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!!