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jerrymeyer.meyer1@gmail.com
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Sumter Dems Enjoy the Lake Co. Blue Gala |
| The Villages Democrats filled a table.
Members of the Sumter Co. Democratic Executive Committeeand the Villages Democrats joined the Lake County Democrats for their 2019 fundraiser March 23rd.
An evening of honors and awards was capped by guest speaker Andrew Gillum.
Gillum emerged as the party's candidate for Governor in 2018, coming within 32,000 votes of winning in an election that brought out some two million new voters, shattering all records.
Following his historic run he was he was honored as one of the EBONY Power 100 and named a 2019 Resident Fellow of the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School. In January he joined CNN as a political commentator.
During his remarks he told the audience they are a critical part of the state as we move toward the next election, and asked them to join his campaign to register a million more voters before the 2020 election. The State Democratic Party has allocated two million dollars toward that effort. Gillum said there are some four million Florida residents who are not registered.
Gillum also expressed concern about legislative manipulating on Amendment 4, approved by voters in November. The legislation returns the right to vote to non-violent individuals recently released from incarceration. They must also make financial restitution before being allowed to vote.Proposed legislation would add the payment of court fees, which are sometimes much greater than the restitution numbers.
Gillum said the proposal amounts to a poll tax and legislators should adopt the amendment wording as approved by the voters.
Gillum took time to pose for a picture with Sumter County State Committee Woman Cris Andersen
Attention Grandparents: this may be of interest to your Grandchild.  |
In my opinion
By Jerry Meyer
Climate change is serious stuff. Unfortunately some of the climate change factors give the doubters a lot of ammunition.
Thirty years ago I saw a headline over a newspaper story announcing a grant to study cattle flatulence. My immediate thought was that intellectual welfare had reached its’ peak.
However earlier this month a Popular Science report said that in 2011 livestock pushed about 119.1 million tons of methane into the air. Methane, from cows passing gas and belching is a bigger problem than we thought. Carbon dioxide emissions are far greater in terms of volume, but methane captures more of the sun’s energy.
The really bad news is the 2011 measure of methane is 11% higher than previous estimates from NASA’s Carbon Monitoring system. One problem is the numbers are estimates. Nobody is out there waiting for a cow to pass gas so it can be measured. So there have to be models, and when they get inaccurate information they turn out inaccurate reports. That’s why the 11% difference in data.
There are fewer cows in America and Canada today, but they are larger and their waste is being handled differently. For the most part cows are kept penned in feed lots, their waste runs into containers and is hauled away. Manure emits methane too and that method of handling creates more of it.
Scientists have been working on how to keep cows from belching and passing gas for a long time, but apparently still aren’t close to a world wide solution.
One solution is for us to eat less red meat. That’s a tough sell and already has led to climate change opponents screaming that “they” want to take away your hamburgers.
The people who worry about enough food to feed a growing world population also worry about cattle. Raising grain to feed to animals to feed to humans is quite inefficient. But that’s another problem
So climate change brought about by cattle flatulence is funny, and I didn’t even use the funny word for flatulence.
But—maybe we need to take some of this funny stuff seriously.
Jerry Meyer
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Republicans and Socialism
The Republicans have clearly distributed talking points for use by their members when talking about the elections. It is apparent they are to mention “socialism” whenever possible.
But, the Republican version of socialism is something like this: The Government controls everything and anyone who doesn’t want to work gets a monthly check from the Government. There is never an explanation of the ridiculous math in this equation.
Here is a correct definition: Socialism is an economic system in which the production and distribution of goods are controlled substantially by the government, rather than by private enterprise, and in which cooperation rather than competition guides economic activity. There are many varieties of socialism.
Here is a definition of Capitalism: An economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.
It always has seemed clear to me that our country became great because it is based on Capitalism and we utilize Government when needed for the common good.
Below is another description of socialism, followed by a list of services carried out by government, because we as a society decided working together was the best way to get the job done. (In most cases private enterprise isn’t interested in trying to provide these services.)
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