"Safe, Accountable, Fair, and Efficient Banking Act of 2010 "

If you'd like to send an email to your US Rep and Senators which support Sen Sherrod Brown's SAFE Banking Act (S. 3241 please click on this link to Democrats.com Unite.

Below is the, admittedly verbose, opinion I tagged onto my own submittal to Senators Brown and Voinovich, and Representative Kucinich.

The concentrated wealth in these four Banks' control has two effects both contrary to and detrimental to the US Constitution: It prevents the opportunity for other financial institutions to enjoy the liberty of freedom of expression which is each person's and corporation's constitutional right and, as is the focus of this petition, it cripples our Nation's ability to defend itself against the complexity of Economic History unfolding.

The accumulation of Wealth is a right. The accumulation by a number of individuals and institutions which is limited by their control of a large percentage of the current total capacity of Wealth which might be created has always led to a system which operates to the detriment of the very institutions and persons to which and whom that right has been given, whther it has been given by the governed or by hereditary or conquering rulers.

If our Federal government is to stay out of the business of "redistributing" Wealth it must rigorously, and as scientifically as possible, regulate the ability of any person or institution to accumulate an unbalanced percentage of the total Wealth currently and imminently available to both the local (National) and global (International) financial pools.

Regulated Capitalism has so far proven to be the most reliable method of ensuring liberty and inclusivity to our species. History proves, mathematically, that all systems will fail where once they had succeeded if they are not consistently and effectively maintained. Nature does this via Catastrophes. Humanity must always use conscious, diligent and intelligent Regulation of the Rules by which we live Together.

Afterglow

 

I’d been sitting here, in this same couch, wondering for hours when it was going to hit. When would the tables be turned on the politics of passion which had been bogging down the political and commercial works for so many months now. 

I couldn’t figure it would be long.

Now I’m back in that couch. Stinking of sweat and fresh earth. Blood and roses and thinking, was it worth it? Was the most likely broken bone in my hip, the still bleeding, despite the ice and beach towel wrapped tightly around it, bullet wound in my right hip worth the still uncertain outcome the last 24 hours? Especially since no one is ever likely to know it was me to got this new ball rolling?

It hurts, but I smile contentedly. Oh yes. Oh yes it will.

Comment King

This is perhaps the clearest explanation of Global Climate Change I’ve ever read. The commenter (on New Scientist online) wrote nothing but heavily evidenced and even mathematically proven statements about why we can’t just pretend like we don't have the capacity over time to make this planet completely unsupportive of "our way of life."


10 comment down on a story from the article headlined, Hybrid fusion: the third nuclear option

Still Adding Energy To Its Overload

Fri Mar 05 12:58:35 GMT 2010 by Peter Thomson

Doctor Singmaster, the Earth and it's biosphere is most definitely not a closed system. It is an open system in an equilibrium state, where the inflow of solar energy (insolation) is balanced by the outflow of low frequency infra-red energy being re-radiated from the planet's surface and atmosphere back into space. The temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere is the temperature at which equilibrium occurs.

I understand your main concern is heating caused by human release of stored forms of energy, such as fossil fuels and nuclear. But human energy use is only small fraction of the solar heat balance.
The solar energy inflow to Earth is 174 petawatts, balanced at the atmosphere/space boundary by an equal outflow (if it wasn't we'd be heating up very quickly indeed!) Global human consumption of all forms of energy is 15 terawatts. This is less than 0.01% of the total heat flux of the planet.

This human heat does not continuously build up in the atmosphere. The temperature only rises until the infra-red outflow balances the solar inflow plus the generated heat. At 0.01% of total flux, the direct human-induced temperature rise is insignificant.

The real issue is the carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. This 'greenhouse gas' makes the atmosphere look marginally more opaque to low frequncy infra-red, reducing the rate of radiation outflow. This forces the planet to warm up, until the low frequency outflow once more equals the solar flux. Equilibrium is achieved, but at a higher average surface temperature.

Trying to cool the planet by trapping and removing energy from the atmosphere is futile - we can't possibly remove enough heat to make any difference. The real solution is to remove and sequester atmospheric CO2 until the CO2 level falls back to long term levels.
Our future descendents may well thank us if we can capture the carbon from atmospheric CO2, and store it where it is accessible. They might just need to pump it back into the atmosphere in a few thousand years time - to prevent the next Milankovich cycle ice age!

