The Brighton Sage

To make demand lists or not

2011-10-29T13:16:00.000-07:00

The amorphous mass of the Occupy Wall Street is discussing and debating many things but one of the hottest topics is whether the group(s) should draft and adopt a list of "Demands" I think what is being arguing about is explicit demands versus implicit demands.Those who recognize that a movement could have legitimate demands can look, will look, and are looking for them. And, no surprise, they find them. They have no doubt heard people related to the movement, whether on the ground or in media space, mentioning their PERSONAL grievances, and the select from this menu the one's that resonate with them, also personally, and ascribe to them a level of universality that supports their priorities. They ignore those that are not high on their list, while not rejecting their validity for others. This results in an umbrella of "inclusiveness" welcoming in virtually anyone who can identify with any of the unofficial gripes. It grows support.When demands become "official" that is sanctioned by a subset of the members of the movement some of every members list are excluded. The good ones are made explicit and receive narrowed focus, by our critics. If they can't agree with all or if they can puck one or two that they can challenge, They feel comfortable rejecting the whole package,not only the rest of the explicit gripes, but the implicit ones which may be just as legitimate but were left off of the list.Some of our supporters react to the absence of gripes high on their personal lists being left of the official list with reduced enthusiasm, more susceptibility the arguments challenging gripe that weren't on their list (or were lower on it). The result is abandonment of the movement by some, less enthusiastic support by others.This isn't what we want.With respect, and I don't know your motives, but some want to create the list to begin the verbal conflict. They want to win the debate. That would be satisfying to some degree, if this was a formal debate with judges of who wins.I don't think that is what winning looks like, for us.Patterson points out that the issues are obvious to any observer who has any interest in seeing them. And we see plenty of evidence that this is happening. He also points out that for the insiders who are firmly wedded to a game that is rigged for their benefit are no going to see anything, no matter how effectively you make your argument. The key is in the numbers (1%, 99%). While they are not precise, they show just how little our success is dependent on convincing of them that our complaints are valid.If we are the 99%, all we have to do is convince ourselves .It is still a representative democracy. The 1% doesn't have actually control. They have an excessive amount of influence due to their ability to throw their message at us. But, if we don't continue to be influenced by them though the media (and their implicit threats to our well being carried out by other members of the 99% acting on their behalf) to the point of acting against our own interests, we will have won.Convincing our jailers that they are also in chains is our mission. Expanding the definition of chains to include theirs is the tactic that will win. It is not narrowing the definition to keep them bonded to the 1%. The privacy of the voting booth is their sanctuary from those who pay them to oppress ALL of us. What is amazing is that they haven't accepted that they are us, and not the 1%. That is their own nakedness that they still can't see it.When we, or more precisely, the 50%, 60%, 70%, or 90% realize that we are in the drivers seat, that is where the real difficulty lies because the contest to institutionalize a new set of privileges for a new 1% will begin before the even smoke clears.I didn't mean to give such a complex answer to something so simple.

Answers to Salon's questions

2011-10-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

Since you asked, I will try my best to answer the questions that Salon asked:Can public and media interest be sustained?The simple answer is "yes." As Clayton Patterson says the medium is the message. Translated: The Protest is the message. The energy for the protest is the mass of people who perceive that the game is rigged and they can't win. As long as the myriad ways that it is rigged persist, they drive the movement. When the process is fixed the energy will be gone. It isn't a fad. It is pain. We don't get used to chronic pain. If you have arthritis pain you don't just get tired of it and it will go away. A stone in your shoe is always there until it is removed. The media follows the public. Did the public get tired of a missing child because there were 10, or 50, or 500 of them? Is that why we NEVER see a lost child story anymore? Is there no appetite for injustice stories? A theme has been established, we are all interested because it is our story. All of our stories. Ignore us at your peril.Can the movement move from tactic to strategy?The strategy in elegantly simple, Fix it! Oh, by the way, fix all of it. You broke it, much of it intentionally. You may have broken it in ways we haven't discovered yet, so fix those too. Let us know how it is going. So you see like every strategy that has worked it is the summary of tactics.the tactics my seem to evolve as they are seen, but all together they are the strategy. What is a parents strategy? Do what you should be doing today and someday you will be an adult. OK, let's use that. If the 1% and their minions do what they can everyday to fix the system instead of corrupting it, I am confident that is will get better, and pretty rapidly, at that.Can Occupy be effective for the long term? The beauty is it is that it is up to us. It was up to us the day the Constitution was ratified and it still is. We have occassionally forgotten that, and certainly, we may again.Does the occupy model of convening in a public space scale? Why, yes it does, It scales better today that it ever has, because we convene in cyberspace. Might want to work a little harder on Internet II, because security and a few other features need some work.Occupiers spend many hours every night on sometimes trivial decisions. Yes, but it is good practice and we all know practice makes perfect. Lots of us haven't been participating in decisions that are important for a long time. We'll get the hang of it and get more efficient. Got a better way>?Will the occupations survive the winter? Yes, it's isn't too cold in cyberspace.NYC has supplies and donations, but the winters will be cold nonetheless. Also, how long will Zuccotti park owners allow the campers to stay? You know, that just doesn't matter. There is a little Zuccotti park in all of our hearts and we won't let it go any time soon. I am so proud of our moment men and women who have physically brought our message into the light of day and the dark of night. I thank them. I love them, I honor them and I will do my part to sustain the cause for which they have sacrificed so much.Thank you Salon for the questions.The emperor has no clothes, and as Clayton Patterson says. "The truth is brutally naked — upfront in everyone’s face. The outsiders can hear the protesters’ message; the insiders cannot. " YET

My Response to Clayton's Blog posting

2011-10-28T12:53:00.000-07:00

This is the BEST column about the OWS phenomenon that I have seen anywhere. I have spent a lot of time posting on the web site and other related web site in dialog with the serious participants ( not trolls etc.) trying to convince them not to put out a list of demands, because it begins to exclude people who have legitimate complaints that the listers haven't thought of or would mischaracterize, and if the critics can take in-artful explanations and discredit a few of them... There are mostly bad outcomes from publishing a list.

On the other hand, the 1% and those who use their prisms, will remain blind to the clearest images until they want to see them. Some are beginning to see, others are rigorously maintaining blindness.
Why make it easier for them to delude themselves?

People closer to them are beginning to "help" them and they should be encouraged by the protestor's remaining non violent, reasonable, clean, responsible and, finally, gracious in victory, which will come in a dribble before it can grow into a flood and back to a trickle. The protestors just need to be smart shopper's, only accepting high quality solutions that even, or especially, a child can recognize.

I got this from Clayton's blog

2011-10-28T12:52:00.000-07:00

Clayton's Page

O.W.S. has many messages: Ignore them at your own risk

By Clayton Patterson

It is important that Occupy Wall Street does not have one overall message. As one person put it: The medium is the message. The protest is the message.

The greed, the outsourcing of jobs, the lack of jobs, the corporate takeover of mom-and-pop businesses, the death of the American Dream for the average person, the unpunished criminal mortgage scandal, the cost of education, the cost of medicine, the cost of living, the connection between wealth and buying justice, and on and on, is the meat of the message.

Each person’s message about how the economy, the lack of political leadership, the corruption in politics with the lobbyists, the corrupt banking practices, and on and on — that is what the protest is about. The protest is also about: Why vote? People ask: What difference does it make to vote? The number of people who are convinced that there is no difference between Bush and Obama is growing.

The country is in deep trouble when at least one-third of the people believe that 9/11 was an inside job. And the people who believe that 9/11 was an inside job cross all levels of society. If a person cannot feel the protesters’ message, then they are a part of the 1 percent, or have some sort of security blanket that most other people do not have.

If there was only one message, it would give the politicians and talking heads a break — they would have something to argue about. This O.W.S. protest is much larger than one message.

The messages ring loud and clear around the world. The lack of balanced mainstream media coverage and the electronic media concentrating on the election make it seem to people in other countries that America is censoring the news. The Internet examples of the police brutality ring loud and clear in places like Egypt, Syria and Europe. The powers that be are making a colossal mistake not taking O.W.S. seriously. It is not going away. It will only grow.

Yes, the 1 percent, the politicians, the mega-media, the ignorant, may not be able to hear the message, or they are making fun of the protest — because they cannot see what is going on. This is the reversal of the Emperor Has No Clothes. In this case, it’s the common people who are naked and people like King Bloomberg cannot see their nakedness. The 1 percent are too wrapped up in dealing with accumulating more wealth. The truth is brutally naked — upfront in everyone’s face. The outsiders can hear the protesters’ message; the insiders cannot.

The message will continue to get louder. It will not go away. The message will become an important part of the next presidential election. Pontificating about whether Rick Perry got his marching orders from G-d or not, or getting into useless arguments that mean nothing — such as whether it was Obama or Bush who lost more jobs — will become irrelevant.

I find it curious how our economic savior Bloomberg (NOT!) is bellyaching about police overtime costing the city more than $3.5 million, yet he cannot remember being robbed by Haggerty for more than $1 million. Or the fact that he spent more than $100 million to win re-election. Is it any wonder why he can’t comprehend what the protest is about?

American Grace and the Tea Party

2011-08-25T19:06:00.000-07:00

Without stealing the thunder of the new paper back version of the book, American Grace, which has some great survey data that tears the mask off of the Tea Party, I have a few thoughts about them and American politics.

What is revealed is that the Tea Party IS the old evangelical wing of the Republican Party, bigoted warts and all.

It served the ends of the Koch brothers and their lap dogs to create the fiction that they were all about small, libertarian, less intrusive government, low taxes across the board and an emphasis on no earmarks and some other forms of government corruption. They were willing to accept the TEA-ocrats package(no abortion, no gays,no immigrants, religious non education etc) if they would deregulate everything, preserve their tax loopholes, export all of the exportable jobs and let the surplus population die for lack of healthcare, bad food, environmental poisons, to lower their overhead and eliminate potential demonstrators in the American Spring. But when they got elected, the TP just couldn't resist immediately attacking abortion, unions, gays , immigrants, etc. The degree to which the Tea Party enthusiastically votes against their own interests (and that of the country as a whole) is amazing, in a clinical sort of way.

What isn't so obvious is that the Tea Party was more attractive than the old GOP to the Koch faction BECAUSE they could be funded outside of the Republican Party (and therefore could be dictated to directly) which was still trying to pretend that they were interested in actually governing, were somewhat moderate, socially, and would make deals to protect their incumbents.

Some incumbents raised the white flag and joined the "new" faction, others were beaten in the primaries by Tea Party candidates who were wild-eyed radicals with no knowledge of process or the consequences of implementing the radical notions they had learned from talk show radicals. Willing to ruin the American economy to make an ideological point, they scared liberals, moderates and even rational conservatives who reside in the Democratic Party, are registered independents, and yes, even those slices of the Republican Party, as well. They convinced the rest of the world that the US had advanced dementia.

Now the Republican's face a dilemma. The country as a whole has learned to distrust, hate, or fear, the Tea Party crowd (lumped into a majority "unfavorable" rating). The Republican leadership of the House, and to some extent in the Senate, can only project an aura of unity and power by talking and acting like the Tea Party. So the Tea Party has effectively hijacked the Republican Party. If the GOP espouses the Tea Party nonsense, it looks strong (crazy strong). If it takes its moderately conservative traditional position, it looks like a a small faction in a multiparty European state, with no power.

If the GOP actually took that position and held it for enough time it might lure a significant number of the Registered Independents, most of whom were moderate Republicans before they were drummed out of the party for being too moderate, into coming back. The problem would remain that the oligarchy of the wealthy and/or big business would outspend them on 527 ads and beat them in primaries and stick them with the bill for a general campaign for a wing nut that couldn't win. Their primary process sets them up to be hijacked by extreme elements. AS a result, their presidential candidates (with any chance of winning their primary) are certifiable.

The Citizens United decision obviously screwed the Democrats, but it may have screwed the Republicans, as well. The irony is appreciated but the prospect of turning the US into a third world economy isn't.

To Michael Bennet re Balanced Budget Amendment

2011-07-18T11:12:00.000-07:00

You would do more to benefit the American people if you would pass an amendment to "clarify" that corporations are not people, finance all elections publicly, limit campaigns last no more then 6 weeks and prohibit elected officials from lobbying forever.

If Congress couldn't fill its campaign contribution coffers with bribes from the likes of the Koch brothers and then keep it when they retire and go to work as a lobbyist, lobbying their colleagues, they might be a little more inclined to vote for the good of the country. Now, if anyone ever votes for the good of the country you have a hot news item. Speaking of news. Freedom of the press should not include a license to propagandize with fraudulent, deliberately distorted, material in collusion with corporate interests. You are an attorney, figure out how to fix this. Earn your check.

These changes would facilitate elected officials acting a bit more in the public interest and less for special interests. Also, remove the exemption of Congress from SEC insider trading rules. Averaging double the private investor's average rate of return is no coincidence. Rampant insider trading in Congressional offices should be prosecuted. It has been going on for years.

Tell Udall he is trying to fix the wrong problem. The BBA isn't what is needed. Congress without conflicts of interests is. It has been so long since we had a Congress that wasn't generally corrupt, fixing that might just solve most of the other problems.

One last thing, only consider bills submitted written in long hand, in the verified handwriting of the incumbent. Then you will have plenty of time to do your job.

Senator Ensign Referred to the DoJ by Senate Ethics Committee

2011-05-12T12:46:00.000-07:00

Oh, the horror, the scandal of it all. Who could actually propose to bring a member of the government,Congress no less, to justice? It is virtually unheard of. Somebody said something like, "It isn't the crime you will suffer for but the covering up of it."

And it involves people claiming "holier than thou status" and the sacred cow of lobbying, which are never to be mentioned in the same breath.

Whatever happened to our founding principles of "now is the time to move on" and "nothing will be gained by digging into the sins of the past" and "binding up of wounds rather than rubbing salt into them" and "he/she/they/we have suffered enough", to say nothing of"casting the first stone?" This gets close to the territory of "justice is blind" and "equal justice under law" and "making an example for those who would even consider such acts."

This could even serve as a precedent for looking at "those who ordered torture, performed torture, condoned torture and obstructed justice in the pursuit of those who perpetrated acts of torture under the Constitution and international treaties which carry the force of law." We certainly wouldn't want that to happen would we? There must me a little room left under the rug, isn't there? Mr. Ensign, you may have done a greater service than you know.

When you stop ignoring the law(s) selectively, and go back to equal or blind justice, you get close to "one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." It has been a long time since we have been in this neighborhood. I hope it is for more than a short visit. I, for one, could live here.

Torture debate again?

2011-05-07T21:46:00.000-07:00

Let's keep it simple.

Obama wants to swat flies, you want to pull their wings off. S l o w l y!

Don't worry. Sadism can be cured. Just as easily as homosexuality.

