The Public's Calling

Um, Take a Message

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It's 1984

Has Been For Years

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 ~ Lost in all the breathless coverage of the NSA eavesdropping brouhaha is that it isn't news.

While a small number of us worry about that our civil liberties are being steadily eroded, most of the American public actually trusts their government to snoop secretly into every communication they fancy. We traded liberty for security long ago, so what's the current fuss really all about?

Blended Standards

Is E15 Gasoline Safe?

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 ~ The American Petroleum Institute (API) is fighting the EPA over how much ethanol should be blended into gasoline. Is 15% ethanol content, E-15, safe for modern cars?

The [EPA] and the biofuels industry say the blend — which contains 15 percent ethanol, rather than the standard 10 percent — is safe for those vehicles.

But the oil and gas industry has produced studies finding that the mix would damage vehicle engines, and some automakers have said they would not honor warranties in cases where E15 was used.

“E15 could leave millions of consumers with broken down cars and high repair bills,” said Bob Greco, API group downstream director. “It could also put motorists in harm’s way when vehicles break down in the middle of a busy highway. We are asking the Supreme Court to step in and protect consumers by striking down EPA’s dangerous E15 mandate before it’s too late.”

Well, of course it "could". But will it? The API's studies have been called "scientifically weak" and there are, naturally, many other studies that show no harm. Could it be that the science is not settled?

Reminds me of another contentious argument of interest to the API...

Greenhouse Gas Flows

A Problem with Many Strands

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 ~ Reductions will require sustained effort and focus across a wide swath of global economic sectors.

The problem will soon become even harder.

Mounting Disasters

More Billion-Plus Dollar Losses

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 ~ The number and severity of economic losses from extreme weather events has been on the rise for years:

Several interesting things pop out from this graphic:

• Droughts and heat waves (yellow) have increased in number, although the typical size of each event was higher in the previous decade.
• Wildfires (red) are increasing in number
• Tornadoes (purple) have dramatically increased in number and severity.
• Hurricanes (dark blue) have also increased in both number and severity; it is not yet clear whether the last few years suggest a return to "normalcy" or just a brief respite in a worrisome trend.

Total damages are on the rise, and losses over the past decade exceeded half a trillion dollars. Given concerns about budget deficits, reducing that expense would be a worthwhile object of public policy discussion.

While direct linkage to climate change is notoriously difficult to prove in individual cases, the overall picture over the past 20 years cannot otherwise be easily explained. Engaging in puerile finger-pointing and self-interested politics is not befitting those we expect to provide leadership for the country as a whole.

Thirsty? You're Going to Pay

Greed Ascendant

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 ~ If water is not a human right, then what is?



(h/t Keithpp's blog)

Metro Transit's Funding Gap

Slow Starvation

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 ~ Once again, Metro Transit has a revenue shortfall.

And once again, the proposed solution is to cut service, and further diminish pubic transit.

It's a vicious circle, or perhaps more accurately, a death spiral. As routes are cut or curtailed, the overall utility of the system suffers as well. As the system becomes less useful and timely, people use it less, and revenues from the fare box decrease.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Conversely, increasing service and making transit more available, more accessible, and especially, more affordable, increases ridership. Public transit use has been increasing locally; we should be building on that, not thwarting it.

Metro Transit needs additional funding. Cost cutting is but a slogan, not a real, considered solution that would make a (positive) difference. Fully funding public transit increases use of the system, promoting urban vitality, reducing congestion and air pollution, and improving our quality of life. In fact, public transit should be free; the costs and benefits are very favorable compared to alternative public expenditures, particularly car infrastructure.

There is a public hearing tomorrow afternoon.

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Also posted to Fare-Free Northwest blog.

What Big Oil Can Learn from the Gun Manufacturers

Astroturfing Savvy

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 ~ Big Oil could learn a lot about faking broad public support from the gun lobby.

Living and Dying in 3D

Printed Guns

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 ~ It had to happen.

The incredible advances in 3D printing, and the rapidly shrinking costs, have made weapons like the Liberator pistol inevitable. We may not need to worry—yet—but it is only a matter of time before it revolutionizes many things, including crime.

3D printing is poised to be another new technology where the capabilities are increasing and becoming more widespread faster than policy can keep up. Not just guns, but many other things, at least in theory, can and will be built from this technology, whether in the privacy of your home, or, without the capital expense, at your local store. Many kinds of things have already been made. In the future, perhaps the very near future, one will be able to print not just prosaic hardware, but other weapons, chemicals, even animal or human tissue, meat, drugs (legal or not)—maybe whatever one can imagine. Forget postal regulations, export controls, anti-proliferation, regulation, or licensing which all may become quaint notions of a simpler time.

400 ppm

Too Much Carbon

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 ~ Atmospheric carbon is now higher than it has been in 3 million years.

The last time CO2 reached the symbolic milestone of 400 parts per million in the atmosphere - in the Pliocene era - temperatures rose by between 3 and 4 degrees and sea levels were between five and 40 metres higher than today.

Climate change is a slow-motion calamity, but also an economic opportunity for those who seek profit. Might be a good time to start businesses building seawalls, boats, or snorkels.

Is it Investing or Speculating?

Don't Ask YourBroker

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 ~ The word "invest" has become debased.

We hear so much about the supposed importance of investor confidence and about the need for low taxes on investors, and all because, the pundits aver, we need investors to invest so that the economy can grow and solve all of our problems.

Bunk.

Tax and Spend

Or is it "Borrow and Spend"?

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 ~ Tell me again who's spending is out of control? Recall that in 2000 we were running a budget surplus, with the prospect of those continuing for years...

Tough Oversight

But the Focus is Misplaced

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 ~ Even as oil drilling continues to set new records, Congress will be closely monitoring... the regulators!

Tough scrutiny “is more important than ever,” said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., at the opening meeting of his Natural Resources Committee... Hastings said his panel’s role will be to keep pace and ensure any new “regulations and actions are thoroughly scrutinized and challenged if necessary.”

Doc Hastings is a continuing embarrassment to the US House. Would that he expended the same energy to thoroughly scrutinizing the cavalier and environmentally short-cutting drilling industry that he squanders instead on those trying to honestly regulate it on the public's behalf.

When it comes to scrutinizing the industry, Hastings and his panel do too much overlooking and too little overseeing.

Anti-Debt Clock

"Pay Your Damn Taxes"

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 ~ The US Debt Clock, which tracks total US national debt, is the passive voice of fiscal alarm—it doesn't name the subject who inflates that debt. Debt happens! The Anti-Debt Clock is the active voice—it names the wealthy and corporations as major contributors, and quantifies their influence in real-time.

Washington State leads the nation in regressive taxes—the gulf between the heavy tax rates on the less well-off and the wispy rates on the wealthy. Yet we are told by the austerity caucus that we must redress our fiscal problems on the backs of those least able to afford it. That's not fixing the debt; it's fixing the system.

More Regulatory Evils

Gun Control Stands Alone

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 ~ Where else do we choose to have our civilization out of control?

Even though we regulate all of these things, we neither ban them, nor confiscate them from those owning and using them responsibly.

Control is not confiscation. Regulation is not a ban.

Everyday Gun Appreciation

Out of Control

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 ~ Appreciate this:

As thousands of pro-gun activists held rallies across the United States on Saturday, accidental shootings at three different guns shows illustrated the obvious: Being around lots of people carrying firearms can be a tad dangerous...

In Raleigh, a shotgun went off when the owner was taking it out of its case at a security checkpoint, injuring three people. In Indianapolis, a 54-year-old man appears to have accidentally shot himself in the hand as he was leaving a gun show. And in Ohio, a dealer was checking out a purchase when he pulled the trigger by accident and injured his friend. Although he had removed the magazine from the weapon, a round remained in the chamber.

Where else in our civilization do so many strenuously argue that things should be out of control?

US Gun Laws

An Interactive Guide

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 ~ The Guardian has created an excellent state-by-state summary of US gun laws.

The regional differences are stark, but as the accompanying notes point out, the patchwork nature of gun laws and regulations descends down to a very local level. If you want to get around restrictions, and are willing to shop for a venue, you can find one to suit.

Guns and Arms

Unanswered Questions

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 ~ Could we as a nation, at long last, really be taking a hard look at our gun laws? It's long overdue.

Perhaps at some later point I'll write at greater length on the subject, but for now I have just three questions.

First, here is the text of the Second Amendment, as ratified by the states:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Questions, only partly rhetorical:

1. Why do gun advocates frequently only mention the part after the comma, and ignore the first part of the sentence?
2. The amendment itself states that regulating well is necessary, so why is there such an hysterical response to the common-sense notion of regulating guns?
3. Anti-aircraft missiles, tanks and nuclear weapons are all "arms" yet no one squawks about restrictions on their ownership. Why then the apoplexy about regulating assault weapons or such things as high-capacity magazines?

Debt Favors

The Method of Impoverishment

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 ~ We will soon suffer the endless Kabuki of sham fiscal cliff politics. It will be frustrating and feckless in appearance to most of us, but the wealthy and powerful will be well-served. We are in the midst of an economic struggle for survival which Warren Buffet famously characterized so:

There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.

And how are they doing that?

Load economies (governments, companies and families) with debt, siphon off their income as debt service and then foreclose when debtors lack the means to pay. Indebting government gives creditors a lever to pry away land, public infrastructure and other property in the public domain... The aim of financial warfare is not merely to acquire land, natural resources and key infrastructure rents as in military warfare; it is to centralize creditor control over society.

How Green is Your Bailout?

I'm All Right, Jack

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 ~ Who will get the bailouts in the next crisis? Or in the sausage that comes out of the Congressional factory in the next ledge down the fiscal cliff?