Democracy: quote of the day

"Democracy is about majority rule, not majoritarian tyranny."

"Gandhi won't leave India", Gopalkrishna Gandhi, New York Times, 2017-08-14

We do have to be careful even about the phrase “majority rule”.  Does the majority rule about climate change?  If the majority is purple people do they get to rule that all orange people should leave the country?

“Majority rules” should be limited to the majority elects those who govern, not to each and every rule that a government makes.  And in our last election, a minority of those who voted determine who would become president.

Consider also that many corporations want to eliminate many rules that “the majority” made: rules about safety, rules about pollution, rules about…

Questions for the “Freedom” caucus

Just what is this “Freedom” you lay claim to and who is free to do what to whom?

Is it the “freedom” to own slaves by a few or to make certain people second class citizens?

Or is it the freedom to be have a well-payiing job with respect from your employer?

Is it the “freedom” to gerrymander voting districts to give yourselves an unfair electoral advantage?

Or is it the freedom to know that your vote will count in a fair election?

Is it the “freedom” to be free from paying taxes for all the benefits that have helped you get rich?  Like public schools for educated workers, like roads to move your goods around, like courts to settle any disputes you may have, like police to investigate crimes committed against you, like fire departments to respond quickly to fires or medical emergencies?

Or is it the freedom to have all kinds of resources available that we can only afford collectively by contributing to the best of our ability?

Is it the “freedom” to have wider and wider highways to drive faster and quicker, regardless of the cost to tax bases, to individual families, or to the environment?

Or is it the freedom to be secure in your own house, knowing that the chances are almost non-existent that your house will be condemned to make room for an ever wider freeway?  Is it the freedom to not have to have a car because other forms of transportation are convenient and frequent?

Is it the “freedom" to reduce your own costs by polluting the air and water?

Or is it the freedom to have clean breathable air or to have safe, drinkable water?

Is it the “freedom” to donate large sums to “elected” officials to do your bidding?

Or is it the freedom to know the candidates you can vote for have received “small” amounts of money only from the people who have a right to vote for them.

See also "The false masters of words".

Best Congress money can buy

An example of how Congress is the best that money can buy is “Disapproving the rule submitted by the Department of the Interior known as the Stream Protection Rule."

In other words corporate profits are more important than clean, safe drinking water for people downstream of mines.

It is ironic that the party who claims to be “originalist" concerning the Constitution completely ignores anything that hampers corporate profits.

For example, Congress has the power to regulate commerce among the states.  Hm! Streams turn into rivers that go through many states.  Isn’t polluting a stream that goes into a river in another state “commerce among the states”.

Is climate change God's warning to those who pollute?

The Duluth News Tribune had an article about climate scientists who are worried about Donald Trump's proposed appointments.

"Florida climate scientists worry as Trump picks his Cabinet and sea levels rise"

"These choices dismay Dan Weiss, a clean-energy consultant who has led climate change programs for several major environmental organizations.

“'Nominating climate science deniers to head EPA, Energy and Interior is the same as appointing an arsonist to head the fire department,' he told McClatchy. 'South Florida should get used to higher floods than it has today.'”

- Duluth News Tribune, 2016-12-22.

Maybe global warming is "fire the next time"?

Paean to true free market holdouts

As my regular readers know (probably too well) that I object strongly to the misuse of the term “free market”.  Too often it means that corporations should be free to do what they damn well please without pesky regulations like providing buyers with full information or air and water pollution reduction.

Well, there are a few markets where there are many sellers, not enough, but they seem to be holding their own.  These are locally-owned

hardware stores,
barbers and stylists
breweries
liquor stores
coffee shops
restaurants
co-op groceries
book stores (only one locally owned new-book store left in Duluth)

We’ve been doing our best to patronize all of the above, but sometimes one has no choice but to patronize the large corporations

building supplies
computers and other electronics,
cell phone service
drug stores
automobiles (but most dealerships are locally owned)
gasoline (but a few stations are locally owned)

Hm!  I know we need a new political party that represents all the people instead of a bunch of special interests.  Maybe it should be called the True Free Market Party!

