The Choice July 31, 2012July 30, 2012 YUM YUM Last Thursday, I extolled the virtues of not eating much. neodiehl: “Or you could have a nice glass of wine . . . ” Drink a glass of red wine (and get some exercise) every day and you’ll live forever. THE CHOICE In one minute, in case you haven’t seen it. MITT: SOLIDLY PRO-CHOICE +AND+ SOLIDLY ANTI-CHOICE Could he be more unequivocally pro-choice than in this video montage? Well, he was running for governor of Massachusetts, for Pete’s sake. Now he’s solidly anti-choice. There have been quite a few twists and turns along the way — all of them with that faint tone of exasperation he exhibits when anyone questions his sincerity. The thing to note, however, as he explains, is that he has always been strongly pro-life even when he was unequivocally pro-choice. AS IF YOU NEEDED IT Here’s a book, 52 Reasons to Vote for Obama. BOREALIS – ENTRY POINT There’s been no Borealis news for a while, so the stock has pulled back to around $10. . . . For those of us who’ve bought a few shares (or in my case, a slew), mostly in the $3 to $4 range (though some as high as $16 and one of you at $21), we just sit and wait. For those who failed to buy and feel you “missed it,” I want to say two things: first, you haven’t; second, you should only buy shares with money you can truly afford to lose (and with a “limit” order, so you don’t accidentally find yourself paying $21). That second point is, I trust, obvious. Unlike blue chips like Enron or General Motors or Lehman Brothers where you might have lost most or all your money, Borealis is a speculation where you might lose all or most of your money. But if WheelTug does get certified and leased to airlines around the world, it is not crazy to imagine that all airplanes will wants this capability, just as all TV’s now come with remote controls . . . at which point, the company could be worth billions of dollars even without allowing for the possibility that the same technology could be useful elsewhere (automobiles?) or that the company’s other technologies, and even its mineral holdings, could have value. So if you want a lottery ticket where there is a 50% chance, say, that you lose all your money, but a 40% chance you might make a tenfold gain and a 10% chance you make a 100-fold gain, this is, in my view, that ticket. Knowing that there’s a real chance that, as with any lottery ticket, you will lose your money.
Suppressing the Vote July 30, 2012July 30, 2012 Florida’s former Republican Party chairman, in some hot water himself, charges that the Republican Party systematically attempts to suppress the black vote. It is also working to suppress the youth vote. A GOOD QUESTION What happens if GOP’s voter suppression works? By Harold Meyerson, Published: July 24 The Washington Post Suppose Mitt Romney ekes out a victory in November by a margin smaller than the number of young and minority voters who couldn’t cast ballots because the photo-identification laws enacted by Republican governors and legislators kept them from the polls. What should Democrats do then? What would Republicans do? And how would other nations respond? As suppositions go, this one isn’t actually far-fetched. No one in the Romney camp expects a blowout; if he does prevail, every poll suggests it will be by the skin of his teeth. Numerous states under Republican control have passed strict voter identification laws. Pennsylvania, Texas, Indiana, Kansas, Tennessee and Georgia require specific kinds of ID; the laws in Michigan, Florida, South Dakota, Idaho and Louisiana are only slightly more flexible. Wisconsin’s law was struck down by a state court. Instances of voter fraud are almost nonexistent, but the right-wing media’s harping on the issue has given Republican politicians cover to push these laws through statehouse after statehouse. The laws’ intent, however, is entirely political: By creating restrictions that disproportionately impact minorities, they’re supposed to bolster Republican prospects. Ticking off Republican achievements in Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives, their legislative leader, Mike Turzai, extolled in a talk last month that “voter ID . . . is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.” How could Turzai be so sure? The Pennsylvania Department of State acknowledges that as many as 759,000 residents lack the proper ID. That’s 9.2 percent of registered voters, but the figure rises to 18 percent in heavily black Philadelphia. The law also requires that the photo IDs have expiration dates, which many student IDs do not. The pattern is similar in every state that has enacted these restrictions. Attorney General Eric Holder has said that 8 percent of whites in Texas lack the kind of identification required by that state’s law; the percentage among blacks is three times that. The Justice Department has filed suit against Southern states whose election procedures