We have only two modes—complacency and panic.
One Damned Thing After Another: Japanese officials say the nuclear fuel rods appear to be melting inside three of the troubled nuclear reactors.
Size Matters: The clever bankers of the world hold about $2.5 trillion in pretty worthless Portuguese, Irish, Greek and Spanish government bonds. Germany alone is holding about $569 billion of the toxic stuff. Remember, if you owe the bank $100, you have a problem. If you owe the bankers $2.5 trillion, they have a problem.
Here and there: The outlook for democracy in the Middle East dims by the day, much like in the United States, where speaking out against senseless torture gets you fired.
On Wishing: Among the things the Republicans want to cut are the budgets of the National Weather Service (you want tornado warnings, look out the window) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (you want to know if there's a tsunami coming, go down to the beach and look). Be careful what you wish for.
What's the Point? 42% of US millionaires say they don't have enough money, and that $7.5 million is the very least they could get by on. Remember, this wealthiest 4% of Americans have 55% of all the money. And it's not enough.
Crying Over Un-Spilt Milk: The Republicans have been complaining about the EPA applying the containment and cleanup standards for oil spills to milk spills in dairies. Okay. The EPA cannot find any such regulation. Doesn't matter, the lie will get the attention, not the truth. As planned.
Union Scale: Saw another one of those right wing pundits complaining that unions prevent individuals from negotiating their salaries directly with the corporations. With 5 unemployed for every job opening, how do you think those negotiations would go?
Commons Tragedy Part VII: House Republicans have passed an amendment that prohibits the US from trying to prevent the catastrophic depletion of fish stocks. They maintain that if a US fisherman does not catch the last tuna, cod, haddock, snapper or whatever, someone from one of those socialist nations might.
God Will Know His Own: Echoing the Albigensian Crusade, voters in Wisconsin are planning to have recall votes on every Republican holding statewide office, on the general theory that they are all guilty until proven decent.
History Lessened: Michele Bachmann (Nutcase-MN) says that E Pluribus Unum is um-American – never mind that the Founding Fathers incorporated it into the Great Seal of the United States in 1782. She also wants Obama to stop talking about “inalienable rights” unless he acknowledges God's copyright on the phrase.
Clip & Save: The only way Social Security can fail is if Congress votes not to honor the US government bonds held by Social Security. That’s not going to happen. Social Security has been run responsibly and has a surplus; the rest of the government has not. So why are we talking about a Social Security crisis?
Porn O'Graph: Gone, fishing.
4 comments:
As far as catch shares being good for fish conservation: That is not a fact. Rather an opinion by an admitedly non fisherman.
In NC (coastal state. lots of fishing interests), both the commercial lobby and the recreational lobby opposed catch shares as a method to conserve resouces. There are other better ways to do this, according to both sides. They(commercial and recreational fishermen) don't agree on the same solution. But they both agree this is not the way.
One Damned Thing After Another: Japanese officials say the nuclear fuel rods appear to be melting inside three of the troubled nuclear reactors.
As the operator of this plant what insurance does TEPCO carry to not only compensate Japanese victims but those downwind? Or are they simply, once again. TBTF and will be bailed out.
The larger question in this Age Of Technology is: what insurance do these Technological Tamperers carry to compensate victims? How many bioresearch labs, for instance, are insured for the potential damage they may do?
Fukushima is just a canary in the mineshaft singing a tune of alarm and sounds distressingly similar to BP's Technological Gulf Disaster and Wall Street's uninsured collapse.
To put things in context... turn sound on.
http://pinktentacle.com/2010/08/animated-map-of-nuclear-explosions-1945-1998/
I'm not sure we were ever talking about a Social Security crisis. What we were talking about was increasing the Wall Street tax from merely 401(k) contributions to a significant, mandatory, chunk out of everybody's paycheck. The resulting bubble would make the internet bubble look like a pimple on an elephant's posterior.
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