California Free Press

Posted at 08:19 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

The Media Loved Yesterday's Dog and Pony Show

by John Lawrence, September 28, 2018

Literally, the whole nation was glued to the tube yesterday as Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was confronted with his accuser. First of all, if her name was not Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a college professor, but was instead Jemima Pancakes, a college dropout with $30K in student loan debt, do you think she would even be invited to testify in the hallowed halls of Congress? Well, media spectacles, reality shows are what this nation loves. Kavanaugh said it was a national disgrace. No, the national disgrace is that we have a sexual predator in the White House, an environmental predator as head of the Environmental Protection Agency and warmongering predators as Congressmen elected primarily from red states.

Trump's attitude was what's the big deal, you elected me and I'm a sexual predator. Why not him, too? What did you expect, an altar boy? While the US is bombing innocent women and children in Yemen and starving them to death, the ones the bombs don't kill outright, we are all concerned about a sexual predator on the Supreme Court? Well, that makes two of them including Clarence Thomas. That's legal precedent for you!

Meanwhile, nobody is making a media spectacle out of the fact that the group that took down the twin towers, ISIS, are now our friends in Syria because they are fighting against Bashar Assad who is our enemy. So the enemy of our enemy who was once our enemy too is now our friend because the US government is so fucked up that they can't keep their friends and enemies straight.

Well now everyone is concerned that the Supremes who are increasingly becoming just another bad joke, will overturn Roe vs Wade. Well, if they do it will only affect poor women. If Kavanaugh's daughter got pregnant unexpectedly, he'd just fly her to Europe where abortion is legal. While there she might also tour Paris, Amsterdam and Rome. Poor women would just have to have their babies. Rich Republicans don't want poor women having babies at taxpayer expense anyway. That makes their blood boil so they will be happy to outlaw legal abortion, and, while they're at it, do away with Medicaid altogether. They can't stand the thought of poor people getting anything from the government for free, much less an abortion.

The American people love a good show; they love to be entertained, and that's what yesterday's dog and pony show was all about. A documentary about Yemen or about our trillion dollar defense budget wouldn't have been half as entertaining. Trump is the consummate US President because he entertains us while fulfilling government's most crucial function: lowering taxes.

Posted at 08:02 AM in John Lawrence, Congress, Off the Top of my Head, Supreme Court, Trump | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 27, 2018

Ex-UN chief Ban Ki-moon says US healthcare system is 'morally wrong'

From the Guardian:

Exclusive: Former UN secretary general accuses ‘powerful’ health interests in the US of blocking universal healthcare

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Ban said: ‘It’s not easy to understand why such a country like the United States, the most resourceful and richest country in the world, does not introduce universal health coverage.’ Photograph: Ali Smith for the Guardian

Former United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon has denounced the United States’ healthcare system as politically and morally wrong, and urged American leaders to enact publicly-financed healthcare as a “human right”.

Ban made the comments in an exclusive interview with the Guardian in New York, as part of his work with The Elders, a group founded by Nelson Mandela to work on issues of global importance, including universal health coverage.

The US has the world’s most expensive health system, accounting for nearly one-fifth of American gross domestic product and costing more than $10,348 per American. The United Kingdom, by comparison, spends a little under 10% of GDP according to the latest available statistics, and healthcare is free at the point of delivery.

“It’s not easy to understand why such a country like the United States, the most resourceful and richest country in the world, does not introduce universal health coverage,” said Ban. “Nobody would understand why almost 30 million people are not covered by insurance.”

Failing to provide health coverage, he said, was “unethical” and “politically wrong, morally wrong”. He accused the “powerful” interests of pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and doctors that “inhibit the American government” of having prevented the US from moving towards universal healthcare.

“This is for the people. Leaders are elected because they vowed that they would work for the people,” said Ban. “They are abandoning people because they are poor, then these poor people cannot find a proper medical support.”

Despite astronomical spending on health, millions in the US live entirely outside the health system, uninsured and unable to go to the doctor without incurring hundreds or thousands in debt. Since President Trump was elected, an additional 4 million people have lost health coverage, according to a recent survey by the Commonwealth Fund.

“It seems with Trump just undoing Obamacare, people were not happy first of all,” said Ban, about health reforms enacted to weaken elements of the Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law. “Ironically, it might have motivated people to think other ways, and influence their senators, and their Congressman to think the other way.”

Ban revealed he had his own run-ins with the American healthcare system. While he was Secretary General between January 2007 and December 2016, the UN provided him with American health insurance. About three years ago, he set out to pick up a prescription at a pharmacy, but forgot his insurance card. A worker at the pharmacy told him that without insurance, his prescription would cost $200. If he came back with his insurance card, it would be $20.

“It was totally unfair,” said Ban. “People like myself can afford [this]. But poor people cannot afford it. They do not have any support.”

“While swearing in as Secretary General, I pledged I would make this world better for all,” he said. “Nobody would imagine that there should be so many people – 30 million people – who would be left behind” in the US.

Health coverage has become a major issue ahead of the Congressional midterm elections in November, which are widely seen as a referendum on Trump’s America.

Progressive Democrats have called for Congress to enact “Medicare-for-all”, a proposal to expand the public health program which covers all Americans older than 65. Establishment Democrats have argued for expansions of Obamacare.

As well, four conservative states are attempting to expand Medicaid, the public health insurance program for the poor and disabled, through a ballot referendum.

Trump and Republicans have worked to make health coverage more exclusive. The Trump administration has allowed states to add work requirements to public health programs for the poor and disabled, and Republicans ended a requirement for Americans to buy private health insurance when they cut taxes.

Ban blamed the “sectoral interests” of pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and doctors, “which inhibit the American government” for hindering moves towards a universal health coverage plan.

“Here, the political interest groups are so, so powerful,” Ban said. “Even president, Congress, Senators and Representatives of the House, they cannot do much so they are easily influenced by these special interest groups.”

Ban said he hopes states, including California and New York, will pass universal health coverage and spark a national call for public financing of health.

“It will be either California or New York who will introduce this system,” said Ban. “Then I think there will be many more states who will try to follow suit. I think that’s an encouraging phenomenon we see.”

Posted at 07:25 AM in Health Care | Permalink | Comments (0)

Enter Into a New Relationship With the World

Dear friends,

We say opposites attract. Yes, they do, but like the poles of a magnet, they are not separate. They are part of a spectrum. We are all one something pretending to be separate entities. It is a good game, giving us the world we live in, like fish in the ocean who are not aware of the water as the connective power. We swim around in “God” as it were, oblivious to its presence. We are, for most of our lives, committed to this game of hide and seek. At some point we are bored with the hiding part and begin to seek. That is the beginning of a spiritual path.

What do we seek? That One Something that gives rise to the many. It is a spiritual quest but as a matter of fact, it is also the main search of science. What is that Power and Where is it? We are attempting to find the unifying field we are in, but at the same time, like fish, hold the belief that we are separate from it. It is a conundrum. Like trying to be on the inside and the outside at the same time.

The one thing that opens us to the both/and aspect of our Being and our Reality is mystical experience. It often happens in meditation or perhaps in deep silence, however attained. It has occurred in many throughout the ages with various practices. The search becomes the life. But we westerners are not about to give up the game. We just want to play it with the awareness that we are the very thing we seek and that “thing” is right where we are.

This is what the Buddhists mean by “Chop wood, carry water” before we are awakened and after. We continue in our separate appearing existence but with the sense of being one with all. That awareness seems to be what is missing for most of us. This is why all our problems are of the mind. When we see it as it is, we enter into a new kind of relationship with the world, and of course, with all the other fish.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.californiafreepress.net.

Posted at 07:17 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

The Supreme Court Justice in Waiting VS the Accusers

by John Lawrence, September 27, 2018

Today Christene Blasey Ford will emulate Zola and say "J'Accuse"! She accuses Brett Kavanaugh of attempted rape. So do two other women. Now the dirty laundry will be aired in public. Stuff that for most men has been carefully hidden, especially if they're public figures, will be hashed over in a most astringent setting.

Marcuse nailed the problem when he talked about repressive desublimation. It seems that many people feel that they have to wear a mask in public; they have to present themselves to parents, teachers, nuns, priests and ministers as if they were choir boys, altar boys and boy scouts. They have to put on a most righteous face in public. But that's not who they really are. The more demanding the world seems to them, the more their true nature goes underground only to blast out when alcohol or drugs are consumed. Societal repression leads ultimately to a split personality.

Boys, who have aspirations of being high public officials, must present the choir boy image in public and back it up with a stellar academic and athletic record. Gatekeepers like college admission officers and future employers are going to sniff over their records to see who are the most promising. What happens in private, at alcohol fueled house parties and other hidden venues, should never come to light. But the #MeToo movement has changed all that. Human behavior - in particular male behavior - has come out into the light of day and it turns out that we're really animals after all.

In his book Eros and Civilization, Marcuse deals with humans' erotic nature and how that is repressed by society. However, this erotic nature cannot just be eliminated. Forced underground, it manifests itself in a split personality. There is the personality that is presented to the public and the personality that comes out to play in supposedly private settings that have plausible deniability. Today we shall see Kavanaugh plausibly deny accusations by a woman who is bringing his repressively desublimated behavior to light.

Posted at 06:38 AM in John Lawrence, Off the Top of my Head, Sex | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 26, 2018

EU, China and Russia in move to sidestep US sanctions on Iran

From the Guardian:

Special Purpose Vehicle aims to keep Iran in 2015 nuclear deal with barter system

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov with EU external affairs chief Federica Mogherini in New York on Tuesday. Photograph: Alexander Shcherbak/TASS

The European Union, Iran, China and Russia have set out a plan to sidestep unilateral US sanctions designed to cripple the Iranian economy and force the Iranians to renegotiate the nuclear deal signed in 2015.

European diplomats hope the proposed measure – known as a special purpose vehicle (SPV) – will help persuade an increasingly reluctant Iran to stay inside the deal in the hope of rescuing its economy.

Speaking on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York, Federica Mogherini, the EU external affairs chief, said the SPV was designed to facilitate payments related to Iran’s exports – including oil – and imports, so long as the firms involved were carrying out legitimate business under EU law.

The aim is to make the SPV available not just to EU firms but to others, she added.

In his address to the United Nations general assembly, Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, stressed Tehran’s continued commitment to the deal and accused the US of pressurising other countries into violating the nuclear agreement.

“Confronting multilateralism is not a sign of strength,” he said. “Rather, it is a symptom of the weakness of intellect. It betrays an inability in understanding a complex and interconnected world.”

But the US president Donald Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, addressing an anti-Iran pressure group, said he was “disturbed and indeed deeply disappointed” by the EU plan.

“This is one of the of the most counterproductive measures imaginable for regional and global peace and security,” Pompeo said.

Versions of the SPV floated by thinktanks suggest it could underpin a sophisticated barter system that can avoid US Treasury sanctions. For example, Iran could ship crude oil to a French firm, accumulating credit that could then be used to pay an Italian manufacturer for goods shipped the other way, without any funds traversing through Iranian hands or the banking system.

A multinational European state-backed financial intermediary would be set up to handle deals with companies interested in Iran transactions and with Iranian counter-parties. Any transactions would not be transparent to the US, and involve euros and sterling rather than dollars.

The proposal is additional to a blocking statute passed by the EU in August that theoretically makes EU companies immune from sanctions imposed by the US in pursuit of its Iran policy. In theory, the statute empowers EU firms to seek compensation from US Treasury for trying to impose extra-territorial sanctions in breach of the statute. So far this statute has not been tested in court.

Richard Nephew, a former Barack Obama official and author of The Art of Sanctions, expressed scepticism on Twitter, saying that for the SPV to be taken up, European firms – many with either US employees, or US subsidiaries – must still be prepared to take the risk of being sanctioned by the US.

He also suggested US sanctions could be applied to the traded good as much as to the cash to fund the trade. He predicted few firms would take that risk, outside some SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises] heavily dependent on Iran for their income.

Jarrett Blanc, another former Obama staffer for the Iran deal, broadly agreed with Nephew, but was more sympathetic, writing that “the symbolism here is probably Europe’s most important contribution, and it may be sufficient depending on what China, India, Turkey do on oil”. He added: “The payment mechanism move opens the door to a longer-term degradation of US sanctions power.”

Either way, Europe needs a solution soon after months of railing against US economic imperialism. The vast majority of European firms are planning to pull out.

Trump announced two sets of US secondary sanctions in May, and other sanctions imposed in August cover shipping and insurance. The other more important sanctions – aimed at ending Iranian oil exports, still the heart of the faltering Iranian economy – do not bite until 5 November.

In advance of the oil sanctions, Iran’s crude sales to China fell 21% between May and August, according to Eurasia Group. But it is unclear how long China will stick to that trend.

The assumption is that many countries like India and Russia will continue to trade with Iran and challenge the US to try to impose sanctions, pointing out that in reality it is the US, by tearing up the agreement and not them, that is in breach of UN resolutions.

Posted at 08:36 AM in China, Europe, Iran, Russia, Sanctions | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Law of Life is Growth,

Dear friends,

The worst mistake we can make if we want to be happy, vital and prosperous, is to attempt to keep everything in place. The Law of Life is growth, which means evolution. I like thinking of it that way because to me, evolution is not about loss, but about what is so now becoming more of its potential. It is rather like the toddler who becomes the little girl. We did not lose her, she evolved; or that little boy who “got too big for his britches.” It is not unlike the crab shedding its shell and creating a new and bigger one.

Why is this so in humans? It seems to do with our nature, with our boundless potential. Once we reach maturity and the physical growth ceases, we begin to create newness through our mental activity. The ideas we feel strongly about, if they are attached to a resulting greater good, are prompted by our heart. The heart is a metaphor for the soul, the whole self, the ongoing “I” which contains the evolutionary principle. It nudges the conscious mind with ideas that promote growth; ^ie: “ love more, include more, give more, celebrate more, express the rest of you.” They come to our awareness as desires. If we are not used to listening to our soul, it might feel like frustration.

But rather than think “I will never get ahead” listen to the soul which is knowing “This job is too small for me. I can do much more with my talents.” Then we begin to energize the idea with affirmation and cheerful expectation. We declare we are ready to give more, earn more, be more effective. When we are clear about that, we will naturally do what needs to be done to facilitate the outcome. The little crab knows how to shed a shell that is too small. Do we really think we are not equipped to break through our own self-imposed confines?

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.carolcarnes.com

Posted at 08:35 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

Trump Thinks the Rest of the World Has Taken the US for a Ride

by John Lawrence

OK, then, stop spending a trillion dollars a year "protecting" the rest of the world. If Trump wants to save money, he should divest in the bloated US military-industrial complex and the hundreds of US military bases in practically every country of the world. The United States maintains nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad—from giant “Little Americas” to small radar facilities. What the US gives other countries in terms of foreign aid is minuscule by comparison. The US spends about 1% of its budget on foreign aid - $41.9 billion in 2017. This is about 20 times less than the US spends on its military.

The Nation reported:

On the weekend of Martin Luther King Day, Baltimore University fittingly hosted more than 200 activists in the peace, environment, and social-justice movements to launch a timely new initiative, the Coalition Against US Foreign Military Bases. Ajamu Baraka, Green Party vice-presidential candidate and co-founder of the Black Alliance for Peace, opened the meeting reminding us that Reverend King, in his historic anti-war speech more than 50 years ago at Riverside Church in New York, called the government of the United States “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” adding that “the war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit,” while warning that “a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Taking on the very nature of capitalism, King further insisted that

We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

In a series of panels over two days, conference speakers from every corner of the globe proceeded to describe the extraordinary cruelty and toxic lethality of US foreign policy despite King’s warning more than 50 years ago. We learned that the United States has approximately 800 formal military bases in 80 countries, a number that could exceed 1,000 if you count troops stationed at embassies and missions and so-called “lily-pond” bases, with some 138,000 soldiers stationed around the globe. David Vine, author of Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Overseas Harm America and the World, reported that only 11 other countries have bases in foreign countries, some 70 altogether. Russia has an estimated 26 to 40 in nine countries, mostly former Soviet Republics, as well as in Syria and Vietnam; the UK, France, and Turkey have four to 10 bases each; and an estimated one to three foreign bases are occupied by India, China, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.

