WORD: we can't afford the death penalty

Of all the arguments against killing someone you've already imprisoned, the cost argument is the one that is easiest to understand but is most counter-intuitive.

As is amply documented, it costs far more to run a system that could result in an execution than it does to keep people locked up without possibility of parole, even for decades. Good editorial on point here.

It's truly weird how people who typically froth at the mouth in rage at government incompetence suddenly get comfortable with government power when those government workers are planning on killing someone.

As Oregon's budget meltdown becomes worse and worse, it's time to quit wasting millions of dollars on a failed deterrent that doesn't and that risks not only killing the wrong guys but also, as a result, letting the ones who did it off the hook.

AND in the long-overdue department, we finally have a state admitting that its criminal justice system often gets it wrong, and examining the problem! What a refreshing change!

And now the Florida Supreme Court is about to get involved. The high court is about to hire a full-time lawyer and name a panel to investigate how the criminal-justice system failed those people.

It is creating the Innocence Commission. It will not look for inmates who have been wrongly convicted but will examine systemic flaws that sent innocent people to prison.

Hint -- start here: Causes of Wrongful Convictions.

Ripley's-worthy story: Huge forest found hidden behind a tiny tree

If only airplanes dropped 50 pound bags of charcoal every minute rather than invisible CO2 ... then people would start to get it. Image by AviaFilms via Flickr

Weird. This is a good example of the problem with criteria-checklist-based environmental certification efforts (like LEED) -- you can wind up with grossly unsustainable businesses and projects winning an award that they can use to claim green cred, thus discrediting both the certification and confusing the general public about what needs to happen.

Commercial jet air travel is one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas. Worse, because of the altitude of the flights, the climate damage is multiplied. Salem is still busily trying to lure an airline or two to bring jets back, but so inefficient is jet travel that a single day's travel would undo all the efficiency improvements that this EarthWISE program documents. Bottom line is that there's no sustainable way to do something that's fundamentally unsustainable.

EarthWISE is a well-intentioned program that can be very beneficial, but there needs to be some kind of sanity check that keeps earth-destroying organizations from managing to check enough piddly boxes to get certified while their core business imperils the Earth. Whatever else can be said about commercial jet travel, it ain't wise, and it's speeding up Earth's climate crisis. Giving an airport an environmental award is kind of like like giving the Mob an award for having the highest "Employee Loyalty" . . . it might be technically true but it's missing a very important forest for an insignificant tree.

GREEN CORNER: AIRPORT EarthWISE CERTIFIED
The City of Salem’s Airport Division has received an EarthWISE Certification from Marion County’s program for businesses. The Salem Airport has joined the City of Salem’s Urban Development Director’s office, Fire Department, IT offices, Library and Willow Lake Water Pollution Control Facility in being the first of Salem’s City offices to hold the certification. Fewer than 65 Marion County companies have achieved this certification.

EarthWISE, meaning Workplace Initiative for Sustainable Enterprise, has several focus areas: recycling, waste reduction and prevention, environmentally preferable purchasing, energy efficiency and conservation, water pollution prevention, outreach and education. In order to obtain an EarthWISE certification, a business must complete the application, meet certification criteria and pass an on-site assessment. For more information, visit EarthWISE.

To receive certification, the Airport reviewed purchasing policies to better utilize environmentally friendly products, replaced airport ramp lights with high efficiency/low energy bulbs, and added additional recycling bins. The office also adjusted office equipment to reduce paper use and implemented greater use of reusable cups and plates in the employee break area as well as reset HVAC settings in the terminal building.

Help Kickstart Community-Powered Radio in Salem (KMUZ)!

People-powered radio. Help make it happen!

Speaking of the Gulf

Image via Wikipedia

An excerpt from the weekly blast at James Howard Kunstler's blog:

It all comes down to one thing: the world is mismanaging contraction. The world will not solve the problems of massive over-complexity with more complexity. But scaling down is apparently not an option, though it will happen whether we participate or not. . . . One thing President Obama -- nor anyone else with an audience or a constituency -- will speak a word about is our massive, incessant purposeless motoring.

Pretty soon, the oil missing from the Gulf will leave a message at the 7-Eleven stops in Dallas and Chattanooga, and before the year is out the cardboard signs that say "Out Of Gas" may hang on the pumps. A great hue and cry will rise out of the Nascar ovals and righteous lady politicians with decoupaged hair-doos will invoke the New World Order and the Book of Revelation in their rise to power. Reasonable men with moderate views will dither on the sidelines, afraid to offend one faction or another.

