Sunday, June 26, 2011

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Stolen Directly From Atrios

But, a great question

It isn't the most important point, but when in modern warfare a little freedom bombing can cost you $1 billion in a week it's worth asking just which of the war's advocates would spend $1 billion on any other "humanitarian" mission like, say, providing a reliable source of potable water for millions of people.

rojo

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Somehow, It Just Doesn't Seem Fair

It may come as a shock to those too young to remember the FBI infiltrating the Black Panthers, the SDS and many other left wing groups, but here we go again. Yes, peaceniks of the world are now being targeted once again as terrorists. Yet this diatribe against US citizens that goes under the guise of right wing political talk radio gets no real investigation.

Yep, Neil Boortz can suggest the random killing of blacks and thugs and peace groups and labor unions get daytimers gone through and so on. For fomenting revolution and death to US citizens, you'd think the Patriot Act might just kick in. Weiner must retire, so goes the media call and yet those who want to foment killing just bop along with no punishment. Anyone who thinks that the right wing does not control much of the US, let alone the intelligence and decision making operations really do not have a firm grasp on reality. And where, oh where, is the liberal media on this one? Hint, it never existed.

I just don't even know what to say other than if you watch CNN you probably never saw either of these stories.

and now this. An academic who was a critic of Iraq was spied on by the CIA under the orders of President Bush. Thjis is treasonous and goes to the heart of the American dream. Are we political animals, political Darwinists, or a country that has hopes dreams and a Constitution?

rojo

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Where Did All the Diversity of Life Go?

There is finally going to be a study of wetlands in the CA Central Valley. Too bad it is too late for the Tulare Lake Basin, which stretched in rainy years from Bakersfield to San Francisco, supported commercial fisheries, Native American tribes and a variety of wildlife. It was the largest lake west of the Mississippi and was drained to raise cotton (a small history to be found in the book The King of California.)

Granteed the central Valley is one of the largest agricultural areas in the US at this point, but I was saddened to see that the Kern River is often dry through Bakersfield, yet the irrigation ditches that parallel the river are full and once i tried to follow the King's River and it tends to end in irrigation ditches. They probably were once vibrant.

Sadly, you can't get back what was once there and has been destroyed for profit, at least not all of it. Hard to believe that there once was a huge wetland and not just an agricultural desert now subject to irrigation demands.

roj0
Listen to Cantor Whine

I see Eric Cantor really believes Timmy Geitner's deadline for raising the debt ceiling. He wants trillions in cuts before then. Okay, let's start with Congress health care, cut salary for Congress and cut defense to 1965 levels and raise taxes to 1965 levels. I could live with that. I am frustrated because so few Regressives see the issue as a revenue problem. Grrrrrr!!!!!

and yes I know that my suggestions are facetious, do they?

rojo

Monday, June 06, 2011

Liar, Liar Pants on Fire

Where do people fabricate this sort of lie and why does not the media press them for sources? and tehn we wonder why the electorate is ill-informed. Make them tell the truth. That is the Fourth Estates job!!!!!!!

and is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that gas prices have come down since oil companies were actually called to Congress to testify. My only question is where there backroom deals made so they could keep tax exemptions or we they totally embarrassed? Oil companies, embarrassed? Naw.

Thanks, Dems, for making them come.

rojo

Monday, May 30, 2011

This Week on "Treme"




rojo
A not-too-subtle Reminder

Bordertown has reappeared! and with it the hopes and dreams of many. This little link will give you a taste. Yes, Bordertown. The series that started the whole urban fantasy genre that helps keep sane in a world where there is too much focus on material stuff and a lack of magick.

BTW, the first story in the new book just happens to embody the best of the series--a sense of displacement, longing, belonging and resolution. great fun.

rojo

Saturday, May 28, 2011

June Yamagishi

Featured in "Treme" two weeks ago.



rojo
He May Have Flunked Logic

A man is arrested and admitted he was in town to kill someone last week but wasn't "in sync with God!!" (my exclamation points) What God and what is his idea of God? Did he miss the new Testament? You know, that stuff about LOVE.

rojo

Monday, May 23, 2011

Green Jobs?? No Way

The rub has always been alternative energy will stop traditional oil field and oil-based jobs. Well, yes, it does. But, it produces other new jobs based on alternative energy. Simple.

