walkerthis:

NEWSFLASH:
@MayorEmanuel found our Dems! 

 Axelrod and I just loaded the Civic up with beer. We’re heading out to Rockford to fucking party with the exiled Wisconsin Democrats.

Here’s to hoping he found Wisconsin’s lost transit funding & jobs, too.

 

(via walkerthis-deactivated20110220)

Dear fellow Wisconsinites:

As many of you know, there is currently a fight between Governor Walker and unions.  In an effort to cut through the partisan noise so that you can make an educated, clearheaded decision about where you stand, I’d just like to present some facts.

Fact: There will be a $130 million shortfall this fiscal year, which will end on June 30th.  Most of this shortfall is attributed to the new Governor’s recently enacted tax cut policy.

Fact: Wisconsin has a biennial budget so over the next two years, there will be a projected $3.6 billion shortfall. Most of this shortfall can be attributed to the lingering effects of the Recession and therefore, a smaller tax base.

Fact: $3.6 billion is a lot of money and the Governor presented his budget repair bill as a fix to this problem.  However, the Governor’s proposal has ZERO fiscal impact this fiscal year.  Furthermore, over the next two years, the proposal is projected to save $300 million, which is about 8% of the projected deficit.

Fact: While the proposal would save $300 million over the next two years, it would eviscerate the rights of thousands of public sector employees to collectively negotiate.

Fact: Taking away the right for workers to collectively bargain is union busting. 

Where do you stand?

Kisses,

jhk

mattgorman:

godofpizza:

Last time I checked it was the Gulf of Mexico not the Gulf of The United States of America. 

“I don’t think we can call it the Gulf of Mexico anymore… we broke it, we bought it”

-Stephen Colbert

Last night, I dreamt about space aliens and yacht rock. 

Yes, that is a Motorola Micro TAC Ultra Lite cell phone and extended battery circa 1995 getting ready to be mailed to the T-Mobile phone recycling program in 2010.  What will the kid think when he opens this package?

I did a little talk on hunger last night as part of a “Taste of Limmud” event focused on Purim and Hunger and it was all tweeted by Rabbi Yonah Bookstein.  Here’s the tweet-script of my talk, which is basically the hunger talk equivalent of “Thriller.” 

• rabbiyonah We throw away 100 billion pounds of food each year #fedupwithhunger
• rabbiyonah Help end hunger this Purim www.fedupwithhunger.com #fedupwithhunger
• rabbiyonah Teaching kids how to teach kids to cook — Root Down LA. #fedupwithhunger 
•  rabbiyonah Massive education scheme is needed to promote nutrition, farmers markets and food knowledge #fedupwithhunger
• rabbiyonah Southern California Foodshed is the worlds, we ship food from here worldwide #fedupwithhunger
• rabbiyonah Hunger is a fixable problem #fedupwithhunger 
• rabbiyonah Key activity today is remove face to face waiver for food stamps in LA county #fedupwithhunger
• rabbiyonah Rural agricultural workers have some of the highest rates of hunger in CA. #fedupwithhunger
• rabbiyonah Food stamp allowance averages $120 per person per month #fedupwithhunger about 4 hours ago 
• rabbiyonah Illegal immigrants do not qualify for food assistance, but their children do. #fedupwithhunger 
• rabbiyonah Food stamps are funded by the Feds, administered by the counties. The computer systems are all different. #fedupwithhunger 
• rabbiyonah Universal feeding would give food to all kids at school if 60percent of kids at s school are impoverished #fedupwithhunger 
• rabbiyonah If computers could just speak to each other we could reduce hunger in California #fedupwithhunger 
• rabbiyonah Direct certification helps cut out red tape to feed children #fedupwithhunger 
• rabbiyonah 80 percent of kids in LA schools qualify for help #fedupwithhunger 
• rabbiyonah What r u doing for hunger thus Purim?#fedupwithhunger 
• rabbiyonah National school lunch program feeds 31 million kids every day #fedupwithhunger 
• rabbiyonah Healthcare costs associated with hunger are 150 billion #fedupwithhunger 
• rabbiyonah Government could wipe out hunger in 5 years for spending 100billion a year #fedupwithhunger
• rabbiyonah Fingerprinting food stamp recipients in California = worst system of food nutrition on the USA #fedupwithhunger 
• rabbiyonah Removing barriers to getting food stamps would reduce hunger #fedupwithhunger 
• rabbiyonah Over 1 million people are hungry in LA #fedupwithhunger

Former FDA Commissioner David Kessler and Eric Schlosser talk to Katie Couric about the modern food system. 

With the exception of 1 and 10, in no particular order:

1) There Will Be Blood

Brokeback Mountain

In the Mood For Love

The Royal Tennenbaums

Gosford Park

The Departed

Zodiac

Wall-E

25th Hour

10) Jackass/Borat

Here is my whole, unedited post for Blog Action Day 2009 which originally posted at the Give Life Meaning blog.  This version includes a line about shooting oneself, an important discussion about nitrogen and this handsome chart about the nitrogen life-cycle. 

It’s Blog Action Day 2009, a day when the bloggers unite online for a cause.  It’s sort of like USA for Africa’s “We are the World,” except with 50% less singing, 100% more typing and 23% more Hall and Oates (at least in my case).  This year, the cause is climate change, which makes this year’s Blog Action Day sort of like “blogosphere for the atmosphere.”   

