” as the President likes to say, and conjure up hundreds of offshore rigs and refineries today, it would not save us from our dependence on oil imports. Our demand for oil is simply too great. Oil prices might dip slightly, but would basically stabilize over the longer term. The end result would be the same as ANWR drilling – delaying the inevitable.

So, to return to the original thesis, how are we going to achieve energy independence, and is such a thing even possible? I believe it is not only possible, it is necessary to our survival as a civilization. The fact is, oil as an energy source is on the down slope. It had a good run during its 150 year history, but it’s time to move on. But to what? Is there a “magic bullet” that will free us from dependence on foreign sources of energy?

And what is “energy independence”, anyway? The trouble with the term as employed by politicians and businessmen is that it can mean very different things to different people. McCain and Bush talk about it in terms of America being free from dependence on foreign oil. All well and good, but the scope of the problem is far greater than that. Besides, when most Americans hear “foreign oil” they almost reflexively think of Saudi Arabia. In fact, as shown on this chart from the Energy Information Agency the vast majority of our imported oil comes from non-Arab countries. We import nearly 2 million barrels per day from Canada. So getting “free from foreign oil” is not just a matter of opening up more wells here. The world economy depends on our oil imports.

Besides, drilling at home won’t create true energy independence, at least not for the average consumer. Switching from one drug dealer to another closer to home doesn’t solve your problem.

Nuclear power won’t solve it either. Politicians love to tout nuclear as “clean” energy, but nothing could be further from the truth. If you only consider the actual production phase, then yes, it is nearly emission-free. But before the uranium gets to the plant, it must be mined, refined, and processed, and each phase produces environmental damage of its own. And then there’s the inevitable and so far unanswered question of what to do with the waste. The end result of nuclear energy is so dangerously radioactive that effective long-term solutions have so far proved unobtainable. Besides, once again we’d just be trading one giant energy syndicate for another. Energy independence? I think not.

Senator McCain mentioned “clean coal” in a recent speech regarding his energy plan. “Clean coal” is one of those industry oxymorons that refers to coal that has been chemically cleansed of impurities, burned, and the gases treated with steam and reclaimed so as to reduce or hopefully eliminate carbon emissions. Don’t be fooled – there is nothing “clean” about coal. Mining it is a filty, dangerous proces that always produces toxic byproducts, and there is no way to burn it cleanly. It would be more accurate to call it “cleaner coal” or even “slightly less dirty coal” but then it wouldn’t be so easy to sell to the public. Coal in any form is a dead-end technology. There’s a reason we stopped using it at the end of the industrial revolution.

Ethanol isn’t any better than oil.  It takes about 30% more energy to produce a liter of ethanol than you get from using the resultant liter.  That means higher oil demands and increased greenhouse gases not less.  And then there’s the ethically questionable practice of transforming farmland into fuel production.  Food prices are already high enough and trending upward; ethanol production will only drive them higher.

True energy independence requires radical change in both thought and method. This must be both evolutionary and revolutionary in nature. The way we produce and use power must change simultaneously with the way we think about energy. This goes beyond any discussion of “green collar jobs” or “renewable energy”, though both will be essential to our future. To me, energy independence means each family, community, or city has the ability to produce its own energy, as dictated by its individual needs. The answer will not be found in the sort of large-scale national-level projects of the sort we’ve become accustomed to, but in a new emphasis on small-scale power production. I believe wind turbines, solar power, fuel cells and other emergent technologies will be critical to this effort.

Instead of offering tax incentives to corporations for developing green technologies, the government should be in the business of offering tax breaks to individuals and communities that choose to use them. I was always shocked at the relative lack of solar power use in the Southwest, where such a thing should be an obvious choice. Perhaps all people need is an incentive to do it, and less propaganda. In more rural settings where communities have more land available, and especially in farm country, similar incentives could be offered to encourage the use of wind turbines for power production. This would be true “power to the people” – allowing individuals and communities to choose where they get their electricity and by what means. Some states already offer rebates to homeowners and investors that choose to go solar. We need to expand this and make it nationwide.

What I’m proposing here is nothing more and nothing less than an energy revolution. In any true revolution, power is taken from one group with a history of abusing it (in this case, the oil industry) and redistributing or decentralizing it to a new power base (in this case, the American people). We will probably still need large-scale projects to power large-scale communities, at least for the shorter term. But if we can make the radical shift away from everyone relying on the same enormous power grid and enable true energy independence – i.e., independence from the energy cartels and monopolies that currently rule our lives – then we, the people, will all be much better off in the end.

