Aussie Asshole!!!!

   

     F@&K YOU! 

     That's right Rupert Murdoch, fuck you. Finally your media empire is crumbling, and those of us who can't stand the B.S. you and your cronies peddle as,"fair and balanced news coverage," we will certainly be entertained by your crumbling ivory tower. News Corp. is finally going to reap what they have sown. 

     In case you're head was buried in the mounting piles of bills on your kitchen table, Murdoch is being investigated in Great Britain for a scandal that includes, wire tapping phones and hacking into both voice and e-mail accounts. Cops were bribed, families of dead people were led to believe their missing loved ones may still be alive somewhere, because their voice mail was being checked and erased, pretty disgusting stuff. I am not going to get into all the stuff News Corp. and its affiliates are being accused of. This is my opinion of the scandal and News Corp. as a whole. If you want all the facts and figures go to www.guardian.co.uk A very respectable British news service. 

     I live in the United States, so my hatred of News Corp. stems from Fox News. Actually I really started to dislike Fox News around the time of the build up to the war in Iraq. Lies were spun and endlessly covered by Fox News. Why would we as Americans support a war in a country that did not attack us? Well the propagandists at Fox News spun every possible story about Iraq coming out of the government into an immanent attack scenario, remember wmd's and yellow cake. Lets do a little math here. The second largest share holder at News Corp. is a Saudi prince named Prince Alaweed bin Talal al Saud. We all know at this point that the Bush family has a very cushy relationship with the Saudis. So, if a Saudi prince is worried that he is going to be attacked by Iraq, what would be the easiest way of neutralizing that threat? Ah yes, propagandize the American people into thinking that there was some connection between Iraq and 9-11. That way we shoulder the burden of a Suadi problem. After the war was kicked off we were all treated to the wall to wall coverage dubbed,"shock and awe." I personally found this sickening, the fact that we had a media outlet glorifying the killing of not only Iraqis but our brave men and women in the armed forces. War is not something to glorify, war is the last resort humans come to when there is no more room for negotiations. War is definitely not something to glorify when you attack a nation that has not committed and act of war against you. Fox News has glorified the living shit out of the Iraq war for their own financial gains. Murdoch should be held partially responsible for the damn debacle in Iraq.

     Another reason I can't stand the propagandist outlet dubbed Fox News is the fact that they have made regular Americans dumber for having watched their programming. All day long Fox News is out there blaring conservative, Republican talking points, the government is to big,  President Obama is not one of us, liberals are trying to kill your grandma and so on. Now we have a whole segment of society that only parrots the Fox News talking points, and won't even entertain the notion that they are being duped for the profit motive of a large multinational corporation. Fox News has a programming lineup that is ultra conservative, anti gay, anti minority, overly Christian and completely void of fact. Take a look at the Tea Party, supported by Fox propaganda, it started as a small group of people wearing funny hats and pissed that they have to pay taxes. I may add that the majority of the Tea Party was really just pissed about the fact that the American people elected Barack Obama. Fox pumped up the Tea Party to the point that in 2010 many of the Republicans that were elected were proud Tea Party followers. Let me also add that nine months after the election many Americans have some serious buyers remorse. Does Fox News care that they are damaging the country? Fuck no,  damaged or not their ratings are still good. 

     Rupert Murdoch and the News Corp. empire are vile. They are responsible for war, the murder of Dr. Tiller, vehement dog whistle racism, millions of dollars paid out to shut people up, the destruction of straight up reporting without opinion interjected, and the dumbing down of the American people. They need to be held responsible. Hopefully our Justice Department will open an investigation into these issues. We have enough time to investigate whether or not Roger Clemens was using steroids to play a game better. News Corp. is literally damaging the foundation this fine nation was built upon. I would contend that is a little more important than a baseball player injecting steroids. 

     At the end of the day News Corp. is the modern day Joseph Goebbels. Nothing more than a pathetic little propagandist. Propagandists are never remembered for anything other than being an agenda driven entity that will create falsehoods to get an outcome which they find desirable. Maybe someday News Corp. will air some real shock and awe footage, like Murdoch being arrested and jailed by that stupid fucking touchdown robot on Fox Sports. Good Luck America!!!      

       

Imagination: (It's Good For You)

     Remember when you were a kid, you could sit back and stare at the clouds and see infinite ever changing images. Imagination is one of the truly human things we posses. It allows us to step away from the rigidity of the real world, it allows to have free flowing thought, unimpeded by the stress of getting by from day to day. Sometimes I wonder why imagination was so easy to access as a child, and why as an adult it seems so fleeting.
     Remember when you played baseball or football after school, couldn't wait to call your shot like Babe Ruth, couldn't wait to make that one handed grab, and score that game winning touchdown to win the Super Bowl. Remember playing war with your friends in the woods, setting up jails, booby traps, and eventually winning. Remember when your parents got a new refrigerator, and all you had to do was redecorate the box to create your spaceship to the stars and beyond. Being a kid was certainly fun, to bad we have to grow up!
     I think sometimes that as adults we press ourselves into such a rigid way of life, "The Rat Race," that we forget how to keep our imagination fluid. We worry about work, bills, our children, and so on, that sometimes we forget to go out and just have fun. The things we do as recreation even cause us stress sometimes. I can tell you with a straight face, I would much rather go play football in my old neighborhood than deal with parking, food, crowds, traffic and all the other headaches that go along with going to an NFL game. Yet somehow we are led to believe that going to the game is the ultimate experience for a football fan.
     I love to day-dream and let my mind wonder, you know that feeling you get when you just stare at something and let your mind go, yeah, that's where the good stuff comes from. Imagination has gotten us to the moon. Imagination has allowed scientists to develop new technologies that have allowed us to see so far in to space, that we are actually viewing events that happened millions and billions of years ago. So next time your stressed out, overworked, underpaid, and the world feels like it is going to swallow you whole, relax.
Maybe all you need to do is, go out to the back yard, get comfortable in your favorite chair, and just stare at the clouds. Who knows what you can come up with. It seems to have worked well for Einstein. I leave you with a quote from Einstein to ponder. "The Intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." Good Luck America!!

A Message To Science Haters:

     Ohh yeah, flat earthers, climate science deniers, Jesus was walking with his pet dinosaur crowd, this message is for you. If you think Noah sailed the entire earth collecting all the living things on this planet, this message is for you. Do yourself a favor and go to your local university, tell the scientist working on breakthrough vaccinations to stop wasting his or her time, you will do them a favor and just pray away the ills of the world.

