Hope and Change?

I saw a sign today hanging on someone's tree that read: "No Hope; No Change; No Democrats" and couldn't help but ponder that statement. After some critical thinking (something few people seem to have the ability to do these days), I decided that the sign was just wrong and whoever it was that hung it for all to see is probably as ignorant as those babbling lunatics on Faux News.

Think about it, the whole "Hope and Change" thing came around when Obama was running for prez two years ago. So have we seen "Hope and Change" in these two years? I say yes. Here's why:

1. We're out of Iraq (for the most part anyway; we're at least done fighting there). Two years ago, we didn't even have an exit strategy. As far as everyone was concerned at the time, we were just going to be there forever. That has since CHANGED. And we have a plan for the war in Afghanistan - a welcome CHANGE from two years that makes me HOPEful we'll actually see an end to that waste of time and lives.

2. Despite constant antagonization from the other party, we've managed to pass health care reform. That makes me HOPEful that we'll actually see some good things in the years to come. If nothing, the CHANGEs it has already brought with it have forced the insurance companies to play nicer and quit denying people with "preexisting conditions." Some twenty-plus million people now have access to coverage who didn't have that option a couple years ago.

3. Our financial system has been smacked with some seriously beneficial regulations. Have you looked at your credit card statement lately? It's easier to understand now, thanks to the new regulations which also just so happen to force creditors to play nicer such as by granting a mandatory grace period and applying payments over the minimum to the highest interest-bearing balances first. Now that's CHANGE I can believe in.

4. Despite the fears many NRA-membership-boasting conservatives had a couple years ago, gun control has actually gone their way via multiple rulings by the supreme court and by the assault weapons ban expiring. In fact, to my knowledge, not a single piece of gun control legislation has been passed by this administration. And at the local level, Iowa, under a democratic administration, has actually made it EASIER to obtain a concealed carry permit. I'd say the archaic view of Democrats being gun-melting, NRA haters is behind us. Give it up, Sarah Palin.

5. Here in Iowa, our governor is a Democrat. Terry Branstad, one of our previous governors, is running against him largely on the topic of state finances. Branstad claims the state budget is in disrepair and it's high time for a change. Not sure where his information is coming from because a recent report revealed that Iowa's finances are run better than 47 other states, and the state's unemployment, though still at 6.8%, is still better than 42 other states'. We closed this fiscal year with $335 million left (even better than the $100 million we were projected to finish with) and another $419 million in reserves. And next year looks even better. I don't know where Governor Branstad thinks the $1 billion deficit is coming from, but it's not from this budget.

So the "No Hope, No Change" claim, I'm afraid, is bullshit. We've had plenty of change lately, most of it for the better. Yeah, maybe things are still tough, but that's life. We're heading in the right direction and a little patience will go a long way. The most negative change I've seen is from the Republican side with all their efforts to incite anger, hatred, intolerance (think NYC mosque, Don't ask/don't tell policy), divisiveness and partisanship (think every day in congress), dishonesty, and ignorance (think every political ad on TV).

Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that Democrats are in real trouble this election because nobody has any fucking patience and the Repubs have done a great job of scaring everyone shitless.

Interesting Article

Here's an article from a local newspaper an aquaintance of mine writes for. I thought it was decent so I decided to regurgitate it here. I hope the author doesn't mind.

Where have all the tree houses gone?
Think back to your childhood and recall how much time you spent outside. Recall those times fishing with Grandpa or exploring trails with a sibling. Or maybe it was building forts and tree houses in the wooded area down the street. Whatever it was, most folks would agree that unscheduled, unstructured time outdoors was an important part of their childhood.

Now consider how many kids today have built a tree house, or have even seen one? In today’s tech-happy, plugged-in world, kids aren’t getting outside and into nature nearly as much as their parents did. They’re not playing in the woods or exploring the nearby creek. They darn sure aren’t building tree houses. They don’t have the opportunity to explore at will and learn from experience or see the natural world as it exists without lawnmowers, chemicals and weed trimmers. When they are outside, it’s increasingly for an organized sport which research has shown not to have the same restorative effect on kids as does play in natural areas such as weedy fields and woodlots. It’s a disturbing trend for sure, especially considering the future of our natural resources hang on the efforts, passions, and votes of today’s youth.

But the implications of reduced outdoor play go far beyond the future of conservation efforts. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report the total number of obese children quadrupled since the 1960s. Considering that about 60 percent of obese children have at least one cardiovascular disease risk factor, pediatricians now warn that today’s children may be the first generation since World War II to die at an earlier age than their parents.

A growing field of research is increasingly turning up the same results: children have less free time and what little they have is not being spent playing outdoors. In 2003 only half as many kids spent time in outdoor activities such as hiking or even gardening as they did in 1997. Additionally, in a matter of 25 years, children’s free play and discretionary time in a typical week declined by nine hours. Yet, the average American kid still manages to spend thirty hours a week in front of the TV.

So what has changed? Technology, for one. Home computers didn’t exist a couple decades ago; nor did any of today’s gaming consoles, smartphones, or compact music players. But technology didn’t force our kids indoors. We did.

A 2002 survey revealed that 56 percent of parents in this country reported being allowed to walk or bike to school by the age of ten, yet only 36 percent of those same parents said they would allow their own kids to do the same. We’ve all but criminalized tree house building due to litigation and safety concerns and the days of turning the kids loose to roam the woodlot at will until dinner are all but gone.

Though such restrictions may increase safety to a degree, many of the restrictions we place on our kids are unfounded. Case in point: A Children’s Defense Fund report in the 1990’s stated that every year since 1950, the number of children gunned down had doubled. If that were true, and only one shooting happened in 1950, there would have been 8.6 billion kids gunned down in 1983 - more than twice the entire earth’s population at the time. In fact, the rate of violent crimes against young people is lower than it was thirty years ago. Today’s children are more at risk of having a heart attack than being abducted by a stranger - even if they lived in New York City.

So maybe the time has come to get today’s kids unplugged and outside. Studies have proven that time in nature is beneficial for mental, physical, and emotional health in both children and adults. Not to mention that nature contact is known to make children more attentive, enthusiastic, and willing to learn.

So what do we do? My first suggestion is to read Richard Louv’s book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. It has helped jumpstart a national movement to address the nature-detachment issue our youth are facing. It’s a fun book to read and it’s loaded with compelling information (including the statistics mentioned here) and useful tips on what we can all do.

Second, and more importantly, take a kid outside. Even if you know nothing of the natural world, get outside and see what it has to offer. Leave the trail and get dirty. My guess you’ll both enjoy the thrill of discovery. Encourage your kids to put down the game controller and go outside.

Third, speak up. Get more outdoor study in the schools. Teachers all over the country have incorporated outdoor education into nearly every subject under the sun. It can be done and the results are fantastic.

And if you need help building that fort, look me up. I’ll be in my treehouse.

Common theme?

Since things obviously panned out so well for John McCain when he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Iowa is following suit. Just today I found an article that revealed that Terry Branstad, in his attempt to again hold the Governor's office after a rather lengthy hiatus, has chosen state senator Kim Reynolds as a running mate.

Sen. Reynolds (R-Oceola), is in her first term as a state senator. Prior to that office, she was the treasurer for Clarke County (2000 census pop. 9,133). She's also served as president of the Iowa State County Treasurers Association and served six years on the IPERS board.

Though I know somewhere between little and nothing about this person, I can't help but liken this to what we saw John McCain pull during the presidential campaign. A woman (though in this case not as young) with very little experience being pulled from the ranks of obscurity and thrown into a campain for a position in which she is likely neither ready for nor capable of doing well. Again, the Republican party shows that it has no shame. As if it weren't bad enough that the party had to recycle a governor from a past decade; the Repubs seem to again be counting on a fresh faced woman to win votes - not records or experience. Glad to see they have so much respect for the mental fortitude of their constituents.

I wonder if Senator Reynolds can see Russia from her house too.

