Maybe you don't give a damn, but you should

Colorado suffered the most destructive wildfire in state history

It’s hot! More than 1360 counties in 31 states have been declared natural disaster areas due to a drought the likes of which we haven’t seen since dust bowl days. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that 55 percent of the nation’s pasture and rangeland is in poor to very poor condition. Wildfires have plagued the nation the last two years. Last year it was drought-plagued Texas that suffered the worst of the fires. This year it’s Colorado, which suffered the most destructive wildfire in state history. Some holdouts on the global warming issue are beginning to wonder if climate scientists might actually have it right. There’s nothing like climate effects hitting close to home to change minds about global warming. But climate scientists will be the first to tell you that weather isn’t climate.

Weather is what we have today (did I say “hot!”). And what we had a few weeks ago, thunder storms, with an impressive display of lightening. Weather is the wind blowing our 8-iron shot in the canal on the Canyon Lakes golf course, and the overcast days we experienced early in the year here in the Mid-Columbia.

Climate is what weather does in a particular region over the long term, usually 25 to 30 years. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), when scientists talk about climate, they're looking at averages of precipitation, temperature, humidity, sunshine, wind velocity, fog, frost, hail storms, and other measures of the weather that occur over a long period in a particular place.

So do we really need to worry about all this hot weather this year? Well consider this:

• June 2012 was the fourth warmest June since records began in 1880
• The Northern Hemisphere land and ocean average surface temperature for June 2012 was the all-time warmest June on record
• The globally-averaged land surface temperature for June 2012 was also the all-time warmest June on record
• World-wide ocean surface temperature ranks as the 10th warmest on record
• Longer term, global surface temperatures have increased since the late 19th Century and the linear trend for the past 50 years is nearly twice that for the past 100 years

So the answer is, “Yes,” we have to worry, not because it’s hot this year, but because it keeps getting hotter year after year.

Now you might ask, “So what? Isn’t this a natural warming cycle, maybe caused by sun flares, or water vapor, or political Super PAC ads? Why should I worry. It’s not going to effect me, is it?”

Let me answer your question concisely: It’s not a normal warming cycle. It’s caused by human activities, including burning fossil fuels and forest destruction, and yeah, it’s going to effect you, but if you live here in the Mid-Columbia, it probably won’t effect you as much as it will people in say, Bangladesh, who you don’t give a damn about anyway, right? Right. It will almost certainly effect your grandchildren, but you don’t care enough about them to do anything about global warming either, right? Right.

Now here’s the kicker. If our climate reaches a “tipping point,” then all bets are off. The climate will destabilize; droughts will spread and persist, desertification will take place,  ice will melt, hurricanes will blow, wildfires will roar across the land, tornadoes will rip apart whole cities, oceans will rise and flood coastal cities, and, in short, all hell will break loose. At that point, global warming will effect you and you’ll complain, “Why wasn’t something done!”

"Is this scenario even possible?" you ask? Yeah, it is. I’ll explain in a future post.

Murdered by the NRA

Veronica Moser-Sullivan, 2006 - 2012

Christina Green, 2001 - 20111

Great Lakes Water Temperatures At Record Levels | Climate Central

“It’s pretty safe to say that what we’re seeing here is the warmest that we’ve seen in Lake Superior in a century,”Great Lakes Water Temperatures At Record Levels | Climate Central

Basil Cell Carcinoma Ruins My Movie Career

In July 2012, I was diagnosed with a "superficial" basil cell carcinoma on my right forehead.

A basal cell carcinoma is a form of skin cancer -- the most common form in the United States. It starts in the top layer of the skin (the epidermis). Most basal cell cancers occur on skin that is regularly exposed to sunlight or other ultraviolet radiation. This includes the top of your head, or scalp. Basal cell skin cancer is most common in people over age 40. However, it occurs in younger people, too, especially in people who insist on year around tanning, for instance those using tanning studios.

You are more likely to get basal cell skin cancer if you have:

• Light-colored or freckled skin
• Blue, green, or grey eyes
• Blond or red hair
• Many moles
• Close relatives who have or had skin cancer
• Many severe sunburns early in life
• Long-term daily sun exposure ( such as building in the building trades receive)

I am Italian-American, have a relatively dark complexion, brown eyes, few moles, and no freckles. I love the sun. I didn't wear sun block as a kid growing up in Southern California. I started wearing sun block later in life, but not religiously.

That's me in the photo below.

If you look carefully, you can just make out the small
circular spot on my forehead above the right eye. The
picture was taken 6 weeks before surgery.

I had Moh's surgery on July 25, 2012. Eleven stitches were required to close.

Blood draining from the wound 2 days later pooling in eyelids.
Why didn't I use sun block? Just stupid, I guess.

