Author: Brian

This governing is my friend or my life to be so. This law is good or is crime. My hand greets America or shakes it true.

No dollar safe.
All hope spent.

Earnest more rare than able.

Oh, shun quickly sour.
Betrayal shut forever.
Pain quit instantly.

But sweet is unafraid as sweet is genius. Put there, take it.
Doubt’s no refuge, savior, ability, sanity. Sweet love decides.

True moment. Given. Got. Yours. Kept.

“I would unite with anybody to do right
and with nobody to do wrong.”

I asked in 2007, “Does a dog have dogsonality?”
A year later there’s just 10 hits on Google and no replies.

If a person has a personality, does a dog have dogsonality?

What about a goose loose with moose?
Or nearly bare near bear?

Personwill. Personwon’t.
Abraca-do. Abraca-don’t.

For sense,
nonsense matters.

Neuronobics:
Never let a synapse see it coming.

Power’s dumber,

because insight
ain’t quite right
when fact is money
and lies are honey.

Strongerly. Betterly. Heartfulst. Phffft.

When the cat’s away, mice make money.

When management is busy dealing with matters other than daily operations, employees shoulder a greater responsibility for their work ­– and efficiency is enhanced.

Magnus Hansson said in his doctoral dissertation at the Swedish Business School, “Innovative forces are released.”

read more at scienceblog

What is in a McDonald’s chicken Nugget?

A McDonald’s Chicken McNugget is 56% corn.

More about meat slurry at Next Big Future.

Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma reports, “Of the thirty-eight ingredients it takes to make a McNugget, I counted thirteen that can be derived from corn.” 4.8 Billion Chicken McNuggets are sold annually.

Annie Herbert:

I’m amazed, b-mazed, c-mazed, d-mazed, e-mazed, f-mazed, g-mazed, h-mazed. . . . The labyrinth leads on.

You can say illiteracy or inattention caused it.

Or is FOX News too eager to show a black candidate juxtaposed against a victorious white man?

Harl Delos noticed Fox News referring to the Lincoln-Douglas debate of 1860 between Lincoln, the Republican candidate for president, and Douglas, the Democratic candidate for president.

The actual Democratic candidate was Stephen A. Douglas, but the man pictured by Fox News was Frederick Douglass, one of the most prominent figures in African American history and a formidable public presence.

While invoking its foul propaganda, FOX also fails to mention Frederick Douglass was the running mate for Victoria Woodhull, who ran for president in 1872 on the Equal Rights Party ticket.

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Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to run for the presidency. Her running mate Frederick Douglass was fond of saying,

“I would unite with anybody to do right
and with nobody to do wrong.”

Unusual tidbits to read in the news; rare because our media is broken:

NYT column by Frank Rich

The Republican party “does not have a single African-American among its collective 247 senators and representatives in Washington”.

So, here’s the situation. A (black) pastor spouting nonsense is apparently a big problem for a (black) presidential candidate. But white evangelists spouting nonsense are not seen by the US media as posing any kind of problem for a white Republican candidate.

Naughton’s Memex says, “This particular column is one of the best things I’ve read in ages, not least because its savage indignation never spills over into incoherence. It’s beautifully controlled from start to finish.”

Professor Sarah Slaughter is vice chair of the Committee on Sustainability Infrastructure in the National Research Council. She says, listen now,

“…the pain caused by high oil prices is nothing like what looms as water, an even more basic and essential natural commodity, faces dwindling supplies and growing demand.

“As essential as it is taken for granted, water is The Next Oil.

“We once assumed that water is free, air is free, and power is cheap.

“It’s one thing not to be able to afford gas…. drought conditions have been exacerbated if not created by increased population density and land development, which, in turn, may have been made even worse by global warming, resulting in record-setting droughts.”

Record setting prices too!

While we think each monthly bill is a surprise, George Schultz, former Secretary of State and Bechtel president (where water prices are often made), told us in the 1980s that water prices would skyrocket.

I’ve been moaning about common incredulity and its horrid effect upon poor innovators. We so easily disbelieve new things and put the burden on the inventor to prove it, we waste their hard work and often hurt long efforts.

So to prove our survival might require ideas we won’t believe, drinking fog is a good test.