Racism, extreme materialism and militarism characterize the US 'commitment' to the world. You might also add that, under Trump, authoritarianism has been added to the list. As long as one party controls Congress in the interests of the rich and the ignorant, the US has lost its democracy. The ancient Greek Diogenes wandered the countryside with his lamp looking for an honest man. He might well wander the streets of Washington today looking for a public official who is not corrupt and in it to enrich himself and his family rather than the public good. Today the public good is a thing of the past as privatization has minimized anything of a public nature.

Most Americans today have completely lost track of democracy and believe the bullshit that Trump and Fox News tell them. There is a complete distortion of the facts and a paltry amount of discussion on American media regarding the American penchant for bloated defense budgets and military bases around the world. Most people think the American government is keeping them "safe."

Now Trump is drumming up a war with Iran which is surely to result in World War III. Trump realizes that the only way to salvage his Presidency and be elected to a second term is to start a war. The military and the military-industrial complex will be totally supportive of that. Iran will be devastated. It does not have the firepower that the US has. Trump will have participated in the by now standard operation of the US playbook: regime change, which has brought misery to so may people in the Middle East and caused the refugee crisis for Europe even as the US reduces the number of refugees that it will take in next year.

Posted at 08:10 AM in John Lawrence, Off the Top of my Head, The Military, The Military Industrial Complex, The US, Trump | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 25, 2018

Understanding 1.5°C: The IPCC’s Forthcoming Special Report

Published on Monday, September 24, 2018 by The Equation Blog / Union of Concerned Scientists

The latest scientific literature has only underscored the urgent need for action to limit the heat-trapping emissions that are fueling climate change

by Rachel Licker

4 Comments

The report is being prepared by experts from a diverse array of countries and institutions, including from the United States. (Photo: IISD)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – an international body that develops non-policy prescriptive climate science assessments for decisionmakers – is currently compiling a Special Report that will provide information on what it would take to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The report will also assess the climate impacts that could be avoided by keeping warming to this level, and the ways we can limit the worst impacts of climate change and adapt to the ones that are unavoidable. Report authors and government representatives will meet in Incheon, Republic of Korea from October 1-5 to review the report, with the report’s Summary for Policymakers due to be released on October 7 at 9 p.m. Eastern US time (October 8 at 10:00 local time (KST)). The report is slated to come out just as nations look towards revising the commitments they made to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.

The Paris Agreement is a worldwide commitment adopted in 2015 under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to reduce global warming emissions and limit the increase in global temperature to well below 2°C. More specifically, the Paris Agreement includes a goal of “Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.” Small Island Developing States that are disproportionately vulnerable to global warming were pivotal in the inclusion of the 1.5°C goal.

It has been recognized that efforts beyond those spelled out in the commitments made to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement (the Nationally Determined Contributions) will be necessary to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. As a result, policymakers are interested in what it would take to achieve this goal, as well as the benefits and tradeoffs to consider as countries look to ramp-up their commitments. (This report will fulfill an invitation made by UNFCCC member countries including the U.S. during the adoption of the Paris Agreement for, “the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to provide a special report in 2018 on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways.”) The report is thus intended to inform such deliberations and respective domestic and international climate policy.

Just preceding the invitation to the IPCC to produce the Special Report, UNFCCC member countries also decided, “to convene a facilitative dialogue among Parties in 2018 to take stock of the collective efforts of Parties in relation to progress towards the long-term goal referred to in Article 4, paragraph 1, of the Agreement and to inform the preparation of nationally determined contributions pursuant to Article 4, paragraph 8, of the Agreement.” The Special Report will be an important input into this global stock-take, which will be a prominent feature of the forthcoming UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP24) in Poland in December of this year.

In addition to its Summary for Policymakers, the report will have five underlying chapters, as well as an introductory section, several break-out boxes, and frequently asked questions. The title of the chapters will be as follows:

Chapter 1: Framing and context
Chapter 2: Mitigation pathways compatible with 1.5°C in the context of sustainable development
Chapter 3: Impacts of 1.5°C global warming on natural and human systems
Chapter 4: Strengthening and implementing the global response to the threat of climate change
Chapter 5: Sustainable development, poverty eradication and reducing inequalities

Among other topics, the report will provide information on the global warming emissions reductions required to keep global warming to 1.5°C relative to the emissions reductions necessary to limit warming to 2°C. And it will compare the different paths nations can take to achieve these emissions reductions, including the opportunities and challenges that meeting the 1.5°C goal will present from socio-economic, technological, institutional, and environmental perspectives. The report will also assess the impacts that could be avoided if warming is kept to 1.5°C instead of 2°C, as well as the emissions reduction options relevant to keeping warming to 1.5°C and the options available to prepare for projected impacts. Furthermore, authors have been tasked with considering how to limit warming to 1.5°C together with sustainable development and poverty eradication efforts, and the implications of pursuing this goal for ethics and equity.

The report is being prepared by experts from a diverse array of countries and institutions, including from the United States. The IPCC does not conduct new science. Instead, authors reviewed the best available, peer-reviewed literature relevant for each chapter, and employed set criteria to characterize the evidence relevant to key topics, including the level of confidence, agreement, and uncertainty in the evidence base (as an example, here is a link to the criteria employed in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report).

The IPCC’s Special Report on 1.5°C Warming has undergone a lengthy review process, including an internal review, and multiple expert and government reviews. For example, 2000 experts registered to review the First Order Draft, along with 489 government reviewers from 61 countries. The review process provides a mechanism for engaging and incorporating input from a diverse and inclusive set of experts. Authors are required to consider and respond to each comment received – responses that are then made publicly available.

The Union of Concerned Scientists will be reviewing the released documents on October 8th and posting a series of blogs that will cover key aspects of the report. Although the report is not public yet, the latest scientific literature (e.g. that assessed in the recent U.S. Climate Science Special Report) has only underscored the urgent need for action to limit the heat-trapping emissions that are fueling climate change. This new IPCC Special Report will almost certainly make this point even clearer, as it will show the world what can be avoided if we ramp down emissions now. There is too much at stake for humanity to indulge in further delay or inaction.

Posted at 07:23 AM in Common Dreams, Climate Change, Global Warming | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bring Your Potential to Light

Dear friends,

Emerson, that wise man of Letters, wrote “by doing our work we make the need felt which we can supply.”

There is much to consider in that statement. One, that our talents and gifts, if expressed authentically, will always find an audience, a consumer, a landing place. Did you ever have that Costco experience where you said,” I bought things I didn’t know I needed.” Two, by doing what is ours to do, we “unfold ourselves” as Emerson noted. There is nothing more appealing than an unfolded self! Authenticity is in high demand these days. We know it when we see it.

The question “what is mine to do here?” is one we might ask ourselves on a regular basis. There is something about you that is needed in the moment. If it is authentic, it will be in some way supportive of a higher idea or ideal. Sometimes we are the one to call out a bully or a manipulator, but if we do it with the intention of creating a space for greater love and creativity, then it is ours to do. We will have honored the need in others for happy collaboration by removing what was in the way.

There is nothing negative about seeing through the appearances and calling forth what is hidden. That is good leadership. That is a spiritualized perception, one which sees the highest and best in everyone as a potential waiting to be identified. That does not mean we enable disruptive behavior; just the opposite. We know that person has an unfulfilled need, which in some way, we can help come to light.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.bakersfieldcsl.com www.californiafreepress.net

Posted at 07:16 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

What the Democrats Should Be For

by John Lawrence, September 25, 2018

The Democrats should unite around a platform that calls for infrastructure development, free public education through the community college level, and medicare for all. It would be the complete opposite of what the Republicans stand for. First on infrastructure, it would create good paying jobs, not the wage poor jobs this "full employment" Republican economy has created. The Republican economy is based on tax breaks for the rich and the central bank giving free money to the big Wall Street banks which has just gone into asset inflation. Since interest rates are near zero, savers are getting screwed and money that would have gone into savings has gone into the stock market just where Wall Street wants it. So the result is the stock market is booming which is to say this asset has inflated.

The other asset that has inflated is real estate. The average house is out of reach of the average worker because so much free money has bid up the cost of housing. This makes it next to impossible for entry level workers to afford a house. They just have to pay unconscionably high rents. Most of them start out in life with a huge amount of student loan debt. Therefore, Democrats should stand for reinstating bankruptcy protection for student loan debtors which was taken away in 1976. More than 44 million borrowers collectively owe $1.5 trillion in student loan debt in the U.S. The average student in the Class of 2016 has $37,172 in student loan debt. Student loans are now the second highest consumer debt category - behind mortgages, but ahead of credit card debt both of which can be discharged in bankruptcy. This is Republican revenge for the student protests of the 1960s. Students can't afford to protest these days.

Medicare for all or universal health care would just be an admission that the present health care system is not working compared to other health care systems all over the world which provide better service at a lesser cost. Bernie Sanders is right. This should be a major plank in the Democratic platform. This is a fight against the tyrannical forces of the right and actually doing the right thing. Don't go half way which is what Obamacare was about. Don't compromise on this. Of course it will take a Democratic Congress to get any of this stuff passed into law. Without it the forces of privatization and tax breaks for the rich will win out.

Changing the central bank of the US, the Federal Reserve, into a public bank is perhaps the only way to bring asset prices down and give some relief to savers and home buyers in addition to letting them discharge student loan debt in bankruptcy. Without higher interest rates, asset prices will continue to inflate and it will look like the economy is doing great which it will be doing for the upper class. Not so much for everyone else who will be stuck in jobs that will barely afford them to pay rent unless they hook up with another person who also has a job. This is how Republicans promote marriage.

Posted at 06:51 AM in John Lawrence, Democrats, Elections, Off the Top of my Head | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 24, 2018

The Soul is the Individualization of God

Dear friends,

Marcus Aurelius broke down the threefold nature of being this way:

Reasoning: Mind

Desires: Soul

Sensations: Body

But wait! The soul has desires? Yes, but not the way the body does or even the mind. The soul has innate qualities that are meant to be expressed. They are promptings, nudges,a feeling there is more to us than we have as yet revealed. The mind can talk us out of our own potential by insisting that our life was “ruined” by our childhood or some other past experience has damaged us. The body can ignore the soul by medicating, indulging its pleasure seeking tendencies and constant activity; running through life as if it were a marathon.

The soul is the original individualization of God in us. It is unique to all other souls and is (in religious language) God’s desire to be seen and known as us. Furthermore, there is an infinite aspect to it, meaning there is more than one possibility for us. We're not predestined to become any one particular expression in this life. We have volition. But the nudges are there. It is almost as if Life were saying to us, if you try this, you will be successful, or fulfilled or in service to a greater Good. Then all the doors seem to open and everything falls into place.

The mind must be involved, supporting our local perception with nutritious ideas and encouraging words. One of my favorite questions to ask is “How would the Infinite think about this?” You can use the word God or Spirit if it appeals to you. If the potential is within, then success is inherent, but we can dismantle it with limiting ideas. That is why we have a spiritual study to support us. We keep our mind stayed on the wisdom of the ages and the advances of science. We are not “wishful thinking,” we are proactively managing the creative process.

Try this: I am so in tune with my soul’s desire, there is no room in my mind for negating ideas."

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

Posted at 08:15 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why I’m Betting on Millennials, this November 6th

by Robert Reich

Sunday, September 23, 2018

Millennials (and their younger siblings, generation Z’s) are the largest, most diverse and progressive group of potential voters in American history, comprising fully 30 percent of the voting age population.

On November 6th, they’ll have the power to alter the course of American politics – flipping Congress, changing the leadership of states and cities, making lawmakers act and look more like the people who are literally the nation’s future.

But will they vote?

In the last midterm election, in 2014, only 16 percent of eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 29 bothered.

In midterms over the last two decades, turnout by young people has averaged about 38 points below the turnout rate of people 60 and older. Which has given older voters a huge say over where the nation is likely to be by the time those younger people reach middle age and the older voters have passed on.

I’m not criticizing younger non-voters. They have a lot on their minds – starting jobs, careers, families. Voting isn’t likely to be high on their list of priorities.

Also, unlike their grand parents – boomers who were involved in civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights, the anti-Vietnam War movement – most young people today don’t remember a time when political action changed America for the better.

They’re more likely to remember political failures and scandals – George W. Bush lying about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction; Bill Clinton lying about Monica; both parties bailing out Wall Street without so much as a single executive going to jail.

Most don’t even recall when American democracy worked well. They don’t recall the Cold War, when democracy as an ideal worth fighting for. The Berlin Wall came down before they were born.

Instead, during their lives they’ve watched big money take over Washington and state capitals. Which may explain why only about 30 percent of Americans born in the 1980s think it “essential” to live in a democracy.

Many young people have wondered if their votes count anyway, because so many of them live in congressional districts and states that are predictably red or blue.

Given all this, is there any reason to hope that this huge, diverse, progressive cohort of Americans will vote in the upcoming midterms?

My answer is, yes.

First, the issues up for grabs aren’t ideological abstractions for them. They’re causes in which Millennials have direct personal stakes.

Take, for example, gun violence – which some of these young people have experienced first-hand and have taken active roles trying to stop.

Or immigrant’s rights. Over 20 percent of Millennials are Latino, and a growing percent are from families that emigrated from Asia. Many have directly experienced the consequences of Trump’s policies.

A woman’s right to choose whether to have a baby, and gay’s or lesbian’s rights to choose marriage – issues Millennials are also deeply committed to – will be front and center if the Supreme Court puts them back into the hands of Congress and state legislatures.

Millennials are also concerned about student debt, access to college, and opportunities to get ahead unimpeded by racial bigotry or sexual harassment.

And they’re worried about the environment. They know climate change will hit them hardest since they’ll be on the planet longer than older voters.

They’ve also learned that their votes count. They saw Hillary lose by a relative handful of votes in places like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

They’ve been witnessing razor-thin special elections, such as Conor Lamb’s win by a few hundred votes in the heart of Pennsylvania Trump country, and Hiral Tipirneni’s single-digit loss in an Arizona district Trump won by 21 points in 2016.

They know the importance of taking back governorships in what are expected to be nail-bitingly close races – in states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Kansas. They’re aware of the slim but increasingly real possibility of taking back the Senate. (Who knew Ted Cruz would be so vulnerable? Who even knew the name Beto O’Rourke?)

As doubtful as they these young people are about politics, or the differences between the two parties, they also know that Trump and his Republican enablers want to take the nation backwards to an old, white, privileged, isolated America. Most of them don’t.

In my thirty-five years of teaching college students, I’ve not encountered a generation as dedicated to making the nation better as this one.

So my betting is on them, this November 6th.

Posted at 08:10 AM in Robert Reich, Democracy, Voting Methods | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

South American Countries Cut Ties With Taiwan Enabling Chinese Investment

by John Lawrence, September 24, 2018

El Salvador has cut ties with Taiwan and established ties with China. With its Belt and Road initiative China is prepared to invest big money in an infrastructure project in El Salvador. Panama had already done the same switcheroonie so China is gaining influence in South America as Taiwanese influence wanes. This also does not bode well for American influence as the US can't even build infrastructure in its own country while China is building infrastructure all over the world. Meanwhile, the US invests a trillion dollars a year in weapons systems and its military-industrial complex. America prepares for war while Chins prepares for peace.