Eventually – within the next 20 to 50 years – we will run out of exploitable oil. The ball has already started rolling. We’re already behind the power curve; as I stated before, we’ve had 30 years to work on solving the problem, and done nothing in that time but continue to waste oil at ever-increasing rates. We now have half the time left in order to solve twice the problem. If we’re going to remain the world’s main superpower and regain our economic strength, we’d better get started now.

Sources:

Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert’s Peak by Kenneth Deffeyes
Peak Oil: Life After the Oil Crash
Energy Information Administration
Wikipedia: Clean Coal Technology
Sunpowercorp

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day

And this time, the Supreme Court got it right. They must be on some kind of courageous streak or something, now that they’ve followed up several headshots to the Bush Administration’s anti-habeas corpus policies with their latest decision. In case you’ve not been paying attention, in a recent 5-4 decision, the Supremes ruled that the Second Amendment does, in fact, protect the rights of individuals to own weapons. Gun-control advocates have long argued that the language of the Amendment refers only to a “collective” right and not to an individual right, and thus the states have the right to restrict or allow gun ownership as they see fit.

Gun ownership advocates see it the other way, that the same language does indeed allow individuals to own firearms for self-defense in all forms. Some take this interpretation to extremes on both sides, often to the point of ridiculousness. But the fact remains that the language of the Second Amendment, while not exactly clear to modern ears, provides protection and security for both sides of the coin – in other words, as written,

“A well-regulated militia being essential to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”

Means that in order to preserve the freedom and security of the republic, the Founding Fathers intended for every citizen to have the right to bear arms, and unlike in a Monarchy or Feudal state, this right can neither be granted nor removed by the state. In a democratic republic, which is what we are, rights reside in individuals, not in institutions.

In order for rights to have value, they must have value to every individual in society, not just to groups. Yet the proponents of the “group” theory of the Second Amendment would have us believe that alone among the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment refers to organized state-run (“regulated”) institutions and not to each and every citizen of society. Taking it a step further, this is like saying the right to freedom of the press belongs only to large printing houses or other state-approved media outlets. Imagine if the current government tried to limit access to the broadcast airwaves and cable channels only to those networks it likes (i.e. Fox News). What a nightmare that would be!

No, the fact is each and every one of us has the right to bear arms. And the purpose is not for hunting, or “sport” or other such trivial uses. It’s for self-defense, and to make sure power continues to reside in the people of this nation and not just in the state.

Dunkin’ Donuts and the Right-Wing Jihad

Now that Dunkin’ Donuts has caved in to the idiot convention, it’s safe to say I won’t be patronizing their shops for a while.  At issue, apparently, is an online ad for their iced coffee that featured Rachael Ray wearing a tatty, rather hideous black-and-white paisley scarf (image is from Newsweek.com):

Apparently this was too much for certain elements of the extreme right in America.  They decided that, rather than being what it is (and which any halfway intelligent person can see), it “resembled” the kaffiyeh, a scarf worn by millions of Muslim men and, unfortunately, Yassir Arafat.  Check out the overreaction here and here.

Gee, we’re kind of reaching a bit here, aren’t we?  I mean, aside from wearing a ratty scarf with a short-sleeved shirt while hawking nasty coffee, what has Rachael Ray really done wrong?  Anyone with half a brain can see the difference between Rachael’s scarf and Arafat’s (image from wikipedia):

Not even close.  And I’m pretty sure there’s no Arabic writing on Rachael’s.

National security, my ass.  This is just plain stupid.  I won’t be patronizing Dunkin’ Donuts any time in the near future, at least until they apologize for caving in to the forces of hate, ignorance, intolerance and bigotry on the extreme right.  I’m sick of these people running roughshod over my country and claiming they’re doing it to “protect us”.  It’s all bullshit, and it needs to end NOW.

Tell Dunkin’ Donuts to grow a spine and stand up to these lunatics.  Tell them that there’s no money to be made in kowtowing to fearmongers.

Too little, too late

Well, it seems John McCain has finally found what remains of his spine, and cut ties to two pastors even more controversial, racist and inflammatory than the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

The first, of course, is evangelical pastor and Jew-baiting right wing nut-job Jim “the Horrible” Hagee.  Hagee is, of course, the man who described the Catholic Church as the “Great Whore” and said God sent Hurricane Katrina to destroy New Orleans because of a gay pride parade scheduled for the day the Hurricane hit.  One of his more interesting sermons has been making the rounds lately, and I feel I must do my part:

Hagee the Horrible

Okay, dude, no problem.  I’m offended.

