Politics Plus

I have not decided how I like this one yet, but I’m throwing it out for your evaluation.

In another indication of how frustrated voters have grown with politics as usual, California — home of initiative-happy democracy — is considering a radical overhaul.

On June 8, voters will decide the fate of a ballot measure that would replace traditional primaries in state and Congressional elections with, effectively, two rounds of voting. All candidates would run in the first round, and the top two vote-getters — regardless of party affiliation, or unaffiliation — would then face each other in the general election. Voters’ ultimate choice could be two Republicans or two Democrats, or two candidates with high name recognition, or deep pockets, or populist appeal.

Supporters, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, both Republicans, have been promoting the measure — Proposition 14 — as a kind of electoral panacea, saying it could encourage political moderates and increase turnout in primaries where hard-line candidates often win. And in a state saddled with a $19 billion deficit, high unemployment and low morale, the promise of new blood in Sacramento seems to be a potent one; the latest polls show the measure favored by a majority of voters, and support growing.

“I think people are disappointed in their government,” Mr. Maldonado said. “And that’s why they are supporting this.”

But political parties hate the idea.

“There is zero evidence to suggest the initiative would have the results its proponents claim,” said Ron Nehring, the chairman of the California Republican Party. “We firmly believe that initiative will limit choice.”

Proposition 14 has already performed a miracle, unifying the Democratic and Republican Parties in this polarized state capital. Both have joined a catch-all opposition that includes the state’s Green Party, its Libertarians, the American Independent Party, the socialist Peace and Freedom Party, members of the “birther” movement, and Cindy Sheehan, the liberal antiwar activist.

Small parties, in particular, are unhappy with the proposition, saying it would box them out of general elections, which they say would most likely be populated by better-known and better-financed candidates…

Inserted from <NY Times>

On the plus side, this could increase voter turnout.  In the minus side, it tends to marginalize the extremes of both left and right.  I think I’m against this, because I think anyone who can gather the necessary signatures has a right to be on the general ballot.  What do you think?

Corporations have no conscience and no soul, as this article clearly demonstrates.

This week, the House of Representatives is working on a package extending several popular tax breaks as well as important social safety net provisions like unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies for laid-off workers. The bill costs about $200 billion, but is partially offset by a few tax changes, including the closing of a loophole that allow corporations to claim U.S. tax credits on profits earned overseas. These unjustified tax breaks have been on the radar of Congress’ tax writers for the last few years, but so far they’ve remained in the tax code due to pressure from big corporations. This time, even though the bill also extends some of their favored provisions, like the Research and Development tax credit, the Big Business lobby is fighting to preserve its ability to exploit tax loopholes, at the expense of the benefits extension:

International Business Machines Corp. and trade groups for major U.S. companies are pressing Congress to defeat a jobs bill containing billions of dollars in taxes on their global operations…In a letter to lawmakers yesterday, Armonk, New York-based IBM, the world’s biggest computer-services provider, told lawmakers it “strongly opposes” the legislation and would rather do without the research credit than face new taxes on overseas profits.

The Chamber of Commerce has, of course, weighed in on behalf of the corporations, claiming that the legislation is a “job killer.”… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

If this provision were to kill any jobs at all, it seems to me that those jobs would be overseas, since corporations have been relocating whole divisions overseas to take advantage of this loophole.  The bottom line is maximizing profit.

Corporations are NOT people!  Money is NOT speech.

This is just a small part of a large article that each of you ought to read in its entirety, including the comments.  Many thanks to my friend Diane for the link.

The vast deepwater methane hydrate deposits of the Gulf of Mexico are an open secret in big energy circles. They represent the most tantalizing new frontier of unconventional energy – a potential source of hydrocarbon fuel thought to be twice as large as all the petroleum deposits ever known.

 

For the oil and gas industry, the substances are also known to be the primary hazard when drilling for deepwater oil.

 

Methane hydrates are volatile compounds – natural gas compressed into molecular cages of ice. They are stable in the extreme cold and crushing weight of deepwater, but are extremely dangerous when they build up inside the drill column of a well. If destabilized by heat or a decrease in pressure, methane hydrates can quickly expand to 164 times their volume.

 

Survivors of the BP rig explosion told interviewers that right before the April 20 blast, workers had decreased the pressure in the drill column and applied heat to set the cement seal around the wellhead. Then a quickly expanding bubble of methane gas shot up the drill column before exploding on the platform on the ocean’s surface.

 

Even a solid steel pipe has little chance against a 164-fold expansion of volume – something that would render a man six feet six inches tall suddenly the height of the Eiffel Tower.

 

Scientists are well aware of the awesome power of these strange hydrocarbons. A sudden large scale release of methane hydrates is believed to have caused a mass extinction 55 million years ago. Among planners concerned with mega-disasters, their sudden escape is considered to be a threat comparable to an asteroid strike or nuclear war. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a Livermore, California-based weapons design center, reports that when released on a large scale, methane hydrates can even cause tsunamis.

 

So it is not surprising to anyone who knows about the physics of these compounds that the Deepwater Horizon rig was lost like a waterfly crumpled by a force of nature scientists are still just getting to know… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Sott.net>

The article and its comments thoroughly document not only the the extreme risks involved with methane hydrates, but also, that the risks had to be well known in advance to BP.  They knew that the area in which they were drilling was rich in methane hydrates.  They knew the about the blowouts methane hydrates have caused in the past.  They knew that reducing pressure and increasing temperature are the two behaviors most likely to cause a blow out.  In spite of that, they opted to replace the heavy drilling fluid with sea water and heat it to quicken the setting time for the cement used to seal the drill head.  To completely understand the magnitude of their greed, please read the entire article.

They should never have been allowed to drill in such a high risk location, let alone do so without proper supervision.  We have GW “No Millionaire Left Behind” Bush, Dick ‘”Horney for Halliburton” Cheney, and the Republican Party to thank for that.