New Sci Fi: Osiris by E. J. Swift

I've been reading three recently published science fiction works. Each presents a different view of the future of humanity and the authors masterfully create those fictional worlds that are so important to the success of science-fiction novels.  Osiris by E. J. Swift presents a post-ecological-disaster Earth. The action takes place in the eponymous city of Osiris, near Patagonia, where the inhabitants believe that they are the last remnants of mankind. Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312 presents a robust, technologically-advanced solar system 300 years in the future with genetically-engineered humans and artificial intelligences at work terraforming and colonizing the planets, moons, and asteroids. When the Blue Shift Comes is a far-future two-part novella by Robert Silverberg and Alvaro Zinos-Amaro . As can be gleaned from its name, this story is about a collapsing universe at the far reaches of time. In Blue Shift, humanity has expanded far beyond our own galaxy and evolved far beyond our current body form over the course of millions (or perhaps billions) of years.

The characters in these three works are memorable - from Osiris' jaded, rebellious socialite Adelaide and firebrand activist Vikram from the wrong side of the city wall, to 2312's genetically altered Swan Er Hong, Inspector Genette (a “small”) and Fitz Wahram (a “Titan”) to the near-immortal Hanosz Prime and Kaivilda Kreidge of When the Blue Shift Comes.

 

Osiris is E. J. Swift's first novel although she has previously written shorter works of science fiction and fantasy. As she describes the book on her website, the novel is “set in a far future ocean metropolis, a failed utopia whose inhabitants believe they live on the last city on earth.”

Osiris is the name of the ancient Egyptian god who ruled the afterlife - the god of the underworld and the dead. The city Osiris in E. J. Swift's novel represents something of an afterlife also. Osiris is populated by the descendants of survivors of a great storm that flooded and destroyed the land masses on Earth. Since there have been no communications from the outside for 50 years, the inhabitants believe that their floating city contains the last human beings alive.

The city Osiris is forceably divided into two parts - the well-to-do society of the East and the “have nots” of the West. Social inequality and oppression are the order of the day - an early scene in the book is the public execution of one of Vikram's friends. 

Adelaide Rechnov and Vikram Bai are two of the more complex sci-fi characters that I've encountered. Osiris unfolds by alternating between their two points of view. Adelaide's obsessive concern is the disappearance of her mentally unstable twin, Axel. She is the only daughter of a prominent ruling family. Her grandfather, The Architect, was one of the city's founders. Estranged from her parents and brothers, Adelaide is the only one in her family who believes that her brother is still alive. Vikram is an activist who hopes for a peaceful improvement in the conditions of the West. Their paths cross when one of Adelaide's brothers offers Vikram an invitation to one of her infamous parties. After some false starts and conflicts, Vikram agrees to help Adelaide search for her brother and she agrees to help convince the governing council to aid the West. As their professional and personal relationship develops, Vikram and Adelaide are caught between sadistic, Gestapo-like “city guards” in the East and desperate revolutionaries in the West. Their fate is uncertain by the end of this first book and the Osiris Project promises to be an ambitious trilogy.  

 

[Next review: Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312]

The God Particle

 

Wikipedia image from NASA

Over the past week, you may have heard increasingly confident statements reported in the popular press that the elusive Higgs boson - the so-called "God particle" - had been found. On March 14, on what would have been Einstein's 134th birthday, Reuters' headline read "Strong Signs Higgs Boson Has Been Found:CERN". Two days later, Forbes' headline read "CERN Now Certain It Has Discovered The Higgs Boson". The particle in question was actually detected last July but scientists were not about to commit to a discovery until they had conducted much more analysis of the data.

So why all the excitement? Well for one thing, experimental physicists and cosmologists had been searching in vain for this particular subatomic particle for almost 50 years. The Higgs boson is named for the British physicist, Peter Higgs, who first postulated its existence in 1964. Secondly, it was the only particle in the Standard Model that had not yet been discovered. The Standard Model of Physics provides the best explanation of how the fundamental particles of matter and the three of the four fundamental forces are related.  As noted on a CERN webpage: "Developed in the early 1970s, it has successfully explained almost all experimental results and precisely predicted a wide variety of phenomena."  Unfortunately one theoretically predicted piece of the model has been missing.  The missing piece, the Higgs boson, was needed to explain why the Big Bang resulted in the formation of the universe...why something was able to be created from nothing 13.7 billion years ago. The Higgs boson is the particle that triggered the Big Bang..it joins and gives mass to everything. Had this particle not ever been found, it would jeopardize the Standard Model, one of the most established and tested theories in all of physics and the Big Bang would become even a bigger enigma than it is.

