Advance to minute 2:20 of The New York Times’ “TimesCast” to see an example of an Ignorant Conservative/Ignorant Republican voter in Columbus, Ohio by the name of Isaac Shupe, who is susceptible to the rhetoric of campaign commercials and repeats those talking points in place of his own reasoning.
Today on TimesCast
The Times’s Jeff Zeleny previews Super Tuesday | The changed perspective of a Republican voter in Ohio.
Could The New York Times’ reporter and the editors of the video have taken Isaac Shupe’s words out of context? Yes! We do not know what Isaac Shupe said off camera, we only know what he said on camera. That is why it is necessary to keep questioning the sources of our information: campaign commercials, TV/Radio/Internet/Print News reports, your neighbor, me, everybody. For All to Hear & Question…that goes for everybody.
Can you feel your soul? I can feel mine. Wishing people dead is not good for my soul. I can feel it. I still hold on to the hope that Fact & Evidence, Reason & Sense will win out over the people who lie, cheat and steal…and that We, the People, will V-O-T-E for the best ideas and the best solutions that benefit the majority of Americans. Maybe there is hope of changing the greedy, self-serving demagogues and sophists, like the Koch Brothers, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney?
The solution is a solar-electric system on every available roof and a plug-in electric car in every garage, which would eventually eliminate the need for oil to fuel our passenger vehicles.
* Click the Tesla Motors link and advance to minute 15:00 on the video to see the new Model X!
Without making any judgements, the ProCon page titled “Is human activity a substantial cause of global climate change?” presents both sides of the “Is Earth Getting Hotter Because Of Us?” debate.
Despite the almost even number of Pros and Cons (Pros won 14 to 13), there is a glaring question of credibility from both sides of the argument: Did scientists purposely play “fast and loose” with accepted practices of science data gathering and presentation? Do the oil companies fund the climate skeptics? Is Al Gore right? Is George W. Bush right? The climate skeptics don’t have a celebrity on their side, other than the President who was in charge of our country and its policies during the bulk of the hottest decade on Earth, 1999 to 2009, according to NASA’s Goddard Institute.
That was a decade in which we increased oil drilling operations and “Killed the Electric Car,” as well as started a false war in Iraq for access to its oil reserves. Bush may have accused us of being “Addicted to Oil” but he was pumping the gas the whole time, and hardly doing anything to wean us from our habit, as he made it seem. Our country runs on oil – a lot of money is at stake in this debate. Global Warming is also an Economics issue, as well as one concerning the Environment.
The debate of “Whose Hot Planet Is It?” has become politicized. When in doubt, ask your local neighborhood climate scientist – and make sure he or she is a highly accredited source with fact & evidence to back up his/her claims.
NASA is one of the sources that believes “We Are Making The Earth Hotter.” The United Nations’ scientists insist with 90 percent certainty that human beings burning fossil fuels is the cause of Global Warming, also known as Global Climate Change.
The source of the argument is just as important as the argument itself. In journalism, we seek highly accredited named sources (3 or more per story, if possible). The Pro-side, or the“Humans = Hotter” polemic, comes with a pedigree of multiple, highly accredited sources—lots of recognizable names, or at least recognizable universities and institutions. To the contrary, the Con-side, or “The Earth Has A Fever” contingent, looks weak by comparison because it lacks highly accredited sources—other than long-time cynic of climate science models, MIT’s Professor of Meteorology, Richard Lindzen .
The “Background” section provides the actual text of the 1988 testimony from James Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. However, ProCon does not provide the text of Lindzen’s criticism. In fact, on the web page, Lindzen serves only to introduce ideas of criticism without using fact & evidence to corroborate his contrarian position, as he does in the youtube video from the Heartland Institute, titled “Al Gore Snowjob.” That is to say, just because Professor Lindzen states (minute 3:00 of the video) “If it’s Greenhouse Warming you get more warming in the middle of the troposphere, the first 10-12 kilometers of the atmosphere, than you do at the surface” does not negate the fact that global temperature overall is rising – which can lead to disastrous effects for human civilization as we know it.
None of the climate scientist skeptics teach at top-rated universities, other than Lindzen. Other sources are not trustworthy because they have obvious conflicts of interest, like Fred Singer (the Former Director of the U.S. National Weather Service in the Heartland video) who runs the “Science and Environmental Policy Project” with some funding from the oil companies.
