At first, looking at the most current information by the Republican Party (and from incumbant Republican Senator Norm Coleman himself), it looks like Al Franken is a tax dodger, a hypocritical liberal who has gone out of his way to not pay his taxes. Even CBS picked up the story from the Politico and it suggests that this could possibly be a problem. 

There's only one problem: Al did pay all of his income taxes, he just did it in the wrong state. And here's another thing: why, exactly, would Al Franken pay ALL of his income taxes in New York state and Minnesota if he was trying scam the government? Given that there are 17 other states demanding income taxes from him, and at least half of them have lower income taxes, wouldn't it have been more devious of him to pay taxes in those states instead, since it would be less than paying them in NY and MN?

Right. It's potentially damaging, and it's a shame because he's just now beginning to pull ahead of Norm Coleman. This is the type of thing the Republican Party can distort in any way imaginable without any trouble whatsoever. And it already is. "Paying taxes is an obligation that I think Minnesotans expect to be adhered to, and that Minnesotans do," says Norm Coleman. Sounds like a good thing, but Al Franken paying his taxes isn't the issue. He just paid them to the wrong state, and he probably ended up paying MORE than he should have, given Minnesota's and New York's high state income taxes.

To be fair, it's mostly an island of plastic. And if you've heard about it, you're one of the few. Despite the fact that this particular island is twice the size of Texas, very few people even know it exists, unless you live on a shore in the western Pacific Ocean where the garbage has a tendency to wash ashore on. 

How was it created? Natural ocean currents have a tendency to gather the garbage from various parts of the Pacific Ocean and take all of it to one particular place, where it swirls and remains mostly stuck in one place, occasionally drifting to the nearby shores and polluting them with a thick sludge of plastic products. At one place in the "island," plastic can be measured at one million parts per square mile.

How did this happen? Well, all of this plastic started out on land. Through carelessness and/or ignorance, it made its way into the ocean through various channels. And while we may not see the result of throwing away a few plastic bottles here and there--and perhaps could argue that recycling those bottles is hardly economically "worth it"--there's no denying the consequences of what happens when we simply let discarded trash sit. And collect.

And collect.

And now entire ecosystems in the Pacific Ocean are forced to live with this constant threat. What effect will it have, and will it continue to grow? Plastic garbage in the ocean is becoming a greater problem with each passing year.  And this is one problem we can all fix without falling into partisan politics. All it takes is a little responsibility. A little reducing, a little reusing and a little recycling and an educated consumer base. Consider this next time you're planning on tossing away that plastic bottle. Maybe there's a recycling bin nearby.

Yours,

Ken Brosky 

I'm going to write about this once more later in the week, but for now take a look at this link:

How Do We Know Humans Are Causing Global Warming? 

The point of this particular post is mainly a very simple argument and that is this: nothing short of catastrophe will convince the skeptic movement at this point. It's literally impossible. The IPCC, in their eyes, is one big bureaucratic conspiracy, and the scientific "establishment" is flat-out wrong. There will never be enough evidence. Period.

And there's more. For the past three decades, members of the Modern Conservative Movement have gone out of their way to demonize environmentalism and block literally every single attempt to achieve clean energy. The motives changes from person to person, but the ultimate goal of marginalizing the environmental movement is identical in every aspect. After the democrats in Congress voted to mandate all light bulbs to be switched to energy efficient fluorescent bulbs (and will most likely follow suit with LED as it becomes available), the Conservative Movement was up in arms. Even in the Journal Sentinel, Patrick McIlheran argued what right do they have? How could they do this to our freedom? Big Government, blah blah blah

It's not a bad argument, but how long is it credible? The more energy we use, the more we will affect our planet, and when some people decide to use the less efficient light bulbs, that affects the freedom of everyone else. And we're talking about LIGHT BULBS. Light bulbs that can literally reduce our light-based energy consumption by 75 percent. So then the argument is that the bulbs have a little mercury. Okay. Good argument. So why not provide consumers with a simple way to recycle the used bulbs rather than completely abandon the idea? No, that would be too much. This is the EASIEST way to reduce our eco footprint, and there are Movement Conservatives going out of their way to oppose it.

This is nothing new. While in office, President Carter installed solar hot water panels on the White House. When Ronald Reagan took office, he removed them. He literally took them down despite the fact that they were functioning perfectly. This goes beyond criticism of environmentalism. This was a deliberate attack on the movement as a whole, regardless of the progress made up to that point and regardless of the benefits. It was borderline sadistic, and it set the tone for the way the Modern Conservative movement has reacted to any environmental progress.
 

Let's talk about Global Warming Denial within the U.S. Congress, specifically Senator Inhofe. For those of you who don't know Senator Inhofe, he gained a lot of media attention for releasing the "Inhofe 400," a list of 400 scientists who allegedly believed global warming was false. There's only one problem: most of the 400 have been thoroughly debunked. Not only have a majority of the scientists been completely debunked for various reasons, still more are actually coming out and REQUESTING to be taken off the list. Why? Because they believe global warming exists, and that it's caused partly by human beings. They don't want to be on the list!

But I digress. How about those scientists who argue that global warming is a hoax? Let's take a look at one--Chris Allen, a weather director from an ABC affiliate in southern Kentucky--from The Grist:

"My biggest argument against putting the primary blame on humans for climate change is that it completely takes God out of the picture. It must have slipped these people's minds that God created the heavens and the earth and has control over what's going on. (Dear Lord Jesus...did I just open a new pandora's box?) Yeah, I said it. Do you honestly believe God would allow humans to destroy the earth He created? Of course, if you don't believe in God and creationism then I can see why you would easily buy into the whole global warming fanfare. I think in many ways that's what this movement is ultimately out to do - rid the mere mention of God in any context. What these environmentalists are actually saying is "we know more than God - we're bigger than God - God is just a fantasy - science is real...He isn't...listen to US!" I have a huge problem with that."

 Ouch! That's a pretty tough argument for any scientist to debunk.

Kate Sheppard from the American Prospect sums up the "Inhofe 400" in the most concise, realistic way:

"It's not too hard to dredge up 400 people in all the world who think the lunar landing was a farce or believe that Elvis is living in Albuquerque, much like it isn't too hard to dig up 400 people with a vague background in the field of science who find something to dispute in climate science. That doesn't mean their views should be lauded and held up as scientific proof that global warming isn't so bad. There haven't been any peer-reviewed scientific studies validating any claims that the planet is either not warming, or not warming because of humans, and the world's most-respected climatologists are all in agreement."