Tax day but where does it all go?

Like most of you, I paid my taxes and filed them too and on time.  I am not opposed to paying taxes.  I believe in a social contract.  I want to be protected from an enemy invasion.  I am not one who believes we should abolish the IRS, as some have called for, people like Groover Norquist, I wonder if he was named after former President Grover Cleveland, a conservative, pro-business leader who lead the U.S. into a major depression.  Fringe candidates Ran Paul, and Marcus Rubio are also notorious critics of the IRS.  Now, I don’t love the IRS, but without taxes, there can be no government, no military, no support for public schools, no social security, no environmental protection, no regulation of food and drugs.  I guess we could have an all-volunteer government, install a monarch or ask a big company like Apple or Proctor and Gamble to just take over.  Maybe Warren Buffet and Mitt Romney could be in charge of investments.  Our government leaders are already beholden to big business and with special interest PACs calling the shots, the interests of the 99% are not seriously addressed.  It’s so bad that big oil and gas can compel educated politicians who know better to say stupid things like we should invest in KLEEN coal, and that “there is no consensus in the scientific community on climate change” or that “the science is not settled as to whether humans have contributed to the problem of global warming”.  They can’t admit what they know to be true that carbon emissions from our persistent use of fossil fuels is a major region why we are having catastrophic weather events that one might have previously witnessed once in a lifetime, practically twice a year.

Did you know that in 2014, 27 cents of every tax dollar went toward military spending?  2.5 cents went to support public education.  1.6 cents went to the energy and environment and just 1.5 cents went to science.  President Obama’s proposed discretionary spending for 2015, which needs congressional approval, has 55% going to the military, 6% to education, and 3% to science.  When you add in mandatory spending on entitlement programs which includes social security and unemployment, veterans benefits, food and agriculture, it’d be 16% to the military, 2% to education and 1% to science.  Some priorities.  It’s no wonder that American students significantly lag their peers in other countries in math and science.  It should also come as no surprise that companies have to search for talent outside the U.S. to fill positions that require a high degree of scientific expertise. Nor should it be a surprise that so many Americans actually don’t believe in science at all.  They don’t understand it and would rather just take a lazy political side and deny or take a hard line religious stance with a literal interpretation of the creation story and claim the earth is something like 6,000 years old contrary to scientific evidence that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old.

Let me ask you this:  Do we really need to spend 640 billion on the military each year?  How much does safe enough cost? Do we really need to spend 391.2 billion on 2,443 F-35 fighter jets at 160 million a piece? By comparison, we are slated to spend around 100 billion on education AND science in 2015.  That’s it.  Doesn’t this disproportionally light in comparison to our spending on defense? Don’t we want a literate and competitive populace?  The 1% and their minions in Congress don’t.  If the voting public wised up, Congress would be out of a job and the 1% scrambling to create the next scam. I say people and the planet over profits and a little more equality please.

Living Free of Global Warming and Climate Change

Lake Winnipesaukee, NH

Climate change and global warming have become political buzz words.  The right denies the science, the center accepts it and the left pleads for action.  Libertarians don’t give a crap, I think.  I guess their thinking is a little like Bill Belichick’s mantra, “it is what it is”, meaning, leave me the hell alone to live free or die, which is the saying on the back of New Hampshire license plates, a place where people don’t pay state income or sales tax, and I don’t think they pay their legislators very much either.  I once saw a tampered license plate that read: live free and die, which is more in tune with the natural cycle of life. We’re so dang polarized that it seems everything is either or.

The thing with climate change, and I’ve probably written this before, is that people really don’t care and are just used to taking sides.  If you are a conservative and never paid much attention in science class but have gone on and done well for yourself financially, why not side with the right? It’s your right. And if you don’t, a dang liberal might get elected and take away your tax advantage or worse, your gun!  I think that’s what people in the U.S. fear the most – that they’d be disarmed and then defenseless.  But against what? Global warming?  Hey, when that once in a lifetime hurricane comes around twice a year, an AK-47 won’t do much good. You’d literally be shooting in the wind.  That openly carried revolver won’t intimidate those raging wildfires and I’ve never seen a shotgun bring on the rains in dry California.  Now, I know that no one wants their gas guzzling carbon dioxide spewing SUV outlawed.  This is another big concern.  I mean, gas is cheap once again thanks to our fracking ways. Who cares if some guy in Pennsylvania has flammable tap water.  He could move to New Hampshire where the water is clean and unflouridated.

