Money makes decisions Sanity never would.  Fear, too.  This adage applies to an awful lot of things, most of them pretty awful -- like politics and Ebola.  These are awful and also awe-filled, but not in a good way.  The critical difference between politics and Ebola?  It's possible to somewhat survive devastating, ignorant decisions by the country in politics, even Bush-league decisions.  Ebola, on the other hand, starts at death, and goes downhill from there.

Both are bad systems, way out of control.  Both operate in a wide range, anywhere from figuratively to literally lethal.  Both score lower than body lice in approval ratings.  Both clog up your TVs and radios.  Plus, there are more similarities at fighting the two than you might first think.

Tell you what I mean:  In my part of the world, when 19 snowflakes, by actual count, have hit the sidewalk around a local TV broadcast studio,  an official Snow Emergency is declared, and live, round-the-clock coverage begins.  The TV station's graphics department is alerted, and, inside of the time it takes to track and catch one snowflake in your mouth, a new, screen-blasting piece of artwork is created for broadcast, as a backdrop for the usual dizzy and ditzy, On the Spot, Eyewitness Action News-You-Can-Use, Eye-in-the-Sky anchor team.

Invariably, the graphic is muted and demure, modestly trumpeting out something like Snow Apocalypse Trauma Center Update Action Desk or something similarly boneheaded and jarring, sporting gigantic fonts touched up with icicle appendages for that chilling, but cutesy, You Are There feeling for the news anchor set.

Behind the scenes, as they are scrambling to get the character generator fired up and hail the Message Crawler Crew back from the tavern across the street, the crack marketing team is warming up in the playpen for a flurry of Snow Emergency calls to area businesses.

Their flaky pitches, of course, are all about the sudden bonus round of nearly endless local advertising time now available, falling like frosty manna from heaven, now that the station has dumped all network programming in order to run Snow Apocalypse coverage until further notice.

This is all done in the public interest, naturally.  Sure.

Stop me if you know the answer to this one, “What is the one single industry destroying the planet more than any other?”

We all know the answer to that one … Right?

The fossil fuel industry, of course. And we feel completely helpless to stop the Drilling and the Fracking and the Mining. No matter what we do - we know Global Climate Change is here. It’s going to get worse, and there’s nothing we can do about it. We can leave all our cars in the driveway, take shorter showers, change out all our light bulbs, get a low-flow toilet, recycle every scrap, think globally and buy locally, and it won’t make any discernable difference at all. Personal change won’t save the planet as long as the energy barons are calling the shots. Billionaires are buying the politicians hand over fist, while suppressing the vote and simultaneously lying to voters on a minute-by-minute basis with the full cooperation of the media. Go ahead. Take shorter showers. Control of the “system” has been systematically taken away from us. There’s nothing we can do so we might as well crack open a beer, sit on the porch, and watch the sun go down on all of us.

This is a pretty typical “Moment With Bob” isn’t it? In one paragraph I can suck all the air out of the room and replace hope and optimism with despair. What can I say… It’s a gift. But hold on to your socks, buckle up, and make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position, because we’re about to make a full 180 … Right Now.

Personal Change Can Save The Planet. But we’ve got to hurry.

I just found this out a couple of days ago and I’m still kind of overwhelmed. I never imagined this could happen, but it did. I watched a documentary That Changed My Life. After an event like that, of course I’ve tipped over and become evangelical about it.

Everybody Must See This Film: "COWSPIRACY: The Sustainability Secret"

Once upon a time there was a thoroughly mediocre man. He was incapable of finishing secondary or vocational school. By age 22, he found some small success as a salesman. He lived with his parents when not on the road making sales calls. Eventually he lost interest in the job, his performance dropped, and he was fired.

On the advice of his father’s friend he joined a political party. He didn’t join out of any sense of conviction. He didn’t even know the party’s platform. He just wanted the sense of being part of something - of belonging. When the party came into power he saw it as his best chance at some sort of success.

By his own admission he did best when he was told what to do. Projects he initiated failed. He did not have the capacity to think about what he was doing with any depth. His inability to speak coherently reflected his inability to think. He would obliviously string together contradictory ideas within a single statement. He was literally a thoughtless man.

But he could carry out the tasks he was given as long as he operated within an established framework. He did not excel at his job in the same way a cog in a machine does not excel at being a cog. It simply performs as a cog should. He eventually rose to a low level management position and there he would stay for the rest of his career.

He worked primarily in transportation planning. In time he became adept at moving people from one place to another in the most efficient manner. To him the destination was irrelevant. Initially he was working on the forced emigration of Jews out of Germany. But within a few years, on orders from his superiors, the process was adjusted to transport Jews to death camps. And that is how Adolf Eichmann became The Man In the Glass Booth on trial for his life in Jerusalem in April 1961.

Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher said Friday in a Fox News interview that the US economy is threatened by higher wages. His solution is to head this calamity off by raising interest rates so that hiring is cut back. He fears that higher wages are inflationary.

The Fed as a whole has been trying to create inflation in order to stop the rich from hoarding cash. The Fed has set a modest goal of 2% inflation instead of the 4 to 6% we really need to make such a policy work to jump start real investing (real as in creating jobs). Creating jobs is part of the Fed's legal mandate and the results have not been stellar to say the least.

And guess what? A census of billionaires by Wealth-X and UBS (a census not a poll because a representative sample is all of them, so they just asked them) found that they're indeed hoarding cash. The billionaire's money bins have 1000% more cash in them than a year ago. Weaker billionaires have had to quit swimming in their money bins out of a fear of drowning.

I wrote this about 4 years ago:

We were in a canoe paddling towards the middle of the lake. The sky and water was blue as the blue in a Maxfield Parrish painting. I looked down and it seemed I could see forever into the depths of the lake. And I wondered … What would it be like to lose something … Something of great value … Right here in the middle of the lake? What would it be like if my wedding band slipped off my finger into the lake?

It would be lost the moment it hit the water.

Even if I immediately dove in after the ring it would sink faster and deeper than I could swim. But I would be able to clearly see it as it sank … for a long time. That’s the terrible part. To see it fall away with absolute clarity … sunlight glinting off the gold as it rapidly receded farther and further into the depths … finally passing deeper than light can penetrate … and then … wink out of existence.

Lost.

As we paddled back to shore a small wave of sadness hit. Not about the hypothetical loss of a ring … but about all the things we’ve lost … clearly lost … things that are quickly receding into an irrevocable irretrievable past.

Yeah. Those are the kinds of happy bunny thoughts I have when we’re on vacation. Imagine what’s banging around inside my head when I’m stuck in my room reading the news.

Washington, DC — Forty-four prominent authors, medical doctors, academics, lawyers and other research experts convene from Sept. 26 to 28 to reveal recent findings undercutting the Warren Commission’s 1964 report ascribing President Kennedy’s murder to a sole assassin.

On the unique, historic occasion of the Warren report’s 50^th anniversary, experts and surviving witnesses will examine evidence showing the commission was wrong about its core finding, that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing the president with three shots from behind. Polls for decades have shown that most Americans – sometimes more than 70 percent – disbelieve the commission, which was chaired by the late Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren.

“Few serious scholars believe the Warren Report any longer,” said Assassinations Archives and Record Center President James Lesar, whose non-profit group AARC has organized what he called, “one of the most important JFK assassination conferences in history.”