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Why I Blog About Issues and Politics

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For those who don’t know me personally and may read this blog or posting I wanted to offer a little insight into why I blog about politics and issues that I believe are important.

This may be insightful for some of you who do know me as well, as I know a few think I keep this blog out of some self-destructive character trait.

That’s because this blog does not help me professionally by any means, in-fact it tends to turn some people away from doing business with me–hence the self-destructive theory some of my friends have.

But I accept that politics and business rarely mix well, and I do the best job I can to keep the two separate for myself by not allowing either my passions nor my professional needs to intrude upon or block each other for myself. But, if others take offense to my positions and decide not to work with me for them I accept that as their right.

Still, over the years I’ve found that running this blog has never once led to additional business for me, but has caused me to lose some gigs–so there is an unbalanced nature to this beast and it makes sense that friends might view my determination to keep blogging here about these topics as self-destructive because of it.

It’s The Passion, Plain and Simple

The bottom line is that I’m just passionate about certain issues, and I’m passionate about seeing better tomorrows than yesterdays. And that takes the work and commitment of people who care–and my commitment is such that I’m willing to risk a few clients or contracts along the way for myself.

There’s nothing noble or unselfish about that though, in-fact to the contrary my deep convictions really stem from a fairly selfish and vindictive place.

See, I grew up living in rental apartments in city neighborhoods, but I shouldn’t have. I should have grown up on a small family farm with acres of corn, cattle and horses on the outskirts of town.

That’s where my family on my Mother’s side had settled and built their life after coming to America in the early 1900’s; along with a dozen other families from the same ‘Old Country’ region.

It was a quite community of farm folk. A dozen family farms, and as each new generation of children within the families grew to adulthood land on each of the farms was partitioned off… so what started as 12 mid-sized family farms had become dozens of small family farms over the years, but all were still connected to those original dozen families. Talk about a close-knit community.

Then just a couple years before I was born the local government came along and stripped everyone of these families of their homes and land under “Eminent Domain” for infrastructure improvements. They wanted to build a connector to the Interstate a few miles away and needed the land.

This image shows the area that was family farms and the proposed highway connector:

Now, I understand the need for progress, and absolutely agree that there are times when people have to be moved out of the way. But those people lose more than a home and the time spent moving when this is done, they lose traditions, memories and often their livelihoods as was the case for all the family farmers in this instance…so I believe these decisions–though necessary at times–need to be weighed and made very carefully.

So, lets take a look at the highway connector that was built in this instance:

Yep, 40 yards of concrete that leads to nowhere and has never been traveled by anyone.

The project was never completed, and I’ve been told it was never meant to be finished. That the whole thing was done to spend money from the budget just to justify the size of the budget and  prevent it from being reduced in the following fiscal year. I can’t confirm this, but I can confirm that dozens of families were stripped of their homes and livelihoods for 40 yards of useless concrete to be poured.

I can also confirm that folks who were once proud, self-sustaining, able to make livings off of the land, owned cattle and horses, never made waves and generation after generation served their country became depressed, poor,  often alcoholic night watchmen, fry cooks and mean-spirited factory hands…for 40 yards of useless concrete.

You see, it’s not that I didn’t get to grow up on the family farm, playing with the animals and riding the horses that bothers me.

It’s that I didn’t get to grow up knowing the proud, self-sufficient and happy people of my family, but rather I got the depressed and disappointed people they had become…for 40 yards of useless concrete.

And that’s why I blog about issues and politics, even when it clearly has a negative impact on my professional life at times.

Again, I’m not anti-progress and I would feel 100% differently if there were a highway connector running through that land (it would make my travels easier after all). But I believe someone has to point out…no, shout out when they see the people who are supposed to be serving us doing things that are wrong or stupid. If for no other reason than to just spread a little shame around on those who abuse their offices and authority at our expense.

Care to join me? Anyone can start a blog like this in minutes and for just $3 or $4 per month and make their opinions known, their voices heard and bring their elected leaders into the spotlight for the good and bad they do. I encourage you to be active, be persistent and not be sheep.

