Green Life: Let’s Burn Our “Renewable” Body Oil instead of Fossile Oil to Reduce American Addiction to Petrolium.”

Green life style can:

(A) Reduce American addiction to car driving, petrolium, carbon dioxide emissions;

(B) Reduce health care costs due to high rates of weight-related obessity, heartattacks, strokes, diabeties, or weight-related singlehoods; and

(C) Improve sanity, mental health of people, corporate executives, and politicians.

“Health Care Reform is “NOT” a Political Lose-Lose for President and Democrats.”

Mr. David Brody, White House Correspondent of CBN News, stated at Huffington Post that “health care reform is a political lose-lose for President Obama and Democrats.”

He said:

“politically, this health care reform issue could end up as a lose-lose situation for President and administration… If health care reform does not pass it’ll look like the Democratic Party and this administration can’t get their act together. If they pass health care reform, we’re really not going to see any sort of tangible result for years, leaving no quantitative way for the Democrats to measure its potential for success in 2010 or even 2012….this administration has already been saddled with the narrative (fair or unfair) that they want to shove big government programs down the throats of Americans.”

I do not agree to Mr. Brody’s statement.

I believe, President’s biggest problem of not passing health care reform will be gainning public’s perception of his failure of not delivering his reform promise. This will rule over anything else. Passing health care reform will become his historical political achievement, even with weak one, after many ex-presidents failed. Not working economy, failed reforms, and continuously malfunctioning social system will be core issues and bite President/administration most, not the ideological debate of big government. If everything goes fine, people will forget about “What Big Government?.” Public seem to change their mind all the time.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-brody/healthcare-reform-a-polit_b_483944.html

“Will Revoking Insurance Industry’s Exemption from Antitrust Laws Be a Good Alternative to “ Public Plan” to Increase Competition?”

How savvy senior House Democrats are? Today’s news is, senior House Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are asking to revoke the health insurance industry’s exemption from the federal antitrust laws in the House-senate compromise bill. House Democrats also demand to include a “Nationwide Insurance Exchange” in the final bill, which is regulated by the federal government and enables consumers to shop for private coverage. The combination of these measures in the final bill will definitely introduce competition in health insurance market and alleviate this country and consumers’ pain from the industry’s oligopoly (competition among a few big companies) or monopoly (market domination by one big company without competition) market structure that has killed competition and driven this country’s health care costs and insurance premiums to unprecedented, unaffordable levels. However, the effectiveness of having these measures in reducing health care costs and insurance premium will be probably less than the one that can be achieved by “Public Plan.” Because, under public plan, the government can set the market standards that can drive health care costs and premiums to the lowest levels and make insurance companies offer similar insurance options to the public in order to survive competition from public plan and maintain consumer base for their business.

The best option we could dream of would be either “Public Option” or “Medicare for All.” However, if the current endlessly-arm-twisting political games had indicated that “Public Plan” or the other are not viable options under the current chronic spell of special interest politics, at least including these measures of stripping the insurance industry of exemption from antitrust laws and “federally-regulated nationwide insurance exchange” will eliminate oligopoly or monopoly structure of the industry, break down insurance giants into smaller-scale-companies and reinstate certain level of market competition among smaller insurance companies. If the challenges that “Public Plan” had faced were insurmountable, this alternative bill may be at least a viable second-best option to introduce competition in insurance market.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100109/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_care_overhaul

Current Recession: Isn’t It Rather the Problem of Malfunctioning Public than Incompetent Leader(s)?

A commentator,  jeanrenoire, made a comment of this country’s problems in response to Dr. Robert Reich’s blog, “What’s Ahead for the Economy and Politics in 2010” at Huffington Post.  Although the language is too rough for my ears, his/her comment contains  some truth regarding the core problems of this society, which have driven this country into wrong, self-destructive direction and led to current recession and historical unemployment. The comment is as below:

“No, the real “irony” is that the American masses are so stupid that the Republicans can get away with their economics for the rich, as they have ever since Reagan seduced the dumb mob of workers into believing that it was “morning in America” for them, when it was only “morning” for the fat cats he fronted for. Now, with Fox, Rush, and Palin fronting for these same fat cats with 24/7 spin-control, the stupid white American mob is more hypnotized and dumber than ever. The dolts have neither an attention span, a memory, or the rational capacity to do anything other than be dittoheads. Hence they can hardly wait to vote the Republicans into power, to reward them for the glorious eight years under Bush, in which the economy was bubbling, New Orleans was obliterated, and we wasted thousands of the mob’s kids’ lives in Iraq, along with a couple of trillion dollars of debt any of their kids who survived will be paying for for the rest of their lives. We spent MUCH more on nothing in Iraq than Obama’s stimulus plan and all his other efforts (wildly successful, by the way) to keep us out of an economic abyss of unique proportions, all caused by Bushonomics and benign neglect of Wall St. and everything else on earth, including the rebuilding Taliban and Al Qaeda, “left behind” in Afghanistan/Pakistan. White lower-class, uneducated voters are America’s tragedy. They’ve voted for disaster, and they’ve gotten it.”

There’s little hope for “CHANGE” without clearly communicating and educating the facts of current economic /social problems with the mass public, especially those who live in isolated regions, such as farming, mountain, or remote areas where people less or seldom communicate with neighbors, receive less internet service, less TV channels and less current information, and more cling to old ideas and believes. Changes come faster, more easily in urban areas, cities because people keep talking, communicating with each other and information/news travel fast among people. Sure, there must have been some misjudgments and mistakes on the administration’s part in dealing with the details of reform efforts. But, when the bulk of public (and politicians) don’t understand facts well, are thinking wrongly, block every reform efforts, and claim it’s all the reformer(s) falts, does it make sense?”

Without solving these communication/education problems with the mass public, there would be few real solutions to dig this country out of current chronic structural diseases.

Dr. Robert Reich’s blog, “What’s Ahead for the Economy and Politics in 2010”, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/whats-ahead-for-the-econo_b_411640.html

Another Example of Special Interest Politics: Dr. Peter Dreier’s “Waffling Democrats’ Health Care Hypocrisy”.

As we are waiting for the final bloody battle of health care reform, the final stage of compromising between the “House” and senate bills, I wish you (if you hadn’t read it yet) to read Professor Dreier’s blog “Waffling Democrats’ Health Care Hypocrisy.” Dr. Dreier educates us on how “Bribed” Senators Joe Lieberman, Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln and Kent Conrad discriminate the US public against military service men and veterans. These senators supported to provide “Public Plan” to military service men and veterans in the name of Veterans Administration (VA), but fight hard against providing the same “Public Plan” to us “the Public”? Why, on earth, do they have this right of discriminating the US population based on whether they are in military uniform or not?

Apparently, the existing “Public Plan”, the VA, has proved to become the most efficient, best functioning “Public Plan” over any other options in US history. If this had been the case, why these Senators keep denying, attacking the “Public Plan”? Taking “Ethics/Moral” Classes and Tests should be the prerequisites to become US senator. I wish, President Obama recovers well from his extreme tiredness of first year of presidency in Hawaii and gets into his best shape to get ready for the final battle ground of health care reform. He has listened to and respected everybody else’s opinions well up to now. This is the best and last chance for him to push himself, his own determination onto everybody else on the health care reform. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/waffling-democrats-health_b_376578.html

This is also a good example of my previous blog, “A Nation of “Two Heads”: The Government vs. The Multi-Headed Medusa of Powerful Industries.”

http://mikyunglim.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/a-nation-of-%e2%80%9ctwo-heads%e2%80%9d-the-government-vs-the-multi-headed-medusa-of-powerful-industries/

“The Republican Way: Keeping Everything The Way It Is”

In his blog post, “The Republican Way: Keeping Everything The Way It Is,” actor Alec Baldwin educates the public on the real issues behind closed-door US politics, policy shaping, and wars. He exposes “what actually determined US engagement in war in Iraq” – “OIL” interest; “why US insurance companies don’t want reform” – “to maintain monopoly power.”

