I am sure you have all heard the same thing as I have over and over and over again in the news: “America is addicted to oil!”. This is a bold-faced lie perpetrated and propagated by a small group of self-interested people who have stock in the oil industry. They are the addicts. They are addicted to the money and the power it affords them. And it is they who are holding our hands behind us, shoving oil down our throats, and blindfolding us to the reality that within a few years, we could easily convert our entire national infrastructure, including power plants for businesses and residential grids, and engines for vehicles, from expensive, war-inspiring, environment destroying oil controlled by a few, to safe, clean, renewable energy like solar, wind, and hydrodynamic, for the benefit of all.

It’s no surprise that my home state of backwards-thinking Texas is one of the worst to live in if you want to adopt alternative, clean, renewable energies; Texas politicians are more under the monetary influence of the oil industry than perhaps anywhere else in the USA, with oil derricks pumping out in the plains of the west and to the Earth, the offshore derricks in the Gulf Of Mexico, smelly eyesores visible from the coast in many cities. No matter how you look at it, Texas energy policy is one of the worst for it’s people and the environment. Living in Texas, I get to see the true nature of global energy economics, especially where the USA is concerned: Money for a few, despair and doom for the rest. It’s not the American dream; it’s the American reality.

Although Texas ports like Corpus Christi are major points of arrival for parts for wind turbines, most of these get shipped out west to other states that are less resistant to positive change. Many Texas town, cities, and counties have laws in place to prevent homeowners from using wind turbines (and probably solar panels, in some areas) unless they have a lot of land, which basically means if you are wealthy, do as you please to free yourself from the shackles of the grid, but if you are poor, you have no option but to be drained of your hard-earned income by the power barons and their monopolies.

I would be willing to be that Texas is one of the states most active in making new laws against biofuels, with many people converting their diesel vehicles to run on used fry grease, canol oil, etc. This practice is healthier for the world and it’s peoples, and more fiscally responsible for both the individual, by saving money not spent on gas for other expenses, and for the nation, by reducing our dependence on foreign oil and thus our need for war with hostile, oil-producing countries.

Why, you ask, would lawmakers criminalize something relatively safe and unoffensive like bio-fuels to keep people spending their money on something smelly, expensive, and dangerous like gasoline? Well, for the same reason that natural, inexpensive marijuana is illegal but prescription pills from pharmaceutical laboratories, despite causing increasing numbers of side-effects in increasing numbers of patients are legal … MONEY.

The level of greed amongst those who profit from the oil industry’s stranglehold on us is so powerful that it either blinds them to the hardships of the masses and the ever increasing natural and human disasters that are destined to wreak havoc on society on a global scale, or it makes them just not give a damn.

The millionaires and billionaires holding back the switch to alternative energies to protect their own oil interests don’t care that they are already among the richest and most powerful people on Earth, enjoying lives of security, freedom, and luxury that most of us can’t possibly imagine; it’s not enough… it’s never going to be enough for them.

They don’t care that global warming is melting the icy area of the world, raising sea levels, endangering %60 of the world’s population with a future of living underwater or migrating,. They don’t care if they are possibly contributing to a new ice age for the northern hemisphere, which could happen when the Atlantic Ocean’s Gulf Stream currents are cooled by ice and become heavy, no longer able to carry warm waters northward to keep North America and Europe temperate. They don’t care if the air becomes unbreathable for our children and grandchildren. I can only assume that they feel so insulated from reality by their seemingly endless financial resources that they believe they will be able to move anywhere in the world they need to, even building domed cities or underground layers or becoming the first citizens of the moon…

Since our government(s) seem to care more for the payoffs they receive from lobbyists than for the opinions of their constituents, the only thing that we, the people, can really do to avert this apocalyptic vision, is to use the power of our spending dollars as our voice. If and when you can, invest in hybrid, bio-fuel, and all-electric vehicles. If possible, get your energy from a power company that gets that power from solar, wind, or hydrodynamic sources. And, if you live somewhere where it is legal, and you are financially capable, invest in setting up your own wind turbines and solar panels, so you aren’t contributing to the problem by supporting uncaring monopolistic leaches.