Sometime this summer that ebb tide of events is going to reverse and we'll have more to contend with than just the shrieking wildlife suffocating in orange gunk, and the ruined spawning grounds of the shrimp, and the lost livelihoods of the sportfishing charter guides, and the tarball covered beaches and devalued real estate. We decided to de-complexify the hard way, the way that brings about as much pain and disorder as possible until we discover that the long emergency beats a path straight into a world made by hand.

More on the Gusher in the Gulf

Flag Day

Maybe all the flags flown today should be upside down, a time-worn marine distress signal. Here's a couple of items from the LOVESalem archive: First, the eye-chart for the post-peak-oil age:

E
N E
R G Y
I S G O
I N G T O
B E A L O T
M O R E O F A
H E A D A C H E
F R O M N O W O N

Second, a repost from January 2010, which seems timely in the wake of BP's Gusher in the Gulf:

Just like the Butterscotch Man couldn't run till he got warm and could only get warm by running, we're in a fix -- now that the easy oil is gone, the cost of getting the remaining (deeper, more distant, more sour) oil translates into a price that the economy can't sustain.

Excellent writeup on this in the mainstream press here.

Read and reflect

Great and important to read from the powerful blog "Of Two Minds," a vital reminder as our mindless war machine keeps grinding away in the background while, in the foreground, the elites continue pretending that the dead machine of "growth" just needs a little adjustment in order to spring back to life, purring like a kitten. If you recognize the importance of all this, you might also want to read Walter Karp's painfully good book "The Politics of War."

The transcripts and audio recordings revealed a truth which I had never encountered in all my 40 years of reading about Asia, Japan, and the Pacific War: the entire war was essentially ad hoc, as much the result of the Navy's fear of domination by the Imperial Army as it was about the U.S. embargo on oil exports to Japan which had been imposed after Japan invaded Indochina in 1941.

Bureaucratic infighting between the services, the influence of a key Admiral over the Emperor, jousting between the Naval General Staff and the leaders of the Combined Fleet, and ultimately, fear of losing domestic power led the Navy's General Staff to recommend war against the U.S. as the "only possible response" to the oil embargo.

The "official reasons" given for the war--a "greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere", even the U.S. embargo on oil--played no part in the actual decisions to wage war on the U.S., or in planning to win such a war.

One would think the Naval General Staff or the Imperial General Headquarters would have formulated a rigorous, well-conceived plan to actually win the war before launching it; one would be wrong. . . .

In effect, the decision to wage war on the U.S. was the outcome of domestic politics and pride, not strategic considerations. The consequences of war were not thought through, and accountability was poor. The entire chain of command was riddled with ad hoc thinking and decisions based on domestic political rivalries, glossed-over realities, fear of losing face, and misplaced deference to forces within the Imperial family.

There are hundreds of websites on the Imperial Navy and the Pacific Theater of World War II, and the Imperial Japanese Navy Page is remarkably thorough. I especially recommend its economic analysis of Japan and the U.S., which contains this telling conclusion:

In the end, however, the Tojo government chose the path of aggression, compelled by internal political dynamics which made the prospect of a general Japanese disengagement in China (which was the only means by which the American economic embargo would have been lifted) too humiliating a course to be taken. . . .

The Japanese were incapable of admitting that their war was impossible to win. . . .

Does this story of ad hoc waging of war remind you of the Iraq war? It should . . .

Sycophants and yes-men were rewarded, voices of experience and skepticism were ignored or sent packing; rather than admit the "official reasons" were mere propaganda to mask domestic political machinations, hubris and misplaced fear of losing "face," the ad hoc policies were simply ratcheted up to higher levels of sacrifice. The anger of the mid-ranking Imperial Navy officers who saw their men sacrificed for an ignoble ad hoc war to cover up the sins and stupidities of their leaders is now rising in the U.S. officer corps as well, though just as in Imperial Japan, the internal restraints of loyalty to the service and the nation stifle many voices.

Even now, there is no strategy for "winning," and the word itself has been lost from the official vocabulary. It's not a "war," so there's no "winning." The sacrifice of the troops is not a consideration to the U.S. leadership, anymore than it was in the Imperial leadership. The trillions of dollars of national treasure squandered on an ad hoc war is also no consideration; every sacrifice will be demanded of the Military and civilians to avoid admitting the war was a tragic mistake, the result of hubris, heedless dogmatism, and a preference for domestically attractive fantasies rather than strategic imperatives and rigorous planning. . . .

The "recovery" engineered by Bernanke and his cronies is just as ad hoc as the Japanese policies of the past 21 years. The same disastrous reliance on endless borrowing and Keynesian "stimulus" to prop up a failed status quo which is no longer aligned with global or domestic realities is now the "policy" of the U.S. leadership. . . .