Mr. Baldwin’s blog reminds me of a story I heard from an old gentleman who used to work as a war film maker long time ago. He said the same thing as Mr. Baldwin. It was “OIL” interest that caused US to engage in wars including Vietnamese War. He said he was in Iraq and Vietnam during wars to make films. It was Vietnam War during which he visited the US military headquater located in Vietnam. He told me how he was puzzled and upset to see the inside of the headquater. The inside was covered with the map of oil pipes that were located throughout and around the Vietnam. The US military was using the map of Vietnamese oil pipes as the base of shaping its military strategies during the war. This may be one of hidden stories that individuals witnessed but seldom had chances to talk to public. As a relatively ignorant person regarding wars, I wish my memory doesn’t betray me in remembering this story.

Mr. Baldwin’s blog, I believe, is an exposure of true political issues and a good example of my previous blog post, A Nation of “Two Heads”: The Government vs. The Multi-Headed Medusa of Powerful Industries.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/the-republican-way-keepin_b_369123.html

Global Warming: Nuclear Energy Replacing Coal? – Four Reasons to say “Nay, Not a Good Idea !”

There was a Huffington Post blog by Mr. Steve Kirsch that suggests to focus the available financial resources for reducing emission on replacing coal with nuclear energy source, instead of introducing “Cap and Trade” bill or other alternatives. There are several issues that don’t welcome this idea.

First, my scientist husband says that (A) nuclear energy source is not actually cost-efficient at all. Generating electricity with this energy source alone may be cheap. But dealing with the after mess of nuclear wastes after producing electricity is another costly process, which makes this energy source expensive.

Second, we have witnessed the troubles caused by Iran and North Korea. Iraq was attacked by the Bush administration under the false suspicion of this issue. “Nuclear Weapons!” (B) The proliferation of nuclear energy technologies endangers world peace as these technologies can be easily switched to produce nuclear weapons. When President Obama is endeavoring and having hard time to put Iran and North Korea under control and restrict their development of nuclear weapon, “Why On Earth,” anyone wants to take the risk of distributing, delivering the same dangerous technology worldwide?

Considering above (A) and (B), don’t we think (C) safe and endlessly available wind and solar energy would be better? Until these energy sources can be developed to be mature, consumer market competitive pricewise (which takes time),  the government can subsidize the companies of these renewable energies to let them set their market prices low/competitive, or impose higher taxs on other types of energy products. This kind of government subsidy may be more productive for this country’s economy and future than other types of subsidies.

Third, in terms of reducing emission, exploring multiple methods, including cap and trade, to reduce emission would be better than introducing one or a few methods. So, in case one method doesn’t work, still we can resort to others. There’s no such a thing with 100% certainty !

Fourth, (D) malfunctioning US politics. During the first year of Obama administration, we have seen the chaos and the destruction of special interest politics in sabotaging the health care and financial sector reforms. Under this torturously twisted political system of this country, do you believe a reform in energy sector will be smoothly achievable?

UPDATE Two:

It appears that the administration is going to announce loan guarantees to develop nuclear power industry, in continuation of Congress’s approval of $18.5 billion for nuclear loan guarantees in 2005. Please check below wetsites.

Obama Administration To Announce Loans For Nuclear Power

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/29/obama-administration-to-a_n_405948.html

UPDATE One: There were several comments to my above comment at the Huffington Post Blog by Mr. Steve Kirsch. Some are informative, so I present them here with the commenters’ nicknames.

“sethdayal” comment: Husband didn’t read Steve’s article.

All previous generation nuclear waste is fuel for the IFR. The IFR itself produces a tiny amount of waste so low level that is it really the same as high grade uranium ore. Put it back in the mine.

It would be extremely difficult and far too expensive to make nuclear weapon from a power reactor so nobody ever has. North Korea will sell you a cheapo Chernobyl type reactor design for a few bucks to make a bomb.

99% of the worlds energy comes from countries who already have nuclear weapons or are unlikely to make them (Canada). The rest can buy their reactor fuel from Canada.

Solar/wind costs 10 to 30 times nuclear and generally produces more greenhouse gases than they save. We are as little as ten years from a civilization ending climate/peak/ air pollution crisis. Only nuclear can save us in time.