are covered by the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It is also investigating Pennsylvania’s law, though that state is not subject to some provisions of the Voting Rights Act. If voter suppression goes forward and Romney narrowly prevails, consider the consequences. An overwhelmingly and increasingly white Republican Party, based in the South, will owe its power to discrimination against black and Latino voters, much like the old segregationist Dixiecrats. It’s not that Republicans haven’t run voter suppression operations before, but they’ve been under-the-table dirty tricks, such as calling minority voters with misinformation about polling-place locations and hours. By contrast, this year’s suppression would be the intended outcome of laws that Republicans publicly supported, just as the denial of the franchise to Southern blacks before 1965 was the intended result of laws such as poll taxes. More ominous still, by further estranging minority voters, even as minorities constitute a steadily larger share of the electorate, Republicans will be putting themselves in a position where they increasingly rely on only white voters and where their only path to victory will be the continued suppression of minority votes. A cycle more vicious is hard to imagine. It’s also not a cycle calculated to endear America to the rest of the world. The United States abolished electoral apartheid in the 1960s for reasons that were largely moral but were also geopolitical. Eliminating segregation and race-specific voting helped our case against the Soviets during the Cold War, particularly among the emerging nations of Asia and Africa. It’s not likely that many, anywhere, would favorably view what is essentially a racially based restriction of the franchise. China might well argue that our commitment to democracy is a sham. And what should Democrats do if Romney comes to power on the strength of racially suppressed votes? Such an outcome and such a presidency, I’d hope they contend, would be illegitimate — a betrayal of our laws and traditions, of our very essence as a democratic republic. Mass demonstrations would be in order. So would a congressional refusal to confirm any of Romney’s appointments. A presidency premised on a racist restriction of the franchise creates a political and constitutional crisis, and responding to it with resigned acceptance or inaction would negate America’s hard-won commitment to democracy and equality. The course on which Republicans have embarked isn’t politics as usual. We don’t rig elections by race in America, not anymore, and anyone who does should not be rewarded with uncontested power. BUT WHAT ABOUT FRAUD? Supposedly, the push for tighter ID and related obstacles is motivated by the need to combat voter fraud. The truth of course is that it’s awfully difficult to get people who ARE entitled to vote to go out and do so — let alone persuade people to commit a felony to do so. Mother Jones reports that UFO sightings are more common than voter fraud, there having been “649 million votes cast in general elections between 2000 and 2010, 47,000 UFO sightings, 441 Americans killed by lightning, and 13 credible cases of in-person voter impersonation” of the type a photo ID might have prevented. If we assume that only one in 10,000 cases of actual voter impersonation ever comes to light (which I think is pretty wildly generous to the other side), those 13 actual cases would represent 130,000 fraudulent votes out of 649 million — two-hundredths of one percent. And note that at least some of that infinitesimal two-hundredths of one percent would cancel itself out, because it’s not realistic to think that 100% of the fraud was committed by Tea Party zealots or by anti-abortion zealots or by God-hates-fags zealots — or by right-wing tricksters of the type who bugged the Watergate or jammed New Hampshire phone lines or are described in here in a book called How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative or here by a veteran Republican Congressional staffer (“the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult”). No, some of the illegal votes — to the miniscule extent there really are any — would surely come be cast by misguided zealots on the left. The two would at least partially cancel each other out. Which takes miniscule to down to someplace between infinitesimal and zero. So give me a break. Call a spade a spade. The Republican governors and state legislators who’ve enacted these laws don’t want poor people and black people and students voting, because they vote for Democrats. It’s as simple — and anti-American — as that. HOW DO YOU GET THIS COLUMN? For free email delivery, enter your address at right and click subscribe. When I get too annoying, just enter it again and click UNsubscribe. (That’s the catch: to UNsubscribe, there’s a $49.95 annual fee. Now you know the secret of my vast fortune.)