“Affiliations & Funding: Dr. Singer publicly denies receiving funding from energy industry sources, but he has acknowledged previously being a paid consultant for several oil companies. In addition, his organization — the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) — has received multiple grants from ExxonMobil, according to a review of Exxon’s own financial documents and Greenpeace’s Exxonsecrets.org. That site also shows that many of the other organizations with which Singer works — Frontiers of Freedom, the Cato Institute, National Center for Policy Analysis — have received large grants from Exxon as well.”
It’s a little trickier to dismiss Max Mayfield, the Director of the 2005 U.S. Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Although he is known as a hurricane expert, that doesn’t make him a climate scientist source for the overall warming of the Earth. His expertise is hurricanes – one effect of the Earth’s atmosphere. From what I have read, Mr. Mayfield is not regarded as a “climate scientist,” but is highly regarded as a hurricane expert (which does not make him an expert on the Earth’s “Climate”). Mr. Mayfield also served in a politically appointed position in the Commerce Department during the presidency of George W. Bush – the antithesis of Al Gore.
Additionally, Chris Horner from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, also featured in the Heartland video, is not a scientist of any kind. His conflict of interest is Enterprise vs. Environment, $Green$Money$ or Green Earth. Maybe it’s not one or the other, but there is a definite conflict with Mr. Horner as a source.
Lindzen’s April 12, 2006 Wall Street Journal article, titled “Climate of Fear: Global-Warming Alarmists Intimidate Dissenting Scientists into Scilence,” could not be found on the internet, but the headline makes a claim of intimidation that has never been substantiated; and if this article appeared in the Op-Ed section of the WSJ then its content based on fact & evidence is suspect. This questionable article possibly invalidates the evidence for Con #9: “Ocean acidity levels have risen over the 20th century, but they are not out of the ordinary considering the fluctuations of the past 7,000 years.” This claim is now dubious because it comes from a heavily biased source, possibly from the pages of an Opinion page known to espouse business friendly ideas and a scientist who has been publicly dissenting of Global Warming since the 1980s – before the hottest decade ever recorded in the 2000s.
* Ironically, it is in a WSJ Op-Ed that Lindzen refutes the so-called “experts” from the Heartland Institute video, by asserting that an increase in CO2 causes an increase in temperature, and not the other way around . “Temperature increases first and then CO2 increases” is what the talking heads in the Heartland youtube clip would have us believe.
SOURCE:
The November 30, 2009 Wall Street Journal Opinion-Editorial written by Lindzen, titled “The Climate Science Isn’t Settled.”
In it Lindzen makes dogmatic claims, such as “It is generally accepted that a doubling of CO2 will only produce a change of about two degrees Fahrenheit if all else is held constant. This is unlikely to be much to worry about.” Instead of providing proof of his assertion, he contradicts himself in the very next sentence when he writes “Yet current climate models predict much higher sensitivities.” Well, then Lindzen’s claim of a temperature rise of only 2-degrees Fahrenheit being “generally accepted” doesn’t hold water because those “current climate models” predict an amplification of the warming effect due to water vapor and clouds. Therefore the generally accepted climate models from the consensus of climate scientists predicts global warming of more than 2-degrees Fahrenheit. And that outcome may be something to worry about for us, but not for Lindzen, evidently.
Furthermore, Lindzen opines that “positive feedback” – the name for clouds inducing heat – exists alongside “negative feedback” – the name for clouds decreasing CO2. Lindzen never corroborates the idea of “negative feedback” with fact & evidence. Rather than using named sources, he relies on “Some [who] have suggested” and “quite a few papers in the literature,” both of which also miss the definition of highly accredited sources. In fact, these flimsy references do not constitute sources in any way, shape or form.
So, we just experienced the hottest decade on Earth, according to NASA. And the United Nations’ top scientists from 130 countries just told us that human beings are (to a 90 percent certainty) causing this warming by burning fossil fuels. But a few climate skeptics from the United States and Canada, most of them not even climate scientists (or climate scientists from any university you’ve ever heard of), tell us that NASA and the global community of climate scientists have it all wrong. Who are we supposed to believe? I’ve got to go with NASA and the consensus of the scientists assembled by the United Nations.
* These are the same Koch Brothers who, along with the oil companies Valero and Tesoro, tried to stop California from using renewable energy by pushing Proposition 23 in the last election.