Mining and Adam Smith

If you think mining is good for northern Minnesota or anywhere else, read
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/opinion/appalachias-sacrifice.html.

Also consider what Adam Smith wrote about those who live for profit.  And consider that a true free market has no externalities, like pollution that is not in the cost of a transaction.

A flimsy attack on clean air

I submitted the following comment to the New York Times, article "A flimsy attack on clean air" but as far as I know it was not published.

"The Congress shall have the Power to...regulate Commerce...among the several States... U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8.

Maybe the polluters have a case if ALL of their pollution stays within their own state. However to do so, they'll probably have to dam rivers and stop the winds. But since these flow into other states...

Paul Krugman's use of "free marketer"

I'm surprised the economist Paul Krugman is using "free market" as loosely as the so-called "free marketers" do.  "Free market" too often means fewer and fewer sellers doing whatever they please.  A true free market has many buyers and sellers, both buyers and sellers are free to enter and leave the market, both buyers and sellers have all the information they need to make a decision, and all costs are paid for in the transaction.

How many independent pharmacies are there is our cities? You can probably count on one hand the corporate pharmacies.

How many situations like Epipen where the buyers are not really free to leave the market?

As to full information how much do the sellers know about you while fighting with dozens of lobbyists to hide information about their products. GMOs?

Externalities? These "free marketers" don't want the government to regulate worker safety and don't want government to regulate the pollutants from their smokestacks, farms, and mines going downwind or downstream.

Posted at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/opinion/progressive-family-values.html?comments#permid=19921473

It makes no sense?

Some weeks ago I was in a coffee shop when one of those who has to talk to the whole room was holding forth.  He repeatedly exclaimed “It makes no sense” with regard to gas prices rising after haven fallen so low.

Rather than going over to his table and joining the conversation, I just stayed where I was and kept quiet.

However, in the true free market sense, it does make perfect sense for more than one reason.

First, the number of producers of oil was way up.  When a commodity becomes plentiful the price goes down.  But when the price becomes too low for some to make money, they drop out.  The number of producers drops and the price starts to climb.

Two, traditionally the price of gasoline rises in spring and fall as refiners switch the blends to match the season.

Three, as the price dropped, more people drove more.  As they drove more, the demand for gasoline increased.  As demand increases so does price.  That’s the “free market”.

I don’t know whether this exclaimer was a “liberal” or a “conservative”, but this is the kind of view that some who call themselves “conservative" hold.  These “conservatives” are ready to blame anybody but themselves for almost any problem.

Ironically, these up and down gasoline price movements are one of the few really free markets we have in our “free market” economy.

There are many buyers and sellers.  Many sellers if we limit sellers to those extracting the oil.  It is not so with refiners where we have relative few; one refinery can be producing gasoline for an entire region.

Both buyers and sellers are free to enter and leave the market.  Many drivers can change their driving habits: make fewer trips or use other transportation.  Drillers do turn their rigs off and on and explore more or less.

Both buyers and sellers have all the information they need to make a decision.  For the most part, gasoline is a price-driven commodity.  Despite what the oil companies say, the product is the same from station to station.  For the station, it’s mostly is the credit card good.

All costs are covered by the transaction.  This is where gasoline fails miserably.  We don’t pay for the pollution and global warming caused by our “freedom” to drive when, where, and how much we drive.

I wish more of what happens made as much sense as the ups and downs of the price of gasoline.

Let’s Stop It with Global Warming Denial

The blogosphere is filled with nitpicking about NASA’s supposedly only 38 percent certainty about 2014 being the warmest year for recorded data.  Does it really matter if 2014 was the warmest year in recent history or the third warmest year? The trend is still up even though there may be slightly cooler years or there may be cooler spots that had been warmer.

Think of your house in winter.  Assume it is a five-room house with a basement. Assume you have no central heating and your only heat is from electric space heaters.