The discovery of the Higgs boson was made at CERN's Large Hadron Collider near Geneva. This equipment uses electromagnetic energy to accelerate protons in opposite directions to 99.9% of the speed of light through a tube 17 miles in circumference. The collisions of these counter-accelerating protons produce energies close to those believed to exist at the time of the Big Bang.

Cern LHC

The United States was building a collider in Texas a couple of decades ago. Planned to be nearly three times larger than the CERN collider, the Superconducting Super Collider was cancelled because of budgetary problems in 1993. The budgetary problem was its cost of $12 billion, which is less than 2% of the current US defense budget. Funny how we can spend hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems and wars and then balk at a pittance for fundamental scientific research. Maybe it's about what you can expect in a country where 46% believe in creationism - i.e., that man did not evolve but was created in his existing form about 10,000 years ago and 63% support the death penalty.

On the good news front, about 70% ofAmericans now believe that global warming is happening. Score one for scientific competency.  And Maryland joined the civilized world in abolishing the death penalty - the 18th state to do so.  

 

Death Penalty Map, c.2011 [Wikipedia]

 

 

 

Links

 

A Cosmic Timeline: the evolution of the universe described as if it happened in one year

 

 

The Left Bank Cafe September 2012 post:  Why Does the World Exist?

 



Genius

Some weeks ago, I was in Ft. Myers, Florida. While there, I had the opportunity to visit Thomas Edison's Winter Home and Museum a day before the 156^th anniversary of his birth. The site is officially named the Edison & Ford Winter Estates because the winter homes of both men are there. Henry Ford was a protege of Edison and the two men maintained a lifelong friendship – which included having winter homes on adjoining plots of land in Ft. Myers. The gardens and the estates are beautiful in themselves but the Museum is what really gives you pause to think. Edison's inventions fill room after room. His interests, contributions and inventions celebrated there include those that most of us are aware of - the light bulb, the phonograph, early movie making equipment, telegraphy innovations, batteries, electricity distribution – and some that I, at least, was ignorant of – for example, his botanical experiments aimed at finding a rubber-producing plant that could thrive in the United States and an "electrographic vote recorder". Thomas Edison was granted a total of 1093 patents and the impact of much of his work reverberates globally today. (See the Thomas Edison patent web-page in the inventors section of the about.com website for the complete list.) 

Edison was also an accomplished businessman. His Edison Illuminating Company, the prototype for other electricty distribution companies, began supplying electricity to a one-square mile of Lower Manhattan in 1882. It later merged with other power companies to become what eventually was named Consolidated Edison, one of the largest enrgy companies in the US. Okay, that one was obvious...but he also was instrumental in the formation of General Electric, which in its earliest days was the Edison General Electric Company.

What gives rise to such practical genius? We've all heard Edison's “one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration” definition of genius. Granted perseverance to follow an idea through to a successful conclusion is an essential element of discovery. But I suspect there is more to it than that. Imagination and creativity, intelligence and talent, knowledge and openness to new ideas an understanding of current needs and a foresight of future possibilities – these surely have a role.

Also, what is it about today's situation that makes men of political genius so rare? At a time when insight and boldness are needed, demagoguery and spinelessness rule the day. Are our problems so complex or are we prevented from solving them by the know-nothing's and fear-mongers? Charlie Chaplin had this pessimistic observation: “Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded.”

But let's leave on an upbeat note. Here are ten other quotes on genius by people through the ages:

“Genius is eternal patience.” - Michaelangelo

“When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.” - Jonathan Swift

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius sees a target no one else can see.” -Arthur Schopenhauer

“God gives talent. Work transforms talent into genius.” - Anna Pavlova

“The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age.” - Aldous Huxley

“The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.” - William James

“Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.” - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

“Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.” - Abraham Lincoln

“To see things in the seed. That is genius.” - Lao Tzu

Hugo Chavez and 21st Century Latin America

Hugo Chavez, the charismatic and provocative leader of Venezuela for the past 14 years, passed away yesterday at the age of 58 after succumbing to his year-and-a-half battle with cancer. He had overwhelming support among Venezuela's poor, whose lives he sought to better, and he encountered great opposition from many of Venezuela's wealthy.

