Finding truth

I'm going to have to tell some of my friends on Facebook to step away from the FOX News. It's making you sound crazy like Todd Akin.
It's science, people.
I found it interesting that many of the early comments last week on an blog post about Hurricane Sandy on Accuweather were harumpphing about storms being connected to climate change. "Really? There's no way any one storm is a product of climate change. It's not even hot out."
She's dropping tons of water on the east coast right now. And here's the thing - while we can't pin down causation of any given storm to climate change, you can say generally that climate change is impacting the number and size of storms we're seeing. This one is at the end of the supposed hurricane season. They're all connected to climate change now.
Here's a great blog post from Bob Priddy on the Missourinet about Carnegie, and his views on wealth. Some might consider him "old school." He thought men should give their wealth away while they lived, so they could direct the good causes it benefitted. You know, mankind.
Not today's leaders, who think we should eliminate the estate tax, let men keep more of their own money, and starve government of any purpose at all. Except government does a lot of things that we all need and want.
It seems our nation is sleepwalking into the abyss, only because we don't want to wake up. It's much easier to listen those who promise a return to greatness and plug away, hoping that the twinge of commonsense we feel in our brain will go away. Yet, you don't have to scratch far to see it for what it is.

civic duty

Here's what you need to understand about the upcoming election. No one is going to solve our problems and send us back to the happy days of cheap energy. If we cheer for that delusion, we end up with a scapegoat and an even bigger mess. Yet that's where we're headed.
Some may not even vote, because it doesn't matter. While I think it's fair to say Washington is broken (probably more accurately brokered), that doesn't abdicate us from our civic duty. We choose our government, and we get the government we deserve.
If we fall for the slick-talking, snake oil salesman in the fancy suit, then I think we know what to expect. 
A bellyache.

magical thinking

I've read some interesting things lately showing how growth is really our problem. Anyone with a high school education should be able to understand that all things have limits. We live on a finite planet. It's not rocket science.
Yet, Republicans still believe that growth is the answer to our problem. Mitt Romney suggests that if we just lower the tax rate, businesses will hire and everything will be rainbows. Our economy will grow so much that we'll have more revenue, (hopefully enough to erase the excess environmental damage from burning carbon to fuel all that growth. Go easy on big oil, yo!)
What else should we expect from someone who believes in magic underwear?
Fact: Income disparity in America is as great as it was in the 1920's - the era of the robber barons. Tax cuts have concentrated more wealth in the hands of the few. And where are the jobs? Give a poor man a dollar and he spends it. That's what drives this economy. If the rich think they can hide out in the Catskills from the starving, angry mobs, then I hope they ask Marie Antoinette about how laissez-faire worked out for 18th century France. I bet she's speechless.