"G.O.D."

Just as IBM stands for International Business Machines, GOD stands for the Grand Omnipotent D.N.A.  The Grand Omnipotent DNA is the system of the universe, just as your DNA is the system or blueprint of your individual being.  So, GOD is the system of the universe and you Atheists might as well throw in the towel.  After all, there is a system.

“Dark Matter” is the scientific terminology for “we don’t understand it.”  The formulas that deal with dark matter are constantly changing, being modified and none move to the level of scientific  law. Twenty years from now, many scientists will laugh at today’s scientific theories.  There is nothing wrong with that.  I applaud a belief system that corrects itself as it accumulates knowledge.  Too bad that our most popular belief systems don’t do that.

Enough reason (anti-religious babble).  Our free market system and uber-capitalism is bringing an end to our society.  I don’t wish to sound like Chicken-Little, but we are running out of fresh water.  In California 2,700 farms have been threatened, by the state, to stop allowing the pumping of river water to irrigate their crops.  This short term bandage will help Californians with their bathing, drinking and landscaping, but it will raise the cost and lower the availability of food, in California and all over the nation.  How could this happen?  We have known about the water shortage in the Southwest and elsewhere for decades.  We presently have the technology to solve the problem.  It is called desalinization.  An atomic aircraft carrier produces 400,000 gallons of clear water from sea water a day.  Saudi Arabia and Sydney, Australia both get their water from the sea.  Desalinization can be powered by solar energy, without polluting the air or using up fossil fuel.  Then why aren’t there modern desalinization plants strategically located along our ocean and gulf coastlines?  Well, our utility companies are generally large corporations.  Their decisions are not based on the common good, but on quarterly profits and presently it is cheaper to pull fresh water from ground water and rivers than to build and operate desalinization facilities.  This will of course change with improved technology and scarcity of available clear water, but short term profitably will still not call for the capitalization to build the facilities.   Sorry you utility stockholders, all utilities need to be nationalized.  They are a natural monopoly or oligarchy and neither works well in a “free market” system.  “Give me water, or give me death”.  A reasonable quote and so true.

Where does G.O.D. come into the picture?  Well, presently we and many other nations of the world are spending huge sums of national wealth on studying the Higgs Boson, commonly referred to as “The God Particle”.  The budget for this program is 5.1 billion dollars.  It is the study of a particle that exists two dimensions away from our awareness.  It is a sub-atomic particle.  Our transgression into the atomic world has thus far given us a dangerous source of energy with unmanageable byproducts and a weapon system that we have used to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and is scheduled to murder many more and perhaps to end civilization as we know it.  I think we would be better off staying in our own dimension.  Below the atomic dimension, lives the sub-atomic dimension and this is where the God particle resides.  The Higgs Boson has 126 times the mass of a proton.  Not important to you and me, but it is a balancing factor involved in the gravity of our universe.  The experimentation on Higgs Boson involves firing the particle, at the speed of light, down a 17mile tunnel, into another Higgs Boson.  The exact result of the collision is a bit of an unknown.  One unlucky quantum fluctuation, or a change in energy, could trigger a process called, “quantum tunneling”.  This quantum fluctuation would likely cause a chain reaction that will destroy the universe.  Not to worry.  There will be no pain.  The “God Particle” will simply turn off your lights.

You live in a democracy.  It isn’t presently working.  Did you ever vote to use tax dollars to support Higgs Boson research and facility construction rather than on desalinization research and facilities?  Do you have any real interest in Higgs Boson?  What are the benefits?  For that matter, what are the benefits of sending a man to Mars, as opposed to desalinization of water or improvements in education, or improvements in healthcare?  We have limited funds and that implies choices.  Yes, I love science and the possible increase in knowledge that it brings.  But when the benefit is to the scientist and not to the population in general, then I want a vote in how my tax dollars are spent.  I will vote for vocational and preschool education over playing two dimensions out of my awareness into a realm that may usher in the end of our universe.  And, let’s solve the water shortage.  It is time to get out the pitchforks and torches.

