Author Archives: John Wallenfeldt

Eugene Robinson – Arizona’s new immigration law is an act of vengeance

I like Eugene. Here he is telling it like it is.

Activists for Latino and immigrant rights — and supporters of sane governance — held weekend rallies denouncing the new law and vowing to do everything they can to overturn it. But where was the Tea Party crowd? Isn’t the whole premise of the Tea Party movement that overreaching government poses a grave threat to individual freedom? It seems to me that a law allowing individuals to be detained and interrogated on a whim — and requiring legal residents to carry identification documents, as in a police state — would send the Tea Partyers into apoplexy. Or is there some kind of exception if the people whose freedoms are being taken away happen to have brown skin and might speak Spanish?

Make: Online : You can be identified by the germs you leave behind

Interesting and frightening news from the world of viruses and bacteria.

Straight out of Gattaca comes news that you can be tracked by the germs you leave behind on surfaces. More on this here.

In a more dangerous to your health than you privacy story, some information on MRSA that both cleared up some myths but also put a real sense of the dangers of the virus into my awareness.

Outbreak Of Paralysis Points To Polio’s Return – Health News Blog : NPR

Well kids, we’re coming full circle back to our parent’s time. Polio is back, at least in the poorest and most overcrowded of nations.

My father has a mark on his neck from where my grandfather gave him an emergency tracheotomy in the back seat of the family car using a pocket knife on their way to the hospital because my dad couldn’t breathe. And that’s what a mild-ish form of polio can do to you, cause you to suffocate. I don’t know if I’ve got it in me to cut into my child. I suppose I could if I have to but I really don’t want to find out.

No word from the Jenny McCarthyites on whether they look forward to polio outbreaks within our borders due to their stupidity.

New wave of solar plants could worsen air quality – Las Vegas Sun

Here is a prime example of what happens when corporations sink their venomous fangs into public news. If you only read the headline you would be correct in thinking “oh man, I didn’t know solar plants were so bad for us”.

Read the article, however, and you run into information like “According to the developer, the Amargosa (solar) plant would produce about 4.9 pounds of carbon monoxide per megawatt hour of electricity produced, compared with 822 pounds per megawatt hour for a natural gas plant.”

Wow, wait a minute. I thought you said the solar plants would WORSEN things? Worsen as in being more polluting than doing nothing? Sure. If I stopped breathing the Earth would have more oxygen. But I don’t plan on dying right now.

And sure, if plants here – where there is a lot of sun – replaces a more inefficient fossil fuel facility somewhere else, then yeah, the local environment may suffer a bit. Overall, however, we’re in better shape for it.

That said, measure the impact responsibly, and move forward if the plan looks to benefit more people than, say, plopping a few more oil derricks off the American coast. Yes, there is a cost to develop. But casting doubt on methods that are WAY more safe than those currently in use only earns you thirty pieces of silver and a reputation for being a corporate whore.

My other example of corporate propaganda comes from NPR, now apparently funded by Monsanto. In an article that should be touting the benefits of grass-fed beef – which should be obvious – the article snidely goes about trying to diminish what thinking people and our ancestors knew: animals each grass to survive when given a choice, not corn meal or the ground up bits of other animals.

Monsanto, and their paid NPR reporter, wants you to question what just seems right and obvious. Once again, why should I donate to put more of this filth on the air?