The New York Times reported:

El Salvador severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan on Tuesday and established ties with China, leaving only 17 nations that officially recognize the Taiwanese government.

Latin America and the Caribbean have been an important bastion of support for Taiwan. Nine of the countries that maintain diplomatic ties are in the region. That has been eroding, however. Panama broke ties with Taiwan’s government in 2017, and the Dominican Republic did the same in May 2018.

...

Taiwan’s government accused Beijing Tuesday of strong-arm tactics.

“China’s rude and unreasonable actions are not those of a responsible country, and they will have a seriously negative influence on cross-strait relations,” Taiwan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Since breaking its ties with Taiwan, Panama has sought investment from Beijing. Last month, the two sides began free trade talks, with the aim of making Panama a hub for Chinese goods in Central America.

The United States broke official ties with Taiwan in 1979 in order to establish relations with China, yet it has a robust unofficial relationship with Taiwan, as evidenced by its new $250 million diplomatic compound in the capital, Taipei.

...

In a news conference, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said from Beijing, “I’m confident the people of El Salvador will feel the warmth and friendship of the Chinese people and derive tangible benefits from its cooperation with China.”

Peaceful commerce is China's antidote to US militarism. While Chins builds, the US destroys. The latest tragedy is US supplied weapons to Saudi Arabia which is wiping out Yemen's children.

Also North and South Korea are making peace with each other without needing the US as an intermediary. The US with its militarism is making itself irrelevant to the rest of the world that it doesn't directly control. US sanctions are becoming powerless to direct world affairs as countries being targeted by them are developing their own monetary and financial systems which don't require the use of US dollars.

Posted at 07:17 AM in John Lawrence, China, Off the Top of my Head, The US | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 22, 2018

Another Tax Scam for the Rich

by Robert Reich

Thursday, September 20, 2018

Hard to believe, but the Trump administration is proposing yet another massive tax windfall for the rich.

It would be to reduce their capital gains taxes. Those are taxes on the increased value of their stocks and bonds, businesses, and other valuables, when they sell them. Trump would do this by eliminating whatever portion of that increased value was due to inflation.

Here are three reasons why reducing capital gains taxes would be another tax scam for the rich.

1. The people who’d get most of the benefits are already richer than ever and pay a lower effective tax rate than they have in decades. An estimated 63 percent of the benefits of this proposal would go to the wealthiest one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans, while the bottom 80 percent of us would get only 1 percent of its benefits, according to a University of Pennsylvania Wharton School analysis.

If anything, Congress should raise capital gains taxes, not lower them. The capital gains tax rate is already lower than the rate on ordinary income. Yet the wealthy now own most of the nation’s assets and enjoy most of the capital gains. In 2016 (the most recent date for which data are available), the richest 10 percent owned 84 percent of the entire stock market.

2. The cost of this change would be a whopping $10 billion a year, for the next 10 years. That’s just about the yearly cost of funding free lunches for 20 million poor kids. Yet the federal debt is already ballooning. Over ten years, this proposal would increase it by an estimated $100 to $300 billion.

3. Trump and his administration say they have the power to make this change by themselves without even being authorized to do so by Congress. Rubbish. Congress has already decided that capital gains taxes should not be indexed for inflation. That’s why, when the same idea came up during the George H.W. Bush administration, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel stopped it cold.

It’s another big handout to the wealthy, another huge increase in the federal deficit, and it’s illegal. Don’t let Trump and his enablers get away with this tax scam for the rich.

Posted at 07:36 AM in Robert Reich, Taxes, The Rich, Trump | Permalink | Comments (0)

Retain the Innocence of a Child

Dear friends,

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, as Mr. Rogers assured us. The neighborhood is more than the street we live on or the town or our home state. The neighborhood is the content of our mind. Mr. Rogers actually knew that. He taught us to respect others, love ourselves, take care of things, be careful with our words and so many practical things to do to keep the day beautiful.

As adults we tend to make everything harder than it needs to be! Have you noticed yourself fussing and fuming over something that might happen but has not as yet occurred? Do you have argumentative conversations with people from your past who are not now here? Do you project worst case scenarios, thinking that is the adult thing to do? Well, you would be right about that! It is the worried adult’s favorite pastime. Mr. Rogers would tell us to relax, sing a song, perhaps recite an affirmation. He was actually teaching the basics of New Thought spirituality in a way children could understand.

What we engage with in our mind takes on a life of its own if we allow it to run away with our attention. It is the wise grown up who retains some of the innocence of the child and expects the best, is cheerfully present, feels connected to the Source of all and is eager to engage with the world. It is not polly-anna-ish, but a seriously effective strategy to create a life worth living. Let’s make it a beautiful day in our internal neighborhood.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

Posted at 07:31 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

The Presidency is a Freak Show

by John Lawrence, September 22, 2018

Before television we had the soap operas on radio. Then we had Search for Tomorrow and A Brighter Day on TV. Lately as a continuation of that tradition we've had reality shows. And in the culmination we now have a Presidency that is a freak show.

Every day we are bombarded by another "revelation" about Trump, who said this or who said that about Trump and Trump himself adding fuel to the fire. The media goes along with all this crap because it's good for their ratings. People are fascinated. He's the perfect Republican President. Leave the dirty work to Congress and just give the people what they want: entertainment.

In the good old days when Obama was President, we had a President who actually worried about what was going on in the world. He had people around him who took their jobs seriously. Now we just have a bunch of jerks who are taking the US backwards. But the rest of the world is not standing idly by. They are going on with progress while the US is becoming a backwater consumed with consumerism and entertainment.

Posted at 07:25 AM in John Lawrence, Off the Top of my Head, Trump | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 21, 2018

SHOCKINGLY RISING ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATIONS & CO2 EMISSION LEVELS

PERILOUSLY WORSENING THE WARMING UP OF PLANET EARTH

by Frank Thomas

Part 2

Part 1 here

SHARE OF GLOBAL ELECTRICITY POWER FROM RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES

The world’s 36 Gt fossil CO2 emissions and 13 Gt non-CO2 equivalent emissions of CH4, N2O and F-gases must be reduced dramatically in next two decades to avoid a calamitous overheating of the planet by 2050. But the transition to green energy is going far TOO SLOWLY. TABLES 3, 4, show for example the greater URGENCY and SPEED crucially needed in shifting to renewables for electricity power production. About 70% of world CO2 emissions comes from Electricity and Transportation. It took 20 years to reach 7.5% renewables for world production of electricity power in 2016. Now we must take that 7.5% to at least 75%-80% renewables by 2050 – a ten-fold increase in just 30 years!

The EU is on target towards a ±75% renewable capacity for production of electricity power by 2050. Germany and Denmark are world leaders in installed per capita capacity of solar and wind. But heavily populated, vibrant economic countries like U.S., China, India, Russia, Japan must move FASTER to be at a +75% renewable energy mix from wind, solar PV, biomass, bio-fuel, geothermal for electrical power production by 2050.

Following is a summary overview of progress to date by 5 major emitters and EU 28 countries in using renewables for electrical power production in 2016.

2016 % SHARE OF RENEWABLE ENERGY IN GROSS POWER PRODUCTION

	Renewables	Renewables Incl. Hydro
China	6.2%	25.1%
U.S.	8.5%	14.5%
EU 28	21.1%	35.1%
India	5.4%	14.8%
Russia	--	17.2%
Japan	10.2%	18.0%
Selected EU Countries
Germany		33.3%
Scandinavia		64.0%
Portugal		54.1%
Spain		36.5%
Italy		34.3%

EU’s 35.1% renewable mix for power production of 21.1% renewables and 14% hydro is 2.5 times U.S.’s 14.5% tiny renewable mix of 8.5% renewables and 6% hydro. Germany’s 33.3% renewable mix includes 22.3% wind and solar, 7.0% biomass, 0.9% waste, and 3.1% hydro. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland have achieved a colossal 64% average varied renewable mix for electrical power production. Their renewable energy mixes are country-to-country interconnected for cost-efficient, timely exchange of power supply when the wind isn’t blowing. The Nordic common power market and power exchange has facilitated strong wind energy development. This balancing energy market allows Swedish and Norwegian reservoir hydropower to provide cheap, short-term flexibility to entire Nordic system – a flexibility Denmark can rely on for changes in its variable renewable wind power demand and generation that produced 44% of its electricity in 2017. (see: Nordic Power Market Design and Thermal Power Plant Flexibility, by Energinet, May 18, 2018)

On windy or sunny days, peak 70% shares of variable power production occur already in countries like Denmark and Germany – proof that a daily managing of a power system with large shares of variable power production is technically feasible. Scandinavia, Germany Portugal, Spain, Italy, UK are on a path of producing at least +75% of their electrical power with renewables by 2040.

TABLE 3

2016 ELECTRICITY POWER PRODUCTION: FOSSIL, RENEWABLES, HYDRO, NUCLEAR - (unit: TWh = Terawatt hours

	FOSSIL	WIND /SOLAR	OTHER RENEW.	TOTAL RENEW.	HYDRO	NUCLEAR	TOTAL
CHINA	4386	307	73	380	1163	213	6142
U.S.	287	286	85	371	262	848	4352
EU 28	997	413	187	600	398	846	2841
INDIA	1161	57	16	73	129	--	1363
TOP 4	9415	1063	361	1424	1952	1907	14698
RUSSIA	703	--	--	--	187	197	1087
JAPAN	819	77	27	104	80	20	1023
TOP 6	10937	1140	388	1528	2219	2124	16808
WORLD	16323	1293	562	1855	4023	2587	24788
%	65.9%	5.2%	2.3%	7.5%	16.2%	10.4%	100%

TABLE 4

2016 % SHARES OF ELECTRICITY POWER PRODUCTION BY ENERGY MIX

	FOSSIL	WIND	SOLAR	OTHER RENEW.	TOTAL RENEW.	HYDRO	NUCLEAR
CHINA	71.4%	3.9%	1.1%	1.2%	6.2%	18.9%	3.5%
U.S	66.0%	5.3%	1.3%	1.9%	8.5%	6.0%	19.5%
EU 28	35.1%	10.6%	3.9%	6.6%	21.1%	14.0%	29.8%
INDIA	85.2%	3.3%	0.9%	1.2%	5.4%	9.4%	--
TOP 4	64.0%	5.5%	1.7%	2.5%	9.7%	13.3%	13.0%
RUSSIA	64.7%	--	--	--	--	17.2%	18.1%
JAPAN	80.1%	2.5%	5.0%	2.7%	10.2%	7.8%	1.9%
TOP 6	65.1%	5.0%	1.8%	2.3%	9.1%	13.2%	12.6%
WORLD	65.9%	3.9%	1.3%	2.3%	7.5%	16.2%	10.4%

Sources: Trends in Global CO2 and Total Greenhouse Gas Emissions, 2017 Report by J.R.C. Olivier, K.M. Schure, J.A.H.W. Peters, Published by PBL Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency; BP, 2017 _____________________________________________________________________________________

In 2016, the world’s total electricity power production was produced 66% from fossil fuel combustion, a TINY 7.5% from renewables, 16% from hydro, and 10.5% from nuclear. Since 2010, the quicker transition to renewables for producing global electric power is still at a rate FAR BELOW what’s needed.

China and India’s renewable powered electrical supply excluding hydro were at an extremely low 6.2% and 5.4%, respectively. China and India emit a phenomenal 36% of the world’s CO2 emissions. Both countries rely on dirty coal for ±60% of their power production. Very low renewables and a gigantic dependence on coal and small nuclear energy is why China is world’s largest CO2 emitter at 29% of global emissions. The country is working at a feverish pace to expand wind and solar energy sources significantly. For China, it’s a deadly race against time; the outcome is uncertain.

China and India’s +6% GDP growth rates reflect a heavy pace of modernization, industrialization, commercialization for 2.8 billion people, ±2 billion of whom have a bare minimum living standard and share very poorly in the economic progress generated. As this improves, broader worker spending on vehicles, air-conditioning equipment, electrical products for homes, etc., will raise pressures for much more electricity supply … and CO2 emissions! Since 1990, India’s economy has advanced at considerably less speed and scale than China’s … but recent years reveal that’s clearly changing.

CO2 emissions of both countries have grown over 4 times higher than 1990 levels. China’s 2016 10 Gt CO2 emissions could well rise 50% and India’s 2.5 Gt could well rise 100% to a total of 20 Gt in next 2 decades. That is 50% of world CO2 emissions today. If it happens, planet Earth will become an environmental Hot Hell by 2050. The fate of our planet’s living-species hangs much on ALL countries moving FAST to renewables and efficient energy use, but that fate hangs MAMMOTHLY much on China and India!

The EU 28 has a balanced energy mix upon which to produce electrical power. An extremely low 35% (TABLE 4) of EU electrical power comes from fossil, 21% from Renewables, 14% from Hydro, and a 30% from nuclear. Half of EU’s nuclear energy comes from France for producing 82% of its electricity. EU renewable energy share (excluding hydro) is 3.5 times China’s, 2.5 times U.S.’s, and 4 times India’s. With exception of U.S., programs to a systemically and timely phase out of coal are occurring in a number of countries. As noted, nuclear power and natural gas will remain energy-bridges until renewables take over. Germany and UK plan to phase out of nuclear over next decade or two. More and more power companies are adjusting strategies towards renewables so they can become participants in future energy transition markets – even though solar PV, wind, and other renewables are at an infant scale in powering electricity production.

SUMMARY

The careful natural carbon cycle balance the world had – with carbon exchanged between plants and animals, ground and water, with enough staying for a time in the atmosphere that keeps the planet warm but not too warm – has been knocked far out of balance. That explains why CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere to dangerous concentration levels. The result is a mounting excessive overheating of the planet’s atmosphere, land, and oceans. One climate expert explained in Plain English this sunlight “heat radiation-in” and sunlight “heat radiation-out” imbalance.

“Simply by being present in the atmosphere, CO2 absorbs infrared light radiation emitted by the Earth. You can liken this to what happens when you put a “blanket” over yourself. The fibers of the blanket, and the air trapped between those fibers, absorb the heat from your body and trap it near you, preventing it from quickly escaping into the larger volume of air in the room. So, by absorbing the infrared light radiation, CO2 keeps the heat in the atmosphere longer; and the more CO2 you add to the air, the “thicker” the “blanket” becomes. We KNOW that the planet’s CO2 “blanket” is more than a third thicker than it was before the industrial revolution. We KNOW that we are the ones thickening it. We KNOW that CO2 traps infrared light radiation. And we KNOW that the atmospheric and ocean global temperatures are rising.”

CO2 has a lifespan of a 100 years, to 1,000 years, up to 10,000 years before it exits the atmosphere. A reduction in emissions today will lower far into the future the heating, but will not result in the reduced, cooler temperatures needed now. Scientifically and humanly, this means that heat-trapping greenhouse gases released today from cars, trucks, airplanes, industrial activities, power plants are determining the survival existence of future generations of all living species.

We are going to have to evolve – quicker than we can fathom perhaps – to a new fundamental way of being a civilization that firstly protects the planet’s health to insure our own sustainable future. To avoid a massive die-off or a complete collapse, a dramatic reconfiguration of human society over next three decades is necessary. This cries for prioritizing, integrating following fundamental energy and lifestyle actions:

Accelerating the pace of getting out of fossil fuels
Expanding vastly at a fast rate variable renewable energy sources
Focusing intensely on ways to increase energy efficiencies
Creating green deserts; restoring rain forests
Extensive planting of trees; strictly limiting deforestation
Eating plant-based foods or lab-based meat, a far more efficient energy lifestyle vs. feeding plants to animals, then eating the animals
De-concentrating animals and huge animal waste on industrial farms
Offering good energy deals for consumers with transparent costs and easy switching among providers
Shortening and broadening the technology innovation cycle
Investing wisely, timely in sustainable energy options, efficiencies: bicycle paths, the 100 mile efficient energy electric vehicle, floating offshore wind mills, wind-solar hybrid generation, alternative power storage choices such as gas-burning power plants that capture and bury emissions, nuclear reactors on floating power plants, advanced nuclear or thorium-based power plants or geothermal plants.