Political Animals July 27, 2012August 1, 2012 I was so taken by these by-now famous three minutes of the new HBO drama “The Newsroom” that I plugged the show in this space a few weeks back. So the first thing to say is: if you haven’t yet seen those three minutes — in which one of the nation’s best-known nightly news anchors (think an exasperated Tom Brokaw, if he still occupied one of the anchor chairs) cracks during a panel discussion (he’s apparently on meds) and does some very serious “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more”-style truth telling — do. The whole country should see those three minutes, except for the F-word (sorry about that) and even though a lot of us, including me, believe America is still, in fundamentally important respects, the greatest country on Earth. But one of those respects is that we produce three-minute clips like this one, and have — or I hope still have — the capacity to discuss them and, eventually, stumble to the right conclusion and self-correct. That whole first pilot episode was, I thought, pretty spectacular. The newsroom encounters the BP Deepwater Horizon blow-out. If you liked Aaron Sorkin’s “The West Wing” — I totally loved it — here he is writing “The Newsroom.” Only . . . when I started watching a subsequent episode, it seemed to me the dialog was just a bit TOO snappy, the interpersonal relations just a bit TOO intense — are all these people on coke? — and the story line just a bit TOO preachy. Which is a shame, because we need this message to get out. Maybe Sorkin has dialed it back a bit, even at the expense of its incandescence. (As one of my friends put it: “Don’t any of these characters ever say anything humdrum and boring? And slowly? Everyday normal-speak things like, ‘I don’t know. Where do YOU want to eat?'”) I do plan to give it another shot. In the meantime, I have fallen in love with “Political Animals,” in which Sigourney Weaver plays a thinly disguised Hilary Clinton, and the actor who plays her husband delivers a grossly unfair yet vastly entertaining caricature (which is okay, because it’s fiction) and they have handsome twin sons and . . . just watch. You’ll love it. You can see it on-line at that link. RIDE, SALLY Russell Bell: “From the New York Times obituary of Sally Ride we learn that ‘Dr. Ride is survived by her partner of 27 years, Tam O’Shaughnessy’ — a woman. My gaydar failed again: Anderson Cooper, Ken Mehlman, Ellen DeGeneres . . . Perhaps it never worked. At least there was progress at the Albuquerque Journal: they didn’t remove mention of Dr O’Shaughnessy from the wire service obit they ran as they removed the mention of you from Mr Nolan’s.” Sally was a hero (if you ask me), and young people, especially, should know that heroes come in all stripes.
Yum Yum July 26, 2012July 25, 2012 I don’t eat much. Saves time, saves money, saves the planet*; good for your looks, good for your health — and makes everything you do eat taste better. This is such a simple yet life-changing, life-extending win-win-win-win-win-win I think I’ll leave it at that. Just sayin’. *A lot of water and oil and coal and pesticide and packaging go into getting that slice of pizza into your stomach; more still if it’s pepperoni.
No Capacity For Empathy July 25, 2012July 26, 2012 The main reason not to vote for Mr. Romney in my view is the global depression that would result from the Republican austerity vision to which he and the House Republicans are so deeply committed. They would out-Hoover Hoover at exactly the time we should be investing to rebuild our infrastructure — both because it’s crumbling and because that would jump start the economy — and at exactly the time we should be investing to make our nation energy efficient — both because there is a tremendous pay-off to be had in that (in energy savings and in national security and in confronting the climate crisis) and because, again, that, too, would jump start the economy. So that’s the main reason. One way lies depression; the other, even with continued Republican obstructionism, too-slow-but-steady forward motion (which, if the Republicans start cooperating even a little bit, as after the election they might, could speed up considerably). But there are other reasons. The Supreme Court. Do we really want the Court tilted even further right for the next 20 years? The Court that gave us Citizens United, allowing billionaires and corporations to spend unlimited sums to buy elections? And just threaten to spend unlimited amounts intimidate legislators into blocking anything they don’t like? All, or mostly, in secret? Without even having to disclose their involvement? Really? This is democracy as the founders envisioned it? And then there are the more subjective reasons. MittGetsWorse (a play on the “It Gets Better” campaign) features brief video testimonies, the first of which — Julie Goodrich’s — tells the story of her meeting with then Governor Romney. “I have never before in my life stood before someone who had no capacity for empathy” — or even an interest in faking it, apparently. It’s a compelling four-minute video. Even if you oppose marriage equality, as nearly half of all Americans still do, I’d bet the story of Julie, Annie, and their 8-year-old daughter will strike you differently from the way it struck Mitt Romney.
Finding The Energy To Confront Our Crisis July 24, 2012November 18, 2022 MOR-A-MOR-A-THORIUM I’ve not yet found the 90 minutes to watch the thorium video that kicked off this little series — I will. In the meantime, thanks to Jim Gulecas for passing on this “very layman friendly documentary,” which at 28 minutes I did find time to watch. (And. per yesterday’s column, if you prefer reading to watching, here is the compelling case in Popular Mechanics.) All of this is so critically important, because . . . FROM THE PAGES OF THE ROLLING STONE Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe – and that make clear who the real enemy is By Bill McKibben July 19, 2012 9:35 AM ET If the pictures of those towering wildfires in Colorado haven’t convinced you, or the size of your AC bill this summer, here are some hard numbers about climate change: June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States. That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe. . . . Granted, this article is based on science, as developed by academics, appeared in “the media” and calls for government action — which is a problem, because Rush Limbaugh gets deeply red in the face as he identifies for his millions of faithful listeners “the four pillars of deceit” — “academia, science, government, and the media.” But for those of us who see validation of science everywhere — the miracle of cell phones and of air travel are not in fact miracles, they are the reality-based products of cause and effect, born of centuries of accumulated logical scientific thought — this is an article worth reading in full.
