Monthly Archives: January 2020

Hatred Today

29 Wednesday Jan 2020

Posted by in Hatred, Uncategorized

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I was watching an episode of Star Trek Enterprise about a non-rebel group of Suliban being held in a detention camp for their protection. The camp was compared to our putting ethnic Japanese into tar paper caps for their protection. Manzanar was out on the cold plains of Montana. They, like the ethnic Germans in WWI camps, were in danger because our government had worked to vilify them. Hundreds of ethnic Germans were killed by Americans who had been incited to go out and kill other human beings. The camps may have saved a lot of Japanese-Americans.

Hitler vilified the Jews so much the average German was convinced the Jews were sub-human and an enemy to Germany. Slavic people were sub-humans also. Almost every war has had their people convinced the enemy is horrible and deserves to be killed.

Today I see a similar scenario in many countries around the world. The East Europeans, in particular, have made Syrian refugees the enemy. Myanmar’s ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya is another case in point. Usually the source is the idea of one person or group of people who want to take over control of their people. In the distant past the propaganda was spread verbally, then by newspapers, and later by radio.  Television came along with a more even reporting even if the visual aspect would have helped or exposed the lies. Today the vilification is being done on the social media platforms of FaceBook and Twitter, among others.

The President, NRA, Russians, and others have gotten their way by playing one group against another and by smearing reputations to gain and retain control of particular groups. Except for Trump, all these other instigators work to remain anonymous while dividing our people. It’s obvious for Trump, but to what purpose do others do it?

A Once Proud Party

29 Wednesday Jan 2020

Posted by in Republican Party, Uncategorized

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The basic meaning of paranoia is thinking someone is after you or is laughing from making fun of you. It is called reality when it is really occurring. People say President Trump is paranoiac because he sees everyone is against him but he is right.

Our NATO Partners openly laugh at him behind his back here and at home denigrate him and his administration. His constant flipping of support causes many of our formal allies to look Russia and China for dependable relationships. He says Boris Johnson (Hopefully no relation to me) is his good friend,, but Boris didn’t want any joint pictures with him that might cost him his re-election to Prime Minister of the U.K. Some openly criticize and mock him at international meetings and in their own countries. They speak well of America but poorly of our President.

When Europe needs us to maintain a close relationship with them against Russia, Trump is causing them to worry. We are the glue to NATO which has prevented a European war for longer than any time in recorded history. Russia is doing its best to break up NATO with the same tactics of interference they are using against us. Instead of unity, Trump is causing disunity and confusion.

His verbal and tweet threats have cowered a party that stood for fiscal conservativeness into trillion dollar and growing deficits. He has changed the GOP into a party without a moral code. The party’s only function is to make him feel great about himself at the expense of themselves and the country. How the moral right has fallen! Will it ever arise from its knees again?

The Future Is Scary

29 Wednesday Jan 2020

Posted by in U.S. Future, Uncategorized

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I wish I wasn’t addicted to learning everything I can about most subjects. I remember when I was naive and didn’t know what was going on in the world. Oh, for those days.

Today we are besieged by so many problems that we news junkies can see an end to society as we know it and possibly all of life.

Over population is a certainty without a disaster. Global warming is probably going to be extremely disruptive, causing extinctions of many species, possibly ours. Political concord is seemingly gone forever. A few years ago we were concerned about electro-magnetism in cell phones and power lines. Now we need to be concerned how much cancer the new high powered G-5 dish will cause. We have enormous islands of plastic wastes floating in our oceans and it won’t ever decompose. We have invented micro plastics which are being ingested in the creatures we eat and the water we drink. We finally had the air and water cleaned up and now the EPA is supposed to reduce the regulations. We are causing the loss of our songbirds and butterflies.

Of all the disasters I already knew of, I find we are now creating viruses to kill agricultural pests. GMO isn’t a real danger but when we create viruses, we don’t know what the final effects will be. Will the one designed to kill crop-killing caterpillars kill only that species or end up killing not just them but all butterflies and moths. GMO is a better idea.

What will the world be like in twenty or fifty years? Never has humanity faced such a disastrous future — not even during the Cuban Missile crisis. Technology is racing to a questionable future!