And I saw my first "bumpy" wind turbine blades being shipped yesterday. I have no idea where they were going but north on I-5, and there have been at least three separate shipments I have seen.

rojo

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

A Holy Crock of Shit!

I knew many priests at my high school who had affairs, got married, etc. None of them were pederasts. They did not chase young boys! This is an endemic problem in a culture that has not owned, faced up to, admitted, etc. Because of that it cannot be solved. It was not Woodstock!!! I mean, how many priests were actually there?

rojo
Why Honor Non-Killers?

Rep. Hunter, get a life!

rojo

Saturday, May 07, 2011

What a Coincidence!

What are the odds of two terrorists in the same town just down the road from military barracks in Pakistan?

Trouble is, we gave them the Bomb and now we got loose cannons who are ostensibly our allies being the allies of Al Queda. I am glad I do not have to figure this one out.

rojo

Sunday, May 01, 2011

Something You Don't See Everyday

A guy in a cowboy hat doing Zeppelin and others.




rojo
Why Politics Sucks Now

Just a little out of touch with most folk!

rojo
Coming Soon



rojo
Undoing National Debt

From the Washington Post, a good story on how we turned a national surplus into a major debt in 10 years!!!!!! Makes you wish we had Gore's lockbox now, doesn't it? And when you see what portion of the debt is caused by what, why not roll back some of those programs--defense spending, Medicare prescription drug plan, wars off budget (that has been cleaned up already, not the wars, but at least they are on the budget now), Obama's program to build roads and infrastructure, TAX BREAKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!, and oil company subsidies.

If it were me, I would still fund infrastructure spending and alternative energy, even if it costs money and get money back from banks we bailed out to pay for it. If they can afford bonuses, they can pay back. And I would not cut NPR (less than 0.2% of debt), funds for the arts and school lunch programs.

rojo

Friday, April 22, 2011

But My Country Club's Golf Course Looks Divine!

You have to wonder how much overuse of pesticides and herbicides there are when they show up in drinking water. Yuck! Atrazine makes mutant frogs. I am sure that babies that are fed formula made with high atrazine cintent have their livers working overtime or are storing the poison in their fat.

rojo

Sunday, April 17, 2011

We Can Kill Rats Better and bobcats and owls

We all know the dangers of poisons (herbicides and pesticides) around the house. Kids, pets, etc.Now there is new one to worry about. This just may not be a better rat trap.

rojo

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Shock Economics This is one of the more pessimistic versions of current events and economic theory I have read recently. I truly hope that the union busting of the current regimes in the Midwest does not go through, because if it does, this is the likely alternative. We can blame President Clinton for agreeing to NAFTA and others things, but many people had the chance to object to this, to the bailout of the banksters, the bonuses that were allowed to be paid, etc. I mean, where else would these bastards go to work if they did not get their bonuses? Barclay Bank, MickieDees, Burger thing? Where? They know they had it coming to them and we said "let's bend over." If unioin busting is completed, the robber barons are back in charge and nothing short of an armed revolution will work. rojo

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Today's Toone




rojo
Mo' Money

I wonder what would happen if we quit printing money as a country to remain solvent and shared the burden of finding more revenue?

Yes, you can cut expenses, but you need more income to pay debt and associated interest charges. Revenue in government means taxes and tariffs. Why should a dude who is a hedge fund manager pay 15% while I make less and pay 28%. Just asking.

rojo

Monday, April 04, 2011

Safety First!

The irony is unbelievable.