     Lets start with the climate science deniers. Whether you like it or not, scientists all over the world have spent years and decades studying the climate. They have meticulously studied atmospheric makeup and content, ocean currents, global temperatures, ice core samples, deforestation, industrialization, and damn near everything that could possibly affect our climate. This brand of science is so large and encompassing it has taken decades to gather the needed data to even propose a hypothesis. After all the hard work put in by thousands of scientists, we get one freakishly large snowstorm on the east coast, and here come the haters. "Where is your global warming now guy." Climate and weather are two different things altogether. Weather is the state of the atmosphere at a place and time. Climate is the prevailing weather conditions in an area over a long period of time. Humans have clearly had an affect on our overall climate. We have put trillions of tons of waste gasses into the atmosphere, tons of pollutants into our oceans, massive amounts of toxic waste into the ground and precious watersheds. If you have a really nice fish tank, do me a favor, every day for a year, put a handful of your garbage in it. While your at it, add a drop of mercury, benzene, and just for shits an giggles some bio hazardous medical waste. Tell me in a year that your beautiful fish tank is thriving. There is only so much that this planet is going to put up with before it starts killing the problem. Climate change is real, and we had better start accepting the fact that we need to respect the planet that allows us to thrive.

     Lets move on to the six thousand year old earth crowd. First of all, astronomers and astrophysicists have spent a really really long time trying to understand the origins of the universe. The Big Bang Theory is the best hypothesis that centuries of observation has produced so far. The different models that have been used to gauge the age of the universe are incredibly complex, and quite confusing for the average guy swinging a hammer at a construction site. Biblical history on the other hand, is easy to wrap your head around. God makes man, God makes woman, they screw up, get sent out of Eden, and here we are a couple thousand years later. Don't question the fact that science has dated rocks, minerals, and organic matter to be millions and billions of years old. That's just a big game of dupe the Christian. I want my kids to be taught science in school, provable observations, the scientific method, chemistry, physics, general relativity and so on. Keep your creationism at home with your kids. I am not going to dumb down the next generation because of my inability to comprehend complex scientific material.

     Lastly, we are all quite familiar with the story of Noah's Ark. I personally can't believe that one guy, a couple thousand years ago, sailed the entire world collecting all of the living animals. How big was this boat that collected one male and one female species of everything? How did he get all the way to South America, and the Arctic? Currently there are over 1.4 million described species. That means Noah put 2.8 million animals on a boat. A U.S. Navy aircraft carrier sails with a crew of about six thousand, ask them to logistically accommodate 2.8 million creatures. I am sure they will laugh. Maybe this is a story about a local phenomenon that encompassed the entire world as Noah knew it. In his time people in South America didn't even know that his part of the world existed, and vice versa. Yeah, I can totally believe that there may have been a localized catastrophe that Noah reacted to. No, I can't believe this guy sailed the entire world collecting two of everything, because God wanted to destroy the world. 

     In conclusion, I am tired of hearing a bunch of crap aimed at promoting a creationist agenda and denying the hard, laborious work that has been done by thousands of scientists. There is no big agenda to deny religion its place in the world, however, there is a religious agenda to deny the hard work of science because it doesn't fit in with the narrow agenda of biblical theology. Science is constantly evolving and changing. New discoveries happen every day, discoveries that change the way we think, or view the world around us. Biblical theology is unchanging. Trying to vindicate the biblical version of creation is not scientific observation, it is trying to push an agenda. Besides, if God did snap his fingers and create this beautiful planet which we inhabit, shouldn't we stop shitting on it. Shouldn't we stop the largest multi-national corporations from buying our politicians, just so they can turn around and pollute the world to increase their bottom line. Think about that for awhile. Good Luck America!!   

President Obama Set To Announce Troop Drawdown In Afghanistan:

     Tonight President Obama is giving a speech to announce that we are going to start drawing down our military forces in Afghanistan. It has been speculated that we are set to bring home ten thousand soldiers by years end, and possibly twenty thousand by the summer of 2012. Whether you agree with the President or not, this is not an easy decision for him to make. What will the future Afghanistan look like? The possibilities are limitless.

     I have been tempted to think we should gather up our troops and equipment and get out of that hell hole as fast as possible. However, when push comes to shove, I think the President his making a good choice by drawing down our forces slowly. The last thing we need is to let that region of the world fall into complete chaos once again. Afghanistan is a hot bed for fanaticism, it is going to take time for the people to establish a government for themselves. 

     One reason we can't just up and leave are the logistics that go into transporting 120,000 troops and their equipment. Massive amounts of military hardware have been brought into Afghanistan and they have to be taken out carefully. We can't risk leaving behind weapons and hardware that could be used on Afghan civilians by a future force similar to the Taliban. We also don't want anything left behind that could be sold to our enemies and used on our soldiers. The Soviets made this mistake in the late eighties and early nineties when they were withdrawing from Afghanistan. They continued to supply the Mujaheddin, which in turn later turned those weapons against Afghan civilians, and even later, American troops. Lets be careful what we leave behind, someone can always find a market for military hardware.

     Afghanistan also has a long history of not supporting a centralized government, it is a tribal region consisting of many governing bodies. When we took down the Taliban we installed a centralized government in Kabul that has not produced a very good track record so far. Every day we hear of corruption and malfeasance on the part of the Karzai government. The Karzai government is nowhere near competent enough to keep the Taliban from reasserting their presence, and let's be honest nobody wants to see the Taliban reassert themselves. Whether it is the Karzai government or a newly formed Afghan council, government, regime, whatever the people want to call it, they are going to need time to train security forces. We can't just leave and let civilians get slaughtered.
     I am glad to here that we are finally starting the process of leaving Afghanistan. This was a war that came out of necessity, unfortunately it has become an endless conflict with no clearly defined mission. I hope we learn a valuable lesson from Afghanistan. Nation building is impossible, unless the people of that nation participate in the building process. The Taliban has been weakened, Al Qaeda has been significantly broken, Osama Bin Laden is dead, we will be leaving the Afghan people in a better place than before we came. Afghanistan is a very complicated region I don't think anyone knows what is going to come of that country. Hopefully the Afghan people can eventually figure out what it is they want for their country. Unfortunately, an entire generation of Afghans has known nothing other than perpetual war. Hopefully peace will be a welcomed new way of life. Good Luck America!!  
           

Happy Fathers Day:

     Happy Fathers Day. Today is a good day to thank your dad for all those rides to practice and games, for all those school plays he sat patiently through, for putting up with bad grades, and most important of all for raising you into the person you have become. So give your dad a call or tell him in person, thank you. Thanks Dad!!