Time is not on our side. Planet Earth reacts unfavorably to political power manipulators who play casino with the risks of a once in a million years planetary threatening climate change – in such a short, menacing geological time frame.

On the positive side, the costs of wind and solar PV are plummeting and are expected to continue declining. The levelized cost of electricity from renewable energy sources, or lifetime cost of electricity, is going straight down. This is exciting and gives hope that the day of an accelerating en masse use of renewables for electricity and transportation has come. U.S. wind/solar/other renewables supply a tiny 8.5% of our electricity vs. nearly 20% for California. A bill just approved by Gov. Brown’s puts the state on a path to supply 60% of its electricity with renewables by 2030, to have a 100% clean energy grid by 2045.

Germany, Scandinavia, California exemplify the unified, coordinated “Clean Energy Marshall Plan” engagement critically needed worldwide. Otherwise, irreversibility sets in – sealing life’s prospects on Earth. Astrophysicist Adam Frank’s book – “Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth” – clearly explores the options for our civilization to get off our calamitous climate change course, before it’s too late. Our children’s children, their children, and generations beyond will inherit the dastardly, deadly living environment we left them … by our inability to radically and quickly temper the new planet climate-change realities humans in the main are causing.

Frank Thomas, The Netherlands, September 9, 2018

A graduate of Bowdoin and Dartmouth colleges, for many years Frank was an independent management consultant and entrepreneur working with Dutch international shipbuilding and offshore oil/gas contracting firms. In past years up to recent retirement at 77, he has been a trainer for firms such as ING, DSM, Siemens, the Dutch Ministries of Foreign and Economic Affairs and Justice in the Hague and also a teacher/lecturer at The Hague University and NTI University in Leiden. Subjects covered have included finance, commercial law, legal writing, report writing, presentations, etc. All his time now is devoted to research for writings on grave national and global issues.

He is an independent-minded Mainer, a liberal-conservative. Over time, he has come to loath the mind numbing indoctrination inherent in the “ideological-pure and money talks” political culture poisoning and grid-locking our national dialogue on extremely serious structural societal problems. Such times of volatile change call for a fusion of the ‘brightest and best’ ideas/reforms that ensure a prudent, fair balancing of legitimate public interests, concern for the common folk’s progress in concert with a thriving market-innovative capitalism.

FOOTNOTE:

Global warming is not an “Alarmist Charade” as skeptic Princeton physicist, Dr. William Happer has been propagating for almost three decades – directly to the receptive ears of our president who also trivializes the extensive peer-reviewed scientific evidence of human-induced climate-warming. Dr. Happer is a prominent physicist, but he is not a climate scientist. He’s had no peer-reviewed papers published that contradict the scientific consensus on the role of certain gases in causing a “greenhouse effect” and the significant negative impacts of high levels of GHGs in the atmosphere.

The huge CO2 increases humanity has been putting into the atmosphere at such a geologically lightening speed are driving temperatures way out of “habitable” ranges globally. This includes the oceans and acidification of same, sea level rise from rapid meltdown of sunlight radiation-reflective Arctic ice and carbon release from melting permafrost, disturbance of the water cycle, higher atmospheric water vapour, precipitation and weather extremes, leading to calamitous forest fires, droughts, floods, giant tornadoes, mass migrations, etc. Dr. Happer’s weak climate science knowhow and credibility is reflected in his constant understating of the degree and negative impacts of global warming and overstating of the benefits of ‘unlimited’ CO2 to help plant life.

Distinguished climate scientist and Princeton alumnus, Dr. Michael MacCracken published an illuminating 42-page scientific rebuttal of Dr. Happer’s article, “The Truth About Greenhouse Gases: The Dubious Science of Climate Crusaders” by Dr. William Happer, May 2011. SEE: MacCracken vs. Happer: “The Real Truth About Greenhouse Gases and Climate Change” – Paragraph-by-Paragraph Comments on an Article Written by Dr. William Happer, by Dr. Michael C. MacCracken, Sept. 2011.

Posted at 07:18 AM in Frank Thomas, Climate Change, Fossil Fuels, Global Warming | Permalink | Comments (2)

Let's Be Motivated by Love

Dear friends,

All the ways we can be in love are too many to enumerate. We are familiar with but a few. The reason we are not aware that Love is the highest motivator is simple. It has been relegated to romance and family. But think about it this way. Whenever we care about anything, we are in love. Tending the garden, recycling our trash, driving safely, helping a friend with a project, voting, sharing food, giving to those in need; really, anything we do with a sense of gladness is Love in Action.

Here is a wonderful affirmation from Thaddeus Golas:

“Whether I feel it or not, I am one with all the Love in the universe.” Let’s allow those words to be with us today as we go about the business of living, which is actually the business of loving. Let’s release the concepts of work and not work, duty and obligation. Let’s try to see ourselves as constantly engaged in love. How would this awareness change your experience in the office, at the grocery store, in traffic? When we realize that our entire experience is colored by our internal experience, we can see how powerful we really are. Yes, there are people doing unliving things, but they are doing them because they do not know that Love is the real power and is right where they are, all the time.

If we want to see change in our world we must begin with ourselves. Here is another affirmation from Golas:

"Whether I am aware of it or not, I am one with the cause of all that exists."

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.califroniafreepress.net

Posted at 07:14 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

North and South Korea Making Peace Without US 'Help'

by John Lawrence, September 21, 2018

President Kim of North Korea and President Moon of South Korea have met together 3 times this year. Moon traveled to North Korea just recently for a meeting September 20. Evidently, President Moon is not hung up over a "complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula" like Washington is. The two Korean Presidents realize that they don't need Washington's OK before they go ahead and normalize relations between the two Koreas. Nevertheless, Kim has asserted that complete denuclearization is the goal. They are going about it in the right way with mutual respect shown by both sides. Washington wants Kim to kowtow before they will agree to anything. That's not the right way to make peace.

If Kim and Moon can work out an amiable relationship and normalize relations between the two Koreas, then the US is the odd man out. South Korea may well at some time tell the US to pack their bags and go home. They're not needed any more. It remains to be seen what the US would do at that point. Would they insist on staying despite South Korea's telling them to get out? Would they impose sanctions on South Korea for "dealing with the enemy"?

The Guardian reported:

The third meeting comes with talks between the US and North Korea over Pyongyang’s nuclear programme having made little progress since a summit between Donald Trump and Kim in June. Trump cancelled a trip by his top diplomat last month. While North Korea has repeatedly agreed to working towards the “complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula”, experts warn the language is vague and fails to address key US demands that the North give up its nuclear weapon unilaterally and allow weapons inspectors into the country.

Despite the difficulties, Chung said Kim’s “trust in Trump remains unchanged”, and that he had not spoken negatively about Trump to anyone, even his closest advisers. Kim also complained the international community had not appreciated steps already taken by North Korea to end nuclear and missile tests, according to Chung, and revealed he had shut a missile launch facility.

However, experts have warned the North could reopen its only known nuclear tests site at Punggye-ri, which it said it closed in May.

Chung also said Kim hoped to end hostilities between North Korea and the US by the end of Trump’s first term, which ends in January 2021. North Korea has consistently pushed for a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean war, which ended in an armistice instead of a peace treaty.

South Korea’s diplomatic overtures have also highlighted a growing rift between Seoul and Washington, with US officials frustrated by the pace of nuclear negotiations and South Korean authorities focused on improving ties with their unpredictable neighbour.

North Korean state media echoed many of the same statements conveyed by officials in Seoul, with language that emphasised denuclearisation as a shared responsibility, not one for Pyongyang alone.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said: “Noting that it is our fixed stand and his will to completely remove the danger of armed conflict and horror of war from the Korean Peninsula and turn it into the cradle of peace without nuclear weapons and free from nuclear threat, he said that the North and the South should further their efforts to realise the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.”

So North and South Korea are making peace while the US sits on the sidelines like an angry bully who will not accept peace between North and South Korea unless they do it on the US' terms. It's the US way or the highway. The final result will probably be a peaceful, reunited Korea, but one which is not aligned with US interests. Will they be the first nation in the world to stand up to the US and tell it to remove its military bases and personnel from a united Korea or will a united Korea remain at war with the US? Or will Trump try to take credit for creating peace in the Koreas? Time will tell.

Posted at 07:06 AM in John Lawrence, Korea, Off the Top of my Head, Peace | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 20, 2018

SHOCKINGLY RISING ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATIONS & CO2 EMISSION LEVELS

PERILOUSLY WORSENING THE WARMING UP OF PLANET EARTH

by Frank Thomas

Part 1

INTRODUCTION

Accumulated atmospheric CO2 has been the major driver of climate change since 1750. The human mind cannot fathom the speed and scale of climate change and the existential climate risks. The science is clear. A titanic store of carbon unavailable to the carbon cycle for millions of years has been put into the system in an awesomely scary short period of geological time. Earth’s natural carbon cycle and balancing process that occurs over hundreds of millennia has been taken away – forcing CO2 concentrations out of equilibrium and thus forcing unnatural higher temperatures globally.

The carbon cycle’s natural balance has been fundamentally upset by the accelerated burning of fossil fuels and by massive tropical deforestation. A recent updated report concludes that climate researchers know well the implications but are cautious, reticent people leading them to downplay the most extreme climate results awaiting us in the not too distant future. (see: What Lies Beneath The Understatement of the Existential Climate Risk, by D. Spratt and I. Dunlop, Breakthrough, updated Aug. 2018).

Today’s CO2 concentration of 405 ppm, and rising, hasn’t been seen in a million years. The carbon system was in stable equilibrium for 800,000 years up to 1750. In prior ages, high and low CO2 concentrations developed and declined over thousands of years. This compares to a tiny 268 years for global CO2 concentrations to soar 125 ppm from 280 ppm in 1750 to 405 ppm in 2018. And 85% of that rise happened between 1950 and 2018. Population growth fueled demand for petroleum products in the transport, industrial, housing and agricultural sectors. The thousands of years it took to reach a world population of 1 billion in 1750, took only 200 years to more than DOUBLE to 2.5 billion in 1950, then a minuscule 68 years to TRIPLE to 7.6 billion in 2018.

Result? A major part of today’s ∼36 Gt/yr. of fossil CO2 emissions induced by human activities can’t be absorbed by the natural carbon cycle. Billions of tons of CO2 emissions accumulate in the atmosphere trapping excessive amounts of heat – a process made worse by powerful positive feedbacks that are accelerating global Earth warming. Continued growth of CO2 concentrations up to 475 or 500 ppm for the next three decades will expand the excess heat trapped in the atmosphere, making Earth hotter and hotter. (see: California Free Press – Potential Global Warming in Next Decade or Two, by F. Thomas)

TRENDS IN FOSSIL CO2 & TOTAL GHG EMISSIONS

For selected countries and EU 28, TABLES 1, 2 show fossil CO2 emissions from combustion and industrial processes, Non-CO2 equivalent emissions (CH4, N2O, and F-gases) and total GHG emissions from human activities.

TABLE 1: 1990-2016 FOSSIL CO2 EMISSIONS & EMISSIONS PER CAPITA

(Data in Gt (Billion Tons) Fossil CO2 Emissions (Gt) Tons CO2 Per Capita)

	1990	2016	% Share	1990	2016
China	2.305	10.483	29.3%	2.0	7.5
U.S.	4.956	5.012	14.0%	19.6	15.6
Canada	555	676	1.9%	20.0	15.6
EU 28	4.335	3.432	9.6%	9.1	6.7
Scandinavia	202	170	0.5%	9.1	7.2
France	377	332	0.9%	6.6	7.1
Germany	1.003	776	2.2%	12.7	9.5
India	655	2.534	7.1%	0.8	1.9
TOP 4	12.251	21.461	60.0%
Russia	2.379	1.662	4.6%	16.1	11.4
Japan	1.158	1.240	3.5%	9.3	9.7
TOP 6	15.788	24.363	68.0%
WORLD	22.452	35.755

In 2016, the TOP 5 and EU 28 fossil CO2 emitters, except India, had absolute and per capita CO2 emissions much higher than the rest of the world. By far the biggest absolute CO2 emissions came from China and U.S. The EU did well to reduce 1990 4.3 Gt CO2 emissions to 3.4 Gt, 32% below U.S.’s 2016 5 Gt. The EU Low 6.7 tons per capita was 57% below U.S.’s sky-high 15.6 tons per capita, suggesting much higher EU energy efficiencies and lower energy consumption per person. China’s Low 7.5 tons per capita is deceptive as 1 billion Chinese are at a very low wage and consumption level.

TABLE 2: 1990-2016 NON-CO2 and TOTAL GHG EMISSION

Non-CO2 Emissions(Gt CO2 eq.) Total GHG Emissions(Gt)

	1990	2016	% Share	1990	2016	% Share
China	1.517	2.551	20%	3.860	13.010	26.5%
U.S.	1.040	1.480	11.5%	6.000 `	6.430	13%
EU 28	1.257	1.018	8%	5.590	4.430	9%
India	771	1.113	9%	1.430	3.650	7.5%
TOP 4	4.585	6.162	48%	16.880	27.520	56%
Russian	730	561	4.5%	3.030	2.220	4.5%
Japan	136	174	1.5%	1.290	1.400	3%
TOP 6	5.411	6.897	54%	21.200	31.140	63%
WORLD	10.271	12.813	100%	32.720	49.180	100%

Sources: Trends in Global CO2 and Total Greenhouse Gas Emissions, 2017 Report by J.R.C. Olivier, K.M. Schure, J.A.H.W. Peters, published by PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency; BP, 2017

In 2016, 36 Gt of fossil CO2 emissions reached a total GHG CO2 equivalent of 49 Gt including 13Gt of CH4 (methane), N2O (nitrous oxide) and F-gases). World total GHG emissions % shares comprised 72% fossil CO2, 19% (highly toxic) CH4, 6% N2O, and 3% F-gases. Of their total non-CO2 emissions, Russia, India, China’s emissions of methane were extremely high shares of 78%, 74%, 67%, respectively. U.S. and EU shares were 54% and 43%, respectively. China had the lowest share of methane emissions at 25%.

Over 90% of the excess heat trapped by CO2 emissions penetrates deeper into the non-reflective oceans that cover 71% of earth’s surface. The outcome could be that oceans become CO2 saturated whereby constant temperature increases reduce their critical role as a carbon sink. Much scientific uncertainty exists on the ability of oceans to store and exchange heat with the atmosphere. But scientists recognize there could be far more heating and trapping of gases in the atmosphere, setting the stage for not only a faster melt down of Arctic carbon-rich permafrost on land areas and seafloor sediments, but also for large releases of carbon from the Arctic ocean. That phenomenon contributed to the end of the last Ice Age.

China’s 1990-2016 fossil CO2 emissions rose 4.5 times to 10.4 Gt for a huge 29% of world fossil CO2 emissions … a very Low 7.5 tons per capita in 2016. Things can get much worse if China comes anywhere near the U.S. 15.6 tons CO2 emission per capita. That’s possible when one takes into account the ± 1 billion Chinese at a currently very Low average wage and spending level who want to advance their living standard. China’s goal is to materially improve the well-being and job prospects of the bottom 75% by stepping-up its internal modernization and industrial development activities throughout the land.