Or as Ecotality says it, “Man, every week there is something new out there that completely takes me by surprise. Take for instance this Coastal Fog Tower…. “

Alberto Fernández and Susana Ortega’s Fog Tower can absorb and channel water from mist:

400 meters tall, almost 1/4 mile, the tower is a seaside spire that traps airborne water molecules, spiraling to catch basins below….

Inhabitat describes it as a stacked weave to trap and wick moisture from fog, much more efficient than desalinating sea water, with a planned performance of 2-20 liters per square meter of vertical surface.

CNN reports cloud-catching has been proven.

Can we believe it?

Where can we build one too?

While McBush pins laurel you like, Hillary woos paychecks in peril; while Obama readies for our planet in peril, argument isn’t enough for tomorrow.

Costs rise and then rise. Warm up to that globally!

After several days exchanging this and that, I find myself wondering how you are, what you’re doing, is all OK?

The first OPEC noise of 1973 warmed me to the idea of serving our townships, nation and world by becoming proficient about our energy use and our world’s sustainability. California certified the first Energy Auditors in the mid-70s and I was number 84 and brought ideas to 6400 grocery stores and 8000 church buildings to cut ourselves away from oil.

Proficient is the wrong term because what we haven’t done has no expertise. Today’s OPEC steers a rope around us and neither energy use or sustainability has been made ready. You can say it’s greed done it, or unhealthy denial, or tired politics; mere human game.

But I can say I’ve failed too. For example, a reverse polarity electromagnetic engine might travel further on a cup than gas engines on a barrel, but I failed to finish a prototype to prove it (if I could). Why? Because incredulity tore me to ribbons. A simple pencil can turn a house toward the sun to soak up enough heat to reduce monthly drain. I designed passive solar in the 70s – chilly Lake Tahoe, others in Sonoma and Marin – to demonstrate what light or mass can achieve, what convection delivers and array can bring. But paying for incredulity costs more than buying innovation. Two samples of one hundred….

I shouldn’t mention I worked to put gold mine claims on Federal waters of the SFBay with a tug, a barge and a windmill to remove colloidal precious particles using wind and electrolysis and accretion with a sideline of selling the cleaned water before it’s lost to the Pacific. Nor that I promoted electron sterilization to thwart radioactive food irradiation. Or molecular sieves for inert gas refrigeration to ship strawberries and asparagus in bulk. Or closed loop industrial pallet and crate recycling instead of our third rank waste of trees. I’ve already told you about soy diesel to urban bus lines 25 years ago! So said this much, you should know the cheapest new transport system on earth is to suspend transit over our existing roads; airway already bought. Incredulity stops it. A few samples of dozens….

Stop losing things to wrong people, people. I’m too old to want much now but you should look for earnest folks and get out of the house and tinker with your friends. Soon.

Credulity needs you. It’s time to be what you’re believing.

Water, dirt, hot & cold, torn so much.
Malls are appalling and Hummers are bummers not only because they abuse the dribbling finite, but because they prove nothing but pride. Worse, we blame, envy or restrain, when none of us listen to our conscience. Our duty is to prosper, yes, with each other along the way, and not hurt this place, and to take a role in it. Community is the first thing we reach each day. There we see tomorrow and build it. Let’s bring cost to price and live in it. Sustainable society is worth it.

The Penny Party‘s Sensible ReConstitution. Silly, but fun.

We can better protect ourselves with rules and regulations we’re paid to follow. Results would be immediate. License no longer elite. Enforcement no longer rare. We pay adherence to any rule, all rules. I’m saying teach enough literacy to understand the rules we live by, then as a nation of bounty hunters we would enhance governing enough to save us. Rewarding rules, any posse or person might lure Wall Street or Washington where they won’t be jailed. Follow the rules or else.

I’ve often thought we’d be better off without politics, agents failing so often, and develop new groups that directly lobby prices, fees, and fraud.

Start here with hours of education in one graph.

An Average Consumer’s Spending,
or,
as the NY Times says,
All of Inflation’s Little Parts.

tip WorldChanging

I’ve enjoyed Kevin Phillips because there’s facts in his writings. Kevin Phillips says, “[Paul] Volcker is regarded as one of the last honest men in U.S. finance.”

