Alan Grayson Discusses Rick Perry Wanting to Send Troops Back into Iraq

Please read and enjoy the following interesting bit of thinly-veiled history, a reprint of a letter from Florida’s past (and hopefully future) congressman Alan Grayson:

Corporate Feudalism … Rising Again?

It happened before, and may be happening again.  There have been many cases in the past where corporations built dormitories and even whole towns to house employees, then saddled them with a situation where they could barely survive on what they made, had to buy from the company-owned store, and couldn’t afford to go elsewhere.  I don’t know if that’s exactly what happens in China, but factory workers are, in some cases, living in company owned dormitories and spending long periods of time away from their families.  As corporations continue to gain power relative to national governments (let alone individuals) phenomena such as company towns could return to North America.  This brings up an important question.

Are Rising Health Care Costs Partly From Untested Toxic Chemicals?

I have read that there are more than 120,000 chemicals in use by industry, but only 4,000 or so have been tested for toxicity, and this issue has been called a “black hole” of unaddressed legislation.  If the other untested 116,000 chemicals are in our environment, meaning in our bodies, are they contributing to health care issues such as obesity, diabetes, heart and circulatory problems, autism, etc?  Will this ever be addressed or is it another case of “too big to fail”?

The truth is out there, somewhere, hopefully, maybe …

Lack of U.S. Honey Standard Throws Doubt on the Food Supply

Think your honey is pure, unadulterated and safe?  Think again.  Great investigative journalism published in Food Safety News was brought to my attention by National Public Radio, and reveals a scary picture for the safety of our food systems.  An article on the quality of honey illuminates an industry with so much international corruption and such poor oversight by the FDA that it is probable that three quarters of the honey on supermarket shelves is not what it appears to be, and some may actually be dangerous.  So what does this mean for US consumers?

Fighting the “War on Weight” and Holding My Ground (If Not Winning)

What about my weight?  We are all on the spectrums of many things, including weight, and while most of us in the good-eating countries are in lifelong battles to keep our weight at more comfortable levels (for us) that doesn’t mean, because we weigh more than we’d like, that we are somehow less, or defective, or anything of the kind.  

Labels can work for or against us.  We have a long history of hurting ourselves unnecessarily with labels, and “fat” is too vacuous a term for anyone to be accepting, so let’s all please stop using this term and any others that hurt us or are not helpful.  Instead let’s use labels that are positive and allow for the possibility that we can be lots of things we are not yet, if we only decide to be.  This sense of empowerment can be a big help in controlling our lives and our weight.

Self-dislike is a loser in more ways than one.  Hurting ourselves with negativity and “working around” what we see as our faults will not help us.  We know we can do things to better manage our weight, but worry and self-dislike aren’t among them.  We continue to learn about ourselves and this particular challenge, and recognize it is an emotional challenge as much (or more) than a physical one.  We worry about how we are perceived and we really should stop that – it’s a waste of time.  From long experience we know that if we look good for ourselves, we will look good for the rest of the world, too.  (And if they don’t like it, screw ‘em – it’s none of their business anyway.) 

Positive attitudes about ourselves and our environment help.  The challenge is to learn to regard ourselves as fine, healthy people with a lot going for us regardless of how we look.  Once we accept ourselves as we are we have a far better chance of managing our weight or anything else about ourselves that we might want to change.

Those of us with self doubt are the worst at accepting compliments.  We can learn to accept compliments better, and be happier for it.  When people express happiness with some thing we’ve done or some positive way they perceive us we inwardly pooh-pooh or disregard the positives, yet we actively look for negatives and even create our own when the world fails to supply them.  These are habits we can consciously change.  One way I try to do that is to stop myself from discounting the compliments of others and actually _accept_ what they say as true, at least a bit.  I know I have the  habit of being down on myself, so I don’t have to worry too much that I’ll get a swelled head.  It feels good to say to yourself “Yes – I do look good” or “Yes – I did do well”, and simply thank people for their compliments.  The decrease in self-doubt and self-deprecation feels good every time, and making this acceptance of compliments a habit leads to greater overall happiness and less self-hounding and self-hating.

Let’s keep talking and writing about these things, and I know we can be happier with ourselves and our lives.  Bottom line: we are not fat, so let’s leave that terminology behind and spend that energy on living and loving, and  work to make better lives for ourselves and those around us.

As always, I welcome  your comments — Tim

An Open Letter to Attorney General Eric Holder: Please Focus Drug Enforcement on Real Problems

Dear Attorney General Holder,

Federal forces under your control continue to waste taxpayer money raiding legal dispensaries in California and carrying on similar actions elsewhere.  You know the statistics so I won’t go into that – it is clear that the American people want you to stop prosecuting marijuana users.

There IS a drug problem, though – crystal methedrine.  That is a drug that needs serious attention, as it destroys lives addicted after a single use, and kills people in just months.

A news item today said a retired sheriff in Colorado who had been national sheriff of the year a about decade ago was busted for selling methedrine (news).  If this drug can corrupt a man like that it is a very real danger, and THAT is what  you and the DEA should be trying to stop.

Marijuana has NO such track record, and has long been known to be more benign than beer (and is responsible for no deaths I know of, compared with alcohol’s millions). 

Please do the right and sensible thing and focus on drugs that are harming, not helping people.