Billionaire Brothers’ Money Plays Role in Wisconsin Dispute
Among the thousands of demonstrators who jammed the Wisconsin State Capitol grounds this weekend was a well-financed advocate from Washington who was there to voice praise for cutting state spending by slashing union benefits and bargaining rights.
The visitor, Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity, told a large group of counterprotesters who had gathered Saturday at one edge of what otherwise was a mostly union crowd that the cuts were not only necessary, but they also represented the start of a much-needed nationwide move to slash public-sector union benefits.
“We are going to bring fiscal sanity back to this great nation,” he said.
What Mr. Phillips did not mention was that his Virginia-based nonprofit group, whose budget surged to $40 million in 2010 from $7 million three years ago, was created and financed in part by the secretive billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch.
State records also show that Koch Industries, their energy and consumer products conglomerate based in Wichita, Kan., was one of the biggest contributors to the election campaign of Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican who has championed the proposed cuts.
Even before the new governor was sworn in last month, executives from the Koch-backed group had worked behind the scenes to try to encourage a union showdown, Mr. Phillips said in an interview on Monday.
State governments have gone into the red, he said, in part because of the excessively generous pay and benefits that unions have been able to negotiate for teachers, police, firefighters and other state and local employees.
“We thought it was important to do,” Mr. Phillips said, adding that his group is already working with activists and state officials in Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania to urge them to take similar steps to curtail union benefits or give public employees the power to opt out of unions entirely.
To union leaders and liberal activists in Washington, this intervention in Wisconsin is proof of the expanding role played by nonprofit groups with murky ties to wealthy corporate executives as they push a decidedly conservative agenda.
“The Koch brothers are the poster children of the effort by multinational corporate America to try to redefine the rights and values of American citizens,” said Representative Gwen Moore, Democrat of Wisconsin, who joined with others in the union protests.
A spokesman for Koch Industries, as well as Mr. Phillips, scoffed at that accusation. The companies owned by Koch (pronounced Coke) — which include the Georgia-Pacific Corporation and the Koch Pipeline Company — have no direct stake in the union debate, they said. The company has about 3,000 employees in Wisconsin, including workers at a toilet paper factory and gasoline supply terminals….
Political activism is high on the list of priorities for Charles Koch, who in a letter last September to other business leaders and conservatives explained that he saw no other choice.
“If not us, who? If not now, when?” said the letter, which invited other conservatives to a retreat in January in Rancho Mirage, Calif. “It is up to us to combat what is now the greatest assault on American freedom and prosperity in our lifetimes.”
Campaign finance records in Washington show that donations by Koch Industries and its employees climbed to a total of $2 million in the last election cycle, twice as much as a decade ago, with 92 percent of that money going to Republicans. Donations in state government races — like in Wisconsin — have also surged in recent years, records show.
But the most aggressive expansion of the Koch brothers’ effort to influence public policy has come through the Americans for Prosperity, which runs both a charitable foundation and a grass-roots-activists group. Mr. Phillips serves as president of both branches, and David Koch is chairman of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation.
The grass-roots-activists wing of the organization today has chapters in 32 states, including Wisconsin, and an e-mail list of 1.6 million supporters, said Mary Ellen Burke, a spokeswoman. She would not say how much of last year’s $40 million budget came from the Koch family, but nationwide donations have come in from 70,000 members, she said, offering it as proof that it has wide support.
The organization has taken up a range of topics, including combating the health care law, environmental regulations and spending by state and federal governments. The effort to impose limits on public labor unions has been a particular focus in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all states with Republican governors, Mr. Phillips said, adding that he expects new proposals to emerge soon in some of those states to limit union power.
To Bob Edgar, a former House Democrat who is now president of Common Cause, a liberal group that has been critical of what it sees as the rising influence of corporate interests in American politics, the Koch brothers are using their money to create a façade of grass-roots support for their favorite causes.
“This is a dangerous moment in America history,” Mr. Edgar said. “It is not that these folks don’t have a right to participate in politics. But they are moving democracy into the control of more wealthy corporate hands.”
During a demonstration outside the Wisconsin Capitol Monday, one protester made a similar point, holding a sign saying: “Gov. Walker: Kick the Koch Habit.”
But Mr. Phillips and members of his group and other conservative activists, not surprisingly, see it very differently.
Just as unions organize to fight for their priorities, conservatives are entitled to a voice of their own.
