Issue 732 Cost of food December 10, 2015

Getting away from government and raising some awareness today.  In this case, some info on why food costs can be so high.

Cost of food:  Did you know (this info all come from National Geographic FYI) that in 2010 21% of food at the consumer level went uneaten according to the USDA.  This un-eaten food includes all edible foods, post-harvest, that is available for human consumption, but for whatever reason is not consumed.  So this un-eaten food is the rejected food at harvest because it is deemed ugly, or defective in some way, half eaten pasta at restaurants and even spoiled food like sour milk.  It is kind of wasteful if you consider it.  In fact it is very wasteful according to the numbers.  About 25% of fresh water is used on agriculture, water that we could be drinking.  Over 300 million barrels of oil is lost due to this waste.  It is 2.5% of the energy production in the U.S. that could have been used elsewhere.  Total costs financially is $115 million.  That is a lot of waste and that hurts us and the nation's economy here in the U.S.  But what can we do about it?  Simple, take home and eat your leftovers.  Learn ways to use every part of a butchered animal, fruit or vegetable.  Be able to take leftovers say from turkey dinner and be able to turn them into something else edible so it does not go to waste.  Even learning to turn sour milk into yogurt may help.  Buying produce that looks like some twisted alien will help as well as much of those ugly foods are simply thrown out.  This means less waste as a whole.  

Conclusion:  Food waste could possibly become a bigger and bigger issue.  That fresh water could potentially become very expensive with the fear of a coming food crisis (hence why people advocate eating bugs and the introduction of other exotic foods into the world's diet).  Oil we already know has issues with price and scarcity and wasting money on anything (non-essentials and things that do not make a person's quality of life improve) is a loser's way to poverty if left unchecked.  So maybe it is time we start looking at what we eat and how we eat differently.  Maybe we can "change the world" (sorry could not help myself with that old cliché).

Issue 731 Fixing Democracy 8 December 9, 2015

In the final edition of the fixing Democracy series (took me long enough) we discuss the final components of fixing our democracy and getting the corruption out.  So let us begin.

Property and Money:  The two final things that form the core of corruption is property and money.  In this case the government being able to take a person's land from them and using it for themselves or (unconstitutionally) giving said property to someone else, and money changing hands to supply subsidies to businesses.  In the case of property as per Amendment five of the United States Constitution, the line "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." has been perverted.  For one, everything as a whole in that amendment stipulates that if land is to be taken it must be agreed to by the owner.  However, not only has the government ignored the wills of the owners to take property away, they have even gone beyond public use of that land and given it to private businesses or entities because the government feels that they can make better use of the land over the original owners.  It is for this corrupt reasoning that Thomas Jefferson did not want this as part of the Fifth Amendment.  He knew this corruption and deals (with stadium owners, land developers, etc.) would happen that would take the rights of people away.  As such, the takings clause "only" should be removed from the Fifth Amendment to stop such acts.

As to money (although property had a little to do with money as well), let us take it out of politics.  We all agree on that right?   Well, this means we have to eliminate the patronage of businesses, charities and other organizations outside of foreign and domestic governments.  What does this mean?  It means that only foreign (and domestic) governments would be able to receive money from the federal government and by de facto organizations representing them.  This means no more subsidies to oil companies, or ethanol companies.  No money would go to Planned Parenthood or to charities.  Literally, every organization, businesses, advocacy groups, charities, support groups, you name it, will not be able to legally receive a single penny from the federal government.  As such, lobbyists will have no incentives to lobby as the politicians can no longer line their bosses pockets.  This also means less big money going into elections as well save when a business or group finds that the candidates’ views align with theirs as opposed to the status quo of I help you get in, you owe me attitude.  So we will be taking a whole additional chunk of corruption out of politics by doing this.   All it takes however is a constitutional amendment.

Conclusion:  So both these solutions solve problems.  The bigger problem is getting people's support to get them to be constitutional amendments.  Why do we need people to like these two ideas?  That is because our milk is subsidized, our poor are given money by the federal government, and powerful people with lots of money have a larger amount of influence and access to our politicians.  Sucks doesn't it.  But that has not stopped people before and if we are prepared to practice what we preach, then be prepared for prices to go up in some places and perhaps down in others.  We can get the corruption out, but it takes time, patience and a little sacrifice.

Issue 730 Fixing Democracy 7 December 8, 2015

Now that I am back (somewhat) I can finish off the last two in the series of fixing democracy.  So let us continue.

