My Dear Dad
My beloved father passed away today.
He was a month away from his 97th birthday.
He will be deeply missed.
The 12 Year Old Girl that Silenced the World…and her dad
About 20 years ago a little girl from Vancouver BC Canada was given the opportunity of a life time.
She was given the opportunity to speak to the world.
I happen to believe that her speech will go down in history as one of the most significant speeches ever given.
The 12 year old girl that silenced…the world for 6 minutes!
Here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPx5r35Aymc
About 20 years later her dad gave a speech at Occupy Vancouver.
Some photos from the event:
Here’s a link to her dad’s speech:
Carter, Reagan and the PNE Prize Home
It’s the oldest amusement park in Canada.
The Pacific National Exhibition or PNE is a non-profit organization that manages a fairground in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
The grounds include a variety of venues, arenas and one of the best old style “Wooden Roller Coasters” ever built.
Each year the PNE hosts a 17 day summer fair that ends on Labour Day.
Other than the rides, games, food, entertainment and agriculture competitions, one of the highlights of the fair is the PNE Prize Home give away.
You can take a virtual tour of the 2011 home here:
http://www.pne.ca/pneprizehome/virtual-tours.html
State of the art technology and energy efficiency have always been central to the theme of these show homes.
For example, in 2009, the show home came with in-floor radiant heating, hot water on demand, solar panels and a roof made mostly out of recycled tires.
It was one of the best Prize Homes ever, which brings me to my point:
Why would anyone not want a solar panel system?
It seems unimaginable that someone would move into such an energy efficient home and then not long after proceed to hire a construction crew to come in and tear the solar panels off the roof and rip out the solar system completely.
Who in their right mind would do such a thing?
Answer:
Ronald Reagan.
In 1977, the liberal President Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the White House roof.
Carter offered tax credits to anyone who purchased a solar energy system.
Then conservative Ronald Reagan got elected.
One of the first things Reagan did as president was take away the tax credits for solar systems.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=carter-white-house-solar-panel-array
Thomas Edison described the problem best:
“When we learn how to store electricity, we will cease being apes ourselves; until then we are tailless orangutans. You see, we should utilize natural forces and thus get all of our power. Sunshine is a form of energy, and the winds and the tides are manifestations of energy.
Do we use them? Oh, no! We burn up wood and coal, as renters burn up the front fence for fuel. We live like squatters, not as if we owned the property.
“There must surely come a time when heat and power will be stored in unlimited quantities in every community, all gathered by natural forces. Electricity ought to be as cheap as oxygen, for it cannot be destroyed.”
Edison made that strong statement over 100 years ago in 1910.
Right before his death he clearly felt as strongly about the issue as ever:
“I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait ’til oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”
Occupy Wall Street Vancouver Photo Gallery
October 15th 2011 photos:
You can go to the galleries directly at the top of the page or through the following links:
Gallery 1:
http://harryhammer.wordpress.com/occupy-wall-street-vancouver-photo-gallery/
Gallery 2:
http://harryhammer.wordpress.com/occupy-wall-street-vancouver-photo-gallery-2/
Gallery 3:
http://harryhammer.wordpress.com/occupy-wall-street-vancouver-photo-gallery-3/
Here are a few samples:
Enjoy.
The Most Cited Living Author
In other words, he’s the most quoted living source on earth.
He’s a professor at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years.
Incidentally, the soul of MIT is research, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education. As of 2011, 24 MIT alumni have won the Nobel Prize, 44 have been selected as Rhodes Scholars, and 55 have been selected as Marshall Scholars.
The list of his many honorary degrees from universities around the world is as long as your arm.
The list of his awards and achievements is as long as your leg.
He may very well be a member of more professional and learned societies in the United States and abroad than just about anyone else on earth.
He was voted the leading living public intellectual in the 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll.
He reacted by saying “I don’t pay a lot of attention to polls”.
He was voted seventh in the list of “Heroes of our time”.
He has too many awards, honors and achievements to mention in anything less than a small booklet.
In June 2011, he was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize, which cited his “unfailing courage, critical analysis of power and promotion of human rights”.
His name is Noam Chomsky and he recently spoke on some extremely important issues:
http://www.thenation.com/video/158093/noam-chomsky-how-climate-change-became-liberal-hoax
Occupy Wall Street
It may seems almost surreal that the most important thing that is going on in the world right now began right here in beautiful Vancouver British Columbia.
It began with Adbusters:
http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/occupywallstreet.html
The movement is called “Occupy Wall Street.”
Their slogan is “We are the 99%.”
Here’s what the 1% would have you believe:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I41OJ8OsqsQ
A Nobel Prize winner weighed in:
Michael Moore weighed in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrFQs5X-I1Y
Two weeks earlier 1252 protestors were arrested in front of the White House including James Hansen – head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City.
It took another 700 arrests and a bunch of police brutality footage to draw in any serious media coverage.
Jessie Ventura weighed in:
A Republican candidate for president weighed in:
He says,
“If you’re not millionaire blame yourself.”