If you turn on one space heater in one room, you will feel warmer by the heater and colder as you move away from it.  Suppose you turn on a space heater in every room.  Each room will warm up near the space heater and be cooler away from the space heater.  If you are on the opposite side of the room, there is no room-heating!  And if you go to the basement, you have proven that there is no household warming!

What happens if you put a space heater in every corner of each room and in every corner of the basement?  You will have a very warm house, maybe an unbearably hot house.

So what happens if you have a few steam-powered factories?  Not much.  What happens if you add hundreds and thousands of steam-powered factories.  Well, the areas around these factories may be a bit warmer, but few will notice until they go into the factories.

What happens if you have a few steam-powered trains?  Not much, just like with the factories.

What happens if you have a few thousand gasoline-powered cars?  Not much.  But if you take lots of measurements, you will find that the temperatures are rising slightly around the areas where these factories, trains, and cars operate.

What happens when there are hundreds of thousands of factories and trains and millions of cars?  Where is all the heat from these going to go?  Magically back into the ground where the fuel came from?

Add to this that these factories, trains, and cars generate carbon dioxide.  Since the Earth takes in energy as ultra-violet radiation and sends out energy as infra-red radiation, you would think there would be some stability in energy.  But carbon dioxide (and other gasses) block infra-red radiation.  The more carbon dioxide we dump into the atmosphere, the more heat will be retained on earth.  The more generators of carbon dioxide we have, the more carbon dioxide we will have dumped into the atmosphere.

Let’s go back to our household heaters.  Nowadays, we use electric heaters.  Any carbon dioxide that results from our use is generated outside the house.  But what if our heaters are fireplaces and wood stoves?  The carbon dioxide is being generated inside our house.  If we are not careful, we could suffocate ourselves.  To make sure we have enough oxygen, we have to have leaky windows and doors or some controlled source of oxygen.

A simple thought experiment shows that we are definitely putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  For millennia, people cooked their food and warmed themselves with wood fires.  The wood provided the carbon for fuel and the trees absorbed the carbon dioxide to grow more wood.  This is a virtual cycle: what gets used for one purpose is recycled to produce more of the original substance.

Then people discovered coal in the ground.  This burned better than wood and was never rotten or damp.  For millennia, the techniques for extracting coal were too inefficient to provide world-wide use.

As the world population grew and agriculture spread, more trees were cleared for buildings and farms.  This meant less wood was available for fuel and alternatives were needed.  Extracting coal became more efficient.

However, its use wasn’t always efficient.  Many fireplaces and factories didn’t burn coal efficiently and much soot was dumped into the air.  This resulted in dirty laundry and more cases of pulmonary diseases.  As late as the 1940s, steam locomotives would spew cinders and other pollutants as they rumbled by.  At the time, we lived right next to the tracks in an otherwise nice neighborhood.  We would have to brush our hair after a train passed.

Coal and other fossil fuels are inefficient for another reason.  They ain’t making them anymore!  We have drained the swamps where critters large and small drowned and slowly broke down into coal and oil.  We have also “drained” the easy access to oil and coal.  Now we blow up mountains to get coal and pound the heck out of the underlying rock formations to get oil and gas.  The first has ruined towns and rivers.  The second is causing minor earthquakes.

Both of these operations remove thousands of trees and other vegetation that would absorb carbon dioxide.  Add to that we want larger and larger parking lots, wider and wider highways, and larger and larger buildings.  We will need more oil for these and will take away more of the carbon sink vegetation.  This is a vicious cycle; things only get worse.

Meanwhile we have more and more carbon being burned and many people making lots and lots of money producing carbon fuels.  To understand the denial of global warming, follow the money.  As Adam Smith wrote in his “Wealth of Nations”, those who live by profit are not to be trusted.

You can find more thoughts like this at my blog: http://magree.blogspot.com.

World Peace in Four Easy Steps

OK!  Maybe the following aren’t easy steps, but compared to the money and effort that have gone into weapons, wars, and stock market manipulation, these should be child’s play.

