Earth Insurance

At the suggestion of Chris O'Sullivan, I drove down to the Sonoma Academy last night to hear a talk by Stanford Professor Stephen Schneider. Schneider, a leading expert on climate change, was speaking at a meeting of the U.N. Association. I won't try to repeat the lecture here, except to mention some key points.

Schneider was highly critical of the (inane) ritual on radio and TV where the host presents speakers for both sides of the climate change issue: a scientist who tells the truth and an unqualified professional liar from the coal companies. The effect is to keep the country confused.

The speaker said that 97% of climate scientists believe that global warming is real and caused, in part, by human activity. (For balance, should we give the other 3% half of the air time?) What we need is to get an informed discussion going on what to do. How we cope with the change is an ethical rather than a scientific question.

Risky business--it is currently possible and relatively cheap to shoot enough dust into the air to reverse warming. The problem is that the results would be dangerously unpredictable.

This generation is deciding the climate that the next 100 generations will live with. Schneider's best hope is that the government will get serious about developing green energy sources. If we want less developed countries to take climate change seriously, we will need to help them master cheap green technology.

Schneider pointed out that most of us have fire insurance policies for our homes, although few of us get burned out. Why not take out some insurance on our planet? Funding green technology would have that effect.

Short Items

Stephen Colbert believes we already have an effective barrier against undocumented workers. "We lined the border with our crappiest states."

Lucie Jensen has suggested that Arizona's plan to require all citizens to carry proof of citizenship (buy passports) is a tax to raise money for the federal government.

A rich man's disease?--a Chelsea Lately guest pointed out that poor people never get treated for sex addiction.

TEA PARTY PLATFOM

For the Tea Party to succeed, it needs a positive platform that extends beyond states' rights (the right to own slaves, the right to secede if you can't own slaves, etc.). A friend has suggested four positions that would make a promising start.

1. Tea Party members pledge to refuse the Obama's middle class tax cuts. About 97.4% of Tea Party members have received these cuts. Returning the money will balance the budget.

2. It is in our power to return our health care to private sources. Tea Party members will immediately drop out of Medicare, a socialist takeover of the health industry.

3. Tea Party Members will burn their social security cards and mail back all social security checks, rejecting a plot to undermine the independent American character.

4. We will demand our rights. Two centuries after the Boston Tea Party, we still have no representation in the British Parliament.

REAL-TIME INSURANCE: Tom Belton's Analysis of Health Care That Does Not Require People To Be Covered

REAL-TIME INSURANCE

Now that medical insurance cannot be denied for pre-existing conditions, we can look forward to this feature being applied to other insurance products.

We can start in the home with our fire insurance. Why pay those premiums for all those years you don’t have a fire? Only when smoke is detected will your smoke alarm wirelessly connect to your insurance company and bind your fire insurance, then it will call the Fire Department.

Auto liability insurance will be activated when the bumper detects contact with another vehicle and full collision coverage will be bound when an air bag goes off and Triple A will be called. Many GM vehicles have the similar On-Star wireless system now.

With the current pace of innovations in personal medical devices, our Pacemaker/Defibrillator will soon evolve into a Total Body Function Monitor that will have access to your medical records that can detect malfunction or trauma and decide if you should just visit a doctor or need full hospital attention and then will wirelessly arrange the appropriate insurance coverage and call the ambulance.

The final insurance product is, of course, your life insurance. This is only needed once, so despite the uncertainty, it should only be bought when needed. This is where your Body Function Monitor will really pay for itself. It will detect the cessation of body function and then buy your life policy and call the undertaker.

These insurance products should be inexpensive because there will be no agents or brokers involved. Our wireless communication devices will deal directly with the insurance company’s computers with no human intervention. Because of the risk of false alarms, these policies will have five day cancellation clauses at the buyer’s option. The insurance industry will probably insist on using their adjusters with these settlements, except for the life policies where there is not much to adjust.