Trouble At Ft. Calhoun Nuclear Power Station:

                  THIS IS NOT GOOD!                                                                     

     This is a picture of the Ft. Calhoun nuclear power generating station, with some obvious flooding concerns. Ft. Calhoun is located along the Missouri River about twenty miles from Omaha, Nebraska. Recently, due to the historic flooding of the Missouri River, Omaha Public Power District officials have taken measures to ensure the safety of the facility. "I want (people) to understand the plant is safe (and) will continue to be safe," said Dave Bannister, an OPPD nuclear plant officer. Officials said on Friday that the plant is on the lowest emergency status, but they are prepared if the river were to rise another ten feet. This is according to reporting by KETV ABC 7, Omaha's local ABC affiliate. Where is the national media on this one. Still covering Representative Weiner and his transgressions?
     Well, nothing to see here folks, move along. After the destruction the world has witnessed at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, I think we should all be concerned about images like this one. God forbid something were to go wrong at this facility. The Missouri River could potentially be contaminated by leaking nuclear materials. The Missouri drains to the Mississippi, which in turn drains to the Gulf of Mexico. Everything downstream of the facility would potentially be in the path of this oncoming radiation. People, crops, animals, everything could potentially be affected. That would be a disaster on a scale that is just unimaginable. 

     We really need to start looking at how we generate our electricity. Nuclear power is not safe, mainly because even the smallest leaks can have devastating consequences. Germany has committed to doing away with their nuclear facilities by 2022, and I think we should follow their lead. We need to start coming up with a comprehensive solution for replacing our nuclear energy with clean sources of power generation. 

     A nuclear accident is not the only concern for nuclear power generation. After the fuel rods have exhausted their life span in the reactor, they are stored in cooling pools to keep them from contaminating the biosphere. Spent nuclear fuel remains hazardous for many, many years. We have no permanent solution to this problem yet, however, different options are being looked at. No matter the solution, we will still have radioactive waste somewhere, buried, burned, who knows. 

     I'm not going to go all crazy environmentalist on this post, but, we have got to look at the potential damage we could produce by our insatiable energy consumption. We had better start investing more into clean energy initiatives before we have a catastrophic incident that puts not only our lives in jeopardy, but also the lives of future generations. I am confident the planet will heal itself of any man-made cataclysm, however, it would be nice if the human species is not responsible for nearly destroying the earth. Good Luck America!! 

Social Security Is An Easy Fix:

     Lately, with talks of reducing the debt and deficit, Social Security has come up in many conversations. Most people will tell you Social Security is bankrupt, and that by the time they are going to retire there will be nothing left for them. According to ABC News' Tahman Bradley, Social Security will be exhausted by the year 2036. That certainly is not welcome news if you are planning on being alive beyond the next twenty-five years. What should we as a nation do to address this problem? Raise the retirement age to seventy? Cut Social Security benefits for those that will be very well off in their twilight years? I don't think so.
     The simplest and fairest solution is uncommonly easy. Raise the cap on Social Security deductions from it's current level at about 106,000 dollars of annual income. Currently for those of us that are lucky enough to make more than 106,000 dollars, Social Security does not receive anything from the excess income. By raising the cap on deductions there will be more revenue put into the system to ensure it's solvency for a greater amount of time. People can still retire at sixty-seven, and Social Security will continue to be a viable source of income for our seniors.
     Think about this for a minute, someone making 50,000 dollars a year and contributing roughly five percent of gross income, will generate about 2,500 dollars for Social Security. At 100,000 dollars a year the contribution would be 5,000 dollars. Remember, the current cap is at 106,000 dollars, any additional income beyond that figure contributes nothing to Social Security. So the person making 1 million dollars a year still only contributes about 5,000 dollars of their gross income. This certainly does not seem logical. If the numbers are broken down the individual contributing 5,000 dollars of 1 million dollars worth of income is only contributing about 1.0526 percent, while the individual making 50,000 dollars is contributing about five percent. When both people retire they are going to get the same amount monthly from Social Security. So why should the person who is generating less income be contributing at a greater percentage. If we move the cap on Social Security to 500,000 dollars for example, we will generate nearly five times what is currently being generated. Simple fix.
     Not only is this a simple way to fix a huge problem, it also makes the system a little more balanced based on income levels. Yes, there is an argument to be made that the wealthiest among us probably will not need Social Security by the time they retire. If they are not going to need this insurance, then why pay for it? This is my opinion, most people do not generate enormous sums of wealth by themselves. It should be part of ones social responsibility to look after the worker bees that helped you manufacture the wealth you have accumulated. It's not like society is going to steal all your wealth, most people just don't want to be homeless and starving, if they actually get to the point of retirement. People are all very different, however, we all pay into social programs to help us out when we become to old to contribute by our own means. We had better not forget that the average worker is the very person who put in the sweat and muscle so the above average entrepreneur could amass great sums of wealth. Henry Ford didn't turn every bolt on his Model T's, however, he made sure all of his employees made enough in a year to purchase a Model T. Sound wisdom, from a master capitalist. Good Luck America!!

Right Wing Radio Has Made You Dumb:

     I have noticed that the faithful listeners of right wing radio are losing the information battle. From time to time I turn on AM hate radio just to see what the neanderthals are whining about. First of all, they all get their talking points from the same place, Heritage Foundation, Fox News, right wing blogs, Family Research Council, Cato and so on. Then on a daily basis they hype the talking point and get their listeners all worked up and inflamed about some issue that really has no basis in the real world. Let's take for example the notion that President Obama is a hard left liberal. Two and a half years into his presidency, after hooking up Wall Street, after backing off of comprehensive immigration reform, after getting a watered-down healthcare bill passed, and after killing the top terrorist in the world, Osama Bin Laden, he still is viewed as a hard left liberal. Please, are you kidding me, it's not like the guy is smoking weed and letting his freak flag fly. If you listen to the hate on the radio however, you would think he is.
     I am so tired of having a political conversation, and I use the term conversation lightly, with the loyal fans of right wing radio. The dumbest shit is peddled as gospel, things that are so easily debunked it is laughable. Yet no matter how much proof is shown that their argument doesn't hold water, there is no changing their opinion. Rush Limbaugh said it, it must be true. Or I get the really dumb rebuttal which usually goes something like, "why do you hate freedom." Yeah moron, I hate freedom, that's why I didn't support George Bush and his warrant less wire taps. It really does get old. I could have a better conversation with a three year old by simply saying,"I know you are, but what am I."
     I have no problem with an opinionated conversation, we are all entitled to that little nugget of freedom. I do have a huge problem with those amongst us that refuse to realize there is only one set of facts. The facts can be debated, opined about, and dissected to the ends of the earth, but in the end, the facts are the facts. Right wing radio likes to twist the facts in the same manner that they like to torture biblical versus. As long as one little inkling of truth is left in their mantra of the day, they scream it at fifty thousand watts. Do these tools on the radio realize that the core of their listeners are not exactly Harvard material. When you spread lies and false statements to the least educated among us you are doing this country a disservice. You are creating an entire group of people that truly do not know what they are talking about, they are just repeating some opinion that has been peddled as truth. I am not saying that everybody who listens to the likes of Rush or Hannity is a complete moron, however, they probably have an agenda that suits right wing ideology. Think about this. Why would these guys rail against taxes on people who make more than a million dollars? Because they make twenty and thirty million a year. They don't give two shits about you or I, it's all about them. They tell us everyday that this nation needs to cut the very programs that keep the least of us from literally starving and dying. Where is the shared sacrifice? What the hell ever happened to," all for one, one for all." Can't have those damn welfare-queens pulling up in their Lexus to receive their WIC benefits.
     The biggest argument I have with right wing radio is the absolute racism that is blurted out by the hosts. If President Obama even acknowledges the fact that he is half black these morons chime in, "he is anti white", or "this is reverse racism." What a load of crap, I have heard Rush Limbaugh play a song called Barack The Magic Negro, blatantly racist. I have heard Rush refer to Barack Obama as, and I quote,"man child." Yesterday, Neil Boortz on his radio program said, and I quote," we got to damn many urban thugs, yo, ruining the quality of life for everybody. And I'll tell you what it's gonna take, you people, you are-you need to have a gun. You need to have training. You need to learn how to use that gun. You need to get a permit to carry that gun. And you do in fact need to carry that gun and we need to see some dead thugs littering the landscape of Atlanta. We need more dead thugs in this city." This man just broke a major law, he is inciting violence. And he is not clever about whom he is referring to, urban thugs, yo. So should the people of Atlanta lock and load and go find some black people and start shooting them. This is pathetic and highly dangerous. I would hope that the FCC would take some action against dangerous rants of this nature.
     This era that we are living in is special, we have all the information we need at our finger tips. If you hear someone talking about certain issues, take five minutes and see if there is any truth to what is being talked about. If we are not careful, we will become a nation of corporate dictators with a populace to under-educated to even realize we are wage slaves. Ask questions, do some homework, and most importantly, take some time to become educated. Parrots are a dime dozen. All they do is repeat the same shit everyday. Good Luck America!!

Our News Media Is Terrible:

     The news is officially dead! For two weeks now, the top story on virtually every news outlet has had something to do with Congressman Anthony Weiner and his Twitter transgressions. I ask, who gives a crap how many pictures of his penis and or other body parts he sent around the internet? Did he do something illegal? Did he actually have an affair with someone? What the crap is the story the media is peddling? As far as I have heard all the guy did was have sexting sessions with women, and send them pictures of his twig and berries. Does this really deserve two weeks of media attention? No!
     Is it really any surprise to find out another politician is kinda sleazy? I think not. In the last ten years there have been so many stories of political malfeasance that no one should be surprised. We have Elliot Spitzer paying for high end hookers. We have had Mark Sanford and his South American honey. Think John Ensign, Mark Foley, John Edwards, Larry Craig, Bill Clinton, David Vitter, Newt Gingrich, and the list could go on and on. Most of the people I have named above did things that were a whole lot worse than Tweet his package. Well, personally I don't really hold Bill Clinton to the fire either, all he did was get a little oral loving from a fat chick. It's not like he was trying to pick up dudes at an airport bathroom. Arnold Schwarzenegger cheated on his wife with the housekeeper, fathered a child with this woman, and he is usurped by the media machine by a guy who sent lewd pictures to women. By the way, as of this post, I have not heard any of the women he spoke with accuse him of anything illegal. So why the hell is this even a story?
     The media does not want you to be well informed. They want you to look at the shiny thing over here while their corporate masters are making campaign donations to members of congress so they can get their agenda made into law. This is bullshit! We should demand that media give us news, real news. Last week five of our bravest were killed in Iraq from rocket attacks by Shiite militia. That was a ten second news story. Not the headline, not below the fold on the front page, a ten second story, buried by Congressman Weiner and his, well thats just to easy. I am tired of having to go to BBC or Al Jazeera to find out what is actually going on in the world.
     American media is a joke. As a nation we are more concerned with the tabloid crap than actually educating ourselves about the world we live in. The rest of the world is watching us fall behind in strategically important fields like, science, mathematics, and engineering. While they are watching us fall behind they are also laughing at us. We have people who can't tell you how to do a basic algebra problem, but they sure know who Lamar Odem is waking up next to. Wake up man, time is precious, we fall to far behind, and before you know it we are not the consumer nation anymore, we become the slave-wage nation. This is no joke, if you think the corporations that own the American media empire want us to be well educated and asking thought provoking questions you are high. They want us as dumb as possible. An educated electorate may challenge their power, can't have that, that would get in the way of profit margins. God forbid your bottom line is not as fat because you actually play fair!
     The media is broken, boycott the media, go to internet sites that actually research their journalism, and site their sources. Read print media, the news papers are not perfect, however, they are far more balanced than most of what you see on the television. Educate yourself, take an arithmetic course at your local college, read, read to your children, takes the reins, education will always provide salvation.
     This post started with Rep. Weiner and his Twitter problems. Do you see the deeper issue here, we are being dumbed down. So many issues could stem from this one topic, we need to have the conversation before it becomes to late. I don't know about you, but as an American, I like being the greatest nation on earth, and I for one will not tolerate the bullshit that is spoon-fed to us by our media. Do a little research, and I guarantee you will be surprised by what you find, then and only then, you can start to ask the question of why is this getting no coverage. Soon you will find that the shit that is being fed to you is just that, "SHIT." We better wise up and start asking the tough questions before it is to late. If we don't, get ready to be number two! Good Luck America!!

Ten Reasons Land Surveying Has Been A Cool Career:

     I decided to post ten things I really enjoy about being a land surveyor, mainly because I am bored today, and it's kind of crappy outside, but it also reminds me that the day to day grind and minutia of a career does have many highlights. So here goes.

10: You get to spend every day outdoors, enjoying fresh air and ever changing scenery. I don't know if I could sit in office cubicle all day playing the office politics game. Just my opinion.

9: Every job is a unique experience. Not every job I do is fun or cool, but, they are all different for varying reasons. Some look super easy and turn out to be a pain in the backside, and some seem incredibly daunting and turn out to be a slam-dunk.

