My Expensive Pee

There are a lot of groups out there that pretend to be fighting for Christian
values or the new term family values. You know of whom I speak.
The anti gay/anti gay marriage/protect the family crowed.

They say that based on the Bible two men should not have sex with
each other. It is true that there are quotes that either say that or can
be interpreted to say that. They often argue the the wrath of God
will be upon us all if we betray the word of God, by letting homosexuals
have their fun. Preaches have attributed both 9/11 and Aids as Gods
punishments for our wicked ways.

So if we forget about their agenda/specific verses, they are saying
that if you go against the word of God, his wrath will be upon us.    
Now if they are Christians they should read the entire Bible.

If they do read their Bible, they will see that God is a lot more worried
about greed than He is about sex. There are at least a 100 to 1 more
warnings about greed.

Interestingly the protests against greed does not come from what
Americans have seen as the loudest Christian voices but rather
from the occupy movement.

I think it is time for the rest of America to raise up and heed the word
of God, and speak up against greed, usury and materialism.
      

OWS does not refuse to use the media, it refuses to be USED by the media.

OWS is not ruled by talking heads on tv, or professional politicians, left or right who created this mess together.

The only real solution is to remove the current rulers and replace them.

In a democracy that would be a real possibility. It does require a free and critical media and an open election system.

What we have is a managed democracy or more accurately an illusion of democracy. Until we manage to break this down and replace it, talking about a solution, turning to the current set of good old boy politicians will smile their best smile, they will pick a point or two, make speeches, maybe even hug some demonstrators, and then with great press fanfare they will pass some meaningless legislation and nothing will possibly change, but the media and the talking heads will convince us that the world is better now.

Often discussion regarding policies are divided into a faith based point of view and view informed by the world we live in.

For instances only teaching children “abstinence only” is based on the notion that people up to and including high school should not have sex. There might be a lot of people who believe this, however, it does not have anything to do with the world we live in. (Though it might also be motived by punishing “bad” teens who have sex by forcing them to have a baby, and hope that this works as a deterrent. In real life, teenage pregnancy increase radically when kids are only thought abstinence only. So its better for society to teach them how to have protected sex even though morally we might disagree with this action happening.

Other examples of this is forbidding prostitution. While it might be a worthwhile moral goal that no one sells their body for money, in reality. it will happen pretty much universally. (The oldest profession in the world and such). I think the readers would agree that if law enforcement started putting enormous resources into capturing every buyer and seller in the trade there would be way too many people going through the legal system. (and maintaining it, sometimes LE takes a week or two week push for some politician to look good) (Sometimes certain small towns, or parts of big towns, will have areas that are more strictly enforced than average)

Yet another example is pot, but here we have actually made progress. The law has been changed in certain parts of the country to allow possession and using. Again there might be a lot of religious and moral reasons why one does not believe people should be allowed to use pot it is not realistic to arrest all the pot smokers in Denver for instance. (Pot used to be legal for everyone)

My last example is consumption of alcohol. A moral minority managed to get prohibition passed. Of course this was reversed after the practicality of imposing this made no sense for society as a whole.

Recently there has a been a great movement across the country
to encourage people to move their accounts from large
corrupt and bailed out banks to local credit unions.

Part of the idea is that the money will do the local community more
good and of course hurt the big banks. Unfortunately most of the 99%
does not have a substantial amount of money in our accounts. I know
I sure don’t. I decided to move what I had though and I think that is good.
The real magic of the is not how much money we individually have
but the aggregate result when millions of people do it.

Now Wall Street has worked its propaganda magic on most of the
nation and convinced people that their retirement accounts belongs
managed by some fat cat Wall Street banker who is ensured a large
income no matter how your retirement fund does. A lot of people have
seen their retirement funds loose money. The ingrained belief is that
the stock market will always rise and as such we the people will make
more money by investing little we get in their clammy hands.

This has led to a massive shift of wealth from safe and conservative
harbors that almost ensured that retirement accounts would never
loose value, to Las Vegas high stakes gambling with our retirement
funds. The only sure thing know is that the Wall Street firms managing
it will make a LOT of money. How much money you will make is up to
the market, and we must all hold hands and have faith the market.

With all that said, the best way to make Wall Street aware of us, and   
maybe, just maybe be encouraged to change their greedy ways is
for us to stand together and move our retirement money out of the
the hazard prone gambling our Wall Street managers subject
us and our money too. Furthermore does of the 99% who are lucky
enough to have some retirement funds, probably have more money
in it than in our checking and savings accounts. If millions of people
moved their retirement accounts to safe harbors Wall Street would
most definitively notice, and perhaps a few fat cats would make less
and we would have a no loss retirement.   

Firstly I am abhorred by the treatment of our “food” animals.