Technorati Tags: blooging for change

Posted in Activism | No Comments »

Nation’s First Modern Coal-To-Liquids Plant

West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin along with Senators Rockefeller and Byrd announced a project today for the construction of “the nation’s first modern coal-to-liquids plant” in West Virginia’s northern panhandle.

Manchin said that “technological solutions like this plant… will lead to more environmentally friendly ways use our coal”.

That sounds awesome-tastic!!!

And if only harvesting coal didn’t require environmentally disasterous processes such as strip mining, hazerdous (to miners and the families living in homes above the tunnels) underground mining, wasteful trucking and most importantly the burning of tons of coal I might believe it.

Was I biased when I read baout today’s announcement? Absolutely–because I know an oxymoron when I see one, and the notion of “clean coal” is the definition of an oxymoron.

There’s no such thing as clean coal. It doesn’t exist. It’s a lie.

Technology has made it possible to use coal slightly more efficiently, and to capture and filter some of the emissions which makes burning it slightly cleaner than it used to be… but that’s not clean!

It’s like saying you’d rather be shot with a 9 millimeter than a .357 because the bullets are smaller… Dolt! I’d rather not be shot at all.

I don’t care if West Virginia wants to continue burning coal, I’ve grown weary of the whole environmental fight and having a limited supply of years left on this planet myself along with no stake in the future beyond that point I’m probably going to try less and less to help the blind see on this one.

But, I’m going to continue calling Bullshit! when I hear it, and that includes every time a politician mentions “clean coal” or the phrase “environmentally friendly” in the same breath as burning coal or other fossile fuels.

Posted in Environment | No Comments »

Shh, Don’t Think That Out Loud

The blogosphere was abuzz over the past 2 weeks with discussions on comedy, satire, racism and stupidity all thanks to a single video skit about a supposed lack of Black bloggers on the Internet titled “TechNigga”, and Verizon’s decision to dump the media content provider from their service as a result.

Now, I’m not going to rehash too many specifics of this video and the surrounding debates any further, there is a decent wrap-up available at TechCrunch for anyone interested.

I just thought this was a great opportunity to talk about one of my favorite subjects, the softening of society through political correctness. And for the overly sensitive who might take objection to my opinions on political correctness or feel aggrieved by my words, don’t bother wasting your time contacting me to tell me how rude or harsh you may think I am. Trust me, I don’t care. Just ask any of the corn-squatters who contacted me after my last posting on PC stupidity.

Look, I grew up in an Irish family, and while I may know a good bit about a lot of subjects the 2 topics I’m most intimately familiar with are alcoholism and drunks.

Alcoholism is a terrible and ravaging disease that can destroy the life of the afflicted, as well as the lives of everyone around them. Drunks are often funny people to watch and be around. The problem with political correctness is it assumes we’re all too dumb to appreciate the distinctions between the two.

Those who know me know my positions on ignorance and prejudices, I don’t need or intend to explain myself on either for anyone else.

And that’s sort of my issue with people who got their panties in a bunch over the satirical video I mentioned earlier. Why would the thoughts, opinions or skit of some comedian you’ve never met matter so much when the context within which the video was made was an obvious attempt at satire. A joke. Whether funny or not is purely subjective, but it’s pretty clear the intention wasn’t to specifically offend, so why would it impact so many so deeply?

I could understand the uproar if it was broadcast as something… anything other than a satire. But it wasn’t, it was created and released by a court jester, period.

I just find it amazing that in this world, at this time, so many people would have so little real drama and worries of importance in their lives that they would actually want to care about the attempt at humor from some class clown they don’t even know.

If, instead of climbing right up on the PC-mob bandwagon more people would actually take a moment of pause to consider just how important some of these incidents really are to them, I bet there would be a lot less sillyness wasting all of our time.

Then again, maybe I’m wrong and everything is just peachy for everyone right now and there’s a void we all need to fill with meaningless battles over our far too sensitive sensibilities?

Technorati Tags: political correctness

Posted in Near Misses | No Comments »

Ireland and Scotland Banking on Wind Energy

Ireland and Scotland are looking to their offshore winds as a viable renewable energy source.

Scotland has committed to an ambitious target of supplying 50% of their total energy from renewable sources by 2020, and this is 1 more step towards that goal.