I spent some time in Venezuela in the late '90's – both before and after Chavez' election to the Venezuelan Presidency. In the runup to the 1998 election, his lead was overwhelming. He won easily with the strong support of the country's poorest, who turned out in huge numbers to vote. And there were many, many poor people. The vast hillside slums were visible on the drive into Caracas from Simón Bolívar International Airport, which is 10-15 miles from downtown Caracas. These insubstantial makeshift homes seemed to built on top of one another – a tragedy waiting to happen. As a Venezuelan colleague once remarked, “That all those houses are still standing is a sign that God must exist.” I have never seen anything like it - either before or since.

Progress has been made since he took office in1999 but much remains to be done. After nationalizing the oil industry, the government has been able to pour revenues into projects to alleviate the worst of the conditions. Poverty rates are down from 50% to 32%. More than $300 billion dollars have been spent on social development projects including health care, education, and affordable, government-run grocery stores. Cuban doctors provide free treatment at neighborhood clinics, and university enrollment swelled from 894,000 students in 2000 to 2.3 million in 2010. More than 3 million people have signed up to receive government homes. In the period from 2010 to 2012, about 250,000 of these homes have been built. [Ian James, AP Oct. 4, 2012]

Chavez' support among the “Chavistas” remained strong enough to win a fourth term in 2012 by an eleven point margin – 55-44. Turnout was over 80% for the election. The margin of victory was down from his overwhelming 26 point margin in 2006 but compares favorably to recent US elections. In the US, we haven't seen a President win by more than 11 points since 1984 and we haven't had an 80% turnout since 1876!

Since the time of the Monroe Doctrine, the United States has taken a strong, and often misguided, interest in Latin American affairs. From the 1890's onward, we have often intervened more than 50 times – usually on behalf of capital and business interests as well as on behalf of right-wing dictators and military or para-military forces. A listing can be found at theYachana.org website but I'll just refresh you memory of some of them here:

• 1898 – seized Cuba and Puerto Rico from Spain
• 1907-12 – intervened in Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Cuba to protect “US interests”
• 1914 – began a 19 year occupation of Haiti
• 1925 – Marines sent to suppress a general strike in Panama
• 1954 – CIA directs an exile invasion in Guatemala after newly elected government nationalizes unused US's United Fruit Company land. This support continued for decades ultimately resulting in 200,00 deaths
• 1961 – CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba fails with the sanctions against Cuba begun in 1962
• 1973 – CIA-backed coup ousts democratically elected Marxist president in Chile
• 1980's – interventions to support rebels against left-leaning governments in Nicaragua and El Salvador, including CIA-directed “Contra” operations

With oil-rich Venezuela going the socialist route, it was inevitable that the US would oppose Chavez.

Whether or not the United States knew of, or was involved in any way with, the “47-hour coup” that tried unsuccessfully to remove Chavez in 2002 is a matter for debate. An investigation conducted by the U.S. Inspector General at the request of US Senator Christopher Dodd, requested a review of U.S. activities leading up to and during the coup attempt. The OIG report found no "wrongdoing" by U.S. officials either in the State Department or in the U.S. Embassy but it also concluded that: "It is clear that NED [the National Endowment for Democracy], Department of Defense (DOD), and other U.S. assistance programs provided training, institution building, and other support to individuals and organizations understood to be actively involved in the brief ouster of the Chávez government." [Wikipedia]

 

Although he has been a burr in the side of United States policy, Chavez considered himself a friend of the American people. Venezuela was the first to offer the United States help after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Chavez offered money and personnel to help in the relief effort. The Venezuelan state-owned CITGO Petroleum Corporation offered $1 million in aid. Since 2005, CITGO has helped low-income Americans with a home heating oil program that has so far subsidized or donated $465 million worth of heating oil to people in 25 states and the District of Columbia. At today's prices near $4/gallon, the current value of the donated or subsidized oil would be over $1 billion.