I also have a suspicion that many people just don’t want to think too deeply about something difficult to understand.  But if you pose the question the right way, I do believe that many folks would come around and admit that human activity has contributed to the warming of the planet.  It doesn’t take a scientist to see the effects of climate change. Take Boston. In 2015, it had the warmest January on record and also the most snow ever recorded for a season.  Down South, Texas and Arkansas had snow, ice and cold temperatures like never before.  People know something is going on.  It’s not just the natural ebb and tide of mother nature.  But the sad thing is that people know and do nothing.  They let politicians say and do the stupidest things like that one who help up a snowball as proof that the planet is not warming. What an idiot. The problem is we live this present tense existence.  No one seems to care too much about 50 years down the road.  Folks don’t seem too concerned about a livable planet for their children and grandchildren.  And very few are saving sufficiently for retirement either.  Live free for today; we’ll save and die later…but let’s not think about that now. But let’s do go out and buy an Apple Watch or the Samsung Galaxy 6. Instant gratification.

One might argue that the handwriting is beginning to form on the wall as you may recall from the book of Daniel where the tale originates.  The handwriting turned out to be a warning, actually, as is often the case in the Old Testament, a punishment from God, who found that party King Belshazzar had been insufficiently humble, wanting and unworthy of his reign.  He was shortly thereafter slain.  I think there is a lesson here, particularly as regards the question of humility. If we don’t show more respect for our planet, it may be handed over to a more intelligent life form from another planet to straighten things out. It’d kind of be like planet earth looses its certification and has to be temporarily held in receivership by some alien grownup with brains.

This all reminds me of a Star Trek episode called “Arena” from Season 1 where Kirk fights some Godzilla-like creature called a Gorn. The lizard monster has the upper hand with brute strength, so Kirk has to make gunpowder somehow and knocks the monster unconscious with a powerful projectile to the body.  Kirk stands over “Godzilla” with a knife, but decides not to kill him.  Then some childish god, who was like 1,500 earth years old, said that he would spare Captain Kirk and his people because he had shown the advanced property of mercy, to which Kirk replied that he hoped he could work out some diplomatic peace with the Gorn’s people.  The Captain was not found wanting and given another chance.  Let’s hope politicians learn to read before the writing appears on the wall, because when it does, it will be too late.

How to Unite the Country

President Obama’s approval ratings are polling in the low 40’s and that’s not very good for Democrats as the midterm elections approach. It’s hard for me to understand why he isn’t polling better.  Do people really think less of him because he hasn’t agreed to a boxing match with Vladimir Putin?  Come on folks, he’s made good on a lot of promises.  Look, he’s delivered on Health Care reform that a majority of Americans originally supported.  He’s made some progress on Immigration reform (not enough and some of it by executive order), kept the country out of wars and is backing a minimum wage increase. And realize that the administration has taken strong stands on voting rights issues and gun control.  Most of the issues are not controversial or shouldn’t be, although of course, they’ve been politicized and have had the effect of polarizing the country.  But one of the most polarizing topics, and one that should concern everybody is the health of our planet.  However, there are some political “scientists” with an agenda that don’t give a flip about mother earth and most, don’t even believe what they are saying.  They’ve been bought out by “big oil” and are the darlings of the political right who champion them as experts, “experts” who represent the 1% of “scientists” worldwide who profess the view that climate change is a natural occurrence and nothing whatever to do with the actions of men, women, business and governments.  And even conservatives who are vulnerable to this kind of corporate propaganda have begun to see a connection between natural disasters and climate change and accept the fact that the globe is warming.  Some even view it as inevitable and a message from God.  Their idea of action is to pray.  But we may need more than prayer.  Unless we do something about it NOW, it may be too late for the next generation of folks who inhabit our planet.