Cheers, Old Buz   
comments are welcome     

"Uber-Capitalism"

The United States of America has entered into the era of Uber-Capitalism.  What does this mean?  It means that large dollar interests control the nation.  And we, the gullible, like it that way.  The most obvious sign of Uber-Capitalism taking control is capitalism moving from being controlled by the government to being in control of the government.  This is simply accomplished by allowing unlimited, corporate, unidentified funds to be “donated” to political campaigns to aid them in covering the skyrocketing costs of advertising required to be competitive in an election.  These giant funds may be unidentified to you the voter, but the candidate is well aware of the sources and their influence is absolute.  So….what do you care?  Well, it affects your quality of life, your cost of living, your health and your rate of taxation.  Otherwise, you are little affected. 

Let’s start with quality of life.  When corporations release pollutants into the air you breathe or the water you drink, the limit of pollutants is set by government agencies.  These agencies are controlled by your elected representatives and these representatives are controlled by large corporate dollars.  It is more cost effective in the short run to pollute rather than clean their waste.  If there is a cleanup down the road, it is done with taxpayers’ dollars.    No corporation ever gave a dime to a politician out of the goodness of its heart.  It wouldn’t be fair to their stockholders.  No, they expect returns from those “donations”.  They are seen as a wise investment and surely they are that.  What about energy production?  We don’t have to use coal and natural gas to degrade air quality.  We could use clean renewables like solar, wind and waves.  Someday we will.  But, we could develop these power grids very quickly with the funds we give to munition manufacturers to supply our endless wars of choice.  To switch to clean renewable energy is an attack on the corporations supplying our coal and natural gas.  Are you in one of the states where users of solar roof panels are taxed for trying to clean their air and the air of their neighbors?

A simple example of your cost of living being affected by large dollars can be seen in large sudden increases in the cost of gasoline at the pumps.  Most often these jumps in price are not brought about by the cost of crude oil, but by a gambling institution called the oil futures market.  Recently these very wealthy gamblers cost you over a dollar a gallon, at the pumps.  You working folks bought their yachts.  Each time you fill your tank, you are making a political donation.   Are you good with that?

How about healthcare cost?  We just experienced legislation that gives us “Affordable” Health Care.  The large health insurance companies, through their large political donations, pretty much wrote the law.  Don’t blame Obama.  All politicians are on the corporate teat.  The first clear sign of this you saw was the disappearance of “The Government Option” for health insurance.  It would have competed with corporate healthcare, if it were not controlled by corporate healthcare.  The second thing you might have noticed is that single payer AmeriCare was never considered.  Most of the other nations of the world with universal healthcare, have some form of single payer (government sponsored) healthcare.  Your healthcare is given for profit, not for your health.

“Taxation without representation” is the way of Uber-Capitalism.  The examples are endless, but the cause is that large dollar influence on tax law is much more powerful than your influence on tax law.  You can’t blame them; they are only trying to protect and grow their estates.  A simple example of money influence on taxation is “Capital Gains Treatment of Income”.  This treatment of income allows the taxation of the sale of property, sale of stocks, dividend income to be taxed at a much lower rate than income earned from fighting fires or loading trucks.  A friend of mine, who once worked for Price-Waterhouse, as a CPA, told me that, “Only those who work pay taxes.”  Does that mean that those who work pay more than their fair share?  Ever wonder why renters get no tax break, while homeowners get a deduction for the interest paid on their mortgage loan (usually most of the payment), as does the landlord of the rented residence they occupy?  It is all the same game, but it was made official by the recent Citizens United decision of your Supreme Court.  You belong to The United States of Uber-Capitalism.  We don’t need any new anthems.  The old ones will suffice.

Does any of this need fixing?  Superman is dead.  He fell off of a horse, was paralyzed and later died.  The job of saving the World is now yours.  “There is only time to iron your cape…..then, back to the sky.”

Comments are welcome, Old Buz