You must be relieved. Right?

bin Laden lessons

2011-05-06T19:26:00.000-07:00

There are some lessons to be learned from our relationship with Osama bin Laden. It will, no doubt, take some time to learn them because we have been living with a vast set of fictions for 10 years. Some of the fictions were inadvertent misunderstandings and miscalculations.

But some of them were calculated propaganda that served purposes that were far from the best interests of the citizens of the U.S. and the more responsible nations of the world.

There a lot of questions that must be asked whose answers will clear up which basket these narratives belong in.

bin Laden made the claim that he had brought down the Soviet Union by bankrupting it and planned to do the same with the US. How close has he come to the second objective? He spent about $500 thousand on the 9/11 attacks. We will have spent more than $3 trillion on two wars against countries that were not directly involved in the attacks, Afghanistan and Iraq, plus hundreds of billions on expanded Homeland Security and expanded state and local first responders. Also took away more of our rights than ever before in our history. Pretty high return on his investment, wouldn't you say? Fight for our freedom by giving up huge amounts of our freedom?

Nearly all of the attackers came from Saudi Arabia. bin Laden was in Afghanistan but was there with the support and cooperation of the Pakistani ISI, who helped him escape back into Pakistan from Tora Bora.

If there was another organization that was a bigger enemy than al Qaeda, it is the Pakistani ISI. We have given them about $$20 billion, thus far. It is outside the control of the weak government of Pakistan and has plans to reunite the Pashtun tribes of Afghanistan and Pakistan in one country, either subjugating the non Pashtun tribes, annihilating them or ignoring them. Our money has furthered these objectives, no doubt. They are blackmailing us with their nuclear weapons.

Have we been financing both sides of the conflicts between the Pakistan-trained Taliban and the Afghan government, both sides of the Afghanistan - Pakistan conflict, the Taliban the Shiite - Sunni religious civil war in Iraq, and the Islamist(ISI/Taliban) - secular civil war in Pakistan. And, we have been funding the Saudi - Iran (Sunni - Shiite) conflict with our oil dollars. Then just for fun, we give Israel $5 billion a year, Egypt $3 billion and the Palestinians a couple of billion to keep that fracus going.

If we really had to attack somebody after 9/11, the smart money would have been on Pakistan where most of the radical Islamist were, along with Saudi Arabia, who was funding them and providing the radical Wahhabi mullahs and had most of the oil.

I don't advocate attacking anybody, but we are talking bout smart money here and it was definitely some kind of money that has been calling the shots in our foreign policy.

Where should you look for a terrorist? Where he is. Seems obvious, but it isn't what we did.

Does torture work? Khalid Sheik Mohammed knew bin Laden's courier very well, he was his protege, and even though the was water boarded 183 time and had some terrible things done to him, he never gave him up. Two years later he gave up his nom de gare under normal interrogation. But he never gave up his real name. Does that sound like it worked? It doesn't and it didn't.

What worked best was capturing his hard drive. So would you rather capture bin Laden alive or all of his computer hardware? Do you want the intelligence to catch the rest of al Qaeda or amuse yourself water boarding bin Laden, just for fun? There will be more lessons and I am a lot more interested in learning them than some people seem to be.

GOP and anti, just like peas in a pod

2011-03-25T13:06:00.000-07:00

If I understand the GOP positions correctly:

They want to drill for oil everywhere (all public lands and any private lands that they can gain control of) without any regulations for spills and blowout prevention, contamination of groundwater by fracking, or safety standards or inspections of pipe lines or refineries, exemption from Clean Air and Clean Water standards and still have the U.S. government provide more than $20 billion in subsidies and tax breaks to them. There should be no OSHA safety standards for employees who should not be able to unionize.

They want to mine coal anywhere with no safety standards, and burn it with no limits on the amount of pollution it expels, and without containing the coal ash, allowing it to slide into communities and rivers without regard to pollution.

They want no transportation safety standards or inspections (especially of work contracted out to other countries) to prevent plane crashes, train wrecks, ship collisions, no standards for auto vehicle safety, operation or equipment, bridges, tunnels, roads, highways.

They want no regulation or standards for manufacturing drugs or medical equipment, the appropriate prescription or use of the products, and immunity from prosecution for willful negligence or malpractice in the prescription or sale of anything medically related including non prescription medications and so-called supplements.

They want no regulation or standards for growing, producing, packaging of food or beverages, the appropriate preparation or use of the products, and immunity from prosecution for willful negligence or malpractice in the production or sale of anything food related regardless of how many people are killed or harmed.

They want no regulation or standards for growing, producing, packaging of tobacco products, the appropriate preparation or use of the products, and immunity from prosecution for normal use or willful negligence or malpractice in the production or sale of anything tobacco related regardless of how many people are killed or harmed.

They want no regulation or standards for the care of children, elderly, persons with disabilities, and immunity from prosecution for willful negligence or malpractice in the care or education of any person regardless of how many people are killed or harmed.

They want no regulation or standards for creating, selling, packaging or servicing of any financial instruments, contracts or securities or for the appropriate preparation, rating use or sale of the products, and immunity from prosecution for willful negligence or malpractice in the production or sale of anything financially related regardless of how many people are killed, defrauded or harmed in other ways.

They want to protect our freedoms by being able to keep every individual under constant surveillance, requiring their employers clients, customers, contractors service providers (especially doctors) to provide detailed information regarding every thing they say, think or do, even in their own bedrooms and to confiscate any and all property and communications, verbal, written or electronic, at any time without warrant or cause.

They would like to prevent anyone who doesn't support them, or look like them, from voting by a variety of means, including intimidation, or from criticizing the government as a police state. They are only there to preserve the freedom to coerce you do do what they say is right.

They want no taxation for the wealthy in any form (or for themselves, believing that those like the Kock brothers will take care of them generously for their service in bringing about these essential changes) but welcome conscriptive taxation of those they want to prevent from voting (like the poor who claim they don't make enough to pay taxes). This will free up time for the IRS agents to audit their tax returns and collaborate with the DoJ to make sure you aren't frivolously spending money on abortions, as your preferred means of birth control or on lessons to change your sexual preferences from appropriate ones like heterosexual or sado masochistic to such weird and immoral types as homosexual, bisexual, or the most dreaded of all, transsexual.

They want all of the taxes used to build a military even larger than the current 10 times the most likely adversary, or a conservative, 1 and 1/2 times that of the rest of the world combined, lest we be thought of as less that the world's only SUPER DUPER power. This is referred to as "a strong defense".

This would make the government quite small except for the bloated Homeland Interference Department, the Selective Justice Enforcement Department, the Overly Aggressive Defense Department, and the Let's Lease Everything to Our Friends Interior Department, and last and somewhat least, the Lack of Education Department, or as it is commonly known as, the "Whoo neds SKul Deportment"

I have left out a few details no doubt, but I am pretty sure I have most of this correct as to principle. So, 'Don't bother me if I got some of the words wrong' as Michelle Bachmann says when she forgets an important part of American history, 'You know what I meant', as long as it sort of supports my point of view.

I got most of it by Googling "GOP" and "anti," which is a synonym, which got me "About 17,600,000 results (0.14 seconds)." Who would have thought those two would go together so often? Now that is what I call research. Do it, if you don't believe me.

It must be true because it is on the Internet.

Oh, and where are the jobs? Glad you asked. The funeral industry is bound to prosper. Don't bother reading the fine print, because it is just fine.

Budget problems, are they military?

2011-02-16T08:55:00.000-08:00

Our current military budget is more than $700 billion, the facts point to one of two conclusions: 1. If our risk of being attacked by the rest of the world justifies spending as much as the rest of the world combined, our policies, must be very wrong and changing them to reduce the risk to that of the top two or three combined, is our most urgent priority. 2. If we were to reduce our expenditures to a much lower level we could expect that others would consider us less of a threat and reduce their expenditures as well, leaving us with a comfortable margin. We appear to be the threat they are arming against.

There is one other possibility that no one would want to contemplate and that is this our military is so incompetent or our weapon systems so poor that we have to spend at these levels to equal the capabilities of potential threats. We are wasting most of the money (corruption?).

Why does no one look at the budget problem in this way? Ratcheting down to a paltry $2-300 billion/yr would substantially solve our budget problem, wouldn't it?

We spend more on Intelligence than any other country spends on their military. Does this make sense, when CNN seems to know more than the CIA?

The GOP under Bush tried to outsource almost ALL government jobs including much of the military (There were/are more mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan than troops. There are more CIA contractors than employees.)

Country Military expenditure, 2009[2] % of GDP, 2008
1 United States 663,255,000,000 4.3%
2 China 98,800,000,000 2.0%
3 United Kingdom 69,271,000,000 2.5%
4 France 67,316,000,000 2.3%
5 Russian Federation 61,000,000,000 3.5%

Guns with people, vice and versa

2011-01-13T12:21:00.000-08:00

January 12, 2011, The New York Times Op-Ed Columnist NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF column "Why Not Regulate Guns as Seriously as Toys?"

This is a thought provoking read. Yes, I know the Supreme Court has spoken on the Second Amendment(and got it as wrong as their reversal of settled law making corporations people.)

The column recognizes that when you get guns and people together (regardless of which owns whom,or vice versa) bad things happen. Of course that is also true of alcohol. Maybe it would be better if only guns and alcohol could be together and just leave people out of it?

The point is that it is no longer possible to just figure out the best solution to a problem. You have to be deucedly creative to not only solve tough problems but get the solution to stand up in court.

We regulate toys to make them safe and also automobiles (which amendment covers the right to keep and bear toys or autos?).

There are 85 handguns out there for every 100 people, I am told, so by now we should know if almost everyone having a gun is preventing most of the rapes, robberies and murders. You might check how many rapes, robberies, and murders we have per 100 people now as compared with when we had half as many handguns, per capita. While you are at it, compare these rates for other countries. We are concerned that Mexico is killing tens of thousands a year with guns that come from the US, so we are trying to send them more.

I think there may be some good ideas out there. The first couple of things I thought about are, maybe require "people control"? A gun must register and have a license for every person it owns? Or, that "hand" guns might need to weigh no less than 10 pounds (with plenty of material to keep them from exploding). Maybe the serial numbers on guns should be in characters at least 4 inches high and completely visible from the front(in order to make them readable by the victim.)Serial numbered, registered bullets. Make completely fabricated ammunition sales illegal. You can buy the brass, the lead, the components of powder and primers and assemble them yourself. It is just more fun. Also, semiautomatics must fire a little slower, like at 30 second intervals. Clips can contain one cartridge, max. If your gun (stolen or not) is used in a crime you get life imprisonment.

I am sure there are other more creative ways to solve this problem, I am not sure having Congress folks wearing guns on the floor is the best one. Nor, do I think, Congress taking inordinate steps to protect themselves is any better an idea than providing themselves health care while leaving the rest of us exposed.

What I do know is that we don't have some problems solved in America yet, but I am not interested in giving up.

Tragedy in Tucson

2011-01-09T09:11:00.000-08:00

The mass murder attempt in Tucson is a terrible tragedy.

Whenever one of these tragic events occur there is a slice of the public comment that reminds us that "there are crazies on both sides." I would like the press to give us a census of the "sides" of the people who give us this reminder, as opposed to those who give us a straight condemnation of violence and express sympathy to the victims, families and friends. I would also like a count of the "sides" of the perpetrators of these terrible acts.

I won't speculate on the results of this survey. I think the relative size of the "side" who may be implying that the "sides'" of the crazies who do these things and the side not making this comment are more or less equal and the "side" who actually does most of these acts are similar. It also may be that they are actually the same "side."

If you are guilty of inciting people to riot, one defense is charging the other side with ALSO inciting people to riot. The press needs to keep and report an accurate score rather than furthering that sort of obfuscating defense.

Maybe we need some new and creative ways to reduce the number of weapons that crazies have access to, or reduce the freedom of the crazies that want to access weapons?

Seems like either the guns or the people should be controlled. Pick one?

WikiLeaks - Assange

2010-12-04T08:10:00.000-08:00

Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin asked on Facebook: "Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaida and Taliban leaders?"

My question is why isn't al-Qaida and the Taliban pursued with the same urgency as Assange? There seems to be more urgency and coordinated cooperation by global leaders and private companies to avoid the disclosure of dirty laundry than has even been done to merely protect us all from terrorism or nuclear proliferation. Why don't you write about that?

I know there is some risk that some people, mostly politician and diplomats, could face harm, but like most global civilians, I am delighted to have my projections of what is actually going on behind the scenes substantially confirmed that I am willing to subject THEM to that risk.

President Sarah

2010-11-30T14:43:00.000-08:00

When listening to some of the Republican politicians refuse to answer the question,"Do you believe that Sarah is qualified to be president?" It occurred to me that we all should have a little context to consider the implications of that question.

Try this scenario: McCain beat Obama. A week after taking office, McCain tragically dies, and Sarah is immediately sworn in as President. Imagine, if you can, the Palin Administration is immediately faced with a huge array of urgent and important issues. Some are immediate crises, like the banks, the world economy the US auto industry.

What do they do? What do they do about the economy losing 700,000 jobs per month? Unemployment benefits running out? Healthcare costs causing tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths of Americans every year and making US labor costs uncompetitive, not only with third world countries, but all of the other industrialized countries as well? Regulation of the businesses that caused the financial meltdown? Two wars which will cost, according to leading economists, $3 trillion (without the Afghanistan surge by Obama) including the present expenditures and those that we are committed to pay in the future. The longer term, but important, issue of the national debt? Foreign policy?

Imagine, if you will, where America would be on all of these issues today given the same Congress and her leadership. This isn't as simple as believing that she is the Fairy Godmother and can do anything you would want or she would want to do. Changing only one thing, the president, where would we be?

If you voted for McCain, you could have helped create exactly this scenario. How do you feel about that? 2012?

Stop Abuse of Ag-land status

2010-11-08T09:00:00.000-08:00

Nancy Lofholm has a great article in the 11/8/2010 Denver Post about this. Wealthy residential land owners and others are using a loophole in the Colorado tax laws to get their property taxes reduced to almost noting by having a few goats, "breeding horses" or by cutting the grass and selling it as hay.

I answered her article thusly:I can't imagine who introduced, cosponsored and voted for the law that created this horrible loophole. Were there lobbyists involved? No! Really? It will be almost as interesting to see the scrambling to come up with rationalizations for not changing it. What a windfall for the politicians willing to sell out to this special interest.Who started the task force? Was it the people who see an opportunity to scare up some campaign contributions or was it someone who who really has the public interest at heart? What's the name of the task force? Where is the report posted? Is this why some communities want ordnance changes to allow two chickens in their back yards? We should all go to our County Assessors office and see how many of these little gems are in our neighborhood. I will.
Great story Nancy, but I can't wait for the answers to these and many other questions. This could be a Pulitzer series.

Then I did a did a little research and sent her this email:

I posted a comment on your article, which I loved for presenting some facts I didn't know and I hated for what the facts are.

In my comments I asked some questions that probably should have been answered in the article. Being the impatient type, I didn't wait for the next article which I assume will follow. You may know the answers already.

Who did the study? "Colorado Counties, Inc. is a nonprofit organization made up of counties from throughout the state of Colorado. The mission of the organization is to "offer assistance to county commissioners and to encourage counties to work together on common issues." "The primary focus of the group is information, education and legislative representation. Each year, Colorado Counties, Inc. develops a new legislative agenda, and actively lobbies political representatives on various policies and proposed laws." In whose interest?

We pay for it but their web site only shares information with members (counties) who have paid a membership fee.We could be an associate member for $750, to find out what we have paid for.

How did this come about? Who created the task force and who is on it?

Here is what I have found, "House Bill 10-1107 (adopted) amends the urban renewal law to exclude certain types of agricultural lands in an urban renewal area. Specifically, only agricultural land that is designated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a "brown field" or lands that are located next to or within certain urban-level development area may be included in an urban renewal areas."

"It also changes how agricultural lands that are included in an urban renewal area are valued for determining the amount of taxes that are to be paid to public entities. Agricultural lands are subject to a lower property tax rate than other types of property, such as commercial properties."

And,

"House Bill 10-1293 (adopted) creates a nine-member interim task force to study the assessment and classification of agricultural and residential land and propose legislation to ensure that land is valued based on its actual use. The task force's members include the Property Tax Administrator, four agricultural landowners or lessees appointed by the Commissioner of Agriculture, two county commissioners, and two county assessors. (Need some research to get names and positions. It is interesting that there are as many or more appointees with vested interests in minimizing taxes as are interested in collecting fair taxes.) The task force must submit a written report to the Local Government and Agriculture committees of the General Assembly by October 15, 2010." (That is the report the public needs to see. I assume that you have it. Could you send it to me?)

I must confess I was unaware that the public was hiring lobbyists to lobby for the people we elected? Awesome!

Please help me

2010-10-21T14:34:00.000-07:00

What should I call it when people claim to support politicians who advocate positions that are, 1) not not in the self interest of those same people, 2) not in the interest of the country in general, and 3) have been demonstrated not to work in the past? (Trickle down economics? Cut taxes for the rich with borrowed money?)

Being plain spoken I am inclined to call it STUPID! But that would imply that those people are stupid. Not only that is that not nice but it would be criticized as being ineffective at changing those peoples minds.

Of course, I could point out that recent surveys have reported that certain people don't know hardly any of the facts that are going to affect them in the next decades but despite that, they have formed judgments without those facts that they say they would not change even if they were shown to be wrong.

If they are telling the truth to the people taking the survey, aren't they admitting to being STUPID? And,in fact,they are taking actions that are consistent with those erroneous beliefs? Forrest Gump said his Momma said. "That stupid is, as stupid does."

Whether you like any or all of the "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (PPACA)your preference should be based on what is actually in it. But a survey shows that the majority of people like most of the individual provisions that are in it when they are presented with the details of each one separately but, if they are Republicans, they don't like any of them when they are bundled together. If they are Democrats, they like them either way, separately or together.

I get the impression that the Republican's would only be happy if they could give the Act a new paint job with a new label, "passed by Republicans." Sounds stupid, doesn't it?

I didn't like the process, and I am frustrated by the result. But, I know what is in it and why it is what it is. It includes several features that were proposed by Republicans that are good. But there were other compromises made with Republicans which were bad and still didn't get Republican votes (and if the Republicans could do it over, they would likely leave out many of the things they forced in just to aggravate the Democrats.)

If we could have a do-over, I would have us choose among the best systems in the world, rather than have a system worse than "designed by committee". This one is designed by special interests, then sabotaged by politicians who happily sacrifice the interests of The United states of America. It could be better but not if it is done by STUPID people. But, is is better than nothing. Help me on this.

Are you an ignoramus?

2010-09-09T17:27:00.000-07:00

With so much controversy swirling about moving an Islamic Center that actually would contain a Mosque and a mental case threatening to burn Qur'ans, it occurs to me that an awfully large number of people have strong opinions that are based on,.... well, nothing, or very nearly nothing. Everybody seems very sure that they know enough to make decisions or call for others to make decisions about what they should do on religious grounds.

I venture to guess that most of those people haven't read their own "holy book" in its entirety, sorting out for themselves whether every word and every line and every story is merely illustrative (as parables) or are literal calls to detailed actions.

More to the point, they and likely you, haven't read the holy books of the other religions that may be involved this time or next time. How do you know that yours is completely correct, true and exclusive, if you haven't read it or the others that are taken just as seriously by large numbers of other people around the world.

Look at an abbreviated list:

The Analects A collection of Confucius' teachings thought to have been recorded by his students. They are considered the only sayings that can safely be attributed to him.

Bhagavad Gita A Sanskrit poem that is part of the Indian epic known as the Mahabharata . It describes, in a dialogue between Lord Krishna and Prince Arjuna, the Hindu path to spiritual wisdom and the unity with God that can be achieved through karma (action), bhakti (devotion), and jnana (knowledge). The Bhagavad-Gita was probably written sometime between 200 B.C. and A.D. 200.

Five Classics Five works traditionally attributed to Confucius that form the basic texts of Confucianism. They are the Spring and Autumn Annals, a history of Confucius's native district; the I Ching (or Book of Changes ), a system of divining the future; the Book of Rites , which outlines ceremonies and describes the ideal government; the Book of History ; and the Book of Songs , a collection of poetry. Together they promulgate a system of ethics for managing society based on sympathy for others, etiquette, and ritual. Although the dates of these books are uncertain, they were probably written before the third century B.C.

Koran (Arabic, al-Qur'an) The primary holy book of Islam. It is made up of 114 suras, or chapters, which contain impassioned appeals for belief in God, encouragement to lead a moral life, portrayals of damnation and beatitude, stories of Islamic prophets, and rules governing the social and religious life of Muslims. Believers maintain that the Koran contains the verbatim word of God, revealed to the prophet Muhammad through the Angel Gabriel. Some of the suras were written during Muhammad's lifetime, but an authoritative text was not produced until c. A.D. 650.

New Testament The second portion of the Christian Bible, which contains 27 books that form the basis of Christian belief. These books include the sayings of Jesus, the story of his life and work, the death and resurrection of Jesus now celebrated as Easter, the teachings and writings of the apostles, and instruction for converting nonbelievers and for performing baptisms, blessings, and other rituals. The New Testament is believed to have been written by several authors c. A.D. 100, some 70 to 90 years to as late as 200-300 years after the death of Jesus.

Old Testament The Christian name for the Hebrew Bible. It is the sacred scripture of Judaism and the first portion of the Christian Bible. According to Jewish teachings, it is made up of three parts: the Law (also known as the Torah or Pentateuch), comprising the first five books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), which describes the origins of the world, the covenant between the Lord and Israel, the exodus and entry into the promised land, and the various rules governing social and religious behavior; the Prophets , including the former prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel 1-2, Kings 1-2) and the latter prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the 12 minor prophets), which describes the history of the Israelites. Some books of the Old Testament regarded as sacred by the Jews are not accepted as such by Christians; among Christians there are differences between Roman Catholics and Protestants about the inclusion of some books, the order of the books, and the original sources used in translating them. Scholars generally agree that the Old Testament was compiled from c. 1000 B.C. to c. 100 B.C.Talmud A compilation of Jewish oral law and rabbinical teachings that is separate from the scriptures of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament. It is made up of two parts: the Mishna , which is the oral law itself, and the Gemara , a commentary on the Mishna . The Talmud contains both a legal section (the Halakah ) and a portion devoted to legends and stories (the Aggada ). The authoritative Babylonian Talmud was compiled in the sixth century.

Tao-te-ching (The Way and Its Power) The basic text of the Chinese philosophy and religion known as Taoism. It is made up of 81 short chapters or poems that describe a way of life marked by quiet effortlessness and freedom from desire. This is thought to be achieved by following the creative, spontaneous life force of the universe, called the Tao. The book is attributed to Lao-tzu, but it was probably a compilation by a number of writers over a long period of time.

Upanishads The basis of Hindu religion and philosophy that form the final portion of the Veda . The 112 Upanishads describe the relationship of the Brahman , or universal soul, to the atman , or individual soul; they also provide information about Vedic sacrifice and yoga. The original texts of the Upanishads come from various sources and were written beginning c. 900 B.C.

Veda The sacred scripture of Hinduism. Four Vedas make up the Samhita , a collection of prayers and hymns that are considered to be revelations of eternal truth written by seer-poets inspired by the gods. The Rig-Veda , the Sama-Veda , and the Yajur-Veda are books of hymns; the Atharva-Veda compiles magic spells. These writings maintain that the Brahman , or Absolute Self, underlies all reality and can be known by invoking gods through the use of hymns or mantes. The Vedic texts were compiled between c. 1000 B.C. and c. 500 B.C., making them the oldest known group of religious writings.

There are many more of course, but if you haven't read these, buttoning your lip might just keep you from being exposed as an ignoramus. And, what if you are wrong? I have read most of these and I am still keeping my mouth shut. Oh, and while you're at it, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and all of its amendments are quick reads before turning off the light and going to the peaceful slumber of an innocent.

Proposition 8 decision

2010-08-05T08:03:00.000-07:00

Should same sex marriage be allowed? Of course it should. There are two different statuses that have been merged in the minds of (too) many. They are "legally married" in a contract (marriage license) or in common law and the other is, "married in the eyes of various religions". If members of a religion don't want to recognize a marriage they can refuse to do so in their minds, but not if they discriminate against others in practice.

Rights are not to be adjusted by voting. They are inalienable rights to be recognized by the state as preexisting, not privileges granted by the state. That was decided in bits and pieces in the ongoing but slow march of civil rights. Slaves couldn't marry in either sense. Then, once freed, they weren't allowed to marry other "superior" races, until 1964, in some states. The founders identified the correct principle but failed to follow it, allowing slavery to continue long after it had been abolished by the "tyrannical " British.

It was sloppy, at best, to not carry through the principle of human, civil rights when the Constitution was drafted and adopted but they were subject to the filibustering of minorities who were blocking the right thing from happening even then. The 3/5 Compromise still has vestiges in many forms. The cancer in the old south isn't in remission and has spread to the rest of the union.

Civilization is within our grasp but is easily lost for us all by the barbarians in our midst who would vote it out of existence and have tried to do so in 31 states thus far.

Democracy without the protection of the rights of minorities is just mob rule. The Constitution, coupled with courts, was supposed to protect us from the mob du jure. The court's job, and ours,is still unfinished.

The irrefutable Jefferson

2010-07-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

The Berkshire Eagle has a column with this title.

It said, "Thomas Jefferson, until this year, was revered in American history textbooks as the Founding Father who wrote the Declaration of Independence. His document is the reason we celebrate the fourth of July as this country's independence day. This is a holiday to remind Americans about the history and significance of that document.

But earlier this year, religious conservative members of the Texas Board of Education decided to push for a revision of this history by downplaying Jefferson's influence in the founding of our nation because the notion of the "separation of church and state" has been traced to him. These religious rightists believe this country was founded as a Christian nation and decided to make their point by revising American history in their public school text books. The effect of this kind of revision of American history would be to celebrate the founding of this country as a religious event rather than the secular event it is. One does not have to be an American history scholar to understand that the American Revolution was not fought as a religious war against anti-Christian forces or an Antichrist. It occurred as a reluctant solution to a struggle by colonists against an imperial British government. As a matter of historical fact, America entered into the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797 which included in part the following statement: "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion " I wonder if the Texas Board would consider inserting this item in their textbooks?"

My ancestors came to Massachusetts in 1634 and to Berkshire County in the mid 1700's. I live in Colorado and have been researching our early history for several years. I appreciate their reminder of the accurate version of our history. While I acknowledge the validity of reexamining the evidence, the facts and their interpretation to improve the accuracy of the interpretation, the interpretation must be driven by the facts, not an agenda. That is scholarship. The exercise in Texas was anything but scholarship and should be deplored by honest Americans across the country.

It ranks up there with Putin's whitewashing of Stalin, as the blatant propagandizing that it is. I followed the discussion of the Texas Board members which was apalling in their disinterest in the truth and their obvious intent to just make up a narrative that would support the conclusions they wanted to propagate.

The School Board members claim to be patriots. Of what country, one must wonder. The Republic of Texas is beginning to sound better to proud members of the Union as well as the many lunatics inside Texas.

Change the myth of your own history but leave ours alone.

Drill, spill, and chill, said the shill

2010-06-23T18:17:00.000-07:00

As I recall, when a business makes bad judgments resulting in very large public damage and the tax payers are stuck with the bill for repaying creditors (or counter parties but not the investors)this was called a bailout.

But now that 3 oil companies, BP, Anadarko, and a Chinese firm, have caused untold billions of damage (estimates of $75 to 100 billion are mentioned, and the rate of the spill is growing and the end is very much in doubt) there are some who don't want the oil companies to be held responsible. The legal (questionable) liability is arguably capped at a paltry $75 million. Some say that the government (taxpayers) should pay for the clean up and losses to businesses and employees.The oil companies should not be held responsible. Why they shouldn't, isn't clear. Most of the advocates don't provide a reason, and seem to feel reasons aren't necessary.

These same people are still screaming about the bank bailout and the auto industry bailout. What is different about this situation? The bank took loans and gave up equity. The auto companies took loans and gave up equity. The money is coming back.

BP agreed to put $20 billion in escrow, with claims administered by a third party (same person who successfully administered the 9/11 Victims Fund.} One of their partners has filed suit against them for irresponsible behavior.

If oil companies aren't held responsible and the taxpayers pay the loss (and without a loan or equity their loss is 100%) this is a bailout with much worse terms, than either of the others.

Banks had executive salaries and bonuses cut. Auto companies did, as well, but their unions had forced contract changes, cutting all salaries. Oil cut three quarters of dividends.

The only rationale that a few use to justify drilling when oil executives admit they are totally unprepared to handle any spill and that blow out preventers don't work, is that if they are responsible for all of the loss, smaller companies can't afford to take the risk. So, what they want is a permanent bailout commitment for all drillers losses above $75 million.

They don't care about spills and they know there will be more. They are willing to sacrifice the gulf, the wetlands, the shrimp, the oysters, the fishing, the birds and animals. Oh, and the people, the families and friends of the drilling and support crews who live in the gulf and make their livings, outside of the oil industry. Yep, just let them go. Save big oil. What this does is pit neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother etc.

Like a drug addict protects his pusher, a politician protects his campaign contributor (oil), in the belief that they can still win reelection, with enough money. I know, they are wrong (in what they are doing) but they may be correct in their political calculation. 'I apologize for this shake down.' really means, 'Screw the people as long as I get reelected.'

Banks took risks they couldn't afford. Oil wants the same deal(or assumed they had it), only better.

Drill, spill, and chill, said the shill. "I don't think I will" said the taxpayer. "And, my vote will go to anyone but you because, I'm not buying your swill."

If it's too deep, it's too deep

2010-06-21T19:31:00.000-07:00

"What were they thinking?" is far too optimistic, because it is pretty obvious they weren't thinking. Nothing at all, by any meaningful standard of rational thought. Here is an example.

Southern Environmental Law Centre’s Deb Carter said on June 11: “MMS quietly granted oil companies the right to drill 198 more deepwater wells as if the spill wasn’t devastating the gulf.”

The centre has launched a legal challenge to the leases. It says the MMS has not required the oil companies to adhere to any new environmental safeguards or greater supervision.

“If it’s too deep to stop a spill, it’s too deep to drill”, Carter said. “BP is under criminal investigation for its explosion and dumping millions of gallons of oil into the gulf, yet MMS approved 13 new leases for BP to drill in deepwater without any better oversight.”

Couple that with test results that show that while the blow out preventers withstand 15,000 PSI sometimes, they can't withstand the pressures experienced from outside, in deep water because they weren't designed to do so. So, testing them at those depths are a futile waste of time. Other complications include fact that the well casing that should be used at these depths, is too tough to be cut by the BOP at any depth and if they use the liners (double wall) that should be used, certainly they can/t be cut by today's BOP's.

So, given the FACT that we can't stop the leak with a BOP and we don't require the so called relief (bad term, what we are looking for is a positive ability to "kill the well") wells to be nearly completed before the production well breaks into the new reservoir, drilling at these depths is nothing more than a crap shoot. How many passes with the dice can one really expect to roll before you lose? Based on the number we rolled in a row before the Deepwater Horizon, we can expect, based on the laws of probability, to have more blowouts. We have over 500 wells already out there that could start leaking at any time. Yes, I know that as the pressure drops the probability gets lower.

My answer is, Haiti. If something unexpected happens like an earthquake, then the lowering probabilities are meaningless. We can expect additional spills, even without the additional drilling that the administration appears to like and Republicans love, making it inevitable. The Gulf of Mexico is our new Black Sea.

I would still say, if it's too deep ...... it really is too deep.

Does whole leave a hole?

2010-06-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

Silly me, I have always believed (naively, I guess) that when one is negligent that one is responsible for making the injured party "whole" or undamaged. If I make a hole in your barrel, I am responsible to repair it or have it repaired so that it holds water and is as useful as before. And that it should last about as long as the it would have or to replace it so you will have as much barrel life as if I hadn't damaged it.

I haven't heard people make the case that I should only fix it so it leaks more slowly or that the life should now only be 50% or 80% or some other arbitrary number fraction of the value it was to you. I also didn't expect you to have a concern about my ability to make it completely right. I know that bankruptcy judges will try to minimize the loss of creditors. But they start from the point that everyone should be made 100% "whole", if possible.

Several politicians (and the press in the UK, reflecting the owners of BP)are taking the position that BP should not be bankrupted as a result of their negligence. I thought the priority would always be to make innocent victims whole then to try to worry about the owner of the company. The management of a company is responsible for assessing the risk they are going to take and the remedies for the consequences of failure through self insurance (putting aside money), purchasing insurance from a third party, or deciding they can't afford to take the action, should it fail.

Owners have a right to expect that the company won't take on risk that is too great but they are taking that risk as well. Shareholders should make an assessment of the management's judgment and character before they invest. If the management creates damage that the company can't survive, it fails and they lose their money.

But, please show me the principle of justice that says negligent parties should only make 80% of the victims whole or all of the victims 80% whole or that the victims can only collect some damages after the owners receive their full dividends.

Or, that victims can share compensation on a reducing by tier basis (first tier-100% of loss, second tier-70%, third tier-25% or some other arbitrary fractions.

I don't think that can be done in any way that can be generally accepted as fair. In 9/11 the responsible parties were unavailable and the government, without taking responsibility for negligence of public safety (which they were), provided a pool of money which was distributed in an, admittedly, arbitrary way as an act of generosity by the citizens through the government.

Let's do some math. Separate from the issue of compensating victims, there is a law that a polluter of the water we own as a government is liable for a fine of a little over $4,300. per barrel. The fine per barrel times the number of barrels per day times the number of days gives us a number of $15,480,000,000 for 60 days if the average was 60,000 per day. If you think the average spill rate is less or greater than 60,000, make the adjustment.They do have insurance, don't they, he asked facetiously. I think you can see that if this continues to August or beyond, the survival of BP is very much in doubt. Yet, like doctors in Texas, Republicans have arbitrarily capped the liability big oil can be held accountable for. It appears that no business should be fully responsible for their negligence, in their view. Most people find this shocking.

I don't think it should be the goal of our society to accept as a general principle anything less than the first priority being to make innocent victims completely whole with no residual hole in their lives or in their barrels. Bankruptcy is well down the list.

Criticizing BP isn't personal

2010-06-16T21:07:00.000-07:00

No one in the US, even Obama, is interested in the nationality of anyone associated with this debacle.

A great many people, in addition to the victims, are interested in holding everyone involved accountable.

BP's reputation is terrible here; the refinery, Prudoe Bay etc etc. BP documentation and personal reports were consistently adverse to BP. And there were rumblings that they were considering taking steps (like that nasty American tax dodging Swiss company, Transocean) to avoid their full financial responsibility.

We often refer to companies who have shortened their names by their old one (3M, KFC, MGM, ATT, IBM) when we are admonishing them, like your mother calling you William Robert when she is angry, instead of Billy Bob.

The British Press (not BP) seem to take a position, like some took regarding the tobacco companies; they should sell as much to children as possible to pay for the cancer in adults, and maintain the dividend for the old cancer victims? Curious.

They want the issue to be, "America (everyone in it) is trying to break BP." even though, as they quickly point out, there are as many BP shareholders in the US, half of their board are Americans, there are as many employees in America etc.

America's answer is, "So what?" Do they think we are so happy with Exxon-Mobil?

They shouldn't take this so personally. We don't think BP is their "mum." We just don't want them to jump bail, bribe the guards (as well as MMS) and flee with the family silver.

Shareholders take risk and Lehman, Bear Stearns, Enron and BP shareholders have lost money and I'm sorry.

I don't quite understand how people can want unsafe drilling to continue while it is ruining the lives of their families, friends and others who also live in the gulf and make a living outside the oil industry. Their conversations at family picnics must be interesting? Oh, and they don't want government to interfere in their lives, just clean up all of the oil, see that they get compensated for any loss, and interfere in their neighbor's lives who don't have the same world view. And, see that Medicare and Social Security work for grandma but eliminate all entitlements. Hmmmm.

New look and new me?

2010-06-16T12:41:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the new look blog of The Brighton Sage.

Have I changed? Well, only you can tell and probably not right away.

I just read that the Senate "made a deal to exempt a special interest group from having to disclose that they were paying for the ad."

One, special interest group. Just one. I ask you to accept the premise that one group should be treated differently from every individual, corporation, union and every other special interest group.

Now, please consider which singular special interest group would you consider worthy of such a special exemption? The Red Cross, the NAACP, the ACLU, the JDL, Free Tibet, NORML, some other charitable organization that would never take a controversial political position?

No, this one is for the cynics among us. It is the NRA. What were they thinking? What were they saying? What would be the rationale that anyone could use to justify this? Who even had the idea? It sounds like a Tea Party idea doesn't it? But you could never get ANY democrat to even consider discussing such a bizarre idea, right?

Wrong! It was written and proposed by North Carolina Rep. Heath Shuler, an NRA backer and conservative Democrat, who proved to be pivotal to the NRA deal. And it is already a deal, agreed to by the Democratic Senatorial Caucus, apparently.

Just when you think you might have things figured out. One nut case maybe? Two or three Republican Right wing nuts; Peter King, Michelle Bachmann, Strom Thurman (oops, he did finally die, didn't he?)

The proposal would exempt organizations that have more than 1 million members, have been in existence for more than 10 years, have members in all 50 states and raise 15 percent or less of their funds from corporations. Democrats say the new language would apply to only the NRA, since no other organization would qualify under these specific provisions. The NRA, with 4 million members, will not actively oppose the DISCLOSE Act, according to Democratic sources.

Remember the Nebraska "Cornhusker kickback", and the "Louisiana Purchase" healthcare deals They weren't bad enough. Now this. Excuse me. I have to throw up in my waste basket.

The great drill, spill and chill experiment

2010-06-13T11:16:00.000-07:00

It is clear that most people have not grasped the potential benefit of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster.

In principle, the oil industry was effectively, completely deregulated during the Bush administration. Through a combination of a stated policy of reducing regulation, consciously deciding not to enforce most of the rest of them that were on the books as statutes and finally encouraging bribery of MMS to complete the job of deregulation, the oil industry became the best example of an industry completely free of “red tape.”

Now we are treated to an example of how well freedom works. The industry was free to drill deep-water wells using any combination of equipment and process in order to maximize their profits. And that is what they have done. As nearly as we can determine, they chose not to use safer equipment because it was more expensive (double wall casing is just one example). They didn't test equipment that would have reduced the risk of a blow out, even though there were indications that it was broken or might be malfunctioning (the blow out preventer that would have cut and closed the pipe is an example). They didn't follow the safer processes such as putting in up to 30 concrete plugs, using sea water instead of drilling mud, and ignoring gas “kicks” that indicated things were going wrong.

And now that the blow out occurred, we have seen that they had no plan to remedy this and had not invested in any development of technologies for containment or cleanup over the previous three decades. But in a completely free, unregulated environment this was all quite legitimately within their purview and any libertarian would say that this is just as it should be.

Here's the good part. BP has said they will make everyone whole. In other words, they will make everyone who has lost something forget the loss by giving them compensation, in some form acceptable to each, to make all of the losers feel just as good about their situation as they would have if the blow out never occurred.

The delay in addressing the loss is making people concerned, effectively increasing their loss (pain and suffering due to being unable to meet financial obligations, for example). I must admit that I have never witnessed nor discovered in history any examples of large losses experienced by many people being compensated to the full satisfaction of the victims. I admit I may have missed some.

But right here and right now we being told that we are about to witness all of those who are being damaged by this accident, that no one could have foreseen, being made as happy and comfortable as they were before it happened. The re-creation of the wildlife, wetlands, beaches, jobs and businesses will be astounding, approaching miraculous.

As a result, all of us who mistakenly thought that sensible regulations administered by well-meaning, uncompromised regulators was the best way to maximize the public good, will see our error. I, for one, will consciously, willingly apologize for all of my doubt and skepticism of the purity and benevolence of motives of the conservative politicians, the management and shareholders of BP, and the nonregulators of the MMS.

So now we should turn over the regulation of the oil industry to states so that the states surrounding the Gulf, Texas, Louisiana. Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida (who have all been leaders in the cause of deregulation) can make the tourism, fishing, shrimping, oyster, the oil industry and all of their citizens, as happy as they can be, unbothered by Federal attempts to contain the spill, to clean up the oil, restore the ecosystem, and require safety standards to be met. Now you can drill, spill, and chill to your heart's content with no national news coverage.

While you are all getting happy, some of us may choose to vacation elsewhere,

When the Illegals Left

2010-06-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

Paraphrasing a little piece by Ernest L. Meyer:

We were talking about the members of our armed forces that came from Latin America and Asia and desire to gain citizenship. And I had a dream about a person who was a composite of Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck and some prominent politicians, call it "Rush" for short.

In the dream Rush was approached by a Genie who said I can grant you one wish. Rush responded with, I wish that all illegal aliens would be exiled to some distant inhospitable spot where they would be punished for breaking our laws. The Genie replied, I can do that but where I come from we have a law that says that whosoever is exiled should be able to take with them that which they have created, and that seems just to me and if you will abide by it, I will grant your wish. Certainly, said Rush, let them take their dissent and plots to vote Democratic, and join unions and exchange drugs for money and weapons. And good riddance.

Instantly a fleet of barges appeared filling with people taking houses, apartments, bridges, roads, slaughter houses, landscaping and auto and tire plants and produce and coal and oil and many other goods. And, they took their alien culture, with their music, and dance and cuisine, their languages, their ideals, and fun, all of which had been woven into the rich and multicolored fabric that is America. And a great hunger quickly followed and a great and strange silence. And in that silence, nothing was heard but the frightened whimpering of Rush gazing over the barren landscape crying, Genie, Genie! But there was no answer because the Genie, being an alien, was in one of the barges headed for Baghdad, Bangladesh or Peru.

Why does the Right Hate America?

2010-05-29T15:39:00.000-07:00

I read this question on a blog and some of the flippant answers motivated me to try to fashion a serious answer.

We have just experienced a curious confluence in which a right wing coalition of economic libertarians who wanted only self regulation for big oil, big agribusiness, big banks, big hedge funds, and big everything.... , grifters, big and small, who under the guise of capitalism, just wanted something for nothing, and the government seemed like a good place to get it, those who just wanted to disrupt the function of government for a variety of reasons, many of them not very idealistic, and those who wanted to regulate, but only to control or punish the social and personal conduct of their enemies, then there were also included some gun worshipers and UFO crazies. There were other right wing faction that were part of the coalition.

It is impossible to form a government that actually provides good governance with such a witches brew, and sane people didn't expect it. That there are still many of these anti government nit wits still in place, consciously embedded by small violations of civil service rules over the span of 8 years, such as hiring on the basis ideological loyalty rather than competence (this is well documented)is also no surprise.

Their cousins, outside of government who were frustrated that George II and Cheney the Impaler did not completely crush or corrupt the government, are now claiming to be "patriots" wanting to take their country back (a: it wasn't theirs, b: back to a what never existed), to secede (again) because a majority wants something different, to ignore any part of the Constitution that protected somebody else's rights, and to re-interpret, it and all historical records to fit the mythical narrative the have made up to justify their current folly.

Of course they hate. They hate the facts that do not fit those narratives and they hate science which tries to get ever closer to the truth by research and self criticism, and they hate people who bring up those facts and analyses, and, most of all, they hate those (especially minorities, sometimes including women) who exemplify the history of their maltreatment by those "patriots" and their "intellectual" antecedents.

They are quite willing to take, with or without, fair compensation, the benefits of science, technology, the savings of this and previous generations, and to break treaties, contracts, and laws that are inconvenient while denigrating the intellectuals who have helped them escape the very caves (physical and intellectual, that their ancestors lived in. It is easier to hate the people that you are ripping off than to acknowledge their value.

It is Memorial Day, when they try to act as if they value the sacrifice of only some of those who sacrificed to allow them to live in luxury and to have the luxury of defaming them.

It is reasonable to want good governance and fair regulation. Do consumers deserve protection from unscrupulous banks, mortgage, pharmaceutical, oil, and insurance companies, car dealers,etc??. Yes! And, it is reasonable to expect that it can be provided at much lower cost that the corrupt patchwork of political appointees and lobbyist written laws we now have? Yes! But to trade this for an even more corrupt theocracy like Iran or Saudi Arabia, or an oligarchy of military/intelligence services like Russia (oops that is close to what we have)or a corporate-ocracy (which we mostly do have) or a hybrid of some of these,isn't such a good idea, at least not with any of the right wing characters I have seen in charge. I doubt these diverse factions could form any stable government. How many pure libertarian countries have succeeded? Would the religious right really allow everyone to live the lifestyle of their choice? Gays? Blacks, Latinos? Muslims? Atheists? Liberals?

We must find a way to get the special interests out of our governing process and, though it will be very difficult, it is the best investment we could make. We must continue to try, even when it is more difficult than war. That is how we ALL get our country back (not as it ever was, but as our founders vaguely hoped it would be).

Undrill, baby, undrill

2010-04-30T18:16:00.000-07:00

The disaster of the explosion of the drilling platform,was a shock to most of the people in the US. We don't know what caused it, that will be discovered in time, no doubt. But there are some things that we are learning which we should have known before now.

One thing we seem to have just learned is that we have never had this kind of failure and so we (including the industry who stated categorically that this couldn't happen)have no experience dealing with it. Another thing we just learned is that the regulating agencies and government entities that have to step up when the industry folks fail, including the Coast Guard, National Guard,Homeland Security, the EPA, Department of Energy, etc., don't know anything about it and are unprepared both technologically and organizationally to deal with it effectively. And since the industry assured that it couldn't happen, the government should deserve a little slack. But, not too much.

Another thing we learn is that this is another industry which has almost no regulation re worker safety, environmental damage, or practices. So, "Drill baby drill", "Wall Street needs room to be creative, so Repo 105?", "So, what's wrong with Swiss Bank accounts?", "Our customer like to squish their floor mats under the accelerator pedal."

It seems like there is a pretty high cost of no regulation, but the tax is pretty direct. We pay with our credit scores, our foreclosures and bankruptcies, our 401k's and our IRA's, outsourcing our jobs and sometimes we even pay with our lives.

I'm glad this experiment is finally over. Football, baseball, basketball are better games with referees and so is the game of life.

Self regulation worked for Robinson Crusoe, but only until Friday showed up.

Wall Street: never fails to amaze

2010-04-17T11:37:00.000-07:00

The SEC has filed a suit against Goldman Sachs. A day late and a $ trillion short?

It seems to me that having the track owners give you the opportunity to pick the worst horses in a race so you can bet that they lose is just as rigged as picking the best horses and betting that they win.

It is actually better since people are trained to be suspicious of the winners. Goldman was the track and took a rake off the top for arranging the transactions, which were big because they could attract lots of bettors who were ignorantly picking winners and a few big bettors hedge funds who knew they could rig the game to win by picking nags on the way to the cannery. Goldman narrowly defines "clients" in this case, to the hedge funds.

Other people, like retail brokerages and some other investment bankers, were providing the suckers (because that is what they do) while the investment bankers were bribing the rating agencies to mislabel the products.

Have I got that right? So the hedge fund guys (one made $1 billion) are innocent and shouldn't be prosecuted, right? And the retail mortgage brokers and the appraisers whose job was to provide the fraudulent mortgages to be packaged as MBS or other derivative products, like Wamu who had some offices with 83% bad deals, they just made a few mistakes. Right!

And the idiots that sold the CDS's to the hedge funds (AIG), were so nice that they paid the fraudulent losses because Goldman told them to, and Goldman told their friends and clients to push the insurers to pay them first (before the money ran out). You don't suppose Goldman had more than intuition to help them conclude that there would quickly be more failures than the insurers could pay off, do you?

Goldman says there is no merit to these claims, so I don't know where my cynicism could have come from, do you?

The Tea Party phenomon

2010-04-14T19:54:00.000-07:00

As a person who lived in Orange County and worked with the county head of the John Birch Society in the '60's, I see some parallels with them. So, I will make a few observations. First, where and what is the John Birch Society now? Second, history sometimes repeats itself. Third, Looking at their events I can see who and what they represent and what they don't. Fourth, "malcontent" isn't a platform for governance. Fifth, The original tea party involved taking tea from a warehouse in Hingham, Mass. (my family co founded it and some lived there through the Revolution and is it really NOT relevant to the current situation at all.) and dumping the tea in the harbor was totally symbolic in that the tea was old and spoiled and wasn't owned by the British. They hardly noticed it.

The T Party is like the Bircher's in that there are the same components in it: T for traitors, T for terrorists, T for The anarchists, for The secessionists, T for The bigots, T for The romanticize-ors of the Confederacy, T for Those who haven't noticed that their taxes have gone down, T for takers of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, VA benefits, Farm and crop subsidies, FHA mortgages, subsidized teachers, fire and police salaries etc, and other benefits of government. Their answer is, "We are using it but we don't like it."

Well, good for you. How would you like smaller government in the form of a Defense Department that spends what Russia and China spend together?? How about twice that? Or, three times? Four? We are spending 5, that's five, times what they are spending, and for what?

Are you ready to cut off the two wars that will cost us in EXCESS of $3 trillion, according to the current plan? Come on. Put together a real real plan, a platform, and if it makes sense, I will support it.

Until then can the hate speech and stupid slogans, it embarrasses your Mom. And go volunteer at a school, hospital or rest home. And, as for the MSM, go do a little honest investigative journalism for a change.

Mine disaster, country disaster?

2010-04-08T16:37:00.000-07:00

The mine disaster in West Virginia is very sad. It is also an effect stemming from a cause.

It is a failure of regulation. Like the sub-prime meltdown, the health care crisis, the Toyota acceleration problem and other problems which suddenly become crises are usually traceable to a lack of regulation or enforcement of regulations that were in place.

The mine disaster occurred in a mine that had a huge number of safety violations. And when the violations were the cause for fines, only 16% of the fines were paid, and the fines that were paid amounted to such a small percentage of the revenues and profits from the mine that they were just viewed as the "cost of doing business." The mine owner "bought" the Judges, up to the State Supreme Court level, with up to $3 million in contributions, and was immune to prosecution, to a significant extent.

Until we get rid of the corrupting influence of campaign contributions buying politicians and judges, we will merit the scorn of despots like Karzai, who say, "Your country is just as corrupt as ours, and you want us to change?"

Self delusion

2010-04-02T20:46:00.000-07:00

There are a number of surveys or polls that show that between 1/3 and 1/2 of our population believe things that are obviously not true and are easily verified as being false. This is a remarkable phenomenon in a free society.

We condemn various totalitarian regimes of the past (and present) who controlled virtually all of the media e.g. Nazi Germany, Stalinist USSR, the PRC under Chairman Mao etc. And we don't blame their populations for believing some, or even a substantial portion of the propaganda that they were fed because there was almost no sources of objective news available to them, or so we have been led to believe.

Given the FACT that so many Americans believe so much that is so wrong, and we have a free press something else must be in play. I once incorrectly blamed their ignorance on an incompetent mainstream media. I was wrong. It is inescapable that they are not aware of information that is readily available from many sources that could and would disabuse them of the errors that they have embraced.

One must conclude that they have consciously (or as consciously as they ever are)chosen to only listen to or read news or information sources that coincide with and reinforce their distorted views of reality. This isn't a case of being accidentally misinformed on an occasional basis.

This is willful self delusion. It deserves the harshest criticism we have.

Where normal people are willing to come to agreement on a set of relevant facts and then argue passionately about their meaning or what should be done given their reality, these people will disregard any reasonable attempt to verify the set of original facts. This makes any further discourse a complete waste of time. It would be charitable to explain this as a mental illness. It is more of a character issue called intellectual dishonesty. And, what shall we say about their sources of self propaganda?

Is the Vatican a victim?

2010-04-02T13:36:00.000-07:00

Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, who holds the office of preacher of the papal household, delivered his remarks in the traditional prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica. Wearing the brown cassock of a Franciscan, Father Cantalamessa took note that Easter and Passover were falling during the same week this year, saying he was led to think of the Jews. “They know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms,” he said.

I think most people would relate the Jews of the holocaust who were raped, tortured and murdered, to the children who were raped and may have been tortured, in some cases (much that is known by some people has not been made public) as being the victims.

The organizations who were involved (and the extent has also not been fully disclosed) in inflicting the harm (that appears to have taken place based on the limited documentation that has surfaced, despite all efforts of the church to suppress it) was, and is, not the press, as Cantalamessa tries to imply, who is reporting the fact as they are known.

The statement Cantalamessa makes boggles the mind. Who are the victims and who is siding with the perpetrators? Should we feel sorry for the Jews and the children or for the Nazis and the church? If the church is the victim, what are the children? Collateral damage??

The Pope, it was reported, continued to look down after this statement was made. Cantalamessa quoted from letter to him, “I am following the violent and concentric attacks against the church, the pope and all the faithful by the whole word,” he said the friend wrote. “The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt, remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.”

We know the Nazis could not defend their conduct and any attempt to compartmentalize the decisions and awareness of what went on at their war crimes trial.

If you want to attack your accusers because they are drawing incorrect conclusions based on incomplete information (and I think any fair person could conclude that the documentation suggests that withholding full disclosure to authorities was ORDERED)then, you have the burden of making full disclosure, since the proof of your claim is under your exclusive control. The resignation of any individual would not serve the interest of the world in full disclosure. It would only be another step in the retreat delaying what is now inevitable.

It is going to take a lot of disclosure to make the world believe that the Catholic Church is as big a victim as those thousands of children. Right now it is the poster child for the failure of self regulation.

The sound of one hand clapping

2010-03-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

Can someone please tell me how one party ends partisanship, unilateraly?

The Democrats claimed that they were going to try (and I think they were smart enough to include the word "try") to reduce the partisanship during this administration. There were some obvious gestures. The "stimulus" bill spent at least 1/3 on tax cuts and other Republican prescriptions for job creation. Nobody really looked hard at what the Bush administration did to create jobs. They pushed through huge tax cuts for the wealthy (following Reagan's trickle down economics hypothesis [it is called a hypothesis because it hadn't been proved to work.]) which then proved not to work. Both jobs and worker average incomes did not grow.

Then in health care and financial reform, Baucus and and Dodd both gave disproportionate representation (equal, not in proportion to their number of Senate seats)and included a large number of Republican proposed amendments in the legislation even after it became obvious that including them would not gain any Republican votes. When the Republicans were in control of both houses and the White House we never saw this.

When one party takes the position that they will vote as a block against all important legislation, accusing the other party of not bringing about bipartisanship is worse than disingenuous. It is insane.

It is like blaming the hand swinging in the air, for the silence, when the other hand is in a pocket. Don't they have to meet half way?

The Pope and too big to fail

2010-03-19T13:32:00.000-07:00

I am the least qualified to give advice to the Catholic Church but it seems just too obvious that there are parallels between the big financial institutions (deemed too big to fail)and the Catholic Church.

Both of them have management that been broadly involved in wrong doing, either as a participant or as a conspirator in the cover up of criminal activity. Some are prosecuted to conviction, but there are all too few of these. Others plea bargain and pay large fines (then falsely maintain that they didn't do anything wrong)and their employer's pay huge civil settlements to victims.

But now what do these organizations do? They need clean management, really clean, and new business policies and practices implemented by the new management.

The new management should have no connection with the old problems, in fact, they should come from organizations that haven't had any of these problems. Maybe the Church could get Archbishop Eames, chair of the international "Lambeth Commission" of the Anglican Communion, to head the organization, and have him replace the current Pope, his brother, and all of the Cardinals and Bishops.

He has experience with gay Bishops and married clergy, not without friction, but at least there has not been widespread pedophilia, as far as I am aware. Just a thought.
Or, there is Jack Welch from GE. He has retired and without too much scandal, except for the divorce and retirement benefits problem.

The Boy Scouts have had some problems but they seem to have fixed the pedophilia problem in two ways. One is requiring background checks and the other implementing a policy they call Two Deep. They don't allow a single boy to be alone with a leader. Rather there must always be two leaders present and no closed doors or tents.

It seems like the Catholic Church has "fixed" this problem several times. Maybe they should try something new, even if it is drastic. I wouldn't suggest a merger with Goldman Sachs. One thing that is clear, they aren't too big to fail, either.

The world is changing

2010-03-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

Well, actually, it has already changed. It is just old white guys who haven't noticed it yet.

Raising a grandson gave me a significant advantage over most old white guys. It kept me in touch with the newest generation of young adults. So I wasn't surprised by the latest poll regarding gays serving in the military. It reported the following:

In total, 81% of those in the Air Force, 78% of those in the Navy, 67% of those in the Army, and 68% of those in the Marines would find it acceptable if gay and lesbian people were allowed to serve openly in the military. There were a few other questions for those who want to split hairs, but the bottom line is the policy needs to be changed and changed retroactively in so far as possible. I mean that any of the 13,000 that were forced out should be invited back if their service record was satisfactory before the expulsion process began. We have thrown out a lot of talent that cost a lot of money to train and have lowered standards to make up the short fall.

Those who disagree will quickly point out that the policy change will not be acceptable to everyone in the services, which is true. Maybe we should also have a survey to see whether the policy should be "Don't ask don't tell for bigots."

Some will protest that bigots are better fighters than gays. My recollection is that historically it was usually several bigots ganging up on a gay guy rather than vice versa. Sadly, more gay guys have experience fighting for their lives against a mob than do bigots. These days, young people in the mainstream are more likely to ostracize a bigot than to gang up on any minority.

I regard that as a good thing. Our country has a long (and admittedly too slow) history of expanding the legal rights of each minority (blacks, women, disabled, elderly, etc.) and then accepting them socially, so this is an obvious next step. So, having people fighting for their own rights rather than having people fighting to withhold others rights seems to be both more effective and more just.

I may be old and I may be white. And, I may be a straight guy, so I have had my rights a long time. But if I don't stick up for other's rights it won't be long before somebody will decide I don't need mine. What do you think?

Where are all of the criminals?

2010-03-17T11:44:00.000-07:00

Here we are in March, 2010, and I have a lot of questions bouncing around in my head about the major financial mess we have just gone through. Investors, home owners, often the same people, have lost huge amounts of money (if you agree that one and a half trilli,000,000,000,000n dollars is a huge amount of money). At least 10 million Americans have lost their jobs and at least that many more have lost paid working hours, second jobs, taken demotions or have otherwise been financially harmed in one or more ways.

It is hard to make the case that all this has resulted from poor decisions on their part. Sure, some of them knew they were taking on debt greater than their ability to pay. Those who did that clearly have a personal responsibility for their fate.

But the people I am interested in are those who were involved in 57 flavors of, what we can loosely call, fraud.and conspiracy. When you lie or misrepresent or distort or dissemble etc. in order to separate someone from their money, or assist some else in doing so, most of us would call that fraud or the conspiracy to commit fraud. Isn't fraud a crime? Isn't conspiracy a crime?

When the terms of a loan are misrepresented, isn't that a crime? When loan applications are filled out by a representative different from the information provided by the borrower, isn't that a crime? When the documents are modified without the knowledge or agreement of the borrower, isn't that a crime? When the appraisal is “tailored” to requirements of the seller, isn't that a crime? When the representatives are schooled to misrepresent loan terms, isn't that a crime? And when loan documents are crafted to mislead the borrower, isn't that a crime?

When loans are securitized by an underwriter without the traditional due diligence to verify the quality (ability of the borrowers too repay) and the securities are sold to investors who reasonably believe that the due diligence has been done, isn't that a crime? When the securities are rated as higher quality than their actual quality by a ratings agency who have a conflict of interest (paid by the underwriter who benefits from a higher rating), isn't that a crime? When packages of lower rated securities are mixed with higher rated securities and the resulting securities always retain the rating of the highest rated securities in the package (there is no dilution), isn't that a crime?

When most of a company's revenue (not just profit) goes to bonuses of the top management, isn't that a crime? When a bank uses depositor's money to gamble on naked swaps and other high risk "investments", isn't that a crime? When regulators refuse to regulate the companies they are supposed to regulate, isn't that a crime? When federal agencies actively prevented state regulatory agencies from doing their jobs (preemptive regulation it was called), isn't that a crime?

When members of Congress pass laws to prevent the prosecution of the crimes of fraud and conspiracy and then take jobs and other forms of payoffs for the favor, isn't that a crime?

Some of the aforementioned are, in fact, crimes today and were before 2006, 2007, 2008 when they were perpetrated. People are not generally satisfied that all of the prosecutions that could and should have been brought, have been.

Others should have been crimes, or actually were crimes at one time, before they were revoked to favor the special interests involved. And others were loopholes that should have been covered by laws but in some cases, were opposed by special interests and some misguided believers in general deregulation.

In some categories, a few have been prosecuted. In others; none. How many of the loopholes have been closed by new laws since the crisis; none. Where are all of the criminals and should-be criminals? No matter where you live, they are in your neighborhood. How do you feel about that?

The Healthcare Summit

2010-02-26T13:06:00.000-08:00

I believe an opportunity was presented in the Summit, if you can sift out all of the empty posturing. Sen. Coburn brought up the Thompson Reuters health care waste study, suggesting that the waste identified in it should be cut first, an obvious delaying tactic. Obama said, at the end of Coburn's remarks, "I agree".

He should now say, "I agree with Senator Coburn, who was speaking for the Republicans, that the waste must be cut and I am committed to implement the recommendations of this study, as far as is practical, just like the implementations of the 9/11 Commission recommendations were implemented. And we will use the savings to implement the increased coverage that we propose. Any increases in coverage will be paid for by these savings and additional revenue described in the bill, as scored by the CBO and we will reduce the deficit by $X over the next ten years. All agreements made behind closed doors that are inconsistent with those recommendations are not in the interest of the American people and are void."

Then watch the Republicans, insurance companies, big PhARMA, doctors and hospitals throw up on each other. Of course, there may be some Blue Dog Democrats joining them.

The healthcare debate we should have had

2010-02-26T09:35:00.000-08:00

If McCain had won, the sell out to drug companies under Bush's Medicare Part D would have continued, as would the premium rip off under employer-based private insurance. Attempts to limit malpractice claims to $250,000 for the deaths of the 100,000 people who die annually because of medical errors and attempts to prevent the 45,000 casualties due to lack of healthcare every year, would have continued, with nothing being done because of Congressional gridlock. The deaths and suffering of the survivors and their families would have continued while Democrats got their contributions from the trial lawyers and unions and Republicans got theirs from the Chamber of Commerce, doctors, and hospital chains and the companies that insure them. Lawyers and insurance companies love conflict.

The number of uninsured would have continued to grow, and the catastrophic emergencies brought on and exacerbated by the lack of preventative care they couldn't afford, would have become a medical mushroom cloud.

The overall cost of this dysfunctional healthcare system would grow to nearly 20% of our GDP, during this term, while our world healthcare ranking would have dropped below 40.

Oh, wait. Obama won. Guess what? The prediction is still perfectly true. The private death panels are flourishing in every insurance company, denying treatment for arrogantly fabricated reasons, causing the deaths of not just old people, but children and their parents, as well.

We thought Obama wouldn't make a deal with big PhRMA to take a small reduction in the amount they PLANNED to rip America off, even before the first hearing on healthcare reform in Congress. And we thought he wouldn't make the same kind of deal with the hospital chains, also, before any hearings. We thought he would free the population from the strictures of a corrupt employer-union collusion that holds them captive in a health care-based economic slavery. But no, that and our hope for change was all sold out ”on day one” or some small number. Would it have gone better if McCain had won? I don't think so. He offered the hope of no change. Government by lobbyist is the norm for both parties. The polls show that you and I know it.

So, what have we learned about how the debate should have gone from our perspective? We all know that America must be competitive in the world market and that we have abandoned that position in a long series of small bad decisions. The most obvious symptom of this is that our competitor nations are spending 8-10 percent of their GDP on healthcare while we are passing 17% heading for 20+% and they are getting far better results (we rank 37th). That must be reversed.

The first thing Obama's administration should have done is set the goal of having a system that costs no more than 10% of our GDP (OK, 12). The second would be to set a goal of ranking in the top 10 or 20 (pick a number) in health outcomes. Then after a short series of hearings on how to reach these goals, it would have become as clear to Congress, as it is to us, the impossibility of reaching them with a new system, designed-by-lobbyists. Being so exceptional carries a high price tag.

Then, they could have passed legislation (actual bipartisan) to put the choice among the two, three, or four best systems in the world on the ballot for us to choose among. The special interests would start bombarding us with propaganda, as they are sure to do. And, if we stupidly pick the fourth best system instead of the best, we are still up from ranking 37th and paying about half what we are paying now. The Healthcare Summit barely mentioned these facts.

By the way, one of the best systems in the world was designed in the 1990's with the help of Professor William Hsiao of Harvard. Taiwan was smart enough to hire him but our politicians did a better job? Is the box you have been thinking in a little too snug? Where was the press in all of this? That's another debate we should have had.

Sooperbowl XLIV

2010-02-08T13:21:00.000-08:00

Well, I couldn't lose on this one. I like both quarterbacks and there are no bad guys on either team or coaching staffs. So the only possible downside of the game is that one team would play poorly. Didn't happen. A couple of small mistakes decided it but most players could face their families without shame.

If you were watching for the commercials, well they had some. And the half time show, there was one.

We sat at home, enjoyed our home made nachos and got to bed early. No harm, no foul and no hangover.

Life is good.

Hope your day was a good one also!

Missing the Healthcare Target

2009-10-02T14:51:00.000-07:00

Now that the Senate has completed their markup of the Baucus (insurance stimulus) bill, I think most of us believe that we will miss the healthcare reform target. It was a foregone conclusion for two reasons. First, was that the wrong target was chosen. What was called the target was too nebulous, too wordy and unmeasurable. If you don't agree, what was it?

I believe that a better target would have been something simple, easy to remember and most of all, measurable.

Since we know that we are spending 17% of our GDP on healthcare and that the other leading industrial countries are spending about half of that, say 8-10%, why shouldn't half of the target be something like 12% of GDP? The other half should be one of the global measures of the outcomes. On some of these we are ranked something like 37th or on others 22nd or 27th. We could have picked another modest goal of being ranked in the top 20, or 15, or, if we are really aggressive, the top 10 of one of these?

We could pick 12% and in the top 12. So we could say, a dozen for a dozen? Then we could all keep track of our progress. But maybe some don't want to measure progress.

The second reason we will miss is employer based healthcare. One thing business, labor and the health insurance industry agree upon. Employer-based healthcare is the one thing that will keep them fat and happy and the workers under control. Just don't expect 10% for 10th to happen anytime soon.

As Max says, "We don't want to change anything because that would change things."

I'm back

2009-09-04T13:14:00.000-07:00

Well, some times a hiatus is good for one and I think this one has been good for me.

The column was a time commitment that was getting cumbersome and I was waiting for things to get much better or much worse. Happily, they have only gotten some worse. And then the summer got much fuller of travel than I had anticipated with 2 weeks in Europe and a month circumnavigating the northeastern US and a bit of Canada.

Then came the 50th aniversery party and the next thing it knew it is now.

I hope you had a great spring and summer.

I will try to get back here more often.

Will there be justice?

2009-04-21T08:03:00.000-07:00

It is disturbing to hear responses to questions about the prosecution of politicians that use the words "looking ahead instead of back" and "anger," "retribution" and "retaliation."

From sources that have called for transparency and accountability, failing to use the word "justice" in responding to questions about what the government will do about conduct that not only broke our statutes and treaties but that many agree also violated our constitution is very disturbing.

Investigation of the politicization of the Justice Department seems futile if the decision to refuse to prosecute even more agregious offenses appears politically based. If every administration avoids prosecuting the misdeeds of the previous on in the hope that their own violations will be ignored.

That is not the way to restore the trust of the American people.

Transparency and tough decisions.

2009-01-31T09:36:00.000-08:00

There has never been a more secretive presidency in the history of the US. That is well documented. To underscore this, the ex-president has claimed executive privilege, not for himself, or even conversations between himself and a member of his staff. He has, for the first time ever, claimed it for communication between a staff member and everyone, in perpetuity. He extended for many, (like 75) years the shield restricting the papers of other presidents including his father's. He avoided oversight by congress for 6 years by requiring that the Republicans in both houses simply not require it. Then he ignored congressional requests for testimony and even subpoenas of his staff to avoid oversight in the last 2 years. They destroyed emails and other paper records. And they used an unauthorized outside email system, in violation of the law. They politicized every department and refused to implement and enforce the laws passed by congress and the Constitution.

Now he says he wants to be judged by history. He means ancient history. Because he doesn't want the facts to be known before then. In his legacy tour he continued to spout assertions that have been completely discredited by facts that he tried to keep secret. I believe that his legacy while be: He was a rogue president, exercising powers he didn't have, breaking the Constitution and the statutes of the United States and standards of common decency, and, in the end, has had all of the rumors of his misdeeds proved by the facts he illegally sought to suppress. He has set a standard that we hope is not approached ever again.

Footnote: Cheney has refused to turn over the paperwork of his office to the US archives as every other Vice President since the Presidential Records Act has done.

Making so many bad decisions must have been tough, but covering the tracks must have been even tougher. Transparency was not in Bush's very limited vocabulary, but he has created a new field, "Presidential forensic archaeology." Researchers will be be discovering crimes by this administration for decades and even centuries. Theses, papers and books will be written and all future presidents will be measured on a specturm that extends from Lincoln to Bush, 43.

Depressing reality

2008-12-17T08:19:00.000-08:00

I have not been motivated to post recently since the world seems to be going to hell in a hand basket, as they say.
A financial wizard stole and lost about $50 billion of other peoples money. Not mine. But The SEC was tipped off about 10 years ago and never did anything about it. My question is how many others haven't they caught and prosecuted?
The write down losses on in Wall street banks just broke $1 trillion. But that is still probably just the tip of the iceberg. There are still the commercial loan failures, the credit card failures, the school loan failures and who knows how many more.
The Treasury Secretary insisted that a one sentence change be made in the bank bailout legislation. It narrowed the executive compensation limits to apply only to the firms from which he purchased toxic assets. He told the banks it was un-enforceable before it was passed and then used the money a different way to bail them out, so it wouldn't apply. Jail time for fraud? Not likely.
The VP admits he and the White house approved water boarding, a war crime that the US prosecuted German and Japanese for after WW-II. And he also said that they would have attacked Iraq even if they knew that there were no WMD's. It isn't that they didn't know. They "did" know. Ron Suskind's book documents that the Iraqi Foreign minister and the head of Iraqi Intelligence independently confirmed that there were no WMD to the intelligence community and the White House before the WAR.
I find the prospect that these war crimes and all of the other crimes that have victimized the US will never be prosecuted, a depressing reality, don't you?

Priorities for the "new" government

2008-11-12T13:14:00.000-08:00

So, what do you think the new priorities should be?

Jobs? It would be nice to create some but which ones?
Stimulus: Checks didn't work, so infrastructure this time?
Tax cuts?How do we pay for the Wars (Irag, Afghan, Terror) until they are stopped?
Reversing the "11th hour" Bush deregulations etc. that are planned by the cabinet?
Foreign policy that treats allies as co-equals?
Health care to lower manufacturing costs?
None of the above?

Congressional hearings

2008-10-23T14:14:00.000-07:00

While you are waiting for the election results, you can be painfully amused by watching the hearings about how the financial crisis came about. I think you have heard and will hear about the culprits some of which I mentioned (e.g. Greenspan who has acknowledged errors in his philosophy, Gramm who hasn't, and the regulators SEC, FDIC, CFTC who didn't regulate) and some I mentioned but now have faces, like Moody's, Fitch and S&P who handed out AAA ratings like Chickletts, for a price.

Greenspan kind of acknowledged that he new there was a problem but pleaded that it was bigger than he thought, so just because it is wrong wasn't enough. He didn't need to do anything until it was wrong and big. Well it's big now.

There are many deserving of prosecution, but most will skate.

Here is some light reading to understand where we really stand as a country: http://www.gao.gov/financial/fy2007financialreport.html

Desperation makes strange bedfellows

2008-10-06T09:59:00.000-07:00

Desperation makes strange bedfellows. I am never surprised but always disappointed when campaigns decide to "go negative." The Bush-Rove campaign attacked McCain (whom I admired) with the most vicious lies imaginable in the 2000 primary campaign. They were effective because as McCain's campaign chair Rick Davis said, 'attacks don't have to be true to be effective.'

One has to be concerned about the character of someone who not only forgives the attackers but brings them into their next campaign. This has happened and they are now being unleashed to put out a barrage of Swift boat style lies and smears as they used last time.

Adopting the techniques and the implementors of those despicable techniques, is about as low as a person, even a politician, gets.

I will be glad when this season is over and we can get back to criticizing the winners, even if they are not the losers referenced above.

Visiting Greendboro NC

2008-09-24T10:42:00.000-07:00

Just got back from visiting friends in Greensboro, North Carolina. It is a beautiful place where a LOT of Nor'easterners have retired. We went to a concert by the combined orchestras of Greensboro and Winston-Salem. It was great. One conductor is a world class violinist. The other is a singer and a cellist. They each performed while the other conducted, a treat for all involved. It is a very cosmopolitan community economically upscale but not snooty. They can get to mountains and the beach in a reasonable amount of time. End of commercial

Three couples of friends we made 30 years ago in New Jersey live in the area and we were able to see them all. More laughs than we have had for years but we are glad to be home.

Now we wash clothes and take of for our 50th class reunion in Concordia, Kansas, the home of those who grew up there.

So that's why I write

2008-09-08T09:05:00.000-07:00

My column, Why do I write, makes the point that I write to provide some discipline to my own thoughts and then I share them, with a little editing, with you.

So I have, in the past, written these thoughts, saved them for my later perusal and sometimes sent them to editors or politicians.

I hope you find them interesting, sometimes disturbing, thought provoking or aggrivating.

But, I hope, not dull.

McCain/Hillary?

2008-08-27T10:11:00.000-07:00

McCain seems so in love with and concerned about Hillary, I reckon he will just have to share the ticket with her. That is sure to boost his popularity with Hannity, Limbaugh and the talk slow crowd.

They have all been so complimentary to her over the last several years that I am sure they will want to overturn this terrible injustice. Maybe they even give her the top of the ticket? I have rarely seen such a sincere display of concern for one of their own. It almost brings a tear to this old eye.

So, did Carter have it right?

2008-08-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

I think his speech could be given at either of the conventions to thunderous appause. What do you think?

It is paradoxical that the time has come where there are TWO huge justifications for a sensible energy policy: We are running out of the stuff that is killing us and the stuff that is killing us is running out.

Drilling right here, right now is sure going to mess up a lot of meeting halls and auditoriums and I doubt whether it will produce much oil. McCain's ads say we have more oil than Saudi Arabia (without mentioning their's is down a few hundred feet and that a lot of ours is more than 20,000 feet deep covered by some hostile oceans.) and T. Boone Pickens says we only have 3% of the world's oil while consuming 25% of the total production.

Almost sounds like a disagreement between oil folks. What is a poor voter/consumer to believe?

So, where do you get your news?

2008-08-13T14:47:00.000-07:00

Give me some of your most trusted sources. Please not Fox or Headline News? OK, I admit that the National Inquirer gets it right about as often as any of the others.

Seriously though, do you see this as a problem?

I know, just because they are trying to get you doesn't necessarily mean that you are paranoid.

My Great Escape and Being Afraid

2008-08-06T07:41:00.000-07:00

After 3500 miles of driving the Rockies and plains as far north as Banff and back, I'm tired but reinvigorated, at the same time. It was a great experience. There was all of the beauty, of course, but there was sadness, watching forest fires in Yellowstone and 33,000 acres between the park and Cody, Wyoming.

Sorry, my column got skipped for one week. Not my fault but it is life.

Back to the the question, "Do you you feel fear?" Are you being manipulated by raising your fears? I was pretty emotional when I wrote the column because it seems like politicians are still trying to use it and I resent it.

What do you think?

"Dr. Phil" and my great escape

2008-07-16T19:34:00.000-07:00

I really thought we were through with Phil Gramm,i.e. that he had done all the damage to us that he could and that he would keep cashing his undeserved payof ... I mean paycheck from UBS and would just leave us alone. Oh, no! He had to try to come back and give us another dose (and I do mean dose). Belarus is much better than he deserves.

Any way, I escaped to Estes Park for a long weekend and tried really hard to forget him. I pretty much did that until I read today's paper and some fool ...

Oh well, I had a great time and it was cool and beautiful and I enjoyed every minute of it. Went to a concert by Dakota Blonde and loved it. Lots of picnics, especially breakfasts. RMNC, Fall River Road, Bear Lake, Alberta Falls etc. You get the idea. The only question is, Why come back?

And the answer is, To get ready for the real vacation toward the end of the month. Boise, Glacier, Yellowstone etc.

Don't fret, the columns are written and, as they say in the movies, are "in the can."

I'll miss you but......

Patriotism or oil?

2008-07-09T08:02:00.000-07:00

My last columns dealt with these subjects. I would like your comments on either or both of these.

Dogs and Commissioner has fleas

2008-06-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

They say that when you lie down with dogs you may get up with fleas. If someone in an Adams county office give out large no-bid contracts, it isn't good for the citizens. Commissioners Alice Nichol and W.R. “Skip” Fischer are responsible for the conduct of their county employees and even if they did not sign off on the contract,they were not providing the oversight that the position demands.
Accepting a contribution from the beneficiary of the no-bid contract creates, at the least, an appearance of graft.
If you aren't going to do your job properly, at the minimum you, should act shocked that it happened, promise to get to the bottom of it and take the appropriate punitive and corrective actions. And make it completely obvious that you do not benefit in any way from the misdeed. Colluding with another Commissioner on stonewalling and keeping the money only make both look worse.
The Commissioner's Mom's should have told them this, but I guess we will have to do it for them. At this point resignation AND returning the money would be the only way to restore anyone's trust. That, and a thorough independent investigation.
The only way to get rid of these fleas is to come clean, don't you think?

So, what do you want?

2008-05-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

Let me hear what you want and/or don't want in a president. What are the policies or positions that you want the next president to take and try to implement in the next term?

From now to November we will hear all of the talking points from the candidates until we can recite them in our sleep, so I am not interested in those. But, if you have given the subject some serious thought, I would like to hear your issues and priorities.

What are you concerned enough about that you would dedicate some of your time, energy and maybe even money to, to get addressed in some corrective way?

Or, have you given up and only want to tune out and have the whole process to go away? Are you willing to take whatever they decide to give you?

It's your life and I am really not trying to tell you what to think or do.

Complaints about the Oligarchy

2008-04-28T15:22:00.000-07:00

There are plenty of complaints about the "good old boys (and girls)" who seem like an oligarchy which range from self dealing, to "we know what's best for you", all the way to the most blatant forms of arrogance. And examples are cited at the local level all the way to the federal government. You have heard them and can cite them from your own knowledge.
I know it isn't my sole responsibility to fix government. And, many would say it isn't even any of my business. I think that's wrong. But the level of frustration that people feel now is very high. I am concerned because I believe that my New Year column's prediction about this being a rough year was understated and that things may get much worse before they get better.
I think people should be concerned about their government and willing to actively support changes that are sound. But people can go from concerned to desperate, when just a few more things go wrong.
So, finding a balance between when people are complacent and cynically ignore poor government and when they start feeling that their survival is threatened and begin to ignore the common rules of civil conduct can become a pretty small space.
I think this is what we need: For people need to insist on good government without becoming angry, for people to become fully participating citizens again, to take the time to develop collective, concensus judgment about policies that will get us put of this mess, that admittedly, exists at all levels and not be incited by TV sound bites and rumors of misdeeds.
What we need is the spirit of patriotism without becoming a mob. Can we do it?

Welcome to the cactus patch

2008-04-17T18:46:00.000-07:00

Feel free to vent, attack or craft a well reasoned rebuttal to this or any of the previous postings below. Or, do the same re my columns. Unlike me, you can post a zinger anonymously. How can you pass that up?

Just think, the only one(s)who will know who you really are is Dick Cheney and a few hundred people at NSA. So, get busy! And, as old Scooter says, Pardon me!

I was underwhelmed by your concern about Urban Renewal. Maybe the Mayor was right, you do deserve what you get? Here take a seat, anywhere. The Chollas are lovely this time of year, don't you think?

Urban Renewal

2008-03-27T07:57:00.000-07:00

Now that we see that urban renewal, whether downtown or residential, will affect all of us, it is time to think seriously about how we want Brighton to look and to be in the future. Some may say, "Look in the Comprehensive Plan."

The Comprehensive Plan is all about land use. There are other aspects of the community that aren't addressed here or that need a finer granularity look. And again, because people only view it as a map for new development, many have ignored it as not being particularly relevant to them. Then something like the library relocation happens and you feel cheated or disenfranchised.

There is no one document that captures all of the details of the future direction of this community. Also, when the community is presented with an "opportunity" like the U.P. Rail Yard or an entertainment complex, some believe the tendency has been to throw the Comprehensive Plan on the back of the shelf and do what the City Council wants to do, even if it is not consistent with the various plans.

The fact that there are attempts to evade the plans makes them even more important. Citizens can point to the plans as a compact with government which should not be breached without an expression of their approval. This usually has some effect.

So, let me and others, hear your ideas about what Brighton should do, or should not do, about renewing the areas of our town that are of concern to you. It's your tax money and your town. If you don't care, who will?

Solving the downtown merchant's problem is so easy.

2008-03-19T20:03:00.000-07:00

I am getting tired of aggravating the Mayor in my column re the hijacking of the library to fit into her/their urban renewal plans but...

The rationale of putting it there in the first place had to be sold to the downtown merchants on the basis of, "Hey, here is a clever way to get more people, especially those who can read, to come to the downtown area where they might buy something, or go into one of the many bars and get drunk while flipping the pages of one of McCullough's histories, we'll just move the new library down there,"

Well, if that was the rationale, try this idea. Leave the library where it is and give all of the users library cards that have to be validated monthly or biweekly or weekly, depending on how much pain you are willing to inflict and how much push-back you can tolerate. Then, allow only the downtown businesses to validate the cards so that every library card holder would have to visit one of the downtown businesses every period in order to be able to use the library.

That way, the businesses would be getting much greater traffic, they would only be holding the library functionally hostage, not locationally hostage. Construction would be cheaper, access is easier for users, children, especially, are safer and while you are picking out books or reading on site you could actually hear yourself think. Library users would be constantly reminded who is responsible for requiring the unnecessary trips. And, finally, there would be more parking for the entertainment venue where people go to listen to trains, occasionally interrupted by music. The non downtown businesses will absolutely love this. We can change the name from the "Brighton Urban Renewal Memorial Library and Anti-meditation Hall" to the "Useful but Inconvenient Brighton Public Library." I guess it is better than the "Convenient but too Small Brighton Public Library."

Now wasn't that easy? Lots more where that came from, just ask.

We must be doing something very wrong

2008-03-12T11:20:00.000-07:00

In an article in The Denver Post titled: FHA offers shot in the ARM By Aldo Svaldi, he says, "Half or more of the homes in Thornton, Northglenn, Federal Heights, Brighton, old Westminster and parts of Aurora now are worth less than the mortgages backing them, according to an analysis from Zillow.com."

These are all areas where there has been rapid growth, and now we know something about how this growth was achieved. The growth must have been based on a substantial amount of sub-prime loans, inflated appraisals, no down, interest only, no-doc or fraudulent application loans. In other words, the homeowners are not just a little but are substantially "upside down" on their houses. This prevents them from refinancing unless they can make a large enough down payment to get the new loan down to less than the market value to get another loan. In most cases, if they had that much cash, they wouldn't have been in their current loan.

I'm sorry Ms. Mayor, but about the only thing that the city has done right was move the Brighton closer to Denver so that the commute (before the gas prices went out of sight)was acceptable to a bunch of folks who couldn't afford to buy a house. What? You didn't? Oh.

Well then, the quote from the State of the City address, "The fact that we have been named second fastest growing City in the nation should show that we are doing something right!" sounds kind of foolish now, doesn't it?

MORE THAN HALF OF THE HOMES ARE WORTH LESS THAN THE MORTGAGES ON THEM.
Somebody, and it mught be we, must have been doing something very wrong?

Comments Please

2008-03-03T10:26:00.000-08:00

I apologize to everyone who has tried to post a comment on this blog. When I set it up I didn't notice that it restricted people who didn't have their own blogs on this site from leaving comments.

I believe it is fixed now and I welcome your comments, whether favorable or not. Please keep them civil and I will do the same.

Please bring up any topic that is of interest or concern to you. If I am interested, I will respond.

Have fun!

Prairie Center

2008-02-21T07:35:00.000-08:00

I want to thank Scott Ancker for his sincere and civil letter to the editor, in response to my "You Built It" column.

Scott, I think you made your position clearly and defended it well. And, this is what dialog is all about. Neither position can be clearly proved in the short term, but may be proven, in the long term. Will Prairie Center fizzle like a flash in the pan, or will it be the dominant center of local commerce? Or, perhaps there is middle ground where they both do well, in their own way?

I agree that Flatirons is not Pearl Street, and while I am at it, Prairie Center isn't Flatirons and old Downtown Brighton isn't Pearl Street. Whether either one is more similar to its corresponding entity than the other, I leave as an "exercise for the reader," as they used to say in school.

I have enjoyed several of the stores in the old downtown (saddles and tack, coins, barbershop etc.) and the people who staff them too, but I don't go there weekly to buy groceries, or socks and under ware, or housewares, or tile caulk, or dog food, ...... you get the idea. But, people don't routinely go to Pearl Street for these items either (although McGuckins, on Arapahoe, probably has all of them.)

So, stay tuned: either, or, both?

The answer is: bright Colorado blue, most of the time.

The New Library

2008-02-14T11:40:00.000-08:00

I went to the meeting and viewed the architect's presentation of the conceptual design for the library based on the site on Bridge. Mr. Hamilton has done a good job, based on the input he has received from the community and the direction from the city.

Although he could have been helpful in siting the library, based on his experience and knowledge of the tools available for performing this task, that decision had already been made.

The users of the library take ownership of the library and unlike many public facilities, they passionately support it and willingly contribute to the experience of other users of it. Show me a "Friends of the Municipal Court or Public Works" organization.

They willingly subordinate their personal interests more, to the benefit of the whole using community, than the users of almost any other public facility. They should be offended when someone cites the "will of the stake holders" of the library, when they haven't been invited to fully participate in a suitable process. They have my admiration.

I don't have the data on the useage patterns of this library, but the libraries in Douglas County have issued library cards to 79% of the households there. Over the last 5 years, their population has grown 7% per year, while the volume of books checked out has gone up 25% per year. Also, 90% of their checkouts are through self-check stations. They have 34,000 users within 3 miles of their facilities. They currently have a facility the size we are about to build, serving the town of Parker, which is about the same size as Brighton, and it is currently inadequate and they are planning to build a new, larger one.

One can only conclude that that we lag far behind in the per capita usage of a library. There must be reasons for this. We should find out what they are.

My concern is that improper siting of the new one may be a significant factor in perpetuating this lag. Brighton's students will compete with the students of Douglas County, the rest of Colorado, and the world. Are we giving them the best chance for success?

If I am wrong, (or even if I am right) please add your comment to this blog.

Politics and Healthcare?

2008-02-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

Here is your chance to air your differences with me on politics in the workplace or about the overwhelming pressure on local health care providers by the pharmaceutical industry.

I am old school and never bring up politics directly with people who have to associate with me for another reason. I don't want to make them uncomfortable being around me if they don't agree with my politics. I don't think I have been rabidly idealogical about politics for many years, certainly not to the point that I feel it is my obligation and duty, to convert everyone I come in contact with to my point of view.

With my public forum, I am interested in provoking thought and having people seriously consider issues and policies. But, I don't sell people. If you happen to agree with me, I believe you are quite capable of deciding what, if anything, you want to do about it.

If you want to invest your confidence, support and money in somebody who you believe will move the ball forward, just do it.

You Built It, They Came

2008-01-30T17:23:00.001-08:00

Some people feel that I failed to understand what the Downtown Initiative is trying to accomplish. I am sure that it true. I have read the City's web site and I didn't find it there. So I am ignorant of its details.

