Durable Products, ver 2

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At least 15 countries around the world have either banned (even CHINA) or taxed single-use plastic bags, including parts of the United States.

• Plastic bags are rarely recycled
• They don't completely break down in landfills
• They kill marine and wildlife
• They can cause choking accidents and sometimes death in infants and toddlers
• If left on dry-cleaned clothes, the plastic bags don't "breathe" which can cause the chemicals to stay in your clothing and then to leach into your skin

Currently, nearly 10% of U.S. oil consumption goes into plastic bags.

Get yourself some cloth shopping bags. They fold easily into a small foot print--I carry a couple with me all the time. Use them where ever you shop, for whatever you are buying. Take them to the grocery store, the drug store, the farmer's market, the library even.

Buy stuff that lasts!

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The Miracles of St Ronnie

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Dang! I wish I had written this---

It seems that you can look at a chart of almost anything and right around 1981 or soon after you'll see the chart make a sharp change in direction, and probably not in a good way. And I really do mean almost anything, from economics to trade to infrastructure to ... well almost anything. Conservative policies transformed the United States from the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation in just a few years, and it has only gotten worse since then.

Working people's share of the benefits from increased productivity took a sudden turn down.

This resulted in intense concentration of wealth at the top.

The anti-government, pro-corporate-rule Reagan Revolution screwed a lot of things up for regular people and for the country. Some of this disaster we saw happening at the time and some of it has taken 30 years to become clear. But for all the damage done these "conservative" policies greatly enriched a few entrenched interests, who use their wealth and power to keep things the way they are. And the rest of us, hit so hard by the changes, don't have the resources to fight the wealth and power.

Go here for the charts. Learn about the ruination of our country.

If the Tea Party-ers really want this country back, they are going to have to learn to eschew--and not enshrine--Ronald Reagan.
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Nuclear War?

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Now here's a little something, my gentle snowflakes, to keep you up at night.

Or maybe, the little twinkling lights will simply remind you of Christmas lights?

Whichever, this shows all the nuclear "tests" conducted around the world between 1945 and 1998.



video by Isao Hashimoto

Sleep tight.
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Tea Anyone?

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I see all the Tea Party signs, and they make me think: Maybe being a Tea Partier is easier than being a liberal.

If nothing else, being a Bagger sounds like more fun. I could just give in to my basest instincts; simply let the reptilian portion of my brain take over--without a drop of conscience or reason to take the edge off my bare-toothed anger. Why, I could wallow in hate and terror.

Hate is easy. Tea Partiers hate government, taxes, regulation, immigrants, homosexuals, non-Christians, liberals, The World Cup, Jon Stewart, environmentalists, Democrats, Ted Kennedy’s corpse, Bill Clinton’s penis and anyone who doesn't resemble the Pillsbury dough boy. They despise bailouts, entitlement programs (except Social Security and Medicare), Obamacare, The Departments of Everything that is NOT about killing, gun control, lawyers, lack of school prayer, and news that isn’t “fair and balanced.”

Any standard Tea Party enthusiast holds certain truths to be self-evident:

I am finished with anything that requires me to think, reason or care about anyone but ME. My family is struggling, and instead of blaming the guy who laid me off, I blame the blacks, and/or the Mexicans. Or maybe the French (I’m sure they’re involved somehow). The Central Bank or the government.

I’m white, middle class in upbringing, and educated. My dad and mother both worked 16 hours a day.

I hate unions. Unions went bad after they created things like workplace safety, paid vacations, and sick days. They killed business by driving it overseas.

My ancestors came to this country legally. Even the one brought here from England to work on a Georgia plantation as a prisoner. Why should I have to push #1 for English?

Business regulates itself. The Market knows what it’s doing. It’ll fix the Gulf.

God knows that Kenyan in the White House can't. He’s too busy giving back parts of our border states to Mexico and plotting the demise of our nation with his Muslim, commie, socialist, Nazi cohorts.

Hell, the common good isn’t necessary. It’s a liberal construct to pry my hard earned money from my work-weary hands. Theft. Plain and simple. Besides, who needs all those police, firefighters, public schools, libraries and hospitals? Liberals don’t even believe in the American Dream anyway.

So what if my check bounces? It’s a win/win. The bank gets another $33 from me. The bank loves those little $33 bonuses from my account!