It is human nature to want to believe in a cause and in future victory, even when the war or policy is totally ad hoc. Once the nation and Empire is committed, even when the decisions to commit were poor and based on fantasy, those in service to the nation and Empire obediently support the doomed policies, even as they see that victory is impossible and the nation is careening into inevitable ruin. . . .

Vancouver BC OKs 4 backyard hens, no roosters/ducks/turkeys -- and no charge

Image by Chris Breikss via Flickr

Salem officials would think they had died and gone to heaven if Salem was considered anywhere near as desirable as Vancouver, B.C.

So it's worth noting that this world-class cosmopolitan city has legalized four backyard hens for residents, at no charge.

A maximum of four hens, which should at least be four months old, are permitted per coop. Other poultry — roosters, ducks, turkeys or pheasants — remain banned, and the hens will not allowed in front yards or highrise apartment balconies.

Under the guidelines, the backyard enclosure must be roofed and cannot exceed nine square metres in area and three metres in height.

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• Vancouver legalizes more chicken coops (cbc.ca)

Reminder

Now that the primary is over, raise your voice for working families

Image via Wikipedia

Got this in the mail today:

Imagine a political party that works its butt off to elect progressive Democrats—and the day after the election, works just as hard to hold them accountable to stand for progressive values.

That's exactly what the Oregon Working Families Party is. And it's why, as a fellow Oregonian, I'm writing to ask you to help support the WFP today—not with money, but by changing your voter registration to the Working Families Party.

3,000 people have already joined up. But the Oregon WFP needs to get to 10,000 members by August 4th to earn permanent ballot status. That'll allow the WFP to continue to represent the voice of working folks in Oregon and make sure Democrats know they need to stand with progressives to win elections this fall—goals that align so closely with those of many MoveOn members, including me.

Can you change your voter registration to be with the Oregon Working Families Party today? With online voter registration, it only takes a minute. Just click below to get started.

http://oregonwfp.org/register/moveon

The WFP, which is rapidly gaining steam in Oregon, is a close ally of MoveOn in other states, where we've worked together to elect progressives and fight for health care reform.

Don't worry—this is no pie-in-the-sky "spoiler" party. Here's how it works: Working Families Party members interview candidates and grill them on the hard questions. Then WFP endorses the candidates who commit to fighting for our progressive values.

On your election ballot, Democrats who have earned the WFP nomination are listed with both parties—Democratic and Working Families—next to their names. It's the WFP seal of approval to show voters which candidates are real champions for regular folks, not special interests. There's no spoiler effect, but voters get a new way to vote their progressive values—and candidates can see how important the progressive vote is on Election Day.

As The Oregonian put it, WFP's goal is to "influence state policy by uniting rural and urban voters around kitchen table economic issues that matter to working people."1 WFP has a great record of success in other states, electing progressive Democrats and winning on issues from green jobs to health care reform.2

Oregon just recently started online voter registration, so now it's even easier to switch your voter registration to the Working Families Party. It only takes a few minutes, and you can still, of course, vote for any candidate you want in the upcoming general election this November.

Help build the progressive party: change your official voter registration to be with the Oregon Working Families Party today:

http://oregonwfp.org/register/moveon

Thanks!

Here's their issues page. Works for me.

The Working Families Party fights to improve the lives of working people and their families by focusing our government on things that make our jobs better, provide security for our families and prosperity for our communities. That includes:

• Affordable healthcare for all Oregonians where our health, or lack thereof, is not dependent on individual wealth and subject to private profiteering; we support national single-payer health care consistent with the principles of H.R. 676.

• Opening doors to opportunity through higher education and technical training that does not result in indebtedness for our citizens.

• Affordable housing, a stop to predatory lending practices, investment in new affordable housing development, and protection of existing affordable housing.

• Promotion of green family wage jobs whose legacy leaves a clean, secure, and sustainable environment for our children.

• Supporting fair trade, defending our jobs against outsourcing, wage and benefit cuts, and corporate raiding.

• The right to organize and reach a first contract free of intimidation, discrimination, and illegal terminations.

Click here to read the full 2008 platform of the Oregon Working Families Party.

To promote these values, the Oregon Working Families Party is currently working on two critical issue campaigns:

A Public Bank for Oregon. The OWFP is working with a broad coalition of organizations to promote the creation of a State Bank of Oregon, modeled after the 90-year-old Bank of North Dakota, which would use money that belongs to the state to invest in job creation, education, and homeownership here in Oregon, rather than giving that money over to big banks to continue to line their pockets. Click here to read more, and to sign our petition encouraging legislators to support this commonsense proposal.

Disability Insurance for all Oregonians. Many of Oregon’s working families live with the knowledge that on any day they could get injured or sick and find themselves unable to work. The OWFP is working on a proposal to create a statewide disability insurance program, modeled after California’s highly successful “SDI” program, which covers all workers in the state.