So, fourteen years on from Chavez' “Bolivaran revolution”, where does Latin America stand? Where does the United States stand in relation to its neightbors to the south? Since Chavez' election in 1998, left-wing presidents have been elected in twelve Central and South American countries. Besides Venezuela, the people of Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Paraguay, El Salvador and Peru have seen fit to join the “pink tide”, as it has been named by some journalistic pundits. Only Honduras and Paraguay have moved to the political center since then. Without a return to blatantly illegal interventions in the internal affairs of Latin American countries, the United States will not be able to regain its influence over Central and South America. And that's a good thing. How much more consistent with our own stated democratic ideals would be an approach that allows Latin America nations to develop in the way the majority of their people think best. Of course, there remains the ongoing injustice being perpetrated against Cuba more than 50 years after Fidel Castro took power there and 45 years after a wounded and captured Che Guevara was executed by Bolivian Special Forces in an Andes village. Is it politically possible for this injustice to be ended? President Obama, secure in a second term, has a unique opportunity to do this but whether he has the political will is uncertain.

Venezuela is reeling after the death of its President and its status as a democracy will be put to the test in the Presidential elections scheduled to be held within 30 days. Right now the talk is of unity but Venezuelans have been stocking up on gasoline and food. The major question is whether any other candidate will have the power to draw poor voters to the election booth. (Come to think of it, this is eerily similar to what will be facing a post-Obama Democratic Party in 2016.) In any case, even an opposition candidate may have a difficult time undoing all of Chavez' policies even if he or she wanted to.

Other Interesting Stuff

The population of 12 “pink tide” nations plus that of Cuba represents 2/3 of the total population of Latin America (400 million out of 600 million).

The 2004 award-winning film The Motorcycle Diaries relates the journey of 23-year old Ernesto Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado through South America. As he encounters the poverty and social injustices of 1954 Latin America, Ernesto begins reformulating his political beliefs.

Poverty in the United States is nowhere near that of Latin American countries. Still the disparity between the richest and the rest of us has been growing for the past three decades and promises to remain high. When you have 5 or so minutes, you should check out thisYouTube video that has gone viral with more than 3 million views.

 

The toll of American interference in Latin American countries is not to be measured solely by its interventions. For decades, the US Army School of the Americas trained Latin American students in “counter-insurgency” techniques. Among its graduates can be counted former dictators and military leaders in many Latin American countries. The SOA was re-christened in 2000 as WHINSEC – The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. While not as off the deep end as its predecessor, WHINSEC continues to face criticism. Now here's one place we can save tax dollars. Shut it down. The School of the Americas Watch is an organization that is dedicated to closing this infamous institution.  And just so you don't think this is the opinion of just “pinko” organizations..My Catholic grammar school teachers were of the RSM order (Reverend Sisters of Mercy).  There is a short article about the SOA on their website: "The School of theAmericas: Its History, Funding, and Global Influence."

Critical Decision Time at the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court will hear two cases in the coming months that could set back the United States' standing as a modern democracy.  The right-wing activist judges on the court will have the opportunity to overturn both the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the federal campaign contribution limitations on individuals.  After Citizens United which did away with limits on corporate and labor union contributions, this additional one-two punch to our democracy would set us even further down the road to a plutocracy. 

The Voting Rights Act was one of the most palpable results of the civil rights movement of the late 1950's and early 1960's.  In her excellent analysis in yesterday's New York Times, Linda Greenhouse asks: "How can it be that one of the crowning achievements of the civil rights movement, a provision upheld on four previous occasions by the Supreme Court and re-enacted in 2006 by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in Congress (98-0 in the Senate, 390-33 in the House), a law that President George W. Bush urged the justices to uphold again four years ago in one of his final acts in office, a law that has demonstrably defeated myriad efforts both flagrant and subtle to suppress or dilute the African-American vote, is now hanging by a thread?" 

And what a thin thread that is.  In his opinion on an earlier Voting Rights Act case (2009) involving an election district in Austin, Texas, Chief Justice Roberts stated that "things have changed in the south".  Fortunately the Court did not at that time overturn Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.  This time around, when the Court hears Shelby County, Alabama petition, we may not be so fortunate. 

