Rachel Maddow - Tied Up With Coal Rope? Anthracite Handcuffs?

In Strasbourg, April 3, President Obama summed up the challenges we face:

"We know that the pollution from cars in Boston or from factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, and that that will disrupt weather patterns everywhere. The terrorists who struck in London and New York plotted in distant caves and simple apartments much closer to your home. And the reckless speculation of bankers that has now fueled a global economic downturn that’s inflicting pain on workers and families — is happening everywhere, all across the globe.

And told us what he wants to do:

"... what I want to be able to do is not only fix the immediate crisis, but, working in partnership with other countries, create a path for sustainable, responsible growth. And I think we can do that. There are a lot of people who benefit from globalization, but there are also people who have been harmed by globalization. Globalization in and of itself can be good, but can also be destructive.

"... we could have just spent the money on the same old ways of doing things. But part of what we decided was if we're going to be spending a lot of government money anyway, why not spend it to double the amount of renewable energy? Why not spend it on retrofitting existing government buildings so that we drastically reduce their energy consumption?"

I agree with Al Gore that we should move from coal and 100% solar, wind, geothermal, marine kinetic, and other renewable, sustainable energy systems in 10 years. I believe that President Obama's stated goal, to double the amount of renewable energy, is a good start.

I wrote on this at Popular Logistics, and e-mailed Rachel Maddow (rachel@msnbc.com)

Burning one ton of coal creates about 3.5 tons of carbon dioxide. According to Robert Bryce, the U S burned about 1.1 billion tons of coal in 2007 creating about 4 billion tons of carbon dioxide, not to mention the fly ash, arsenic, mercury, etc. Is that not a problem? When she was on Air America Rachel criticized the coal industry. Why did Rachel ignore Obama's comment on sustainability? Last night the coal industry ran an ad on The Rachel Maddow Show. Rachel's hands are tied with coal rope, she is bound by anthracite handcuffs.

So while the good news is that the progressive agenda has become so mainstream that two nightly TV news programs are blatantly left of center; the bad news is that the buy-partisan coal industry is co-opting the progressive tv news. I guess it's back to the NY Times which covers all the news that's fit to print, SNL Weekend Update which is still not ready for Prime Time, Jon Stewart, where nothing is sacred, and The Colbert Report, where Stephen Colbert is sacred, and NPR.

“I Hope He Fails” Revisited

A friend of mine, John, a lawyer, a professional who is trained to see at both sides of every situation, and who is trained to see in shades of grey, not black and white, told me a story of an insurance agent who recently sold him life insurance. After the deal was closed, the contracts were signed, the insurance agent, let's call him “Bill,” turned to his new client and said “You know, I hope he fails.”

Bill repeated his statement, the statement made famous by Rush Limbaugh, and repeated by right wingers across the country. “I hope Obama fails.”

John was raised to love this country. His parents and grandparents came here from Italy in the 1920s and '30's. Times were bad here, and they were worse in Italy back then. John's parents worked hard, and he worked hard – and still works hard. He is a political independent – votes for the best candidate he can find in every election. And votes in every election. This past election he saw things about Obama that he liked, and saw things about McCain that he liked.

His reply to “I hope he fails” was “don't you have money vested in the economy? Do you hope things get worse?” Bill said “well, I'll be ok. I just want him to fail.”

John told me that Bill wasn't listening to anything he had to say. John told me “the President is like the Captain of the a ship. Bill was saying 'you hope the ship sinks.' I told him that I would torn up the contracts and thrown him out of my house. Saying “I hope he fails” is saying “I hope the people who are out of work stay out of work. The people who don't have medical insurance – and who have no access to medical care - can't insurance or access to medical care.” The Constitution and the Bill of Rights may consider idiotic and seditious talk protected speech, but I have the right to assemble – and not assemble. I don't have to tolerate an idiot in my house. I don't have to support a right wing revolutionary by buying stuff from him

North Korea Missile a Success

The North Korean missile test was a success. The New York Times, (click here) noting that the missile self-destructed and fell into the ocean, and therefore the missile failed

• to achieve orbit,
  
• to demonstrate an offensive missile capability, or
  
• to show North Korea to be a "fearsome adversary able to hurl deadly weapons halfway around the globe."