Cutting the Military Budget in 1944 July 23, 2012July 22, 2012 MOR-A-THORIUM From Popular Mechanics: Thorium has nearly 200 times the energy content of uranium without creating plutonium—an ingredient for nuclear weapons. Is this the nuclear fuel of the future? It just may be. BARACK Beth sends along “194 of President Obama’s Accomplishments! With Citations!” It includes this challenge to his 2008 voters: “If you can look at this list of the president’s accomplishments after three years and not be excited, you have a serious problem with perspective.” And even if you do see the glass as half empty, which is your right, consider the alternative: the global depression that the Republican austerity budget will trigger if they win. Send this to any friends or relatives you know who plan to vote for Governor Romney. Tell them: listen, if you can’t bring yourself to vote for the President for some reason, at least stay home November 6. Because if you think things are tough now, slamming on the brakes at exactly the time we should be stepping on the gas to rebuild our infrastructure — well, that will be like cutting the military budget in the middle of World War II because our debt was exploding. The result would have been a very different world. MITT It’s fine with me that Mr. Romney is Mormon — several of the finest people I know are Mormons. Equally fine with me that he’s rich. Ditto. But should we really be embarrassed to question his truthfulness? His core beliefs? His lack thereof? Romney: Gold Medal in Dishonesty By Brian Moench July 20, 2012 “Information Clearing House” — Mitt and Ann Romney will soon be heading to the London Summer Olympics in pursuit of a gold medal with their dressage horse, Rafalca. I think Mitt already has a gold medal wrapped up. Maybe not for horse dancing, but for mental gymnastics, and by that I mean lying. And not just for lying about his Bain Capital tenure, or being deliberately deceitful about Obama. I think a serious fundamental defect in Mitt Romney has been on display for a long time. In 1969, at age 19, I went on a Mormon mission just like Mitt. I eventually supervised about 200 other missionaries. A few years later while living in Boston during my medical residency I also attended the same church as Mitt and Ann Romney. Mitt had several high callings from the Mormon Church hierarchy during his time in Boston eventually supervising the ecclesiastic affairs of about 4,000 Boston Mormons, much like a shepherd watching over his flock. Ann and my wife shared positions of responsibility in our local “ward” and in that capacity Ann was in our home several times. My wife and I both thought highly of Ann and liked her as a friend and a fellow church member. We liked Mitt as well, in that he was married to Ann. Mitt would offer a firm, robotic handshake on Sunday mornings, but he managed to make his “Good morning, it’s great to see you,” feel condescending and superficial. Mitt was distinctly impersonal and it seemed his interest in me was only to the degree that I could further his career, which I couldn’t–I had no pedigree to enhance the value of my Harvard appointment. He was nakedly ambitious and it was widely assumed he would eventually run for President. Mitt went on to climb quickly up the Mormon Church ladder, becoming a “Stake President” at a very young age, while simultaneously laying the foundation of his high profile political career. Within the Mormon community his ascendency to the door step of the Presidency is viewed with almost as much anticipation as the Second Coming of Jesus. They look to a Romney Presidency as validation of their belief system, and a golden opportunity to disseminate it worldwide. To them Romney embodies simultaneous theological and political triumph. In contrast to Mitt, I have distanced myself from the Mormon Church after a personal battle between critical thinking and the origins and doctrines of the Church. Nonetheless, I still respect and admire its culture and social strengths and most of my friends and family are active Mormons. But I will not be warmly regarded for divulging anything unflattering about Mitt. Mitt’s interaction with his religion is indeed a legitimate issue for voters, but not for the reasons that have been raised by evangelicals. It is not because Mormonism is a non-Christian cult. Mitt’s significant leadership positions in the Mormon Church evokes a much deeper connection to his religion than any other presidential candidate in modern history has had to their religion. Reaching this rather exhalted state within the Church hierarchy is supposed to manifest not just one’s extraordinary commitment to the Church, but also to behavior and a value system beyond reproach. A Mormon Stake President is expected to live an exemplary, Christ-like life. Therefore it is not only fair, but important to ask: does Mitt’s behavior and value system meet those lofty expectations? As a Bishop and a Stake President in the Mormon Church, Mitt would have interviewed thousands of Church members to sign off on their worthiness to attend ceremonies in the ultra-sacred and exclusive Mormon temples. One of the key questions he would have been required to ask in those interviews would have been, “Are