First, invest heavily in the development and deployment of alternative energy, both small-scale and large-scale.  The main benefits are reducing poverty, slowing global warming, and reducing the power of petro-dictators.  This investment is already happening in many places and at many levels.

You don’t have to look hard to find news about a large array of solar panels, a new purchase of wind turbines, or some large-scale energy savings.  Germany gets over ten percent of its energy from wind, and some German states get half from wind.  Overall, Europe gets about eight percent of its electricity from wind, up from seven percent in 2012. I won’t bore you with a long list of statistics, but you can easily find many sites that describe the deployment of wind energy.

Energy is being generated many places on a small scale.  Last week’s Reader had an article from the Christian Science Monitor about Greenlight Planet, a company that is making low-cost solar lamps.  If the article is to be believed, Greenlight Planet’s Sun King lights do better than my solar shed light for our outhouse.  The Sun King light supposedly lasts 30 hours without recharging.  If I leave my shed light on overnight, the batteries drain to the point that they won’t even recharge!  Unfortunately, according to the Greenlight Planet website, you can only buy a sample if you live in India.  Otherwise, you have to find a dealer.

And some renewable energy projects start even smaller.  William Kamkwamba, age 14, of Malawi started creating windmills just to have a light to read by at night, he then provided light for all in his village, and then a water pump.

Second, invest heavily in moving water to where it is needed, either by rain or by moving desalinated seawater.

One of the problems Kamkwamba’s village faced was periodic droughts, some of them deadly.  With his windmills, he was able to pump water from a dug well.  This also saved women from making long treks to water sources.

But we know that we can stress our water sources, from overusing wells to draining lakes.  Remember the Aral Sea that almost dried up.  It is coming back, slowly.

China is working on some huge desalination projects, but these will meet only some of the demand of its large cities.  Israel depends on desalination for half of its fresh water.

Desalination (also called desalinization) works best near oceans and can cost a lot to move inland or to higher elevations.  I don’t know what moving water inland costs, but consider that desalination can cost three dollars for one thousand gallons, but the same amount of bottled water would cost nearly eight thousand dollars!

I often wonder if spraying seawater into offshore winds could induce rain inland.  Will the evaporation drop out the salt sufficiently that it won’t harm the land?  If a lot of moisture is introduced this way, will it cause damaging thunderstorms?  Will we sow the wind and reap the whirlwind?

Third, invest heavily in soil building either by using natural fertilizers or by planting more trees.  Increasing the amount of fresh water doesn’t do us much good if it only washes the soil away.  Dumping lots of chemicals on soil is only ruining it over the long term.  Clear-cutting larger and larger tracts of land is allowing more soil to be blown away.

Animal waste can either be a contaminant or a sustainable fertilizer.  Dairy operations and feedlots can either let the wastes infiltrate our fresh water or improve the soil for other farmers. Even human wastes can be used to improve soil.  The Western Lake Superior Solid Waste District (WLSSD) processes garden waste, food waste and human waste into fertilizer.  The first two are made into garden fertilizer; the second into farm fertilizer.  WLSSD produces over 30,000 tons of the latter every year.  What would our drinking water be like without that treatment?  What would our health be like?  Too many people in the world find these answers the hard way.  How do we ensure that these techniques are scalable all around the world?

The fourth step is that we could probably pay for all these improvements all over the world just with what the United States spends for all kinds of military equipment.  The Nuclear Threat Initiative estimates that the United States could spend one trillion dollars to upgrade its nuclear arsenal.  My guess that such upgrades in other countries combined would be half as much.  Let’s put that in numerals.  My guess of worldwide upgrades would be $1,500,000,000,000!!  Some readers would like to have savings of $15,000; others would be glad to have $150 in savings.  That $1,500,000,000,000 is over $200 for every man, woman, and child in the world.  Some of them would like to have that $200 just to survive for a year.