Section 5, the pre-clearance provision, requires that the United States Department of Justice or a panel of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia "preclear" any attempt to change “any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting..." in any "covered jurisdiction."  Covered jurisdictions are those with a history of past voting discrimination and in which less than 50% of the population was registered to vote in 1964.  Because of their Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, and the jury-rigged literacy tests with their so called "grandfather clauses", many Southern states require pre-clearance before they can change their voting laws.  Thing of the past, you say?  Just consider the voter suppression laws that numerous Republican-controlled states tried to enact this past election cycle.  Texas' voter suppression law was invalidated before the November election because it was not granted pre-clearance under the Voting Rights Act. 

The Voting Rights Act has done enormous good in allowing all citizens to exercise their right to vote with language that mirrors the 15th Amendment . That Amendment, ratified in 1870, provided that, "The right of U.S. citizens to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Let's hope the current Supreme Court keeps it that way.

Alabama also plays a role in the case arguing against aggregate spending limits for individuals.  The case is brought by Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama man, and, surprise, surprise, the Republican National Committee. They argue that the current aggregate limits for a two-year cycle , $46,200 for contributions to candidates and $70,800 for contributions to groups, are too low.  As noted by Adam Liptik in the New York Times on February 19: "Should the court agree that those overall limits are unconstitutional, however, its decision could represent a fundamental reassessment of a basic distinction established in Buckley v. Valeo in 1976, which said contributions may be regulated more strictly than expenditures because of their potential for corruption."  Is there any hope at all that this Court, responsible for declaring corporations persons in Citizens United and for striking down campaign finance laws in Vermont (2006) and Montana (2012), will do the right thing for the democracy and prevent the further incursion of Big Money into the political process?

At a time when the influence of money in politics is so overwhelming that even common-sense gun control legislation is bottled up indefinitely in Congress, at a time when Republican governors and legislatures seem hell-bent on denying people their right to vote, the Supreme Court can strike a blow for democracy by holding the line on these two cases.  The Court either can do what is good for the country or it can agree with the right-wing ideologues that have dominated the political conversation for more than 30 years.  These cases will be a test of how far we've gone down the road to plutocracy and how far we've strayed from protecting citizens' right to vote.  I cannot say that I am hopeful.

Meteors, Asteroids, Lightning Strikes

Over the past few days we've witnessed two celestial events involving near earth objects and one very interesting lightning strike. 

In reverse chronological order, today we saw the closest approach to Earth of a medium-sized asteroid since the Tunguska event of 1908.  The explosion from the latter incident occurred  at about 7 am local time June 30, 1908 in a forested area near the Tunguska River in Siberia.  Thank goodness for that - the force of the explosion has been estimated to be between 5 and 30 megatons, with 10-15 megatons being the most likely - about 1000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.  As it was, the Tunguska detonation knocked down an estimated 80 million trees in an area of 830 square miles. 

So how does today's fly-by of Asteroid 2012 DA14 compare to Tunguska?  Most importantly, DA14 missed.  The closest it came was 17,200 miles.  Galactically speaking this is close - it's within the orbit of many of our satellites, less than 10% of the distance from the Earth to the Moon, and about 70% of the circumference of the Earth.   When DA14 comes back around 2080, there is a very slight chance that it may impact the Earth. according to one of the commentators on the NASA live feed today.  Size-wise, DA 14 is about half the diameter of the object that impacted Tunguska.  Even at half the size, had DA14 hit (or if it hits in 2080) it still would have packed a 2.4 megaton punch. 

Also interesting is how far we've come since Galileo used his telescope to view the moons of Jupiter.  This asteroid was first noted by an amateur astronomy group scanning the skies in Spain just under one year ago.  And today, even during the daylight here in the US, the Internet allowed transmission of live video from observatories in other parts of the world - particularly Australia. 

Discovery.Com has a webpage "How to Watch Asteroid 2012 DA14 Zoom Past Earth" that is informative and even contains a link to one of my favorite questions "How do you stop an asteroid?"  Among the possible answers: nuclear weapons (Note 1), kinetic nudging, vaporizing it with mirrors, netting it, painting it and several others.  In the final analysis, though, what happens if it's too late to do any of these things?  The website analysis: evacuation would be the only and last resort. 