Contrast that with liberals. Liberals are always pushing folks out of a white, privileged comfort zone. Peace, love and understanding too much? Well, you should at least “tolerate,” if not appreciate everyone. Even Muslims. And the French. The French for god’s sake? That’s asking a lot.

Hey, I love the ease of Tea Party message.

Yeah, I could totally get into this way of thinking. Just give me a lobotomy, a pair of Sarah Palin glasses to wink over, a FaceBook page, and a TV tuned to Fox News.

Tea anyone?
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A Palm Sized Fuel Cell

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Ahhh, my gentle snowflakes, the world is becoming amazing-er and amazing-er!

Ever dream of owning a palm-sized fuel cell to juice up your electronic devices on the go? Here’s your chance — Horizon just announced that it has started shipping a “disruptive pocket-size fuel cell power plant” — and it only costs $100 for a unit with two refillable fuel cartridges, each containing the same amount of energy as 1,000 disposable AA batteries.

A single cartridge placed in Horizon’s MiniPAK works on any electronic device that needs up to 3W of power — that includes cell phones, MP3 players, and GPS devices. Some more technical details: the MiniPAK offers both an air-breathing fuel cell and a “solid-state” hydrogen storage unit, and the device’s DC power output is 2.5W (5V, 400mA).

We [at inhabitat are] hard-pressed to see any downsides to the MiniPAK compared to traditional AA batteries.

+ Horizon

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A Jobs Plan

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The Merry Month of May and nearly half of June have come and gone. The graduates have turned in their gowns and packed away their mortar boards or, at least, their tassels.

They have begun the job search.

High schools across the nation have spewed forth some 3 million youngsters of whom approximately only a third plan to attend college. Simple math yields about 2 million eighteen year old people adrift, looking for a job that does not exist, feeling very frustrated, possibly getting into trouble.

How about a CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) for 2010?

• Hire those youngsters.
• Pay them and feed them.
• Send them to the Gulf Coast.
• Issue them proper protective gear for the task at hand.
• Train them to use the protective gear.
• They are young.
• They are eager.
• Many are also probably very environmentally minded.
• Set them to work in the clean-up.

But, you say, where are they going to stay?

Well, I suppose tent cities could be erected. It is coming on summer in the south and other than hurricanes, weather is fairly mild, if hot. However, I suggest these workers be housed in one or more of the rapidly emptying hotels on the Gulf.

SEND THE BILL--FOR ALL OF IT--TO BRITISH PETROLEUM.

Or better yet, straight to Tony Hayward to pay personally.
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A Modest Proposal

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Perhaps what this country needs is a 1% tax on the wealthiest 1% of its citizenry.

You will please notice, my gentle snowflakes, that the wealth measured in the chart above does not consider real estate nor luxury goods. Thus, it is real wealth--MONEY--that we are talking about here. And a mere 4.1% of the population controls over half--over half--of this money.

As the chart indicates, the share of the total wealth has gone up while the share of the population across which that wealth is spread has decreased. In other words, the rich have gotten richer.

It is time they pay more of their fair share. They have benefited from the free market economy--and the enormous bailouts from the Federal Government--and now it is time to pay the piper.

1% tax on the top 1%.

Seems about right to me.
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A Rant--Forgive Me

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Tony Hayward, the CEO of British Petroleum, who refuses to actually try to solve the problems in the Gulf of Mexico, has said he wants his life back.

You have all heard it, my gentle snowflakes. It was replayed and replayed and replayed. It was a stupid, stupid comment.

But I have a way in which he can have his life back:

• Send a couple of authorized/official-ized, armed, big, ole' Louisiana shrimpers to pick Hayward up, take him to the coast where the oil is coming ashore the worst. The "good ole boys" will stay with him at all times--there will be plenty of volunteers.
  
• Set Hayward to scoop the muck from the beach into a bucket, carry the bucket several hundred yards to dump it in a barrel. Again and again and again.
  
• Hayward will work without protective gear or breathing apparatus. Hour after hour. Day after Day.
• He must sleep in a pup tent.
  
• His food will be provided: whatever is being served to the prisoners in the nearest prison/jail. (I wanted to say he could eat what ever seafood he could pull from the Gulf, but that, apparently, is too much even for me.)
  
• He may shower once each week--OK, twice a week.