There is no excuse for it. I think the author of Eternal Treblinka

said is best that for those animals it is an eternal holocaust.

It is also something that is abstracted away from us so most

people, people who dont actively seek it out dont have to think

about it or deal with it . With the law changes that are appearing

around the country making it illegal to film farms without

express permission, it gets more and more dangerous to get film

of the true working conditions.

I end up feeling that it is a bit hypocritical how we pick one or two

animals like seals of whales and get the general population to care

a bit about them, and I am all for stopping the suffering for

whales and seals, but in my mind it pales in comparison to the

everyday treatment of cour cows, pigs, chicken, turkey, etc.

Secondary we have managed to screw up our animals so much

with our genetic meddling etc that most of them do not even

look healthy ever. Furthermore with our scientific methods

for increasing/optimizing growth over as short a period of time

that led to the practice of feeding blood to calfs, we have

created a monster for ourself with mad cow. A scary disease

that cannot be cooked/fried/frozen out of the meat we eat.

Furthermore the USDA, and the FDA will not allow American

producers of beef to test their animals for mad cow.

In Enland and most of Europe the testing is required by law.

Now not feeding vegetarian animals a vegetarian diet.

that is in keeping with the type of plants they would eat

in real life ought to be a crime unto itself. Not to mention

the use of hormons to enhance growth (which also has

side effects for human end consumers) Furthermore

the excessive use of antibiotics on animals in order to try

and keep them healthy enough to slaughter is breeding

all sorts of super bugs that we will have no way of stopping.

Fishing is now a very cruel activity as well, and the consumption

of seafood is made dangerous by the high level of chemicals,

eps mercury that we have dumped into the ocean. The gigantic

farms they have for salmon and other specific species, are

again creating diseases that effect the native non farmed fish

and killing them. But I guess there is a race between the toxins

in the ocean killing them, the farm raised killing them, or the over

fishing/over utilization killing them all off.

So if we look away from the animals, we have genetically altered

crops, (Monsanto is an entire conversation unto itself), that

is created to withstand toxins, that has never been much tested

for consequences, and that the entire food industry have managed

to pretty much make ubiquitous in our food stack in America.

In Europe they have a bit more rules governing the use and sale,

but still it very hard to avoid.

To even find food to eat that is safe is a whole difficult process in itself

anymore. Makes me want to become amish, but I think with my

allergies that would not be a perfect fit.

On the other hand, our monstrous industrial agriculture does one

thing well and that is turn out “cheap” (though sponsored via

tax dollars) food that can feed a lot of people. So more and more

countries are adopting our western ways of producing food,

China, Vietnam, India, because they need to feed their increasing

population and there for me is the most difficult problem.

I love going to Whole Foods or Vitamin Cottage and pay a bit more

for food that I have been led to believe is a bit safer, a bit better

on the mother nature etc. It makes me happy, takes away a little

of the guilt but its a fantasy. A yuppie ritual. Because organic

“old school” farming does not scale like our industrial production does.

So for a country with over a billion people that need to be fed, who

increasingly want beef or pork etc, the only way for them to go is

towards our desease ridden mode of production. They are closing

down all fo their tiny little farms, and moving the population into

cities where they work in sweatshops producing crap for western

consumption.

We cannot start by advocating that they dont produce enough food

to feed their people and its hypocritical of us to demand that Chinese

, Indian or Vietnamese people dont use electricity, drive cars, eats

steaks.

We can hope they could learn from our mistakes and perhaps they are

a bit, but they are also recreating our mistakes.

I believe we need to change first. We need to stop eating so much

meat, stop wasting soo much food, start spending a lot of resources

researching new alternative ways of production that is better for the

earth, better for our bodies and still scalable.

These days we there is a lot of talk about the deb ceiling and how much money our country is spending.

It seems like over the past 20 years, the conversations regarding politics has centered more and more
on money and less and less on ideology, ideas, and what is morally right.

Conversations that center around money, lead to a very narrow discussion that can be seen as very
black or white. Either we have the money, or we do not. This is a false declaration though, because
the real debate is what we wish to spend our money on.   

Certain topics are not subject to much debate and are just enacted. Other topics lead to endless
debate about how we should spend our money. There has been very little debate on wether
we should spend billions to create new nuclear weapons. There has been very much debate
on wether we should fund the NPR or not.   

We have ended up in a scenario where the only debt we seem to discuss is money. However
our country suffers from many other and more fundamental debts. One of them is our national
health debt. We have far too many people who do not have adequate access to preventative
health care, because of the monetary rationing system we have put in place.

In the US you may have the best health care in the entire world, as long as you have enough
money. This has led to over time, an ever increasing health debt building up.

This leads to a problem with implementing Universal health care. If we do make health care
available to everyone, how do we deal with the millions of people who have had no health
care or far to little health care their entire life and now face disease, chronic pains, and a
multitude of health issues that should have been addressed easily and cheaply early o.