Paul Volker says about the turmoil over the last couple of years, “To meet the challenge the Federal Reserve judged it necessary to take actions that extend to the very edge of its lawful and implied powers, transcending certain long-embedded central banking principles and practices.”

And we’re thinking Bush Arrogance is limited to war and tiny allies. Some are saying this Administration has secretly sold half of Fort Knox already. [odd story link]

A $3 box of cornflakes contains 15 ounces of corn that cost 8 cents when bought from the farmer.

Why do we blame increases in the cost of corn, wheat or rice on rapidly rising food prices? Production, transport, wages and packaging are the main costs of retail food where the effect of oil price increases can be huge.

Which brings us to the real culprit: the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

This year, with OPEC-rigged oil prices exceeding $100 a barrel, the U.S. will pay $800 billion for its oil supply, and the world as a whole will pay $3.2 trillion.

These figures are both up a factor of 10 from what they were in 1999 and represent a huge regressive tax on the world economy…

Chicago Tribune: Food vs. fuel a global myth

May 5 (Bloomberg) Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland briefed reporters at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting in Washington:

The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care…

Robin Williams cracked, “I’m from California. It’s 60% Hispanic and we have an Austrian governor. He’s a Republican Liberal. That’s like a Volvo with a gun rack.”

Larry Page sees a world of opportunity – in areas ranging from energy to safer cars. But he also sees a world of timidity; not enough people, he worries, are willing to place the big bets that could make a difference in meeting humanity’s biggest challenges. [Fortune Mag]

And the unfairness kills us:

The problem is not the poor robbing the rich through taxes, but the rich robbing the poor through tax cuts that wreck the infrastructure. And the rich have to the chutzpah to tell us that this robbery is the way to prosperity for all.

Governments excuse themselves from delivering social services because they don’t have the tax revenues any more. So private education and health care begin to look good to the affluent, while public education and health care, like public housing and transit, become down-market services for losers.

Because so many people still believe in Horatio Alger, the income-gap debate has stayed away from the health issue.

Income gap … is literally a matter of life and death.

When you read this Newsweek excerpt of The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria, maybe a few sentences will stand out. I copied a few:

On the first page, he points out “The world has shifted from anti-Americanism to post-Americanism”, and he says it’s the “power shift of the modern age—the rise of the rest“.

Later he says, “The underlying reality across the globe is of enormous vitality. For the first time ever, most countries around the world are practicing sensible economics” seeing that “$1 a day has plummeted from 40 percent in 1981 to 18 percent”, [on the way to 12 percent].

He sees “waves of globalization” in a “global economy [that] has more than doubled in size over the last 15 years.” [A mere 15 years!]

Huge numbers of people are in truth a “world of functioning economies”.

Comforting our worries, he says, “… this is America’s great —and potentially insurmountable— strength. It remains the most open, flexible society in the world, able to absorb other people, cultures, ideas, goods, and services.”

Helping us face facts, he says, “America’s unimpeded influence will decline. But if the world that’s being created has more power centers, nearly all are invested in order, stability and progress.”

“Rather than narrowly obsessing about our own short-term interests and interest groups, our chief priority should be to bring these rising forces into the global system, to integrate them so that they in turn broaden and deepen global economic, political, and cultural ties. If China, India, Russia, Brazil all feel that they have a stake in the existing global order, there will be less danger of war, depression, panics, and breakdowns.

“There will be lots of problems, crisis, and tensions, but they will occur against a backdrop of systemic stability. This benefits them but also us. It’s the ultimate win-win.”

Urging us to willingly enjoy the future, he warns, “For America to continue to lead the world, we will have to first join it. This is one of the most thrilling stories in history. The world will be enriched and ennobled as they become consumers, producers, inventors, thinkers, dreamers, and doers.”

Reminding us that we already know what we need to do, he concludes, “This is all happening because of American ideas and actions.”

Christopher Locke toughens.

In what may have been the single most revealing paragraph anyone has reported about the Bush administration, the author Ron Suskind, writing in The New York Times Magazine two weeks before the 2004 election, recounted a conversation with a presidential aide who spoke sarcastically of journalists and their “reality-based community.” The aide, who sounded uncannily like Karl Rove, informed Suskind with great condescension that a “judicious study of discernible reality” is “not the way the world really works anymore.” The aide explained, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

OK, then. Any questions?