It’s about 9 minutes and 30 seconds in:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/cain-if-you-don-t-have-a-job-blame-yourself-video-20111006
Unions began weighing in:
Pilots dressed in full uniforms wearing signs that read “What’s a pilot worth?”
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/wall-street-protest-starting-look-egypt
Get involved.
We are the 99%.
After all, we occupied Wall St. last year for similar reasons.
Talent and Taste
“Snille och Smak” is a Swedish saying that means “Shoot the Puck.”
Actually, I’m kidding. It really means “Talent and Taste.”
It also happens to be the motto of the Swedish Academy.
The Swedish Academy is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden, which include three major science academies. Sweden’s Royal Academies were founded more than two centuries ago by King Gustav III who, in his infinite wisdom, granted Royal Charters; the purpose of which was to promote science, culture, and the arts in Sweden.
Given such a history, it’s not at all surprising that 224 years later the seeds that King Gustav planted have become Giant Sequoia’s and Sweden is now one of the world’s most prosperous nations, currently ranking 3rd overall on the Legatum Prosperity Index right behind Finland (#1) and Switzerland (#2).
I wrote about the index in a previous post that you can re-visit here:
http://harryhammer.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/legatum-prosperity-index/
Sweden’s Royal Academies are without a doubt the most influential scientific and literary bodies in the world. For instance, one of the many scholarly things they do is decide who gets Nobel Prizes.
The Nobel Prizes are five annual international awards presented to people in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. They were established in 1895 by the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the scientist made famous for inventing dynamite. Make no mistake about it. A Nobel Prize is the most prestigious award in its field, and the prize winners are worthy of a great deal of respect. That said, anyone who tries to tell you differently is full of it.
The Nobel Peace Prize is probably the most well-known of the Nobel Prizes. However, it also happens to be the only one of the five prizes not awarded by a Swedish organization. That task is handled by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee presents the Nobel Peace Prize in the presence of the King of Norway on December 10th each year (the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death).
The other Nobel Prizes are presented in Stockholm, the capital and largest city in Sweden. Incidentally, Stockholm is known for its beauty, its buildings and architecture. It’s also recognized for its abundant clean water and gorgeous parks, which is inspiring given that the city is 760 years old, or about 5 times older than Canada and 3 times older than the United States.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. The Swedish Academy grants the Nobel Prize in Literature. Each Nobel Prize includes a monetary award, which varies from year to year depending on how much the Nobel Foundation has available to give at the time. In 2009, the award for each category was about $1,400,000. Also, it’s not uncommon for recipients of a Nobel Prize to donate the prize money to some scientific, cultural, or humanitarian cause.
Having said all that, it bothers me that attacking the dignity of such highly regarded scientific organizations is considered good politics on the conservative side of the political spectrum in the United States. Basically, the Republican Party has been trying to convince everybody that the most reputable scientists and scientific organizations in the world are all either corrupt or stupid.
And why, might you ask, are Republicans doing this?
Because not a single reputable scientific organization in the world, or reputable scientist for that matter, thinks that man-made global warming is a myth, or that global warming and climate change aren’t very serious problems that require immediate attention.
Allow me to introduce you one of the top global warming deniers:
James Mountain “Jim” Inhoff is a member of the Republican Party and currently serves as the senior Senator from Oklahoma. Inhoff is among the most vocal global warming skeptics in the United States Congress and has been busy as a beaver trying to convince anybody and everybody that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind.” Believe it or not, he’s actually the guy who coined that phrase.
Here’s a link to Inhoff explaining what he believes and why:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFjMeFaBS7w
It sounds like Inhoff studied science at the University of Archie Bunker.
Check out this snippet from a 1975 episode of All In The Family to see what I mean. Archie displays Inhoff-like reasoning about 8 minutes in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROuk85_qi18
In contrast, Anton Zeilinger is an Austrian quantum physicist. Zeilinger is an example of a reputable scientist from a reputable scientific organization. Here is a link to an interview where he talks a bit about science including a brief explanation of quantum physics:
Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5dNg6pmgPg
Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIzMZtQ9NwQ&feature=related
It bears repeating that not a single reputable scientist or scientific organization in the world thinks that man-made global warming is a myth.
If you find one, let me know.
Beware of Killer Terrorist Babies!!!
“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
- Franklin D. Roosevelt (March 4, 1933) – from his inaugural address
Roosevelt may have been speaking about the stock market at the time, but, those words make a profound statement and carry a much broader meaning. Roosevelt wanted people to know about how fear can intensify one’s emotions and obscure reason. More importantly, he wanted people to know that fear can be used as a deceptive tool.
Fear mongering is the term we now use to describe the broader context of what Roosevelt was talking about. Specifically, it’s the deliberate act of using fear to sway the opinions of people. The feared object or subject is often overstated or blown way out of proportion, and the pattern is usually one of repetition and continuous reinforcement. In other words, if you say something enough times, or for long enough, people will start to believe it no matter how absurd it is.
Having said that, when it comes to scaring people, conservative Republicans in the United States are in a league of their own. Figuratively speaking, they’re like the New York Yankees of all fear mongers.
