Is climate change already deadly?

In India hundreds are dying from extreme heat. Rain, floods and tornados are lashing Midwestern states in the U.S.

In Colorado, the menace is less dramatic: overgrown lawns and grumbling about Seattle-like days in Denver.

Doomsdayers are saying British Columbia is heading for a California-like drought, and is not prepared for it.

Perhaps even scarier is that the U.S., often dominated by anti-science forces leading the charge against climate change, appears no worse than purportedly vastly more intellectual Europe.

The Guardian on Monday led the Website with a story headlined: “World leaders missed chance to tackle climate change, says economist.”

The story says British conservatives are putting the brakes on any effort to contain climate change.  Politicians meeting at the Hay festival, held in Wales, only wanted to talk about economic problems, the Guardian reported.

“Why it is impossible to think about the recession and climate change at the same time I don’t really know, but it seemed to be too much for them, when in fact this should have been the period when we were investing like mad.

“Interest rates on the floor, unemployed resources, so much technical progress showing you what’s possible – that was the moment we should have really gone for it and we didn’t. We did lose that opportunity,” said influence academic/author Lord Stern.

Some would argue that if governments tried to counter climate change it would create jobs and save some that already exist.

Stern wrote a report in 2006 on the economics of climate change.

Stern has a point. The first effects of climate change will be felt on the economies of states like California and Colorado that depend not only on getting a minimum amount of water but having it arrive at the right time. California, which gets a considerable amount of water by being downstream from Colorado, is asking local governments and agriculture to dramatically cut water use.

Cynics would say self-regulating forces are taking action to slow the assault on the planet.  No one wants to hear about the “Gaia” theory or effect or whatever it is called. Perhaps they do not accept that a greater force can change things, though it really is stating that there is a cause and effect relationship. In other words, it means this is at least a clue of what will happen next.

The death toll in India is real enough. American network news leads night after night with film of floods and tornados.
Thirteen people were killed Monday by tornadoes in Ciudad Acuna, a Mexican city across the border from Del Rio, Texas.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/25/world-leaders-missed-chance-to-tackle-climate-change-says-economist

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/california-drought-crisis-could-come-to-b-c-says-ubc-professor-1.3006242

http://www.wwf.se/source.php/1169157/Stern%20Report_Exec%20Summary.pdf

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-32872846

Nation moves in different speeds in seemingly different universes

Perhaps the only thing the majority of Americans have in common is that they feel irrelevant. Gay, straight, conservative, liberal, pro-choice, anti-abortion.

It is a shame people can’t binge like they do on Netflix or Amazon, and soon coming to regular TV, to see the ending that awaits us.

“Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer in the United States, an occasion traditionally commemorated with picnics, block parties, and other outdoor activities popularized in a time before streaming video. Seeking an alternative to sun, burgers, and human interaction, The A.V. Club put its heads together to find the very best TV that Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, HBO, Vimeo, and YouTube have to offer.”

Ireland only had to wait overnight to get the results.  

Legalized same-sex marriage was approved in a stunning landside in what had been the pope’s backyard. It was being called a "social revolution."

America doesn’t have the luck of the Irish.

The Supreme Court may settle the issue in a month or two, or not.

How can we deal with ISIS when we cannot even agree on issues science settled long ago: marijuana isn’t a gateway drug, let alone a killer like alcohol, and try to tell the people with overgrown lawns in Denver that their weeds are not unnaturally high. A spot of sun was sighted, a TV weatherman said this week in the Mile High city.

Are drones the answer? They can go underwater, and they are certainly effective killers. Soon there may be an app available to counter drones.

ISIS uses sandstorms to counter our airpower.

The nation’s police are equipped to fight ISIS, and some wish they were sent away to do just that. A cop in Cleveland jumped on a car hood and massacred an unarmed black couple. Their car had backfired.

It remains to be seen whether gratuitous violence will backfire on police. This isn’t Mayberry or Oz.