Texas Energy Policy information LINK ->

We are experiencing the worst unemployment in 60 years, and record amounts of children’s toys and other products made in China are being recalled for toxic levels of lead (mostly paint). Chinese manufacturers and the American product companies and retailers that are doing business with them don’t seem to care enough to change their processes to protect the health of our people. The answer to both of these problems is to bring manufacturing jobs back to America.

I did a search for toys with lead paint on the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s website, and got a LOT of results. This is an ongoing problem, but so far, I haven’t heard about anybody doing anything to fix it. Why do we keep doing things this way? Because it’s more profitable for big toy companies and retailers like Wal-Mart to pay a few cents an hour for Chinese labor than to provide jobs to Americans at reasonable pay rates; it cuts into executive bonuses, secret off-shore embezzlement accounts, and political action committees’ lobbying funds, which help pave the way for further offenses against the people.

China also has no environmental protection agency, their energy use is spiraling out of control, and they are quickly on their way to becoming the worlds biggest polluter and the most polluted place on Earth. So, in addition to contributing to American unemployment and health hazards for consumers (especially users of products for babies and children), big American companies using Chinese labor to make their products also helping to pollute the world, speed up global warming, and melt the ice of Greenland, Siberia, the Arctic, and Antarctica, which places 60% of the world’s population in danger of being flooded as global sea levels rise over shorelines in the next few decades. Billions of people’s health and very lives are being endangered so that a few millionaires can become billionaires and a few billionaires can become trillionaires. It is time to say NO MORE!

Our government, who seems to have no problem spending trillions of dollars on wars to get oil, and hundreds of billions of dollars to bail-out corrupt and inefficient financial institutions (whom, after being bailed out aren’t even wanting to loan money anymore), should be willing to spend some billions on the people and infrastructure of this once (and hopefully again) great nation.

It seems to me that any economic stimulus package should take into account the jobs stolen from Americans by big business over the year, and start the process of bringing them back. Sure, it’ll piss of China, possibly ensuring future war with them, but hey, whatcha gonna do? The exporting of jobs to other countries by American companies should be taxed to the point where it is not profitable to take jobs away from Americans.

Take our unemployed masses, pay them to build clean, renewable energy power plants of solar arrays, wind farms, and hydrodynamic devices, and new manufacturing facilities run by this clean power, and then put them, and others to work making lead-free products for themselves and other American consumers.

My message to American corporations and politicians is basically this: It is grossly unethical to exploit the poverty of the people of other nations for cheap labor, and then exploit the people of your own country by charging many times more for items than the foreigners make to produce them, resulting in ever increasing  profit margins for yourselves, growing environmental damage from Chinese manufacturing processes, and ever decreasing job opportunities for the American people, who are your primary consumers, anyway. If we continue to lose all of our manufacturing (not to mention technical support and engineering) jobs to other countries and become a nation of part-time retail clerks and waitstaffers, who is going to be able to afford to buy all your cheap plastic toxic-lead-painted crap?

Sign My Petition: LINK ->

WARNING / CAUTION / DISCLAIMER:

The following article contains offensive racial slurs, which I have heard from others and quoted to make a point about the stupidity of racism, and I neither condone, promote, or use these terms myself, as I find them very ignorant and hurtful.

I am a progressive, liberal, compassionate, and logical human being of mixed-race descent (Scotch-Irish and Cherokee) living in Dallas, Texas.

I am often embarrassed to be associated with white people from the southern United States of America. They are, in great part, racists who think that (I quote their offensive slurs, which I do not use myself) “Niggers”, “Spics”, “Chinks”, “Heebs”, and “Sand Niggers” are the reason that they are poor and unsuccessful, instead of blaming the old, rich, white men who claim to be “Christians” while accumulating ungodly sums of money by raising prices of goods and services, lowering wages, salaries, and benefits, and selling our country out from under us, with jobs, roads, and ports going to the highest bidder. If these poor caucasian saps would instead make friends and allies of the African-American AKA Black, Hispanic AKA Latino, Asian AKA Oriental, Jewish AKA Hebrew, and Muslim AKA Arab people living among them, then we could perhaps make some progress in taking back our country from the true terrorists: the Rich! (I use the “AKA”s above to illustrate that it’s hard to be politically correct and not offend anyone these days, because nobody can seem to decide what they want their group to be called from decade to decade.)