And this is the issue that the Obama administration ought to be leading on.  This is the stuff of legacy.  Climate change could be the one that defines the Obama administration.  The President was elected on a campaign of hope and optimism for change.  The expectations were high.  He was thought to be a new kind of world leader who could change the world for the better.  And he still can, but first he’s got to do something to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.  Now the U.S. isn’t the worst offender in this regard, but we still offend and depend way too much on the burning of fossil fuels.  The government has not done enough to promote alternative clean energies like wind, electric and solar.  Our power grids are still antiquated.  Instead, there’s a stubborn refusal to stop drilling for oil and natural gas.  And of course as long as we continue to rely on fossil fuels, there will be a need for conveyance by pipelines that are not equipped to handle nasty stuff like tar sands from Canada.  Just look at what happened in 2013 in Mayflower, Arkansas.  This small southern town is still reeling from a burst Exxon pipeline that produced a sludge spill that flooded the community.  People are still suffering health problems one year after the leak.  And the cruel irony is that just last week Mayflower was essentially destroyed by a series of tornadoes.  It has become a victim of our nation’s energy policy and attitude toward climate change.

President Obama doesn’t need a PowerPoint to demonstrate the problem.  There’s plenty of proof that a problem exists. And it’s widespread.  Killer tornadoes just ripped through Arkansas, Oklahoma and Mississippi.  Northern Florida is practically underwater, having received 20+inches of rain over the course of a few days.  Hurricane Sandy’s impact was felt all the more because of the rising sea levels.  Severe droughts and wildfires in the West are daily events.  West Virginia and Pennsylvania residents have a unlimited supply of flammable drinking water thanks to hydraulic fracturing.  So what can President Obama do?  For starters, the administration could draft a sensible and sustainable clean energy plan that would restore the reputation of the EPA.  He could put a stop to the Keystone XL pipeline.  He could commit the country to reducing CO2 emissions even more and could put pressure on India and China to do the same.  He could fine energy companies substantially and require them to clean up their mess.  He could also forbid drilling and fracking on federal land.

That climate change is due in part to human activity is no longer debatable.  Preserving the planet ought to be our top priority and were it a higher priority for the Obama administration, his poll numbers might be higher.  By the way, why don’t the pollsters start polling on the preservation of the planet?  And to really put pressure on our political leaders to vote for legislation that seeks to help the environment and to vote against legislation that would do it harm, why not publicize more widely The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) ratings it gives politicians?  Gun loving politicians take pride in their NRA ratings and use it to secure votes.  Why wouldn’t planet loving politicians take pride in their LCV ratings?  Unfortunately, environmental causes are too closely connected to progressives and too often discredited by conservatives who have been purchased by corporate interests who don’t want any regulations that might cut into profits.  In their view, profits are more important than our planet.  Let’s take take politics and profit out of the equation and do what’s best for the planet for a change.

Better Days Ahead

What should President Obama’s second term priorities be?  There are lots of issues to tackle:  the “vaulted” debt ceiling, climate change, energy policy, gun control, mental health, but what first?  I can see gun control being up there especially as a response to the 7 mass murders committed in 2012 ending in the Newtown, CT tragedy.  The president issued a series of executive orders to address the issue, including mechanisms for improving the system of background checks; gun safety education; establishing a national dialogue on mental health issues; nominating an ATF Director (what, there isn’t one?) and authorizing the CDC to research the causes of gun violence, which the NRA had successfully prevented it from doing in the past.  Now it’s up to Congress to take substantive action, which the House appears unlikely to do, despite wide spread public support for a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazine clips.

Given the staggering numbers of Republicans in Congress who serve to protect the NRA, there isn’t much hope for significant legislation to curtail gun violence and prevent mass murders, so what would they support?  They can’t continue to be simply the party of NO, standing only for rejecting any proposal supported by the President.  If the GOP continues to stonewall, filibuster and obstruct for the next 4 years, they will forever be known as the party of no support from the people they desperately need to attract – women, Blacks, Hispanics, and moderates.