This for me was always the main problem with introducing Universal health care. How
do we setup enough clinics, enough hospital beds, enough staff to start addressing our
national health debt.

Until today.

Today I learned that at the Bagram airfield/base in Afghanistan, the military and/or KBR
on behalf of the military built a 250 patient hospital in 72 hours. This gives me great hope.

We have the technology and the know how to construct a temporary/semi permanent
hospital in such a short time, we could easily create 4 of these at a time, in the most
health debt ridden areas of our country, and start paying off our national health debt.

The discussion should not be around wether we can afford it. We have enough money
for Universal Health Care if we want to. We need to do this as quickly as possible
because we keep accruing more and deep health debt, and as it accrue the cost
to deal with it keeps increasing.

We need to deal with it now, it is the right thing to do, and the right thing to fund.
I hope we will have politicians brave enough to make this a main issue in 2012.
Do not debate it on the basis of money, debate it on the basis of human suffering,
and the ever increasing national health debt.

  

I believe in having as few laws as possible, I support legalizing most drugs,

though I refuse to part take on philosophical grounds. We have a lot of laws

federal, state, city etc, that are basically meaningless.

I also strongly support a separation of spirituality and law. In fact I believe

marriage should be removed from all laws, and government documents,

in favor of a partnership agreement/contract. There is no reason why

people cannot enter into those no matter what faith, gender, color etc

they are. And yes that includes polygamy. Marriage should be a term

reserved for your faith and place of worship, in which you may make any

limitations you want.

I believe we strongly need to inhibit the idea of corporate personhood.

That is a perversion of the constitution. A corporation should never be

fined, or sentenced. Its board of directors, its Ceo etc should be.

The idea of big corporation settling cases via the transfer of money

to the state is a perversion of the entire justice system and has more

in common with “blood money” as is practiced in certain parts of the Arab

world, than anything in western history. (Apart from the Christian practice

of paying money in compensation for sins in earlier times)

Large corporation in structure and economic model are very close to socialism.

Its a planned economy, executed by non elected people, that have a large

dictatorial influence on society and its “subjects”. It inhibits the free market.

Once a company gets big enough, the economy of scale makes it prohibitive

for any other company to compete. For instance in the US we have very

few mobile carriers. ATT-Tmobile, Verzion, Sprint. (Most of the others are

leasing lines from one of those carriers like Virgin is really Sprint calls).

Cricket too, but they dont have nearly the coverage. If you compare that

to the EU market in which each state has at least 2-3 carriers.

However I think the state should provide free and comprehensive education

to all its citizens. Its the great equalizer. No matter what socio-economic

background you come from, you should have the right to a peruse your

academic career as far as you want as long as you are making progress

Furthermore the state should provide free health care to all its citizens.

Its a strong inhibitor to a free the free market, when some people are bound

like slaves to keep working for a corporation because they are the ones

providing the health care, and if they quit or get fired they may not

be able to privately afford or even obtain medical coverage.

People should be encourage to start their own business and hire

other people in their business without being burden by having to

pay the medical care for all its employees on top of salaries and other

benefits. Starting a small business should be made very easy and

as cheap as possible. As should hiring more people on.

I believe the anti trust law we have should be enacted a lot more often,

and we must find some means of controlling the corruption of congress

the senate and the presidency. That means finding some way of controlling

the flow of money, favors, and jobs awarded after a person has served.

I dont know how to do that.

The military should only be used in foreign countries if it is proven beyond

doubt that some nation, or fraction presents a clear and present danger to

the lives of American citizens on domestic soil. The military should not be

used to protect American companies, and economic interests in other

countries. Nor should we have the right to intervene in foreign countries

way of organizing their countries. (Unless we bind ourselves to intervene

in every single country that has an autocratic system of government,

including those nations that we consider our allies)

Furthermore we should not use economic aid to other countries to bolster

our own economy, by giving 3rd party nations money to buy American weapons

and goods. It is welfare for private corporations.

The government should if it has to, act to protect the lives and welfare of

citizens possibly using economic aid, but it should never provide aid to

corporations. Corporations need to be managed such that the situations

of them being too big to fail never occurs, and if a company is mismanaged

it should be allowed to die and the free market system will provide

the services that they provided over time if there is a demand.

We need an educated, mobile and motivated workforce. We get that by

providing education, providing a short term help when people are laid off,

and encouraging people to further their education is there is no demand for

their talents. Having a medical system that provides health care to all

also lessens the impact of loosing your job, as does helping people start

businesses.

Lastly the free market system should decide international trade, not special

agreements, alliances, and subsidies.

Lately the media has been buzzing like crazy about the successful assassination of Osama bin Laden. The execution was the result of good planning, superior training, superior technology and vastly superior firepower.

