The Lake

One of the things about global warming is unpredictable weather. Hot where it was once cold, rain in the desert, and glaciers coming and going. What about the surf? Will Lake Superior be the spot?

On the Occupy Wall Street Protests – Hedges went on to say that the protesters should be seen as “conservatives” because “they call for the restoration of the rule of law.”

“The real radicals have seized power,” he asserted, “and they are decimating all impediments to the creation of a neo-feudalistic corporate state, one in which there is a rapacious oligarchic class, a thin managerial elite, and two-thirds of this country live in conditions that increasingly push families to subsistence level.”

According to Hedges, the corporate state wants to “reduce the working class to a status equivalent to serfdom. … They want us to remain passive and to remain frightened. And as long as we remain passive and frightened, entranced with their electronic hallucinations, we are not a threat.”

“Keep you doped with religion and sex and T.V.
And you think you’re so clever and classless and free
But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see” – Working Class Hero, 1970

‘It is astonishing what foolish things one can temporarily believe if one thinks too long alone, particularly in economics (along with the other moral sciences), where it is often impossible to bring one’s ideas to a conclusive test either formal or experimental.” – John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

In his 2007 book, Charles Koch says his company had difficulty keeping up with changing government regulations and that it did eventually build an effective compliance program for 20 areas ranging from environmental to antitrust to safety regulations. “We were caught unprepared by the rapid increase in regulation,” he wrote. “While business was becoming increasingly regulated, we kept thinking and acting as if we lived in a pure market economy.” So, lets follow his logic through. During the time “we kept thinking and acting as if we lived in a pure market economy” Koch was involved in the following:

• Researchers had found evidence of improper payments to secure contracts in six countries dating back to 2002, authorized by the business director of the company’s Koch-Glitsch affiliate in France.
• A Bloomberg Markets investigation has found that Koch Industries — in addition to being involved in improper payments to win business in Africa, India and the Middle East– sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran, a country the U.S. identifies as a sponsor of global terrorism.
• Koch Industries units have also rigged prices with competitors, lied to regulators and repeatedly run afoul of environmental regulations, resulting in five criminal convictions since 1999 in the U.S. and Canada.
• In December 1999, a civil jury found that Koch Industries had taken oil it didn’t pay for from federal land by mismeasuring the amount of crude it was extracting. Koch paid a $25 million settlement to the U.S.
• The jury found that the company’s negligence had led to a butane pipeline rupture that fueled an explosion that killed two teenagers.
• Koch refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas asked employee to falsify data for a report to the state on uncontrolled emissions of benzene, a known cause of cancer.
• Koch Industries has spent more than $50 million to lobby in Washington since 2006, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks political donations.
• The EPA had sued Koch Industries for a series of pipeline leaks in several states, including one that left a 12-mile-long oil slick on Nueces and Corpus Christi bays in October 1994.

And the list continues. The point – the list provide insight into “thinking and acting as if we lived in a pure market economy.” So, no EPA, no government regulation – let the “pure market” control outcomes. Really?

Surfed Tiburones on Monday – short period west swell at low tide, knee to shoulder high – I sat on the smaller ones with shape and rode the LB. Some really fun nose cruising and a three-man rotation. Tried the repeat on Tuesday and worked both the LB and SB. Wednesday – Internet swell – northwest groundswell – but by the time I got to it at low tide, it had a weird bump and the kelp was thick – got some on the SB anyway. Since then, it’s been too meager to go. And now, we have the first winter storm of the season – rained Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday – And the temperature dropped. I mean Indian Summer lasted two days.