Posts

Posted on

A Place at the Table

When Horatio Alger fables turn toxic

June 26th 2011

 America’s income disparity is at a record high. Not only is it the worst it has been in American history, it’s the worst it has been in Western history, going back to the French Revolution. The prerevolutionary Russia of the Czars had not seen a constriction of wealth this bad. Nor had the English of Charles Dickens’ time. The aristocracy that the Founding Fathers inveighed against and warned must never be allowed in democratic America did not have as disproportionate share of the wealth as America has today.

It has made a travesty of the American dream, bringing poverty to tens of millions in “the world’s richest country.” At a time when corporate profits are at all-time highs and banks steal billions with seeming impunity, one in six Americans is on food stamps.

Continue reading “A Place at the Table”

Posted on

The Wizards of Oz

Down under, they know how to work people!

June 11th 2011

 As American labor drifts slowly into outright servitude, Australia is trying something different, and it seems to be working.

Australia passed the Fair Work Act of 2009, which took effect in the form of the National Employment Standards on January 1, 2010. The act covers roughly 2/3rds of Australia’s workers (about 27% of the workforce are deemed “casual workers” defined by a tautology; they are called casual workers because they are paid as casual workers). Some of the provisions are, by American standards, utterly amazing.

The minimum wage is $569.90 per week. (In Australian dollars, which are presently a bit over $1.05 in US dollars, so that wage is $600.56). A work week is defined as being 38 hours, and for part timers, the minimum wage is $15 an hour. It’s higher for temps.

Continue reading “The Wizards of Oz”

Posted on

Newt’s Palin Next to Cain

Who says train wrecks can’t be fun?

June 10th 2011

Watching the GOP presidential campaign is a bit like watching a train wreck, only to discover the train is filled with circus clowns. You hear thundering crashes, and see hundreds of yards of wreckage, and you take this in with mounting concern and apprehension. Then all these clowns come tumbling out, all red noses and floppy pants and tiny umbrellas, like psychedelic ants, and you can’t help but laugh.

If I hadn’t already compared it to a train wreck, I might compare it to a skeet shoot. Every week, there’s a new front runner, and this name is breathlessly announced to the Teabaggers who are anxiously awaiting the great white hope, and this is the equivalent of shouting “pull!” at the skeet range. The front runner soars, and then explodes into shards.

OK, so I used the skeet analogy anyway. There’s probably several dozen good analogies that could be used. You’re smart: I’m sure you can come up with a good one of your own.

Continue reading “Newt’s Palin Next to Cain”

Posted on

A Budget for the Rest of Us

The other budget that the House won’t consider 

June 5th 2011

The GOP made about the worst mistake a doctrinaire political party can possibly make. They started believing their own propaganda.

They somehow managed to convince themselves that people were so distressed over government spending and the deficits that they would happily throw retirees under the bus and put Medicare on a for-profit voucher system, effectively destroying it. All the billions of dollars and thousands of manhours the right wing noise machine spent only succeeded in convincing the wrong set of people that Medicare had to be cut.

The Teabaggers said they wanted it, but the Teabaggers are for the most part dupes of the Koch brothers, who haven’t noticed that behind the populist rhetoric lies a Wall Street agenda. And the vast majority of Americans are not Teabaggers. They like Medicare, and would be pissed off if they figured out that most of the debt comes, not from government spending, but slashing government revenues in order to give the wealthy and unneeded and even unwanted tax break, whilst getting into pointless and expensive wars in central Asia.

Continue reading “A Budget for the Rest of Us”

Posted on

Weather or Not

With global warming, the weather is just the same, only more so

May 31st 2011

   I was pleased when I found a plug-in for my blog that gave the average levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.  I regard climate change to be the greatest threat humanity faces over the next century, and the levels attained, according to the display, were terrifying.  393.18 parts per million.
There was just one problem: it was wrong.  It was out of date, and badly so.
The  US government’s Earth Systems Research Laboratory at Mauna Loa in Hawaii, came out with a report this week that CO2 peaked last week at 394.97ppm. That set a new record for greatest concentrations of CO2.
To give the numbers some perspective, the ice core samples show that for most of the last millennium, CO2 levels stayed within a couple of points of 282ppm.  That was high by Holocene standards.  Over the previous 450,000 years, it usually ranged between 290ppm and 190ppm, in a cycle running between 100,000 and 125,000 years.  Big, dramatic falls were known to occur over the period of 10,000 years, usually triggering an ice age.  Over the past 450,000 years, the highest level recorded prior to the past hundred years was 314ppm, some 4,700 years ago. That may have played a significant role in humanity migrating out beyond the tropics.   Continue reading “Weather or Not”

Posted on

Brinkmanship

Where even fools fear to tread

May 29th 2011

I came across a hilarious table today that Think Progress, the liberal web site, gleefully posted on their Yfrog page. ( http://yfrog.com/h7rjekp ) The table was a listing of projections of when Medicare would go insolvent, on an annual basis dating back to 1970, when the Hospital Insurance Trustees solemnly affirmed that Medicare was going to go bust in 1972.