U.S.’s 1990-2016 fossil CO2 emissions stabilized at 5 Gt or 14% of world fossil CO2 emissions … an extremely High 15.6 tons CO2 emission per capita in 2016 – twice that of China. This reflects the far higher U.S. average income and consumption levels for 320 million people, 4.5 times lower than China’s 1.4 billion people. Both countries are the world’s highest absolute contributors to total non-CO2 emissions (CH4, N20, F-gases), arising from agricultural activities, production of oil/gas/coal, and landfills.

EU 1990-2016 fossil CO2 emissions decreased 21% to a Low 3.4 Gt or 9.6% (vs. 19% in 1990) of world fossil CO2 emissions … a very Low 6.7 tons per capita in 2016. The steady drop since 1990 in EU CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion can be attributed to large decreases in coal use, strong increases in renewables and energy efficiency – especially in the Scandinavian countries, Germany, France, UK, Spain – offset partly by increases in natural gas.

India’s 1990-2016 fossil CO2 emissions rose 4 times to 2.5 Gt or 7% of world fossil CO2 emissions (vs. 3% in 1990)… and an extremely Low 1.9 tons per capita in 2016. Like China, ±1 billion of India’s 1.4 billion people are at a very low income and spending level. This will likely improve the next 20 years, forcing India’s super low CO2 emission per capita to ever higher levels. India's extremely high dependence on dirty coal doesn’t help. As the Earth continues heating up, India will be hit by average temperatures over 50 degrees Celsius. India’s immense sun ray energy must be rapidly exploited to produce vast amounts of solar power.

India and China are researching thorium technology, a major possible clean energy option with none of the nuclear plant waste storage problems. Successful prototype plant-testing and final construction are not likely before 2035. This time lag is why India must NOW technically aggressively exploit its infinite sun energy supply and phase out of coal as quickly as possible.

Japan’s 1990-2016 fossil CO2 emissions rose a tiny 7% to a Low 1.2 Gt or 3.5% of world fossil CO2 emissions (vs. 5% in 1990) … a 9.7 tons per capita in 2016. What’s striking here is that Japan’s per capita emissions matched Germany’s even though Japan’s GDP growth was about 33% higher than Germany’s. This indicates that structural changes in Japan’s economy, like energy efficiencies, are decoupling its economic growth from CO2 emissions growth. This decoupling development is drastically needed for China and India with their exceptionally high GDP growth rates. Japan was painfully AWOKEN by its nuclear plant loss that led to a lengthy shutdown of reactors that were 30% of Japan’s energy mix. Japan is now 100% committed to a speedy, staggering expansion of solar and wind energy to 40-50% of its total energy mix by 2030. What kind of crisis must we have to follow Japan’s 180 degree turnaround to green energy? It’s an appalling, dangerous situation when you have a president who talks fatuously about how ‘beautiful' coal is and how ‘fake’ the science of fundamental climate change is.

Frank Thomas, The Netherlands, September 9, 2018

Posted at 08:12 AM in Frank Thomas, Climate Change, Global Warming | Permalink | Comments (0)

We Can Still Be Happy Even If the Situation Looks Dire

Dear friends,

Today is as good as it gets. Well, unless and until there is a movement in consciousness that starts a new series of cause/effect. Knowing that is the principle of manifestation, why not be happy today? Why wait another minute for someone else to make you smile, or something else to brighten your outlook? Why not take your power back right now and decide to be happy? If we make that leap, are we being callous to the worlds problems? Are we ignoring our responsibilities? No, we can still write letters to the editor, march in protests, send money to worthy causes, recycle, and go to work. But we will be taking with us, into every activity, an energy vibration of local joy. It is irresistible. It will charge the atmosphere wherever you may be. It will act as cause to the effect you generate.

Waiting has its place, of course. Patience, trust in the process when you have set a goal in motion is a good thing. But waiting does not come into the equation when we are talking about personal feelings. Although we have been well-trained to think our feelings are caused by others, they never are. No one can actually make us happy, sad, angry, worried, peaceful, loving or miserable. It is entirely up to us to make a real choice as to which we shall experience. Of course our lightning quick reactionary mind will seem to choose without our input, but we can help that, too. By slowing our thoughts via meditation and declarative statements, we will find that in ordinary situations we might be a bit more conscious of how we are responding to the stimuli. The trick is to not impede our own happiness by self-negation, also known as beating up on ourselves, when we lapse into unconscious reactions. We reflect and decide if that was how we really want to feel.

None of this makes sense if we hold to the notion that effects act as Cause. They seem to, but watch how quickly things change when a new idea is dropped into the mix and agreed upon. Think of how much has changed in your own lifetime. Did things just happen or were they set in motion by ideas? Ideas are always in very precarious positions. They have no life of their own, only the life we give them. So what is the best idea you have today? Mine is to be happy now and now and now. Why not?

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.calliforniafreepress.net

Posted at 07:04 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

TV News Keeps to its Trivial Formula

by John Lawrence, September 20, 2018

Yesterday the TV news reported details on two mass shootings. So what else is new? These go on every day and are not worth reporting. It's sensationalism run amok! Why don't they have an informed discussion on gun control instead? Mass shootings are not worthy of being reported. But entertainment TV has merged with reality TV. Also it was reported that Trump said something like he couldn't imagine that Brett Kavanaugh, nice guy that he is, would have tried to rape a girl in high school. So what? Who cares what Trump thinks or what Trump can or can't imagine? The vacuity of the news in the US is appalling. You have to tune in to a foreign news channel to get news that doesn't insult your intelligence.

Meanwhile, nothing is reported about the Trump administration's changing the rules allowing more methane emissions into the atmosphere. Nothing is reported about the US complicity in the slaughter of children in Yemen from starvation and cholera. Nothing is reported about the trillion dollar US defense budget with bases ringing every country in the world. Nothing is reported about the effects of climate change driving disasters like Hurricane Florence. The only thing reported about that is Trump's false promises that the Feds are going to help all those brave souls in the Carolinas who have lost so much and all the brave and wonderful people who have risked their lives to help them. Americans helping Americans. How wonderful and noble! They don't need no Federal gubmint to get them out of a jam.

Forget all the vacuous interviews with people who say things like, "I've been here 40 years, and I've never seen anything like it." Well, I don't think they'll have to wait 40 years to see something like it again. Climate change will continue to up the ante on the tragedies and devastation wreaking havoc on Mother Earth, and Trump and his cronies are doing their best to hasten the destruction.

Posted at 06:58 AM in John Lawrence, Climate Change, Flooding, Off the Top of my Head | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 18, 2018

The Energy 202: Hurricane Florence blows hole in Trump team's case for helping coal and nuclear power, critics say

From the Washington Post

BY DINO GRANDONI

THE LIGHTBULB

Duke Energy employees work on removing trees and restoring power to a road closed in Wilmington, N.C., after Hurricane Florence traveled through the area over the weekend. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

Hurricane Florence has blown a hole in the Trump administration's argument that bolstering nuclear and coal-fired power is essential to providing reliable electricity to homes and businesses, especially during times of crisis, according to energy experts long critical of the plan.

For months, the Department of Energy has considered throwing a lifeline to that sector of the power market to make the electric grid more resilient to natural and man-made disasters. The Trump administration has been preparing to use a Cold War-era law, once marshaled by President Harry S. Truman to secure U.S. steel production, to compel regional grid operators to buy electricity from nuclear and coal plants.

The rationale is that only these two types of generation regularly have enough fuel on site to run for when national security is threatened. Wind turbines and solar panels only generate electricity when the weather is right while natural gas stations often have their fuel pipelined in from afar.

But hours before the once powerful hurricane made landfall in North Carolina on Friday, Duke Energy shut down its two reactors at the Brunswick Nuclear Plant near Wilmington, N.C. in anticipation of high winds. The temporary shutdown illustrates how many other factors beyond just fuel stored on site affect grid reliability.

"There are so many flaws to their argument, we hardly need this to add," said David Hart, professor of public policy at George Mason University. "There are lots of better ways to get reliability than to stockpile a lot of fuel."

One cause of power outages is, of course, downed power lines. According to a 2012 Congressional Research Service report, trees falling on local distribution lines cause most storm-related power outages. Damage to transmission lines, the main arteries of the electric grid, tend to cause major outages.

The delivery system for electricity, rather than its source, tends to be what is most vulnerable during storms.

Christine Tezak, managing director of research at ClearView Energy Partners, said that "outages under these circumstances are more grid-related than generation-related, and don’t seem to provide compelling data for or against any generation resource."

In the case of the Brunswick plant, while floodwaters have not breached the facility, located 4 miles from the Atlantic, safety officials still do not want to run the plant after the storm until flooding subsided and roads are accessible, in case the facility and surrounding area needed to be evacuated in the unlikely event of severe disaster at the plant.

"Many of the roads leading to the plant are not passable," said Joey Ledford, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Over the weekend, that independent agency, which regulates nuclear safety, declared a “hazardous event” due to difficulty Duke Energy workers were having getting to the reactors.

As of 11 p.m. Monday night, 223,000 Duke Energy customers remained without power.

Other extreme weather events can hamper power generation at its source, no matter how they produce electricity. Strong winds can send solar panels flying. Cold snaps can freeze stockpiles of coal.

When it comes to hurricanes, the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade association for the U.S. nuclear business, argued that the hulking concrete buildings that house reactors handle high winds particularly well, allowing them to usually restart more quickly than their competitors after hurricanes.

"The real question isn't whether you can run all the way through an event," said Matt Wald, a spokesman for the group. "The real question is, if you shut down, how fast can you come back."

He added that in Puerto Rico, for example, last year's Hurricane Maria "shredded everything, including wind turbines and solar panels." The territory does not have any nuclear power plants.

The Energy Department has yet to detail exactly what the plan to bolster coal and nuclear will look like after Trump ordered aid in June. The request comes as expensive coal and nuclear assets are retiring across the country in the face of competition from cheaper natural gas and renewable energy resources.

In a speech that month, Energy Secretary Rick Perry suggested that the slew of retirements, "if unchecked, will threaten our ability to recover from intentional attacks and natural disasters," according to the Associated Press.

Paul Bledsoe, a former climate adviser to the Bill Clinton White House, said it is particularly perverse to include coal power in the bailout plan given the contribution its emissions make to climate change, which in turn fuels fiercer storms like Florence.

"Claiming that coal and nuclear, if only they were more dispatchable, they would prevent most blackouts is laughable if it weren't potentially tragic," Bledsoe said.

Posted at 08:18 AM in Washington Post, Climate Change, Fossil Fuels, Global Warming | Permalink | Comments (0)

Spend Time Remembering Who We Are

Dear friends,

Ernest Holmes wrote in The Science of Mind “the wave in the ocean will never be a wave by itself. It will always be the ocean as the wave.”

You and I are more than what we appear to be. We appear to be separate individuals but we will always be that which has individualized as us. The mystics felt this as the ecstasy of self-realization. Holmes also said science is leading us back to the great spiritual deductions of the ages; the physical universe is One something; Mind is One field of consciousness. Your mind and my mind are of the same Mind, again individualized.

This is basic New Thought teaching but it is revolutionary to those who have been convinced there is a great separation between us and “God. This error in this thinking has caused most of the worlds problems and is certainly at the root of personal feelings of lack, struggle, fear, ill health and general unhappiness. If our religions continue to denounce science, we will miss the great awakening of all time. For those of us who are already on the path, let’s be sure to spend some time every morning remembering who we are. This is best done in actual practice as meditation, contemplation and self-talk. We tell ourselves the truth by declaring it to be so.

“ My life is the Life of One perfect Intelligence and absolute love. I am the wave generated by the power and Presence of the ocean of God.”

Change does not happen all by itself. It is generated by mind. As the Buddhists say “nothing moves until mind moves and nothing moves but mind.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.californiafreepressnet

Posted at 07:51 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

Why Aren't They Attributing Florence's Devastation to Global Warming?

by John Lawrence

In the further dumbing down of the American people typified by a President that has his head up his ass, none of the news media is saying it like it is: the devastation of the Carolinas is directly caused by global warming and you can expect events like this every year. And why are they so concerned about categorizing these hurricanes in terms of their wind power? Far more devastating is their ability to drop 40 inches of rain and cause torrential flooding. The news interviewers concentrate on people who say "I've lived here for 40 years, and I ain't never seen nuthin' like this." They should interview people who would say, "This is due to global warming, and I think the President has his head up his ass to drop out of the Paris accords.

People whose houses are located in flood prone and low lying areas should get out now. The government or the universities should identify these areas so people can be forewarned and move. Same goes for fire prone areas. How about some studies that identify those areas because people living in these areas have no future there. Instead real estate developers are all too happy to site their developments in these areas.

Where is Jimmy Carter when we need him? One of the best and most prescient Presidents we've had, he's still teaching Sunday school and building houses at the age of 93. He'll be 94 October 1. He's still working with Habitat for Humanity - hands on! He can't wield a hammer now, but he runs a table saw. God bless him. It was Carter who put solar panels on the roof of the White House which Ronald Reagan promptly took down. It was too bad that Carter only got to serve one term even though it was he - not Ronald Reagan - who freed the hostages from Iran. Also if Gore had become President in 2000 instead of Bush, even though he - not Bush - actually won the election, we might be living in a different world today instead of the shithole country we actually live in which is the word Trump used to describe certain other countries. Instead it's a fair characterization of the US under shithole Presidents like Trump, George W Bush and Ronald Reagan. Make America great again. Elect a Democrat next time!

Posted at 07:44 AM in John Lawrence, Climate Change, Global Warming, Off the Top of my Head | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 17, 2018

The Three Big Lessons We Didn’t Learn from the Economic Crisis

by Robert Reich

Sunday, September 16, 2018

Ten years ago, after making piles of money gambling with other people’s money, Wall Street nearly imploded, and the outgoing George W. Bush and incoming Obama administrations bailed out the bankers.

America should have learned three big lessons from the crisis. We didn’t, to our continuing peril.

First unlearned lesson: Banking is a risky business with huge upsides for the few who gamble in it, but bigger downsides for the public when those bets go bad.

Which means that safeguards are necessary. The safeguards created after Wall Street’s 1929 crash worked for over four decades. They made banking boring.

But starting in the 1980s, they were watered down or repealed because of Wall Street’s increasing thirst for profits and its growing political clout. As politicians from both parties grew dependent on the Street for campaign funding, the rush to deregulate turned into a stampede.

It began in 1982 when Congress and the Reagan administration deregulated savings and loan banks – allowing them to engage in risky commercial lending, while continuing to guarantee them against major losses.

Not surprisingly, the banks got into big trouble, necessitating a taxpayer-funded bailout.

The next milestone came in 1999, when Congress and the Clinton Administration, under then Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, repealed the Glass-Steagall Act – a 1930s safeguard that had prohibited banks from gambling with commercial deposits. (For the record, I was no longer in the Cabinet.)

Then in 2000, Congress and Clinton barred the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from regulating most over-the-counter derivative contracts, including credit default swaps.

The coup de grace came in 2004, when George W. Bush’s Securities and Exchange Commission allowed investment banks to hold less capital in reserve.

All of this ushered in the 2008 near meltdown – which was followed by another attempt to impose safeguards, the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010.

And now? The Street’s political clout is as great as ever, which explains why the Dodd-Frank safeguards are now being watered down – clearing the way for another crisis.

The second lesson we should have learned but didn’t is how widening inequality makes our economy susceptible to financial disaster.

In the decades leading up to 2008, stagnant wages caused many Americans to go deep into debt – using the rising values of their homes as collateral. Much the same thing had happened in the years leading up to 1929.

Wall Street banks were delighted to accommodate – lending willy-nilly and often in predatory ways – until the housing and debt bubbles burst.

And now? The underlying problem of stagnant wages, with most economic gains going to the top, is still with us. Once again, consumers are deep in debt – inviting another crisis.

The third big lesson we didn’t learn concerned the rigging of American politics. After the crisis, many Americans realized that Wall Street, big corporations, and the wealthy had essentially bought up our democracy.