Blood pooling in eye lids worse 48 hours after surgery.
Taking 500 mg Tylenol every 6 hours for pain.

Wound 72 hours after surgery. Blood still showing in lids and under eyes.
Pain has abated to the point I no longer require medication.

Scar, stitches removed, 14 days after surgery.

The Difference Between Automatic and Semi-Automatice Rifles

Gun rights advocates argue that legal "automatic weapons," such as the AR-15 used by the shooter in the Aurora, Colorado theater are not automatic (which are illegal), but semi-automatic, meaning that they require a trigger squeeze to fire each shot. Even at that, a practiced shooter can probably squeeze off 45-60 rounds per minute (rpm). However, "bump firing" a semi-automatic rifle emulates automatic firing (although with significant loss of accuracy), and an after market manufacturer offers a special stock that essentially turns a semi-automatic rifle into an automatic with a firing rate of up to 800 rpm. Take a look.  

Aurora, Colorado Changes No One's Mind

"No one cared who I was until I put on the mask"  (Bane, in The Dark Knight Rises)

For two evenings in late June of this year I participated in a forum hosted by our local paper, the Tri-City Herald. Termed a "Community Conversation," the focus was on the Second Amendment and Gun Control. About a dozen people showed up for the facilitated discussion. My impression was that participants were evenly split between strong gun rights advocates, and proponents of greater gun control. I am a member of the latter group.

After the event, I was asked, along with others, to contribute an article describing my impressions of the conversation. I was just sitting down to do this when I heard the news of the shooting in a multiplex theater in Aurora, Colorado. My feelings on hearing of yet another case of senseless gun violence were a mix of shock, sadness, and anger. I had to step away from my keyboard to give myself time to decide how what happened in Aurora, would color what I was about to write.

I decided that rather than write about my own feelings, I would asked myself what the twelve people in that June “Community Conversation” would have to say if faced with one of the worst mass shootings in US history. Based on what I heard last June, here is what I think.

Gun control proponents would call for stronger restrictions on gun ownership, including re-instituting the 1994 ban on assault weapons (which expired in 2004). They would call for closing the loopholes on gun show sales, and on private sales. And they would want  restrictions on where guns could be carried.

Gun rights advocates would argue that there are already enough regulations. One participant in the June discussions stated angrily that there were already over 20,000 U.S. gun laws. According to a study published by the Brookings Institute, the 20,000 figure is a fiction popularized by the NRA, but in any case, gun control proponents would say that the sheer number of laws (probably around 300 major state and federal laws) tells us nothing about their stringency, breadth, or effectiveness.

I would hope that face-to-face with a parent or loved one of a victim of the Colorado shooting, one of our gun rights advocates wouldn’t parrot the NRA’s palliative, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” But as pointless as that phrase is, that’s what they stand by. Gun control proponents would argue that it begs the question of what guns the public should be permitted and what measures are necessary to ensure that the guns they are permitted don’t get in the wrong hands.

But the gun rights advocates in our conversation last June would bristle at the very thought of being “permitted” to own guns. They firmly believe that, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed,” and encouraged by recent Supreme Court Rulings, they see very little if anything they’ll accept as limiting that right.

Gun control proponents would argue that at the very least, private citizens should not own assault weapons; they are considered impractical for hunting (especially the .223 AR-15 used by the Colorado shooter), and are lethal in the hands of a deranged killer. This is where gun control proponents miss the point.

Gun rights advocates see themselves as the “well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.” They are extraordinarily protective of their rights, and they are convinced that given the chance, our government would rescind those rights and confiscate their guns (if you doubt this, do an Internet search using the terms, “gun,” and “confiscation”). Some members of the gun community are of the opinion that the time for taking up arms against this "overreaching" government might be approaching.

Gun control proponents have difficulty imagining the violent overthrow of a freely elected American government, but until they come to grips with what they see as the paranoia of gun rights extremists on this issue, they will always and forever fail to convince the gun community of the need to limit arms sales. 

Finally, gun rights advocates believe that self defense is a “God given right,” and reject the notion of gun control proponents that “stand your ground laws” are an unnecessary and dangerous extension of that right. Faced with the Colorado massacre, they would have argued that if some theater patrons had been armed, they might have shot the gunman and saved lives.

The thought of this firefight in the darkened confines of that crowded, smoke-filled theater, against a heavily armed gunman wearing body armor and a ballistic helmet, would boggle the mind of most thoughtful people. But the gun rights blogosphere is full of articles, posts, and discussion forums promoting this very thing, right down to the type of weapons participants in the discussions own and would have been carrying.

In the final analysis, it is my belief that had the Colorado shooting occurred before we had our "community conversation," the same opinions and beliefs would have been voiced -- no one's mind would have been changed.

