Category: government

carbon emissions rose 5.9% in 2010

On By Rick McIn government, health & fitnessLeave a comment

Bad news for Mother Earth:

… Global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning jumped by the largest amount on record last year, upending the notion that the brief decline during the recession might persist through the recovery. …

NYTimes – Carbon Emissions Show Biggest Jump Ever Recorded

Surprisingly, China is suddenly ready to commit to binding cuts.

… Speaking to reporters Monday, the country’s chief negotiator in Durban, Xie Zhenhua, said major economies including China should be legally obligated to curb greenhouse gas emissions after 2020.

“We accept a legally binding arrangement,” he said.

Mr. Xie, however, said China would agree to binding cuts only if the U.S. and other powerful nations take aggressive steps in the next decade to address climate change …

Chinese Overture Jolts Climate Talks

I heard the same thing in Hong Kong from a consultant to the Chinese government — they are serious.

Personally, I think, even with China on side, international treaties are not going to work. We’d be better to put the money into researching new technologies to remove Greenhouse Gases from the atmosphere (“sinks”).

In general, voluntary efforts to reduce Carbon Footprint are a good thing. Let’s encourage those efforts, too.

(via Freakonomics – Worldwide Carbon Emissions No Longer Dropping — Is Anyone Surprised?)

Rex Murphy Defending Canada’s Oil Sands

On By Rick McIn climate change, economics, government, health & fitnessLeave a comment

Canada’s Oil Sands could be better regulated, certainly, but using them to symbolize evil is disingenuous at best.

I agree with the outspoken Rex.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

What percentage of delegates in Durban would I call hypocrites? … More than half, I reckon.

(via CBC)

Lesbians Raised A Baby And This Is What They Got

On By Rick McIn ethics, governmentLeave a comment

Last February, a 19-year-old, self-described sixth-generation Iowan stood before an Iowa legislative panel to argue against a state constitutional amendment. The teenager, Zach Wahls, stood up at the podium and gave a three-minute speech about his life in a two-mothers home. …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

After the video was posted to YouTube, Wahls became an Internet celebrity, praised for his eloquent and impassioned speech. …

… the Iowa senate was considering an amendment that would ban same-sex marriages in one of the six states in the United States that legally recognizes it. …

The publicity also helped kill the proposed amendment. …

Washington Post

When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality?

On By Rick McIn ethics, GOP USA, governmentLeave a comment

OK, lets say you’re like this guy:

… I’ve been a Republican all my adult life. I have worked on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, at Forbes magazine, at the Manhattan and American Enterprise Institutes, as a speechwriter in the George W. Bush administration. I believe in free markets, low taxes, reasonable regulation, and limited government. I voted for John ­McCain in 2008, and I have strongly criticized the major policy decisions of the Obama administration. …

I can respect that.

I’m a fiscal conservative myself. Unfortunately the USA has no Party that’s proven itself fiscally conservative.

But what the Republicans have done since the rise of the Tea Party movement is simply wrong. And terribly wrong for the USA.

Historians will look back on this era as one of the low points of American history, especially if Obama wins again and they get another 4 years.

When this lying, evil scumbag is the voice of moderation in the field of candidates, you haven’t got much to choose from.

It’s worth reading David Frum … before you go on FOX TV and call him a closet Liberal.

NY Magazine – When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality?

Thanks Tom for the link.

SOPA sucks … American legislators are criminals

On By Rick McIn ethics, government, internetLeave a comment

Proponents of the latest disastrous IP bill , the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) insist it only targets the “worst of the worst”: so-called “rogue” foreign websites that profit from pirating U.S. intellectual property. But the broad definitions and vague language in the bill could place dangerous tools into the hands of IP rightsholders, with little opportunity for judicial oversight. One very possible outcome: many of the lawful sites you know and love will face new legal threats. …

Etsy
Flickr
Vimeo

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Anybody who thinks about SOPA for more than 15sec will realize it’s an idiotic idea.

… It’s a power play from big corporate media companies — the sort of legislation that nearly everyone strenuously opposes but which might pass because the money is on the wrong side. …

Daring Fireball by John Gruber

American legislators are mostly bought off by old media. How does that happen. Here’s one painfully obvious example just brought to light by 60 Minutes, a show that aired Nov. 13, 2011:

… The next national election is now less than a year away and congressmen and senators are expending much of their time and their energy raising the millions of dollars in campaign funds they’ll need just to hold onto a job that pays $174,000 a year.

… Most former congressmen and senators manage to leave Washington – if they ever leave Washington – with more money in their pockets than they had when they arrived …

(Peter) Schweizer says he wanted to know why some congressmen and senators managed to accumulate significant wealth beyond their salaries, and proved particularly adept at buying and selling stocks.

Schweizer: There are all sorts of forms of honest grafts that congressmen engage in that allow them to become very, very wealthy. So it’s not illegal, but I think it’s highly unethical, I think it’s highly offensive, and wrong.

Steve Kroft: What do you mean honest graft?

Schweizer: For example insider trading on the stock market. If you are a member of Congress, those laws are deemed not to apply.

Congress: Trading stock on inside information?

Implicated are Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner and many other heavy hitters. If they were anyone other than the group of people writing the laws, they’d be in prison.