Tom Belton

Refighting the Civil War

On Facebook these days I see people refighting the Civil War. That is, they deny that slavery was a major factor in the war, and some of these deniers are not from the South. They're victims of ancient propaganda.

Slaves constituted much of the wealth of the Southern elite. To defend slavery and greed (and the barely masked rape and murder of Blacks in the South) required a serious warping of Christian religion and American political theory. To defend slavery you had to defend rubbish--you had to pretend that you loved states' rights, for example. If you could make a case for states' rights, then perhaps you could con Robert E. Lee into leading your army. (As I recall he led it to defeat.)

Never mind that this enduring mind-bending Southern rubbish was and remains devoted to an obviously losing side in human history.

It's 150 years since my anti-slavery ancestors kicked Southern butt all the way to Fort Sumpter, yet we still hear the same rubbish: the governor of Texas threatens to leave the union. But I take heart. In ten or twenty years Texas will once again be Latino.

Gary Goss

Coakley vs. Cheney

Two quips I've come across:

Republicans won't let lesbians marry each other but eagerly pay thousands to watch fake lesbian sex in a night club.

Martha Coakley could not beat Dick Cheney for mayor of Berkeley.

Party Unity

The Pragmatic Left is made up of those who back Obama while disagreeing with some major policies, starting with his war in Afghanistan. Their opposite is the Idealistic Left who energetically attack Obama. This difference is sometimes thought of as a difference in party unity, with the Pragmatic Left putting the Democratic party above principle, but that's a misunderstanding.

It's the Idealistic Left that focuses on party unity. That is, they are disappointed that the Democrats are not unified in pursuit of progressive goals. The Pragmatic Left never believed that a big tent party could be unified. They aren't loyal to a party. They believe that they are working in a corporate system that makes every positive change as difficult as possible. They are loyal to specific goals and willing to take small steps in what they hope will be the right direction.

The Pragmatic Left ranges from Obama to the somewhat less pragmatic Kucinich and Michael Moore. The Idealistic Left, refusing big-tent compromises, is represented by Ralph Nader, who still believes that it made no difference if Bush or Gore got elected President.

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Chris O'Sullivan sent along the following recent quote from someone called Fishpeddler: "It's important to remember that Republican elites think they are raising revenues by cutting taxes to the rich. The technical term for this theory is The Fifth Stage of Tequila (after 1. I'm rich, 2. I'm good looking, 3. I'm bullet-proof, 4. I'm invisible)."

---Gary Goss

1. In Republican health terms, this Fascist Communist country was doomed from the start when, in 1798, Congress enacted the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen Act. That was just the kind of thing that Hitler did.

2. Will the coverage of Cheetah Woods never end? I'm wearing out my remote control turning him off.

Republican Record

From Chris O'Sullivan (with thanks)

I come from a long-standing Republican family. Everyone in my family (myself excepted) has voted Republican in all contests, presidential and gubernatorial, since 1856. But lets face historical reality: the GOP has been on the wrong side of every major issue for the past 100 years, at least since TR's administration. They opposed American participation in the League of Nations; their pro-Wall Street policies in the 20's produced the Great Depression; they then opposed every effort to reduce the consequences of the Depression; they opposed every New Deal reform, including Social Security, banking reform, unemployment insurance, collective bargaining; 40 hour work week; and public works; they opposed FDR's efforts to fight fascism; they opposed health expansion plans proposed by Gov. Earl Warren AND President Harry Truman; they opposed Medicare in 1965 (Ronald Reagan predicted the end of freedom over THAT one, the End of Days itself); they staunchly opposed all Civil Rights legislation, including for African Americans, women, and gays and lesbians; and they've opposed Health Care reform since at least 1935. They've played the Race Card in just about every election since Reagan's 1966 gubernatorial crusade. Oh, don't forget their creation of massive deficits through tax giveaways to the super wealthy in 1981-82 and 2001-2002. Great track record, there. They've really put their "Country First" -- as was their slogan in 2008. No doubt they'll have much to campaign on in 2010. -- Chris