- Tim Prosser

As always, your comments are welcomed.  – Tim

I Remember Michigan Before No-Fault Auto Insurance

From what I read, the Republicans in the state legislature are trying to change No Fault auto insurance.  Actually, what is being sought is a cap to personal injury awards, which have been capped in other states but not yet in Michigan and a minority of the other states.  Just because this has been done in other states doesn’t convince me this is necessary.  The change being sought would mean that auto insurance would cost more for less coverage, and coverage for medical problems would be capped at differing levels depending on how much you were paying for your insurance.  I am always suspicious of the insurance industry, as corporations of any size typically are focused on taking our money while giving us as little as possible, and on tricking us into giving them money for things we don’t need.  These are not companies I want or like to deal with, and they have manipulated our legal system to make themselves necessary, practically required, if we are to drive a car.  From the injured driver’s viewpoint, why should the effects of auto injury be expected to go away after a certain financial threshold is reached?  For those with injuries that will never go away, it is almost like telling them that, after a certain amount of money has been spent, they will go the way of the uninsured, descending into personal bankruptcy and living the rest of their lives in poverty, on top of the suffering from their injury.  This is a huge reduction in insurance benefits but certainly a big windfall for the insurance companies who will inevitably boost their profit margins as a result.  Once again, corporations manipulate the laws to boost their profits at our expense.  My first take is that these changes are bad for voters, and should be opposed.

Snapshot from Progressive Insurance: Big Brother in Spades!

If you watch much TV you’ve probably noticed the ad by Progressive Insurance touting the new “money-saving” option they call “Snapshot“, and there is at least one other auto insurance company promoting a similar device.  Snapshot is a spy device that plugs into your car’s wiring harness and records (at a minimum) your car’s distance driven, speeds along the way, and every application of brakes.  (I’m not convinced the designers wouldn’t throw in a GPS receiver, too.)  If you didn’t recognize what this means at first read, you need to understand that this is a spy device that, for starters, removes your privacy.  Secondly, this device is designed for one thing only: to enable Progressive to increase your insurance premiums.  Of course, they won’t say that; they’ll say your “discount was decreased” – one of the key misstatements in Progressive’s Common Questions page. So how does this thing work?

Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party Agree on a Fundamental Fact

In discussion with a died-in-the-wool conservative friend, he expressed concern that over 50% of the US population get entitlements, while I expressed concern that big corporations are getting huge tax breaks, bail outs, and secret concessions from the government to the tune of billions and using the money to rig the system in Washington DC so they can take the middle class and poor to the cleaners.  It seemed like we had a major disagreement until I realized, what everybody on both right and left is upset about is the government “giving away the store”.  The real disagreement centers on who is benefiting from this and do they deserve to, and the simple solution is to dig for the facts.  An examination of where government money goes is the next step, and will tell us where the real issues are.  This must be done without input from pundits or others who “interpret the news” for us, and with hard numbers.  As my mother always said, “Follow the money and you’ll see what’s really going on!”  I’ll write more when I get more data.

Isn’t Propaganda Frustrating? – Businesses are Job Creation AVOIDERS, Not Job Creators!

When you hear a lie spoken over the mass media it is depressing, frustrating, and angering.  I keep hearing how tax breaks for corporations are good because businesses are “Job Creators”, and the talking heads of  mass media repeat the words “Job Creators” over … and over … and over … That sure seems like classic propaganda technique to me: State a big lie, something that is ridiculous to anyone who actually thinks about it, and then keep repeating the buzz-phrase ad infinitum until it gets traction with people who don’t think much about what they hear.  Eventually you can get the majority of people accepting the ridiculous concept as the truth.  There is only one reason for anyone to do that, and it harms the rest of us.  “Job creators” is a classic example of an old school propaganda techniques

Why are businesses not job creators?  They hire people, don’t they?  Yes, they do.  Businesses hire people, but they don’t do it to provide jobs to anyone.  In fact, since labor cost is the biggest identifiable cost in most industries, hiring another person represents a significant reduction in company profits.  So do you really think companies are going to just “create jobs” to help the economy, the nation, or anyone else?  Of course, not.  Businesses will AVOID hiring people as much as possible.  Businesses often make their employees work overtime and make it difficult to put on their time sheets* because business is about making money, which means limiting cost.  Some businesses systematically keep employees working a few hours short of full time so they won’t have to give them expensive benefits like health insurance, and profits can be higher.  Never mind their higher turnover rates or the demotivating influence that has on their struggling employees, who rightfully feel at risk.  Thought it is short-sighted and creates higher hidden costs to do these things, it seems a common belief that no successful business can do otherwise.  That doesn’t justify this short-sighted stupidity, though.  I can’t call any company that manages its human resources this way a “Job creator” (and I wouldn’t invest in them as it is clear their profitability will be hindered by their cluelessness).

There may be radical companies that can “create jobs and the profits will follow”, hiring outstanding people and then enabling them to do their best work with the expectation that they will generate value for the enterprise.  With good, savvy leadership it is possible to pull that off, but traditional investors, banks, and other businesses on which the company depends to some extent will be skeptical, and that could hinder the business.  Where it does exist, this approach is used in businesses that need high levels of creativity, and where employees themselves have high levels of name recognition, like software startups, movie studios, and ad agencies, but they also tend to hire recognized talent and not average people.  The point is, while there may be companies one could call “Job Creators”, they are extremely few and far between.  

The other 99.9999% of companies can not be said to be “Job Creators”, and actually function as Job Creation Avoiders, proving that the words being repeated over, and over, and over in the media are simple propaganda, and while our country is suffering, those who keep saying “Job Creators” are working hard to make us all worse off so they can make more money and attain positions of power.  The evidence suggests nothing else.