Okay, enough for today's asteroid.  Just 16 hours before 2012 DA14 reached its nearest approach to Earth, a meteor streaked across the Russian Urals. Per the AP as reported in the Huffington Post: "With a blinding flash and a booming shock wave, a meteor blazed across the western Siberian sky Friday...injuring more than 1,000 people as it blasted out windows and spread panic in a city of 1 million... The meteor above western Siberia entered the Earth's atmosphere at a hypersonic speed of at least 54,000 kph [33,000 mph] and shattered into pieces about 30-50 kilometers (18 to 32 miles) high, the Russian Academy of Sciences said."  NASA estimated that the meteor released "300 to 500 kilotons [0.3 to 0.5 megatons] of energy and left a trail 300 miles long."  There is apparently no connection to DA14 but I don't think I'm going to be moving to Siberia anytime soon.  The place this meteor hit is about 1500 miles from Tunguska.  I know - Siberia's a big place..still...

Finally, on Monday February 11, Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation from the Papacy.  Two hours later, lightning apparently struck the dome of St. Peter's Basilica.  I'm not sure what this has to do with anything but I thought it was a rather interesting coincidence also.  Popes do not normally resign.  The last to do so was Gregory XII, 598 years ago. 


Note 1 - In the State of Dis-Union post, I recommended we keep 5 of the current 15,000 nuclear warheads around for this purpose...I stand by the figure.  Asteroids of this size hit Earth about once every 1200 years or about twice as long as the time since the last papal resignation.

Note 2 - I also recommended in the State of Dis-Union that you go to sleep before Marc Rubio spoke.  Actually that may have been a mistake...the apparent high point of Rubio's speech was when he took a sip of Poland Spring water.  Jon Stewart had a hilarious bit on the Republican response.

Note 3 - What's the difference between a meteor, meteorite, comet and asteroid?  TheBlaze website has a succinct definition of these terms.

State of Dis-Union

Esteemed members of Congress, Supreme Court, fellow Americans, etc. Welcome to my fifth State of the Union speech. Sorry, Mitch McConnell. The combined efforts of the Republican-generated voter suppression laws, the Chamber of Commerce, the NRA, and the Citizens United money plus your party's obstructionism on just about everything that could have helped speed the recovery – it just wasn't enough to prevent my second term.

In this speech. I am once again going to demonstrate that I have learned absolutely nothing about the tactics and strategies of my opponents in Congress by my appeals to their concern for the common good.

I am once again going to layout a very modest middle-of-the-road agenda that doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of passing in the Republican-controlled House or in the still-filibuster-wracked Senate. Thanks a lot, Harry Reid – what did you actually accomplish with filibuster reform? With great foresight, I predict that John Boehner seated behind me on my left will not rise once for a standing ovation to anything I'm about to say.

I am once again going to show that I have bought into the nonsense about deficit reduction being the most important problem facing America today. This at a time when 14 million Americans are “officially” unemployed , an additional 10 million underemployed and 4 million discouraged workers who would like to work but have not looked for a job in more than a year. For you knuckle draggers that don't believe in science and possibly math: that adds up to 28 million unemployed or underemployed. As any fool knows, deficit-driven-austerity does not create jobs in a climate like this.

Nah, I changed my mind. I won't do that. I'll give a real state of the union speech instead.

On the domestic front, we have 28 million unemployed or underemployed. Meanwhile, the Americans Job Act is still awaiting passage in Congress. Twenty percent of America's children live in poverty. Overall nearly 50 millionAmericans – about one in six – are living below the poverty level. To speak of austerity and a long-term deficit problem now is, quite frankly, obscene. (Take a look at Europe and see how “well” their austerity programs are working out.) What is needed instead is a massive public works program to repair the nation's crumbling infrastructure and to improve the quality of our schools. We need to help states hire more teachers, firemen and police. And we need to stop talking about cutting the food stamp program or the aid to families with dependent children. I'd suggest that any Congressman who thinks our support of the vulnerable in our society is excessive live on $14,500/year (allowing for two weeks' vacation or sick time, this the salary at the national minimum wage). Do this for a couple of years and we could reduce the national debt some. Maybe you can send your wife or husband out to work and rake in a total of $29,000. Then you can live high off the hog like those “welfare queens” your ilk despise and ridicule. Of course, you'd need to find some way of taking care of the kids while you both were at work. That will cost you some.  So maybe it won't be so heavenly.

