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Koch Comedy Duo Getting Their Yuks Out of U.S.A. Taxpayer Foolishness
I know most of us just can't wait until that Koch Comedy Duo takes over the Tribune chain of newspapers and in alliance with the Pete Peterson Fake Social Security Drama Society convinces the USA middle class to cheer loudly for those not paying taxes but gladly (ab)using the best of the country's services. After all, we can beg them for mercy and they will happily comply through their bought-and-paid-for Congressional representatives.
This is their very well-thought-out solution.
Cheers!
For them.
And we'll certainly start hearing a lot more then about how CO2 levels are not really a good gauge of planetary health. And, how, heck fire, they should be increased immensely (just like the radiation limits were after Fukushima), and that it would be the wisest course just to stop keeping those records permanently because it's just another case of big-brother government interference with good business practices. (Apologies to George Orwell.)
Then we can all breathe a deep sigh of relief.
But don't forget your face mask (and spare bottle of oxygen)!
CO2 Levels Pass Feared Milestone
Scientists report that the amount of the gas has not been this high in at least 3 million years
By Natasha Lennard
(Credit: Shutterstock/ Vladimir Salman)
In what climate scientists are calling a moment that “symbolizes that so far we have failed miserably in tackling this problem,” carbon dioxide levels have reportedly reached a long-feared milestone. The New York Times reported that this concentration of the gas on Earth has not been seen for millions of years. Via the NYT:
Scientific monitors reported that the gas had reached an average daily level that surpassed 400 parts per million — just an odometer moment in one sense, but also a sobering reminder that decades of efforts to bring human-produced emissions under control are faltering.
The best available evidence suggests the amount of the gas in the air has not been this high for at least 3 million years, before humans evolved, and scientists believe the rise portends large changes in the climate and the level of the sea.
“It symbolizes that so far we have failed miserably in tackling this problem,” said Pieter P. Tans, who runs the monitoring program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that reported the new reading.
Ralph Keeling, who runs another monitoring program at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, said a continuing rise could be catastrophic. “It means we are quickly losing the possibility of keeping the climate below what people thought were possibly tolerable thresholds,” he said.
(Natasha Lennard is an assistant news editor at Salon, covering non-electoral politics, general news and rabble-rousing. Follow her on Twitter @natashalennard, email nlennard@salon.com.)
And there's a bonus news item!
Hamid Karzai, the “president” of Afghanistan, has confirmed that over the past decade, while millions of Americans have been going hungry, entire school systems have been closing down for lack of funds, and millions of long-term unemployed workers have lost their unemployment benefits because of state and federal budget cuts, all to pay for a staggering and unprecedented trillion-a-year US military budget, he has been getting bags of cash delivered to him by the CIA. This money, amounting to over $10 million in bribes which the CIA was “deploying” supposedly in order to “buy influence” with the man that the US has spent over a trillion dollars propping up and protecting, has funded a vast culture of corruption among the warlords of Afghanistan, and has helped make it the world’s leading narco-state and producer/exporter of opium.
Yes, you need to read a bit in the linked essay above before coming to the real gold.
Don't whine. It's good for you.
Read the whole essay and the Comments if you want to see some rather articulate readers on today's social and political climate. I'm including several below for added flavor.
Comments:
Robert Smiley
May 11, 2013 10:57pm
This article says it all and the worst part is the current state of affairs is so unnecessary. Unfortunately The nation's problems are "Made in America"! The political system is completely dysfunctional. The society is one of the most violent in the world, the economy is controlled by such greed that it imploded. The nation's wealth is being hoarded by the elite while the rest of the country sinks into poverty and despair. The so called government leadership are sociopathic to the point of medievalism, with torture back on the scene as standard policy. Both ethics and morality are long gone from the political scene. The judicial system is so corrupt that if someone actually gets justice from the courts, it is in spite of the system not because of it. The corporations rule and the man on the street is ignored. One can go on and on but why bother?
Nexus789
May 11, 2013 6:39pm
The comment about the stock market being at an all time high indicates a lack of understanding as to firstly, how the 'system' of exploitation actually works and how this is taking place on a massive scale in plain sight. The stock exchange in the US disconnected from the real economy many, many decades ago. It is a system designed to continually skim off wealth from the rest of us. It is now one vast financial casino that is being pumped up by the banks via a speculative binge. Speculation and market distortion is being fuelled by the Fed taking 'toxic' financial assets off the books of the Banks and handing over tens and hundreds of billions of dollars to the banks who then speculate in stocks, commodities, currencies, etc. The more volatile, the more transactions and so the greater the casino operators and participants profits.
Increasingly we see private greed displayed on a massive scale alongside growing public squalor as our infrastructure fails and public amenities, etc, are degraded and closed down. Why should decent hard working people beg crumbs from billionaires that made their money through speculative and non-value-creating activities? For every dollar these financial thieves create for themselves they destroy the real economy.
We have all been paying for this stupidity via the vast sums of public money that have and are still being used to prop up the technically bankrupt banks. Critics try to call this 'Keynesian' policies to demonise and discredit public expenditures and welfare programs. You CANNOT use debt to pay off debt. You can only forgive or cancel debt. It is easy really as debt is only a promise of future value. The obvious outcome of all this will be the systemic failure of the financial system. Now the numb nuts was to pour fuel on the fire by instigating austerity measures. When complex society starts to collapse and disconnect it will be messy.
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