There is some hope this criminal behaviour can be slowed – Measure to ban Congressional insider trading gains steam

Putin is a MAN’S MAN

On By Rick McIn government, humourLeave a comment

Who wouldn’t want to be a ruthless dictator … who gets to indulge his every adventurous fantasy.

Not only does Putin have his own personal photographer following his every move, day and night, but she’s a former model and “Miss Moscow” finalist.

see more on The Atlantic – Vladimir Putin, Action Man

via DF

Rick Perry – born again Republican

On By Rick McIn GOP USA, government, humourLeave a comment

I’m thinking Rick Perry could beat Obama in the next election, despite his looks … He looks like a made-for-TV-movie American President. Phoney.

Perry spent his first six years in politics as a Democrat, in a somewhat forgotten history that is sure to be revived and scrutinized by Republican opponents if he decides to run for president. …

Rick Perry: The Democrat Years

When I checked on that damning history on Wikipedia, I found that it was not included. Some Republican editing, I assume.

Next problem for Rick Perry – I’m not sure the Tea Party crowd is going to approve of his Corndog eating lifestyle.

Current:

Campaigning outside Pittsburgh today, GOP frontrunner Rick Perry attended a picnic at St Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Oil City where he enjoyed a foot long corndog while touring the fabulous reproduction of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel.

There’s an old truism that politicians should never eat hotdogs. These photos will show you why.

Verizon paid less tax than they charged YOU last year

On By Rick McIn economics, government, product complaints3 Comments

Although Verizon paid less in income taxes than its average customer paid in phone bills, the company broke no laws. America’s corporations spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on lobbying, and they get a good return on their investments. They get tax loopholes — and plenty of them. Last year, Verizon shelled out $16.8 million to lobby federal lawmakers and another $18.7 million on contributions into the campaign accounts of their favorite federal politicians.

Obviously Verizon needs to charge customers MORE … so they can pay some corporate tax.

Read more on Consumerist.

I know that the USA cannot tax itself to fiscal balance. But it’s stupid to perpetuate a system where “25 out of the country’s 100 highest-paid chief executives actually earned more in 2010 than their companies paid out in corporate income taxes”.

Corporations and rich individuals should actually pay more tax.

Bank scam – Fauxclosure Crisis

On By Rick McIn government, product complaintsLeave a comment

“60 Minutes” … weighed in with a thoughtful segment on the mortgage mess involving faulty or fraudulent mortgage paperwork. (Deal Journal readers previously have dubbed this the “Fauxclosure Crisis.”)

The news magazine program went in search of “Linda Green,” a woman in rural Georgia whose signature was on thousands on mortgage documents as a vice president of more than 20 banks — at the same time. Linda Green told “60 Minutes” she had never been a bank vice president, but was dubbed one by an alleged mortgage sweatshop because her name was short and easy to spell.

Click HERE to watch the “60 Minutes” segment. …

WSJ

pie-in-the-face of Rupert Murdoch

On By Rick McIn bad news, government, product complaintsLeave a comment

Everybody loves a good pie in the face.

I’m not sure even Gandhi could suppress a giggle.

Jonnie Marbles: Why I foam-pied Rupert Murdoch:

… It’s not difficult to find reasons to dislike Rupert Murdoch. His reach is one of the most insidious and toxic forces in global politics today. The phone-hacking scandal, despicable though it is, barely scratches the surface of the damage done by News International. It is a media empire built on deceit and bile, that trades vitriol for debate and thinks nothing of greasing the wheels of power until they turn in its favour. What’s more, no matter what the grievances he wreaks on those he has never met, his power and money keep him forever safely out of their reach. …

read more – Guardian

I love symbolic actions, even mildly violent ones.

The average person doesn’t know Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, the world’s second-largest media conglomerate.

His biographer, Michael Wolff, knows Murdoch – Ad Week – How Bad Is News Corp.?

… He is ranked 13th most powerful person in the world in the 2010 Forbes’ The World’s Most Powerful People list. With a personal net worth of US$7.6 billion, he was ranked 117th wealthiest person in the world in March 2011. …

My most trusted source on media, On The Media, thinks he and his son will be going down for the phone hacking scandal.

Not for the scummy and illegal practices, but for the cover-up.

Glad to hear it. His Fox News is the source of more bias, misinformation and downright lies than any other major media.

He bought the Wall Street Journal in 2007, once a bastion of news excellence. They’ve been slammed for jumping on the anti-Muslim bandwagon as quickly as tabloids.

In reaction to the massacre in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik, a Christian extremist:

… Many news organizations leapt to the conclusion that the bombing and shootings were the work of a jihadist terrorist group. The Wall Street Journal laid the blame in that direction in an editorial and then scrubbed away the evidence after it turned out to be incorrect. Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun went with the headline, “Al Qaeda Massacre: Norway’s 9/11.” …

The WSJ tried to cover-up the error rather than make a correction, standard practice.

If you like bashing Murdoch and Fox as I do, read on – Guardian – Even Rupert Murdoch is afraid of Roger Ailes, the paranoid boss of Fox News.


… apparently Murdoch has nothing to do with Fox News, so long as it keeps bringing in massive profits.

_____

On the bright side, the much maligned NY Times paywall seems to be working. About 250,000 subscribers are paying up to $500/yr. It may yet be a business model that can keep newspapers printed on dead trees.

Now The Onion is testing a paywall. Hmmm …