In a recent conversation, I expressed a sincere hope that the positive example set by Barack Obama as a person of color who has acheived much and promises to help his country become better might give pause to the more violent and racist elements of the African-American community and inspire some of them to move forward and let go of the past to forgive the whites of the present for the sins of the whites of the past. The person I was talking too said, and I quote, “They were niggers before he was elected, and they’re still niggers after…”  I was offended, and ended the conversation because not only did I think I would be able to change the person’s mind, but my 3 year old son was present, and I didn’t want him to hear another utterance of the word “nigger”, which, when said in a playful way as a term of endearment, I don’t find offensive whether it comes from a black or a white person, but when, used as an insult to dismiss an entire race of people as ignorant or inferior, infuriates me! I later thought of a comeback, which I wish I had responded with at the time: The people who elected Bush were rednecks before he was elected, and they are still rednecks after…

The Conservative media tells me every day that illegal immigrants from Mexico are taking my jobs, even though they are mostly doing  jobs that I don’t want, while the government gets paid by corporations to send the jobs I do want to China, India, The Phillipines, etc. where they can save a few bucks.

I also grow weary of trying to explain to close-minded, racist, hateful, fearful rednecks how not all Muslims are terrorists, just as not all Protestants and Catholics blow each other up in cafes like the Irish and English have done during their spats. For white suburban Texans to assume that all followers of Islam are suicide bombers is just unrealistic and fanatical, and primarily based on poor upbringing. The average John Doe Redneck is as brainwashed by his government, media, parents, friends and coworkers as the many Middle-Eastern Muslims who, after being told by their leaders at the point of a gun that the West is the “Great Devil”, think that all Christians are two-faced, greedy, empire-minded lunatics who go on crusades to convert the world to their faith, although it is true that many of the wealthy and powerful are.

I am complaining here mostly about racism by white people, which is what I have witnessed the most where I grew up and now live, but I am in no way trying to ignore racism by other cultures. It’s just not much of an issue for me. Even when I’ve been places like downtown Dallas, Oak Cliff, and Pleasant Grove, here in D/FW, and also in poor black neighborhoods in Jackson, MS and Los Angeles, CA, I have barely ever had a black person, even among groups of imposing looking young men, ever be rude to me. On the contrary, I have stopped and asked young black men comparing guns and cars for directions and had them call me brother. In contrast, I have had many unintelligent, undereducated, ignorant whites, especially in Mississippi, Lousiana, and Texas, who have started fights with me for no apparent reason. And I look white. Go figure… I guess they can smell intelligence and open-mindedness and it scares them. Babies, kids, elderly folks, and animals love me, so it’s the rednecks at fault here, not me!

I think the best preventative medicine against future racism is to talk to groups of young kids of various races in groups in school, and let them openly discuss how their parents talk about people of other races, and how it makes them feel, and then let the kids of other races tell them how it makes them feel. Then show the kids how much they have in common. I bet most of them will make friends. Kids learn faster than adults.

As for curative measures for people presently already infected with the deadly (in some cases) affliction of racism, I figure until we figure out how to re-program their brains or make a pill or injection to fix them, we should release all non-violent drug offenders from the prisons and put the racists in there instead.

Let them hate and fear and insult and fight and kill each other where the rest of us don’t have to deal with it anymore.

Maybe early on in evolution, racism helped a herd of tribe of people survive and protected them from other competing groups, but racist people are now as obsolete as fossil fuels. Too bad we are still having to put up with both of them.

  

 

 

Iqbal, my friend, R.I.P.

Yesterday, I attended a beautiful memorial ceremony for a good friend of mine who recently passed away.

His name was Iqbal, and he was 66 years old and from Pakistan. He is survived by his wife, Shar, who is a Buddhist from Texas, and 7 kids who live in Denmark, Norway, and Pakistan. Iqbal was a big guy, and quite a wrestler, and had fought battles against India as a soldier in the Pakistani army in the 1960s. He later lived in New York, Vancouver, Canada, and Chicago before coming to Texas.

Iqbal was a compassionate, honest, and funny man. We became friends quickly upon first meeting, both being outsiders, although he looked the part more than I in a predominately white neighborhood. He owned and operated a convenience store next to a coffee house where I worked and across the street from a cafe where I worked later. We shared many great conversations, laughs, quiet watching of the world going by, and smokes on his hookah. We helped each other through many rough work days and trying personal issues.

