Glass Onion

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

2008-07-03T03:28:00.000-07:00

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

President Bush will seek to comfort victims of his presidency as they try to make sense of the destruction he has caused.

source: the ONION: America's Finest News Source

2008-05-30T16:57:00.000-07:00

May 30, 2008 - Earlier this week, President Bush held a fundraiser for John McCain but McCain didn't want the press to take photos of the two of them together. MoveOn.org put an ad together to make sure voters see how close the two 'cousins' really stand together. Bush-McCainChallenge.com

Source: Noah, Peter, Nita, Michael, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team Friday, May 30th, 2008 MoveOn.org

SPENDING YOUR STIMULUS CHECK

2008-05-05T04:11:00.000-07:00

(5.05.08) - I’m totally excited that our tax rebate checks are coming! Washington has turned into Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, all rolled into one, now delivering $300 to $600 checks to nearly every U.S. taxpayer.

The idea is that everyone will want to rush out and buy, buy, buy - thus stimulating the economy, creating jobs, and causing bluebirds of happiness to trill with delight. Wal-Mart is ready for you, offering to cash your government checks for free and tempting you with special price promotions. Indeed, every big retailer is running shopper specials in May.

But, wait - most of the stuff sold in those stores isn’t made in America. So those sounds of economic stimulation we’re hearing - from factory machinery to bluebirds - are coming from China, Singapore, and other low-wage nations where U.S. corporations have moved production. Spending at the Wal-Marts won’t create new production or new jobs in your town or mine.

That’s why I have a different plan for my $600 check. I’m setting $400 of it aside to spend at farmers markets, artisan shops, and hometown businesses that sell goods produced locally, or at least produced in America. This way, our tax dollars can circulate here at home, genuinely benefiting our grass roots economy.

Then, I’m going to donate the other $200 to public interest groups or progressive candidates who are pushing for real economic reform, not made-in-China consumerism. In particular, my small donations will support those working for a massive public investment in repairing and extending America’s deteriorating infrastructure - including water systems, bridges, schools, parks, public transportation, and a state-of-the-art internet system.

Instead of a shopping stimulus, we should be employing millions of Americans at good wages to do the good grassroots work that needs to be done.

"As tax rebates arrive, retailers hope to sway wary consumers," Austin American Statesman, April 29, 2008

What 8 Years of BushCheney has done to the U.S. Economy

The 3 biggest hits to the economy

2008-04-14T11:16:00.000-07:00

Bush's tax cuts for the rich have reduced annual tax revenue available for public needs by $300 billion each year.

BushCheney's occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has cost $700 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service. That's about $400 million a day. Nobel Prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglitz says the tab is well over $2 trillion when you add rehabilitation for injured vets, replacement of military hardware, and the value of things we could have produced (but didn't) with that money over the past seven years.

Bushites have finished off the deregulation of banking that began in earnest during Bill Clinton's presidency. This ideological madness has caused the collapse of investment funds, banks, and the stock value of corporations that depend on them (which is to say most of Wall Street and much of the financial world), as well as a steep decline in the value of most homes in America and a sharp rise in the cost of living in them.

More at Jim Hightower 'LowDown'
What 8 years of BushCheney has done to the U.S. economy

"You are a liar, Mr. Bush" - Keith Olbermann

2008-02-18T17:01:00.000-08:00

In a scathing commentary against President George W. Bush, MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann declared Bush guilty of terrorism for playing what he sees as the fear card in an attempt to get the House to pass retroactive immunity for telecommunication companies that illegally helped the US government in its warrantless wiretapping program Thursday evening."You are a liar, Mr. Bush, and after showing some skill at it, you have ceased to even be a very good liar," he declared. "The lot of you," he said, speaking of those who sought to pass immunity, "are the symbolic descendants of the despotic."
Olbermann called Bush a "liar" several times during his broadcast.
He also called Bush a 'fascist.'
"If you believe in the seamless mutuality of government and big business — come out and say it!" he said. "There is a dictionary definition, one word that describes that toxic blend. You’re a fascist — get them to print you a t-shirt with “fascist” on it! What else is this but fascism?"

Get The Raw Story

Schiller Institute: Call by the Ad Hoc Committee for a New Bretton Woods

2007-08-15T09:29:00.000-07:00

August 12, 2007

Following up the previous calls of 1997, 2000, and 2006, in which thousands of prominent personalities from all over the world, among them former heads of state, members of parliaments, unionists, entrepreneurs, city officials, church members, members of the military, and so forth, demanded a reorganization of the world financial system, the Chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, has written the following new call, which will be circulated worldwide by the Schiller Institute. It should be published on the Internet and in various newspapers with the names of the signers, and will be presented to the American Congress and the parliaments of the world.

