Congressional Corruption

The corruption of an individual member of Congress isn't either common or rare and it's sad to hear. Usually the party of that person suffers a bit and they are jettisoned quickly, with little concern for their personal lives. But, when an entire party or (indeed) all the political class is seen as bought & paid for it damages all of America. The image of a party leader handing out money to members of the House to ensure passage of a bill is pretty disgusting. There is also the idea that the rich can simply buy the legislation they want. It corrupts individuals, a party and everything.

https://www.facebook.com/dailykos/posts/10153118864109255

This alone is a good reason to prevent the Keystone XL pipeline from ever being built.

Crazy Day Update

Indeed it has been a crazy day here. This evening, about 8pm I suppose, one of the workmen came to the door and said my gas had been off and that he was going to turn off my meter and I should wait at the garage door for someone to come and restart it. I asked him what had happened and he said something about the water and gas lines being crossed one over the other and that in the digging large holes were made (probably like a silver dollar around) in the lines. Naturally, this meant they had to dig out the hole to about 6 feet square and 4 feet down and turn off the water & gas to fix the lines. It took a very long time.

Their man came along and restarted my furnace and water heater. After that they began packing up and moving out. Apparently the houses along my side of the street were affected, but nobody else. I'm glad they got it fixed before night. It's been extremely cold here.

Oh, I mentioned earlier the spray of water had frozen onto the overhead power/phone lines and made icicles, but I didn't know until later this evening it had also frozen onto power poles and equipment. A line had fallen down and was sparking on the guys working in the hole with water. Zoweeie! That's not good. They got the electric company to fix that problem, but there's still ice all over the power pole and equipment at the top.

We need some warm weather to melt the ice.

The one thing which will remain obvious for some time is that the hole they dug is covered with gravel and they clearly won't be able to re-pave it until warm spring weather comes along.

Yes, it's been a crazy day in front of my house. I hope it's warm where you are.

More Excitement On My Street

Today I was on the phone and just then I started hearing jackhammering. It looked out the window and there were two guys who had marked out a space on the asphalt street just across the alley from my house. A little while later there was a backhoe with a jackhammer on the end (never seen that before) and they were digging a hole where they had marked it earlier. After a while it got quiet, so I looked out again. One of the men was down in the hole they had dug about 4 feet deep.

Some time later I heard noise and when I looked out I saw several trucks, a bunch of men and a huge spray of water about 50 feet high, mostly aimed at the house across the street.

Woo hoo!

Some time later I went out to exercise at the gym and they had the street blocked off with trucks and men everywhere and the water spray was still going.

When I came back I came in from the other end of the street and parked in front of my house (behind some trucks from the water company). I saw a guy who looked happy to talk and asked him what was going on (all innocent like). He explained they had hit the water line and maybe the gas line and both might be off. Hmmm, I just checked and my water is running. Maybe it's from the water tank, but there's pressure you don't usually get unless the main line coming into the house is going. They're still out there making noise, so there must be something yet to fix.

I looked up to see if the water was still going and saw ice hanging from the power or phone lines overhead. It was surreal. Where the men had dug the hole there appeared to be snow and we don't have snow on the ground (haven't for days).

I may have to update this article later, but for now it's a mess with the road blocked and noise and who knows what.

This is excitement in my part of the world.  :-)

Can Technology Save Us?

In some places there is effort wasted on silly things:

Fatwa Prohibits Building Snowmen in Saudi Arabia


Yes, in America too...

Judge Takes Away Minimum Wage from Home Care Workers


Then, there is technology development which may improve all our lives:

Offshore Wind Jobs and Energy

Electrified Truck Power-Train to Cut Fuel Use in Half

Solar Panels Made with Perovskite Mineral are Cheaper and More Efficient Than Ever Before

Mutated Gene Receptor and Stem-Cell Technology Could Lead to an HIV Cure


China may be leading the world in some "green" energy areas!

China to Create a Cap & Trade Market

Wealth Inequality and Revenue Sharing -- When the Music Plays You Dance

Recently the topic of wealth inequality has come to the fore. The economy in the 1990s was doing very well and the incomes of the middle-class went up, so everyone was pretty happy. Still, the gap between the 1% or even the 0.1% and the rest of us grew larger and larger. Today we have realized that since the most recent recession began the wealthiest among us has gotten every single new dollar of growth from the economy. There's something very strange about that. Worker productivity has gone up and they get nothing?

The root of the problem lies in our past as we began to see the wealth disparity beginning about 1980. In an article for the Prospect magazine there is an explanation of some economic ideas which may have been the root of this. It's an excellent article for describing this issue, it's beginnings and even current trends.

When Shareholder-Capitalism Came to Town

We need to study this and ways to roll back its worst effects!

Senate Speeches Today by Sen. Cornyn (R-TX) and Sanders (D-VT)

The Senate has rules and traditions aplenty and one was contravened today in a way which was valuable. Senator Cornyn of Texas spoke about Republican interest in working on the economy with legislation. There wasn't anything very specific in his speech, just a hint they were interested. Next up was Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Usually I don't enjoy his speeches as his voice is deep and he does a lot of hand-waving and he often gets red-faced while appearing angry. But, his speech today was wonderful. He spoke more of the Democratic Party's views of the economy and legislation needed to improve things. Early in the speech he did some hand-saving, but that faded and he kept his hair in place so as to not look like a wild man. He mentioned Sen. Cornyn and the Republicans without being too offensive.

The main things were that he told a story about "trickle-down" economics with a chart showing how much of the country's new GDP went to 1% of our more wealthy citizens and how much went to the lowest 90%. It was incredibly shocking to see the portion going to the 90% shrinking steadily from the 1950s (slowly), but then taking a nosedive about 1982 when Ronald Reagan was in office and Republican economics were front-and-center in the nation's political discussions. Then the portion of our new GDP going to the 1% rose and rose until today it is 100%. Now the wealth and income gap is immense.

I would suggest going to C-SPAN.org to see his speech, but it's not there yet (give 'em a day or two to put it on their webpage). It's worth anyone's time.

Energy Legislation

The Keystone XL pipeline isn't popular among Democrats in Congress. It just isn't going to help America very much. Why spend so much time on it?

On the other hand, we have an abundance of natural gas and there is legislation about Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) coming out of Alaska. That's much more appealing. It's produced in America, shipped to America or perhaps exported to Europe and we get continuing employment and profits for Americans.

Of course, Republicans have proposed the bill, so there's a chance they want to do the project in protected placed. That's not good. But, aside from that it's probably a winner.

Since there are innovators trying to build electric cars, solar panels, wind turbines and the like it's natural somebody would be working to use this natural gas we're producing. I just happened upon a great article today which highlights one of those.

Electrified Truck Power Train Can Cut Fuel Use By Half

America is an innovative & creative place. We can solve our energy problems and produce useful products for the world while employing more people at good-paying jobs.