you honest in your dealings with your fellow man?” That question is intentionally vague but is supposed to weed out people who tell lies, cheat on their taxes, or are dishonest in business transactions. If Mitt would be unable to truthfully answer yes to that question of honesty, then he is not just someone who we would cynically write off as just another dishonest politician, but he would qualify also as an extraordinary hypocrite. It would be like John Edwards sitting in judgement on someone else’s marital fidelity. Even mainstream journalists have written about Mitt taking political lying and disdain for the facts to a new art form on campaign issues ranging from his tenure at Bain to blatantly dishonest ads about his opponents, first in the Republican primaries, and now about President Obama. Michael Cohen of the Guardian typified many of these observations with the statement, “Romney is doing something very different and far more pernicious. Quite simply, the United States has never been witness to a presidential candidate, in modern American history, who lies as frequently, as flagrantly and as brazenly as Mitt Romney.” Jonathan Chait, columnist for New York Magazine says Romney is, “Just making stuff up now.” Even worse, Romney repeats the same lies over and over, even after they’ve been debunked. He appears completely unconcerned about being caught. That’s a new level of mendacity. MSNBC’s Steve Benen observed,”Romney gets away with it because he and his team realize contemporary political journalism isn’t equipped to deal with a candidate who lies this much, about so many topics, so often.” It reminds me of Linda Obst’s book, “Hello, He Lied.” The most disturbing part of the story of Mitt, as a high school senior, assaulting a gay classmate and butchering his hair, is not the story itself–many responsible adults did regrettable things as teenagers–but the almost guaranteed lie last month that he couldn’t remember ever having done it. His cohorts in crime remembered it vividly and later became deeply disturbed about taking part in it. When Mitt was in Salt Lake City in 2002 managing the Olympics he apparently told another whopper. During a traffic jam going to one of the Olympic events, Mitt was outraged at what he viewed as an incompetent volunteer directing traffic. As reported in the Salt Lake Tribune, during several articles that became a hot topic of conversation in Utah, the volunteer and several witnesses, including a captain in the Sheriff’s department, said he let out a profanity laced tirade directed at that volunteer that included dropping the “f-bomb.” Use of that kind of language may not seem like much of an offense now, but for a high ranking Mormon official to use that kind of language anywhere, let alone in a public venue, would be as shocking and disillusioning to the Mormon faithful as if it had been uttered by the prophet Joseph Smith himself. Never apologetic, Mitt vehemently denied that it ever happened. But there is more dishonesty to Mitt than has been printed so far. There is a stark failure to live his religion, at least to the level of what should be expected of one who has risen to the upper echelons of Mormon ecclesiastical authority. First, Mitt’s recent statements about believing that marriage is “an enduring institution only between a man and a woman” is not what the Mormon Church believes. The history of the Mormon Church’s practice of polygamy during the 19th century is well known, slightly less well known is its official renouncement of the practice in 1890. But what is not publicly known is that Mormon men can still marry, for “time and all eternity” in Mormon temples, sequentially more than one wife. If a Mormon male gets divorced, or becomes a widower, he can marry another woman in the temple and be sealed for eternity to multiple wives. This option is available to males, Church leaders and laity alike, but not to women. Those subsequent “temple” marriages are considered as eternally binding as first marriages. In other words, the most sacred of Mormon rituals–holy, eternal marriage–implies that polygamy is still practiced in the highest stations of glory in heaven. Mitt knows this very well. For obvious reasons he would be loathe to admit it publicly. But either he doesn’t believe in this Mormon practice, which would contradict his high callings in the Church, which require strict adherence to its orthodoxy, or he doesn’t believe what he proclaims publicly is his political position on who should be allowed to marry. Fundamental dishonesty in either case. Second, contrary to pronouncements by many evangelicals that Mormons are not Christians, Mormons do consider the life and teachings of Jesus Christ to be the centerpiece of their spiritual beliefs. All of the purported teachings of Jesus described in the New Testament–the four Gospels, the Sermon on the Mount, etc.