But Congress, with its pitiful 18% approval rating, has to do something to restore the confidence of the American public.  What can it do?  For starters, Congress can vote to raise the debt ceiling so as not to risk downgrading the nation’s credit rating. This alone won’t be enough to win the hearts of Americans.  No, they have to go bigger, and why not go big with immigration reform?  This could be a win win for all. But when I say big, I mean big, real big.  First, employ the unemployed to tear down the fence along the US southern border.  Don’t bother with the Northern border – first, to my knowledge, there is no fence there and second, the only Canadians who have any interest in living in the states are rockers and comedians.  With all that concrete along the Southern border, we could build  hundreds of new schools, employ tens of thousands of teachers and construction workers for all the new schools needed after opening up the border.  Yes, I mean it.  Open the borders to any and all law abiding citizens of the world provided they can work, have no criminal background and can show some means of support or sponsorship, (unless they have refugee status). For those upstanding citizens of the world without employable skills, adult education programs would be funded to teach English literacy and general vocational skills to serve local sectors of the U.S. with the greatest demand for workers.  All new entrants and the previously undocumented living in this country would be issued a Social Security number.  Consider this:  the best way to ensure the solvency of social security is to have more people paying in, not simply to raise the retirement age to 96.

Republicans should champion these ideas as a means of competing for the loyalties of a changing USA demographic that will soon be a non-white majority.  But the thing is, they won’t because the radical fringe that seems to be calling the shots would rather secede from the Union than come to grips with a loss of power in a democratic process that they despise and have tried desperately to rig in their favor through gerrymandering, and voter suppression tactics.

Let’s get it done – gun control, immigration reform and the greening of the planet in the next two years.  And let’s not let the GOP say “frack that”.

Imaginary Debate Part III – Pres. Obama v. Mitt

Moderator:  As you may have noticed, climate change is all around us – drought, extreme weather, the melting of the polar ice caps, rising sea levels to name but a few examples.  As president, how would you reverse this alarming truth.

MITT: I’m not personally responsible for it, as you know, but it’s no surprise that government regulations of the Obama administration have not helped.  What we need are fewer regulations, more drilling, fracking and that sort of thing.  As to drought and floods, hurricanes and the like, well I say take responsibility for yourself.  Move to higher ground.  Go to Michigan, they have beautiful trees, just the right height and the lakes, I love them, not just those Great ones either, why I love the little inland lakes that dot the interior…and cars, did I mention I love cars, my dad…

Moderator:  Governor you time is up. President Obama.

President Obama:  Clearly Mitt doesn’t take the danger seriously.  Climate change is no joke.  And if he really believes we can frack our way to reverse the trend of global warming or else just move to Michigan, he’s unfit to be President.  Unfitt Mitt.

Moderator:  Governor, you were heard telling a crowd at a fundraiser that the 47% of people who don’t pay federal income taxes should take personal responsibility for their lives and in effect stop free loading off the government.  Should the government stop supporting the poor, disabled, unemployed, the homeless, the frail and elderly?

Mitt: As I’ve said, I’m not going to worry about them, they have the safety net. What they need are jobs.  Wal-Mart is always looking for greeters, you know the ones with all the buttons on their aprons, I just love those  buttons, and the burger sandwich establishment has a reputation of hiring the needy and indigent to sweep floors and so forth.  And I’m always looking for some good help to iron my jeans – I like a good stiff denim pant (my cool look) with a clean crease.  I could use a shoe shine guy too.  See, I’m a job creator.

President Obama:  I’m the President of the 100% of Americans and if the GOP would stop blocking my jobs bills, and stop trying to crush the unions, we’d have more people working in good jobs.  Governor Romney’s job plan is not a domestic jobs plan, it’s a plan to hire domestics.

Moderator:  Governor, you released your tax return for 2011 and a summary of your tax returns dating back to the 90’s.  You actually paid more last year than you were legally required to do so, even after you said that if you were to pay more than you owed, you would not be fit for the presidency.

Mitt: If I said that, I didn’t mean it, but I stand by what I said whatever I said.

President Obama: Well, it looks like Governor Romney is feeling a little guilty about not paying his fair share and is trying to make amends, but I would suggest he’s got a lot of amending to do.