8: Surveying is a profession practiced not only nationally, but everywhere on the planet. I have not had the experience of working in other countries, however, I have worked in many different regions of the country. It's very nice being able to live wherever you like, and being able to stay in the same career field.

7: Some of the most famous figures in American history were also land surveyors. The list includes President George Washington, President Abraham Lincoln, President Thomas Jefferson, Daniel Boone, and acclaimed author Henry David Thoreau. This list could literally go on and on.

6: You can advance your career for a lifetime. Surveying is a such a dynamic and ever changing career that you can spend a lifetime surveying and never get to do it all. New techniques and equipment are being developed every day. This creates an ever changing work environment that keeps things interesting.

5: Land surveyors are one of the most important links in the construction industry. In general it is the surveyors responsibility to interpret engineering plans into staking that contractors can build from. The surveyor makes sure all buildings, pipelines, concrete, and infrastructure are put in the right place. Without surveyors builders wouldn't no where to start.

4: Boundary surveying can literally transform into a history lesson. Sometimes when surveyors are doing deed research to establish the boundary of a certain parcel of land, it can lead to some very interesting finds. I have traced parcels of land on the east coast back to revolutionary times. I have seen paperwork drawn up by Civil War generals. I have found physical monuments that are well over one-hundred years old. It's pretty cool to stumble on these real life relics of the past.

3: Land surveying is one of the oldest professions known to human civilization. Since time began, there have always been disputes between people about the boundaries of their land. It has always been the surveyors responsibility to accurately define the true boundary lines. Surveyors were also instrumental in the building of the Pyramids in Egypt, the Roads of Rome, and the Roman Aqueduct. Without surveyors we might just be living in a cave still. I doubt it!

2: I have been able to see places that I would never get to see if I were not performing some kind of survey work. I have seen places at several international airports that the general population does not have access to. I have been on several military bases, and seen some of the awesome hardware our men and women serving rely on to their job. I have seen the inner workings of power plants, damns, buildings, landfills, bridges, refineries, and much more. Had I not been a surveyor I would have never been able to see these places.

1: The number one reason I enjoy being a land surveyor is my father taught me the profession. Ever since I was a boy my father would take me to job sites and show me little things here and there. Now that he has passed on I am so proud to carry on in his footsteps. I had the privilege of working under his guidance for many years, and the lessons he taught me have been invaluable. My father was a great surveyor, and I can only hope that he would be proud of my accomplishments so far. It is truly humbling to stand at some of the projects he accomplished. At the end of the day, as much as I miss my father, it is nice to know that I am carrying on his work. Our last name has spanned decades of work and thousands of projects all over the country. Thank you so much Dad!! Someday I will show my son how to pull chains. 

GOP Struggles For Candidate:

     So here we are, summer of 2011, and the GOP still can't find a candidate with the credentials to take on President Obama in the 2012 presidential elections. What's the problem Republicans? For years now you have told America that President Obama is going to be a one term president, he doesn't have the skill or the executive prowess to run the greatest country on Earth. One would think that since he has indoctrinated our children, lied about health care reform, so he could send grandma to the death panel, had his wife try and tell our children what to eat, and turned us into a socialist, communist, Marxist society, this guy would go down like a chump. So, Republicans, where is your contender? So far all I see in your field of candidates are soup-cans.
     I speculate the problem for the GOP is the fact that they let the Tea Party hijack their party. Any reasonable Republican contender is immediately shown how to exit stage left via the wacko-right. The Tea Party is not as popular as Fox News would like you to think. For the most part they are old white people who,"want their country back." I question, back from whom or what? Most of the people who support the Tea Party are the same people that have Fox News blaring in their living room all day. Fox is not overtly racist, but they love the dog whistle style of getting the masses all worked up over the small stuff while there coverage of actual governance is shaky at best. Think back to the health care debate, or for that matter, any piece of legislation passed in the last three years. Fox espoused the talking points rather than the facts of the actual legislation. This gets the Tea Party wack-a-doos all worked up, and before you know it you see someone on the TV machine with an assault rifle at a political event telling some hack journalist that they want the America they grew up in back. Once again, I ask back from whom or what?
     Truth be told, they want their country back from the black guy in The White House. Sure nobody is going to come out and just say it, but, if you have half a brain, do the math. This problem is exactly why the GOP can't find a credible candidate. If you don't agree with the Tea Party nuts you won't get on the Fox news cycle. If you can't get on the,"Fox News Cycle," the majority of Republican voters don't know who you are, or what you stand for. If you start selling out to the talking points of the weirdo right wing crackpots you lose the majority of educated voters. Quite thee proverbial conundrum!!
     Until someone stands up to the stupidity of Fox and the morons walking around in vintage revolutionary war costumes, the GOP will not have a credible candidate. You can't win an election by only garnering the vote of the most gullible amongst us. Sorry, too many of us have worked hard, and educated ourselves, to be duped, by the least educated among us. Next time you have a conversation with someone who is dribbling the usual talking points, ask them an easy question. Who is the speaker of the house? How many amendments are there in the Constitution? Is Omaha Beach in Nebraska? Trust me, you will be surprised by the answers you get, then you will be even more surprised by the dumb-ass logic used to back these answers up. Can we as a nation come together and be motivated by intelligence rather than allegiance to an ideology? I hope so, but for right now the dumbest amongst us have the debate tied to repudiating the ass-backward logic of corporate controlled media. To paraphrase the great Thomas Jefferson, " an educated electorate is the key to a successful democracy." Let us not forget that nugget of wisdom. Let us not forget what the founders of our democracy sacrificed so that we can even have this debate. Good Luck America!!

Ntional Debt Is Not The Only Concern For Our Children! How About Some Love For The Environment!

