Monday, November 14, 2011

Evolution Occupy


"If a congressman learns that his committee is about to do something that would affect a company, he can go trade on that because he is not obligated to keep that information confidential.... He is not breaching a duty of confidentiality to anybody and therefore would not be liable for insider trading." ~March 3, 2006 - STOCK Act Fact Check


 The occupy protest has come to and end in Oakland. just this morning I watched as the protesters were removed from Frank Ogawa Plaza. There was no teargas, no graffiti, no rubber bullets, and no rocks thrown.
  Watching you couldn't help but see even the protesters knew it was time to move on. There were several factors that came into play when the choice was made to shut down the protest. A group of anarchists had spawned from the occupy group and were calling for violence against not only police but against reporters too. There was a shooting and a man was killed this week during an altercation (it's not clear whether those involved were part of occupy)
  I know some people have a vision of tent cities popping up across the land as the people gather in a peaceful protest against the evil corporations and as the tent cities grow we watch the corporate monsters crumble and fall around our feet. That's not going to happen. I would hope that other cities do have occupy protests and they send their opening message to the companies that do not have our best interests in mind as they use our own money against us. I also hope the people involved are intelligent enough to know when that leg of the protest has run its course. What turned out to be a good beginning now needs to evolve into something that takes action from as many people as possible. Many people supported the issues represented by occupy protests but they could not just drop everything and go to live in tents outside city hall.

   People have been critical about my opinion that the tent cities were not effective. They seem to think just because people are living in tents it will force companies and politicians to change their behavior. I don't see that happening. I do see them paying attention, waiting to see if maybe the occupy protests have something in mind that would effect them. Now we are in a few months the only thing that has happened is more protests have popped up in more cities. That's a good thing, it shows the sentiment is widespread. but even if protests were to occur in every single city across the country what else is that going to achieve?

  I don't have all the answers to solve our problems but I have some ideas. I also believe that sooner or later some of these ideas will have to become a reality or our nation will no longer be around for us to demand to be changed.
  We need to start voting. The highest percentage of voter turnout in 2010 was 56% in Minnesota and the lowest was in the District of Columbia at about 29%. Pathetic to say the least. How can we complain about the way our country is being run when at least half of us don't care enough to do anything that would have an effect on it? http://elections.gmu.edu/Turnout_2010G.html
  Move your bank account to a credit union
   I consider this the first real productive action coming  from the occupy protests. People are moving their accounts from big banks like bank of America to smaller banks or credit unions. The way banks make their money these days is on bullshit fees like the $5 fee they put on us when legislation was enacted to limit the fees that could be charged for using your card at the time of purchase. Take the time to move away from that big bank, if losing a charge of a few cents worried them enough to blatantly try and screw us in public then losing customers all together will have some effect. http://www.neontommy.com/news/2011/11/bank-transfer-day-rally-targets-bank-america
 
   Stop buying from the big chains. Start shopping at that independently owned store and support small businesses whenever possible. If you drive across the country you may notice that every city is starting to look exactly alike. There are shopping centers which contain stores like Home Depot or Lowes (sometimes both) Walmart, Taco Bell, KFC, Barnes & Noble, Target, Bed Bath and Beyond. In many of these same cities you will also find what used to be a busy downtown that looks like a ghost town. All the businesses run by the people who lived in town are closed due to people helping the corporations grow bigger and bigger. As a business get larger it tends to lose any personal relationship with it's employees, instead treating them as a number. How easy is it to be concerned for the number 34617? If I were to tell you number 34617 was late to work because their child had a cold how much care could you muster up?


 The last thing I am going to address this time around is the way our elected representatives are cashing in on inside information about companies. This information is being used to effect stock purchases.There is legislation written to help stop this practice but there is very little support for it by congress....I wonder why.http://www.louise.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=433&Itemid=106
 CBS did a story on this and you all need to read it and act accordingly. Congress: Trading stock on inside information?
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57323527/congress-trading-stock-on-inside-information/
Send an email to your representative and make it clear how you feel. Here's a link to help you do that https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
Ask them if they support the Stock Act and tell them to co-sponsor it. If they don't, go camp on their lawn

Friday, November 4, 2011

"In ___ I Trust"


 Congress passed a law making "in god we trust" the national motto. This resulted in the following  comment from President Obama “You’ve been debating a commemorative coin for baseball. You’ve had legislation reaffirming that ‘In God We Trust’ is our motto. That’s not putting people back to work,” Obama said. “I trust in God, “but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people back to work.”