None can deny the courage shown by the American soldiers who went in to do the job.

A lot of armchair pundits are spouting off from the safely of their air-conditioned studios and extra comfortable chairs. They show no courage and little intelligence.

So lets go over the facts, Osama was the leader of a terrorist group. The Commander in Chief if you will. He has a pretty large network of administrators, captains, lieutenants and so forth that form the command and control over the network. He is also connected with a collection of grunts who are used for the actual attacks.

He lived in a large house, close to a heavily populated area, and in this house he lived with his wives and other people.

The spin this is given is that Osama was a coward for hiding near a residential area, and a coward for having women living there with him, since ht wanted to use them as living shields should the compound the attacked. He is also called a coward because he never was part of the attacks himself, he only sent his grunts to die.

Now if we look at the facts ad and we think about our own commander in chief.

Obama lives in a large house in the middle of a densely populated area.
He lives in this house with his wife and his kids. (And a lot of staffers of different genders).
He commands the biggest military force the world has ever seen, but has never
seen battle himself. He sends young men and some woman to their deaths every day the war continues.

My point is that the circumstances described for Osama are very similar to how our Commander in Chief lives.

Our President enjoys a security framework around him, that has not ever excited before in the history of the world. Every care is taken so that the President can travel without fear ,and without courage. This president is no different than most of this immediate predecessors.

I witnessed our last president paying a visit to a building next door to the one I work in for a fundraiser. Not only had security personnel spent days blocking off areas, going over every inch with a magnifying glass. When the President travelled from the airport and to the venue they shut down several major highways, so the President could travel safely.
Snipers were everywhere on the roofs of nearby buildings, and the Presidential convoy
drove directly into a parking garage, so mr Bush was never even visible to anyone from the outside of the venue. That large venue was of course blocked off from the public at every single nearby road.

All of this separating the President from the people whom he governs creates an intentional bubble around him and ensure that he never has to listen much to protestors or even just the voices of the average people. Getting close to the president is reserved for those with big wallets or major influence and often both.

So let us not be so quick to pass judgement on the cowardice of others till we have deatl the the cowardice in our mist.

Obama followed the military action by watching tv, in a comfy hair, in a extremely secure location. His orders were or resulted in a plan that took courage and skill, but he himself did not show either. The only risk he faced was a political backwash if the plan had failed.

As most working people in the United States I have sat through many a yearly benefits meeting where we are collectively told that our health benefits are decreasing and their price increasing.

If you are unlucky enough like me to have a boss who lecture you every year at the beginning of the meeting about the “realities of American health care”, I feel your pain.

The argument usually goes something like this: The American people (working class people) are using too much health care, having too many unnecessary medical procedures done. This has to stop, and the way to stop it is to give the working class “more skin in the game” Which is code for paying more for their healthcare.

I do not know of a single working class American who is running around having unneeded medical procedures performed, yet we are told it is so, and in order to save the health care system we must give up even more of our meager incomes in order to have any healthcare.

If this was truly about avoiding unneeded medical procedures, then I put it to you that the upper class, the rich, your boss, is who needs to be stopped.

If this was anything but an attempt to ration health care even more than it is now, the pricing for medical procedures should be based on income and wealth. That way everyone would have equal “skin in the game and we would all have an incentive to avoid medical procedures.

Yet this country is full of private clinics that pamper the ultra rich and provide them with all sorts of luxuries while there.

I say its time for progressive pricing of healthcare, it should be based on a percentage of income and wealth.

We’ve all been told that the whole body scanners are being implemented for our own good. We’ve been assured that our misapprehensions were unfounded. Body scanners penetrate clothing to provide a highly detailed image so accurate that it has been likened it to a virtual strip search. Technologies vary, with millimeter wave systems capturing fuzzier images, and backscatter X-ray machines able to show precise anatomical detail.

During Department of Homeland Security hearings, Janet Napolitano assured the Congress (and this writer who was present at the hearing) that all images collected by the full body scanners are not stored, cannot be stored and are discarded as soon as they’re viewed. Just last summer the Transportation Security Administration claimed that “scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.” Privacy advocates (including yours truly) cried foul. Turns out, they were right. Yet again we’ve been lied to by the government. Of course, as usual, the official take is that we were bamboozled for our own good.

Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the United States Marshals Service to obtain information about the agency’s use of full body scanners for courthouse security. EPIC pursued the case in federal court, EPIC v. Department of Justice, Case No. 10-1157.

EPIC lawsuit against the Department of Justice

In the course of that litigation, EPIC has obtained an admission by the agency that a single machine has stored “approximately 35,314 images” of the full body scans of courthouse visitors over a six month period. It turns out that the U.S. Marshals Service had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse. EPIC also obtained a representative sample of the images stored by the devices.

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