We've Lost

I am so fracking angry with Congress it is hard to put together a simple declarative sentence. Both houses demonstrated that while they pay lip-service to representing the voter, they are in fact spending their time sucking in their corporate masters’ groins, passing legislation that puts the entire banking system at risk, millions of pensioner into potential poverty, and allowing future elections to be bought by the highest bidder.

We have lost. There is no reason to have civics classes in high schools, not that most paid any attention to them anyway. In the future, there will be no need for science or math classes judging by the efforts to dumb us all down to a low common denominator. We won’t even know what means soon!

We have lost due to the news media worry more about Milllie Cyrus or Dustin Beber and our iPods and Android phones. So what if we raise global temperatures until the crops fail and the diseases emerge. At least the world population will get down to a sustainable level through famine and plagues and wars for food and water. It could well be that six out of every eight people on earth will die if we don’t pay attention and get to work doing what needs to be done.

It is getting late in the game. There is a lot to do. But our “leaders” (sic) are absent because they are so intent sucking those corporate master groins. And most of us are too hypnotized by our toys and getting every buck we can to do anything about the disaster ahead. 

The Big Jump

I am making the Big Jump! After 28 years of working on DOS and Windows based computers I am going to a Mac. I resisted the move for a long time. I mean I go back to DOS and Windows 1.0.  When I got my second computer, it had double floppy drives: a Leading Edge, Model D. That first word processor was a revelation after 30 years of banging on a Royal Standard. I wanted to write but a typewriter was not easy and my handwriting could be considered encryption.

I put up with Microsoft’s efforts for world domination. After ten years of being a WordPerfect guy, I was forced to jump to MS  Word and the rest of the Office suite. It seemed to be an effort to keep up, however. Menus would suddenly change between editions that came out every year or so. I always felt that WordPerfect was the better system but was beaten down by better marketing and deals.

What I found particularly annoying, however, was the efforts of bad guys to destroy my and others’ computers with viruses, malware, and hacks. These are attacks on personal property. Turns out that there is a serious lack of proper socialization in Cyber World. That and the fact that Microsoft put so much effort at bringing out products that would force one to replace their computers if one wanted to upgrade. 

I mean, it took me a long time to get to XP, then to Vista. They worked very well and were efficient.  They did what I needed for them to do. Yes, there were holes in the security and biggie at first. But I began to feel that I was being pressured to get rid of systems that worked well for something that was not really an improvement. Microsoft demonstrated they were working hard for Planned Obsolesce. 

I suppose that is to be expected.  Evolve or die. Make is shiner, prettier, more novel. Work hard to get the customer to dump their old machines.

From what I can see, Apple does it a bit differently. I have worked on 10 year old machines that update to the newest operating system without pain and suffering. I don’t like dropping a grand on a computer to have it become obsolete in a couple of years. It is clear these days that we are going to have to get away from our throwaway society. And it appears to me that Apple has started to embrace that change in philosophy.

Now, I am going through the pain of learning the bag of tricks that are Mac. To my surprise, it isn’t quite as bad as I thought. It is dizzyingly easier than I expected.

Maybe I won’t have to buy that subscription to Office 365 for Mac after all!

Weather, Melodies, Chords, and Climate Change

Here is an analogy that may help explain the difference between a weather event and climate change.

As so often noted by the Weather Service, a single weather event does not prove or disprove climate change and global warming. Nor can a single event be blamed on climate change. A single cold snap, heat wave, tornado, hurricane, drought or flooding rains cannot be use and definitive proof.

Why?

Perhaps looking at music and the difference between melody and chords can explain.

Music is made up of two main structures: melody and chords. Melodies are made up of a sequence of individual notes. Chords are made of notes played at the same time. If you listen to a song closely you discover that while there is melody, it exists in association with chords that provide the harmony. If the note is outside of the makeup of the chord, is will sound odd and dissonant. Usually what happens when the note is played, the accompanying chord changes to become one that includes that note.  It doesn’t sound weird.

One cannot identify a melody by a single note; one also cannot say to which chord the note belongs. One has to listen to the melody to understand the chord structure of that melody and how on note fits into that structure.

Climate is analogous to chord structure. One weather event is not sufficient to identify what is happening climatically. A long series of weather events make up the weather “chord.” If that chord has been getting warmer over the last century, and increasing in warmth recently, it should tell us something is indeed changing.

What we are faced with because of human behavior and hubris is a rapidly warming world. In the case of the Pacific Northwest, we will lose the snowpack we need for agriculture, fisheries, and drinking water. The increased warmth will probably change the type of forests we use, making them more susceptible to warm weather diseases and infestations. There will be crop failures when our soon to be inadequate crops lack the rain and temperature conditions they need to grow successfully.

Climate change is not a joke. It is going to bring about radical social and lifestyle changes. By looking at what is probably going to happen now, we can choose what kind of societies we want to be a part of, what we want to save, and what can be dropped in the name of efficiency, health, and security.

Yes, from what I have been reading, it is going to be that bad.

Health Care Gouging

     I am one of the 20% of individuals who cannot tolerate Statins. I have tried over a half dozen including CoQ10 and Red Rise Yeast. I have had to give them all up because of the physical chaos they cause me.

     Physicians at several universities know about this fairly common intolerance. When they got wind that Costco’s pharmacy was going to stop selling Niacin, a natural substitute treatment, they wrote Costco stating that it would be a serious incontinence to do so to a large portion of the public.  Costco responded by keeping in stock 1,000 count bottles of 500mg tablets. These were sold at about $24 a bottle.

     No more. Costco has stopped stocking this Niacin. It is introducing a slow release variety called SLO NIACIN. It comes in 500mg pills, but only 175 pills per bottle. And a bottle will cost just below $15 each.

     To get the same number of pills now will cost over $85. That is a price increase of over 250%!

     And we wonder why health care in general is rapidly increasing in price. It is this greedy gouging customers that is morally questionable. I am surprised that a company with Costco’s reputation for value and fair treatment would stoop to such a thing.

     And is this form of Niacin as effective as pure Niacin with the baby aspirin to take care of the flush?