Of course the evidence/proofs are supplied in the comment, but, also of course, it's not a research paper, nor are ur fingers broken. Google what you doubt or are curious about! :) The information is readily available and substantiated and FREE for all to see.

Here're a couple of great places to start.

Real Climate: Climate Science from climate scientists
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)


And please do look out for the highly educated who's only excuse for the degree to which they take their disagreements on extraordinarily well documented climate trends appears to be some slight they received from the, truthfully as the unavoidability of rain in monsoon season, the all too human element of other scientists. There are some folks who claim to compare data, right up to the point where someone tries to compare RELEVANT data.

Coming Out of Manic Mode

Not sure if this is gonna help me come down easier, but it strikes a chord so sweet and true I've wanted to post it all day.


If I may be so bold as to add to Goethe's insight; and punishment does squat of any positive value whatsoever.


Last Friday I got home and read this article on Complexity and Collapse*and, thoughout the entire essay, my brain was bubbling with ideas which I couldn't slow down enough to write. {sigh} but lol! Oy! Sometimes I get it down, and sometimes I just have to let it go, believing I've thought such ways before and know the material fairly well so will indeed get it out when I'm more level headed.

'Tany rate, Happy Friday and it's off to the weekend!

Late!


* Alas! that a subscription is required for online reading, but perhaps some stray click-by reader will have one. Truly a great and insightful article, so to any interested, pick up the March/April 2010 issue of Foreign Affairs. It's the first of the essays and follows directly upon Kenneth Roth's, slightly over critical IMO, commentary on Pres-O's approach to Human Rights to date. Well worth the read.

Pinch Those Pennies, Ma & Pa Farmers

But you are A) not alone and B) not to be among the first wave of new EPA regulations of livestock effluents. At least not if the Obama Admin can get this one right.

As does any other lover of burgers and steak and 'dogs (Oh Yum!) I don't for a minute enjoy the idea of paying $15 for grocery store sirloin. Nor $5 + for an 8 pack of pure beef wieners. I don't buy chicken frequently enough (ever?) to know the cost of a package of poultry fit for a family, but I do know that it doesn't matter a bit whether or not I ever visit the Chesapeake Bay, Gulf of Mexico or any other recently enormously expanded Dead Zones in one of our nation's waterways. I do know that I, and everyone single person in these United States of America, is going to pay for dealing with those diminutions of said waterways by virtue of the higher costs for everything from sea foods to government financed clean-ups which are inevitable and growing ever more imminent.

To whit:
(From the WaPo online)

Animal manure, a byproduct as old as agriculture, has become an unlikely modern pollution problem, scientists and environmentalists say. The country simply has more dung than it can handle: Crowded together at a new breed of megafarms, livestock produce three times as much waste as people, more than can be recycled as fertilizer for nearby fields.

That excess manure gives off air pollutants, and it is the country's fastest-growing large source of methane, a greenhouse gas.

And it washes down with the rain, helping to cause the 230 oxygen-deprived "dead zones" that have proliferated along the U.S. coast. In the Chesapeake Bay, about one-fourth of the pollution that leads to dead zones can be traced to the back ends of cows, pigs, chickens and turkeys.

Just one more worry, eh. At least if you're head isn't secluded in the warmth and wetness of your own internal lake placid.

My hope, as stated above, is that the Obama Admin does indeed help the Big Boys of the Agricultural Industrial Complex find relatively affordable ways to mitigate this exorbitant (and, incidentally, disgustingly smelly) growth of natural human directly pollution in ways that allows for future regulation - FUTURE, not immediate!- of the far more common common family animal husbandry facilities (aka, Ma & Pa farms) which are contributing in equal amounts to the devastation.

Give 'em time and resources to prevent the inevitable "keep the government out o' my business" complaints which never A) resolve the problem or B) provide a solution that allows ma & pa to stay in said family run business.

On an unrelated but always relevant note, Happy Monday!

I'd Buy From This E. Bayh

It had been a while since I can recall hearing anything about Evan Bayh. Probably since he was Gov'nor of [not Illinois] Indiana (think I've got Chicago on my mind. :-)) and running for Congress. Alas that this should be the next thing for me to notice!