Nuclear is 100% certain- been using it for 50 years now. Renewables will never be cost effective except in remote applications. Cap n trade is really just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic – useless.

Republicans love nuclear. Only Democrat politicians like Obama need reeducation.

“The Husband” (my real husband): Show me one IFR that has burned up any nuclear waste yet. There are none. Europe has shipped waste between countries for reprocessing. It created more waste than was there to begin with.

In principle you are right: IFR and other options (Thorium, accelerator driven sub-critical reactors) can solve many of the problems with conventional nuclear energy, including limited fuel, nuclear waste, and to some extent proliferation.

In practice the nuclear monopoly has not delivered, is only interested in maximizing their profits at the expense of public safety and health, and will be the last place I would look for a solution to the climate crisis.

You need to read up on solar, wind, and other renewable energies. Your statements are ridiculously out of date. If you put the same subsidies into renewables that nuclear has enjoyed, they will be cheaper than coal very soon.

Finally, the fact that Republicans love nuclear is a direct consequence of the fact that it is run by a (quasi-)monopoly, not because it helps the climate, which (so far) it does not.

“Sethaday” comment: Actually nuclear waste is burned all the time as MOX in France, the Soviet Union and Canada.

The Idaho IFR burned nuclear waste as part of its thirty years of testing but Clinton shut it down after complaints and campaign donations from Big Oil.

Indian just dropped the dome into place on its version of the IFR.

Any mythical nuclear subsidies have been paid for already, lets enjoy the benefitd.

Lets form a national nuclear public power company and build the plants on the site of existing coal operations. We can save the big profits for ourselves.

Goggle Arcadia solar and Texas wind china and get yourself up to date with the latest real costs of solar and wind power $35B/Gw and $12/Gw respectively + $12/Gw in natural gas plants required to load balance the things. Far more costly than new nuclear.

Wind and solar are already getting hundreds of billions in subsidies wordlwide through massive 2 to 15 times market rate feed in tariffs.

For whatever the reason Republicans love nuclear so if only the much more intelligent Democrats can get educated, a “Nuke the Nation” bill saving the lives of millions of Americans by eliminating coal plants should easily past through congress.

“The Husband” comment: Yes. Twice through is better than once through ‘cycle’. And there are current and former test reactors.
It is all far from being at a scale where it has an impact. (I am not arguing that it is impossible, just saying that clean nuclear technology is not at all widespread whereas dirty nuclear technology is.)

“Lets form a national nuclear public power company and build the plants on the site of existing coal operations. We can save the big profits for ourselves.”
I would like that. But short of a revolution that installs a benevolent dictator, how are we really going to get there?
The Republicans surely will drop their support when you talk about public anything.

I don’t know what your numbers mean for the cost of wind and solar power (installation cost? Operation for a certain number of years? With what assumptions?) It is rather difficult to honestly compare the costs of different technologies. I do think that wind and solar are becoming competitive. The key is to use the right renewable energy for a given purpose in a given area. Not one shoe fits all.

Load balancing is a big deal. But nuclear power can not be ramped up or down quickly either. (Accelerator driven sub-critical systems would be different.)
We have to upgrade the grid to use non-local storage capacity. Pumping water to high lakes, pressurized air in caves, using excess capacity to generate hydrogen for transportation, etc.

“vakibs” comment:

Mikyung Lim, (A) Dealing with nuclear waste is not at all costly. It is only a very tiny fraction of electricity produced by nuclear. Secondly, the kind of nuclear reactors that Steve champions (the Integral Fast Reactor or IFR) produce no long-lived nuclear waste. They eat existing nuclear waste and depleted Uranium to produce power.

(B) Nuclear weapons are proliferating without nuclear power. The newer version of reactors (like the IFR) are more proliferation resistant than the older ones. Secondly, using nuclear power inside the developed countries (which already possess stockpiles of nuclear weapons) is unrelated to the proliferation issue.

(C) Wind and Solar power have serious limitations in the quantity of power they can produce, they are not endless. These limits are dictated by the power-density, and because of the finite amount of land that we possess. They also use a lot more raw material, metals and freshwater than nuclear.