The Hospital Insurance Trustees released this annual report, and in all but three of the subsequent years, declared that Medicare was on the ropes, and would go belly up in the sweet bye-and-bye. The length of time varied enormously. Two years was the lowest, but by 1975 they, with seeming reluctance, concluded that the Trust might last into the late 1990s. The previous two years must have shown sharp improvement, because those were two of the three years they didn’t make any forecast at all.

Continue reading “Brinkmanship”

Posted on

The End of the World

There’s a new Last Airbender movie planned, so that’s not a bad thing

May 22nd 2011

Yesterday, about 6pm Eastern Time, three o’clock on a sunny warm afternoon, I took the dog for a walk. At no point during the walk did he vanish in a puff of smoke. Dogs will sometimes vanish if you don’t hold the lead tightly, but they don’t generally smoke, and my dog has never vanished in a puff of smoke before, so you might find it was odd that I thought he might fall into the habit now.

But it was the Rapture, and I read somewhere, or saw a movie, or something, that “all dogs go to heaven.” It’s one of those Leviticus things, along with “People who weigh more than 250 pounds shouldn’t wear thongs” and “Most sequels are going to be a disappointment.” I don’t know many people who would qualify to get Raptured, and the ones I do know probably wouldn’t consent to be walked around the block on a lead, so I had to use my poor dog as a lab rat. I figured being outside might help with the god rays or something.

Continue reading “The End of the World”

Posted on

A Litter of Kittens

A Litter of Kittens
Hauntings from the past, joy in the present

May 21st, 2011

We were a bit slow in getting to the vet, and as a result, our youngest cat got pregnant. We believe the father was an orange and white tom, a pleasant cat who lives about 50 yards from here. The mother, Snickers, is a sweet, affectionate little tortoiseshell, and so we expect some nice kittens.

We should know in a day or so. I set up an old dog crate with blankets, food and water, and put a cardboard box with flaps in so she would have a little kitty cave in a warm, secure, dark place.

So naturally she had her litter late last night under my reclining chair. In a way, it was a compliment to our rat terrier, Rygel, since he sleeps on that chair at night. Obviously Snickers saw him as an ally and protector. (We’re still going to watch him with the kittens for the first couple of months, since, while not vicious, he is exuberant, and tends to pounce when playing).

Continue reading “A Litter of Kittens”

Posted on

Obama and the Middle East

A good speech, with good intentions. But…

May 19th 2011

Barack Obama, focusing on the middle east, gave a speech today that would have reminded older Americans of the sense of what the country stood for in the days before the Kennedy assassination and Vietnam, before the deep national cynicism and before the methodical erosion of American dignity and pride by a far right monied faction determined to steal America for itself.

Had Eisenhower or Kennedy given a similarly-themed speech 50 years or so ago, it would have been a clarion call, and praised as a great speech in American history.

Even now, it is a damned fine speech, and if nothing else, it shows that Obama recognizes the value of the time when people referred to America as “the leader of the free world”, and it wasn’t said with a smirk, or based on America’s economy or military might. It was said because American ideals and commitment to freedom really were a beacon to the rest of the world.

Continue reading “Obama and the Middle East”

Posted on

The Ten Year Itch

Scratching the surface

May 9th 2011

Anyone who has ever broken a bone, suffered a dislocation, or suffered other injuries to muscles or tendons knows that one of the first signs that it’s beginning to heal is that the affected area starts to itch. It’s usually a deep itch, the type you can’t scratch, and fortunately, not a constant annoyance. The injured person will scratch at it a bit, and when that doesn’t work, rub or massage. Or, if wearing a cast, he will get grumpy, and start marking the days on the calendar until the cast is due to come off.

It’s the same for cats and dogs, and one of the reason why injured pets are made to wear what the movie “Up” described as “the cone of shame”: the plastic Elizabethan collar that prevents pets from biting at injuries, or trying to pull off dressings.

Continue reading “The Ten Year Itch”