Completely on point is his Op-Ed contribution in the Sunday (saturday online) NYTimes. The point being that both the American peops and the critters we've elected to do "our" governmental bidding would all rather bash each other for political gain and out of personal fear of political loss of the power to determine our own futures, than we would step back and breath deep before commencing to compromise, NOT our principles, but our approaches to building our Nation up, addressing it's inevitable (and sometimes perennial) short-comings and continue to recreate the most profoundly democratic and reason based Society to come on the anthropological scene since the Dawn of Our Time.

He even makes a swell start of it by pointing out that Congress is, by nature, a rather easy target for our scorn. "BASEBALL may be our national pastime, but the age-old tradition of taking a swing at Congress is a sport with even deeper historical roots..." Rather than wasting time (my Op) debating or just discussing the reasons for that political pastime, Bayh gets specific on how things have gotten so bad that next to nothing of any positive effect can get done when the two (and only two, unfortunately) sides refuse to even entertain the notion that their colleagues are or even can be anything but the Opposition.

As if we don't all want the Exact Same Things! The strength and security to continue on as a Free Democratic Republic. ONE Nation. Indivisible (even with or without god!) If the Constitution allows for Congress to see any among our fellow citizens as the "opposition" it is specifically and categorically the other two branches of Government.

But I digress...

Time and my own propensity to ramble when enthused by what I've read both suggest I wrap this up with a bit of the more powerful and, back to being on point, on point portions from Bayh's piece:

page 3 online:

Of course, the genesis of a good portion of the gridlock in Congress does not reside in Congress itself. Ultimate reform will require each of us, as voters and Americans, to take a long look in the mirror, because in many ways, our representatives in Washington reflect the people who have sent them there.

The most ideologically devoted elements in both parties must accept that not every compromise is a sign of betrayal or an indication of moral lassitude. When too many of our citizens take an all-or-nothing approach, we should not be surprised when nothing is the result.

Our most strident partisans must learn to occasionally sacrifice short-term tactical political advantage for the sake of the nation. Otherwise, Congress will remain stuck in an endless cycle of recrimination and revenge. The minority seeks to frustrate the majority, and when the majority is displaced it returns the favor. Power is constantly sought through the use of means which render its effective use, once acquired, impossible.

What is required from members of Congress and the public alike is a new spirit of devotion to the national welfare beyond party or self-interest. In a time of national peril, with our problems compounding, we must remember that more unites us as Americans than divides us.

Immediately previous to that extremely accurate assertion of the problem at hand and what to do about, Bayh suggests reducing from 60 to 55 the votes needed to override a filibuster. Whilst I agree, entirely, whole-heartedly, enthusiastically as ever can I be about the debased use to which the procedure has been constantly put as of late, I would rather see some other method of minimizing its practice. 2/3 of the chamber's agreement may be too much, but a nice round 60, low for a Free Throw %, but astounding for a 3 Pt shooter, is a solid requirement, IMO.

Okay. I'm off to take on another day! Late!

Good Reads for Good... well.. Reads! :)

Michael's bookshelf: read



More of Michael's books »

Recommended if you know what you like, but don't really know what you want. To read, that is.

is all i'm sayin'

Breaking Obama

I forget. Is it recursive or redundant to post a post containing a comment one left on another's post?

MEH! It's hardly 8am on Saturday. I should care less.

Oh, and you (all) should read both Larry Jones and Robert Reich with regularity.

Starting with one of my best-evah blog buds, Mr. Jones;

I don’t expect miracles, and I know (Obama)’s only been in office for a year, and he is following the administration of George W. Bush, who must surely have been the worst president ever, and who really did leave a stinking mess behind. But I have the distinct sensation that nothing good is happening in the federal government, and while I want to be tolerant of a man whom I consider smart and decent, I think I’ll hold my applause until I see some action.

That paragraph does succinctly sum up my own thoughts and feelings on the matter of our 44th President to this point in his Admin, and reading LJ's post immediately set me to wondering what the Rational Robert* of Bill Clinton's Admin might have to say about matters SotU. After checking out Reich's tempered reaction I clicked back to Revision 99 and wrote this response.

