Opine Away

I don’t like politics. My writing here is for the sole reason of thinking about democracy as it is practiced today.

So, Obaden or Mcalin? Election shmelection… Who determines it? Let me make some assumptions here…

My first and most important assumption would be that over 90% of voters do not know much about the guy they vote for. When I say don’t know much, I am very gentle.

My guesstimate about eligible US voters’ knowledge:

10%-15% can’t name the 4 main presidential and VP candidates.

20%-30% can’t associate the candidates to their party

40%-50% never read or heard the views or issues statements of the candidates.

80%-90% did not read at least 10 issues and plans for their presidency of neither candidate.

Let’s face it – most people get their knowledge (or lack of) from hearsay, mostly what they hear form colleagues, friends, family etc, which is many times already a second or third hand information….

They also get bits and pieces they heard on TV/radio/newspaper, that are in most cases incomplete, biased, maybe interviews with celebrities that were brought to shows as Real Time with Bill Maher (nothing against the show, on the contrary) for entertainment purposes, but their sometimes humoristic views, on a stage like that, seed many minds with very unrealistic ideas.  “It was on TV” so it must be true.

Or take online videos, as the Obama births certificate questioning http://willnevergiveup.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/lawsuit5/ 

the 2008 wassup youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq8Uc5BFogE (almost 4 million views)

McCain’s YouTube Problem Just Became a Nightmare   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c (over 8 million views)

And almost 13 million viewers of Dear Mr. Obama http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4fe9GlWS8

Over 11 million views of Yes We Can - Barack Obama Music Video  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY

For sure, more people saw these and similar online videos than read the McCain and Obama views and plans. Of course, all of these are great, freedom of expressing views and opinions, the foundations of democracy. 

But is it right to vote by only seeing these incomplete biased and inaccurate opinions? If you say nah, people don’t take it seriously, you are very wrong. As an example, these fake videos of cell phones causing corn to pop into popcorn got countless people all over the world to try it (was originally done as advertisement for and Israeli  headset manufacturer…).  Of course it is not real… 

Or should I mention lonelygirl15 on youtube? (New Zealand actress that for a long time was believed by many to be a real story). The list is long. People take written and over the TV information as granted. Even hearsay from friends is used over and over again, usually in a very “creative” way after a few times (ever played “phone”?…).

So, after I establish this issue of lack of knowledge, or knowledge based on inaccurate or incomplete information, let me ask the radical question…

Yes, it is a democracy, but should everyone have the right to vote?

Ha, dangerous ground. That’s the essence of democracy, everyone can influence…

But maybe you should be pre-qualified? Maybe, in order to vote, you should pass a test showing you know at least the basic information about who you’re voting for? Name, party, five to ten major points of view?

Radical? Let’s take a non democratic organization as the army. Why isn’t it a democracy? Because you can not take the time and risk of having a vote during combat, sure. But also because not every soldier has the ability to make the right decisions because of lack of knowledge, experience and ability to be a commander (call it talent?).

So there are qualified people who make the decision. They are being scrutinized, they pay for their mistakes, but they have the power to make the decisions for their troops because they have the know-how to do it.

Take business. It is not a democracy. There is usually one or a group of people who decide. If they are qualified, the company has a good chance of succeeding, if they are not, well, than not…

My point? Just to make us think. Will you let a 3 years old chose who will be the next president? So why let someone with hardly any knowledge about it vote?

L.

I’m no expert on global economy neither about oil prices, but the way I see it, oil prices control can be classified as terrorism.

Generally speaking (and there should be a disclaimer here) it doesn’t get more expensive to produces oil, definitely not at the same increase factors that oil prices are taking, so prices going up are all speculative of future supply and demand.  Most of the world’s oil reserves are in OPEC countries, and the vast majority of that is in Arab countries.

Why oil prices are going up? OPEC decides how much oil to produce. They keep the production level at where they want the prices to be. If they produce more, there’s most supply, and prices will go down. If they cut production, or not increase it to satisfy demand, prices are going up. This is of course a simplification of the situation, but that’s how it works.

The bulk of the money flows directly into the Arab countries in OPEN – Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, UAE (and the other OPEC members –  Venezuela and the rest that are tiny in comparison – Indonesia, Angola, Libya, Qatar, etc…).

How much of this money is going to financing terror? I’m sure that a lot. Iran is financing terror in undisclosed huge sums that flow through Syria and Lebanon to terrorist groups in Lebanon and the occupied territories in Israel (west bank, Gaza strip), terror training facilities in other Arab countries, weapons that are supplied to terrorist organizations, money to worldwide terror organizations and terror cells that are developed….

The irony of course, is that we all pay premium gas prices to finance fanatical extremes that want to destroy us. And they do, don’t deceive yourself otherwise. I’m not doing any generalization about Muslims or Arabs, there are great people among them, but there are also many extremist, who brainwash and are being brainwashed to hate the western world in sake of imposing Islam, in envy of western success, and in irrational hate toward Jews, Americans and everything that is associated with them. Terrorism by itself is a whole separate discussion, for a separate post….