McCain, of course, tried to shift the focus back to Jeremiah Wright:

“I have said I do not believe Senator Obama shares Reverend Wright’s extreme views,” Mr. McCain said in his statement. “But let me also be clear, Reverend Hagee was not and is not my pastor or spiritual adviser, and I did not attend his church for 20 years.”

Nice try.  Obama didn’t actively pursue Wright’s endorsement, unlike the McCain/Hagee connection.  And when Rev. Wright’s more extreme sermons came to light, Obama quickly and definitively denounced them.  He didn’t let the whole thing simmer and build, the way McCain has with Hagee.  It took Obama only a few days to respond to the first allegations; it’s taken McCain weeks.

The other “religious leader” that McCain has turned against is Rod Parsley, McCain’s spiritual guide famous for these interesting statements:

Rod Parsley

I especially like the bit where he says America was founded to destroy Islam.  You know, I’m no scholar of American history, but I’ve read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and the Federalist Papers.  There’s nothing there about “destroying Islam”.  There’s a lot there, though, about freedom of religion.

In a way, this is good.  No previous candidate has so actively sought, and received, the public endorsements of such controversial people.  And the fact that it went all but ignored for so long speaks volumes about our nation’s priorities.  You have to wonder why Rev. Wright’s comments and Obama’s connection with them received such detailed scrutiny, while the racist, bigoted and, frankly, ignorant rantings of these two fools went nearly uncommented for so long.  It really serves to highlight the insane double standards our country still has when it comes to race and religion.  White evangelical preachers get a free pass on their racist, sexist, homophobic, historically ignorant rants because we expect it from them.  Black preachers get the rectal probe if they even put one toe out of line because deep down, we’re still afraid of the blacks “gettin’ uppity”.

We’re not as progressive as we’d like to believe.  And that’s yet another reason we need President Barack Obama in the White House.

The following are irrelevant.

This will come as a shock to some people, but what follows is a list of what I consider political “non-starters” this year. They are issues that are either peripheral to the main discussion, or are dangerous distractions from the real problems that we face as a nation. They are in no particular order, since placing a list of national non-priorities in a hierarchy was nearly impossible. So sit back and prepare to be offended.

