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Visualizing Net Neutrality

Econonomixcomix has an excellent explanation of Net Neutrality in comic book form. Go read it!

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An Honest Politician

At last, a completely honest politician. But you might be surprised by what he is saying:

And he’s being funded by an IndieGoGo campaign.

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Late Night Political Humor

“Yesterday Toronto Mayor Rob Ford attended his first city council meeting since he got back from rehab. He said, ‘It’s great to be back, but man, these things are boring when you’re sober.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Rob Ford attended his first city council meeting. But it got weird when he said, ‘Hello, Toronto City Council!’ And they said, ‘This is Buffalo, sir … And you have to put a shirt on.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Congrats to Joey Chestnut. On Friday he won the Fourth of July Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest by eating 61 hot dogs in 10 minutes. Another guy said, ‘But I ate a hundred!’ Then the judges said, ‘You have to wait until we say ‘Go!’, Governor Christie.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“That’s 61 hot dogs in 12 minutes, or as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie calls it – a snack.” – David Letterman

“House Speaker John Boehner is threatening to sue President Obama for using executive actions to create laws, instead of going through Congress first. Then Obama shrugged and made a new law that you can’t sue the president.” – Jimmy Fallon

“The U.S. soccer team was eliminated from the World Cup competition, but they gave it a pretty good run. But the problem now is we have to find something else to pretend to care about.” – David Letterman

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Republicans Say NO NO NO NO

The Republicans in the House just passed what is supposed to be a boring spending bill entitled “Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act”. Except that they riddled it with gifts to special interests and abject stupidity:

  • They slashed funding for renewable energy programs, while boosting funding for coal and other fossil fuels. Yes, really. As if we aren’t already handing out enough gifts to fossil fuel companies and countries.
  • Prohibits the DOE from enforcing energy efficiency standards for light bulbs. This is totally hypocritical, since these standards were signed into law by George W Bush.
  • Likewise, severely cuts funding for a program that provides incentives for replacing old, low-efficiency toilets with higher efficiency ones.
  • Forbids all spending to study climate change. Not only can we not do anything about it, government scientists can’t study it or talk about it.

Why do they do things like this? Is it about spending and deficits? (I don’t think so because, if so, they would cut all funding for fossil fuels.) Is it just delivering a big “screw you” to Obama and the Democrats? Is it just because they just have to say no to anything that might help solve our energy problems? Or do they believe that destroying the environment will hasten the second coming of Christ?

What is it with these guys? And why do we keep electing idiots like this?

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False Equivalence!

I’m always complaining about false equivalences, like claims that all politicians are equivalently bad, regardless of party.

However, I have to admit that Kentucky just might be the exception that proves the rule. In a hearing about carbon emissions and global warming, both sides seem to be vying for the boobie prize of stupidity.

On one side was Republican Brandon Smith, saying “I won’t get into the debate about climate change. But I’ll simply point out that I think in academia we all agree that the temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that. Yet there are no coal mines on Mars. There’s no factories on Mars that I’m aware of.”

Well, actually, I will dispute that, since the average temperature on Mars is actually –81 degrees Fahrenheit, being further away from the sun and having an atmosphere thinner than at the top of our tallest mountains. Not to mention the strong winds.

Representing the Kentucky alternative was Democrat Kevin Sinnette, who claimed that climate change didn’t kill the dinosaurs, so human beings should be just fine. “The dinosaurs died, and we don’t know why, but the world adjusted. And to say that this is what’s going to cause detriment to people, I just don’t think it’s out there.”

I may not like false equivalences, but these two are equivalent in falsehood!

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Freedom

Keith Lowell Jensen

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Compelling Religious Messages!

The World Council of Christians, a global coalition of 345 churches representing half a billion religious members, has announced that it will pull all of its investments in fossil fuels, including oil, gas, and coal. According to them “The committee discussed the ethical investment criteria, and considered that the list of sectors in which the WCC does not invest should be extended to include fossil fuels.”

So now that fossil fuels have become a religious issue, will Republicans suddenly decide to stop subsidizing them with our taxes, and maybe even advocate a carbon tax? If so, maybe hell will freeze over which will definitely help combat global warming.

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Revenge of the Carbon Tax

Above all else, I believe in pragmatism. Laws and policies should be evaluated not by ideology, but by whether (or not) they work. As such, it has been very interesting to see results from things like marijuana legalization in (first) Colorado and now Washington state, or the availability of free or low-cost contraception on teen pregnancy and abortion rates in Colorado.

And here’s another one, but this time from Canada, and it is rife with irony. I’m sure most Americans don’t know it, but the current Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, is a conservative (similar in some ways to conservatives in the US). For example, he has repeatedly claimed that a carbon tax to fight climate change would “destroy jobs and growth”. Sound familiar?

There’s just one big problem. One of Canada’s largest provinces, British Columbia, has had a carbon tax for the last six years, and rather than being a “job killer”, BC’s economy has outperformed the rest of Canada over the same time. How? The carbon tax was designed to be “revenue neutral” — by law the funds raised by the carbon tax must be matched by cuts in other taxes (similar provisions have been included in carbon taxes proposed in the US). In fact, the province has cut more in income and other taxes than it has raised from carbon taxes. As a result, BC now has the lowest personal income tax rate in Canada and one of the lowest corporate tax rates in North America. And BC’s GDP is doing better than the rest of Canada.

