Single Payer Ignored

This is maddening to me. I swear I'm going to stop caring anymore!

http://www.factcheck.org/politics/government-run_health_care.html

Recycling

While I’m at it I may as well get this off my chest. I know some friends will get pissed. I recently started to recycle. The reason I do is to show solidarity with the cause. The carbon that’s released in the processing plants, not to mention getting recyclables trucked to them is practically a wash. You can’t even argue that we’re saving finite resources with some things. Glass is sand.

I worry that there might be a placebo effect. People might think they’re making a difference.

We’re at a crisis point with our environment no matter what corporate interests are telling us.

The things that are killing us are exponential population growth, subsidized corn, corn fed cows, nitrogen fertilizers, coal fired energy plants, and the killing off of bio-diversity.

If we all became vegetarians we’d reverse global warming. I know this will never happen but we have to at least stop feeding cattle corn. I’m not going into details. It’s easy to do the research.

We’re living in a world where everyone screams, “We must end our dependence on foreign oil!” Then when gas prices go back down temporarily everyone buys trucks again. Public perception has always baffled me. Why is it SUVs are an embarrassment to me and not to others?

It’s like bling and other shows of ostentation. It all gives me a sense of hopelessness.

Venting

When I started this blog I thought it would be an opportunity to vent. I thought I would feel better after each post.

I don’t enjoy reading angry rants and I know my posts are very subjective. No one really knows everything about anything. You end up getting mad at the author.

The more I think about the subjects I write about, the angrier I get. I might have to stop before I get an aneurism.

In spit of revelations that information from prisoners was derived before water boarding Dick Cheney still insists torture works. Saying it has always made it so with him. I’m surprised he stopped saying Saddam was responsible for 9/11.

When Bush won by his 51% mandate he said he had political capital he intended to spend. The only capital he had was the world’s outrage and sympathy after 9/11. He squandered that immediately.

I’m still hearing the world is a better place without Saddam. At that time he was politically castrated and contained. Inspections were working and Hans Blix was begging for us to continue.

Photos of the “indiscressions” at Guantanamo Bay are still used for recruiting posters by Al Qaeda.

The democrats in congress should be ashamed of themselves for pandering to ignorance and fear mongering the republicans use to polarize the voting public.

The world needs to know we were wrong and we can change. The symbolism is important.

Several states have offered to take the prisoners because of the boost to their local economies. They already have the infrastructure in place. Their representatives scream, “Not in my backyard.”

They’re trying to say these prisoners pose a threat. First they might influence fellow prisoners. Second they might escape and commit acts of terror. By this logic we should only incarcerate nice, safe folks. Model prisoners we can be proud of.

I’m an old lefty from way back. Our liberal representatives are an embarrassment.

While we’re on the subject, if Nancy Pelosi knew about torture she should be held accountable too. If we believe in justice everyone should be held accountable. It’s not a distraction from more important issues or revenge, it’s necessary.

Let’s vote all the bums out!!!

Fat, Sugar and Salt

Former commissioner of the FDA, David Kessler has been all over the radio this week. He just published “The End of Overeating” and has confirmed a lot of my own suspicions.

Fat, sugar, and salt will always leave you wanting more. It’s not possible to be satisfied with these foods even if you’re about to explode.

I hear people like Rush Limbaugh, and others, talk about food Nazis. “Big government should keep their noses out of my food habits!”

We’re at an unfair disadvantage. ADM and others have the manipulation of our addictions down to a science. Worst of all we’re subsidizing them. The argument I keep hearing is “it’s what the people want.”

Well I want drugs but I can’t have them! They’d take my kids away.

We are actually hard wired neurologically to want fat, sugar and salt. From infancy these foods equal good in our brains.

Kessler has been studying this for years. He came to the conclusion that because we’re actually hard wired with these addictions we always will be. The only thing we can do is hard wire ourselves with a different message that’s stronger. He points to the great strides we’ve made in the public perception of cigarettes. Smoking used to equal cool and was a friend. Now it equals the enemy.

It’s takes a lot of work to change. I remember when I finally stopped smoking. I actually trained myself to enjoy my desperate longing for them. I became a masochist. I still believe most of my addiction was physical. The urge to breast feed. Chemical withdrawal always seems to pass pretty quickly for me.

Is diabetes 2 is just a euphemism for obesity?

To My Non-Skydiving Friends update

Sharon commented on my last post that you didn’t have to be a skydiver to see the effect humans have on our environment. She then asked, “Did you start recycling?”

While there is hypocrisy on my part, the point of my post was not “Let’s recycle.”

Let me explain my point to you and the other two of you who read my posts.

I have a lot of conservative and even a few liberal friends who refuse to believe we can have any effect on our environment whatsoever. Most are convinced there’s a political agenda when anyone points out anything negative we do to this planet.

From the perspective of skydiving our effect is incredibly obvious. Every square inch of the world will soon be covered with an ugly shag carpet. We all live together in a small room without windows and everyone’s smoking.

My personal frustration is the denial. Maybe you’re frustrated with my lack of participation in the solution. My kids are showing me the way and we recycle in the county when I’m there. We don’t really have it set up in the city but there’s really no excuse for me not to. I do recycle cans but that’s totally motivated by greed.

In case anyone doesn’t know, aluminum isn’t worth anything right now.

A Letter to my Non-Skydiving Friends

I think people that are skeptical about human impact on our environment should try skydiving. I used to jump in Sparta in Southern Illinois. It was close to the Baldwin coal fired electric plant. There was a brown line in the atmosphere you passed through on the way to altitude. I always felt better about breathing when we flew above it.

As you looked out over God’s country you couldn’t help but notice the quilt of man made terrain as for as the eye could see. There wasn’t an inch of property that wasn’t totally shaped by people.

When you think about space being only 62 miles up you get a sense of how thin our bubble of atmosphere is.

Of course the real problem is our population explosion. I know I sound like a broken record, but the planet’s population has tripled in my lifetime. Our planet can’t handle this kind of exponential growth.

There are consequences from our actions. Why do people deny it?

Photo is the ascent to our first Missouri POPs (Parachutists over Phorty) formation record in 2004. We beat it a year later. I’m hidden in the back on the left. Pic stolen from Goon Squad celebrity and Master of Ceremonies Calvin “Calmodee” Britt.

Don't Pick Your Nose

I suspect 90% of colds and flu are caused by sticking your finger in your nose. My nose runs all the time. I involuntarily wipe the back of my hand across my nose a lot.

It does seem like we’re overreacting to the H1N1 A outbreak. If you consider 36,000 people die every year from the usual strains of flu and only 150 have died from this one. All but one occurred in Mexico. It turns out most of these were symptomatic pneumonia deaths and could have been the second wave of their regular flu cycle.

The authorities are afraid of this one because it’s entirely new and they’re not sure how it will mutate.

For evolution skeptics you might consider viral mutation as part of the mountain of evidence. (Had to get that in)

I’m not sure why it’s called swine flu. It has an Asian pig, an American pig, an avian and a human gene.

Egypt is slaughtering its entire pig population (250,000). Egypt pays non Muslim Christians to use pigs for garbage disposal. The country already has sanitation problems. Without the pigs it’s really going to be a mess. Apparently Muslims can’t even touch the filthy beasts. I’m ignorant about this. If anyone knows about this rule could you explain it to me? I’m hopelessly perplexed by religious practices.

This flu is being spread by humans, not pigs!