Oh, and he has to stay at it until ALL the oil from ALL the beaches is cleared and the Gulf waters have been cleaned. He doesn't have to clear/clean it all himself--others are working on it and they will continue. But he must keep at his Sisyphean labor until the beaches are clean, the marshes are clean, the water is as clean as it can be.

Then, as he requested, he can have his life back.

As for now, he is going to cut and run. Coward that he is. This way out is way, way, way too easy for him.

I like my ideas better.
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Rush Limbaugh to Marry This Weekend

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I only have one question, my gentle snowflakes, WHERE DOES HE KEEP FINDING THESE WOMEN?

Never mind, some people will do anything for money.

But this is truly frightening: "the Limbaugh family – especially brother David (also a conservative commentator) -- worry that Rush has no children."

The fact that "Rush has no children," sounds like a blessing to me.

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More First Amendment Rights

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Ooooh, my gentle snowflakes, get out your aluminum hats. The inmates are running the asylum and the air ways are rich in wing-nuttery!

From 3 Jun 2010 Mother Jones:

Is there a covert government plan to forcibly evacuate up to 50 million people from the Gulf Coast and move them into FEMA trailers somewhere in Missouri and elsewhere because of the oil spill?

Last week, Greg Evensen, a former Kansas state trooper and a regular on the "Patriot" movement talk circuit, appeared on the Internet radio show "Shattering the Darkness" to warn listeners that government is moving to evacuate basically everyone from the coast of Texas to Cape Cod. Evensen says the move will come after these areas become uninhabitable due to an "oversaturation of benzene" from the chmical dispersants BP is using to try to clean up the oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico.

Interviewed by a man known only as "the Hawk," Evensen predicted on May 27 that the evacuations would begin sometime around June 15, after the government brings together "people who can be engaged in combat"—possibly including foreign troops—and stations them at 500-mile intervals.

The podcast of this show soon made its way into the Tea Party world and was circulating on various listservs this week, with headlines like "Forced evacuations of 40 million begin in less than two weeks. Anyone within a thousand miles of the Gulf of Mexico needs to listen to every word of this."

Those who did might have questioned Evensen's claims after he started discussing "previously unseen ground units," possibly made up of "alien hybrids" masquerading as US troops that were "emerging from areas in the Southwest and heading in an easterly direction." [Emphasis mine.]

From oil spill to FEMA camps to an alien invasion—it's the X Files gone green.

OK, gang, go read the whole thing for yourselves. It is wonderfully amusing.

But these people are serious and what's more, they inflame the feral herds of weak-minded right-wingers with a constant application of Higher Hysteria. They frenzy the base, panic the populace and promise partisan salvation.

They are so-o-o lucky to have the protection of the First Amendment.
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Durable Products

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The two horsemen of the modern consumer apocalypse:

1. functional obsolescence,
2. fashion obsolescence.

Functional, or planned obsolescence is the purposeful decision by designers and manufacturers to ensure things don’t last, so that consumers must buy new ones.

Fashion obsolescence is the related decision to offer new features and aesthetic changes to entice consumers to discard their old items in favor of updated and supposedly better ones.

How do we combat these two horsemen?

One of the best ways to lower the quantity of energy required to manufacture and distribute consumer goods is to make those products not only durable, but repairable and upgradable. If products were more durable, some jobs lost due to the decrease in consumption would be offset by the addition of more highly skilled maintenance and repair jobs. (When was the last time you saw an appliance repair store?)

And the lost jobs would most probably be overseas, the repair jobs would be local.

The question, then, is what would it take to overcome our dependence on cheap goods?

Even though obsolescence is no longer a boon for this country’s manufacturers (since there are none to speak of), cheap products are essential for consumers who can barely afford to put food on the table. If a durable coffeemaker costs twice as much as a breakable one but lasts four times as long, it’s still less attractive to someone who doesn’t have the additional cash up front.

Ultimately, environmental and economic sustainability won’t be possible until we become less dependent on consumer spending, which normally comprises 70 percent of the U.S. economy--and is now headed up again.

We can’t just keep churning out, buying and disposing of stuff.

•MyFootprint.org, where you can find out how many Earths would be necessary if everybody on the planet shared your lifestyle;

•H20Conserve.org, where you can tally your water footprint;

•Wattzon.com, where you can calculate the energy required to sustain your lifestyle.

Buy stuff that lasts!

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