The systemic crash of the world financial system is in full swing. Shaken loose but not caused by the collapse of the subprime mortgage market in the U.S. and the end of the inflationary yen-carry-trade in Japan, the house of cards of "creative financial instruments," as Alan Greenspan has dubbed various credit derivatives, has thereby caved in. Because the takeover craze on the part of the hedge funds and private equity funds has been rising higher and higher over the recent years and months with ever wilder predatory raids, the investment banks which have financed the majority of these takeovers, are now left sitting on these worthless credits. More U.S. mortgage financiers will declare insolvency, more banks will go under in the vortex of the credit crisis. In the U.S. there are currently almost 10 trillion dollars in mortgage loans, over a third of which are bad credit risks. In Germany the examples of the IKB-Bank and the Westdeutsche LandesBank have shown that boards of directors are finding it hard to admit the quantity of their losses.

The myth that the central banks have an endless number of possibilities to always bring a crash under control, is exploding: they now find themselves between the Scylla of the fight against inflation with higher interest rates--which is urgent in the face of the obvious inflation of food, raw materials and oil, but would lead to bubbles like that of the U.S. mortgage market, and the like, bursting even more,--and the Charybdis of the credit crisis, which has been unleashed by the reversed leverage collapse. If the central banks try to stop a chain reaction by infusing liquidity in the range of hundreds of billions, as just occurred within 24 hours during the second week of August, this only means that there will be a hyperinflation like that in Weimar Germany 1923--only this time not in one country, but worldwide.

It is a dilemma from which there is no way out: the system is finished.

Catastrophic consequences are threatened for the world population. If countries can no longer finance their functions, sociities threaten to sink into chaos. The model of so-called globalization is today totally bankrupt, just as the communist model was in 1989-91. All the principles which are associated with it, such as "outsourcing" (that is, the shifting of highly qualified jobs into cheap-production countries), "shareholder value" society, "money-makes-money," "just-in-time" production, "benchmarking," etc. have been rejected. The condition of collapsing infrastructure in the G-7 countries is the best indicator of the wreckage of the unregulated free market economy.

In order to stop the intolerable suffering which an uncontrolled collapse of the world financial system threatens to unleash on the population, we, the undersigned, demand, the immediate convoking of an emergency conference which must decide on a new global financial architecture in the tradition of the Bretton Woods System initiated by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944.

We, the undersigned, also point out, that the Italian Parliament has taken up LaRouche's proposal, and in a resolution on April 6, 2005, called on the Italian government to convene "an international conference at the level of Heads of State and Government, to globally define a new and more just monetary and financial system."

The necessity for such a fundamental reorganization is all the more urgent today, but the potential for its realization has also grown. For an irony of history is responsible: Because when the Soviet Union began to unravel in 1991, the neo-conservatives in the government of President George Bush, Sr., saw to it by their policy of preemptive wars and regime change, that the process of cooperation among the nations of Eurasia and Latin America, which normally would have taken decades, has accelerated, under the influence of the American unilateralist policy. An array of heads of state of important countries have made it clear, that they have decided to defend the general welfare of their populations against the encroachment of the financial institutions associated with globalization. Therefore, the chances of putting the question of a just new world economic order on the agenda, have enormously increased.

But it would be a dangerous illusion to believe that a successful reorganization of the bankrupt world financial system could succeed without, or against, the United States. Therefore, we, the undersigned, declare ourselves in favor of cooperation with the "real" America, in the tradition of the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence, that America which is connected with names such as Alexander Hamilton, John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, and which is inspired by Lyndon LaRouche today. America must be a part of the new community of principle of sovereign republics, which is bound together through the common interests of mankind.

In recent months Lyndon LaRouche has pointed out again and again that only the combination of a transformed America, together with Russia, China, and India, would be strong enough to put the question of a new monetary system on the agenda. But that does not mean that other nations could and should not participate as partners with these four large nations.

In order to correct the failures of development, which have occurred due to the paradigm shift of the past 40 years, and above all, since the abandonment of the system of fixed exchange rates by U.S. President Richard Nixon, in 1971, and which led, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, with unrestrained globalization, to today's brutal vulture capitalism, we must implement the following measures:

The emergency conference for a New Bretton Woods must immediately thus resolve:

The current world financial system must be declared hopelessly bankrupt and be replaced by a new one.
A system of fixed exchange rates must be agreed upon immediately.
Derivatives speculation must be prohibited through an agreement among governments.
There must be put into effect a comprehensive reorganization, or, as the case may be, a cancellation of debts.
There must be put in place new credit lines, through state credit creation, in the tradition of Alexander Hamilton and the American System, which will make possible productive full employment, through investments in basic infrastructure and technological revival.
The completion of the Eurasian Land-Bridge, as the kernel of the reconstruction of the world economy, is thus the vision which will not only bring about an economic miracle, but also can become a system of peace for the 21st Century.
A new "Treaty of Westphalia" must guarantee the opening up and development of raw materials for all nations on this Earth, for at least the next 50 years.
We, the undersigned, are of the belief that the system of "globalization," with its brutal vulture capitalism, has economically, financially, and morally failed. In its place, man must again be put in the center, and the economy must serve the general welfare first and foremost. The new economic order must guarantee the inalienable rights of all mankind on this planet.

Signed:

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Federal chairwoman of the BueSo and the Schiller Institute.

source: http://tinyurl.com/32e7vt - Lyndon LaRouche

Blood, Oil, Smoke & Mirrors

2006-10-16T07:55:00.000-07:00

The world's supply of recoverable oil is fast running out. An energy policy (or the lack of one) that leaves us with no alternative but swilling more oil is suicidally stupid. But where's the leadership? Neither the White House nor the Congress, neither the Republican nor the Democratic party, has a plan for coping with what is clearly a looming disaster. They're not even discussing it!
In a 50 minute video entitled, OIL, Smoke and Mirrors, you will discover eye-opening facts about Peak Oil (The midpoint of global hydrocarbon production), b/w Richard Heinberg, Julian Darley, Colin Campbell and other experts discussing the ramifications of hydrocarbon depletion and what we should expect as cheap oil comes to an end. New Energy News
Watch Now at Video GOOGLE...

New World Order & the Occult Technology of Power and Control

2006-09-05T08:06:00.000-07:00

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell

Our collective addiction to oil is at the root of at least six fundamental issues that are adversely affecting our nation and indeed, the entire planet:

o corporate-driven globalization,
o global warming,
o poverty,
o war,
o terrorism,
o and the undue influence of money on the political process.

Warren G. Harding, in his Inaugural Address on March 4, 1921, had already recognized the drive for a one world government. But he plainly stated the ideals of the people, and opposed it: "We are ready to associate ourselves with the nations of the world, great and small, for conference, for counsel; to seek the expressed views of world opinion; to recommend a way to approximate disarmament relieve the crushing burdens of military and naval establishments. We elect to participate in suggesting plans for mediation, conciliation, and arbitration, and would gladly join in that expressed conscience of progress, which seeks to clarify and write the laws of international relationship, and establish a world court for the disposition of such justiciable questions as nations are agreed to submit thereto. In expressing aspirations, in seeking practical plans, in translating humanity's new concept of righteousness and justice and its hatred of war into recommended action we are ready most heartily to unite, but every commitment must be made in the exercise of our national sovereignty."Since [America is] freedom impelled, and independence inspired, and nationality exalted, a world supergovernment is contrary to everything we cherish and can have no sanction by our Republic. This is not selfishness, it is sanctity. It is not aloofness, it is security. It is not suspicion of others, it is patriotic adherence to the things which made us what we are." The position of our forefathers regarding any establishment of a world government, and the value they placed on national and individual Freedom is very clear. Today, however, few citizens seem to be clear on much of anything."

The question today is "What is America's destiny?" Are we going to let this super government absorb our country? Are 'we the people' going to allow enemies from without and traitors from within to subjugate us? Are we going to throw away the ideals of our Founding Fathers that made the United States one of the most longed for destinations of oppressed people throughout the world? Has the light in the torch of Freedom gone out? These are grave questions. And the questions must be answered!

New World Order?

The New World Order is a one party state, the whole world under control of one governing body, army and court.
We can see this coming into place today with The United Nations and Nato.
The phrase New World Order has been used by many leaders, in particular George Bush Snr, but the phrase or motto, New World Order goes back a lot further in illuminati history before the times of President Bush.
It appears in latin along with the illuminati symbol, on the U.S. one dollar bill.

Addiction to OIL

o Our dependence on oil is threatening our way of life and endangering our freedoms.
o According to the EPA, nearly half of Americans live in areas where the air is considered too dirty to breathe.
o Drivers pay $186 billion every day for gasoline, while our national average fuel efficiency has gotten worse since the 1970's.

DECLARE INDEPENDENCE FROM OIL & TYRANNY!

Videos

source: World Newstand http://www.wealth4freedom.com/truth/chapter3.htm
What everyone should know about 911 - Loose Change 2nd Edition 1 hr 22 min video documentary - Korey Rowe / Dylan Avery / Jason Bermas

The American Dream is OVER

2006-08-16T07:35:00.000-07:00

The End of Suburbia reviewed

More at Village Energy...
In the late 1800s, the fledgling petroleum industry aggressively competed with the established biomass- based energy industry in an effort to gain control of world energy production and distribution. Fossil fuel producers succeeded in their campaign to dominate energy production by making fuels and chemical feedstocks at lower prices than could be produced from biomass conversion. Now the pendulum is swinging against them.
World's #1 Sustainable Fuel and Energy Source is Hemp ->

You Might As Well Face It, You're Addicted to Oil!