Appointing Judges and Term Limits:  At current Supreme Court Judges are appointed by the President and ratified by the Senate.  This was meant to be a check on the system as the Senate represented the State Governments and not the people directly.  So it prevented the President from stacking the court in their favor with respect to issues of State sovereignty and people’s rights.  But now it is all about party politics.  Presidents use "litmus tests" to determine the most appointable judge that best represents their ideological viewpoints.   Kind of degrading to the nation isn't it?  As our supreme court is degraded into a tool of the Party Politics system.  So what can be done about this?  Simple, change the rules.

To eliminate this corruption via the political machine, you first have to eliminate the traditional method of appointing judges.  So rather than a president appointing them, they will be chosen via the same method one would choose a member of a jury.  In this case, standards would be set demanding that any judge who may serve must be a practicing lawyer, or judge with at least one year of service.  This eliminates people who have law degrees but have never been inside a courtroom (Justice Kagan being a prime example of a person who never saw time in court, but was appointed anyway).  So with that limitation we make sure people who actually know law and understand how it is implemented are the ones serving.  At this point the currently serving judges would look at the potential candidates and give their top 20 list from which the Senate would pick and ratify a number equal to the number of open positions on the Supreme Court.  If none of the candidates in the list make the cut, then the Supreme Court would provide another list eliminating the bottom candidates and adding new ones.  This process (like the current one) would continue until both sides are satisfied.  

Now, we do not want justices serving perpetually, and thus they will be limited to a maximum of three six year terms with a max total of 18 Judges.  As such, 1/3 of the judges will be changed or reappointed every two years.  This insures that potentially bad judges do not stay in office for an extended period of time (current judges serve as long as they please as they have no limits on the number of years served).  Additionally the number of judges needed to sit on any given case will be a minimum of three and a maximum of nine but the number must always be an odd number. This allows the judges to see multiple cases at once, but if a case should return to the Supreme Court for any reason, the judges from the previous case will not be allowed to sit on that case.  This prevents conflicts of interest. As such with this in place we eliminate judges not wanting to retire due to political reasons like ideology.

Conclusion:  By limiting the Court to choosing its own replacements with select criteria, we eliminate some of the party politics (partly because the lawyers and judges have a mindset that things can only be done within the law).  If combined with Issue 729's set criteria on reviewing a case, then we may have a judiciary that would never allow for something like Obama Care, or Kilo Versus New London ever again.

Remembering Pearl Harbor December 7, 2015

Not many people save history buffs will remember Pearl Harbor day.  It happened December 7th 1941 when the Japanese launched a surprise attack and was the catalyst that finally brought the United States into the war, World War II.  It is not like we were not already involved in the fighting beforehand.  The United States was already sending arms to the British and other forces fighting the Germans and the Japanese.  We lost territory to the Japanese in the Philippines, and our allies did too. But still, we stayed out of direct involvement due to President Roosevelt trying to avoid fighting until America was ready (contrary to his promise to keep us out of war).   As to whether we allowed the attacks to go through to galvanize the public, that is still and probably will remain speculation for who could believe that the government would purposefully allow an attack on U.S. territory (though today's politicians potentially may allow something like that).  So on this day, despite it potentially being an avoidable occurrence we remember Pearl Harbor day and the lives lost that would spur the American Giant to war.

Taking a week off.

Stupidly....I injured my back and cannot sit for very long to type.  In fact I herniated a disk moving furniture for some family, and needless to say, this type of injury really sucks (avoid it if you can).  Hopefully I'll be able to write soon, otherwise I will post what I manage to type when and where I can.   Hope to be back to normal soon.  See you hopefully in a week with the usual five posts a week.

Black Friday

Post Thanksgiving post!  Hope you all enjoyed your time with family and friends, but there is no reason to stop the festivities the day after.  Yea, it may be black friday, but I am not going shopping, I am going to spend some more time with family and friends.  Hard to believe a day that once represented the stock market crash now represents sales and people losing their mind about buying stuff (I'll stick to buying from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Think Geek).  So stay home and be with your family some more.  Enjoy your long weekend and see you next week where we pick up where we left off on The Jormungand.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  

I'm taking a break from the usual to say how glad and thankful I am to have you all as readers.  Without you all reading then I would not have the courage (or stamina) to write as much as I do.  

With the world in turmoil and opinions a dime a dozen, thank you for being there to listen to mine.  I hope you all have a happy and healthy Thanksgiving.