I approach every situation trying to resolve it with common sense and in a peaceful way. With the oil problem, it’s all about energy, which I posted about in the past. Switching the main energy sources to atomic energy will take time (better start ASAP though…), and oil prices will keep being pushed up by the Arab countries (why not, they make more and more money). Short term solution, which is combined with the world’s safety, will be reorganizing Iran. If your approach to life is militant or not, Iran is developing nuclear weapons, and in the hands of an unreliable/crazy/fanatic/western hating/irrational/bold/power hungry leader who is trying to even rewrite history (Jewish Holocaust never happened he claims…), Iran is a threat to the whole world, and is among the largest suppliers of oil in the world (forth after Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the US).  It is a safety and economical threat. The economical threat should be handled by economic sanctions (although Iran’s leaders don’t really care if their people will be starving so that diffuses that…).

The safety factor gives all the reason in the world to take down the current leadership before it is too late. Iraq attacked Israel with dozens of missiles during the gulf war, luckily they had only old missiles with conventional weapon heads. Iran on the other hand, even with “dirty” nuclear weapons and better missiles, and definitely with nuclear weapons, has the option of doing damage that cannot be left to chance, and if anyone will say that maybe we can reason with Ahmadinejad is either making a joke or has no clue.

And again – long term solution to the oil prices/economical situation is in replacing the main source of energy from oil to an alternative, where the only alternative with current technology is nuclear power, which should be translated to as many applications possible.  Not only it will solve the cost of energy, it will also diffuse the power of the hostile Arab countries, and cut the resources of global Islamic terror.

L.

The Arab countries still have us by the balls. One word from Iran about sanctions and prices jump up even more. I don’t want to get into a discussion about Iran because I’m trying to stay calm.
There are many who’ll argue about the price of fuel (blown up for no real reason, high tax rates (US average tax, Federal plus State is over half a dollar per gallon….), but reducing the oil price is not the solution in my opinion. Oil is something that made the human race spoiled. It gave us relatively easy energy source, and we became so dependent on it that we are willing to pay prices that are getting higher daily now.
Since the early 1900’s oil prices were overall going down steadily (adjusted for inflation) until the late 70’s, than prices had gone up (with a few anomalies on the way) to the current level which is 4-5 times higher.
So oil prices are getting to a level that prevents us from being spoiled anymore, and humanity has to find new sources of energy that will bring energy prices down. I wrote before that I believe the answer is Nuclear Power Plants – of course wind powered generators, hydroelectric power (not just dams, but also ocean waves) and solar power can be used, but for the ever increasing amount of energy needed, I truly believe Nuclear energy is the solution. I also predict (carefully), that we’ll be able to harness the earth’s super-hot magma for power generation, and I use that prediction in other writings of mine.
The process of change will not be fast. The huge amount of infrastructure that creates and use energy in our fuel based society will take many years to change. Market forces (for example the car industry) will work hard to keep it the way it is, the cost of changing is huge, both for making the products (cars) and the infrastructure (fueling). But the change is unavoidable, as economy of oil doesn’t make sense anymore.
L.

I follow what they say about global warming and the way they try to solve it. Sounds to me that in most cases there are motives other than the real issue driving things, lack of knowledge, or just not looking at the whole picture. Saying blindly that things need to be green doesn’t work – as a hypothetical argument,  if you use a cup made of corn instead of plastic because it is bio-degradable, but the energy to make it is way more than producing a plastic one, and there’s way more waste, is it better?  You win at one end, but lose at the other.

For instance, making fuel from corn. Sure, corn is the most common farming plant in the US, that’s why we see corn syrup in everything, when usually it shouldn’t even be there. So great, why not make fuel from it, Ethanol, E-85 buzz words and names are great marketing.

Well, corn is very inefficient in making fuel, it takes a lot of energy to process it, and you end up with just a little gain compared to not doing it, some say even a loss. Then you get corn shortage and not enough corn to feed Central America.  Other crops are way more efficient (they say the process producing Switch grass fuel give over 5 time more energy than what was put into it, Sugar Cane is way more efficient than corn…),  and can be a temporary solution, but still not solve the problem.

Of course the main problem started because we have fossil fuel. As long as it’s available and prices are under a certain level (we are getting to a threshold of the price some say), people are too lazy or don’t have enough financing to develop alternative solutions.

So, I’ll opine on that (what did you expect…). I believe the only solution for now is Nuclear Power Plants. NPPs can give us clean energy with little or no environmental side effects (don’t jump and say what about Nuclear Waste, I’ll get into that later), and all energy consumption on the planet can be extracted from them.

Let’s assume we have all the electricity we want without burning any type of fuel, and it is 10 times cheaper than what we pay today for electricity. Wouldn’t you want your car to run on it? Cost per millage will be a fraction of what it is now, no noise or pollution from the car.

Are there issues to be solved? Of course. You want NPPs to be as safe as possible. There are NPPs in the US that supply clean energy for 30 years. With today’s technology, safety can be way better and plants can be more efficient.

Cars  - technology of electric cars is improving fast.  The issue with electric cars is charging time, the best time with most advanced technologies is 30-60 minutes, not as fast as refueling today. Power and millage per charge is in par or even getting better than internal combustion.

Hydrogen cars are another option. Hydrogen can be produced with electricity and is clean energy. Charging time is fast,  safety is an issue, but solutions already are available. And you can drink out of the exhaust pipe…

I’ll probably get back to this subjects in the future,  but to summarize for now, once we have a source for clean cheap energy, as we can get from nuclear energy, solutions will pop up from many creative minds.

L.