Ever hear of Cancer Alley? You can read all about it at Treehugger if you have the stomach for it. Perhaps I'll go for a walk in the park on this beautiful day to try to shake some of the darkness that threatens to consume my psyche.

On a more immediate and brighter note, Portugal reported that 70% of the power consumed in the first quarter this year came from renewable sources. It's nice to see that Big Oil doesn't control everything everywhere.

If you'd like to see just how brazenly the NRA distorts the truth, just click here and check out the graphics.

There has been a lot of information about income inequality, but the decline of social mobility remains on a back page. Fortunately we can simply click to read about it and don't have to dirty our hands with that old fashioned messy ink.

I really like these charts from a Gallup poll...what I find so interesting is the public perception in contrast with the history of tax rates in this country.

 

Motivation

Just a little side note before I get down to business...seeing that I was just fired from a crappy job that regularly committed all 8 Surefire Ways to Demotivate Your Employees and had other ways as well. I wonder if the NFIB is for real or if it's a corporate front.

One of the questions we should ask ourselves as activists is, how do we sustain efforts?
Another is, how do we grow our base?

the right problem is a conservative conundrum

There's a problem with the American right that seems like an intractable conservative conundrum. It is a difficult subject to address, but the political right in America is severely diseased and we need reasonable discussion about this pressing matter before more harm is inflicted on society.

Yeah, there are some problems on the left, but I don't think that they as dire as the condition on the right. Either way, Truth Matters. We may find that conservative attitude is both a stage and a type. In any case, there may always be The Conservative Brain among us and in us. There are pros and cons to just about everything.

It may be helpful to visit Conservative Myths for an orientation and a contrast to liberalism.

We now have more millionaires in this country then ever before.
We now have more people experiencing food insecurity than ever recorded.
We now have more billionaires in this country then almost ever before.
More people have dropped out of the workforce than ever before.

AlterNet helps to reveal that structural economic conditions are not responsible for these changes.

Maybe some of the rich and famous alleged atheists will help with the SBNNR project.

American Anti-Corruption Act
Fair Elections Now Act
Gail & Franklin Project
Grassroots Democracy Act
............................................from the comments found here at TED

Debt-tastrphe

It's looking more and more like all of the conspiracy theorists and bankster alarmists have been correct. I still can't exactly peek behind the curtains, but I an familiar with the Secret of Oz. BusinessWeek (via Bloomberg?) and Fox Business (with really crappy link/references) have stories about the Chinese debt situation, which should evolve into a crisis if they want to follow the Western models.

WTF? I've been asking for quite some time as to who all the money is owed to if all the richest nations on the planet (besides Germany) are all deep in debt. Looks like the world wide web is a Web of Debt. I hope some people eventually get to inhabit all those ghost cities before they rot with neglect. Check it out...

 

Fallout

Fallout from the Fukushima disaster appears to have sickened babies in the West coast states of the US. You can read about that here....

Lawrence Lessig gave a recent TED Talk We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim. He did a good job framing an issue and making a point, but he failed to confront the right problem, the problem of the right. In that last election cycle he talked about, nearly half of the people voted for Romney and Republicans made great gains in many states. I wonder if he is simply trying to promote his new book. Perhaps he has fallen into the conceit of the middle. I;m not even sure what the hell he's talking about in this talk, do you? Okay, so it makes a little sense near the 18 minute mark.

It's funny how some liberals bend over backwards trying to find virtue in conservatives'. Aren't the KKK an epitome of conservatives? Do we really need to condone these things?

states of thest

Corporate captures government

Regulatory capture is a term that all True Patriots should be familiar with. It is a difficult subject to research because the corporate _________ controls major media outlets and a significant amount of academia. Kudos to Adam Thierer who published the best piece on the subject that I have found.

Rachel and crew gave us a nifty example of Big Oil's capture of oversight... I sure would like to embed that..., but I'm stymied by corporate controls...so please click on the above link.

Lawrence Lessig gave a fine TED Talk and qualifies as a True Patriot. He's for The People. He does his homework and cites the Federalist Papers, #52 where it is written that one branch of government should be dependent on the people ALONE. Found at  minute 7:20...please view it for yourself.

Mother Jones published an article about Obama's war on whistleblowers. Brave New Foundation is releasing a film on the subject. In the article is mention of Daniel Ellsberg and I recently came across a bunch of You Tube entries from him. Geez, makes me think of Bradley Manning.

Truth-out brings us the story, Monsanto's Next Target, Democracy. I thought they already won that battle. If you've seen any of the documentaries about Monsanto then you might hold the same opinion. Can't we revoke that corporate charter?

AlterNet asks if Tom Friedman is the most over-rated pundit around, but the story about stupid Americans is the one that caught my eye, Why Americans are so Ignorant -- It's Not Only Fox News, There Are Some Understandable Reasons for it. It's well worth the read. In the end, I learned that I am a gadfly.

Ellen Brown helps us to understand how the financial industry has captured government and warns us that Wall Street is a ticking time-bomb that could ruin your bank account. Seeing that I'm a gadfly, I have to ask what bubble will break and precipitate the next crash. Isn't that the way it usually works?

I'm happy to learn about Science Progress, where science, technology and policy meet. I'll have to look around.

Pros and Cons

Progressives should express the virtues of conservatives and conservatives should express the virtues of liberalism. It would be a constructive exercise for us to engage in, don't ya think?

I'll start...

Liberals spoke about unity in diversity....or was that just a cult thing?...anyhow, I was thinking that diversity is a strength in ecology, so it goes to follow that conservatives' serve as agents for divergent evolution. Conservatives tend toward closed in-group affiliations in both genetic and cultural contexts that result in "specialization" or differentiation from other groups. This is an important feature in nature resulting in greater local homogeneity and greater global diversity.

Seen in this light, prejudice and close-mindedness has a beneficial effect.

Aw come on you wussie liberals. You're always the ones saying we need to be accepting...if we listen to you, we'll all be a McWorld in short time.

conscientious music

we'll start out with some randy newman

 

a little something before and perhaps contributing to the banning of DDT, the formation of the EPA and creation of the clean water act...

here's a shot at consumerism and conspicuous consumption...one of my favorites..
"...sell your soul just to buy, buy buy..."

I suspect that "bad weather" is kind of a blanket phrase for all the bad stuff...it's my pick from the man with the most conscientious lyrics of anyone....or at least they used to be...get back Jack

good stuff...

and here are some lyrics from the author of this blog...have fun with the links and good luck in the rabbit hole. Maybe someday I'll sing and play guitar and record and...

A terror storm it blew in
there's loose change cross the lands
the ships from hell are sailing
still looking for new hands

so don't get lost in the maze
just chasing for that cheese
try to be part of the cure
'cause we're all damn sure disease

and we damn all tomorrows
as we live for this one day
it's all the future generation
that will have to pay

so go on now delude yourself
say it's all god's good plan
and go on and have a beautiful day.....


 

If I had a million dollars

I thought it would be a good exercise to write about what I'd do with one million dollars. I thought it would be fun to embed a fun tune too...

I suppose I'd take 10% off the top and spread it around to the Who We Support list. That in itself would be a good exercise.

I'd take a chunk for my personal use...$50,000 would keep me living high on the hog for a couple of years at least. I've always been near poverty level, I've just never been motivated for material gains. I'm a simple guy in that way. My riches lie within.

Next step would be to hire a lawyer and an accountant to help make Integrative Activism nice and legal. I'd buy some domain names. I'd hire a web designer or two for a while.