So, what are our world leaders doing about this over-abundance of killing equipment?  Dithering about cutting back what they have and posturing with it whenever they don’t like what others are doing.  Do we have any grown-ups around to get these big kids to stop playing games with other people’s lives?  This is the hardest step of the four steps to world peace!

Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/04/24/3274_world_peace_in_four_easy_steps





You can find more of my thoughts at
http://magree.blogspot.com

Welfare queens are small potatoes compared to welfare kings

Some politicians love to cite that some people on welfare are driving Cadillacs.  Therefore all welfare is a waste of taxpayer money.  My first question is if the “welfare queen’s” “Cadillac” is a late model or a 10-15 year old Cadillac with 200,000 miles.  My second question is how many people that truly need help would be hurt because politicians assumed they were all driving Cadillacs.

Some of these same politicians love to give barrels of cash to multi-millionaire CEOs as direct subsidies to continue doing business as they are or to move from one place to another.  Why does a billionaire need a subsidy to build a stadium for which he will take most of the profits?  Why does a company need a subsidy to move from one city to another?  Either there is a sound business reason to move, like closer to markets, suppliers, or labor pool or there isn’t.

The welfare kings are also leeches in that they expect a pool of trained labor they did not train and an infra-structure they did not build.  And they holler loudly if anyone expects them to pay taxes to have these.  And they complain loudly if anyone expects them to clean up the messes they create, like harmful particles in the air and toxins in the water.

Does "environmentally friendly copper mining" exist?

Does "environmentally friendly copper mining" exist?

I did a Google search on the phrase "environmentally friendly copper mining".  I received a large variety of references, some of them enthusiastic about the process, some very skeptical of its “environmentally friendly” results.

"In-Situ Recovery", Excelsior Mining
 
This process consists of drilling sets of holes to push an acidic solution down a central hole and then pulling it back up with four nearby holes.  The acidic solution dissolves the minerals.

This process requires fracturing and must be below the water table.  It supposedly can be permitted in 18 months and built in a year.  At the end, wells are flushed and then filled with cement.

This article enthusiastically states, “The San Manuel copper mine, owned by BHP Billiton, was a successful operation…”  However, BHP Billiton admits, “The water quality of the future lake is expected to be affected by spent process solutions that remain in the former open pit mine as a result of in situ mining on the benches. . . . the pit lake pH is expected to approach 5.0, and dissolved metals will still be present in the water.”  See http://protectourwaterourfuture.com/index.php/2011/03/18/report-isl-operations-comparable-to-curis-project/

"Copper and Sustainability", Copper Development Association

Mostly about the usefulness of copper.  Small nod to recycling.

"Copper Mining In A Cotton Field? The Florence In-Situ Mine" by John Kline, the environmental project manager at BHP Copper's Florence site

Reprinted from "On CU", January - March, 1997, Vol. 1, No. 2.
"On CU" is the quarterly publication of BHP Copper, a business group of The Broken Hill Proprietary Corp., Ltd.

This article is very positive about in-situ mining.  For example, “Its hard to imagine putting a sulfuric acid solution into the ground, and protecting the environment. But the permitting process makes sure the environment is protected.”

On the other hand, we have "Proposed Florence In-Situ copper Mine a Bad Idea", Arizona Mining Reform Coalition,
"Working to ensure mining is done responsibly to protect communities and the environment in Arizona."

In 2011, fourteen years after it was proposed, this mine still had opposition, including changing the zoning of a residential area and complaints that the mine will contaminate groundwater.  See also "Underground acid mining threatens Florence communities", Dan Steuter, conservation chair of the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club, Arizona Republic, 2011-08-28.  As of January 2014, the project had not been fully started.  See "Florence Copper Project". What was that about 18 months to obtain all necessary permits?