     Why is it that the GOP talking points concerning our debt and deficit always seem to lead to the idea that we will be leaving our children and grand children with a terrible burden in the future? Don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer in shoring up our finances as a nation. However all the GOP has offered so far, are draconian cuts to much needed social safety nets, and then in turn, giving the savings that these cuts produce to large multi-national corporations. Our Supreme Court ruled last year in the Citizens United case, that these same corporations are considered people, and have the same First Amendment rights as individual citizens. That decision has brought about unprecedented campaign donations by these very corporate interests. These are the corporations who buy off our politicians, get them in lock step, and give them their talking points. Then it is just a matter of spin to convince us, that if we are to get out of this recession we need to give corporations more tax cuts so they can hire more workers. We can never raise taxes on the wealthiest among us. Oh and by the way, that clean air you like to breathe, your children may not have that same advantage. If we restrict what the giant multi-national corporations can do to the environment, all the jobs will dry up and we will be living in a job-less world, that happens to have a healthy environment. So back to my original question. If are children are fiscally wealthy thirty years down the road, what good will it do them when the ground, air, and water are polluted so badly that they are literally being killed by the environment surrounding them?
     What are we thinking? We give all this credence to fiscal responsibility, and yet we constantly pollute the environment with our insatiable energy needs. Ask yourself this question. If the world becomes so irradiated by a massive nuclear accident that our children are dying of horrible cancers and radiation related illnesses, what good is a balanced budget? We are the greatest energy consuming nation in the history of human inhabitation on this planet. It is time to take responsibility for the damage we have done.
     We all know about wind, solar and hydro-electric power, and yes these are great steps toward maintaining a healthy environment. Unfortunately these sources of power generation only make up about twelve percent of our consumption. We as a nation need to take a look backward to the "Space-Race." We were a determined nation. A nation that innovated itself from simple V-2 rockets to the mighty Saturn 5, to landing men on the moon. We need innovation and drive of that scale again. We have some of the brightest minds in this country. We can do this. What we need is a voice to espouse that ambition. What we don't need is corporate money constantly buying our politicians and squashing that ambition.
     We are on an unsustainable course as far as our energy needs are concerned. We basically burn things to make power. Whether it is coal, oil, natural gas, or nuclear power, we are simply burning various combustible materials to generate steam, which turns a turbine and generates electrical power. All fossil fuels generate green-house gases in varying degrees. These gases then trap excess heat within the atmosphere. Whether you think climate change is man made or not is beyond the argument. The fact remains that we are pumping hundreds of tons of emissions into our atmosphere, and we are not sure what the consequences of that will be. Already this spring we have seen some of the wildest weather on record. We are not sure what is causing the disturbing shift in our weather patterns, but would it not be prudent to at least put some of the blame on our energy production.
     The time has come to start making drastic changes. Lets stop funneling billions of dollars in tax breaks to the largest multi-national corporations. Start pushing our politicians to use that money to start innovating the way to real changes in how we produce our energy. I want to leave a better planet for my children. I want my children to be able to go fishing and eat the fish they catch. I want my children to enjoy the natural splendor of the mountains, the forests' and the oceans. If we don't start making big changes our children will be left with a smoldering wreckage of an environment. We have recently been reminded by the British Petroleum oil spill in the gulf and the nuclear nightmare at Fukushima of the grave consequences of our energy production. A hundred years from now, I do not want my great grand children to look back at this generation and see greedy, insatiable energy consumption. I want them to see a generation that changed the world. I want them to see a generation who innovated it's way out of a big problem. I want them to tell stories about how we did it, the same way we tell our children about going to the moon, proudly. We can do this! We are the greatest nation on the planet, lets get started proving it once again. Good Luck America!!

Memorial Day 2011:

     Today we remember all of those who have so bravely served this country. We take this day to think about the sacrifice so many have made and so many more will inevitably make. We thank not only those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, but rather all of those who have sacrificed. All the men and women who have been on extended deployments. All the men and women who have been deployed to combat zones multiple times. The families who support there loved ones thousands of miles away, mightily clinging to the hope they will return home soon. And of course, to those brave souls who have made the ultimate sacrifice in wars past, present, and future, your sacrifice will never go unappreciated. Your memory is the bedrock this great nation stands on. To all the men and women who have served and are currently serving, THANK YOU! Your sacrifice will never be forgotten.

Sarah Palin Running For President,"Maybe You Betcha"

    So Sarah Palin may be throwing her hat in the ring for a possible run at becoming the next President Of The United States. Please do it Mrs. Palin. I can't think of a better way to ensure the reelection of President Obama. Plus, think about how much fun the debates will be while she is standing on stage spewing her usual word salad answers to the simplest of questions. Besides, even if the nation were to have a giant collective brain fart and elect "Snowflake Snookie", she would most likely quit before she is even sworn in.
     Who honestly thinks this woman is anywhere near electable? In general about twenty- five percent of Americans have a favorable rating of her and her politics. These are the same twenty-five percent who constantly held that George W. Bush was doing a good job. The same people who think the Tea Party is on the right track. I would suspect that half of that twenty-five percent believed they were going to be raptured on May 21. Not exactly the most educated and insightful part of our electorate. Oh, and don't let me forget the gun nuts. You know they would be all over a "Princess Caribou Barbie" campaign.
     My first glaring problem with Sarah Palin is the way she talks to the morons that gather at her speaking events. She constantly tries to combine catch words with some kind of fifties "aw-shucks" kinda crap. At least when Joe Biden decides to drop an F-bomb, he drops an F-bomb. Not only is it her style of speaking, but every time she is asked a tough question she comes up with some talking point, wrapped in a blanket of nonsensical, ill-advised, dog-whistle, verbiage. The only reason she sounds somewhat competent in her commentator role on Fox News, is because she is never asked tough questions. Watch any interview she does with Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck, all they do is throw her slow-pitch softball questions.
     Her main mode of communicating to her loyal base is through tweets. Technology has done wonders for the way we communicate in our society, this a good thing. Sitting around, criticizing the President, Congress, or Democrats in general, every time something is done that might not sit real well with your nut-job base, via Twitter, is not game change politics, it's cowardly tossing supposed red meat to your base. Not only are her tweets mostly inflammatory, they are also packed full of lies. Remember Obama's death panels. Flat out lie.
     At the end of the day she has no chance of becoming the forty-fifth POTUS. Other than the base she has, not to many people are going to be swayed to cast a vote for her. She has a become a joke to the American populace in general. However if she does make a run for the Republican nomination, it will be pure comedic gold. Not to mention, if she were to become the Republican nominee Barack Obama would win the twenty-twelve election in a historic landslide. So go for it Mrs. Palin! Help us get President Obama a second term. Good Luck America!!