And that doesn’t count the health and economic benefits from reducing pollution caused by burning fossil fuels.

How has the carbon tax done in reducing carbon emissions? Extremely well actually. Since the tax was enacted, fuel use in BC has dropped by a stunning 16%, while in the rest of Canada fuel use has gone up 3%. To put that in perspective, Canada’s Kyoto accords target was a 6% reduction in 20 years, but BC managed a 16% reduction in just six.

To borrow (and mangle) a phrase from Obama, I’m not against taxes, but I’m against stupid taxes. I think our taxes are completely wrong. We tax things that we should be encouraging, like income and sales, while not taxing things that we should be discouraging, like pollution and the consumption of scarce resources. A carbon tax that offsets income and sales taxes has always seemed like an good idea to me. It is heartening to see strong evidence that it actually works, with excellent results.

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Late Night Political Humor

“During the World Cup, Uruguay is playing Italy and one of their players bites an Italian player. How many of you folks have ever been bitten by a Uruguayan?” – David Letterman

“The World Cup has an official song. The official anthem is ‘We Will Find a Way.’ It narrowly beat out the other contender, ‘I Feel Someone’s Teeth in My Shoulder.'” – Conan O’Brien

“FIFA, the world soccer governing body, says the guy who did the biting has to wear one of those dog cones for the rest of the tournament.” – David Letterman

“Both the U.S. and German teams have very good goalies, so many are predicting a very low-scoring game tomorrow. So don’t expect to see another one of those 1-0 blowouts.” – Conan O’Brien

“England was knocked out of the World Cup. It’s the most English people wiped out at one time since the last episode of ‘Game of Thrones’.” – Conan O’Brien

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The Best way to Reduce Abortion

The state of Colorado has been offering free birth control to low-income women for over five years. The results?

Their teen birth rate dropped 40%.

According to the governor, “This initiative has saved Colorado millions of dollars. But more importantly, it has helped thousands of young Colorado women continue their education, pursue their professional goals and postpone pregnancy until they are ready to start a family.”

Even more interesting is that the teen abortion rate dropped 35% in the counties served by the program.

So can somebody explain to me why some groups that are trying to reduce abortion are also against all forms of contraception?

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Solar has Won

As I’ve been predicting in this blog for a long time, solar energy just makes way more sense than burning fossil fuels, even ignoring environmental issues and just going on pure economics. The only thing keeping fossil fuels going now is huge governmental subsidies.

The Guardian puts it bluntly — “Even if coal were free to burn, power stations couldn’t compete” with solar energy. Last week in Australia (where they admittedly get a lot of sunshine) the wholesale price of electricity went negative. Yup, the power stations had to pay people to take their electricity.

And it isn’t just a change in the source of energy, it is a complete change in the model. Most of the new solar is being installed in the same place where it is consumed. That eliminates the need for huge distribution networks and centralized power generation stations which use up valuable land. Just put a solar panel on your roof. Businesses are installing panels over their parking lots, which provides shade for cars in addition to cheap energy.

It has become a no brainer.

Sometime around 2018, solar will become the energy source of choice to power cities. By 2040, over half of all electricity will be generated in the same place where it is used. The amount of solar energy generated in Australia is expected to go up 6 times in the next decade alone. And with increased volume, the price will come down due to economies of scale.

With solar coming on so strong, most coal-fired power plants lost money in Australia. No wonder utilities are working so hard to raise taxes on solar power. But it doesn’t matter, even with huge subsidies for fossil fuels and taxes on solar, fossil fuels are doomed.

You just can’t compete with the sun. Free energy and a (bigger than) world-wide power distribution network to boot.

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Late Night Political Humor

“Yesterday Michelle Obama said she wants Americans to elect a woman president ‘as soon as possible.’ So even she has had enough of President Obama.” – Conan O’Brien

“I am excited about the World Cup and the U.S. soccer team. But I will admit there are nuances to the game that are lost on me. For example, the United States has won one game, tied one game. They play Germany, and if they tie Germany 0-0, they advance to the finals. It’s just that exciting, ladies and gentlemen.” – David Letterman

“Italy was eliminated from the World Cup. Italians were running through the streets waving their hands around, screaming at each other. Then they heard about the World Cup.” – Craig Ferguson

“At the World Cup, Uruguay’s Luis Suarez bit a player from Italy’s team. It’s the third time he’s done it. The last time he bit a Chinese player and then claimed he was hungry an hour later.” – Conan O’Brien

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Using Irony Ironically

BioShock Infinite” is a computer game set in the floating city of Columbia, which is run by a religious zealot and largely populated by xenophobic racists who wage war against the heathens of the world (i.e., those people who don’t live in Columbia). In this city the idea of “America” has become a kind of fetishistic religion and the founding fathers are worshiped as gods. Here’s an image from the promotional materials for the game:

Bioshock Infinite

I know, I know, you have to concentrate and remember that this is just a game. But “For God and Country, It is our Holy Duty to Guard Against the Foreign Hordes” is just too ironic since one of the figures in the image is a Native American Indian. Clearly the game is making fun of racism, but do the racists realize that?