Americans saw the Street get bailed out while homeowners, suddenly owing more on their homes than the homes were worth, got little or nothing.

Millions lost their jobs, savings, pensions, and homes, but the bankers and big investors came out richer than before.

Bankers who committed serious fraud escaped accountability. No executive went to jail. Big banks like Wells Fargo continued to break laws with impunity.

Many officials involved in deregulating the Street became top executives in the Wall Street banks that benefited from deregulation. Some involved in writing the Dodd-Frank Act are now employed by the same financial institutions that are watering it down.

Meanwhile, big corporations and wealthy individuals continue to flood Washington with money, making it the capital of “crony capitalism.”

Widespread outrage at all this fueled the Tea Party on the Right and the brief “Occupy” movement on the Left. Both eventually morphed into the two anti-establishment candidacies of 2016 – authoritarian populist Donald Trump and democratic populist Bernie Sanders.

And now? Anti-establishment fury remains the strongest force in American politics.

Trump has been using it to conjure up racist and xenophobic conspiracies and to create the most authoritarian regime in modern American history. He promised to “drain the swamp” but has made it bigger and filthier.

Democrats don’t know whether to simply oppose Trump and his authoritarianism, or get behind a reform agenda to wrest control of politics and the economy from the moneyed interests.

But to do the latter they’d have to take on those that have funded them for decades. I wish I had more confidence they will.

Sad to say, ten years after the near meltdown of Wall Street we seem to have learned very little. Only worse: We now have Trump.

Posted at 09:06 AM in Robert Reich, The Economy | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

Why Are There So Many Pickup Trucks on the Road?

by John Lawrence, September 17, 2018

The simple answer is that pickup trucks don't have to meet the same standards for fuel economy as do cars. Therefore, they can be manufactured and sold cheaper. Also in recent years they have added a rear seat so whole families can fit in them and other features to make them more comfortable. The bottom line, however, is that they are gas guzzlers that can be marketed to the American male to make him feel more macho.

In 1979 the government under President Jimmy Carter was concerned about high energy prices and the effect that CO₂ emissions were having on the environment. Jimmy Carter was prescient in a lot of ways. He even put solar panels on the White House which President Ronald Reagan prompyly took down when he became President. Jimmy Carter's government came up with the CAFE standards. CAFE (short hand for Corporate Average Fuel Economy) came as a result of the 1973 oil embargo, as a means to mandate fuel economy targets for cars and light trucks. As a result a vehicle classified as a truck didn't have to meet the same standard (and was therefore less expensive) than a car. Voila! The proliferation of pickup trucks, the cheapest and most gas guzzling vehicles on the road which could be marketed to American males as something inherent to their maledom.

In 1979, while there was a concern over high energy prices and to some extent the environment, there was not the concern about global warming and the fact that pumping billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere via tailpipe emissions was not a good thing. Nevertheless, global warming deniers and fossil fuel advocates have paid no heed to the dire consequences of global warming some of which are being visited on the Carolinas todfay. There's also a destructive typhoon in the Philippines which makes Hurricane Florence seem like a tropical storm, albeit a tropical storm capable of dropping 40 inches of rain on a drainage system incapable of handling that much water in a short period of time. Hence, severe flooding.

The CAFE standards have caused the auto industry to morph into something that allows the same gas guzzlers to be manufactured and the same fuel emission standards to be bypassed. They are seen as something to be more honored in the breach than in the observance. The Trump administration openly flaunts and mocks environmental standards that would tend to alleviate global warming. They want more fossil fuel production and more tailpipe emissions. They want the good old days when cars got 10 mpg. They want no fuel economy standards whatsoever. Global warming be damned as far as they are concerned. But they and others like them including the whole planet Earth will reap the consequences of ignoring and trying to subvert Mother Nature. She will have the last word.

Posted at 08:09 AM in John Lawrence, Carbon Dioxide, Cars, Climate Change, Flooding, Fossil Fuels, Global Warming, Off the Top of my Head | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 14, 2018

Central Banks Have Gone Rogue, Putting Us All at Risk

From truthdig

by Ellen Brown

SEP 13, 2018

TD ORIGINALS

Excluding institutions such as Blackrock and Vanguard, which are composed of multiple investors, the largest single players in global equity markets are now thought to be central banks themselves. An estimated 30 to 40 central banks are invested in the stock market, either directly or through their investment vehicles (sovereign wealth funds). According to David Haggith at Zero Hedge:

Central banks buying stocks are effectively nationalizing U.S. corporations just to maintain the illusion that their “recovery” plan is working. … At first, their novel entry into the stock market was only intended to rescue imperiled corporations, such as General Motors during the first plunge into the Great Recession, but recently their efforts have shifted to propping up the entire stock market via major purchases of the most healthy companies on the market.

The U.S. Federal Reserve, which bailed out General Motors in a rescue operation in 2009, was prohibited from lending to individual companies under the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, and it is legally barred from owning equities. It parks its reserves instead in bonds and other government-backed securities. But other countries have different rules, and central banks are now buying individual stocks as investments, with a preference for big tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. Those are the stocks that dominate the market, and central banks are aggressively driving up their value. Markets, including the U.S. stock market, are thus literally being rigged by foreign central banks.

The result, as noted in a January 2017 article at Zero Hedge, is that central bankers, “who create fiat money out of thin air and for whom ‘acquisition cost’ is a meaningless term, are increasingly nationalizing the equity capital markets.” Or at least they would be nationalizing equities, if they were actually “national” central banks. But the Swiss National Bank, the biggest single player in this game, is 48 percent privately owned, and most central banks have declared their independence from their governments. They march to the drums not of government but of private industry.

Marking the 10th anniversary of the 2008 collapse, former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and former Treasury secretaries Timothy Geithner and Henry Paulson wrote in a Sept. 7 New York Times op-edthat the Fed’s tools needed to be broadened to allow it to fight the next anticipated economic crisis, including allowing it to prop up the stock market by buying individual stocks. To investors, propping up the stock market may seem like a good thing, but what happens when the central banks decide to sell? The Fed’s massive $4-trillion economic support is now being taken away, and other central banks are expected to follow. Their U.S. and global holdings are so large that their withdrawal from the market could trigger another global recession. That means when and how the economy will collapse is now in the hands of central bankers.

Moving Goal Posts

The two most aggressive central bank players in the equity markets are the Swiss National Bank and the Bank of Japan. The goal of the Bank of Japan, which now owns 75 percent of Japanese exchange-traded funds, is evidently to stimulate growth and defy longstanding expectations of deflation. But the Swiss National Bank is acting more like a hedge fund, snatching up individual stocks because “that is where the money is.”

About 20 percent of the SNB’s reserves are in equities, and more than half of that is in U.S. equities. The SNB’s goal is said to be to counteract the global demand for Swiss francs, which has been driving up the value of the national currency, making it hard for Swiss companies to compete in international trade. The SNB does this by buying up other currencies, and because it needs to put them somewhere, it’s putting that money in stocks.

That is a reasonable explanation for the SNB’s actions, but some critics suspect it has ulterior motives. Switzerland is home to the Bank for International Settlements, the “central bankers’ bank” in Basel, where central bankers meet regularly behind closed doors. Dr. Carroll Quigley, a Georgetown history professor who claimed to be the historian of the international bankers, wrote of this institution in” Tragedy and Hope” in 1966:

[T]he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central bank,s which were themselves private corporations.

The key to their success, said Quigley, was that they would control and manipulate the money system of a nation while letting it appear to be controlled by the government. The economic and political systems of nations would be controlled not by citizens but by bankers, for the benefit of bankers. The goal was to establish an independent (privately owned or controlled) central bank in every country. Today, that goal has largely been achieved.

In a paper presented at the 14th Rhodes Forum in Greece in October 2016, Dr. Richard Werner, director of international development at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, argued that central banks have managed to achieve total independence from government and total lack of accountability to the people, and that they are now in the process of consolidating their powers. They control markets by creating bubbles, busts and economic chaos. He pointed to the European Central Bank, which was modeled on the disastrous earlier German central bank, the Reichsbank. The Reichsbank created deflation, hyperinflation and the chaos that helped bring Adolf Hitler to power.

The problem with the Reichsbank, said Werner, was its excessive independence and its lack of accountability to German institutions and Parliament. The founders of post-war Germany changed the new central bank’s status by significantly curtailing its independence. Werner wrote, “The Bundesbank was made accountable and subordinated to Parliament, as one would expect in a democracy. It became probably the world’s most successful central bank.”

But today’s central banks, he said, are following the disastrous Reichsbank model, involving an unprecedented concentration of power without accountability. Central banks are not held responsible for their massive policy mistakes and reckless creation of boom-bust cycles, banking crises and large-scale unemployment. Youth unemployment now exceeds 50 percent in Spain and Greece. Many central banks remain in private hands, including not only the Swiss National Bank but the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Italian, Greek and South African central banks.

Banks and Central Banks Should Be Made Public Utilities

Werner’s proposed solution to this dangerous situation is to bypass both the central banks and the big international banks and decentralize power by creating and supporting local not-for-profit public banks. Ultimately, he envisions a system of local public money issued by local authorities as receipts for services rendered to the local community. Legally, he noted, 97 percent of the money supply is already just private company credit, which can be created by any company, with or without a banking license. Governments should stop issuing government bonds, he said, and instead fund their public sector credit needs through domestic banks that create money on their books (as all banks have the power to do). These banks could offer more competitive rates than the bond markets and could stimulate the local economy with injections of new money. They could also put the big bond underwriting firms that feed on the national debt out of business.

Abolishing the central banks is one possibility, but if they were recaptured as public utilities, they could serve some useful purposes. A central bank dedicated to the service of the public could act as an unlimited source of liquidity for a system of public banks, eliminating bank runs since the central bank cannot go bankrupt. It could also fix the looming problem of an unrepayable federal debt, and it could generate “quantitative easing for the people,” which could be used to fund infrastructure, low-interest loans to cities and states, and other public services.

The ability to nationalize companies by buying them with money created on the central bank’s books could also be a useful public tool. The next time the mega-banks collapse, rather than bailing them out, they could be nationalized and their debts paid off with central bank-generated money.

There are other possibilities. Former assistant treasury secretary Paul Craig Roberts argues that we should also nationalize the media and the armaments industry. Researchers at the Democracy Collaborative have suggested nationalizing the large fossil fuel companies by simply purchasing them with Fed-generated funds. In a September 2018 policy paper titled “Taking Climate Action to the Next Level,” the researchers wrote, “This action might represent our best chance to gain time and unlock a rapid but orderly energy transition, where wealth and benefits are no longer centralized in growth-oriented, undemocratic, and ethically dubious corporations, such as ExxonMobil and Chevron.”

Critics will say this would result in hyperinflation, but an argument can be made that it wouldn’t. That argument will have to wait for another article, but the point here is that massive central bank interventions that were thought to be impossible in the 20th century are now being implemented in the 21st, and they are being done by independent central banks controlled by an international banking cartel. It is time to curb central bank independence. If their powerful tools are going to be put to work, it should be in the service of the public and the economy.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, chairman of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including "Web of Debt" and "The Public Bank Solution."

Posted at 08:51 AM in Ellen Brown, Banking, Wall Street | Permalink | Comments (0)

Literary Inspiration

Dear friends,

In my packing for a much anticipated move, there are a few books that will travel with me in the car. I read from them a bit every day. They are Emerson, Marcus Aurelius, Ernest Holmes and Alan Watts. We have here a collage of brilliance touching the mind, the heart and the soul . Each one of them can make me laugh out loud with their swift sword of Truth, cutting through human folly. At the same time, there is a running theme of reverence for who we actually are; for the Spirit that runs this body and allows this self to think itself separate from all others.

These are but a few of my literary guides. I also love Thomas Troward, Jean Houston, Matthew Fox, the poems of Mary Oliver and the sparkling wit of Mark Twain. What is always present in great writing is some defense of the soul, some recognition of our shared and boundless potential. We are quite familiar with our own ignorance as a people. We do not shy away from listing our shortcomings. But nothing good comes from it unless and until there is that statement of possibility; that remembrance of our origins. Really, that is why religion was born.

The spiritual teachings of today, replacing old-time religion, that will serve humanity in its quest for true equality, real love and compassion, shared prosperity and creative joy, are the New Thought Centers. They emphasize our innate divinity, our immense capacity for Love, our natural Intelligence, our deep reverence for Nature, our ability to use our mind in such a way as to challenge perceived limitations. These ideas are not new, but they are fresh in a world that has forgotten its Origins. We are so much better than what we have done so far. The ancients knew that as a guiding principle and so do I.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

Climate conference shows divide among Democrats over how to counter global warming

Posted at 08:13 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Climate conference shows divide among Democrats over how to counter global warming

From the Washington Post-The Energy 202:

BY DINO GRANDONI

THE LIGHTBULB

Members of the group 1000 Grandmothers protest outside the Moscone Center in San Francisco where the Global Climate Action Summit is being held, on Thursday, Sept. 13, 2018. The group, which says it is made up of elder women activists working to address the climate crisis, chanted "Listen to your Grandma, no more fracking!" (AP Photo/Juliet Williams)

SAN FRANCISCO — The organizers of a climate-change conference here in California wanted their three-day summit to be a repudiation of President Trump. And during many speeches, and commitments from cities and companies to reduce their impact on the environment, it was.

But at other times both in and outside the convention center in San Francisco, activists protested against the current Democratic approach. The clash marked a high-profile schism between the middle- and far-left segments of the Democratic coalition about how forcefully to address climate change.

The event was set up to show how the private sector and local governments are pressing ahead to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions even as the president promises to pull the United States out of the landmark Paris climate agreement.

The Global Climate Action Summit was organized by the state's Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, who just days earlier signed a bill committing California to getting 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2045. He followed that up with an even more ambitious mandate, outlined in an executive order, to decarbonize California's entire economy by that year too. And then on Thursday, he signed a bevy of 16 bills attempting to reduce the carbon footprint of California's many automobiles by putting more electric cars on the road.

The climate summit saw a scattershot of plans and commitments by other states, cities and companies eager to push ahead on problems they believe Trump has turned his back on. Groups and companies announced plans on everything from rain forests to electric car charging stations.

Twelve cities, including Tokyo and Seoul, joined an initiative to slash emissions in city centers, making room on the roads for electric car fleets. And New York City announced it will invest $4 billion in pension funds for climate change initiatives in the next three years, doubling current investments. On the industry side, LeasePlan, a Dutch company that is one of the biggest fleet providers in world with 1.8 million vehicles, will step up purchases of electric vehicles. So will the French electricity giant EDF Energy, which has about 30,000 vehicles, organizers said.

Many other consumer-facing brands outside of heavy industries like oil and autos made their own moves. Starbucks said it plans to build 10,000 “greener stories” by 2025, attempting to save $50 million in utility costs over the next decade. Food-and-drink giant Unilever said it will certify 150,000 acres of palm oil plantations in Malaysia as sustainable.

California Gov. Jerry Brown walks to the bow of the high-tech battery-operated San Francisco Bay sightseeing boat, Enhydra, for a cruise of San Francisco Bay, where he signed 16 new laws aimed at easing global warming on Thursday in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

It remains to be seem whether that constellation of commitments from cities and companies, none of which are legally binding, turns out to be just a wish list. But many of the more well-traveled attendees of climate conferences were encouraged.

"I've been to a lot of gatherings and conferences related to the climate crisis for many years now, and this is really top-notch," former vice president Al Gore said in an interview. "The nature of the commitments being announced is extremely heartening."

At times, the summit felt like a reunion of officials who served in the Barack Obama and Bill Clinton administrations. (Obama made an appearance, though only via prerecorded video.)