Medical care, even if you can pay for it. How about spending 25 minutes in an expensive MRI only to have your doctor’s office lose the prescription for pain medication your doctor ordered based on its results. On a Memorial Day weekend.

No wonder people self-medicate with alcohol, or weed. It may not be cheaper, in all cases, but it is faster.

Times prematurely warns ISIS no threat

No need to worry about ISIS, a New York Times” op-ed piece, headlined “Calm Down, ISIS Isn’t Winning” said Friday morning. Whoops.
Kind of the like a report of the killing of a senior ISIS “leader,” followed within a few days by the capture of several cities across at least two borders.
Later it in the day, after more reports of ISIS gains in Iraq and Syria, the terrorist group claimed responsibility for the bombing of a mosque in Saudi Arab that killed at least 10 people.
“The Islamic State (IS) group says it was behind a suicide bombing on a Shia mosque in Saudi Arabia that killed at least 10 people.
The attack in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province is the first to be claimed by the Saudi branch of IS, which was formally established last November,” the BBC reported.
The Times’ piece, in the same sort of way that Judean militants had dissed the Romans in “The Life of Brian,” listed all the groups’ recent achievements but said they were meaningless.
“There is even a silver lining in the fall of Ramadi. Before last week, many Iraqi leaders seemed to have forgotten that the Islamic State was still a threat and failed to give credit to those doing the most to resist it,” the op-ed writer said.
Taking an entirely different tack than the Times” cheerleading for the invasion of Iraq, the newspaper now is emphasizing that there should be no boots on the ground.
Unfortunately, there are no Roman boots around to deal with ISIS, ISIL, the Islamic State or Islamic State Caliphate, and it will probably take more than making their fighters erase the writing on the wall “Americans Go Home,” or least correct the grammar.
An updated report on the Saudi Arabian mosque on Al Jazeera said at least 21 died.
It reported a suicide bomber struck as worshippers were commemorating the 7th century birth of a revered Shia figure. The government said more than 150 people were praying there.
The attacker used a suicide vest, the same ruse employed to sneak into a secret CIA station in Afghanistan. He had fingered several colleagues, who were killed by drones, to gain credibility. The Americans wanted so much to believe.
There were Twitter reports Friday that ISIS had posted photos of the mangled body of the bomber. There was such a photo though it could not be confirmed that it was the bomber.

Can weed control violent bikers in Texas

Perhaps in a bid to slow down gangster bikers, the Texas legislature has approved medical marijuana.

It isn’t likely to calm any aging bikers down.

And before weed supporters get too high, Gov. Abbott could veto it.

Showing the usual lack of understanding of the Lone Star state citizens, a legislator who supported the bill said it would not get people high. It could only  be ingested orally, and not smoked.

"It is also not something you can get high on. It has a low risk of abuse," Rep. Stephanie Klick, R-Fort Word said. "This is not something that can be smoked. It is ingested orally."

Edible pot has been condemned by some weed critics because it results in paranoia and other unhelpful symptoms, some users report, particularly when it is first used or portions consumed are larger than recommended.

It doesn’t come with FDA warnings about side effects because federally it is illegal.

Media have promoted unconfirmed stories that edible pot led to people jumping to their deaths or killing their spouses.

In fact, the New York Times recently reported lawmen around the nation were stepping up efforts to stop the spread of edibles hidden in lollipops and marshmallows.

A Tennessee police chief, Jim Jeffries, reported recently pulling over an out-of-state-car. Instead of moonshine, officers found “24 pounds of marijuana-laced cookies and small hard candies shaped like gingerbread men, plus a tub of pungent marijuana butter perfect for making more.”

Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana. Four states, Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska have legalized it for recreation.

But Texas is not the only state that believes that by not allowing it to be smoked no one will get high.

New York’s Compassionate Care Act makes medical marijuana legal but only in non-smoking forms.

You might be surprised in how many forms weed is sold: tincture, lotion, crème, edibles and in forms meant to be smoked in joints or vaporizers.

Marijuana science is very complicated as most research has been outlawed since the drug was prohibited more than 80 years ago when manufacturers wanted it to stop competing with synthetic hemp.

THC is the main ingredient that makes people high. CBD is often used in medicines designed not to get people stoned. But both are often present, to one degree or another, in any form of weed that is sold.

Waco police said gangster bikers involved in the shootout at a “breastaurant” there were trafficking in marijuana and harder drugs.

On Twitter, some were calling them the “Branch Davidsons,” a reference to the incident April 19, 1993 when 76 died when federal agents stormed a compound of looney Christians who called themselves “Branch Davidians.” There were allegations of drug use in the compound.

Some marijuana advocates say the Texas measure, if it becomes law, limits use so much to be ineffective.

Ideology isn’t working in U.S.

Frequently politics in America divides along a line that believes that all government is bad and that anything government does is good.

As a New Yorker article pointed out,

this can mean, for example, that Republicans oppose anything that might make government look good. Amtrak rail improvements is cited.

New Yorker Plot Against Trains

On the other hand, local government, deprived of the ability to raise taxes, rip off their people with rapacious parking fees and tickets, ridiculous prosecutions and a complicated structure made extremely difficult to navigate.

The ultimate victims are the people with the least amount of money to pay the fees.

British television can serve as the usual guide to who gets the shaft. J.K. Rowling’s book, “The Casual Vacancy,” has been made into an HBO mini-series.

The town council is led by people who want to keep the poor out of town. The poor not only will not be heard, they will not be seen.

This caricature of argument makes reasonable debate impossible. You are either with a party and its ideology or against it.

Thus a city like Denver can make people pay several thousand dollars in lawyer fees if they should accidentally wound themselves with a gun as they put it in a safe.

Doesn’t the NRA control the government?

Who benefits? The lawyers _ our ultimate oligarchs – laugh all the way to the bank. And the NRA is able to raise more money because of the perceived threat to gun owners.

Who benefits? The lawyers _ our ultimate oligarchs – laugh all the way to the bank.

It ties up our legal system, and takes the little money the middle class has left away. Police now are promising nationwide to prevent the country from being destroyed by the plague of edible marijuana. It even merited a story in the New York Times. The point is to keep the “Drug War” going and more jobs for the boys. This makes unions, on their worst day, look benevolent.

Edible Marijuana

Why has the U.S. Supreme Court dragged its feet on legalizing gay marriage? It is not all ideology. Much of it is incompetence.

The “whack-a-mole” strategy that President Obama inherited from former President George Bush waters the growth of terrorism.

In Andrew Cockburn’s “The Kill Chain” it is shown that when “high value” targets were eliminated attacks on Americans increased. The same counterproductive result occurs in the drug wars. Kill a drug leader and it leaves a vacuum making it cheaper for producers who aren’t forced to pay the kingpin.

Instead of considering the possibility that this strategy is doomed to failure, Cockburn writes that the military compares it to mowing the grass. Of course it grows again.

Mowing the Terrorist Grass

And the jobs continue, and contracts become more valuable to defense contractors.

The U.S. gets into a “social media” war, bidding for “hearts and minds.” 

Both ISIS and the U.S. government make claim after claim of victory. The concept of silently eliminating an opponent, or launching a terrorist raid without admitting it, is no long a strategy on the table.

For the West, often it appears that the only “hearts and minds” hearing Washington’s argument are Americans already convinced “the militants” should be eliminated. The array of opponents has become as broad as the Republican presidential candidate field. That is why many now call them “militants,” instead of terrorists, because it is not really known what they want. And in some cases, no one tries to find out.

Whether you question a “Bush” or Obama you are considered an enemy by their camps. You must agree on everything or go elsewhere, or just be ignored.

It sometimes seems like the tribalism so often deemed corrupt in the Third World.