I really tried to come up with a snarky statement and could not.

rojo
'

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

The Invisible Hand of the Free Market The free market dictates that the market should have no interference and this will lead to the best and the brightest rising to the top. This is normally the high-idealism ground of the GOP. Don't mess with business because the free market will lead to advances that the public market place cannot do. Well, here is an exception. The private market place advances internet so it must be illegal. I mean, why improve services by over 1000% percent when no one makes money. Yuck. rojo

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Energy Fun Years ago, we were promised clean renewable energy as a National Security Measure by Jimmy Carter. Well, Reagan came in and took down the solar panels and any commitment to renewable energy. We have become more and more dependent upon oil from the MidEast and we send more and more money to Saudi (remember they crashed planes into the Twin Towers), Yemen (they run much of our extradition), Syria (they bother Iran for us) and Iraq (we invaded them for oil). So here we go. We still have an addiction, cannot act as an agent of ethics becasue of our addiction and make decisions accordingly. What a drag! and here comes Germany, dropping reactors faster than their cores can get hot and now the Green party is basically making the energy policy in the new government. They are pledged to be 100% renewable. I bet they have the political will to pull it off. Here, we cannot even tax a company that makes BILLIONS every year because they might not like us. They have us by the oil. and we do nothing about it. rojo

Friday, March 18, 2011

Yesterday I was reading that the House is trying to gut the carbon emissions act so that Coal-fired (you know, clean coal) power plants can keep operating without putting in place soot reducers, carbon eliminators and other things because they cost too much to make coal competitive to produce energy. I also read an Ohio EPA report that tells fisherman to limit their consumption of fish from the Ohio River and all its tributaries to once per week because of the build up of heavy metals in their fat. This includes bluegill and crappie, which are the bottom of the food chain--so catfish, sauger, walleye, saugeye, large bass who eat the smaller fish gets boatloads of metals in their body are even more hazardous to eat.

Well, heavy metals comes down in the rain that is produced by the clouds and particulates in the clouds (can't make rain without particulates--water vapor woould have nothing to aggregate to to make droplets). The heavy metals come from coal fired power plants.

This is a hidden cost of burning coal. What we use as cheap power from coal actually has a higher cost in environmental damage. I have been reading a book "When Rivers Run Dry"... that speaks of the concept of virtual water. It is the cost in terms of water that litlle things like prime beef costs, making it an extremely expensive protein, as opposed to buffalo. Corn and fattening products and alfalfa hay cost a bundle of water to grow.

Well, coal costs a bundle to burn and WE PAY FOR IT. When asked to clean up their exhaust, coal states that makes them non-competitive in cost. It is okay if we bear the cost of their product. When will real costs be factored into power? It is much like our oil use costs more because we have to pay for a huge military to protect our supply lines (Go Navy!!!!). And we pay countries who provide help to terroists to keep our cheap oil addiction alive.

These are real costs few ever want to talk about. Carter in 1976 (I think, too lazy to look it up) stated foreign oil was our biggest national security leak. We still have done nothing about it.Think about hidden costs as we go about our day today. One people often don't think of is cheap food--hidden cost is migrant (often illegal) labor and the cost of irrigation. So far the transfer of water from Northern California to the Central Valley and SoCal has cost 5 salmon fishing seasons (low flow equals dead fingerlings), the loss of the largest lake west of the Mississippi and the cost of pumping water from San Francisco Bay over two mountain ranges to the south. 4800 feet of head 1M cu feet/sec=lots of electricity.

rojo

Thursday, March 17, 2011

It's Springtime and Raining

Actually, it has quit for 8 hours and I got a chance to get my carrots in. I put them in the middle of my flower garden in my front yard. I put them there three years ago and had a bumper crop. Placed them in two other places and got nothing, so maybe I can get a good crop again.

Kudos to Mary Kaptur from Ohio for asking yesterday when the oil companies and Wall Street will share the pain of balancing the budget. My guess it won't happen until Halliburton voluntarily reincorporates in CA to get higher taxes.

Midwest Republicans are probably grateful for the Japan disaster because it takes Michigan (we will declare financial emergencies and remove your government), Ohio (state employees are stupid) and Wisconsin (we will break every union). The largest political rally in years in our country (much larger then Glen Beck's) happened in Wisconsin over the weekend and there was very little coverage. Japan, Japan, Japan.

When will someone sue to bankruptcy that little shit O'Keefe? Acorn employees let him get a pass, NPR officials quit and all over extremely edited videos. Michael Moore he ain't.

and I see the Germany has decided today to start winding down their nuclear energy program. Renewable energy will be their basis to go forward. I wonder if anyone in America has the stones to do that. The Prez sez that is what we want, but...

rojo

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Fun With Logic

I am amazed at the human powers of deduction. Banks make mortgages that are crap, sell them to pension funds and then--

so let's take away hard won union rights since they caused the financial mess over the greedy need for another $1.00/hour.