Yet it was Brown, more than anyone, who cemented his place as one of Trump's chief foes on climate issues by hosting the summit and signing the carbon-free electricity bill. The California governor seemed to relish the role. When asked during a press conference how Trump will be remembered, Brown responded: "Liar, criminal, fool. Pick your choice."

However, for the hundreds of activists outside George R. Moscone Convention Center, Brown was the antagonist. Waving signs addressed to Brown saying "Climate Leaders Don't Drill," many of the protestors wanted the governor to stop the expansion of oil production in California, which last year was the fourth largest producer of crude among U.S. states.

"You need keep-it-in-the-ground commitments," Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, said in an interview. "People don't know how big oil and gas development is in California."

Broadly, the progressive climate wing wants to see end to the cozy relationship many of elected Democrats have with corporations.

That message made its way on stage when protesters interrupted a speech by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg by yelling “our air is not for sale."

Back in front of the microphone, Bloomberg quipped in reply: "Only in America could you have environmentalists protesting an environmental conference."

Steven Mufson contributed to this report.

Posted at 07:40 AM in Washington Post, California, Climate Change | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the LA Times

Industry is the leading contributor to global warming. Yet at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco this week, industry leaders are pledging to take charge and reign in planet-warming emissions. Are these promises merely branding, or do they constitute a meaningful shift? Los Angeles Times

— Pushing the boundaries of what a single state can do. The Atlantic
— Gov. Jerry Brown was hailed as a climate-change hero in San Francisco. Still, protesters demanded that Brown take a stronger stand against the expansion of oil production in California. Many were part of a group that has challenged Brown throughout the year for what they see as having too close a relationship with the oil industry. Los Angeles Times
— Climate scientists warn that global emissions need to peak by 2020 if the planet is to dodge catastrophic warming. At the summit Thursday, 27 cities announced they have already met that goal, and their emissions are on the decline even as their economies are growing. Los Angeles Times
— A conservative view: California is going to pay a price for this. Wall Street Journal

Posted at 07:26 AM in Climate Change | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

Left Behind America

by John Lawrence

Frontline did an excellent special on Dayton, Ohio called Left Behind America. Dayton used to be a center of innovation and manufacturing. The Wright Brothers invented the first airplane there, and it was second only to Detroit in the number of jobs in the automotive industry. Now Dayton is front and center in the Rust Belt and in the middle of the opioid crisis. It's not that there is large scale unemployment. Most people there have a job. Only they are making about a third of what they made before the old manufacturing industries left town. According to a Chinese billionaire who started a glass manufacturing business in an old GM plant, American workers are still making more than workers are making in Mexico and China. That's not much consolation to workers who can barely support their families even with both spouses working.

That in a nutshell is what is wrong with America. Expenses are rising fast and workers' paychecks have diminished Many Dayton families need assistance from soup kitchens and food pantries even with both spouses working. They are not even livving paycheck to paycheck. They are starving paycheck to paycheck. The Republican solution to this problem is for the starving parents to go back to school, take out a student loan to cover tuition and living expenses and learn a trade that will bring in more money. Unfortunately, that solution is a dead end which only burdens overstrapped families with more debt, and there is no guarantee of a job at the end of the tunnel.

Desperate people resort to desperate measures like taking opioids to give them some relief from their misery. That only leads to addiction and possibly death from an overdose. There is a culture of desperation due to the fact that their parents' good paying jobs which allowed them to raise a family and live the American dream have been replaced with shitty jobs involving crappy work. No innovation here or being a part of an exciting industry. Instead routine jobs like making cardboard boxes which will contain products manufactured elsewhere.

The solution is a transformation of society into one that actually cares about people rather than one which expedites the making of as much money as possible by the few people who are qualified and eager to do so. It requires institutions that cater not to the rich and talented but to the average Joe and Jane Sixpack that need a little help raising their kids without the false hope of opioids.

Posted at 07:11 AM in John Lawrence, American Culture, Off the Top of my Head, Poverty | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 13, 2018

Trump’s 4 Biggest Lies about Today’s Economy

by Robert Reich

Monday, September 10, 2018

Trump is putting out 4 big whoppers about today’s economy. Here’s what he’s saying, and here’s the truth:

1. “Best job growth ever.” Wrong. Job growth has actually slowed. In the last 19 months of the Obama administration the economy created 3.96 million jobs. In the first 19 months of Trump’s, 3.58 million.

2. “Lowest unemployment rate ever.” Rubbish. The unemployment rate is now down to 3.9 percent. That’s good. But it doesn’t measure how many people are still too discouraged to look for work or are working part time who’d rather be working full time. The labor participation rate (percent of prime working age work who actually have jobs) has been stuck at 88.9 percent for over a year.

And the current 3.9 percent rate is hardly better than ever in history. It was 3.4 percent in 1968 under Johnson, and below 3.9 percent for much of 1951, 1952, and 1953, under Eisenhower.

The practical question is always how low the Fed will allow unemployment to fall before raising rates, for fear of inflation. In 1996, unemployment fell to 4.4 percent, but Fed Chair Alan Greenspan then raised rates. This time around, Fed Chair Janet Yellen and her successor Jerome Powell have been quite accommodating, but Powell is starting to raise rates again.

3. “Fastest economic growth in history.” Wrong again. The economy is now growing at annualized rate of 4.2 percent (that’s for the 2nd quarter). That’s not as good as the 5.1 percent and 4.9 percent achieved in 2 quarters in 2014, or the 4.7 percent in one quarter in 2011. During the Clinton years of 1997-1999, it grew by over 4.5 percent annually. Under Reagan, the recovery averaged 4.4 percent a year. Under Eisenhower, even faster.

4. “Best wages, ever.” Not even close. Today’s hourly wage has less purchasing power than it did over four decades years ago. Adjusted for inflation, the average hourly wage in January 1973 would be $23.68 today. Yet today’s actual average hourly wage is $22.73. And, of course, the lion’s share is going to the top.

Trump is having only one positive impact on the economy: His continuous P.T. Barnum lies about how good it is have improved consumer confidence. Which I suppose is good – until, like the character in the road-runner cartoons, consumers look down and realize there’s nothing under them.

Posted at 08:40 AM in Robert Reich, The Economy, Trump | Permalink | Comments (0)

Where is the Source of Beauty and Love?

Dear friends,

Emerson once said “this world is so beautiful, I can scarcely believe it exists.”

Haven’t you had that experience? You are stopped in your tracks at the rainbow arcing across the road; a butterfly drops down and rests on the edge of a leaf; an owl looms large in the tree outside your window. Maybe you are in the city, but the blue sky peeks through the tall buildings and you see clouds sailing by. Suddenly struck with the wonder of the natural world, it seems a miracle that it exists and seemingly, for our own enjoyment.

The spiritual path, as it is called, is often sought unconsciously by those of us who have felt the loss of something we cannot name. We have questions, we seek answers, but for the most part we are longing for that child-like sense of being one with the Source of this beautiful world.

We sensed the Presence when we were very young, but it was soon relegated to the recesses of mind as we ventured out to discover our place in the world. We got knocked about and learned how to navigate the treacherous road of human relationships; we developed skills and earned a living; we had some fun and adventures; but there was that insistent nudge to find the More, the Source, the Cause of it all. Why Beauty? Why Love? What are we meant to do with them? What is our place in this beautiful world?

The God men invented is a figment of imagination. There is a real God but it is not located elsewhere. It is lavishly spread out as the universe and everything in it. It is Presence, here and now seeking outlet through you and me. It is Nature, Beauty, Love, Supply, Joy, Peace, Vitality and Intelligence.

As the ancients knew “what we are looking for, we are looking with, and at.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

Posted at 08:36 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

What Will Happen to the US Dollar When Its Not the World's Reserve Currency Any More?

by John Lawrence, September 13, 2018

The dollar is the world's reserve currency by virtue of the fact that Saudi Arabia agreed to sell its oil only for dollars in return for US military protection, a deal struck by President Nixon in 1971 when he took the dollar off the gold standard. Other nations had to buy and sell goods in dollars to get enough dollars to buy oil. But the world is changing. For one thing the world is converting to renewable energy so the price of oil will eventually plummet just as the US with its shale oil is becoming the world's leading oil exporter.

However, other nations are losing faith in the US as the world's moral arbiter. US imposed sanctions, brought about because the US controls international financial institutions like SWIFT, have caused the nations that are usually the target of US sanctions to form their own alliances, form their own financial, institutions and trade among themselves using other currencies. Eventually the dollar will only be one of many instead of being the only reserve currency. Eventually, other nations may even impose sanctions on the US, something unheard of at the present time.

So the US dollar may well lose value with respect to other currencies making imports to the US more expensive. However, exports would be cheaper for other countries to buy and that would boost exports which would help manufacturing in the US. If the US dollar loses value with respect to other currencies, other nations will not be as willing to park their savings in US Treasury bonds which means that the Federal Reserve will have to raise interest rates to attract buyers of US debt. Or the Fed could just print dollars and give the money to US banks to buy up US debt which is just what it has been doing with its quantitative easing policy.

The US will be stuck with its enormous national debt with creditors not willing to fund any more of it. Paying it off with "conjured money" will cheapen the US dollar and even perhaps result in the same sort of austerity that has been imposed on Greece and other countries that get behind in their payments to investors. We'll see. In any event it won't happen any time soon. But by mid century as hurricanes, floods and wildfires take their tolls, the paucity of dollars in the US Treasury and the reluctance of investors to fund more US debt may not augur well.

Posted at 07:55 AM in John Lawrence, Debt, Off the Top of my Head, Sanctions, Saudi Arabia, The National Debt | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 11, 2018

In Bid to 'Make Life Even Easier' for Oil and Gas Giants, Trump Moves to Roll Back Methane Regulations

Published on Tuesday, September 11, 2018 by Common Dreams

"This administration never misses an opportunity to do the wrong thing."

by Julia Conley, staff writer

2 Comments

The Trump administration is moving to roll back Obama-era methane regulations—its latest attempt to alleviate fossil fuel industries of any responsibility to limit dangerous emissions. (Photo: WildEarthGuardians/Flickr/cc)

In a move transparently aimed at alleviating the $146 billion fossil fuel industry of the cost of cutting down on its environmental pollution, the Trump administration is making its latest attempt to roll back Obama-era regulations for methane emissions from oil and gas wells.

"It's not just a failure to avert bad outcomes; it’'s an affirmative choice to accelerate them." —Seth D. Michaels, Union of Concerned Scientists

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to the New York Times, is set to release a proposal this week to weaken the 2016 rule which requires that oil and gas companies closely monitor methane leaks, which are common in the industry's drilling operations.

A study by the University of Reading in Great Britain earlier this year found that just one metric ton of methane emissions has the same capacity to warm the planet as 32 metric tons of carbon—even higher than previous estimates.

This is a very big deal, and will make climate change much worse for no reason other than to make life even easier for fossil fuel companieshttps://t.co/SCYmV98TA4
— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) September 11, 2018

Under President Donald Trump's new proposal, oil and gas companies will have to monitor their drilling operations for methane leaks just once every year, or two years in some cases, and will have 60 days to repair any breaches. President Barack Obama's rule mandated that leaks must be identified every six months and fixed within 30 days.

As the Times notes, the rollback could save the oil and gas industries $484 billion by 2025—months after Trump's tax plan added about $1 billion to their annual profits by cutting the corporate tax rate by 14 percent.

this is a straightforward decision to penalize future generations for the short-term convenience of fossil fuel extractors. it’s not just a failure to avert bad outcomes; it’s an affirmative choice to accelerate them. https://t.co/jHP0XG3HeE
— Seth D. Michaels 🌲 (@sethdmichaels) September 10, 2018

This administration never misses an opportunity to do the wrong thing. This is a disastrous policy and shows why supporting any more fossil fuel development is a mistake. https://t.co/dLfwSa0QVb
— Tom Steyer (@TomSteyer) September 11, 2018

Have people forgotten the days when city air was getting impossible to breathe, the Great Lakes died & rivers were literally catching fire? Marching steadfastly backwards against the progress environmental regulation has made-so billionaires can get richer https://t.co/ptYporZvMP
— John Wesley Shipp (@JohnWesleyShipp) September 11, 2018

Meanwhile, the Times reports, the Interior Department is also set to release a new proposal to allow the burning of methane at drilling sites.

Since Trump took office, federal courts have rejected a number of attempts by the EPA to delay or suspend the Obama-era methane regulations, before former agency head Scott Pruitt resigned in July. The new proposals demonstrate that Pruitt's successor, Andrew Wheeler, is equally intent on rolling back regulations in the interest of fossil fuel industries.

In recent weeks, the agency has also proposed rolling back carbon emission standards for vehicles and weakening federal regulations on emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The proposal comes as Hurricane Florence heads toward the East Coast, forcing about a million residents of Virginia and South Carolina to evacuate—the latest powerful storm whose large size and intensity scientists have attributed to the climate crisis.

Massive #hurricanes are now something that’s just every other day. Two more line up behind #Florence. The fastest way to cool the earth down would be to stop gas #fracking immediately. The global methane spike has caused a massive uptick in warming. We must #BanFracking now!!!! pic.twitter.com/mOUFd9LpGz
— Josh Fox (@joshfoxfilm) September 11, 2018

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Posted at 08:08 AM in Common Dreams, Climate Change, Global Warming | Permalink | Comments (0)

Speak Your Truth and Let the Infinite Do Its Thing!

Dear friends,

Petitionary prayers are, according to Alan Watts, an impertinence and a lack of faith. He goes on to remind us that if God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, He (It) is quite aware of what is happening and is already on the job. Ernest Holmes figured this out as well with his formation of Spiritual Mind Treatment. It’s purpose is to change our mind about what is happening so that we see through the appearance of lack or illness to the whole Spirit of the person, knowing it is that very wholeness that is now present and revealing itself. We do not know how it will appear, only that it must.

The realization of God as immediate activity in, as and through every life, completely removes the false notion of Its being far away and needing to be petitioned. Of course we want to think the highest thought about a sick friend, but what could be higher or more loving than to affirm, without a doubt, their spiritual intact-ness and the pure Intelligence of God within?

A secondary realization is that our mind is part of a collective mind and that what is known ‘here’ is known everywhere throughout the subjective field. Our treatments are felt by the one we are knowing the truth about! Truth of our wholeness, once announced, has a powerfully resounding, positive affect on those who “have ears to hear.” That would be anyone in need, anywhere. We do not need to work hard in prayer, ceaselessly petitioning God to help out. We need to get our “bloated nothingness out of the way” as Emerson advised, and open up to the ‘Divine circuits’ that are already in motion. In other words, speak your Truth and Let the Infinite do its thing!

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

Monday, September 10, 2018

Posted at 07:53 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

Stupid Signs at the YMCA

by John Lawrence, September 11, 2018

I often wonder who comes up with the stupid signs I see at the YMCA where I swim and work out. For instance, "bring the weights to the floor in a controlled manner." Talk about stilted language! The adjective stilted describes something—usually a style of writing or speaking—that is unnaturally formal. Imagine someone walking awkwardly on a pair of stilts and you have a good impression of the word stilted — wooden and stiff. They could have just said, "Don't drop the weights on the floor" or "Don't drop weights on the floor, dummy." That would have been simpler and better. As John Steinbeck once said about writing style, "Just say it like it is. Don't try to dress it up." His example was, "I looked at the dog. The dog looked at me."

The next one that drives me crazy: "This machine is out of service. Staff is working on a timeline to get it repaired. We apologize for the inconvenience." Staff is working on a timeline? How many hours does it take for staff to develop a timeline? And then how many hours does it take for staff to implement the timeline. And then how many hours after the timeline is established does it take for someone to pick up the phone and call the repair person? They could have just said, "This machine is out of service. We'll get it repaired ASAP." And they don't have to apologize for the inconvenience. Talk about a gratuitous apology. Did "staff" break the machine? Then an apology might have been in order. Otherwise "staff" doesn't need to apologize.