The topic got me thinking to 2003 when the Pentagon was asked what they thought was the biggest threat to national security. The Pentagon didn’t say terrorism.  They didn’t say banking, national health care or reality shows.

They said climate change.

That’s right.  The Pentagon, still recovering after 9/11, in a time when the correct answer to any question was global terrorism, said the greatest risk to U.S. national security was climate change.

Not because we would get a little hot, or that Al Gore would win the Nobel Peace Prize, but because climate change would lead to world-wide hunger, food insecurity and famine, which would foment political instability and war. 

In the end, it all comes back to food.  The report here is pretty unsettling. 

Climatically, the gradual change view of the future assumes that agriculture will continue to thrive and growing seasons will lengthen…Overall, global food production under many typical climate scenarios increases. This view of climate change may be a dangerous act of self-deception, as increasingly we are facing weather related disasters – more hurricanes, monsoons, floods, and dry-spells – in regions around the world. [Emphasis mine]

This reminds me of the halcyon days before 2008, when all signs pointed to an economy would continue to expand, unabated.  There were a few people who sagely saw the meltdown coming but 99.9% of us ignored the warning signs that our economy was deeply troubled.  We know how that ended.  Now try, if you can, to imagine the banking collapse of 2008 translated to The Climate, a system that no government can bail out or nationalize. 

Weather-related events have an enormous impact on society, as they influence food supply, conditions in cities and communities, as well as access to clean water and energy.  For example, a recent report by the Climate Action Network of Australia projects that climate change is likely to reduce rainfall in the rangelands, which could lead to a 15 per cent drop in grass productivity.  This, in turn, could lead to reductions in the average weight of cattle by 12 per cent, significantly reducing beef supply. Under such conditions, dairy cows are projected to produce 30% less milk, and new pests are likely to spread in fruit-growing areas. Additionally, such conditions are projected to lead to 10% less water for drinking. Based on model projections of coming change conditions such as these could occur in several food producing regions around the world at the same time within the next 15-30years, challenging the notion that society’s ability to adapt will make climate change manageable. 

That’s only the introduction.  The rest of the report makes you want to shoot yourself.

As the climate has been slowly changing, we have begun to see more water tension, more soil erosion and therefore less fertility and harsher growing conditions.  Steven Chu, a Nobel Laureate and President Obama’s Secretary of Energy, said, “I don’t think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen. We’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California.”  

Growing food is a delicate interaction between seed, soil and water to harvest the energy of the sun.  The seed’s journey to food can only take place in nutrient rich soil and temperate climates.  California did not become the nation’s largest agricultural producer because of chance.  It had an ideal climate and the Haber process had found a way to quickly fix nitrogen to make inorganic fertilizer.  

Natural methods of fertilization like spreading manure, composting waste and growing cover crops takes time.  The use of synthetic fertilizer increased our food production by leaps and bounds and in the era of industrialization, this practice was unbelievably productive and we thrived.  A full 40% of the world’s population is alive today because of our ability to synthetically fix nitrogen. 

However, in an unfortunate Catch-22, fixing nitrogen – and therefore modern agriculture itself – is fatally dependent on fossil fuels, the burning of which is a key contributor to climate change.  On average, 10 calories of fossil fuel energy must be burned in order to produce 1 calorie of food energy.  The largest portion of fossil fuel usage (40%) goes into the creation of the synthetic, nutrient-rich fertilizers (and pesticides) on which industrial agriculture depends. 

This is why when the price of oil went through the roof last summer, food prices went right along with them.  Gas had become too expensive but farmers adapted by running their machinery less.  They couldn’t, however, buy less fertilizer, which had skyrocketed in price.  Once you introduce large amounts of synthetic fertilizer to soil, as we have over the last sixty years, it needs more and more to maintain its level of productivity; in this way, synthetic fertilizer is soil’s methamphetamine.

The spike in food prices had a terrible effect on hunger nationwide.  As food prices rose, wages stagnated.  Here locally, many Angelenos fell off the edge of getting by and became food insecure.  Unfortunately, since food prices are sticky, once they go up, they aren’t quick to come down because the their prices are set by companies (the prices for commodities are set daily on an open market).   As unemployment has ripped through Los Angeles County, more and more people are out of work and having to deal with high food prices, driving a record number of people to food pantries. 

Conventional agriculture, though abundantly productive, is in an existential bind.  It is at once intrinsically tied to nature and dependent on a temperate climate, yet its very practice, if continued in its current fashion, furthers the very changes in climate that will bring about its – and our – demise. 

On the other hand, sustainable agriculture, which develops and fosters natural, holistic relationships between the environment and food production, still has many very serious questions to answer about whether it can feed and sustain a worldwide population that is expected to jump to 9 billion by 2050. 

Thankfully, very smart and committed people are beginning to talk about this stuff.  Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson and Fred Kirschenmann, three of the most thoughtful men on this subject, advocate a 50-year farm bill.   Michael R. Dimock’s Roots of Change is rolling out an awareness and education campaign on the nitrogen challenge that we face.  MacArthur fellow Will Allen and his Growing Power organization will revolutionize urban agriculture. 

Agriculture and the climate are so closely tied that you can’t fix one system without fixing the other.  We must examine our food system in order to create improved systems of production and distribution to end hunger, take control of rising health care costs and slow climate change.  Here are some things you can do to fight hunger and climate change:

• Help green L.A. by planting a food garden in your home or in a community garden
• Donate your harvest to food banks and food pantries
• Learn about sustainable agriculture practices