Obama looking forward to a "Post-America World"?

This photo is from a forwarded email I received from a staunch Republican friend who commonly sends me shit like this. The first lines of the email read: "If each person sends this to a minimum of twenty people on their address list, in three days, all people in The United States of America would have the message. I believe this is one proposal that really should be passed around."

The email goes on to say: "The name of the book Obama is reading is called: The Post-American World, and it was written by a fellow Muslim. "Post" America means the world After America! Please forward this picture to everyone you know, conservative or liberal. We must expose Obama's radical ideas and his intent to bring down our beloved America!"

Well, I couldn't agree more. This should be sent to everyone in America...with the right information to accompany the photograph. And it should be sent back to every ignorant, mindless propaganda-forwarder with a caption that reads, "Get the facts, you moron."

A little research (accomplished in less time it takes to have a sip of coffee) reveals that yes, the book is real (no surprise there) but the rest of the information in the email is bullshit.

According to a Snopes article, the book is neither Muslim nor does it have anything to do with the fall of "our beloved America." Quite the contrary actually. The book, written by an Indian-born (but now a naturalized, legal US citizen) political journalist is actually an optimistic view of the 21st century and its future. It's not about the decline of America, but the rise of everyone else: the growing prosperity of developing countries, the associated decline of violence...things of that nature. In fact, the book predicts that despite some blunders at home and abroad, America will stay strong.

Well, that's hardly fodder for the likes of Limbaugh and Beck. Yet their disciples continue to forward crap like this photo, complete with outright bullshit descriptions to accompany it. No wonder fewer and fewer people are taking the Republican party seriously these days.

Pray it away

No doubt the oil spill in the Gulf is causing a lot of despair among folks, especially those in the coastal states directly affected by the oil reaching their shores. Despair leads to desperate measures and, as would be expected, the government is always willing to oblige the public's cry to do something. Problem is, nobody really knows what to do. What can be done is supposedly being done to the fullest extent possible by the most capable people...or so we're told. Yet the oil still flows. So now what?

As humans have done for pretty much its entire existence, when something is out of our control, we resign to putting it in the hands of whatever deity we subscribe to. So, in all its willingness to help, but not having legitimate means of doing so, the Louisiana legislature unanimously passed a resolution - SR145 - "To recognize and declare Sunday, June 20, 2010, as a Statewide Day of Prayer for Louisiana and for the population and region surrounding the Gulf of Mexico, in particular those people affected by the environmental and economic disasters that erupted in the
aftermath of BP Deepwater Horizon oil leak."

By golly, that ought to fix it! Because I'm sure God didn't really grasp the full magnitude of the disaster. Several million people all saying prayers asking for more or less the same thing should get his attention. I don't know exactly what everyone expects him to do. Should he part the Gulf in a circle around where the oil slick is, the divinely suck the oil out of the waters before letting them settle back in place? While he's at it, maybe he can suck up the BP execs whose greed helped spawn the problem in the first place. That would be divine justice right? I suspect the result will be more fitting to the natural functions of the planet He supposedly created. Like a Category 5 hurricane to disperse and dilute the oil. After all, we've proven time and again that the solution to pollution is dilution...not prayer.

Sidebar: Isn't it a bit ironic that the legislators that proposed this Resolution are the same (conservative) lawmakers who are screaming for the President to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling? I wonder how much of BP's money helped put those legislators in power?

Farmville

I have zero sympathy for people who bitch about how hectic their life is, or how busy their schedule is, or how many tests they have to study for, or how much work they have to do - via a Facebook post squeezed in between no less than thirty Farmville updates. I don't give a fuck about what you're doing on your stupid Facebook farm, or how many golden fucking eggs you found. And for that matter, if you're so damn busy and have so much to do, maybe you should stop cyber farming and get to work you lazy piece of shit.