Good Idea Turns Bad

29 Wednesday Jan 2020

Posted by in Economy, Uncategorized

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One of the organizations I support is the Citizen’s Advisory Board (CUB). CUB’s Executive Director David Kolata, and some well-meaning legislators are pushing the Clean Energy Jobs Act of 2019. It was designed to get more people into electric cars and more importantly put Illinois into a dream of 100% renewable energy. Now that the state has figured a way to have electric cars pay a road tax. Electric cars now must pay for the roads they use.

The other pillar is a frankly stupid idea that CUB has and with no business being involved since it isn’t in their purview. A goal of 100% renewable is a dream that will not be possible for decades. The dream is power would be produced during the day and the excess stored in batteries for use at night. We do not remotely have the technology to store enough power for use at today’s nighttime use or even compensate for cloudy, windless days.

Electric cars are supposed to be recharged at night from the renewable source which means battery storage. A million or more cars trying to recharge at night plus all the other uses would probably mean enough batteries to go to the moon and back. Again it is a stupid idea.

What we need is to keep and even build more of is nuclear power plants. Nukes should be used as a base load supplier. Their output can be reduced during sunny, windy days and increased for night charging and bad producing days. We need to work out a way to keep the nukes. We have to have a real clean energy policy in Illinois. Lockout the lobbyists and listen to scientists and engineers that have actual knowledge and aren’t putting money in campaign pockets!

Requirement for the Next President

21 Tuesday Jan 2020

Posted by in U.S. President

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The President who follows Donald Trump will need to undo tremendous damage done to the office. Whether the next President’s party has a majority in either the House or the Senate doesn’t matter for much of the rehabilitation of the office and our international relationship with friends and others.

The next President must value truth and civility as their most important quality. The people must be able to believe what the President says on those rare occasions when speaking to Americans or the world’s leaders and public.

No matter what race, ethnic, gender, or belief the next President has, sensibility must be a given and all to be treated with the same respect. The administration should go after those people and groups which want to overthrow the government by force or by social media. Reducing the divisiveness of America by Americans who hide behind anonymous social media must be curtailed. Foreign interference must be publicly disclosed and substantial responses must be made to make interfering unacceptable and costly.

The next President must repair relations with our traditional friends by making them the early calls after taking office. Our NATO allies were there for us after 9-11 when the defense article came into effect for the first time. Perhaps a quick visit to all the countries we have dishonored – that would not be a short trip!

Much will need to be done to remake our country the leader of the free world again and the country the world looks to for help and direction, and our enemies for limits. The next President must be a healer and a real leader here and around the world.

Acceptable Behavior

17 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by in President Trump, Truth

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I saw an interview of Chicago’s Interim Police Chief, Charlie Beck, on WTTW, January 15. He said if he caught a cop lying he would fire him because the justice system is based on cops telling the truth.

Journalists are fired for not telling the truth. The military academies and many colleges oust students who do not tell the truth – violating the honor code. Many professions have a code of conduct which requires them to tell the truth. Real estate is one requiring truth and violations could cost the realtor their license if someone turned them in.

A comic strip last week used the term “post truth” to explain why people were lying without regard to any consideration of the truth. The age of “post truth” seems to have started during the 2016 campaign when Donald Trump seldom told the truth and people, in particular the media, didn’t say it wasn’t true. After he became President, a bi-partisan organization would say he has veered from the truth over 14,000 times. Some of those lies were extremely important and caused millions of people to go off the normal rails.

School children and their parents, according to polls; have started to lie as a part of their daily life. Isn’t it sad that one person has been able to change the culture of our country into one where bullying and lying is acceptable. Sad isn’t it?

What Is an Activist Court?

17 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by in Courts, Equality

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Three of the most famous rulings of the Warren Supreme Court were Brown v. the Board of Education, Loving, and Miranda. These three were extremely controversial at the time and were at their roots racial equality.

For those who didn’t pay attention to the United States Supreme Court’s rulings by the “Warren Court 1953-1969”, Earl Warren was the Chief Justice whose court was inclined to go along with him even if the majority of the people’s centuries old beliefs disagreed.

Brown v. The Board of Education ruling said “Black Schools” had to have the same funding and quality as “White Schools.” Surprisingly the school was in Topeka, Kansas and it upset the southeastern states which had been segregating their funding, too. That was 1954 and in the same year they ruled in Bolling v. Sharpe that Congress’s mandated segregation of Washington D.C. Schools couldn’t be segregated. Brown was based on the 14th amendment and Bolling on the 5th. Brown II permanently integrated all schools in 1955. These started the race equality continuing today.