These "journalists" call North Korea's non-intercontinental ballistic missiles (n-ICBM) a failure. This "blogger" considers the North Korean n-ICBM demonstration to be a success. N. Korea joined the United States, China, Japan, the other industrialed nations in attacking the oceans. "We too can threaten the environment." Kim Jong-il might have said. However, it is not clear that Kim Jong-il knows the missile did not achieve orbit.

Mother Earth could not be reached for comment.

Donald Rumsfeld, observed "these are the kinds of weapons that Saddam might have had, had he had them, and had we been able to find them. But there are things you know, things you don't know, and things you don't know that you don't know. There are things you can find, things you can't find, things you can't find because they exist but are hidden, things you can't find because they don't exist except in your mind.

Sarah Palin said "up here in Alaska we're on the lookout for North Koreans. North Korea is near Russia, and I can see Russia from my house, you know, yep, you betcha."

Physics and Dance

Moving Particles
thinking of them in physics
being them in dance

Barefoot and on skis
Human particles moving
Random. Predicted.

FaceBook MySpace Nets
The Web and the Internet
Packets move we think

Dr. Rumsfeld -

Baghdad, Iraq. The American University of Iraq. Former Secretary of Defense Donald H. "Rummy" Rumsfeld was awarded two honorary PhDs today. One in quantum mechanics, and theoretical physics and the other in Poetry here at the American University in Iraq.

In one of his explanations of why we were winning the unnecessary war we started against a small 3rd world country (with a poorly trained and poorly armed military) which is to say why we were winning a war we could logically be expected to be winning, Rumsfeld postulated the existence of three universes -

The Known Known,
The Known Unknown, and
The Unknown Unknown.

His work also postulated by corollary the existence of a fourth universe, the Unknown Known universe.
The first two are universes everybody knows (or doesn't know) about.

1 the known universe that we know about - that's the known known.

2 the unknown universe we know we don't know about - that's the known unknown.

But remember, Rummy was part of the non-reality based administration. This unreality based administration, also known as the surreal administration, some even say the unConstitutional Administration. For him there is also

3) the unknown universe we don't know about - the unknown unknown.

And this work also postulates the existence of a fourth universe - the known universe we don't know about - the unknown known. You might think this is related to the unknown universe we know about. And you might be right.

Who knew?

As noted, the war in Iraq is a war we could logically expect to be winning - except when you factor in facts on the ground, i.e, "factors" such as humanity, discipline, pride and passion on the part of "the enemy" that planners don't like to factor in. The enemy, you see, isn't supposed to love freedom unless it's freedom to sell us their oil and be occupied by us. And the fact that our armed forces were less than they would have needed to be to completely occupy the country and suppress resistance, and our army wasn't as well equipped at it should have been either, but as Rumsfeld once said, "You go to war with the army you have." (And as Bush and Cheney once might have said "You don't go to war if you can get out of it.")

<http://www.slate.com/id/2081042/>

The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld

From Slate - Donald Rumsfeld, the Poet. Who knew?

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

NPR Interviews Republicans On Obama - They Like What They See

National Public Radio, NPR, interviewed Steve Leich, who voted for Obama, and Reeves Brown who did not (click here). They like what they say and say "Obama is Presidential." I agree with the Republicans on one fundamental point: I also see Barack as "Presidential," meaning strong, decisive, focused, disciplined, tough, well educated and very, very smart. In these last two qualities, well educated and very, very smart, I see Obama as towering over his predecessor.

As a liberal, I hope to see the President invest tax revenues in rebuilding the country: the physical infrastructure of the roads, hospitals, factories, schools and parks; the intellectual infrastructure of an educated citizenry; and the philosophical basis of America - the rule of law of the Constitution.

I disagree with Brown and Leitch where they believe Obama's economic policies will create debts for their children. I hope and believe that the economy will grow under President Obama and that I will climb out of debt, build wealth and help my children. As far as I can see, Bush's domestic policies were as big a disaster as his defense and foreign policies. The Republican sacred cows of deregulation and neoconservative unilateralism, and the Bush dogma of absolute power in time of war, which was previously considered unconstitutional, have led to the unmitigated disasters in FEMA's response to Katrina, warrantless wiretaps, the war in Iraq, and the ghost towns of Wall St., Main St., American factories and towns.

President Kennedy said "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" and asked us to send a manned mission to the moon and back, safely, in 10 years. Obama must echo Kennedy's call to move from selfish greed to altruistic service. Rather than a ship to the moon we must rebuild the ship of state and spaceship Earth and sail on to the future.