My friendship with Iqbal, despite our being born of different generations, races, faiths, and sides of the Earth, serves as an outstanding example to me and people I know of how open minded, compassionate people can co-exist peacefully despite their differences.

Iqbal’s mother passed away recently, so he traveled home to Pakistan to pay his respects. While there, he was riding a friend’s horse (something he had not done in many years), but fell off and was injured. While laid up with his injury, he fell ill, and a few days later, passed away during the night. Iqbal was a very progressive and open-minded Muslim, but was buried on the day he died in Pakistan, in accordance with the traditions of Islam.

Iqbal’s memorial was performed in a Buddhist style, although there were Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Atheists in attendance. It was a wonderful gathering of multi-cultural, multi-faith, multi-national love, peace, and happiness, not so much to mourn a death but to celebrate a life, which is what life is supposed to be about.

I would guess that Iqbal is watching the world with concern, curiosity, and insight from wherever he is now, and is having a good laugh with friends.

While the US government, who supposedly represents the interests of US citizens, is spending billions of OUR tax dollars to bail out the dinosaurs (GM, Ford, Chrysler) that are lapdogs to the oil industry, some new automakers like Tesla , Fisker , Aptera , Phoenix , and Miles are on the scene offering some awesome hybrids and plug-in electric vehicles that, while cost-prohibitive for most, give us the hope that one day there will be affordable electric offerings for the masses, provided that someone can persuade the wealthy to go green first.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7i-5oRPCT0]

I have read on several websites about Nintendo possibly releasing a Wii HD or Wii 2 in 2011, which will include a hard drive (or maybe a solid state drive, by then?) for additional storage space.

I have also read, online, that in the Nintendo World store in NYC, there is a standard (looking) Wii with an external hard drive attached to it, where shoppers can browse through MANY Wii disc games by pictures of the boxes (like cover flow in iTunes) that have been copied to the external storage device. Apart from obvious arguments against making playing pirated material easier to access, what other problem does Nintendo have with enabling this technology for the rest of us, I wonder…

It seems to me that with a Wii System Update, Nintendo could enable storage and playback of Virtual Console and WiiWare games from either the SD card in the SD card slot, or a USB connected flash drive (SD or SDHC) or hard drive, giving us anywhere from 2 GB to 1 TB or more of additional, usable game storage.

That would solve the crisis that plagues myself and many other Wii owners: there are 4 screens for channels, but with just the standard, downloadable channels, plus half of the second page filled up, I already have no blocks left on my Wii system memory.

In order to download the WiiWare games I wanted (7 of them, so far), I have had to move all of my Virtual Console games to my SD card, which they will not play from, as there is no menu to access them, other than just to copy them to and from the card.

Why not make an “SD Card Channel” for now, so users can utilize the software they have purchased, and then, as soon as possible, make channels for thumb drives and hard drives? I mean, what are those USB ports for, anyway. I’m not going to buy one of those silly, loud fans, or stick a nightlight in there!

And while they are at it, Nintendo could put a cherry on top for Wii owners and allow the Wii to use it’s Wi-Fi connection to play back compatible media from a networked source (computer, router, etc…) on the TV, like an Apple TV does. Maybe that’s the answer to the gaming problem. Let us copy them from our SD card to a computer with lots of storage space and then access them across our home network?

Medical science has narrowed down the two most probable causes for horrible symptoms such as Republicanis Elephantitis (Republicanism) and Conservatosis (Conservativism) to two well known contagious diseases: Arrogantoma Self-arhea  (Arrogant Self-Interest) and Ignoramus Stupidifius (Ignorant Stupidity).

Arrogant Self-Interest appears to be the primary contagion among afluent, land-owning, business-controlling, politically active sufferers of Republicanism, who reside primarily in the Northeast U.S., especially in Washington D.C. & The Hamptons, with cases appearing as far away as Wasilla, Alaska.

Ignorant Stupidity is more often the diagnosis for the less wealthy, less educated Republicans in the heartland, where farmers and rednecks are so afraid of anyone different than them that they enthusiastically send their children to die fighting for the oil rights of the more wealthy Republicans, thinking for various reasons that it is the will of Jesus, who preached peace. One of the best documented cases, who will not be named here out of respect for the mentally-disabled, has been known to roam a large range of habitats from Crawford, TX to Washington D.C., although in that case, the stupid ignoramus is also one of the arrogant self-interested types.