Am I missing something here? It is kind of like bombing Iraq when attacked by Saudis.

Oh wait....

rojo
Newt, The Blowhard

I lived in the swinging 60s and 70s. I lived in a commune. I never once fooled around on my wife because I love and respect her. Newt strayed because he lost focus because of loving service to his country. My ASS!!!!!!!!!!!! Newt fooled around because he loves his sexual appetites more than he loved his wives. I am overweight because I overeat. This isn't rocket science.

What I don't get is the media fascination over a mean-spirited, uncompassionate man with no moral integrity who wants to lead in a "Christian" manner and has such obvious faults. He should be skewered on the petard of his own words and left to die a lonely unpowerful man.

rojo

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Texas Miracle Economy, My Ass

Another way to look at the Wisconsin situation. Their debt is as big as CA and they don't seem to understand.

rojo

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Lather Was 30 Years Old Today, They Took Away All His Toys

Wow, what an original idea. taxing gas. Thomas, m'boy, you are finally catching up to Jimmy Carter's presidency. Any apologies for your stupidity?

Of course he would want to tax gas to pay down the debt, not establish new renewable energy industries with the accompanying jobs, who then can be taxed. I wish I was as smart as him. Then ...I could be 40 years behind the times too.

rojo

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

From Today's Paper

Best Democracy money can buy! How hard is it when you have a budget of $80,000,000 annually to find a judge who will say Affordable Health Care bill is illegal. Just buy a judge, like whack-a-mole only using other people's money and lives. Talk about Death Panels.

and I hope you like anchovies
.

rojo

Monday, February 21, 2011

Who Knew?

That the science reports of the Gulf of Mexico don't match BP's own estimation of their problem?

rojo

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

A Minor Miscalculation

It is hard to believe that the State is so proud of their accomplishments shippng water from SF to LA and san Diego, but forgot about the wildlife. oops.

rojo

Sunday, February 13, 2011

TV Caused Post

I was watching the TV series Justified last night. It is based on an Elmore Leonard short story. Well done, looney characters, just fun. These guys do the theme.




and the episode I was watching featured a character named Cousin Dupree.


featuring the great lyrics
I said babe with my boyish charm and good looks
How can you stand it for one more day
She said maybe its the skeevy look in your eyes
Or that your mind has turned to applesauce
The dreary architecture of your soul
I said - but what is it exactly turns you off?

rojo

Friday, February 04, 2011

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Total Insanity

I see the president or CEO of AIG, I forget which, totally disses liberals as he states his company is major red state fodder and is against government handouts and supports personal responsibility. I only have one link attached. There are many others. Here is guy who respresents and leads a company that owes its existence to government bailouts birching about bailouts. Yes, prsonal responsibility is very important. So are good decisions. Perhaps we shpould have let this ass and his company eat it for their poor decisions. Instead, he was paid off for his bad decisions in a multi-BILLION dollar bailout and he is against government handouts and bailouts. He wants responsibility. Laughing all the way to the bank. and Lying.

Nothing like biting the hand that feed you.

rojo

Friday, January 28, 2011

Why Didn't Christ have an AK?

Read it and weep. Arizona has less stringent gun laws than Mexico. Makes you think about that statement that if we all had guns we would be safer, just like Mexico, or Somalia.

rojo

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Three Ways to Be a Brass Band

First, from Denver



The second from Wisconsin--


The third is from the Balkans. They have been sampled recently by Galactic, Balkan Beat Box and on the album series electric Gypsyland. They rock!


and for grins, an old favorite.


rojo

Sunday, January 09, 2011

A Sad Day's Thoughts

After the shooting in Tucson, it becomes all the more obvious that the vitriol of the political debate--where politicians cite second amendment solutions, without fear of being brought up on treason charges--really is out of control. If he was working alone and over the edge from listening to too much talk radio, we have an issue.

It is just a sad state of affairs when politicians have to fear for their lives because of stands on such things as health care.