The next one is a doozy. There's a poster that's sort of a promo for the Y which says among other things, "Our children have been presented with activities that they wouldn't have been able to do because of cost." Presented with activities? Why not just simply say, "Our children have been able to take advantage of reasonably priced YMCA programs." Then there's the sign in the locker room that says "In the last month our community has experienced an increased amount of thefts." It's been there for 6 months. Then there's the sign on some lockers that reads "This lock will be cut in 24 hours." Only days later the sign is still there.

The other thing that bugs me is that the "welcoming" person, the one who makes sure you have a legitimate Y card, is also tasked with being the "send off" person so they are supposed to tell you to have a good day on the way out. This is entirely superfluous. They are usually talking to another "staff" member and, when you're already past them, they say "Hagaday" to your back. It reminds me of my friend Morty who went to the bank and told the teller, "Don't tell me to have a good day when I leave here."

Posted at 07:43 AM in John Lawrence, Off the Top of my Head, The English Language | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 10, 2018

Kavanaugh Will Further Divide Us

by Robert Reich

Yale Law School, from which Brett Kavanaugh got his law degree, issued a statement about him with glowing quotes from professors attesting to his impeccable legal credentials.

Perhaps the Yale Law faculty deemed his credentials impeccable because he graduated from Yale Law School. Then again, Clarence Thomas also graduated from Yale Law School (as, in full disclosure, did I).

The reason Kavanaugh should not be confirmed has nothing to do with his legal credentials. It’s the blatantly partisan process used by Trump and Senate Republicans to put him on the Supreme Court.

The framers of the Constitution understood that Americans would disagree about all manner of things, often passionately.

Which is why they came up with a Constitution that’s largely a process for managing our disagreements, so that the losers in any given dispute feel they’ve been treated fairly. That way, we all feel bound by the results.

I don’t need to point out to you that we have deep disagreements these days. We’re in one of the most bitter, divisive, partisan eras in living memory.

So it’s not enough that a prospective Supreme Court justice have impeccable legal credentials. The person must also be chosen impeccably, so that the public trusts he or she will fairly and impartially interpret the Constitution.

Process matters, now so more than ever.

If Kavanaugh is confirmed, it will be due to a process that has violated all prevailing norms for how someone should be chosen to be a Supreme Court justice.

Let us count the ways.

First, Mitch McConnell, the majority leader of the Senate – who wouldn’t recognize a fair process if it fell on him – refused for eight months even to allow the Senate to vote on Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court. That itself was unprecedented.

Then last year, on a strict party-line vote, Senate Republicans invoked what had been known as the “nuclear option,” lowering the threshold for ending debate on a Supreme Court nomination to fifty-one votes from sixty, in order to win Senate approval for Trump’s first nominee, Neil Gorsuch.

Now McConnell is rushing the vote on Kavanaugh with almost no opportunity for Democrats to participate.

The Trump administration has asserted executive privilege to shield 100,000 page of Kavanaugh’s White House records from release – an assertion so broad that senators can’t even read behind closed doors documents that might shed light on issues the public might reasonably consider important, such as whether Kavanaugh endorsed the Bush administration’s infamous torture memos.

And rather than rely on the National Archives for documents relating to Kavanaugh’s record, Republicans are having political partisans sift through them - which a National Archives official describes as “something that has never happened before.”

Meanwhile, Trump himself is an unindicted co-conspirator in a government criminal case concerning campaign finance violations in the 2016 election. He is also under government investigation for possibly obstructing justice, and for colluding with a foreign power to intrude in the 2016 election on his behalf.

But Senate Republicans are unwilling to delay a vote on Kavanaugh until these cases are resolved.

Some of the issues at stake in these cases are likely to come before Kavanaugh if he joins the Court, yet Kavanaugh refuses to agree to recuse himself from deciding on them.

Finally, many of the jobs Kavanaugh held over the last quarter century required not scholarly legal credentials but, rather, a willingness to act as legal hatchet-man in some of the most divisive issues the nation faced over those years.

Kavanaugh helped devise the strategy to impeach Bill Clinton, and went on to help George W. Bush wage war in Iraq.

Given all this, can America trust that Kavanaugh will fairly and impartially decide the meaning of the Constitution? Obviously not.

The reason McConnell and Republicans are steamrolling his confirmation, and why Trump nominated him in the first place, is because they know for certain he won’t.

Put aside all the “impeccable credential” rubbish and you find a fiercely partisan conservative who will further tip the court’s balance along partisan lines.

Senate deliberation over him is a charade. Everybody on the inside knows what’s going on here. And almost everyone watching from the sidelines does, too.

All of which is especially damaging to the Supreme Court and to the nation at this intensely fractious point in history.

When a sitting president spews venom daily, and when Congress has become a cauldron of bitter partisanship, American needs a Supreme Court that can be trusted to fairly manage our national disagreements. The Constitution demands no less.

Tragically, Brett Kavanaugh will further divide us. For this reason alone, he shouldn’t be confirmed.

Posted at 09:44 AM in Robert Reich, Supreme Court | Permalink | Comments (0)

Honor the Winding Path of Life

Dear friends,

As Alan Watts asked “Is the River of Life a canal? No, it is a wiggly, winding, flowing dance-like energy, forever swinging around obstacles, moving forward but definitely not in a straight line! Civilized humans have insisted that everything is in a linear progression, straight lines, but that is just not so. There isn’t a straight line in the human body or the ocean or the sky. It is all curved and curving. Imagine how differently we would see our own lives if we had not adopted the straight line hypothesis as our base reality.

Seriously, think about how much of our perception of success or failure depends on if we reach a goal by going forward in a linear fashion. If we get side-tracked or there is a deviation from the plan, we think we have failed. What if we saw everything that occurs in the journey as part of the ultimate strategy? What if a setback were seen as necessary to get us where we want to be? The first thing that would leave us would be stress. Stress is dis-ease causing, trouble- making energy. With a sense of “all is well, I trust the process” we retain the creative power of the original idea.

My observation is that most of us give up too easily. We are disappointed if things seem not to proceed according to our linear image. We think, if we put one foot in front of the other and keep going, we will get there, but we are devastated if somethings seems to interfere with our march to the end. We fulfill certain aspirations along the way, but the river keeps moving in many directions. I remember reading a book about how the Hudson river was first navigated in Canada. The explorers had to deal with swarms of mosquitoes, terrible heat, and at many points the river was unpassable. They had to get out and carry their canoes for many miles to reach the open river again. They simply followed its course and made history.

Can we be more patient with ourselves and each other? Can we honor the winding path we are on? Can we trust the process we have set in motion? As the old saying goes “One thing leads to another.” Being at peace with it is what turns an arduous trek into a journey of discovery.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

Thursday, September 6, 2018

Posted at 07:13 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

Poor Serena Williams: She Got a Code Violation

by John Lawrence, September 10, 2018

Serena Williams thinks it was sexist that she was fined and penalized for her tennis court peccadillos. Boo hooo! She should get down on her knees and thank God or thank the universe for her God given or universe given talent that allows her to make millions of dollars for batting a ball around. Where is the perspective here? Women and children are being bombed and driven from their homes into refugee camps all over the world, and she has the unmitigated gall to complain about her situation?! Here is the skinny:

Serena Williams' claims of sexism in the US Open final have been backed by the governing body of women's tennis.

WTA chief executive Steve Simon said the umpire showed Williams a different level of tolerance over Saturday's outbursts than if she had been a man.

She got a code violation for coaching, a penalty point for racquet abuse and a game penalty for calling the umpire a "thief" in the defeat by Naomi Osaka.

The American said it was "sexist" to have been penalised a game.

"The WTA believes that there should be no difference in the standards of tolerance provided to the emotions expressed by men versus women," Simon said in a statement.

"We do not believe that this was done last night."

These star athletes are privileged characters and they act like spoiled children. And then there was the tennis star that got fined for changing her shirt in public. Big deal! What the fuck difference does it make? She could change her sports bra in public for all I care. The rules enforcers are petty. The tennis stars are petty. So what. Who cares? At least some stars are speaking out about situations that pertain outside their sport. Colin Kaepernick, whom the NFL was hoping would just go away and never be heard from again, has become the poster child for Nike which is sure to piss off a bunch of Trump supporters and red staters. But Nike isn't so dumb. The majority of buyers of its products are black people. So they will all be reminded that Colin "took a knee" to protest how black people are treated in this country. For that he was exiled from football.

I say right on Colin and Nike. You are speaking out and making a statement. As for Serena Williams and all the juvenile rich people that hit a ball around, take your money and go home. Whatever for the rich white men who give you a code violation, who cares? You can laugh all the way to the bank.

Posted at 07:08 AM in John Lawrence, Off the Top of my Head, Sports | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 08, 2018

How You Can Stop Trump’s Lie Machine

by Robert Reich

Trump is ramping up his lies through his three amplifiers: Fox News, his rallies, and his Twitter account.

His lies aren’t subject to the filters traditionally applied to presidential statements, because Trump doesn’t respond to questions from the mainstream press. He doesn’t meet in public with anyone who disagrees with him, and he shuns experts.

This means his lies go out to millions of Americans, unfiltered. So what can you do?

1. First, boycott Fox News advertisers. Many of Trump’s lies originate with Fox News; Fox News amplifies the ones that originate with Trump. Trump has even appointed Bill Shine, the former number two at Fox News, as his deputy chief of staff for communications. So you can vote with your wallet and starve the beast. Here’s the link to Fox News’s advertisers.

2. Second, stop his rallies from becoming free propaganda events rebroadcast by most TV and radio outlets. If Trump and his enablers hold a rally in your community, write a letter or op-ed to your local newspapers calling out his lies and outlining why you oppose his agenda.

3. Third, his tweets, also brimming with lies, go out to over 50 million Americans each day. You can write Twitter and tell it to stop enabling those lies. Twitter defines its mission as providing a “healthy public conversation.” Let them know that demagoguery isn’t healthy.

No democracy can function under a continuous bombardment of unmediated lies.

We’re not going to get Trump to stop lying but we can at least limit his ability to amplify those lies. It’s time for all of us to take action and defend the truth. Now.

Posted at 07:46 AM in Robert Reich, Trump | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why is Hitting a Ball Worth Millions of Dollars?

Dear friends,

Did you ever stop to think about how much value we place on a person’s ability to do things with a ball? I was watching the US Open tennis tournament this week. After seeing many matches it suddenly hit me how peculiar it is that hitting a ball back and forth across a net, and doing it well, is worth millions of dollars. The same is true of baseball, basketball, football, even ping pong. Some of the highest paid people in our world play games for their money. The least paid are those who fight our wars. Now, at first glance it would seem backwards, that soldiers ought to make more money than athletes.

On deeper reflection however, and without taking one iota of respect away from military personnel, maybe we have it right. Perhaps deep within our higher knowing, we understand that killing other people, for whatever high-toned reason, is not something to be rewarded. Yes, we honor the courage, the valor, the sacrifice but not the acts of war.

My point, I guess, is how we take some things for granted that we ought to look at more closely, if only to see what beliefs are acting as cause to them. It is as true of us personally as it is in the collective. Life is a moving picture of our cherished beliefs. I say cherished in the sense that they are tucked away and not examined, like our grandmother’s jewelry in the box in the back of the closet. We were told there is value there but have not verified it. One day we decide to have a professional assess it, only to discover it is worthless colored glass. Beliefs are like that. I know people who still think God is a man in the sky but if you push them to say why they believe that, they will give some version of “I was taught that.”

Humanity is in the discovery phase of our evolution. We are looking at some old ideas with fresh eyes. It is imperative that we examine every idea that separates us from each other, from the universe, from Nature, from Love and Intelligence. If we drop the ball on this one, we will lose the whole game.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.bakersfield.org

Posted at 07:41 AM in Dr. Carol Carnes, Living Consciously | Permalink | Comments (0)

Off the Top of My Head

Tiny Homes or Lockable Tents?

by John Lawrence, September 8, 2018

There are groups around that are trying to build tiny homes for the homeless. The problem is where to put them. Do you put them on some kind of foundation? Do you have utility hook-ups? What about drainage? What about mildew and rot from water soaked lumber? One of the big selling points of this approach is that the tiny homes are lockable. My solution would be tents plus lockers for valuables. This solution could be produced much more cheaply and is more flexible in terms of moving things to a different location. While tents are not secure unless they were to be made out of a material that couldn't be easily slashed with a knife (maybe such materials are available, I don't know), tents can be locked. That's some deterrent to would be thieves.

Utility hook-ups should be out of the question. There are battery powered lamps for lighting. Lockers which can be mass produced and made out of mildew resistant material like plastic are the ultimate solution for valuables. These lockers could also be made to be portable. You still would need a plot of land, and the best way to secure that would be to cut a deal with the city. Portable sanitation facilities could also be added, both rest rooms and showers. These solutions have been available for some time. They just need to be scaled up.

The problem with tiny houses is that building materials are expensive, and you would have to rely on volunteer labor to put them together. Securing land from the city of San Diego like the unused, undeveloped land south of Morley Field in Balboa Park would be ideal. They had a temporary tent city there once. I wonder what happened to it. Adding a security guard would relieve the police of a lot of their problems in dealing with the homeless. A step up from there would be adding a social worker to help getting the homeless on the right track to a job and a more permanent housing solution.

The city's campground was opened in October of 2017. The San Diego Union reported:

The city of San Diego on Monday opened a camping area for people who are homeless, with 24-hour security, bathrooms and storage.

The 136-space facility was set up in the parking lot of the city operations yard in Golden Hill, just south of the Balboa Park Golf Course.

The camping area is operated by the nonprofit Alpha Project like a typical campground, with rules and regulations and an on-site manager. Each person will register and be assigned a 13- by 13-foot campsite, but each space can accommodate one or more individuals.

The city said that this solution would be temporary until 3 large tents could be opened. I think people would prefer to have their own individual space, no matter how small, than to be thrown together in a large tent with other people. The city was on the right track with the idea of a campsite for the homeless involving individual tents. Why didn't they continue that?

Posted at 07:17 AM in John Lawrence, Homelessness, Off the Top of my Head, San Diego | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 07, 2018

The Open Spaces in Our Minds

Dear friends,

Life is Activity and Stillness. That is the rhythm of the heart; the beat of music. Art is as much about the negative spaces as it is the images. Printed words on a white page can be deciphered because of the space between them. Movement and rest is dance. Being and doing. Thoughts and no thoughts. Awake and asleep.

Most of us spend our adult lives almost entirely in the Activity realm. Resting is seen as laziness. Taking breaks at work to sit in silence is viewed as “weird.” It is a National dis-ease to be constantly doing and rarely, if ever, contemplating Being. Insomnia has become commonplace because we have so trained our mind to stay active!

Animals have enough sense to lie down in the field, curl up in the shade. Even flowers close up for the night! But we humans don’t want to “waste” time with inactivity. It all comes from a skewed perception of Life. The root is a belief that “there is not enough of anything to go around, so I have to make sure I get mine and that means to be hyper-vigilant and always on the job.” It is not only a work ethic but it bleeds into our relationships, too. We try to control other people; their reactions to us, their emotions, their time, so we can feel “loved.”

The truth is: There is plenty of everything for everybody. The source of our supply is Infinite but it can only find its way into our experience via the spaces between our thoughts. That is the spiritual path of creation. It is forever attempting to bring forth whatever is necessary in the moment to assure our well-being. As Emmet Fox once said; “money or molecules” whatever belongs with us comes through us. A mind at rest is the conduit for everything. Yes, our thoughts are important But once we have a perception of continual support from the Infinite, it flows freely by means of the open spaces in our mind.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes