The men who made the intentional decision to murder my father are long dead; the men and women who today are plotting to render much of our beautiful planet uninhabitable are very much with us…
Thom, I am sad that you lost your father this way; the pain is clearly still fresh in. your essay. Thank you for sharing your personal story.
I lost my beloved husband to hormonal cancer at 63 years old. He had lived downwind of the early nuclear tests in Las Cruces NM, and his mother, step-father, aunt, and uncle died from the same cancer; The government and the industry totally ignored all of them. In the book, American Ground Zero, "Carole Gallagher has penetrated the veil of official secrecy and anonymity to document the incredible untold story of the Americans whose misfortune it was to live downwind of the nuclear detonations - those citizens described in a top-secret Atomic Energy Commission memo as "a low-use segment of the population" - and of civilian workers and military personnel exposed to radiation at the Nevada Test Site. The above ground nuclear testing was "the most prodigiously reckless program of scientific experimentation in United States history,"
Asbestos, oil, nuclear fallout, tobacco, pesticides and on and on. They poison the world for profit instead of using some of that profit to produce clean products. We're all, in a sense, "low-use segments of the population." And that money? Goes to the autocratic likes of the Koch industry and others who buy our government with it. There's a reason one of the biggest targets of the GOP (after women) is the EPA.
I’m asking this with a facetious tone, but . . . Rein in Charles KKKoch? Exxon and the likes of Rex Tillerson? Exxon is quite a money gouger—2023 CEO pay rose 52% last year . . . I’d just love it if we nationalized Oil & Gas, but that kind of money is behind a full-on, fascist takeover of this democracy. America isn’t “letting them” do anything—they are seizing the government and pulling the strings as we speak.
This is the second time today that I point out that it is also a national security and economic issue that may/may not be fixed. It pisses me off, especially when I just paid my taxes, that I am subsidizing entities like BIG OIL. Big oil fixes prices via OPEC, a foreign entity and their primary backer, Saudi Arabia, controls the largest oil refineries in the US and companies like Exxon. High energy prices support Russian aggression in the Ukraine, in our elections, and Iran's proxy wars.
The Rockefeller family knew this and tried to take on the Saudis years ago, but lost.
As Thom opened Today's Daily Take with "the men and women who today are plotting to render much of our beautiful planet uninhabitable are very much with us," I would also add that they still retain their SCOTUS spawned powers of corporate personhood that enable them to continue this insanity. The IMF regularly publishes a report (found at https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/climate-change/energy-subsidies) that details the millions of human lives shortened by their products every year, and the trillions of dollars that the fossil fuel plutocrats foist upon the world's citizens in subsidies to pay for the damage caused by their pollution to our health and infrastructure. Stop their ability to bribe and otherwise coerce our public sector decision-makers by replacing bad ones with good ones or it's only going to get worse.
Companies take it for granted that they can simply pollute into the nearest river to the ocean and pretend that nothing is wrong. Free disposal of their waste is a given for them. With such thinking why would they think of people as any different? Until all costs are part of the economy and the direction of betterment of the people is a given we are all going to pay for their expenses as we do for oil.
Willful murder for profit--not just ignorance of the effects--has been going on for a long time. In 1924 the oil companies were warned about putting lead into gasoline to reduce engine knocking. By then it was known that this was a toxic poison, leading to brain and nerve damage. In fact, it soon killed several people in a refinery accident. Their response was to confuse urine and blood testing of workers to obscure their actual exposure levels and to flat out lie for many years. Even in the 1970s they were trying to bribe geologists to cover up their findings of high lead levels in soils near highways.
And incidentally the US still gives something like $20 billion in annual subsidies to the oil companies. As the Wizard of Id once said, "The king practices the Golden Rule. Those with the gold make the rules."
I’m a retired climate scientist, so I’m more than a bit invested in this issue. Blame the FFCs, for sure, but given the US’ capitalistic culture of shareholder value above all else—including human lives—it’s obvious that the real culprits are our elected leaders in Washington. The only way we’ll see meaningful reform is if—when—Democrats win all three branches of President, Senate, and House. Anything short of that and it’s going to be “same old, same old.” Vote for change.
Our massive human overpopulation demands long distance travel on a daily basis, so autos, even as we did well on street cars before the auto giants destroyed those to force us into autos.
Money madness, fear, contempt for those working beneath us, or for the sake of making you feel like you're somebody of value while you hate yourself at the same time? A belief in survival of the fittest, I win, you lose, motivates some of us. It's time for some deep diving into our habitual thoughts and feelings and it seems to be happening already. A great series my wife and I just finished watching, called, Designated Survivor, on Netflix, starring Keifer Sutherland is only one of many thought-provoking shows on TV. There are many great writers producing insightful work and it's great to see.
Being and creation: are we all in this together? Are we partners in evolution? What do you think?
Smoking is a vicious addiction . The hardest thing I ever quit . Blaming ourselves for being foolish when we start these habits as kids is moot . We’re not dealing with a ‘ full deck ‘ when we’re young . So we pay a large price for not knowing what the future is w these substances. But active addiction doesn’t allow us clarity about reality . So I hope things are ok for you , but please don’t beat yourself up . It sure doesn’t help .
OT again: I want to get ahead of the news. I just heard that ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the bombing in Moscow.
The K stands for Khorosan, the historic name for Persian, which the Mullahs named Iran.
So it was ISIS or DAESH of Khorosan that is behind the bombing. They must have figured out, as I did, that Putin was behind the Oct 7th attack on Israel. After all it was Putin's birthday.
And ISIS is Sunni Islam, and a salafist ideology in competition with Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, also Sunni, both are what Americans would call fundamentalist or originalist, but there is no such thing in Islam, only irtidads and murtads, deviants who stray from the teachings of Muhammad and the prophets, including extracting great wealth, consorting with the kaffirs (kufr's or infidels).
ISIS-K has already struck inside Iran.
This is an interesting turn of events. popcorn anyone, sound like an internal struggle between Shia and Sunni Islam. HAMAS is not Shia it is Sunni, but it is allied with Hezbollah, both have dependencies on Shia Iran, who was behind Oct 7th in the form of logistics, planning , training and organization.
There is no way HAMAS came up with this on their own, it takes a state actor, with lots of resources, experience, training and planning, and that is Iran. The missiles and arms, not to mention the powered gliders weren't built in Gaza, neither was the propellant and launchers. It takes industrial machining to build and launch missiles, much less thousands of them.
What can we do? Of course, vote blue every time. My Republican senators don’t care, so not worth calling them. If electric car companies lowered prices so more people can afford it, that would be great. However, MAGA Musk wouldn’t help with that. Even Texas’ AG is suing not to get another train in the Austin area which would alleviate traffic and fuel use.
AND they colluded with the car companies to sell everyone a big truck or SUV. When Congress had them testify together it was quite apparent to me they LOVE working together. A portion of the public has always wanted small gas efficient cars. The American companies quit making them for a while and still have very few on the market.
New vehicle regulations came out Tuesday with more to come. We have to force efficiency on both of these industries. The methane release by fossil fuel facilities is an outrage. They are killing our planet and us. Yet, we have to MAKE THEM even try a little not to.
Thank you EPA and President Biden for smacking them around---keep punching!
Sorry, Thom, for your father's and your families' suffering. As for who's responsible for the fossil fuel burning that's rapidly taking us to 3.0 degC air temp increase by 2027, we the sheeple "consumers" of fossil fuels and their endless by-products are responsible, not the producers or the ubiquitous "Big Brother government. It's basic Econ 101: supply and demand. No demand, no supply.
Thom, I am sad that you lost your father this way; the pain is clearly still fresh in. your essay. Thank you for sharing your personal story.
I lost my beloved husband to hormonal cancer at 63 years old. He had lived downwind of the early nuclear tests in Las Cruces NM, and his mother, step-father, aunt, and uncle died from the same cancer; The government and the industry totally ignored all of them. In the book, American Ground Zero, "Carole Gallagher has penetrated the veil of official secrecy and anonymity to document the incredible untold story of the Americans whose misfortune it was to live downwind of the nuclear detonations - those citizens described in a top-secret Atomic Energy Commission memo as "a low-use segment of the population" - and of civilian workers and military personnel exposed to radiation at the Nevada Test Site. The above ground nuclear testing was "the most prodigiously reckless program of scientific experimentation in United States history,"
Asbestos, oil, nuclear fallout, tobacco, pesticides and on and on. They poison the world for profit instead of using some of that profit to produce clean products. We're all, in a sense, "low-use segments of the population." And that money? Goes to the autocratic likes of the Koch industry and others who buy our government with it. There's a reason one of the biggest targets of the GOP (after women) is the EPA.
I’m asking this with a facetious tone, but . . . Rein in Charles KKKoch? Exxon and the likes of Rex Tillerson? Exxon is quite a money gouger—2023 CEO pay rose 52% last year . . . I’d just love it if we nationalized Oil & Gas, but that kind of money is behind a full-on, fascist takeover of this democracy. America isn’t “letting them” do anything—they are seizing the government and pulling the strings as we speak.
We've discussed this many times. California is on the job. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/09/16/people-of-the-state-of-california-v-big-oil/
Other states plan to follow.
This is the second time today that I point out that it is also a national security and economic issue that may/may not be fixed. It pisses me off, especially when I just paid my taxes, that I am subsidizing entities like BIG OIL. Big oil fixes prices via OPEC, a foreign entity and their primary backer, Saudi Arabia, controls the largest oil refineries in the US and companies like Exxon. High energy prices support Russian aggression in the Ukraine, in our elections, and Iran's proxy wars.
The Rockefeller family knew this and tried to take on the Saudis years ago, but lost.
As Thom opened Today's Daily Take with "the men and women who today are plotting to render much of our beautiful planet uninhabitable are very much with us," I would also add that they still retain their SCOTUS spawned powers of corporate personhood that enable them to continue this insanity. The IMF regularly publishes a report (found at https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/climate-change/energy-subsidies) that details the millions of human lives shortened by their products every year, and the trillions of dollars that the fossil fuel plutocrats foist upon the world's citizens in subsidies to pay for the damage caused by their pollution to our health and infrastructure. Stop their ability to bribe and otherwise coerce our public sector decision-makers by replacing bad ones with good ones or it's only going to get worse.
