On Being Ignorant AND Wrong

Published: Monday, December 27, 2010, 4:24 PM     Updated: Tuesday, December 28, 2010, 9:14 AM

By Letters to the editor 
 
In Gordon Fulks' "In My Opinion,"  Climate science: The real reason we need to worry' - he enlightens us about his worldview that global warming is made up. In doing so he impeaches the majority of the world's climate scientists as scammers. By what credentials does he do so -- because he thinks so?
Without knowing it, he also impeaches over 100 Nobel laureates who, as far back as 2001, jointly published a letter warning of the dangers of global warming.
Four years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that global warming is unequivocal and that human activity is the main driver. I could go on. Better just to say this:
Feeling strongly about something does not make you right. Opinion must be based on fact, not just conviction. Discovering fact takes hard work and preparation. Everyone has an opinion -- few earn it. Even fewer are right. Climate scientists have earned their opinions through years of education and hard work. Fulks has not.
And he is wrong.

John McCain - R.I.P.

I used to think John McCain was an old curmudgeon - he had his points - but was an old grouch about it all.
After the Palin fiasco it was clear that somewhere along the way he'd become more like a political whore.
But after his staunch opposition to the repeal of Don't Ask - Don't Tell it's clear he's really so very out of touch, bigoted, and just plain mean.
Sad to say he's no longer to be taken seriously.

Our Media is Controlled

On December 16, 2010 Daniel Ellsberg along with 131 others protested the war in Afghanistan in front of the White House and were arrested and carried away. Has anyone seen this on the corporate 'mainstream media'?

U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson, a George W. Bush appointee, was the judge that ruled the individual mandate provision in Obama health care reform that requires everyone have health care insurance “exceeds the constitutional boundaries of congressional power” and ordered that it be removed from the health care reform law. This was widely reported. What was not reported was that he is a major shareholder in a political messaging firm that gets paid to argue that health care reform's individual mandate is unconstitutional. Since 2003 Hudson has earned between $32,000 and $108,000 in dividends from his shares in the firm (federal rules only require judges to report ranges of income).

Our mainstream media is controlled. Whereas we rarely get outright lies we frequently do not get the entire truth. What is particularly concerning is that the decisions regarding what gets reported does not appear to be made at a local level. It's not the decisions of individual editorial boards. So who is controlling our information and is their overall agenda as conservative as it seems?

To answer that I think we need only follow the money. 20 years ago media outlets were owned by over 40 different parties. Today it's 6 corporations each controlled by only one or two individuals. For the most part these individuals are overwhelmingly ultra-conservative corporatists.

Of course it is impossible to control all the news. And it would be unwise to even try. But select events do in fact get blacked out - universally as regards the mainstream media - and THAT is pretty darn scary.

Excuse me there is an elephant pooping on your head.

If Obama is truly for change - real change - change that he says has to be brought TO Washington why has he not discussed or even acknowledged the rather large elephant in the room. This country has become a corporatocracy. Campaign finance and big money influence has rendered Washington so dysfunctional one can hear our forefathers all rolling in their graves. Our democratic system of government in broken -  all but dead in the water - and yet - silence. No one is talking about it in Washington - not even Obama.
Silence is complicity.

Our Government is the Best Money Can Buy

In this day and age members of congress must begin fund raising for their next election cycle on their first day of office. Big money then clearly has the advantage and greatest influence over them.

Members who play ball get re-elected – but perhaps even more enticing they get the multi-million dollar salaries at the largest lobbying firms or corporations upon leaving congress.

Imagine a political system where candidates for congress and the US Presidency are limited to 6 month campaigns and defined pots of money given to them solely by the taxpayers. Say 5 million for the presidential campaign, proportionally less for the senate and congress.

And imagine that only candidates could run political advertising in the media during an election cycle – no one else.

Imagine what Washington would look like if anyone who served in congress or as President could not accept lobbying positions for at least 10 years after serving or accept positions with any organization or corporation that their voting record had aided for at least 10 years.  

Might we then see people in the government interested in governing?

Might we then see people in the government held accountable only to their constituents?

Might we then not see what our forefathers intended - a democracy and not a thoroughly corrupt corporatocracy?

Professionalism at the Oregonian

I think people and editorial boards need to wait until they get ALL the facts as regards the Mohamed Osman Mohamud sting at Pioneer Courthouse Square before rushing to defend or criticize the FBI or the man. Too late for the editorial board of the Oregonian - too bad for them.

Tax Breaks for the Ultra-wealthy Letter

Published: Wednesday, December 08, 2010, 8:02 PM

Letters to the editor  


The Republican leadership keeps talking about how the Democrats want to take away tax breaks from Americans during a recession. When pressed that it is really only the top 2 percent wealthiest Americans that the Democrats want to take tax breaks from, the Republicans start referring to these ultra-rich as the "job makers." We can't take away tax breaks from the "job makers" during a recession.

But the vast majority of these top 2 percent are not job makers; they are corporate executives, corporate attorneys, investment bankers, Wall Street moguls, real estate tycoons. These are the exact same people whose greed in great part contributed to causing this recession. Of course, the Republican leadership knows this. They are trying to protect their major supporters -- the ultra-wealthy -- and just don't care. Their irresponsibility and greed during the Bush years is what set the stage for this recession, and this is just more of the same.

Fear and Civil Liberties

Airport 'security' and it's intrusiveness and abuse of civil liberties reminds me of a Henry David Thoreau quote -  "Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it"  
Lets put this terrorist threat in perspective.
Your one year odds of dying in a car accident are about one out of 6500. Your lifetime odds of dying in a car accident are about one in 83.
Your one year odds of being struck and killed by lightning  - one in 6.2 million with a lifetime odds of one in 80,000.
Your odds for being killed by terrorists in a any given year - one in 30 million; lifetime odds of one in 400,000.
That is roughly the same risk as getting cancer from the full body x-ray scanners at airport security checkpoints.

Living in fear is exactly what the terrorists want. Doing so unnecessarily while relinquishing your civil liberties is what some in government want.
Millions have died in wars precisely to protect the civil liberties we now so causally relinquish for a false sense of security against exaggerated threats.

It is time to buck up, toughen up and get on with the business of living without giving into irrational fear and without giving up dignity, privacy and our basic civil liberties.