While slightly less numerous, in many cases Senioritis Dementosis (Senile Dementia) is also responsible for Conservative Republican views, and, in a few drastic cases, the culpret for this horrible affliction is actually just plain old Insanity.

No cure is currently known, as once these sicknesses set in, they root themselves so deep in the patients’ psyche’s that any treatment involving doses of logic and/or empathy are immediately rejected by the host body. The best treatment for these sad souls is isolation from other, more reasonable and sympathetic people, to prevent needless suffering on the part of the uninfected.

A Boston Globe article I happened upon today makes some excellent points about why comedy is currently so liberal…

READ MORE >

This film was disappointing. I am definitely more of a liberal than a conservative, but was looking forward to seeing what I thought was going to be an insightful parody of Michael Moore, whose films I enjoy, but whom I admit has a definite slant and probably leaves out details damaging to his arguments. What I saw instead was a rude, immature slap-in-the-face to liberals and independents, and a blind-faith ass-kissing of the United States government.

The movie does make a good point about the damage caused to our country caused by a lack of morale and a lot of self-hating. However, instead of wisely acknowledging that we should try and remember how important it is to stand up for freedom and to protect ourselves from aggressors, even if out patriotism is lacking while the present administration and other forces in our government are lying, cheating, stealing, and killing to further their own wealth, power, and political agendas, An American Carol white-washes the entire situation to make it seem as if those who are discontent are angry about nothing, and that everything is just fine, and that we should quit thinking and questioning and instead just shut up and blindly pledge our allegiance to whatever war that those in power are currently profiting from.

An American Carol tries to include humor in it’s message, but relies, primarily, on making fun of Michael Moore’s weight by suggesting that he is constantly pigging out, making fun of his smell, saying that he needs a bath, and having characters slap him. This makes me think that the film was made with the intention of pleasing hateful conservatives, but not concerned with changing the minds of their opposition. It’s kind of like a loud, rude parent who tries to “slap sense” into their children; not much teaching happens, as the one who is supposed to learn a lesson instead just learns resentment. There is a lack of clever dialogue; most of the conversations are just predictable insults towards liberals, and little kids using “vulgar” words. To be fair, many favorite lampoons by liberals and for liberals can be a little juvenile in their parodies of conservative symbols like George W Bush, making fun of his reading difficulties, speach impediments, memory problems, and choking on pretzels. However, these are well known aspects of the man’s public character and help to make any depiction of him believable, whereas, in Michael Moore’s public appearances, be they interviews or on in his films, we don’t see him snacking incessantly, farting, being slapped, or being asked to bathe, so I don’t feel that these behaviors were necessary to establish that it was Moore who was being made fun of in this film.

So, in terms of entertainment and realism, this movie is a failure.

However, the film is educational, in that it is an excellent summary of the current beliefs and attitudes of most conservative thinkers. It makes use of the same fallacies of logic that conservatives love to use when attempting to argue with liberals. Conservatives try to imply that if you don’t agree with your president, your government, or them, that you are not patriotic about your country. This is very convenient, as it allows the ass-kissing, brainwashed fools among us to quickly and easily convert the easily brainwashable to their side, and this is, after all, their target demographic, as individuals who are possessed of free thought or the ability to question authority end up being liberal in their philosophies. For example, in the film, Michael Malone is explaining key issues like the need for healthcare to General Patton, and Patton blows him off, suggesting that by making a fuss about such things, he is actually helping terrorists! This is absurd, and hearkens back to the conservative notion of ”America: love it, or leave it!”, which doesn’t allow for the popular position of loving what it should be and trying to fix it.

It is frustrating to me to think of all the conservatives out there, who, after watching this very immature, though perhaps well intentioned movie, are sitting around, smiling, laughing, patting each other on their backs, and agreeing that their point has been made. If only they could realize that their point can only be made to themselves, and never to those they are disagreeing with. Sadly, our points can’t be made to them either.

And thus, the American Civil War, which began when this land was colonized by poor peasants and rich merchants, and reached it’s height in the late 1800s with battles between the north and south, continues onward into a fifth century.