The War On Drugs: Part Two

     Prohibition, It worked so well with alcohol, so it must work really well with drugs! That's right kids, alcohol was prohibited at one time in the United States. Specifically from 1920 until its repeal in 1933. Prohibition was a movement by not just one, but many of the evangelical religions of the time and the Anti- Saloon League. By pressuring legislators of the time, popularizing the notion that prohibition would reduce domestic violence and remove power from the German-based brewing industry, congress amended the constitution to establish a nation-wide ban on alcohol.
     Crime did not go down, in fact criminal activity involving alcohol spiked. Bootleggers, rum-runners and the speakeasy became signs of the times. The organized crime outfits boomed. Not only did prohibition increase illegal activities, it also deprived the federal government of much needed tax revenue during the early part of the depression. Eventually ration did come back to congress, and in 1933 prohibition was repealed.
     The war on drugs can be directly compared to alcohol prohibition. Has crime gone down? No. As a matter of fact the war on drugs has increased crime rates. The reason is simple, most people don't do drugs. Those who do, don't give a shit whether they are legal or not, they are gonna get high regardless. Whether they are involved in breaking laws to purchase drugs, or are simply breaking the law by using drugs, they are still breaking a law. If someone wants to sit in there home and get drunk, well that is just fine. If someone wants to sit in there home and get high, arrest them and charge them with a felony. A felony that in many states requires serving time in prison. Now, this minor offense has sent someone to an overcrowded prison where there is a good chance they will be forced to become a real criminal.
     Looking at the broader picture, the war on drugs has created cartels that have made hundreds of billions of dollars off American drug consumption. You may or may not like it, but we are exporting huge sums of cash to foreign drug cartels. This is not just a money issue, the cartels are violent organizations that will go to extraordinary lengths do get drugs into the country and cash out. You get in the way, you are either bought off or disappeared. If you take away the profit motive of transport, sale, and consumption, the cash flow dwindles, and as any good economist will tell you, if you can't make money on something, it's not worth doing.
     So, prohibition is obviously not the solution to the problem, people are going to get high and get drunk if they want to. Should the government just open the flood gates and make all drugs legal, crack at 7-Eleven, meth at Dunkin-Donuts. Only the finest Columbian cocaine at the country club. No. Decriminalize possession  of small amounts of drugs. If someone gets caught walking down the road with a crack pipe, don't simply arrest them and charge them with a felony offense for possession. Obviously, if someone is caught breaking into a car, and the arresting officer finds a crack pipe upon frisking this person, it will be tacked on to the felony they are committing by breaking into the car.
     As most of us know, this world has some really bad people inhabiting it. We would be far better off as a society if we were not burdening our law enforcement agencies with petty crimes. Let them focus there resources on the real bad guys.
     Sitting on your curb, smoking crack, is looked upon as pitiful. You become the neighborhood Peria, the crack-head. At that point you have two options, clean up your life and become a functional member of society, or be the home-less, aging, kinda crazy, crack-head the kids laugh at. We all grew up with someone in our neighborhood who would fit that description. It really does become sad to look at. On the flip side of that, most of us know someone that went pretty far down that rocky road of despair, and yet, they managed to turn their life around. Proud to be members of society once again. Sure, it sounds kinda bad that someone is turned into the guy on the steam vent, but some people don't want help when it is offered. Sad, but true.
     Taking the profit motive out of the equation is crucial. This is where the problem gets tough to figure out. Should the government start buying drugs from the producers and selling them so that there is no trafficking? Should every drug be turned back into a marketable product? I don't know. Like I said, tough question to tackle. In my opinion, if you want to take the time and energy to grow a coca plant, refine it into powder cocaine, and then further refine it into crack-cocaine, in your basement, that's all you man. Just don't do it on a major scale, and then try and sell it to the neighborhood. Remember, most of us don't really like the idea of smoking crack. Sorry if I have offended any," basement coca growers".
     The drawback of this thinking is that the cartels will still have a market for their product. However, by reducing the criminalization of small time offenders, more time and effort and can be given to eradicating the whole-sale producers of the product, thereby reducing violent activities associated with production, trafficking, and sale. If Escobar was just a small farmer, growing a plant that locals chewed for it's ability to give you a little jolt, he would be remembered as the Red Bull guy of Columbia. Take the profit out, and you squash the big guy.
     At the end of the day, our government needs to realize the amount of money they are spending trying to  eradicate drug use is just wasted. It is an idealistic challenge that can never be met. We are humans. We do not live in utopia. Some of us are going to seek an escape whether it is legal or not. Most of us are guilty of having a cocktail night! Do we really need to send "bong guy on a Tuesday" to Pelican Bay? Good Luck America!

The War On Drugs: Part One

     Well, let us dive into one of my favorite topics of conversation, the war on drugs. Of course this topic could never be covered accurately in a simple blog post, however, as I stated above it is one of my favorite topics of conversation. It is truly one of those topics that gets people, regardless of their personal disposition, to engage others in thought provoking conversation. There are two basic arguments to be made about the war on drugs. First, it was a completely relevant approach to an escalating drug problem gripping the citizens of the United States. Second, it is an overreaching draconian set of laws and regulations that has created a black market of violence and thuggery. So, with that being said, let us dive in.
     Well just in case you were wondering, the first argument doesn't really hold much water. True, we do have a problem with drug use in the United States. This is not a new problem. Before most items that will cause you to become inebriated were illegal, they were perfectly legal and for the most part looked upon as wonders of modern medicine. Think about cocaine in Coke, elixirs of the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds that contained quantities of opium and other goodies. Until the early part of the twentieth century marijuana was legal and commonly used, hemp, which is the hippie cousin of marijuana, was one of the most widely used textiles. It would seem as though these were boon times for the producers of such goods. So how is it, that all of the sudden, these items became the devils brew? Easy answer, racism and anti immigrant sentiment.
     Many of the Chinese immigrants who came to this country during the building of the major railroads, smoked opium to relax in the evening after a solid day of building the infrastructure of the railroads. How can we get rid of those pesky immigrants now that the labor is done on the railroad ? Ohh ohh, I know, make opium illegal to possess. And so it was done, in 1905 the United States Congress banned opium. Start the deportations. Yeah baby!
     Tensions in the early nineteen hundreds in the American Southwest and West were building about the influx of Mexicans coming to America. Well what do you know, after a fifteen hour day working in the field, a couple of guys smoke a little weed in the evening to relax. How can we get rid of those pesky Mexicans once the crops have been harvested? Yeah, you guessed it, lets make marijuana impossible to possess without the proper documentation, then we will make it impossible do get the correct documentation. Start the deportation engine so we can get that cheap labor out of here. Yeah baby!
     As for cocaine, well I believe this quote will just about some up the social anxiety of the early twentieth century and some of the typical stereotypes associated with cocaine. In 1914 Dr. Christopher Koch testified that,"most of the attacks of the white women of the south, are a direct result of the cocaine-crazed Negro brain." Interesting enough, in the eighties when powder cocaine became so popular, the typical user was a middle class white guy! Wait a minute now, we can't deport the black guys, shit we brought them here. Damn, ever since that emancipation proclamation thingy, we have to respect theses people as actual human beings. Better start the fear mongering!
     Well there we go, we have set the stage for the war on drugs. Next post we will examine the pitfalls of prohibition. It might just be a long post. Good Luck America!