• Gay Marriage. Politicians and pundits who bloviate endlessly about this are wasting both time and air. The Republicans and their cronies in the Fundy-Wacko community would love to believe that this is the biggest threat to morality and virtue since the last biggest threat, but in reality it’s a blip on the radar scope. Does it really matter, cosmically speaking, if Peggy wants to marry Sue and Joe and Steve want something more than a “civil union”? No. Does the fate of our nation hinge on preventing such unions from occurring? No. Does it affect my marriage and my children? No. There is an inherent biological component to homosexuality, and being exposed to it does not increase your chances of “becoming gay.” You either are, or you’re not.
• Abortion. Make no mistake about this – I am personally opposed to the practice of abortion, especially the vicious and despicable method of performing late-term abortions commonly known as “partial birth”. I would like nothing more than to see this procedure outlawed, and soon. However, at present, the debate has been stifled by the shouting of bigots and hatemongers on both sides. The extreme left would love to overlook the fact that abortion does, in fact, destroy a human life, and often leaves the (former) parents grieving and in psychological trauma as a result. The extreme right has been desperately trying to ignore the fact that it’s been their policies of “smaller government, less regulation” that have led to wage stagnation, rising costs of living, and people being so desperate that when faced with the expense of a child, abortion seems a more viable option. It’s time to move past the rancour and try to reach some middle ground. It’s the law of the land, so we might as well accept it. Oh, and if it’s going to be an accepted medical procedure, let’s try treating the clinics that perform it like hospitals. Regular inspections of their facilities and medical documentation would be a good start.
• Illegal Immigration. This relative non-issue has been made into a hot-button topic by racists and bloody-minded right wingers across the country looking for someone to blame for problems we’ve pretty much created for ourselves. The real problem isn’t that illegal immigrants are coming across the borders and “taking American jobs”, and it isn’t that terrorists could sneak into the country and pose as plantation workers. Illegal immigration has been a fact of American life for decades, and will continue to be so whether we ignore it, or build a fence, wall, force field, or whatever. Walls won’t keep people out, and it’ll only be a huge waste of money and effort if we build one. No, the main reason our economy is in the shitter is not because of illegal immigrants – it’s because of the unethical and frankly despicable behavior of American corporations that have shipped America’s manufacturing base overseas in the quest for cheaper labor and less regulation. It’s not Jose’s fault you lost your job last year – it’s Joe the CEO’s fault. But it’s easier to blame the brown-skinned person, so that’s what the right-wing wacko racists want you to do.
• Taxes. Once again, it’s time for a reality check. Every year, we get to hear from the usual suspects that the reason the American middle class can’t get ahead is because taxes are too high. Meanwhile, since Bush’s last round of tax cuts, the rich have increased their share of the national wealth from merely stratospheric to astronomical, while middle class wages have actually declined. Check out Robert Reich’s column from yesterday’s New York Times. Anyone who hasn’t felt the effects of rising costs of living and stagnant wages is either rich or not paying attention. So take taxes out of the picture. Americans, in fact, pay the lowest taxation rates of any industrialized nation, and it shows. Our government currently is having to borrow money just to make operating expenses, and has recently voted a stimulus package of hundreds of billions of money from God-knows-where. The dollar is sliding down the toilet compared to other currencies, if this is any indicator. And our government fiddles while Rome burns. What we need is higher taxes, on the upper levels of income.
• The Stimulus Package. So our elected (and one selected) officials finally woke up to the fact that the economy is in deep shit. Good for them. But as I’ve said before, putting $1200 in the pockets of the average American family and hoping it’ll “turn the economy around”, when the real problem is that the family in question isn’t paid enough to live on in the first place, won’t solve the problem. This is irrelevant, pointless, and mostly a waste of time. After all that money’s been spent, or more likely, put in the bank for later, the economy will continue its inexorable slide into oblivion. It took 30 years of Ayn Rand-style cutthroat capitalism to get us in this mess, it’s not gonna be solved overnight. Besides, trusting the lot currently occupying Washington to fix the economy is like finding out the guy that just wrecked your car is also a mechanic, and then taking it to him to get it fixed.
• Ronald Reagan. Why is every Republican candidate trying to run as the next Ronald Reagan? Is it because he was truly a great president, the apotheosis of conservative ideals, or is it because their own merits and abilities are so meager and uninspiring that anyone else looks great in comparison? Please, guys. Reagan was an adequate president. If you can’t run on your own ideas, stay out of the race. Reagan is dead, and good riddance. Try, just once, to be yourselves for a change.
• Bill Clinton. I’m trying to be even-handed here. Yes, Bill Clinton is irrelevant. It’s eight years since his administration sailed into the sunset, and the left still can’t let go of him. Fortunately there’s only one candidate running as the next Bill Clinton. Unfortunately, it’s his wife. She gets the same note that I just sent out to the Republicans – if you can’t run on your own merits, stay the fuck home. Clinton was a mediocre president who got lucky (in more ways than one). He was not a military genius, but he did learn to respect the military he commanded. That’s something Bush II has never learned yet. Besides that, he did commit perjury in front of a grand jury. Granted, it was about an illicit sexual affair with an intern. But perjury is perjury, whether it’s about sex, lies, or videotape. So the impeachment, however frivolous, was well-earned. Oh, and to all you Clinton defenders who keep saying “how could he have” about the intern in question – Monica Lewinsky was a babe then, and she’s a babe now. Get over it.
• George Walker Bush. Well, this pretty much goes without saying. The best we can hope for is that he fades ignominiously into the dustbin of history. Sadly, the messes he’ll leave behind will take years, maybe even decades, to clean up. America, I hope you’ve learned your lesson.
• Republicans. Pasty-faced, rich, middle aged white men are so out this year. GOP, prepare to be PWNED.

Well, that’s all for now. I’m sure there are a lot of other non-issues to discuss, but I honestly don’t feel like it at the moment.

Bloggers bitch-slap bridge bullies, bridge babes back

In a finale to the bridge brouhaha, the USBF has dropped its attempts at punishing the ladies who publicly admitted they didn’t help put the worst President in American history in the White House. Here’s the full story:

Bridge World Brouhaha Ends With a Statement, Not Punishment for Players

Let’s hope we’ve heard the last of this miserable little sideshow. Not that it isn’t important, mind you. The punishment of individuals by the group for perceived violations of political correctness is an issue of monumental significance. And that’s exactly what this was.

Not to sound egotistical, but it can’t be coincidence that this decision comes only a few days after several “liberal” bloggers – or at least, bloggers labeled as such by Amy Ridenour of the NCPPR – began commenting scathingly on the USBF’s draconian actions. I feel especially vindicated, since this blog was one of three selected for special consideration (the other two are here and here). I was, to say the least, bemused to see myself described as a “liberal”. Apparently all it takes these days to be labeled as such is to say something unfavorable (or truthful) about the President. The Neoconservative minority certainly has taken public discourse to a new level.

And so this whole sorry episode draws to the only favorable conclusion possible. I hope we’ve heard the last of it. I’m bushed by bloviating, babbling and blabbing about bridge bullshit.