Now here’s where we double down on the irony. The National Liberty Federation, a conservative “tea party” group from Florida. They post a lot of right-wing meme images and racist links to their Facebook page (which has 95K likes), and recently posted the above image. Seriously. A tea party group Facebooked an image meant to satirize the tea party.

And they aren’t the only ones identifying with a fictional racist video game. Over at Fox News, they illustrated a segment against immigration reform with the following logo:

Fox News

In case that doesn’t look familiar to you, here’s the logo from the very same BioShock Infinite:

BioShock Infinite

Apparently, Fox News not only blatantly copied their logo, they did it without realizing what it represents. Well, what do you expect from the same network that showed a waving American flag along with live images of the US bombing Iraq in 2003?

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Late Night Political Humor

“I guess now Dick Cheney knows what it feels like when someone you thought was a friend shoots you in the face.” — Jon Stewart (after Fox News’ Megyn Kelly called out Cheney for being wrong on Iraq)

“President Obama said he wants his daughters to work minimum wage jobs because it builds character. The president then announced he will be raising the minimum wage to $50 an hour.” – Conan O’Brien

“After a tie with Portugal in the World Cup, the U.S. soccer team now faces Germany on Thursday. And if the U.S. team beats Germany, they advance. If they lose, Americans go back to hating soccer again.” – Conan O’Brien

“It was not a great weekend for the American soccer fan. We’re still recovering from a draw with Portugal, 2-2. It was a long game, four points total, and America didn’t win. If that doesn’t get people to start watching soccer, nothing will.” – Craig Ferguson

“Did you watch the match between United States and Portugal? I don’t know if I’m supposed to be happy or not. It ended in a tie. For a short time Americans cared about soccer.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“A tie in the World Cup puts the U.S. in a tough spot because the next game isn’t until Thursday, so people in L.A. have to pretend to care about soccer for another 72 hours.” – Craig Ferguson

“As weird as it sounds, that tie might be the biggest win in U.S. soccer history. The U.S. will advance to the next round with a win or a tie against Germany, or if Ghana and Portugal tie on Thursday, or if the goal differential, which is the total of points, falls in our favor, or if any one of the other teams gets malaria.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“That’s the nice thing about the World Cup. We can be invested if we win. If we lose it’s like: Oh, it’s soccer, I don’t care.” – Conan O’Brien

“The World Cup is very confusing. It could take up to a month after the final game to figure out who won.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“People are disappointed by the World Cup match. I haven’t seen this much disappointment since they announced Ben Affleck was playing Batman. Since Justin Bieber avoided jail. Since Honey Boo Boo’s family went to a vegan restaurant. Since Whole Foods in L.A. ran out of kale.” – Craig Ferguson

“Over the weekend Pope Francis implied that the Mafia should be excommunicated. In a related story, the Pope is missing. And nobody saw nothin’.” – Conan O’Brien

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Laboring under a Lie

A few weeks ago the Supreme court unanimously ruled that Obama had exceeded his constitutional authority by making “recess appointments” to the National Labor Relations Board. Recess appointments are specifically authorized by the constitution, and Obama used them because Republicans have been failing to approve many of his appointments to critical government jobs. But the Supremes ruled that a break has to be at least ten days long in order to allow for a recess appointment.

Republicans immediately tried to use this case to prove that Obama is acting like an imperial ruler. Indeed, about the same time House Speaker John Boehner announced that they are going to sue Obama for executive overreach. And other Republicans and conservatives immediately jumped on the bandwagon.

For example, on June 26, a press release from Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) stated that the Supreme Court had stuck down Obama’s executive overreach for the 12th time.

Conservative National Review Online picked up that story and upped the ante with the headline “Supreme Court Rules Unanimously Against Obama for 12th and 13th Time Since 2012“.

And on June 29 Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), the chairman of the House judiciary committee (who should know better) went on Fox News to claim that the Supreme Court had ruled 13 times that Obama exceeded his constitutional authority.

PolitiFact asked for a list of the 13 cases, and reviewed them. The problem is that in eight of the 13 cases, the overreach in question happened during the Bush administration. That means that only five of the 13 cases in question could possibly be construed as Obama exceeding his executive authority.

According to Supreme Court and legal experts consulted by PolitiFact, many of the remaining cases didn’t even involve executive overreach. For example, the 13th case – added by NRO and Goodlatte – was about a state law, and had nothing to do with the federal government (let alone Obama). In fact, of all the cases, pretty much the only one that involved Obama exceeding his executive authority was the one about the NLRB.

PolitiFact concludes “A thorough review of the 13 cases found many instances where presidential authority was not at issue. Further, most of the cases originated under and were first litigated by the Bush administration.” They rated the Republican statements “False”.

But what I want to know is where were these people when Dubya exceeded his executive authority eight times? Why didn’t anyone object then?

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