Chase Bank Can Suck It!!

     That's right JP Morgan, you are going to lose another customer. Recently I was informed by Chase that my account will now be charged even more fees than I currently pay. Some of the fees that will now be charged include, five dollars for every money order, eight dollars for an official check, and a monthly maintenance fee if I do not have a direct deposit of five hundred dollars or more once a month. I could go on and on with the new fees but this is more about principle than bitching about fees.
     Previous to 2008 I had been banking with Washington Mutual. WAMU had been a pretty good bank as far as customer satisfaction was concerned. Unfortunately they made a bunch of bad decisions concerning sub-prime mortgages and home loans. At that point Chase bought them out. Remember that in September of 2008 the major financial institutions including JP Morgan, took more than seven hundred billion dollars of tax payer money to keep themselves from going out of business. To big to fail was the mantra of the day. According to CNN Chase received twenty five billion dollars. How ironic is it that one of the banks that came to Washington with their hands out now rips off the very people that bailed them out with no regard.
     Chase needed to be bailed out by us and that is exactly who they want to nickel and dime now. This is absolutely crazy. Imagine if you had a bad month at work, you borrow money from your brother to cover the rent. Next month you go shit on your brothers lawn and tell him he needs to pay you to do it. Crazy!
     My solution is to quit banking with any of the Wall Street banksters. I am going to open an account with a local small bank. Chase should remember that old retail adage,"if you keep your customers happy you will be lucky if they even mention it to their neighbor, if you really piss the customer off, you will be lucky if the whole neighborhood does not hear about it". Good luck America.

May 21, 2011 Get Ready For Rapturization.

     Well according to the Family Radio website which can be found at www.familyradio.com the world is going to come to an end on Saturday May 21, 2011. Holy smokes that is this freaking Saturday. The world can't end this Saturday, that really does not give me enough time to blow my paycheck from Friday. All kidding aside, this particular group of Evangelicals really believe that this Saturday the world is going to come to an end at the hand of God. Well let me give a few thoughts of my own on this particular rapture event.
     First of all, anyone who comes to me espousing they have a divine insight into the plans the almighty has for us is generally viewed by me as a little less than sane. Second, if the almighty really is communicating through you, please, come see me, I have some questions of my own. Third, are you really that arrogant that you think that the creator of this universe is really going to destroy every beautiful thing that has been created just to get payback for the sins of man.
     Let us jump into the first statement in the above paragraph. God is the creator not the creation. According to biblical doctrine we were created in the likeness of God. Key words there, likeness, you are like God, you are not God. So using a little logic, if something perfect created me, and I am an imperfect likeness of the creator, how could I possibly even begin to explain what the plan of the creator is. Think about it, God is perfect, you are not, therefore, we do not have the ability to define perfection, we can only ponder what perfection may be like.
     On to the second statement. God is personally talking to you. First of all, see a doctor, something has gone wrong in your head. If you have a live feed to God you have got some explaining to do. Why would you not warn the people of Japan that a massive earthquake was about to descend on them? Why did you say nothing before the BP oil disaster? Why was no warning given to the troops who ran over an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan? So, that being said, speak up or shut up!
     Finally number three. Arrogance, isn't that some kind of sin in and of itself. So man is the only creature in the universe worthy of salvation. Screw every other organism in the universe, they don't have souls. Wow, sucks for them. I can't believe that the creator of all the beauty I am surrounded by is going to destroy his entire creation because man is immoral. Maybe as human beings we are so narcissistic about ourselves that we can't see how intertwined into the whole of the universe we really are. If you think the atoms that make up your being are any different from the atoms that make up every thing else, well, you should probably go to your local community college and retake general science. The H2O molecule in my body is atomically identical to every other water molecule in the universe. Obviously, because I do have a day job, I really do not have the time to explain all the atoms and molecules that we as humans consist of and share with all other things universally.
     Let me conclude my little rant with this. I consider myself a spiritual person. I believe in a higher power which I cannot explain, nor would I take the arrogant perspective of trying to do so. Organized religion has always been and will always be a means of controlling people. If you scare someone to the core and promise them some kind of salvation, it becomes very easy to control them. All major religions are guilty of this. I do believe religion serves as a moral guide post. Live by the golden rule and you will be golden.
     By the way, just in case of rapture feel free to leave me all of your possessions. Cars, bank accounts, homes, pensions and so forth. Trust me I will keep them all in good shape. I promise. Good luck America.

Drill Baby Drill???????????

     So today President Obama announced that through executive order he is going to open up more lease areas to oil drilling. Well that is just wonderful. No high speed rail, less than adequate funding for green projects, soaring environmental risks, and yet, "drill baby drill". As a nation we need to start realizing, fast, that we are falling behind other industrial nations in our implementation of clean green energy. Wind and solar can produce electrical energy to supply to the grid. Electric cars can then use that clean energy to get you around town. I realize that major changes would need to be made to the existing grid so that we can accommodate these new sources of power. Come on man, this is the nation that built Hoover Dam, the interstate highway system, New York, Los Angeles and so on. We have the ability to take on these challenges. What we need is the political will.
     We voted for President Obama on the pretext of hope and change. Well I hope that he starts changing his current energy policy. No we can't transform the nations dependence on fossil fuels overnight. However, we need to get started now! Yes there are green projects currently operating. They make up 11.4 percent of domestically produced energy. That leaves 88.6 percent of our energy needs to be produced by fossil fuels and nuclear power. Don't get me started on the dangers of nuclear power, just say Fukushima.
     Detractors will always say, well the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine. Well that is why we need to invest in high capacity battery storage units. Not only will this create jobs, but, it will be a start in the fight to leave our children with a cleaner planet than we were born into.
     Jobs, one of the biggest driving forces in political and economic thinking. Green energy initiatives are a great way to start creating new jobs. While we are transitioning from fossil fuels to green energy there will still be plenty of jobs for rough-necks, rig workers, and coal miners. I don't think anybody wants to see there children killed in a mining disaster or an oil rig disaster. I personally can't find any recorded deaths due to solar panels. Obviously pay for newly created green jobs would have to be on par with there fossil fuel counterparts.
     We are at a crossroads in our energy policy. We can go down the path of fossil fuels and continue to fall behind other industrial powers. Or we can do what we as Americans have always done, put our head down, get to work and show the rest of the world why we are the best. Good Luck America

The first post on this site

     So, I have created this blog so that I can post random thoughts at my own will. Follow along if you would like. I can't guarantee that you will agree with my views, but then again, who cares, these are my thoughts and views. Besides I just do this for fun.