It also shows how far off the dialogue is in this country--where expanded health care that embraces capitalistic principles of the insurance business (except a 20% cap) is seen as socialist. The democrats let everyone call it Obamacare with calling it something else and the so-called "liberal" media calls it Obmamcare, not even thinking of the spite and hate in that title.

rojo

Monday, January 03, 2011

Happy New Year

and may it be more peaceful than last year.



and today I see Lindsay Graham is asking for permanent bases in Afghanistan. You would think that as our debt grows, you might see a fatal flaw with imperialism. I had hoped that the term imperialist would have been long time dead since my time in college in the 70s. Looks like as a country we have learned nothing since then.

rojo

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Let Brazil Lead the Way

Great article
. If you ever want to know how to raise an economy, you do it by raising the income of the lower and middle classes. They then spend the money to buy stuff. What a novel idea. Too bad congress doesn't get it. Maybe we need to elect someone from lower classes, or advisors from lower classes.

rojo

Monday, December 27, 2010

On the Day After Christmas, Mr. Freidman Said To Me...

I just read Tom Freidman's interview where he stated this generation needs to suck it up and cut back. Get us out of debt. Yet, he was behind the tax cuts. I love, absolutely love, that the richest expect to keep theirs (inheritance tax, tax rate cuts for hedge fund managers--I would love to pay only 15%, and tax cuts to the rich), yet entitlement programs such as food stamps, welfare and ultimately Social Security (really a separate fund and program that is not part of the US General Fund, just don't mention that in the details) should go away. So should medical insurance and then emergency rooms become primary care if you can't afford routine medical treatment. Man, that is easy to say when you have a cool million or two stashed away.

If he really cared he would be willing to pay way more taxes to help right the country, maybe even work as a lifetime service worker for the State. But no, he bloviates and makes beau coup buckos and wants to keep it that way. A true Christian would throw him out of the temple, publically excoriate the moneychanger.

Again, no. It is maddening that those who really need help, the lower and middle classes keep listening to asshats like this and wonder why the money never trickles down to them. Isn't that the way it is supposed to work? Just ask St. Reagan. The economy has never been the same since supply side and trickle down were added to the American lexicon. Trickling down sounds an awful lot like pissing on my head.

rojo

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Activist Judge Alert, OOH, Wait, He Is On The Right

I don't even know what to say at this point. The judge who makes the decision is in a city that relies on water from the Delta. You watch wildlife die and no one wants to cut back on their funky western civilization. My guess is the decision to make Sacramento put ina modern wastewater plant will end being shopped before judges, too, until someone makes the decision the conservative group wants. I am so tired of economy driving the American dream into the ditch.

rojo

Monday, November 29, 2010

From Wikileaks

"The cables also contain a fresh American intelligence assessment of Iran's missile program," The Times reports. "They reveal for the first time that the United States believes that Iran has obtained advanced missiles from North Korea that could let it strike at Western European capitals and Moscow and help it develop more formidable long-range ballistic missiles."

at least this explains one of the reasons the US asked Russia to join the missile defense group.

Rojo

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving

time for a Christmas toone






and for grins, because it makes me happy and Thankful.



have a happy holiday!

rojo

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Toone for the Day




rojo
Why the Tea Party Gains Voters

A must read on mortgages.

kind of long, but it explains how houses are foreclosed upon in great detail. People lose houses while the banks get the houses and gets to resell them. People have no place to live and so on. and Wall Street makes money and the middle class gets screwed. Simple. You can understand the anger of the Tea Party, but why isn't anyone doing anything? and Dems wonder why they HAVE LOST market share. duh!!!! Nothing like protecting voters. But, nnnnoooooo--save money for the lobbyists.
rojo
Thoughts for a Grey Day

From Charlie Pierce's Idiot America--

"James Dobson, a prominent Christian conservative spokesman, compares the Supreme Court of the United States with the Ku Klux Klan. Pat Robertson, another prominent conservative preacher man, says that federal judges are a greater threat to the nation than is Al Qaeda and, apparently his text from the book of Gambino, later sermonizes that the United States should get in the stick and snuff the democratically elected president of Venezuela. And the nation does not wonder, AUDIBLY, how these two poor fellows were allowed on television." (bold and italics are mine)

"...And in Dover Pennsylvania...a pastor named Ray Mummert...sums it up.