That said, I have lived in towns that have tried to revitalize old downtowns (grew up in one that is still trying) and I have visited many more. There have been many varying degrees of success. Even the most successful participants will agree that is a very difficult process. I don't know what the overall success rate is, but I have witnessed many failures.

I have searched the web and I have been directly involved in the process as a member of a planning commission. I have even been an editor and written articles for the Planning Commissioner's Journal.

I am not totally naive about the process. But, I am always willing to learn.

So, please feel free to give me you honest feedback about this column and every column I write. The opinions in them are my own.

Computer Life Saved - Rehab Begins

2008-01-25T15:09:00.000-08:00

Well I am back on line. The old computer got so un-nimble that I had to take it to the computer sawbones to see if it could be saved.

Good news, the leg wasn't broken, so it didn't have to be shot.
Bad news, a little bit of amnesia leaked in, plus I forgot exactly how the backup was organized.
So now, I can spend many hours sweating and fuming over Windows Explorer, punctuated by the occasional discovery of a nugget that previously belonged to me.
More good news, the even older computer I tried to limp by with has discovered the network. So, now there is a real backup.

So, as they say: Like a goose, I wake up in a new world every day (If you are a goose, I apologize.)

Brighton Honored by Gadberry?

2008-01-12T10:52:00.000-08:00

Copied from their web page:

About The Gadberry Group

The Gadberry Group provides location-based services and information data products, for clients who demand the most current, accurate, and precise household and population data for their site location analysis. MicroBuild™, Gadberry’s patent-pending product, is unique because only MicroBuild™ uses consumer data at the rooftop level to deliver household and population counts beginning at the census block level.
Current & precise information based upon a number of key demographic attributes including income, wealth, home value, age, and presence of children. Utilizes the renowned InfoBase® household-level demographic offering.
MicroBuild™ is a household geodemographic product that provides current, accurate, precise, and actionable household and population data for the U.S.
MicroBuild is built quarterly and uses multiple national data sources. It is the only population product built using name and address as the primary data source.
Armed with this one-of-a-kind information set, research and marketing departments alike can access data and tools that support their business goals.

It is so reasuring that we can be so precisely targeted. Thanks Gadberry. We are SO honored.

All I Know is What I Read in the Papers

2008-01-12T09:34:00.000-08:00

Will Rogers said this and it is still somewhat true.
For example, where other than the Post could you learn that:

with Amendment 41 enforcement on hold in the courts, thestate lawmakers are back to schmoozing eating and drinking with lobbyists. So much for respecting the will of the people.
we have somehow failed to seltect an official state reptile. No, state legislators won't work, their scales are too small, they have no rattles to warn you before they bite, and with term limits still un-repealed (but they are working on it) they aren't in any danger of extinction.
a LEGISLATOR (I refuse to give them free advertizing by publishing a name) is introducing a bill to make Guaranteed Trophy game ranches illegal. Next, I supposed we won't be allowed to shoot fish in a barrel.
there is a bill to allow the font size on the state seal to be changed (the old one is discontinued by the printer they use). Now there is a crisis they are qualified to handle.
apparently there is no consensus on how to mis-count the votes in the next election. Musarraf and Putin are being hired as a consultants.
I thought caucuses were a region in Central Asia. That is about how foreign they are to most people. Three people attended one in Douglas County in 2000.
there is concern that presidential candidates may abandon our children. I think it is so encouraging that they have finally learn to follow the lead of the states, like Colorado for example.
Colorado is one of the states to ask the Feds not to enforce the Real ID law. Apparently our state will be happy as long as you continue to over pay the ransom (taxes from which you will never receive benefits). Then they don't care who you are. I can remember when "obey it or change it," was the generally accepted philosophy. Whose idea was it to pick and choose what gets enforced?
now we have to worry about checking bucking bulls asterisks. What is the world coming to?

So, as you cam see, if you want a laugh, don't waste time on the comics.

Brighton: How Big? How Fast?

2008-01-10T13:19:00.000-08:00

I have read last year's "State of the City" speech by the mayor. I have read the Comprehensive Plan. They are entirely consistent in the lack of metrics with respect to growth.
Every city and town has a growth issue. For many, growth has been in a negative direction. For some, it has been in a positive direction with respect to numbers but a negative direction with respect to quality of life and satisfaction for the residents.
Economically driven interests, the Chambers of Commerce, city bureaucracy, the builders and develpers almost always want growth at the maximum rate to the maximum number. And when all of the land has been developed, we can start on urban redevelopment.
Citizens are interested in the necessary growth to provide the shopping convenience, entertainment, schools, parks, libraries and other services that they need. They are ambivalent about growth in excess of this until, or unless, they are frustrated by traffic. Then they get angry.
But. when you get specific about how large you want the population to be and what percentage of growth per year that the community and its institutions can reasonably absorb, you will universally find a growing gap between those interest groups.
Municipal government owes everyone an honest answer on both of these numbers. And we should each have numbers for each of these that we would find acceptable. Do you?

Gadberry Group Honors Brighton?

2008-01-10T08:59:00.001-08:00

I liked Adam Goldstein's article - Brighton is No.2 - which covers the Gadberry announcement. There was a parallel article titled, Brighton honored for high growth in the YourHub. That one caused me to react. Several of the criteria reflect quality of life which are good things but growth, per se, is of little value to the residents. In fact, it can be a negative.

Foreclosures, whether due to under-qualified buyers, unexpected economic difficulty due to medical problems or job loss, adversely affects the other residents in our neighborhoods. Their homeowners associations lose the revenue needed to provide services and maintenance. Also, their home values decrease.

Number of homes in foreclosue process from http://co.adams.co.us/PTForeclosureSearch/index.aspx

Bromley Creek- 27

The Village – 62

Bromley Park – 79

Sugar Creek – 9

Pheasant Ridge – 13

Platte River – 82

Cottonwood – 66

Brighton East – 100

Total in Zip 80601 - 1595

Maybe this style of growth isn't such an honor? By the way, had you ever heard of the Gadberry Group before these articles? I hadn't.

Happy New Year

2008-01-03T12:33:00.000-08:00

Congratulations, you found me.

Well, how goes your plan for a plan for 2008? I was serious about thinking seriously about goals, identifying the needed sources and making a commitment. And, I am working on some myself.

When you come to a new community you see things differently than others who have been here for a while. Often what you think you see may not be how things really are. What you think you see really is what others passing through will think they see, also. So, if there are things that are creating incorrect perceptions in other people, they will still be reacting as if that were reality. For them, it IS real.

One of my perceptions about Brighton is that it is pretty invisible to the rest of the state. It is rarely mentioned in local weather reports. There are no geological features that make it unique. It isn't the highest, the lowest, the coldest, or the wettest. It doesn't get mentioned on the newscasts because it has the most crime, traffic accidents or forest fires. It is the Rodney Dangerfield of towns. It is pretty average but not extremely average. See what I mean?

That is part of its appeal. It is a nice average, inconspicuous place. The trick is how to improve the quality of life, without becoming conspicuous.

That is what I am trying to do, personally, and I may have a few ideas for the town that could turn into goals, resources and commitment (a plan). The hard part is telling others what your goals are. All you have to do, is stop worrying about looking foolish. We are all foolish to some degree, me more than most.

So, go ahead. Make it a great year. You deserve it.

The Brighton City Budget

2008-01-02T16:33:00.000-08:00

I read the 12/27/2007 article in the Standard Blade by Adam Goldstein with interest, as I am sure that you did. I have reviewed city budgets before and have been a contributor to a Task Force's efforts to develop (for the first time) a five year strategic financial plan for a municipality about this size. It is the responsibility of every municipality to manage the finances, staffing and services they provide to the best of their ability through the uncertainty of the future.

Uncertainty that is created by many factors that effect revenues and the required services are not totally unpredictable or unforeseen and therefore should not cause wild swings on either side of the equation that result in large layoffs of staff, cancellation or nonperformance on contracts or the failure to provide the level of services that the community can reasonably expect.

Just as an employee should not budget and spend (in advance of receipt) extraordinary income such as holiday bonuses, casino winnings, etc., cities should not budget and spend extraordinary income to any significant extent that come from one time events like impact fees or anticipated sale of city assets. This is true since the events may not occur due abrupt changes in the economy such that impact fees are not collected or assets can not be sold.

The municipality I was involved with became somewhat addicted to the (seemingly) ever-increasing revenues that came from the development of real estate. Some people came to believe that they were able to control the flow rate of these revenues as if they were turning a water valve and that there was always going to be enough pressure to allow them to enjoy any level of revenue that they chose.

That was an irresponsible belief and any municipality that budgets and spends in anticipation of revenues that carry a high risk will eventually experience a significant disruption of their operations while they restore balance between revenues and expenses. The scaling back of expenses based on a much more conservative forecast of the 2008 revenues is, in principle, exactly the right thing to do.

Sales tax revenues undergo changes in collection rates that are usually somewhat gradual and provide some warning before the changes are large. The exception is when a major retailer closes a store or goes bankrupt. Then the drop is sudden, but normally there are other stores which will serve the same customers and will mitigate the effect.

Land developers/builders can be large sources of revenue but can suddenly decide not to continue large projects, or can also go bankrupt, and the revenue reduction is sudden, can be large and may not be offset by other developers who are likely to be considering the same action. Budgeting very small revenues from this source is prudent.

There are any number of good reasons to regulate the rates of development in a city. This is the first time I have ever heard of it being done for the purpose (if the quote of Mr. Bramble is correct) “to minimize the volatility of the housing market.”

Taking on the “volatility of the housing market” is something even the Federal Reserve Board is very reluctant to do. I don't know any example of a success.

I would be surprised if this laudable attempt is successful.

Pakistan Calling.

2008-01-02T15:30:00.001-08:00

Ron Ames

Ever since I got my new press credentials my poor phone has been ringing off the wall, as they say, I can't believe it. I thought journalists had to go out on the street and really dig for stories, but I guess the secret is almost out. Stories actually come to you.

Imagine my surprise when I picked up the phone the other day and I heard, “ Hi Ron, This is Pervez calling from Islamabad.”

“Islamabad”

“Islamabad, it's in Pakistan.”

“Of course! I know that. But, aaah, ....... Musharraf?”

“Of course, Musharraf. How many Pervez's do you know?”

“Uh, well, before this moment, it was approximately.... zero?”

“Yes, well I got notice that you had just gotten your press credentials, so I decided to give you a call.”

“Was Wolfe Blitzer busy?”

“No, it's just that he is so serious. It's just impossible to have a normal conversation.”

“Right, normal.”

“Say, Ron, I am catching so much flack these days you wouldn't believe it.”

“You're probably right.”

“I was only taking George's advice, and look what has happened. It's so unfair.”

“What did he suggest?”

“Well, we were talking about the election that I just had and I was explaining how the Supreme Court was making noises about not certifying that my election was valid. And he said that was too bad and that he had had a similar problem but that his supreme court had been adjusted to handle such things properly.”

“I seem to recall that.”

“So, I adjusted mine, and now, everybody is up in arms.”

“ Everybody?”

“Yes, everybody. Look, I need this job. I have had to hold down two jobs just to make ends meet.”

“I heard that we had given you $10 Billion. What happened to that?”

“ Well, first, I used a billion dollars to protect our nuclear arsenal by hiding it in a cave in one of the Northwest Tribal provinces. And, then, when your guys bottled up bin Laden in Tora Bora, your CIA guys convinced me to provide a safe haven for him and his technical assistants in a cave in the Northwest Tribal provinces. Said he might be needed around election time. Heck of a motivator. So, providing a sound stage, communication center, satellite links, writers, translators, goats, figs etc. for several years, it counts up fast. The worst part is, that the $10 billion was in mortgage backed securities. Nobody told me they might go down the drain. And now, the dollar is only worth half of what it was when I first agreed to be your “best partner in the war on terror.” “Then, Negroponte came over to ask me to give up my second job. It's so terribly unfair. I reminded him George still has his other job as head of the military, so how can he expect me to give up mine?” You know how diplomats are. He said, “George will give his up his in about 13 months to be a part time librarian in Crawford, Texas.” So, I gave it up and then Bhutto went and got herself killed. So, things are tough all over, Huh?”

“Yeah, even here in Brighton, Colorado.”

“Well, thanks for taking my call. Could you put in a word with Condies' people? I heard she was from Denver? I kind of feel better getting this off my chest. Bye.”

“Sure, Pervy, anytime. If I see them, I'll mention it. Bye.”

Hmmm, did he say 'a cave in the Northwest Tribal province'? Naaah!

Hello Brighton

2008-01-02T13:54:00.000-08:00

Hello America, this is Brighton calling!

Ron Ames

You probably don't remember WW-II, or Edward R. Morrow. I am not him and I'm not on the radio. During that war, he broadcast the news and what he was witnessing from London to America with an American perspective, beginning each broadcast with the phrase above (“London” instead of “Brighton”, of course).

I am very pleased to meet you. As a matter of fact, I have been very pleased to meet virtually everyone I have met face-to-face in Brighton. So, I am pleased to have this space in the Brighton Standard Blade to extend my acquaintance with the members of this community. I hope this will be become a dialog where you feel comfortable bringing up topics of interest or concern to you and I will do it also.

I have only lived here a short time but with the growth that Brighton has experienced during the last few years I am a part of a group that is at least a large minority and may be the majority soon, if not now. Of course the date that you decide divides “old” residents from “new” ones is completely subjective, arbitrary and may depend on when you came here.

The reasons I am here are probably not so different from those that brought most of the other “new” people here. It may that your reasons for being here are are not so different, if you are among the “old” group, unless you say, “I was born here.”

Let me tell you some of what I see here, that I like. I like the rural feel of the community. I am surrounded by fields in which food grows. I grew up on a farm, as did my wife and we both like to see things grow. We don't mind the smells that go with it and we absolutely love to enjoy the results. Fresh vegetables are available in stands and farmer's markets and even in grocery stores that are grown right here. There is open space (defined as that which isn't covered with house, YET.)

You are all so friendly, and we appreciate that very much. Your friendliness isn't just a superficial, “Hi” and “Hello.” Many of you have backed that up with real help and a willingness to provide advice, based your knowledge and experience. I am not just sucking up to you. Our neighbors have volunteered their own stories of how they have been helped, as well. So, thanks for being so nice to us.

Another thing that several new people have told us is that they had considered Brighton previously (a few years ago) but went somewhere else, because there was so few places that were convenient to “shop” for everything needed to operate a household. They looked at Brighton again when they decided to move yet again and found that Brighton now met their criteria for shopping convenience.

Oh, and we got more of the things we wanted in a house at a price we were willing to pay. These are a few of my observations thus far.

So, speak up Brighton. What's on your mind? What do you like? I promise a civil discussion and maybe we can change a few minds or give credit where it's due. Or, we can find new answers to problems together. This is Brighton calling.