Category: Guest Authors

1 In 3 Need Gov Permission To Work

1 In 3 Need Gov Permission To Work — About 1 in 20 Americans needed government permission to work in the 1950s. Today it’s 1 in 3, according to Commonwealth Foundation. The loss of freedom comes from requirements for training, fees, licenses and other bits of red tape magic aimed at keeping the Dolores Umbridges of the world happily sipping their tea in bureaucratic positions of power.

A Illinois man, as a remembrance to a friend killed by a drunk driver, began offering tipsy bar patrons a free ride home. He was busted for “operating without a transportation service license” in a sting orchestrated by the local taxi drivers and the police.

In Pennsylvania, an ad hoc barter system popped in where residents gave rides in return for services to the Amish who have a religious prohibition against owning or driving a car.

The state’s Public Utilities Commission pushed  police to set up stake-outs to catch these violators of the requirement to have a transportation license.

It’s for our own good, of course.

“We are trying to protect the public interest and public safety,” a PUC spokeswoman said.

An excellent and scary article by  Katrina Currie of Commonwealth Foundation points out that an attempt was made by the Pennsylvania legislature this year to require a license for interior designers. What was the public safety issue? The danger of mauve rugs clashing with orange walls?

Ms. Currie notes that in 2008 the state sued a a mom for $10 million for selling items on eBay without an auctioneers license and that Philadelphia bloggers now must have a $300 business privilege license if they want to sell ads on their site.

A third of Americans need Big Brothers permission to work. Fighting to stop the encroachment is not enough. It’s time to start being a little like Harry Potter and start fighting to roll it back.

1 In 3 Need Gov Permission To Work

Where the Solar Power Plants

By Dr. John Gilmore

In the Spanish countryside, a strange sight rises from the landscape: a massive concrete tower surrounded by glowing beams of light. That tower may hold the key to a clean-energy future. The 40-story concrete tower is surrounded by four massive arrays of 600 mirrors each, all designed to track the sun on its path across the sky and beam the light back at the tower. Right now only one of the arrays is completed and functional, but construction is continuing on the other three. The Solar Tower, designed and built by Spanish energy company Solucar, generates 11 megawatts of energy–enough to power over 6,000 homes–without emitting any greenhouse gases or pollutants.

 
At present there are plans to create several large solar power plants in the Mojave desert to supply energy for more than 140,000 homes in line with Governor Swarzenegger and CA’s plan to increase the use of green energy creation to 33% by 2020.  This is the first solar energy project of its size in the last 20 years to break ground.  In Pennsylvania representatives have been trying to move the state legislature to increase the use of solar energy to 3% by the year 2020.  They aren’t having any success.  The couldn’t even get our legislators to increase to 1.5%.  My question, “What is going on in PA?”  Building these solar plants create new jobs, create clean renewable energy, and will help us reduce our carbon foot print.  Could it be that in this state, one that is loaded with coal and Marsella shale, that there is no incentive to do so?  One might argue that we don’t have a desert here in PA, so we cannot build a plant, but in Spain they have created a cement structure where they are collecting solar energy.  We can do it.  The question shouldn’t be how to mine coal, frag gas, and flood millions of gallons of water through shale by doing the least damage, or how we can dispose of radioactive and contaminated waste water–millions of gallons of it, that occur from all these operations, it should be how to reduce the need for fossil fuels and become independent of it as soon as possible.

Opinion From the Bottom — Marcellus Shale Process Poisoning the Water

By Dr. John Gilmore

I went to a bed and breakfast in Upstate PA.  Nearby they were just beginning to mine marcellus shale.  There have been several reports about the pollution of fresh water that takes place during this process.  Heavy metals, cancerous agents, and even radioactive elements have been found in the drinking water of many residents around areas who feel they need to suddenly have access to marcellus shale.  On one video a man actually set his water on fire to show how polluted it was by the process done to separate the gas from the shale.  The inn keeper at the bed and breakfast almost panicked when my wife told him of the dangers.

“I don’t care!  We’ve got to do something!” He said.  “We have to put up with some of the inconveniences or we’ll be destroyed!  What can we do?  They say everything is wrong.  We have to do something!”  Come on.  A couple of decades ago we didn’t even know how to get the oil from shale.  Since they discovered how to in Canada and are making a fortune suddenly we have to do this or be destroyed.
A combination of solar energy, wind energy, title energy and geo-thermal energy would easily supply us with the energy we need well into the future, and poisoning all of the fresh water in aquifers is not an inconvenience it is totally stupid.  Van Jones, the great Green advocate who was targeted with a slur campaign and forced out of the Obama administration put it well when he said that our nation is like a group of crack heads addicted to oil  The only thing we know is drill and consume.  We don’t care about our friends, our families, the next generation, anything, as long as we get our next fix.  It is time to change this behavior and build for the future and future generations.
Put solar cells on roofs, put wind turbines and title energy turbines in the ocean, use the geothermal energy from volcanoes and use oil for what we can’t use the others for until we increase the efficiency of the clean energy.  Use the same power lines we use now to move the energy from those sources to where it is needed.  That seems to make sense to me.  Yet again, the people with interest in all the oil might not like that.  They have to make every penny possible off of the oil that they can at peak oil  prices.  They are making a killing and many of us are getting killed.

Opinion From the Bottom — More Foreclosures Due Soon

By Dr. John Gilmore

A woman dials 911 from behind her locked bathroom door because someone is kicking down her door and entering her home.  Later she discovers that it was someone hired by the bank in order come in and change her locks in order to foreclose on her house.  The problem–the house has not been foreclosed on.  According the here attorney things like this have been happening all over the U.S.  People are being hired to break in and intimidate people who are a few months behind on their rent or who have made a bargain to pay a reduced payment on their mortgages because of the bad economy.  I am beginning to wonder what the problem is with this country.

 
Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative–these are all just labels.  We watch them arguing and fighting in public only to find that the legislation that hurts us, We the People, the most, continually get passed and leadership in both parties continue to get big donations from corporate dollars and lobbyists.
 
We are at a time period in this country where we are being forced to come together and work together for the benefit of everyone.  The arguing and splintering between races, classes, genders, republican and democrat and all the other things are no longer helpful.   We are all fighting over a piece of drift wood or a lifeboat while a very small percentage of the people are sailing away on The Queen Mary.  I wonder what you descendants will think when they look back at us and our time in history.  Do you think they’ll be generous in their opinions of a nation that has squandered almost every possible resource because they couldn’t get passed all of the isms and work together?  I hope so, because i wouldn’t.

China Creating Green Jobs

China Creating Green Jobs — One of the promises of the Obama administration was to create new jobs through the creation of Green Economy.  We could restructure some of our factories and begin to make solar cells and wind turbines leading the world in the new Green Economy.  Unfortunately, since we cannot seem to move things forward through our government system in the present, the change that we wanted to see is happening in the east. Freedman Writes in his article:

“China is changing from the factory of the world to the clean-tech laboratory of the world,” said Liu.  “It has been the unique ability pit low-cost capital with large scale experiments to find models that work.”  China has designated and invested in pilot cities for electric vehicles, smart grids, LED lighting, rural biomass and low-carbon communities.  “They are able to quickly throw spaghetti on the wall to see what clean-tech models stick and then have the political will to scale them quickly across the country,” Liu added.  “This allows China to crate jobs and learn quickly.”

It seems that once again here in the U.S.  we have learned how to draw the defeat out of the mouth of victory.

 

 

New Rudeness and Meaness in Political/Social Discourse Not Your Imagination

By Dr. John Gilmore

Gerard Aquilina,
the head of Barclays Wealth Managements’s private
banking unit, at a conference in Zurich, as reported
by Bloomberg News Columnist Matthew Lynn in his
column Ultra Rich in Finance are Meaner than the rest of
Us, gave the following admonition:

“Beware
of the complexities of dealing with the ultra high net worths,”
Aquilina told his audience. “Demanding and often unreasonable
requests  from them may create “Impossible demands on
the organization.”  Such  as? Help with getting
children into the right school, securing credit to  buy
property, or obtaining last-minute concert tickets, for example.
Even  worse, the richest of the rich turn out to be pretty
stingy as well. They  don’t even want to pay the full fee for
all the services they demand.

According
to Lynn, this was insight into how the rich have changed in the last
decade. One study from the University of California, Berkeleyfound
that the rich are ruder than others. Another study found they were
less likely to give to charity andhelp poorer people. A third study
in Humboldt University in Berlin concluded that they were
“nastier” in the sense of being more apt to punish others. 

The
results of this research and may just explain the cry for no more
taxes, ending social security, spending more on war than health care,
and the many other policies pushed from the top down through the
conservative media that is always trying to pretend to be liberal, in
my humble opinion, that puts property and material gain before the
quality of life fort the human family and the overall environment.  

Gen. David Petraeus says inflammatory rhetoric and Anti-Islamic Behavior May Ruin the war Effort

Pastor Terry Jones
announcement that he will burn Qurans at a service September 11th
has created a great deal of anger in Afghanistan and is increasing
lack of cooperation and attacks on U.S. soldiers. Many officials
agree that such a move will help provide propaganda for terrorist
organizations who see the United States as an Anti-Islamic Country
with a goal to destroy Islam.

 

Gen.
David Petraeus, who is Commander of Troops in Afghanistan initiative
said he is outraged by the pastor’s decision to burn the Quran,
which, he said from Afghanistan, could “endanger troops and it
could endanger the overall effort here.”

 

Jones is not deterred by the rise in anger and the
burning of American flags taking place in Afghanistan due to his
repeated rhetoric about Islam being a religion “of the devil.”
He intends to carry out his plan September 11 regardless of the
outcome. Jones responded in response to Petraeus, “Of
course we care. It’d be tragical if because of this one person died.
But at the same time, we do not feel responsible for that.” 
If Jones is not responsible, who is? Even as the 9/11 Burn the
Quran plan continues religious leaders all over the world, and
especially in the U.S., are discussing their concerns over the
“Islamophobia” that seems to be rising throughout the United
States.   

A Post Racial Society Threatened?

On
the
Mc
Lauglin Group, WHYY, Pat Buchanan and Monica
Crowley said that the NAACP has greatly damaged the possibility of
the U.S. becoming post racial by saying there are some elements in
the Tea Party Movement that are racist and that the Tea Party
Movement should address these elements. The NAACP has been accused
of having some racist elements within it also, after they said this,
and told they should address those elements. Of course this was done by a black member of the Tea Party.  I think that the
correct response should have just been, “We will do that.”


Why
all of the arguing and strife over what is obviously true from some
behavior at several rallies. Is it too much for people to expect to
not be spat on and called by racial slurs in our society? And does
becoming a post racial society mean allowing people to spit on you
and call you racial names and not saying anything about it? Is a
person organizing himself to protect himself from racist attacks
being racist? The civility, respect, and decency seems to have
totally disappeared and people seem to just want to strive, argue,
and win by any means possible. 

 

Unfortunately, in a society that is
democratic and depends on people working together to support the
common good and commonwealth of the nation, such infighting doesn’t
work. My mother once told me that you have to be careful about what
you say when you are angry. Sometimes you can hurt a person so badly
that you can never take what you said back, even if you said it out
of anger and really didn’t mean it.

CEOs Make Millions — We Spend Millions

Sarah Anderson, President of the Institute for Public Study, has discovered through research that CEOs from the companies with the most job cuts made more money, Twelve Million Dollars more, on average, than other CEOs in Fortune 500 Companies who maintain the well being of the company and workers.  Anderson also reports that it is customary to lay off workers during the years of the highest profit.  These job cuts boost the profits and add up to more money in the pocket of CEOs.

Later, due to the displacement of workers and needing to train new workers to take their place, it costs the company more money, but the CEOs are only interested in short term profit and are rewarded for it.  What happens to these laid off people?  We end up paying for them in unemployment, underemployment, the ripple affect when mortgages fail, and through the loss of tax revenues.

The Mosque

I think they should build the mosque.  Bill and I hardly ever disagree but in this case I say build that mosque and Community Center there so kids can meet, community groups can rent office space at a low rate, people can work out and they can bring a vibrant socially responsive environment to that area.  We should build some Freedom of Speech Zones for the protestors that are about a mile away like the zones at the Democratic Convention and let them stand out in some field somewhere and holler as much as they want.  Better yet, let them write letters to their Representatives and see how much that does.  If Pat Roberston is against it, I’m for it.