The Saskatchewan Eco Network offers several steps to reduce the need of mined products and to minimize the impact of mining.  See http://econet.ca/issues/mining/whatyoucando.html

"Is green mining possible?" by Max Mallet, Green Living.  The article is undated but the page copyright is 2014.  He wrote that a "good mining company" "is actually a recycling company".  He stated that mining companies have too much "secrecy in reporting toxic mining waste".  "[T]he industry has a long way to go before it can even be considered remotely green."

Microbiology students at Kenyon College wrote a paper on the use of bacteria to leach copper from ore: "Copper Mining Using Acidothiobacillus".  The process has been used in Chile and Uganda.  Their conclusion is that "Biomining has proved to be a cheaper, more efficient, and more environmentally-friendly alternative than non-biologically mediated techniques for copper mining…" This is a relative statement; is no harm done or less harm done than in other processes?

"Copper-mining: A boom too far? Why mining's comeback fails to thrill some residents of 'Copper Triangle'", The Economist, 2012-04-14.  This article presents many views, especially in the comments.  Some praise the prosperity mines bring, others doubt the area will be the same after the mines close down.

"Environmentalists oppose Arizona copper mine: A proposed copper mine in the US state is causing deep divisions between industry, local people and environmentalists", Alan Fisher, AlJazeera, 2013-03-05

Fisher covers a lot of pros and cons; the comments are worth reading also.  They range from we don't trust mining to we need mining for our national prosperity.  One repeated complaint in this and other articles was that the mining companies were all foreign companies.

United Mines Inc. claims to be "America's Eco-Friendly Miners".  However, its stock is trading around five cents.  According to Yahoo! Finance, the last financial summary was in 2012: $132,000 in assets and $243,000 in liabilities.  Compare this with PolyMet's assets of $93,215,000 and liabilities of $136,920,000.  What's this about government should live within its means?  Neither of these companies appears to be living within their means.  Will they have the means to pay for any damages they might cause?  How long will it be before they have sufficient revenue to balance the books?

How would $132,000 or even $93,215,000 provide for cleanup after the mine was closed up, even for a year much less 200 to 500 years?

“At other mining sites in Arizona and across the country, environmental remediation intended to address soil and groundwater contamination resulting from decades of mining activity has been delayed or neglected altogether due to lack of funding. Inadequate financial assurance obligations, corporate bankruptcies, and corporate buyouts can lead to such orphaned sites.” – “Get the Facts”, Protect Our Water Future


“Both mechanical and non-mechanical treatment would require periodic maintenance and monitoring activities. Mechanical water treatment is part of the modeled NorthMet Project Proposed Action for the duration of the simulations (200 years at the Mine Site, and 500 years at the Plant Site)”
- Executive Summary, “NorthMet Mining Project and Land Exchange”, Supplemental Draft  Environmental Impact Statement, November 2013, Executive Summary, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, United States Army Corps of Engineers, United States Forest Service
The link to the PDF file can be found at http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/input/environmentalreview/polymet/index.html

So, would $143,000,000 protect the water for 200 years?

Adam Smith’s warning about those who live by profit is still appropriate after 200 years:

"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."

See “The Invisible Adam Smith”.

If you would like to comment on the PolyMet copper mining project, submit your comments before March 13, 2014 to http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/input/environmentalreview/polymet/comments.html.

Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/02/13/2916_does_environmentally_friendly_copper_mining_exist

This I Believe

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.”
- Matthew 22:37-38

The Bible quotes I use are from the New International Version as found in www.BibleGateway.com.

Jesus is quoting an earlier text: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
- Deuteronomy 6:5

But who or what is God?  Is he some big guy in the sky?  This is what people of the times believed about God or most other gods they believed in.  Now we can see into the “heavens” and all we see are big rocks and burning suns on and on and on.

Or is God a metaphor of all existence.?  A God that “sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous”?  That is, if we follow the “laws of nature” or take steps to protect ourselves from these laws we can “keep ourselves dry”.

“And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
- Matthew 22:39-40, see also Leviticus 19:19

Leviticus is more narrow than Matthew.  Leviticus limits “neighbor” to “among your people”.  Matthew expands “neighbor” to those outside “your people”, the hated Samaritans.