–are the heart and soul of Mormon theology and the standard by which they believe their behavior will be judged, from both a mortal and an eternal perspective. Eschewing personal wealth and materialism and giving generously to the poor is a core tenet of New Testament theology. The hallmark of that tenet is Jesus comparing the difficulty of a rich man entering into the kingdom of God to the difficulty of a camel passing through the eye of a needle (Matthew 19:24). Everyone knows Mitt is extraordinarily wealthy, but, as is currently being heavily exploited by the Obama camp, he acquired at least some of his wealth in dubious ways. In fact, if the business model of Bain Capital were to be placed in a New Testament backdrop, the most obvious candidates to play the role of Bain would be the money changers in the temple that Jesus dispatched with an outburst of fury, or the robbers in the parable of the good Samaritan. How does one coldly order the calculated financial demise of thousands of workers, pocket hundreds of millions of dollars in the process, and walk away “on water,” ala Jesus Christ? One has to ask: if Mitt was a genuine “Christ-like” spiritual icon, just how many “million dollar dressage” show horses would Jesus own? How many multi-million dollar estates with car elevators would Jesus need for his vacations? Which of the Cayman Islands would Jesus shield his wealth in? There is little evidence that beyond paying his Mormon tithe of 10%, he spent any significant percentage of his hundreds of millions of dollars feeding the hungry, helping the poor, ministering to the sick or visiting those in prison. Mitt certainly seems to be at odds with Luke 12:48: “For everyone to whom much is given, of him shall much be required.” Third, Bain reportedly would not invest in companies profiting from alcohol and tobacco which violate Mormon behavioral standards, but Romney apparently has no problem accepting tens of millions of dollars from people like casino magnates Steven Wynn and Sheldon Adelson, despite the fact that Mormonism considers gambling a sin. I’m sure Romney hasn’t asked either billionaire if any of the money they donated might have also come from the proceeds of any of other sins that go on in Las Vegas casinos, any of which would also violate Mormon standards. As Mitt flies from one megamansion to another, collecting hundreds of millions of dollars from the country’s billionaires to put him in the driver’s seat of a new government even more hostile to the less fortunate, one wonders where are the scriptures that suggest the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Billionaires are one and the same. Mitt’s now legendary and record breaking flip flopping is routinely written off as political pandering and insincerity. Those terms are too soft. It is another form of lying. It is simply not believable that a politician could so thoroughly change every one of his core beliefs over the short time that Mitt professes to have done so. That is unless he had no core beliefs, other than that he should be President. In that case, pretending that he has core beliefs is another manifestation of dishonesty. Mitt has arrogantly dismissed criticism of his wealth as the ugly underbelly of envy. This will probably come as a genuine surprise to Mitt, but many of us, perhaps most of us, aren’t envious at all. Most of us don’t need a private jet, multiple Cadillacs, or horses with aristocratic names in order feel OK about ourselves. Many of us would feel embarrassed or ashamed to allow ourselves that much grotesque self indulgence. Mitt, many people’s lives were ruined in building your pot of gold. Not everyone is willing to do that. My criticism of your wealth has nothing to do with envy, but everything to do with the dysfunctional moral compass you use to guide your life’s work. Despite your high profile position in the Mormon Church, it is a compass that seems grossly at odds with the teachings of Jesus Christ. And your ambition has allowed you to rationalize that dishonesty as well. Dr. Brian Moench is a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists. He can be reached at: drmoench@yahoo.com
Vote for Thorium — And The Guy With The Warmest Smile July 20, 2012 THORIUM REACTORS Ted Graham: “Hacker News is a news site for people interesting in tech startups. This discussion of thorium reactors has contributions from dozens of people. I didn’t see any compelling arguments against the idea.” Del Rickel: “Thorium is the answer. More Thorium than uranium in the Earth’s crust. Reactors cannot melt-down ala Fukushima. They can be used to literally incinerate all of that waste plutonium that nobody knows what to do with. They cannot produce weapons grade plutonium, hence the decision of yore to develop Uranium fueled reactors. Here is a quick intro.” WHOM TO VOTE FOR If you are that rare bird who is truly undecided which candidate to vote — you’re not, but if you were — here is a site reader Kevin Knopf‘s son showed him that helps you see whose views most closely match your own. It’s fun. (I know you’re not truly undecided because it turns out truly undecided voters are “low information” voters who don’t much follow the news and won’t start paying attention to the race until the debates. And that’s not you.) OR JUST VOTE FOR THE MORE LIKABLE GUY Horrifyingly, that’s how a great many people vote. Happily, in this case it works in our favor. Check out this series of photos from the Kiss Cam. I think it’s pretty hard to conclude anything but that these are really nice people. Have a great weekend.