(D) Multiple options should be explored. But cap™ is just a serious delusion with too many loopholes. We need a straight-forward carbon fee÷nd.

“The Husband” comment: (A) The nuclear waste currently in the US is already exceeding the capacity of the only repository that was planned and now has been found to not be feasible. It is eating huge amounts of money and resources.
You are right on the IFR. However, the nuclear power industry is not pushing it. They just want to prolong the profits they make with existing technology.

(B) You are right, but between “more proliferation resistant” (IFR and similar) and “completely unrelated to nuclear technology in any way” (solar, wind, waves, geothermal, etc.) the second category wins.

(C) No, you are wrong here. The solar power input to the earth surface is on average 1000 W per square meter. This is a _huge_ amount. It means: If we would cover just a tiny fraction of the Arizona desert (or, equivalently, suitable roofs in every city), we could easily generate more energy than the entire United States is using. With existing technology, with all the losses and the current level of efficiency.
While some early solar cells were fabricated by using harmful chemicals, there is now a multitude of technologies for both wind and solar using friendly materials and processes. To argue that wind and solar are environmentally harmful is plain silly.

(D) Yes. I agree 100% with the statement that multiple options need to be part of the solution. No single technology has the potential to sufficiently reduce carbon emissions singlehandedly.

Reference: ”The Most Important Investment that We Aren’t Making to Mitigate the Climate Crisis” by

Steve Kirsch, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-kirsch/the-most-important-invest_b_402685.html

My Cure to “The Senate Health Care Bill: Leave No Special Interest Behind”

I read repeatedly strong interference of special interest politics in shaping the recent Senate health care reform bill as well as financial sector reform. Ms. Arianna Huffington at Huffinton Post reported that 13 former congressmen and 166 congressional staffers were actively engaged in lobbying their former colleagues on the health care reform bill.

To prevent corruption and the manipulation of industrial special interest politics in shaping US government policies, I wonder whether it is necessary to introduce a law that bans congressmen and congressional staffers from working as lobbiests for industries of special interests or industries that represent “Conflicts of Interests,” after these people finish their congressional terms or quitting their positions in Congress. Also when people are hired for these positions, they should be required to sign a contract that prevents them from working for special interests after they finish their congressional terms or quit their jobs in Capital Hill.

Update: According to a commenter (nickname Bernique) who replied to my comment at the Huffington Post, there was actually a law that, as I proposed above, banned congressmen or congressional staffers from working for special interests after leaving their public posts. According to him, Congress changed this law after the right-wing election of 1996.

Now, what we need is to “REINSTATE” this law again if we want to establish “Sanity” in Capital Hill, chnage the course of this country into self-destruction and bring it back to “One-Headed Nation by the President/Government.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

“Is US Senate Dysfunctional?”

Having some form of health care reform is of course better than giving it up completely. Prof. Paul Krugman is right in his NY Times article “A Dangerous Dysfunction” of December 21, 2009. Under the current  Senate rule, there is no way to achieve any meaningful work done in Senate. Definitely, it is necessary to introduce a new rule that requires  simple majority to pass a bill in Senate. On the other hand, it is puzzlesome that Senate Majority leader Harry Reid didn’t opt to use budget reconciliation to pass the health care reform bill “With Public Plan”, instead of securing filibuster-free 60 votes “Without Public Plan,” dropping the core of the health care reform in the negotiation process. He had a choice of keeping “Public Plan” in the final bill if he had been willing to push it hard. Why did he decide not to choose that option?

My Comment on NY Times Opinion “A Dangerous Dysfuction” by Paul Krugmann (12/20/2009).

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21krugman.html?sort=oldest&offset=6

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21krugman.html?src=twt&twt=NytimesKrugman

“It Didn’t Have To Be This Way”

Mr. Chris Weigant’s blog post, “It Didn’t Have to Be This Way”, at The Huffington Post tell us his very intuitive view of how President Obama and Harry Reid could have done better in progressing the current health care reform to higher quality level, which could have avoided Sen. Joe Lieberman’s destruction done on the current compromised bill. I salute his keen, gutty blog.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/it-didnt-have-to-be-this_b_395135.html