'We've been attacked ...by the intelligent segment of our society.' "

So if we follow the lead of these folk, if we are intelligent, ask questions and wonder, in their eyes, we attack society.

So be it!

And on another front, I see over the weekend Russia was invited to help protect the skies as part of the missile defense umbrella. This comes within two weeks of a plane flying up into the skies outside LA, leaving a comtrail that looks like a missile launch. So it wasn't a missile? and then we ask Russia to help protect the skies against what then. Personal opinion, but I don't think we asked for their help to show how earnest we are in the START treaty.

rojo

BTW, Charles Pierce's commentary can be heard every Tuesday morning on the Stephanie Miller show at 7:30 PST, I think.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Third World Man?

I seem to remember that Germany, between the two wars actually used wheelbarrows of cash to buy a loaf of bread. We are really at an important point in our country's economic and political history.

As times get harder, the populace tends to like absolutists such as Hitler and Mussolini. And these are normally backed by banks. The only ones that get hurt are the general populace.

The issue becomes how to get a grass roots movement going that captures the energy of the Tea Party but is not run by Dick Armey and remains progressive. Currently the populist rebellion has been fascist-oriented.

and we are becoming more and more economically weak. How will we react? Cutting discretionary spending to balance the budget and cutting Social Security is only 12% of the budget. I believe the military is 38%+. What do we cut? and discretionary spending includes dairy and farming subsidies. Does Chuck Grassley have the testicular fortitude to cut those?

rojo

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Two Versions, Same Song





and then the Dead (skip to 1:30 to miss the tuning)


rojo
How to $1.50 on a Friday Night

Go to JBs or the Mentor Hullabalo
o and see one of the best bands ever.





rojo

Thursday, November 18, 2010

What A Wonderful World, or do we share the same world?

I have spent the past four days in the southern Central Valley in CA. I know CA has an image of liberalism, but that really is in the urban areas, with San Diego as an exception. That city is largely conservative. Tink Darrel Issa and Randy Cunningham. The Southern Central Valley (Bakersfield, Taft, Maricopa) is far from liberal. You can place much of this area south of the Mason Dixon line, maybe south of Mississippi.

I sat and listened to a patron bloviate in a hotel restaurant yesterday about how bad it is that the Democrats are still in power because they make the government larger, the debt larger and they tax more. It was all I could do to not ask him which party had the last surplus, who raised the debt (Reagan, Bush and Bush were the worst, all Republicans) and who made government smaller (Clinton-D). and who balloonned the size of government (Bush-R). The only reason I did not debate him is he was hosting clients from overseas.

Another item you see here is a multitude of signs stating "Congress Created Desert" or signs referencing sewage treatment and how that effects Delta water (very true) and how that water belongs to the people of Southern CA (not true). Congress funded the canals in CA to allow the transfer of water to the central valley. The residents damned other rivers and built levies draining lakes for cotton and food farming. Maybe farming is a desert is not such a good idea. Yes, it feeds America, but has destroyed wildlife, the largest lake west of the Mississippi (Tulare Lake, now a dry hole) and stopped the flow of many rivers. The Kern again is not reaching Bakersfield and Buena Vista Lake is fed from canals attached to the Sacramento River 300 miles away. Nothing wrong with canals and stuff, but admit that the unnnatural farming practiced was financed by Congress and is not a God-given right!

Finally, I came into a meeting yesterday and the folks there were speaking of the evils of Senate Bill 501which would take away your right to a home garden. It was sponsored by Kucinich in their minds. I asked when did Kucinich become a Senator? and we looked up the bill on my computer. Nowhere did it state that it takes away the rights of a home gardener that we could see. But they saw it on websites my computer could not find. And I was informed the only way to make jobs in this country is to remove the EPA and OSHA. They keep us at a disadvantage from the rest of the world. I wanted to scream, we could cut back our wages too and hire children but the sarcasm would have been lost. Yet another WTF moment. We have already seen what happens what when the government backs away from audits in the Gulf.Finally, the best for last. They were complaining that Brown was now the governor and things could never go back to the way they were thirty years ago when things were good. Honest. I could not make this up. That was a Meg Whitman campaign line so I know where they saw it. Guess who was governor 30 years ago???!!! Brown. and the last governor with a surplus before deregulation of energy was a Democrat, and he was replaced by Arnold.