Brave New World July 19, 2012 LOVE V. HATE IN JACKSONVILLE Dick: “Thanks for yesterday’s item from the former Jacksonville mayor. I have sent it on to a friend in Omaha who is gay and whose brother condemns, reviles, and badmouths him constantly, especially on Facebook. The brother is, predictably, a rock-solid Republican, hyper-uptight self-styled Christian (of the kind Jesus would condemn) and absolutely rigid in his conviction that he is right and the Bible says so and that’s all there is to it — and so on and so on with incredible viciousness. Oddly, the gay brother is a very religious Pentecostal who finds no conflict between his inborn sexuality and his deep-felt Christianity. The condemning brother is a total Tea-partier Evangelical holier-than-everybody jerk.” Sounds as though the “straight” brother may have some deep-seated issues. Abe: “See Matthew 22: 36-40. ‘On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’ Jesus kept it simple. It appears to me he had it right.” BRAVE NEW WORLD DEPT. James Musters: “Take some time and go back to school for an hour and a half with this. THORIUM LFTR reactors are probably what will save the environment, the human race and everything. This subject is worth learning. Don’t let the science scare you. You may have to pause and refresh your drink, or take a class break, but stick with it. This is probably the correct energy solution for the future, but strongly resisted by the current industry. It will take a brave man to go against the existing energy industry and start a real LFTR project. Kennedy launched the Moon Race, maybe Obama can launch the Thorium reactor race.” I don’t have an hour and a half right now, but a few of you do — and some of you have the technical background to understand it in 10 minutes, not 90. Would you take a look and let the rest of us know what you think? MORE BRAVE NEW WORLD Prasanth Manthena: “Any idea if BOREF is working on developing WheelTug for cars? Something like this seems right up their alley.” I have to think something like this has occurred to them, if only because they drive cars themselves. BTW, I sat next to an American Airlines pilot deadheading from Chicago to Miami yesterday. He had heard of WheelTug and liked the idea. The word is spreading. Hang on.
CAN You Find Talent for $1 Million a Year? July 18, 2012July 19, 2012 RELEASING TAX RETURNS So Mitt Romney is stonewalling on his taxes — and getting pretty badly beaten up for that. Jonathan H.: “I received an SBA loan to help my small business grow. Thanks Uncle Sam! I had to provide three years of tax returns to get this loan. Is my little $38,000 loan more important than the top job in a country with a $14 trillion GDP? Seems as though due diligence for that position should be more extensive.” Why would Mr. Romney not release all his returns, going back as far as, say, his dad did? One might guess it’s because whatever they would reveal is worse than the hits he’s taking for not releasing them. And what could that be? Well, how about a year or two when he made millions but paid no tax — something like that? All perfectly legal, but the kind of thing that could rankle the average gal or guy struggling to make ends meet. That may not be it at all. I don’t know. But there does seem to be something about his prior tax returns he really does not want voters to see. AN AUDACIOUS PROPOSAL This crazy economist offers to run Barclays for just $1 million a year. What is he: a communist? A mother Teresa impersonator? Who can live – in London, no less – on $1 million a year? Yet I hope his offer catches fire. Because the truth is, CEO compensation has long been out of control. And Kotlikoff makes the case bitingly here for Forbes. JESUS IN JACKSONVILLE Jacksonville, Florida, is considering an ordinance to ban discrimination. Here‘s what one former Jacksonville Mayor, now President of the University of North Florida thinks of that: I am a pro-life religious conservative. I pray and read the Bible daily. I’m a rock-solid, loyal Republican. I am with Ronald Reagan’s ideological tutor, Sen. Barry Goldwater regarding homosexuality: Live and let live. . . . I support the bill to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. . . . Jesus boiled down God’s mandates to two: Love God with all one’s heart, and love one’s neighbor as one’s self. The sinners that Jesus most often criticized were the arrogant, the righteous and the sanctimonious. You need read further only if you don’t already agree — or want to read more before forwarding it to your Bible-reading “rock-solid, loyal Republican” brother-in-law who has yet to see the light.