The 2 countries have partnered on a study that will look at the potential for using both offshore wind and wave power for harnessing energy, as well as investigate whether establishing a grid infrastructure between them would permit an offshore transmission network. The hope is that would attract commercial investors to cover some of the associated costs.

The waters between Ireland and Scotland are rich with winds, wave and tidal resources. As are the waters along America’s coast lines in numerous areas, which makes me wonder once again why we continue to trail–rather than lead–in deploying functional technologies for clean and renewable energy?

Rather than bickering over offshore leases for oil drilling, a fuel source that degrades the environment and has a limited future, we should be united in promoting offshore wind farms and improved collection technologies for harnessing wave and tidal energy.

There is probably no single energy source that will ultimately replace fossil fuels alone. We’re going to have to wrap our heads around the concept of partitioning our energy from multiple sources and locations.

A little wind here, a little solar there, a little hydro-based somewhere else and etc. Normally having so many options should be a great thing, however it often lends to confusions and allows those who wish to pump oil for every last profit to easily insert plenty of misinformation. Just as the tobacco industry did with smoking and health concerns for so many years.

Fortunately, people are smarter than they’ve been given credit for and are seeing through the junk science and “paid studies” put out by oil enthusiasts; and have begun taking steps as individuals to change our course.

Hopefully that will eventually lead to government and industry following suit.

Image source: www.imcbrokers.com

Technorati Tags: ireland, offshore, oil, renewable energy, scotland, tidal, wave, wind, wind energy

Posted in Environment, Oil and Energy | 1 Comment »

Network Neutrality

Imagine logging on to your Internet account and checking your email. You reply to a few messages and then decide to visit YouTube and watch that funny video your cousin emailed you a link for… but when you get there you find that the video is playing choppy, like Satellite TV in a hurricane, and not just that video but every video on YouTube plays that way for you. What would you do?

Maybe call your ISP (Internet service provider)? What if they told you that they’ve decided you use the Internet too much, so they’re slowing your access unless you agree to pay a higher monthly rate.

What if when you ask “how much is too much?” they explain that there is no answer to that, it depends on your location, hours of activity and possibly the mood of the technician reviewing your account at the moment the decision to slow your access is made.

Despite the garbage misinformation that ISPs and TeleComs have been spreading around, even starting and organizing fake grassroots groups to promote their misleading crap, the hypothetical scenario above is exactly what would happen to millions of people every day if ISPs and the TeleComs get their way and Washington were to dispel Net Neutrality and authorize these companies to become the gatekeepers of the Internet.

Maybe you’re thinking “so what? He with the most money wins…” and this is just capitalism at work. Well, there’s another side to the story that’s equally alarming. You see, not only do these companies want [plan?] to have tiered levels of rates for end user customers, but once they control the gates they also intend to charge premium fees to web site owners for fast lane vs. slow lane data delivery to site visitors.

Yep, even though you are willing and able to pay a premium fee for your access, maybe YouTube owner, Google Inc., is not and so you will still not be able to watch your favorite videos without the hurricane chop anyway. This is a classic example of double-dipping.

And it won’t just be YouTube or other major commercial sites, but any site including personal blogs, stamp collecting clubs, news or whatever sites will have to pay for fast lane delivery of their data to visitors or suffer deadly slow page loads and a complete inability to offer any sort of useful media online.

But wait, surely Google and other wealthy companies would pay for the fast lane deliveries, so what’s the problem? You might think that’s true but let’s look at just how that would work first. There are hundreds and hundreds of ISPs here in North America, so web site owners would have to pay a fast lane delivery premium to every one of them to ensure that users weren’t throttled into the slow lane.

That’s because the Internet works by routing requests and data transfers across multiple networks, meaning when you visit a web site the data will likely travel across well over a dozen different ISPs before it gets displayed on your browser, and if even 1 of them throttles the data into a slow lane you suffer.

Worse than double-dipping and unfair business practices, when you really look at this it seems a lot like ISPs and TeleComs are lobbying for legalized extortion.

Be informed… be proactive… or be duped.

Image source: www.coretrace.com

Technorati Tags: network neutrality

Posted in Near Misses | 2 Comments »