Loving was against the state of Virginia’s laws prohibiting interracial marriage. It was written during slave times and the ruling made a monumental change in culture in the old slave states. That was 1967.

The most famous to television crime show watchers is Miranda v. Arizona which requires someone being arrested to be told they can have a lawyer before questioning. Their decision was based on the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. This was aimed at giving the poor an opportunity to have a lawyer at questioning and in court.

Imagine how life would be without the activist Warren Court.

Now We May Know the Truth

17 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by in Iran

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What do we know about President Trump killing Iran’s General Soleimani? Soleimani could be considered Iran’s Secretary of Defense because of his status and responsibility. After all the lies and confusion put forth by the administration, we may now know all the truth. First Trump decided to kill the Iranian last summer, not last week as he said. No embassy was in immediate danger and definitely not four as he said. Secretary of State Pompeo actually said the reason was Soleimani was within fifty miles of the Embassy. That’s the silliest reason since he had often been driven past the Embassy. The Secretary of Defense knows of no immediate threat to any of our Embassies. No administration person publicly said the impeachment was involved.

Why is this strike different than Bin Laden or any of the hundreds of drone hits? Those were all stateless individuals, meaning they were not attached to any country. Killing Soleimani is the same as their killing one of the White House Advisors or Generals. When an upper level person is killed on purpose, that is a declaration of war. Trump said Soleimani was a terrorist but their stated criteria of a terrorist is the same as what some of our armed forces and intelligence people do many times each year. Does that mean our people should be targets of other countries’ people we have killed?

Is it over? I doubt it. The missiles hitting our people on an Iraqi base were for the people. There is probably over a hundred ways to really hurt us and we wouldn’t know who did it or why. I bet Iran will be blamed for anything other than a natural disaster.

Billions Aren’t So Lucky

17 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by in Uncategorized, Water

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Here is an intensely relevant and thought provoking moral question. The World Food Organization person for Zimbabwe said they were now feeding two million people and expects to add at least another two million in a few weeks. The reasons for the need to feed those millions were originally political mismanagement. Now the reason is climate change causing prolonged droughts in Africa.

Multiple catastrophes will continue to increase the numbers of climate refugees and those will need to be fed. As these refugees move to better places they will be reproducing at the same time. As the world’s population increases there will be a need to feed millions more each year. At what point can the output from the viable farmland fail to provide enough food to feed us all? At what point do the haves decide the don’t-haves aren’t going to get anymore substance from the haves.

Almost one-third of the world’s population already has a problem with too little drinking water. The wealthy always have water. It’s the poor who die of thirst or fight for it. Civil wars and regional wars will happen. A good example is the water from the Colorado River is used up before it reaches Mexico causing those people and towns to find water elsewhere. Many of them move across the border to live.

The Syrian Civil War, Central Americans coming to our country, and Africans trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea are three examples of what is in our planet’s future. Joliet residents should be glad they are surrounded by surface water as its wells dry up. Billions aren’t that lucky.

ICC Decision

17 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by in Pipe Line Permit, Uncategorized

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The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) is being asked to approve an increase in the amount of Bakken oil and its chemical additives to be pumped through an existing pipeline. Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) owns the pipeline – I own a few feet – and the pumps which push the oil along. The ICC is being told the increase in pressure won’t add an additional risk for leaks. To increase the pressure more, pumps will be required and a few additional maintenance people will be hired plus some additional real estate taxes in pump areas.

I worked in the oil fields in my first work life so my experience is leaks occur as the line is first activated and with age. Whatever product is put through a pipeline will erode some of it away. Any place where the flow is diverted wears faster so any bend underground or at pumps is at a greater risk. Increasing flow means faster and greater wear with age. Also, my experience is just because it didn’t leak at one pressure doesn’t mean it won’t leak at a higher one.

ETP says its sensors will detect a leak and shut down the pumps immediately. I believe that is correct on a huge leak or a rupture but I doubt it will on fifty gallons each day. That’s why a visual inspection of the route is done periodically. A more usual way is some landowner making an irate call. ETP would then send someone out to look at the soggy mess. This might take two or several hours depending on the location before the call to shut the pumps off and closing valves.

Repair of the line would begin as soon as possible and ideally clean-up would immediately take place without permanent damage to the environment. My experience tells me if I believe that, my next purchase should be swamp land. I think the ICC should tell ETP NO!