Rabbi Hillel, who taught from 30BCE to 10CE followed “Love your neighbor as yourself” with “the rest is commentary.” See http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Quote/hillel.html.

Research for writing can take one down many unexpected paths.  The Jewish Virtual Library has an article on Hillel and his “friendly rival” Shammai.  See http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/hillel.html.  What was interesting about this article was that Hillel was often the more liberal and popular of the two whereas Shammai was more conservative with very strict views.

What commentary we have in the Bible.  To me it is a source of myth, fable, propaganda, and wisdom.

The myths are the stories that attempt to explain how things came to be, from the creation stories to the Exodus.  If Adam and Eve were the first and only people, who did their children marry?  The children would have had to commit incest!  Compare Genesis 4 with Genesis 5. They seem to be two very different stories.

The fables are stories to illustrate some larger issue.  For example, the book of Job examines the problem of bad things happening to good people.  A loving, all-powerful God would not put the lives of innocent people in danger just because they were related to one “blameless and upright” man.

The propaganda is justification for deeds that are prohibited elsewhere: “but all the people [the Israelites] put to the sword until they completely destroyed them, not sparing anyone that breathed.” – Joshua 11:14.  And this supposedly is after Moses brought down the Ten Commandments which included “You shall not murder.” – Exodus 20:13

The wisdom abounds.  The prime example is “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  If we don’t get along and help each other what kind of tooth and nail society will we have. “… for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.”  Is a drone the modern version of a sword?  “You cannot serve both God and money.”  We certainly have become a nation that justifies letting money rule while claiming to be a “Christian nation.”

Many of us know “the sins of the fathers will be visited upon the sons, yea unto the seventh generation”.  I tried to find a source for this; I found nothing but others quoting it.  I guess this is a case of popular editing of the Bible.  What I did find was “punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation” (Exodus 20:5 and others).  It was an admonition to follow the faith being laid down.  However, it could equally apply to pollution and global warming.  The harm we do to “God’s creation” could punish our children to the third and fourth generation, and beyond!

The greatest problems with the Bible are the selection of what is included, how accurate are the generations of transcriptions and translations, and how much crept in that was a belief of the time.  One example is just who went into town after Boaz scooped grain into Ruth’s shawl?  Boaz or Ruth?  See http://biblehub.com/ruth/3-15.htm for many variations of Ruth 3:15.  Did “he” go into town or did “she” go into town?

Does it really matter?  What really matters is that we seek a moral compass to help us all achieve a prosperous and just world.

M. Imran Hayee, a regular Local View contributor to the Duluth News Tribune, wrote that he considers the United States an Islamic nation: “Freedom, cleanliness make US the world’s most Islamic nation”, Dec. 8, 2013 (http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/285407/publisher_ID/36/).  He differentiates between Muslim countries where the majority consider themselves Muslims and Islamic countries where most Islamic values prevail.  He considers the Islamic values in the U.S. as cleanliness, charitable giving, and religious freedom.

Now if we could only have a Christian nation too; one where we “do unto other [nations] as we would have them do unto” us.

Also posted on the Reader Weekly website at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2013/12/19/2635_party_of_one-9.

Socialism or needed regulation, they ain't the same thing

It seems every where one turns, there are cries that Obama is a socialist, that the country is becoming socialist, and on and on ad nauseum.

One, do many of these people even know what socialism is?  In short, it often means state ownership of the means of production.  Is any major party candidate calling for government takeover of all companies?  I haven't heard of any.  Is it co-operatives?  Could be, but they are operated by their members, not the government.  For a more complex discussion of socialism, see the Wikipedia entry on socialism.

Two, are those orchestrating the cries of socialism those who want no government regulation unless it is to their benefit.  Is it polluters who cry socialism when they are called to task?  Is it those who cut corners on safety of workers or consumers?  Is it those who would cheat customers or not provide customers with sufficient information?