To your post’s point; as Bob Reich says, “…Carefully targeted — as are the cuts the President is proposing — they can give businesses an extra nudge to hire. But without adequate demand, they’re useless (as job creators).”

Of course, the point the so called Conservatives purposefully “miss” is that such cuts would assist corporations’ bottom lines and, thus their performance in the Hallowed Stock Market.

Just for a while, boys. Just for long enough for the cats with the capital to make their profit$ and get themselves gone to greener marks… errr uh… markets, no, um, pastures. Yes. Greener pastures.

Fingers crossed and donations made to Jennifer Brunners’ campaign to be OH’s new US Senator when Voinovich retires.

Whew!

I'd forgotten how liberating a little bloggoriffic self-indulgence can be! As per usual on posts of this nature, I hope it's been rational and helpful. Otherwise... well... It's 8am on a Saturday. Whaddaya want for nothin'?




* The Irrational Robert being one of the banal boors our 44 does instead defer to on matters Economic. Aka Robert Rubin.

in blinks of eyes passes life

and then I go and fantasize away another portion. This time while “working”, dnloading Windows 7 for a pretty decent veep from work and then installing. Yikes! what a night, and me a morning person.

oh… Morning it is.

Coolio. Now to continue thinking as little as possible about, in no particular order, the end of another abysmally wretched fantasy football season*, the politics of ignorance, @)^()%^! !%# 3qq@, and crossing the street to get to shovel out my car without a real scraper in 20 degree temps. Meesa luvs meesam snowstuff!

Anyway, I almost rewrote the tit to read "... eyes pass lives" but life is everyone's.

wtfiwwm??? ;D

* 4th Place outta 6 teams. 6? I think it was six. I only know the Hipster and his can’t-stop-blushing bride, “DatBroad” and ain’t sure even they know 1 of the other 3. So much for Drew Breezzzze. Hope he beats the Vikes or Steerboys bad in the NFCCG and then drops Indy’s “well rested” lads for Scoreboard. Yep.

OH Little Town of . .

Whether or not Jess was really real, right there is the spot of the story of this season.

Merry Christmas

and

Happy Holidays All!

I’ve got some great memories of xmas, so think that I’ll always be to celebrating it. One way or another.

this is touching

And precisely what's needed President O. Now remember, it's Love, not Money that really, honestly matters. Really 'tis so.

Good Luck! ! ! :)

Medicare for All in the Discussion

For the first time I feel there's hope for single payer, health care as a human right.

Via CommonDreams

"Physicians and patients alike stand to gain enormously from the adoption of this measure," Young said. "No effort should be spared to ask every senator to vote yes on Senate Amendment 2837."

Sanders' measure, which is largely patterned after a bill he introduced last March, the American Health Security Act (S. 703), would cover all of the 46 million Americans who currently lack coverage and improve benefits for all Americans by eliminating co-pays and deductibles and restoring free choice of physician.

Highlights of the amendment include the following:

* Patients go to any doctor or hospital of their choice.

* Comprehensive benefits, including coverage for dental, mental health, and prescription drugs.

* By eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private, investor-owned insurance industry, along with the burdensome paperwork imposed on physicians, hospitals and other providers, the plan saves at least $400 billion annually - enough money to provide comprehensive, quality care to all.

* Community health centers are fully funded, giving the 60 million Americans now living in rural and underserved areas access to care.

* To address the critical shortage of primary care physicians and dentists, the bill provides resources for the National Health Service Corps to train an additional 24,000 health professionals.

* The program is paid for by combining current sources of government health spending into a single fund with modest new payroll and income taxes amounting to less than what most businesses and people now pay for insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses.

* While federally funded, the program is to be administered by the states.

Alas, but the Senate was having enough trouble getting it through with full party support in the scraped off and more expensive way earlier in the year. Just the fact that single payer is back in the heart of the conservation is Wisdom unexpected but most welcome.


My home boy's even got in on it. Sehr excellent!

Update: Hmmm... It seems the first is the Sanders' Amendment and the Coburn, nicely necessary eh, is for Congress to use the Public Option. Whatever form it takes.

Both fairly obvious requirements of the lawmakers.