 I'm sick to death of republicans (and in this case democrats too) wasting time on bullshit. I'm sick of republicans voting down anything that could create jobs. The republicans claim that what we need to create jobs is 'new leadership'. Couldn't they try and find out what the 'new leadership' would do to create jobs and propose those ideas now? I don't think they can for one simple reason THEY ARE FULL OF SHIT. What have the republicans offered so far? Relaxing regulations and boosting offshore oil exploration and drilling.That's right, those ideas are what the republicans think we need to create jobs. Do the republicans think the population of this country is retarded? It seem s that way to me. Trouble is, we aren't.
 The whole 'in god we trust' thing was the brainchild of Congressman Randy Forbes. Forbes represents a handful of people in VA.
 I wanted to give the congressman my thoughts on his lame ideas so I went to his website. He tried to make it a little harder to relay my thoughts to him but where there is a will there is a way. If you would like to inform Congressman Forbes of what you think I'd like to make it as easy as possible for you to do so.

  The congressman is not interested in hearing from anyone who does not live in his district even though he wants to make law that effects all of us. It seems a bit unreasonable and irresponsible for Randy Forbes to be unavailable to the people his actions have an effect on. I sent Randy Forbes a reply anyway, you can too.

Here is how. 
Send email to Congressman Randy Forbes

When Randy asks you for a zip code so you can prove yourself worthy of his time type in this
23083-2172
 

Here is what I sent to Congressman Forbes-

Sir with all due respect I believe it is ignorant to make the claim that all Americans are equally represented by the phrase 'in god we trust'
 For you to assume 'in go we trust' does in fact represent everyone in the country shows you are out of touch with much of the population and it's belief system(s)
 Why not embrace a phrase that encourages all Americans to join in unity instead of one that alienates over 15% of the population?
 Please refrain from proposing anything that effects the nation as a whole until you gain the ability to understand its diversity. You do not represent much of the country, from your actions I would assume there is a valid reason for that.
 How does using "E pluribus unum" as a national saying harm or alienate anyone? It doesn't. Your worry about the president using it reeks of racism and fundamentalism. Those two traits have no place in society. Can't you think of something more productive to do? 

Per Second

  With the planet reaching 7 billion people I heard a news report that informed me there are 5 births per second. 5 per second! Amazing. It kinda gives you an idea of how we tend to live in a bubble. Most of us behave as though the only things that really happen occur within our scope of vision. Even people who include the information they see on the internet still fail to grasp the enormity of human events.
    I figured it would be fun and easy to take the entire year, compress it into one day and see what numbers I would come up with.
If you took one year and lived it as a day, here's what would be happening ....

1562.5 births per second

Number of days of heavy fog (defined as an observation with 1/4 mile visibility or less sometime during
the day.) in Oakland California -  .0002 per second

Number of Earthquakes in the United States  .1 per second

People that die from rabies .8 per second

Firefighters die on duty   .001 per second

Arrested for drunkenness  560,718  6.5 per second

Arrested for prostitution and commercialized vice offenses in us   .73 per second

Number of aggravated assaults in US  4.7 per second

Busted for vandalism in US 2.93 per second

Accused of a drug abuse violation  in US 18.2 per second

Murder or non-negligent manslaughter in US .13 per second

Number of forcible rapes  .23 per second

Number of tornadoes in Oklahoma  .0012 per second

Number of tweets sent on twitter  worldwide 289351.9 per second

Heart transplants .02 per second

Number of deaths 28.1 per second

People who die from Alzheimer's disease .86 per second

Marriages per second 24

Unintentional poisoning deaths .34 per second

Visitors to disneyland 184.1 per second

Have a nice day...