Considering the sources of the orchestration, I would say its those who want to operate without any government regulation at all.  They don't want to pay taxes for all the public goods they depend on, including an educated work force and an infra-structure of highways, water, and sewer.

In short, they want to privatize profit but socialize losses or costs.

Ironically, Adam Smith, the guru of so-called free-marketers, and many of the writers of the U.S. Constitution called for regulation in varying degrees.

Quote of the day: pollution

"Pollution is a symbol of design failure", William McDonough, co-author with Michael Braungart of Remaking the Way We Make Things, quoted in Plan B 4.0, Mobilizing to Save Civilization by Lester R. Brown.

Shale gas - read the fine print

The Polish Geological Institute has published a study that the toxic refuse at a drilling site was reused and not harmful to the environment.  See "Polish report: shale gas extraction not harmful", Monika Scislowska, Associated Press, 2012-03-02.

But then comes the fine print.  The site is a test drilling.  There is no harm if "done in accordance with legal regulations" (and how many U.S. companies complain about or ignore legal regulations).  The study was done at the beginning of exploration and "does not reflect dangers from a long-term activity."

Free market view published

Today the Duluth News Tribune published my local view on the free market. They titled it "Free Market Requires Many Levels of Regulation. You can find it free at http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/216679/group/Opinion/ for the next week or so.

Hey, I just thought of this naive question. Are free markets those where everything is for free? That is, do those in favor of free markets want to give away all their goods and services?

If corporations are persons then…

Let's not only give them some of the "rights of persons" like "free speech", let's give them some of the responsibilities and consequences of being persons.

If corporations are persons then shouldn't they pay personal income tax?  Many argue that corporate taxes are taking away from shareholders or are being passed on to customers.  Well, aren't exorbitant executive salaries being decided by a self-selected board of directors taking away from shareholders also?  Aren't the taxes being paid by my plumber or my barber being passed on to me?   So, what's so different about corporations if they are considered persons?

If corporations are persons then shouldn't they be restricted severely for pollution?  If I burn trash in my backyard or have a faulty furnace that is sending soot all over the neighborhood, won't I be called to account for it by my neighbors and the city?  If I dump poisonous chemicals in my sink, won't I be called to account for it?  If corporations are persons then shouldn't they be held to the same standards as physical persons?

If corporations are persons then shouldn't they suffer the same consequences for capital crimes?  If a corporation commits such malfeasance that people die then shouldn't it go to prison?  Prison in this case could be putting all its assets in escrow for the equivalent prison time.  If a corporation willfully murders people and if the jurisdiction executes murderers then shouldn't the corporation be liquidated?  Blackwater employees willfully shot Iraqis.  The only consequence was the loss of some contracts and the company reorganized under a different name.  Do you think that you or I could publicly change our name and address to escape punishment for any crime?

Remember the old adage: be careful what you ask for, you may get it.

Congress and the Chamber of Commerce gave the Chinese my lunch!

Somewhere Thomas Friedman wrote about other countries are going to be eating our lunch because we are standing pat on education or technology. Here is one way it is happening.

Congress and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have been dragging their feet on global warming and clean energy. The Chamber has claimed that doing something and investing in green energy will cost jobs.

Guess what? The foot dragging is costing jobs. China is already outstripping the U.S. in lower and lower cost of producing solar cells, wind turbines, and so on. Not just because of lower labor costs, but because of scale and improving products and techniques. Already several U.S. green energy companies have moved production to China, and the largest Chinese solar company has a large contract with the U.S. government.

See "The new arms race", Robert Kennedy Jr., Huffington Post, 2009-11-19, "The New Sputnik", Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 2009-09-27, and "Who has the right priorities?", a blog of mine in February.

I think China is putting up a big smoke screen, pardon the pun, about being a developing country that needs the dirty energy to catch up to the developed countries. The Chamber has fallen right into the Chinese trap. The Chinese are going to develop right past us while we hobble ourselves with old technology.

Thanks, Congress and the Chamber, for giving away our lunch.