For more debates, see:

Part I:  Imaginary GOP/DEM Debate

Part II:  Presidential Debate In Song

Swarming Homeless Honeybees Hunt Hives and Higher Education

A  swarm of homeless bees attacked a Volvo station wagon as a horrified family of three looked on helplessly from the comfort of the cabin.  One theory for the attack (mine) is that the safe and roomy Volvo provides the perfect home for a swarm of upwardly mobile bees, SUMBs for short.  I imagine this ambitious family of honeybees have their sites on college in upstate New York and may very well have noticed the Bard College sticker on the back glass of the car.  I suspect that these are the same progressive swarm of bees that have taken to the streets to protest the lack of environmental regulations that have given rise to climate change.  These bees, though not aggressive by nature, do intimidate by swarming science deniers and plan to disrupt the GOP convention this summer.  Actually, Bard College is the perfect school for them – progressive with a campus full of smokers, which would help calm the bees at night.  And Bard has a wonderful new science facility where the bees might lend their expertise on pollination, hive making and honey production.  Should Bard move to admit bees, I would think they would soon follow with a Bee Keeping major.

Another Frank Gehry masterpiece

Rainy Dayze in the UK

Over in Great Britain, things are a mess.  This is not what Olympic fans want to hear.  What have the Brits done?  Will they need to import Mitt Romney, the vulture capitalist, to save the games?  He did perform some sort of Mormon miracle for the Salt Lake City Olympics, you know.  But this problem has nothing to do with the Summer Olympics or the collapse of the Greek economy.

What’s going on across the pond you ask?  Actually, I don’t know, but the BBC reported on my HTC Evo news feed that something’s afoot in the UK.  A tragedy of epic proportion – CLIMATE CHANGE.  More specifically in the form of rain in the UK, and lots of it, which of course is bad for tourism and even worse for insects, especially the delightfully sweet honey bees who don’t do their thing well in the wet.  Butterflies have a had a hard time too, unable to mate in the damp and dank.  But it’s not all bad.  Slugs and snails are in paradise, literally just soaking and slimming it up.  They really dig the rain.

Climate Change and Natural Disasters

Japan, Chile, Indonesia, New Zealand, Haiti, Guatemala, Bangladesh, Pakistan.  I could fill the page with country after country whose people have recently experienced some of the worst natural disasters ever recorded.  Stephen King would be hard pressed to write a novel that compares to the horror that mother nature has unleashed on humankind in recent years.

But is nature random? Earthquakes are difficult to predict but are not random in the sense that one is completely unexpected.  We know where the trouble spots are.

What about climate change? Not random either.  Naysayers suggest we are just in one of those warming cycles, but the science proves otherwise.  Skeptics point to colder winters and increased snowfall as evidence that global warming is a scam.  However, these extreme weather patterns suggest something even more sinister – climate change.  These are not random events, but are all connected.

Global warming has been accelerated due to human action – the burning of fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas, the cutting down of forests, and the use of fertilizers in agricultural practices, all actions that produce greenhouse gasses.   As a result of elevated levels of these radiation absorbing gasses in the atmosphere, we’ve witnessed a rise in average temperatures, the melting of the polar ice-caps, a rise in sea levels, heavier rainfall, more extreme weather events, including hurricanes, tornadoes, cyclones and the like causing all manner of catastrophes including flooding, mudslides, drought, and wildfires.

Unless governments and people commit to reducing carbon footprints, we are likely to witness more horrific disasters in our lifetimes, and our children may inherit a planet dramatically different from what we know now.  It is a sobering thought, but worth remembering.

Climate Change in the NCAA Tournament

If these Sweet 16 teams win two more games, we’d have a final four like never before.  Talk about climate change!

A preview of the Sweet 16 match ups:

Midwest – Northern Iowa (9).  MSU’s leading scorer is hurt.  UNI’s leading scorer is not.

West – Xavier (6).  Xaiver made the Sweet 16 last year.  Kansas State did not.

East – Cornell (12).  The Big Red have home court advantage over top seeded Kentucky.  And they may have a secret press weapon – 6-7 blogging Forward,  Jon Jaques who writes for The Quad, the New York Times college sports blog. Check out Jon’s latest entry.

South – St. Mary’s (10). Baylor has yet to play a team seeded below 11.  They will face their toughest game so far with the pressure of winning close to home.