“This is a watershed moment in Wisconsin,” Mr. Phillips said. “For the last two decades, government unions have used their power to drive pensions and benefits and salaries well beyond anything that can be sustained. We are just trying to change that.”
That goes for the incompetent people who don’t think about anything past their own shoelaces. That goes for the greedy motherf*ckers out there working on Wall Street or in the financial services industry. That goes for the people on the freeway tailgating. That goes for the people butting in line wherever they go and not waiting in line like everybody else. That goes for those who lie, cheat and steal; and who never bother to stop what they’re doing, learn from their mistakes, and strive to do things right the next time. That goes for women who enable destructive bosses. That goes for Chinese manufacturers polluting the air and abusing their workers. That goes for George W. Bush and double for Dick Cheney. I am talking to you, people of planet Earth. Do better.
Click for larger image… http://justiceleagueunlimited.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/pyramid_lg.jpg
A special FAH-Q to Apple (AAPL) for making crap computers and tablets, like the iPad, that restrict access to ESPN videos and make it difficult/frustrating/impossible to post what I want to my own blog. FAH-Q = For All to Hear & Question. ; )
[John] Arnold, 37, one of the 400 richest Americans according to Forbes, was one of Barack Obama’s top financiers in 2008, bundling between $50,000 and $100,000 in contributions for his election campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He has personally given the legal maximum — $5,000 — to Obama for 2012, records show.
An Obama campaign official said the Houston fundraisers would be rescheduled as soon as possible. They were to benefit the Obama Victory Fund, a joint account run by President Obama and the Democratic National Committee. Ticket prices for the Arnold event ranged from $10,000 up to $35,800, the combined legal maximum.
The first lady will still travel to New Orleans Tuesday to attend a campaign fundraiser and an event for her ‘Let’s Move’ initiative, the White House says.”
The Superwealthy are now in full-swing trying to dismantle pensions for public employees on their way to attempt to dismantle Social Security.
The rich own everything: real estate – the land and the buildings – as well as some roads, highways, oil & gas pipelines, utility companies, parking meters, and on an on. And it’s never enough for these greedy, self-seving, SuperRich. I’m talking about the Koch Brothers and former Enron trader, John Arnold. All of these Superwealthy out-of-staters fund twistedly ”conservative” candidates and causes to stick it to the average American. Koch Brothers funded Scott Walker’s campaign in Wisconsin, and then Governor Walker walked over to the public employees and took away their bargaining rights. Koch-heads also funded Proposition 23 in California in 2010, along with the Texas oil companies – Tesoro and Valero – in an attempt to stop California from using renewable energy standards. John Arnold is now funding right-wing propaganda to dismantle public employees’ pension plans in California.
John Arnold donates to both parties, and specifically he donated/donates to President Obama. Is Obama a Conservative President if he is funded by Conservative Money? Remember: Republicans and Conservatives will lie, cheat and steal. How much of the middle is Obama straddling? Does Obama lean to the right?
The true meaning of conservative has no relationship with the current Republican party. The members of that party and its representatives in our government, for the most part, defend corporate profits and tax cuts for the Superwealthy above everything else. For real.
IMPORTANT: “Fix Pensions First,” aka “The California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility” is NOT a highly accredited source of information.
“Is it fair that those who suffer the most from such downturns have their safety net cut, while those who generate the volatility are bailed out by the government?”
Problem: The self-serving Superwealthy are up to no good for the majority of Americans; the Superwealthy know it takes money to make money, so they spend money to influence elections.
Solution: Vote for Democrats, because Democrats work to benefit the majority of Americans.
Reminder: Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt – the only president to be elected four times – gave us Social Security, Medicare and Unemployment Insurance benefits after three consecutive Republican presidents led to the Great Depression of the 1930s.
“According to Wisconsin campaign finance filings, Walker’s gubernatorial campaign received $43,000 from the Koch Industries PAC during the 2010 election. That donation was his campaign’s second-highest, behind $43,125 in contributions from housing and realtor groups in Wisconsin. The Koch’s PAC also helped Walker via a familiar and much-used politicial maneuver designed to allow donors to skirt campaign finance limits. The PAC gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which in turn spent $65,000 on independent expenditures to support Walker. The RGA also spent a whopping $3.4 million on TV ads and mailers attacking Walker’s opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Walker ended up beating Barrett by 5 points. The Koch money, no doubt, helped greatly.