In early April, I wrote a post titled Rachel Anne Maddow Happens to be a Rhodes Scholar. It contained a link to an episode of her MSNBC show where she takes on Koch Industries over the multi-millions Koch spent funding global warming denial and scepticism.
You can get to it here:
http://harryhammer.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/rachel-maddow-is-a-rhodes-scholar/
Well, Maddow happened to be a guest on the David Letterman Show in early August where she had some interesting things to say about conservative politics in America:
“Scaring white people is good politics on the conservative side of the spectrum, and it always has been. The idea is you sort of rile up the white base to be afraid of an “other” to be afraid of the scary immigrants or scary black people. Somebody coming to take what is white people’s rightful property. Or rights. And you get them riled up so they feel like they need to vote in self-defence, and they vote for conservative candidates because of that fear. I mean we’ve been doing it for decades.”
She goes on to say,
“It should get better. And the way it’s going to get better is not by slime balls being less slimy. There’s always going to be Breitbarts and Fox Newses. That’s going to happen…”
Incidentally, Andrew J. Breitbart is like the Karl Rove of webmasters. He was recently in the news, rather than producing his own for a change, for his involvement in what was dubbed the 2009 ACORN video scandal. What he essentially did was hire a woman to pose as a prostitute and interview members of a group that he and his conservative friends wanted to ruin. While the woman mingled and asked questions, the man posing as her boyfriend secretly videotaped it all. It was kind of like Taxi Cab Confessions without the waiver, only worse. Brietbart then edited the videos in such a way as to provide absolute maximum embarrassment to the group, which it did. The slimy tactic worked and it ruined them.
This is how Wikipedia describes the Breitbart victims:
ACORN was a collection of community-based organizations in the United States that advocated for low and moderate-income families by working on neighbourhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues. ACORN had over 400,000 members and more than 1,200 neighbourhood chapters in over 100 cities across the U.S., as well as in Argentina, Canada, Mexico, and Peru.
“That 20-minute video ruined 40 years of good work,” said Sonja Merchant-Jones, a former co-chairwoman of one of ACORN’s recently closed chapters.
Maddow suggests that the best antidote for dealing with such slimy conservative fear mongers is just by sheer mockery of them.
So, I decided to pitch in.
Check out this recent CNN broadcast where a conservative Republican congressman from Texas goes off the deep end trying to defend nonsense:
Rep., Louei Gohmert Goes Berserk On Anderson Cooper!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQVfQCpYocQ
It’s hard to believe that this knuckle-head used to be a judge.
But, then again, it was in Texas.
Is it any wonder that prison populations in the United States have soared?
When you put “el stupidos” into positions of power you get statistics like these:
- There were 52 executions in USA in 2009.
- Since 1976, USA has executed 1223 prisoners.
- 462 of the executions (38% of all executions in USA) took place in Texas.
- Of the 38 jurisdictions in USA that currently have death penalty statutes, Texas executes prisoners at more than 14 times the average rate.
- USA has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world.
- USA has the highest total documented prison and jail population in the world.
- In 2008, 2,304,115 people were incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails.
- In 2008, over 7.3 million people or 1 in every 31 adults in USA were either in prison, in jail, on probation, or on parole.
- The United States prison population has quadrupled since 1980.
- 44% of all prisoners in the United States are black, even though only 12% of the population is black.
- In twenty states, the percent of blacks incarcerated was at least five times greater than their share of resident population.
- 70% of prisoners in the United States are non-whites.
- Nearly three-quarters of new admissions to state prison were convicted of nonviolent crimes.
- The single greatest force behind the growth of the prison population has been the national “war on drugs.”
- The number of incarcerated drug offenders has increased twelve-fold since 1980.
- In 2000, 22% of those in federal and state prisons were convicted on drug charges.
- Nearly one million of those incarcerated in state and federal prisons, as well as local jails, are serving time for committing non-violent crimes.
- As of 2008, the United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world at 754 persons in prison or jail per 100,000 adult population.
- By comparison, Canada’s incarceration rate is 116 per 100,000.
- By comparison, the rate for Switzerland is 76 per 100,000.
- By comparison, the rate for Sweden is 74 per 100,000.
- By comparison, the rate for Norway is 66 inmates per 100,000.
- By comparison, the rate for Finland is 64 per 100,000.
- By comparison, the rate for Denmark is 63 per 100,000.
- In 2006, the United States spent nearly $69 billion on corrections.
- It is estimated that 1 in 9 state government employees in the United States works in corrections.
- The United States has less than 5% of the world’s population and 23.4% of the world’s prison population.
Incidentally, the last statistic on this list reminds me of another:
In 2009, the International Energy Agency released the 2007 numbers for carbon dioxide emissions per capita for over 140 countries, regions, and economies. According to the numbers, the United States, with less than 5% of the world’s population, is pound for pound the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide via the burning of fossil fuels. The United States is responsible for roughly 20% of the oil and coal burning that’s going on in the world right now. Bear in mind, that’s without factoring in that around 33% of China’s emissions were due to the production of exports rather than consumption, and the United States plays a large role in that.
You can download the 2007 IEA numbers for free at:
