BBC Says in later August 2022

BBC says in later August 2022

I had stopped copying my online screeds until later August. The first is the most fun. I’ll just drop them in here in chronological order for your perusal on topics from drugs to politics to the 2nd Amendment to appropriate technologies to human nature to Ukraine to Gorbachev.

8-21-22 to NYT on cannabis drinks

I’ve enjoyed smoking cannabis since 1970 and have recommended its legalization from the pulpit. However, there is a difference between smoking in eating it.

I once tried to smoke as much as possible to see what happened. I had three pipes full of Panama Red and Blonde Lebanese hash each in a row. My eyes got watery and I threw up. The high was only so-so. Now that pot is more potent, only a few tokes of my backyard-grown pot (I live in Oregon where anyone can grow four plants) work fine. Safe. Pleasant.

Not so for edibles, like at Wally’s 50th birthday party where someone brought pot-butter brownies. One brownie had four times a strong dose. One was too strong. I had two. People were scared, sick, throwing up, and wobbling about. It was a classic disaster. Edibles can cause trouble. I don’t like or trust them as much as smoking.

Ingesting cannabis doesn’t work if it hasn’t been heated to activate the THC. The article mentions nanoemulsion technology for these infused drinks, so I assume they somehow work. But ignorance of dosages in these early days could lead to the dangers cited in Dani Blum’s report and this forum calls for a cultural learning curve to have safe fun.

Cultures that are familiar with their drugs tend to use them in a mild form. Coco leaves are chewed. Poppies make for a soothing tea. Seeking super strong doses leads to injecting cocaine and heroin and problem addictions like fentanyl. Moderate use of these drinks could be OK.

Same day to Cleantechnica on Joe Manchin’s barely letting Biden’s IRA pass:

Manchin gets the notice, while all Republicans deserve the scorn.

Democrats need to promote their brand – starting with FDR. Compare what each party has done since. When Americans realize they’ve been trickled down upon for decades, that we’re all poor and stressed, perhaps the conservative talking points will ring hollow. Coupled to the declaring corporations to be “persons” who have the “right” to hide the secret money they throw into our elections by a stacked Supreme Court that also denies women the right to their own bodies, perhaps Americans will wise up in ’22 and ’24.

Americans whine about taxes, ignoring all the other drains on their money, from health care, internet costs, etc. When gas prices were rising, the blame went wrongly to Biden, ignoring the record profits the fossil fuel companies took in, funding their “contributions” to Manchin and many others.

The Biden/Manchin IRA is a good win, but a meager one compared with how quickly we need to rescue our society and planet.

8-23-22 to Kinzinger tweet on a Republican saying they have only revenge and anger:

You and Liz run as Independents and draw off the many decent Republicans (I assume there are more than have been visible, so far) who don’t want Trump. You won’t win except by helping him to lose. You’re already a patriot, and if you did that, you’d also be historically heroic

8-24-22 to Cleantechnica article on Fetterman going after ff price-gouging companies. 

Electricity Electricity commented that using an RV allows us to drive past the gas stations funding Texas, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.  I replied:

I estimate using my electric bike for around-town travel the last two years saved me $2000. None of that went to Texas, Russia, or Saudi Arabia, and most of it was spent elsewise around town.

Keeping the money we formerly spent for fossil fuels IN our towns, is a bigger benefit than has been noticed. There are probably 100 electric bikes around town. If they each saved $1000 a year that’d be $100,000. Now count in all the PHEVs and BEVs and the savings TO OUR TOWN are substantial, beneficial, and growing.

Local production and ownership of clean renewable energy and energy-efficient cars, trucks, and houses is a long-term boon to our towns even as it pulls money away from those wrecking our planet’s formerly reliable weather while funding wars to keep that slow suicide going.

Same day and article, responding to John, who encouraged big oil to gouge so we’d see how greedy they are, and he advocated the elimination of their subsidies:

They did gouge frequently, excessively, and without shame, gathering some $100 billion this year, yet somehow Brandon blamed Biden and got away with it!

Besides the 15% tax on large corporations’ profits and the entirely appropriate elimination of the ff subsidies, I’m for a $1 a gallon tax on gas and diesel directed mostly at remediation of global warming aggravated disasters, the rapid building of clean energy-producing and efficient machines, the revival of our soils and oceans, and so-forth – befitting this humanity-wide historical predicament we’ve blundered and burned our way into.

Perhaps some should then be returned to those truly needing transport while unable to afford it, but I still see such people and the apparently wealthy sitting in their cars, the engines running, avoiding the nice weather outside. We all need to pay for the trouble we’re helping to create. We all need to transition to cleaner, healthier, happier ways of living.

Some are, which is encouraging and promising, but more need to understand and cooperate with our mutual responsibility and rescue.

Same day, reply to a Caitlin Johnstone tweet bemoaning a wider Ukrainian war:

I grieve for the Ukrainians and the Russians caught in their hapless soldier roles. I worry that the suspicious geo-positioning against paranoid Russia could lead to even worse atrocities and waste. The billions for more weapons assure more profits and more weapons. All lose.

8-25-22 to Jeremy Lent video on “What could go Right?”

Neoliberalism is an Orwellian double-think word designed to confuse the issue. There is nothing liberal about rapacious capitalism. Look up the meaning of liberal in any dictionary – open-minded, abundant, etc. Liberal people have been derided for generations. Liberal people don’t like neoliberalism.

8-27-22 to Cleantechnica article on cognitive dissonance of environmental scientists:

It seems conservative politics and religion are based in a dismal view of humans, that we’re all inherently wicked or at least selfish. But as the French experiment mentioned here showed, most people are not selfish individualists but pragmatic collectivists able to look to the long-term future of mutual betterment.

That’s how we really are. If only our religions and politicians would also promote it, perhaps we could successfully pursue practical visions of universal betterment.

Adam Smith didn’t just say ‘be selfish and the invisible hand of the free market will work it out,’ he advised we pursue our private good with a mind to the general and long-term good.

It was ironic that the proponent of “life-boat ethics,” Garret Hardin, was himself in a wheelchair, hardly the sort to be hauled into a crowed lifeboat. His sort of selfishness would let him drown; old time Christians and new time socialists would at least try to get him on board.

We need to get past cynical slow-motion suicide and toying with a civil war. We need heartful visionaries and pragmatic innovators. As we have the will, we will find the ways.

8-28-22 to Cleantechnica article on high-tech gun safety attempts, responding to this forum post:

farticustheelder wrote: 

I am neither pro nor anti gun. But I am a rationalist. I would outlaw anything except for single shot long guns, bolt action preferably, and existing shot guns, of the two shot variety.

People that want better weapons are advised to join the military or police.

Making weapons smarter (and harder for criminals to use) is a good idea. Cops that can tell where a bullet is going to hit are unlikely to ‘accidentally kill’ innocent bystanders. Cops that are up against single shot weapons are unlikely to empty their clips into suspects, not to mention it is hard to confuse a cell phone for a 3 foot long rifle.

My response:

I tend to agree with you, Farticus. The Second Amendment isn’t intended to let anyone brandish any sort of gun anywhere no matter their intent. Wearing guns and spouting “stand your ground” leads to increased anxiety, mishaps, and worse. We should be using the Second Amendment to massively regulate guns, as in what the 2^nd Amendment actually says: “well regulated.”

Home protection with formidable weapons like shotguns makes sense but sending mean-eyed zealots out in public with machine guns and sniper rifles to inflict their “patriotism” on a formerly innocent and safe society invites bloody mayhem.

Your point about police emptying their clips is important. Must such encounters be so murderous? Whatever became of de-escalating, warnings, tazers, instant blackout chemicals, or shooting a dangerous person in the leg? Whatever became of Andy of Mayberry, Barney Miller, or Sheriff Longmire types? When a cop shot a man 17 times, what if the first 16 shots hadn’t killed him? Is he still “fearing for his life,” justifying the 17th shot?

Same day, reply to an Adam Kinzinger tweet reply to someone who accused him of being a Democrat:

I was proud of you today on Meet the Press! You’re a conservative Republican (which dismays me, but that’s my gripe) yet inherit nothing but guff and insults from Republicans. You’re not the RINO, they all are. You and Liz will be the pivot of a renewed “party of Lincoln.”

8-29-22 reply to a Katharine Hayhoe tweet on California’s covering irrigation canals with solar:

Yet another good idea among the many needed to rescue our water and weather from foolish waste. I so appreciate Katharine and all those who put their expertise to mutual benefit despite the slight stings of silly snark from the stubbornly and willfully ignorant.

8-30-22 reply to Peter Diamandis (X Prize, Abundance 360) newsletter buy-in query on why I joined:

I’ve followed you since your free book.  Like the X Prize method of eliciting innovative ideas.  Don’t like the restrictive fees for 360.  Like the “can do” attitude you promote.  Like learning what new tech is coming that might help.  Don’t like the estrangement from and manipulation of Nature with high-tech money-making machines and schemes.  

Like that you want to be a Mentor; leery of that being an elaborate scam; mostly trusting your intent.  

8-30-22 Reply to a Bill Bucolo tweet on Gorbachev’s passing:

Gorbachev’s brave wisdom not only went unrewarded in the USA, but the USA’s fascist mob mind also took advantage of Russia, leading not only to Putin’s resentment but his oligarchy. Is Putin even a socialist? The Right-wing shrieks about the “radical left.” What radical left?

Same day reply to an Adam Kinzinger tweet:

The Republicans hate you and you’re not a Democrat, so you and Liz run as Independents, drawing many votes away from the Magots and their deluded mad master. Besides Red and Blue, there’s White. Claim it.