 

I've said I want to have gun control legislation passed quickly. The NRA, that mouthpiece for arms dealers, has filled the airwaves with fear and lies. Contrary to the ravings of the NRA spokesman, no one will “kick in your doors” to take your guns away. No one is talking about repealing that outdated Second Amendment passed at a time when you had to reload your powder after every shot and intended clearly to apply to a well-regulated militia. Universal background checks are pretty much supported universally. Heh-heh. But a ban on assault weapons, high capacity magazines, armor-piercing bullets must be part of the overall reform or we will not be moving towards a solution to the issue of gun violence. Congress, and this includes you Democrats from Red States and Harry Reid: get the damned bill for a vote to the floor and vote for it. Otherwise I will actively campaign against you in the next primary.

As for making it easier for people to vote, it's not just the vote-discouraging long lines we need to address. We need to fight the coordinated effort to disenfranchise voters seen in the last election. There is nothing more undemocratic than to deny people the right to vote. Voter suppression laws and the legislators and governors who promulgate them will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And don't even think about repealing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

On immigration reform, if a comprehensive package is not on my desk in 30 days, I will (a) issue executive orders to make the path to citizenship immediately easier for all immigrants and (b) send Congress my own proposal.  .

 

On entitlement programs may need a tweak here and there but we will generate signifcant savings by gaining the right to negotiate Medicare drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.  Overall Americans spend close to $3 trillion/yr on health care.  About one in ten of our health dollars goes for prescription drugs ($300 billion).  If we all could reduce the cost of drugs by 1/3 by negotiating with pharmaceutical companies, that would save about $100 billion/year - much of which would result in savings to Medicare.

Regarding the “sequester” and the “debt limit”, let's be frank.  We manufactured these false crises ourselves. If Republicans play their brinksmanship game on the debt ceiling, it will have a major effect on the recovery and the markets and do nothing but damage the credit and faith in the ability of the United States to pay its debts. The money that is being spent has already been approved. To threaten to not pay our debts is childish and asinine.

About the only good thing in the “sequester” is the reduction in military spending. Our overbloated and unnecessary military budget is greater than that of the next 13 or 14 nations combined. Let me repeat that – greater than that of the next 13 or 14 nations combined. Fully, 41% of all military spending in the world is by the United States. If you're worried about the effect on jobs, lets put this useless spending to better use in repairs to infrastructure, new energy sources, medical research, and education.

 

To the climate change deniers, pull your heads out of your asses. We need a comprehensive program to develop alternative energy sources, increase energy efficiency in all aspects of our lives, and create meaningful mass transit and intelligent energy grids throughout the country. Oh yeah, and how about some serious research into nuclear fusion reactors. That should take care of our clean energy needs for the forerseeable future. We also need to begin preparations for engineering solutions to prevent coastal cities from being swamped by rising waters by mid-century. These efforts would be a good alternate use for the military budget.

There's a lot to do in the area of foreign affairs. I need Chuck Hagel as my secretary of defense. His appointment should not be blocked just because he has a reasonable position on Iraq, Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. With any luck, I can do something to earn my admittedly premature Nobel Peace Prize – maybe by supporting a balanced approach to the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process such as that promulgated by Americans For Peace Now, the rational alternative to AIPAC.

Securing nuclear weapons so that they don't fall into the hands of terrorists is good; dismantling and destroying all of them would be better. I don't think they have use even to stop asteroids or meteors from hitting the Earth (too unpredictable what the final effect would be) but we can keep a few around for that purpose. Heck, there are more than 15,000 nuclear warheads ready for use around the world.  Let's save maybe 5 of them for asteroids or meteors.

I am really going to shut down Gitmo this time around. Stop whining. These guys have been imprisoned for 12 freaking years.  What could they possibly know about Al Qaeda's current state of affairs? I am going to stop the drone attacks and restore all the liberties taken from Americans by the grotesquely named PATRIOT Act. Finally, all our troops will be out of Afghanistan within 6 months.

Well, it's getting late and I know you all want to get to bed. Just be sure to turn in before Marc Rubio delivers the Republican response.

 

 

Other Links

 

Who really runs the NRA?  (MoveOn)