I cannot wait to leave Bizarro world.

One important point is that this does illustrate that many Americans do not share the same basic information. We are very insular and this becomes more apparent to me as I travel.

rojo

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Never Thought of This

As if global warming were not enough, 1/4 of sea level rise comes from overpumping aquifers. What this means then is that the aquifers get lower and those near the ocean get salt water intrusion, which requires RO to remove the salts if the wells are to be used. RO is a power hungry monkey. Which means more burning of carbon based fuels and the cycle continues.

rojo

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

The Cedars of Lebanon, maybe

There were ski resorts in Lebanon? Let alone that global warming could shut them down and kill the cedar trees?

It just makes me realize how insular I am as an American.

rojo

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Toone Time




rojo
Deep in the Heart of Texas

Nothing like living in Texas. Where the water is radioactive and the environmental protectors say--so what? Could be why they are so strange.

and in good water news, salmon are returning to CA this year finally. Crisis over, no! But progress

rojo

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Two Views of the Same Toone

this one is disallowed to embed, but features Natasha Atlas.




You choose.

rojo

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Toone for a Day




rojo
So, What Are We Killing Actually?

I was at a sewage conference last week and one of the biggest issues are Sanitary Sewer Overflows caused by the flushing of antibacterial wipes down the toilet. They ruin and plug lift station pumps. Ooops.

here is an article that details the algacidal properties of these agents. The other is how these compounds are now making it back to the environment.

After a while, you have to wonder whether what we are intentionally killing in terms of microbes is worth what we are unintentionally killing in terms of phyto and zooplankton. And are we breeding the dreaded superbugs. Already, endocrine disruptors that make it through wastewater plants are changing the genetics in the plants that are grown in the biosolids. But if you can't use the biosolids for fertilizer, where do you bury it all? Already, the Colorado plains take most of the biosolids generated by NYC. Is there room in NYC for 80 train car loads per week to be buried?

These are honest questions. How much waste do we generate that there are no perfect solutions for?

rojo

Monday, November 08, 2010

Politics, Not as Usual

I have not commented on the elections only because I was on the road last week and busy. First, it makes sense that the angry voters chose the party of the working man, the Tea Party and the Republicans to help them. Yeah, sure. What happened was that the Administration bailed out Wall Street and the banks, those folks got bonuses and Main Street lost many jobs and houses and they were pissed. and when the Tea Party came up, no one said, we cut your taxes. Then corporate interests like Dick Armey, the Koch Brothers, etc. coopted the anger and made political hay out of it and got right wing candidates elected. Problem, messaging by Democrats and that they really, really underestimated the anger of the electorate. They did not understand that people like their jobs and houses. They were and probably are out of touch.

Now the fun begins. Pelosi will replace Steny Hoyer. She was an effective leader and will continue to be. Cantor wants to cut all entitlements. DeMint sez balance the budget with tax cuts and has no ideas. Rand Paul is saying cut the military spending. Texas is trying to opt out of MediCaid and Children's Health Insurance to balance their deficit. I mean why tax oil companies in Texas or rich white folk when you can cut children's aid. My guess is that they are Christians who believe life is sacred too. Just don't give the kids any fucking aid. Let 'em die after they are born. and Darrel Issa is promising subpoenas for government mistakes, like the mortgage problem, maybe Obama's birth certificate and probably not for admitted war crimes by the Bush Administration and certainly not for Cheney's energy task force which divided Iraqi oil even before the war to free the OIL (oops, I meant the oppressed Iraqis).

I am guessing I will be going back to being angry a lot. But to say the least it will be interesting. Being the eternal optimist, I am hoping some Democrat other than Pelosi will grow a pair and messaging will be clear. Moderate republicans will come forward and work to actually decrease the country's problems and I am guessing monkeys will fly out of my butt, too. But it will be interesting. Particularly the monkeys

rojo

Saturday, November 06, 2010

Saturday Morning Fun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdvzfeIKHTE

http://boingboing.net/2009/11/27/dr-johns-weird-new-o.html

and


rojo




Monday, November 01, 2010