Update: My new multi-billion dollar idea is to create a new Facebook cyber reality world, based on the same premise as Farmville (or at least I assume so, not having ever played Farmville) but with a more urban interface. Slumville will be the next big thing among Facebook users, and more clearly reflect the life which most users will likely end up living, either as a landlord or tenant. The player, or landlord, will start off with a small amount of Slumville cash (which they purchased from the (my) licensing company with real US currency) and proceed to buy up properties, rent them out, and then by more with the profits. The goal is to own as many properties as possible with complete disregard to their condition, which steadily deteriorate as time goes on. The players must attempt to keep all the properties rented out, though as time goes by and deterioration progresses, the potential tenants become increasingly seedy. Thus, it becomes a game of strategy: either rent to the seedy tenants, spend a bunch of Slumville cash to make minimal upgrades on the properties (which players purchase from me...I mean, my company) or lose money each month with empty houses. As deterioration and tenant quality progresses, so does crime and players are always faced with the possibility of losing tenants to driveby shootings, or losing entire dwellings to a random, drug-fueled act of arson or exploding meth lab. The game will end when every property is destroyed (by means such as violence, crime, or condemnation by the Slumville City Council) or until the player's account runs dry and the properties are foreclosed upon and leveled by the city of Slumville.

I can see the status updates now:
"Kelly just lost a single mother, her unemployed boyfreind/pimp, twin toddlers, and a pit bull to a drive by in Slumville."

"Jen needs help from a HAZMAT crew to clean the meth residue from a recently exploded property in Slumville. Click HERE to help."

"Matt just purchased a bullet-riddled bungalow occupied by an illegal immigrant family of 37 for $1,200 in Slumville!"

"Allison just found a bag of weed in a storm sewer on a Slumville property!"

"John can't collect rent on any property on the 100 block of Central because the recent gang war makes it quite likely he won't live through it. Click HERE to help him purchase an armored truck and flak jacket for Slumville."

Yep, Slumville will be the next big thing and I'll rake in the dough. Now if only I knew a good programmer...

Leveraging a new infrastructure

As I write, oil is spewing into the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of 210,000 gallons a day just as it has been for weeks now. And there's still no solution in sight. Meanwhile, as should be expected, oil execs are playing the blame game; trying to pin the tail on whatever skapegoat donkey they can find (contractors, subcontractors, Halliburton...). No doubt this is costing BP some astronomic amount of money by our standards. But really, what is a few hundred million or even a couple billion when your company is knocking down an annual profit of $40 billion annually? The first oil exec that bitches about how much money this is costing them should be flown over the spill zone and dropped. Repeatedly if necessary.

This disaster, which now is likely the largest oil disaster in history, is just icing on the cake. We've known that we need to get off the oil train for a long time. And thanks to a Democratic majority and a president who is more intelligent than a 4th grader, public opinion has begun to swing that way as of late. Car companies are taking note, realizing that new innovation is likely the only way to save their financial ass. Every car company in the world is not only increasing fuel mileage in their standard production vehicles (granted, probably in light of stricter fuel efficiency regulations, but nevertheless...), but they've all started dabbling in cars that don't use oil. I've seen everything from hydrogen to natural gas to pure electric powered vehicles come across the news tickers as the possible "Next Generation" of passenger vehicles. Unfortunately, for these vehicles to become mainstream, the entire world's infrastructure must be overhauled at the same time these cars come widely available. There won't be the demand it takes to get the technology worked out and affordable without making the vehicles as easy to fuel up as they are now. Without huge financial backing, that infrastructure won't likely come at the pace needed to save our species.

So where could that financial backing come from? Hmm...what is the backbone of that infrastructure now? Oh yeah, oil. That stuff that's pouring into the Gulf right now at almost a quarter million gallons a day. And who's oil is it? The oil companies'. So by extension, it's only logical to posit that the only way we can ever hope to build (or if nothing else, remodel) the infrastructure needed to make standard the "Next Generation" of vehicles is if the oil companies use their huge wallets and immense political power to drive the transition. God knows they have the resources to do it. They just need the inspiration. If only we had something we could hold against them to leverage such a change...maybe 210,000 gallons a day worth of leverage...