Companies take it for granted that they can simply pollute into the nearest river to the ocean and pretend that nothing is wrong. Free disposal of their waste is a given for them. With such thinking why would they think of people as any different? Until all costs are part of the economy and the direction of betterment of the people is a given we are all going to pay for their expenses as we do for oil.
Willful murder for profit--not just ignorance of the effects--has been going on for a long time. In 1924 the oil companies were warned about putting lead into gasoline to reduce engine knocking. By then it was known that this was a toxic poison, leading to brain and nerve damage. In fact, it soon killed several people in a refinery accident. Their response was to confuse urine and blood testing of workers to obscure their actual exposure levels and to flat out lie for many years. Even in the 1970s they were trying to bribe geologists to cover up their findings of high lead levels in soils near highways.
And incidentally the US still gives something like $20 billion in annual subsidies to the oil companies. As the Wizard of Id once said, "The king practices the Golden Rule. Those with the gold make the rules."
I’m a retired climate scientist, so I’m more than a bit invested in this issue. Blame the FFCs, for sure, but given the US’ capitalistic culture of shareholder value above all else—including human lives—it’s obvious that the real culprits are our elected leaders in Washington. The only way we’ll see meaningful reform is if—when—Democrats win all three branches of President, Senate, and House. Anything short of that and it’s going to be “same old, same old.” Vote for change.
Our massive human overpopulation demands long distance travel on a daily basis, so autos, even as we did well on street cars before the auto giants destroyed those to force us into autos.
Money madness, fear, contempt for those working beneath us, or for the sake of making you feel like you're somebody of value while you hate yourself at the same time? A belief in survival of the fittest, I win, you lose, motivates some of us. It's time for some deep diving into our habitual thoughts and feelings and it seems to be happening already. A great series my wife and I just finished watching, called, Designated Survivor, on Netflix, starring Keifer Sutherland is only one of many thought-provoking shows on TV. There are many great writers producing insightful work and it's great to see.
Being and creation: are we all in this together? Are we partners in evolution? What do you think?
Smoking is a vicious addiction . The hardest thing I ever quit . Blaming ourselves for being foolish when we start these habits as kids is moot . We’re not dealing with a ‘ full deck ‘ when we’re young . So we pay a large price for not knowing what the future is w these substances. But active addiction doesn’t allow us clarity about reality . So I hope things are ok for you , but please don’t beat yourself up . It sure doesn’t help .
OT again: I want to get ahead of the news. I just heard that ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the bombing in Moscow.
The K stands for Khorosan, the historic name for Persian, which the Mullahs named Iran.
So it was ISIS or DAESH of Khorosan that is behind the bombing. They must have figured out, as I did, that Putin was behind the Oct 7th attack on Israel. After all it was Putin's birthday.
And ISIS is Sunni Islam, and a salafist ideology in competition with Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, also Sunni, both are what Americans would call fundamentalist or originalist, but there is no such thing in Islam, only irtidads and murtads, deviants who stray from the teachings of Muhammad and the prophets, including extracting great wealth, consorting with the kaffirs (kufr's or infidels).
ISIS-K has already struck inside Iran.
This is an interesting turn of events. popcorn anyone, sound like an internal struggle between Shia and Sunni Islam. HAMAS is not Shia it is Sunni, but it is allied with Hezbollah, both have dependencies on Shia Iran, who was behind Oct 7th in the form of logistics, planning , training and organization.
There is no way HAMAS came up with this on their own, it takes a state actor, with lots of resources, experience, training and planning, and that is Iran. The missiles and arms, not to mention the powered gliders weren't built in Gaza, neither was the propellant and launchers. It takes industrial machining to build and launch missiles, much less thousands of them.
What can we do? Of course, vote blue every time. My Republican senators don’t care, so not worth calling them. If electric car companies lowered prices so more people can afford it, that would be great. However, MAGA Musk wouldn’t help with that. Even Texas’ AG is suing not to get another train in the Austin area which would alleviate traffic and fuel use.
What did they know and when did they know it?
AND they colluded with the car companies to sell everyone a big truck or SUV. When Congress had them testify together it was quite apparent to me they LOVE working together. A portion of the public has always wanted small gas efficient cars. The American companies quit making them for a while and still have very few on the market.
New vehicle regulations came out Tuesday with more to come. We have to force efficiency on both of these industries. The methane release by fossil fuel facilities is an outrage. They are killing our planet and us. Yet, we have to MAKE THEM even try a little not to.
Thank you EPA and President Biden for smacking them around---keep punching!
Sorry, Thom, for your father's and your families' suffering. As for who's responsible for the fossil fuel burning that's rapidly taking us to 3.0 degC air temp increase by 2027, we the sheeple "consumers" of fossil fuels and their endless by-products are responsible, not the producers or the ubiquitous "Big Brother government. It's basic Econ 101: supply and demand. No demand, no supply.
Oh I’m so sure of that , right after he joins the Monastery.