In my own opinion, with respect to the Colorado killings, both sides of the issue are wrong. Stricter gun laws would not have stopped James Holmes. He would have found some way, somewhere, to act out whatever crazed notion he had of revenge, renunciation, death, or redemption.

But gun rights advocates are wrong to use that as an excuse not to accept reasonable safeguards on the ownership and use of guns. To argue that because you can't stop the determined, suicidal individual from killing with a gun, you shouldn't do everything possible to prevent the spread of the most lethal of those guns in our society, is worse than pigheaded, it's criminal.

Finally, the vigilante ethos of a large segment of the gun community is one that any law-abiding person, especially anyone who argues we are "a Christian nation," must reject.

Batman, "No guns, no killing" 

Catwoman, "Where's the fun in that?"

(The Dark Knight Rises)

The Probable Impact of Republican Rule in 2013

Mitt Romney has switched gears (something he does regularly) since he debated contenders for the Republican nomination in what may seem for some ages and ages ago. But if you have tracked on Republican rhetoric over time, you know what they really stand for. If you're okay with the Republican agenda, and you think Romney would make a good president, then okay, no problem. But I'd urge anyone with an open mind to consider how things will go down with a Republican president and the Congress split, or for better or worse, depending on your point of view, if Republicans control both the House and the Senate.

On the economy, Republicans have been vocal about what they'd do:

• Make the Bush tax cuts permanent
• Cut corporate taxes
• Eliminate capital gains taxes
• Cut taxes on dividends
• Eliminate estate taxes

The negative impact on revenues will then give Republicans the excuse they need to drastically reduce the size of government, by eliminating, combining, and/or cutting back government agencies, including (of the ones they remember) the:

• Department of Education
• Department of Energy
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Department of Commerce.

Republicans have called Social Security a "giant ponzi scheme," and although their rhetoric has moderated as the election year advances, there's no question that they would overhaul the program given the chance. Their favorite fix was "privatizing" social security, by diverting funds to allow individuals to have tax deferred private savings accounts. Republicans were not as vocal about that idea after the stock market crashed, savaging people's IRAs, 401Ks and other retirement accounts.

Republicans have proposed turning Medicare into a voucher program, which would slash benefits and result in increasing costs borne by seniors. Presumptive presidential candidate Mitt Romney has specially endorsed such a plan. It does nothing to control health care costs, thus more and more of the costs of health care will be the sole responsibility of seniors.

Republicans stance on women's rights are well known. America under Republican rule would see women's access to safe abortions greatly restricted, if not eliminated. Roe vs. Wade could well be overturned. The idea of women being required to undergo intrusive ultrasound tests before undergoing an abortion would likely become widespread.

Republicans will also cut "burdensome" regulations, or cut the funding of agencies which enforce them. They will:

• Repeal the newly established Dodd-Frank regulations on financial institutions (in the meantime, House Republicans are attempting to cut funding for the agencies charged with implementing the new regulations)
• Repeal and/or reformulate environmental regulations, such as the:
• Endangered Species Act
• Clean Air Act
• Clean Water Act
• Remove "burdensome" regulations on "fracking," and other non-conventional gas production techniques

Republicans have made it clear that if they are in control, they will go full speed ahead on opening new areas for oil and gas drilling, including in the Gulf (site of the recent BP disaster), in Alaska, and on the continental shelf.

Republicans will eliminate the funding for:

• Planned Parenthood
• Public Broadcasting
• National Public Radio
• National Endowment for the Arts

A current House Republican bill would cut funding for implementation of provisions of Affordable Care Act (ACA) that are to go into effect this year. If Republicans control both houses of Congress in 2013, they will repeal ACA, as they have promised.

Republicans have been outspoken on their opposition to same-sex marriage and a constitutional amendment prohibiting even civil unions may well come about under Republican rule.

Gun control will be forgotten under Republicans. In fact, the spread of laws, such as Florida's "stand your ground" law can be anticipated, creating a nightmare of further Trayvon Martin type shootings and difficult to impossible prosecution of offenders.

Republicans may well have the opportunity to further seed the US Supreme Court with conservative justices. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer, both liberals, are in their seventies and would likely retire in the next president's term. A 7 to 2 conservative majority in the SCOTUS is a virtual certainty in a Republican presidency and congress.

If Republicans control Congress, they are very likely to eliminate/modify the filibuster rule to prevent Democrats from obstructing Republicans the way Republicans have obstructed Democrats. The on-going debate between Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell demonstrates the probability of the so-called "nuclear option" being employed by a Republican-controlled Senate.

There is also the question of what Republicans will NOT do. We'll cover that in a future post. Think climate change, campaign finance reform, and reform of Wall Street.