The Kochs also assisted Walker’s current GOP allies in the fight against the public-sector unions. Last year, Republicans took control of the both houses of the Wisconsin state legislature, which has made Walker’s assault on these unions possible. And according to data from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, the Koch Industries PAC spent $6,500 in support of 16 Wisconsin Republican state legislative candidates, who each won his or her election.
Walker’s plan to eviscerate collective bargaining rights for public employees is right out of the Koch brothers’ playbook. Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Reason Foundation have long taken a veryantagonisticview toward public-sector unions. Several of these groups have urged the eradication of these unions. The Kochs also invited (PDF) Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, an anti-union outfit, to a June 2010 confab in Aspen, Colorado; Mix said in a recent interview that he supports Governor Walker’s collective-bargaining bill. In Wisconsin, this conservative, anti-union view is being placed into action by lawmakers in sync with the deep-pocketed donors who helped them obtain power. (Walker also opposes the state’s Clean Energy Job Act, which would compel the state to increase its use of alternative energy.) At this moment—even with the Wisconsin uprising unresolved—the Koch brothers’ investment in Walker appears to be paying off.”
“As a California teacher, you do not pay Social Security taxes. But you may have paid enough Social Security taxes in other jobs to qualify for a Social Security retirement benefit. That benefit will be reduced because of your teacher’s (STRS) pension. The law requiring this reduction is called the ‘Windfall Elimination Provision.’
Why the offset?
Benefits we pay to wives, husbands, widows and widowers are “dependent’s” benefits. These benefits were established in the 1930s to compensate spouses who stayed home to raise a family and who were financially dependent on the working spouse. But as more and more couples both worked, they each earned their own Social Security retirement benefits. The law has always required us to offset one retirement benefit against another. In other words, if a woman worked and earned her own $800 monthly Social Security retirement benefit, but she was also due a $500 wife’s benefit on her husband’s Social Security record, we could not pay that wife’s benefit because her own Social Security benefit offset it. But if that same woman was a teacher who did not pay into Social Security, and who earned an $800 STRS pension, there was no offset and we were required to pay her a full wife’s benefit in addition to her teacher’s pension.
The Government Pension Offset rule exists simply to ensure that everyone is treated fairly.
Exceptions
This rule affects almost all California teachers who do not pay into Social Security. But there are some exceptions. For a list of those exceptions, go to www.socialsecurity.gov/pubs/10007.html.
An important Medicare message
Even though you may not qualify for monthly cash benefits on your spouse’s Social Security record, you still can get Medicare on that spouse’s record if you are 65 or older and if you can’t get Medicare on your own record.”
EXCERPT:
“Maggie Ellis spent more than 20 years as a teacher, including 10 at a public school, before she learned a dirty little secret: She won’t be getting all the Social Security she would be entitled to in retirement.
Ellis’ current job, as a fifth-grade teacher in the Elk Grove Unified School District, isn’t covered by Social Security.”
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power released its 2010 Power Content Label this week, and dirty, dirty coal still makes up the majority of the city’s energy mix, while clean, green, solar electricity did not make the list at all. In 2009, Mayor Villaraigosa announced that the City of Los Angeles would eliminate coal-fired electricity by the year 2020. So if the plan is to eliminate the black, sooty stuff, why are Angelenos now using more of it than they were just a couple of years ago?
Dominating the latest LADWP energy chart, coal comprised 39 percent of the total energy provided. For the city-owned utility, this represents a slight reduction in coal usage, down from 41 percent in 2009. However, if one looks at the Power Content Label from 2007, when coal produced 32 percent of the utility’s electricity, it is plain to see that coal is making a comeback instead of a graceful exit. In comparison, “Energy from the Sun” made up less than 1 percent of LADWP’s energy mix in 2007, less than 1 percent in 2009, and zero percent in 2010.
Why are we failing to capitalize on the overabundance of sunshine in the City of Angels? We rank as one of the sunniest cities in the country, according to a recent report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As if we didn’t already know that! Also, the city proper has enough usable roof space to generate solar electricity for over 500,000 homes, according to a July 2010 report from the Los Angeles Business Council.
Solar electricity does not work well on shaded roofs, but that shouldn’t stop us. We can use ground-mounted arrays and utility-scale solar power plants where there is plenty of unobstructed sunshine. Because we are so fortunate to live in such a sunny part of the world, we should use this gift of Sun Power to our advantage instead of completely ignoring it. We can make electricity from the Sun every day. Photovoltaics = energy from light. Of course, we can make more energy during the spring/summer when there are more hours of sunlight than in the autumn/winter when the daylight hours are shorter. For electricity at night, we need battery-stored energy, or wind power, or other sources. Remember, in California the utility meter swings both ways. Solar homes are hybrid homes that can feed energy into the grid and take energy from it.
What about nuclear? Man-made nuclear energy creates a radioactive byproduct that can contaminate food and water supplies, like it did in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami this past summer. Unfortunately, LADWP increased its nuclear energy use from 3 percent in 2007 to 11 percent in 2010. We also live in an area that experiences earthquakes, and undoubtedly you have seen the “Tsunami Evacuation Route” signs near our beaches. Cancer-causing nuclear waste is a real threat, especially during catastrophic natural disasters.
Natural gas? Yes, this is the cleanest burning fossil fuel, and we should use natural gas as part of our power portfolio. Yet LADWP is moving in the wrong direction: natural gas dropped from 31 percent in 2007 to 22 percent in 2010. For perspective, all of the other major utility companies in California – PG&E, SoCal Edison, SDG&E – use approximately 50 percent (or more) natural gas and 10 percent (or less) coal-fired energy. Why is LADWP using approximately half the percentage of natural gas and roughly 4X the percentage of coal as other California utility companies?
“Last year we sent about $450 million out of state to pay for coal-fired power plants. That’s money that should be invested locally,” said Evan Gillespie, of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign. “Certainly in Los Angeles, where you have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country and you have an insane amount of money leaving the state, in terms of customer bills every year, we think it makes sense to redirect those investments back into Los Angeles. And that means putting [solar] panels up on buildings near where people need work.”
Other cities around the country are moving away from coal and toward more solar energy use. In San Antonio, Texas, CPS Energy plans to retire two coal-burning power plants by 2018, according the San Antonio Express-News. The Lone Star State utility can displace almost 50 percent of that coal energy with a 400 megawatt solar-electric station that is in the works, the local newspaper reported.
If San Antonio can switch from coal to solar, then L.A. can too. Not to mention, the state of California is already the #1 producer of solar electricity within the United States. The Entertainment Capital of the World should be a part of our state’s success story. If we use the CO2-free power of the Sun to energize our homes, offices and our plug-in electric cars, we will have drastically reduced the amount of global warming emissions and toxic pollution in our air. Our city’s slogan should be “less coal, more solar.”
Look up, my friends. We could have sunshine as one of our major sources of energy and new jobs for installers as a result, as well as picturesque vistas clear of smog. We have identified the problem: coal, the dirtiest form of energy known to humanity. Now let’s activate the solution of using more natural gas and more power from that nuclear reactor in the sky. A solar-electric system on every available roof and a plug-in electric car in every garage is a good place to start.
* “Unspecified sources of power” means electricity from transactions that are not traceable to specific generation sources.** Percentages are estimated annually by the California Energy Commission based on the electricity sold toCaliforniaconsumers during the previous year.*** This is in accordance with Los Angeles City Council’s action on 10-5-04 for File No. 03-2688 (RPS).
For specific information about this electricity product, contact LADWP at 1-800-DIAL DWP (1-800-342-5397). For general information about the Power Content Label, contact the California Energy Commission at 1-800-555-7794 or www.energy.ca.gov/consumer.
“For the top 1% of the population, average inflation-adjusted household income grew by 275%“ from 1979 to 2007, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
To repeat: Two Hundred Seventy Five Percent.
* “Middle-class incomes grew by less than 40%” during the same time period, as reported by CNNMoney.
Hello Oligarchy! And that is why a Supreme Court packed with Republican-appointed judges deciding to allow anonymous and unlimited corporate donations for political elections (Citizens United case) is a bad thing. ‘Cause the corporations via the Superwealthy have a lot of sway: commercials, commercials, commercials. Citizens United means more of all that aggravating attack-Ad crap while you’re trying to mellow out in front of the TV next September/October/November.
“A lethal article involving Citigroup that deserved more attention because it helps to explain why many average Americans have expressed support for the Occupy Wall Street movement. The news was that Citigroup had to pay a $285 million fine to settle a case in which, with one hand, Citibank sold a package of toxic mortgage-backed securities to unsuspecting customers — securities that it knew were likely to go bust — and, with the other hand, shorted the same securities — that is, bet millions of dollars that they would go bust. It doesn’t get any more immoral than this.”
“By 2006, bankers and insurers were making 70 percent more, on average, than workers in the rest of the private sector. Then they set off one of the worst financial crises in living memory, and taxpayers bailed them out.
The protesters’ grievances may be aimed at Wall Street as a metaphor for broader economic forces. But there is nothing metaphorical about who is taking home the wealth. The protesters might even aim a bit higher: the real income growth is happening in the top 0.1 percent. There are lots of bankers there, too.”
“Wall Street protest plans global rally ahead of G20…
Occupy Wall Street is urging protesters to close their bank accounts and transfer their money to credit unions, a move that is due to culminate with a bank transfer day on November 5.”
* November 5 is Guy Fawkes Day.
John Lennon sung about Guy Fawkes Day…
John Lennon also peacefully sung other songs of protest…
“We are the hollow men. We are the stuffed men…this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.” – T.S. Eliot
First off, the episode on October 21, 2011 was one of your best shows ever. Thank you for providing very enjoyable and intellectually stimulating television.
I love the show, but it looked like last week Bill did not have the Fact & Evidence-ammunition to counter the sophistry from his guest, John Fund, who criticized solar & wind energy and then offered a canard that we could use oil and natural gas to diversify our national energy portfolio. Fossil fuels already constitute a majority of our energy mix, but solar electricity does not generate even 1 percent of U.S. electricity. Therefore, generating more power from the Sun for homes, businesses and plug-in cars would be diversifying our nation’s energy portfolio.
“Despite rapid growth in recent years, solar power accounts for less than 1 percent of electricity use in the United States. Solar power is more entrenched in European countries like Spain and Germany, which have promoted its development with strong incentives called feed-in tariffs that require electric utilities to buy solar power at a high, fixed price. The United States accounted for $1.6 billion of the world’s $29 billion market for solar panels; California is by far the leading solar state.”
We need to diversify our national energy portfolio, which should include oil and natural gas as we build up a renewable energy infrastructure over the next 25 to 50 years. Also during that time period, we should wean ourselves off Dirty, Dirty Coal.
Solution = A solar-electric system on every available roof and a plug-in electric car in every garage.
Solar Electricity = Manufacturing in the U.S.A, hammer-and-nail jobs for installers, Energy Independence and Environmental Security.
¶ Solar Electricity and Plug-in Electric Cars create usable power with Zero Carbon Emissions.
¶ We do not need to build any more nuclear power plants on Earth when we have a nuclear reactor in the sky – The Sun. We should say “Hell No!” to more nuclear power plants because of the cancer-causing radioactive waste that can leak into groundwater. We do not have enough Yucca Mountains to dispose of the nuclear waste.
¶ Photovoltaics = Light Energy (during the day we can create solar electricity; at night we need battery-stored power or fossil fuels).
IMPORTANT: Solar Electricity is designed to be installed on the roofs of existing buildings, so it does not have to be the eyesore on the horizon that wind turbines can be. However, Solar Electricity can also be installed as a ground-mounted application if that is what the customer prefers. Although, the highest point on a building – the roof – is the best location in order to avoid shading issues that can reduce solar-electric production.
Another benefit of Solar Electricity is that it lasts for 40-50 years, and it comes with an industry standard 25-year performance warranty for the solar panels. For clarification, most manufacturers offer a 100% performance guarantee for the first 10 years and 80% performance guarantee for the remaining 15 years of the warranty, which is a pretty kick-ass warranty!
Many solar companies now offer leases, so that homeowners can switch from paying a monthly utility bill to paying a combination monthly solar bill/utility bill that is lower than their existing utility bill. Thus, homeowners can start saving money with Solar Electricity from day one. In California the utility meter swings both ways for solar customers, who can feed energy into the grid and take energy from it. Solar homes are hybrid homes.
“As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.
As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.”
”Play with the interactive graphic a bit, and you can see that it was not always like this in America. In the decades after World War II, the gains were larger, and they were more broadly shared.To find a period like the last few decades, go back to the years just before the Great Depression. It’s almost identical to our period, which is not exactly encouraging.
We can debate what should be done. A more fair tax system that asks high earners to pay more is an obvious place to start, but won’t change the basic dynamic. We’ll need to search deeper, looking at issues like education and job training, trade policy, infrastructure spending, and rules on union organization.
The protestors don’t have all the answers. But they have raised the big question. And it’s about time.”