2006-07-18T08:57:00.000-07:00

The struggle to separate oil and state needs to be fought at home and at key international events like the G-8 Summit that took place in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. When the G-8 met in Scotland last year in 2005, global poverty and climate change headlined the agenda. This year, “Energy Security” was the key issue; while last year's priorities seem to have been pushed aside.

The G-8 has absurdly defined 'energy security' as the promotion and expansion of oil and fossil fuel production worldwide. As argued in an op-ed last week, this strategy will only increase our oil dependence, exacerbate global warming, and drive countries deeper into debt – in other words, make us less secure.

Our collective addiction to oil is at the root of at least six fundamental issues that are adversely affecting our nation and indeed, the entire planet: corporate-driven globalization, global warming, poverty, war, terrorism, and the undue influence of money on the political process. More 'Eco Issues' at Village Energy.

(you might as well face it, you're addicted to oil) ->
NEW FLASH VIDEO: ADDICTED TO OIL!

End Times for Cheap Oil

2006-05-22T07:19:00.000-07:00

James Howard Kunstler, author of "The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century," has emerged as the most dire and articulate proponent of a school of thought known as Peak Oil, the idea that the world has or will soon reach maximum oil production, after which oil becomes scarcer and more expensive to extract.
But there's nothing theoretical about it. Like global warming, Peak Oil - a bell-curve description of oil reserves first outlined by geophysicist M. King Hubbert - widely accepted by serious people. Discoveries of new oil topped out in 1964. The world consumes about 27 billion barrels of oil a year. At current pace, the world's estimated 1 trillion barrels of oil reserves will be gone within a few decades, but as a practical matter, extracting every drop from sources like Canadian oil shale would be impossible, since the effort would consume more energy than it produces.
"After peak," writes Kunstler, "all bets are off about civilization's future."

If Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" has a single message, it's that global warming is bad—very, very bad. Floods, droughts, famine, disease . . . a miasma of End Times calamity caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
Even at that, Gore is "a candy-assed optimist," according to Kunstler.
Whereas Gore and other prophets of climate change believe we still have the time and means to avert the worst consequences of anthropogenic global warming—hybrid cars, solar panels!—Kunstler argues with hellish persuasion that we are basically toast. Why? The entire edifice of American civilization—from our mega-scale methods of food production to our great repositories of national wealth, that is, the equity invested in our sprawling suburbs—is propped up, trembling as if balanced on matchsticks, on cheap oil. And there is no substitute for cheap oil.

End Times - Los Angeles Times
Post Carbon Books & End of Suburbia DVD

CalCar's 100+ MPG Plug-in Prius

2006-05-11T05:42:00.000-07:00

In a 3 minute streaming video, watch how to convert a Toyota Prius so that it can be charged using household electricity ... power that is a whole lot cheaper than the gas a normal Prius uses to generate all of its electric power. Learn how it works, and how much easier it would be for Toyota to make their hybrids work this way in the first place. Enjoy! Oh and Laura's not too bad either. http://on10.net/TheShow/2892 - Watch it...then look at the comments...why not add your comments?!?
North America's 'Car of the Year' has been souped up --or more accurately, "green-tuned" by adding extra batteries and grid-charging, and that's how you get the PRIUS+, --a "gas-optional" or "plug-in" hybrid (PHEV). That means no gas when you do your errands on local streets at 35mph. On the highway, it runs just like any other Prius, with the gasoline engine doing most of the work -- and the extra batteries kicking in to improve performance at ALL speeds. More details at: Village Energy - "The choice of vehicle that you drive has a greater effect on the environment than any other choice you make as a consumer" - Union of Concerned Scientists. Find out more about Plug-in hybrid systems and 'Gas Optional' Vehicles

"Californians For Clean Energy" Seek Part of Oil Profits - Renewable Energy Access

Save the Internet: May, 2006

2006-05-02T09:28:00.000-07:00

Companies like AT&T want the power to decide which Web sites open properly on your computer, based on which sites pay them the most. This will distort the entire Internet.

Next week (May 8, 2006), Congress votes on the fate of the free and open Internet. Can you sign our petition to save the Internet?

Click Here SIGNS OF THE TIME: May, 2006

Gas Pump Geopolitics

2006-04-28T08:50:00.000-07:00

Published: April 28, 2006 - In recent days critics have accused President Bush and his new chief of staff of doing nothing more than shuffling around the deck chairs on the Titanic, as they shift, hire and fire senior White House officials while the president's popularity continues to plummet. Personally, I think that is a totally unfair charge — unfair to the captain of the Titanic.
After all, he knew where he was going. His lookouts just couldn't see the iceberg spar lurking beneath the surface in their path until it was too late. This administration, and its captain, have been staring the iceberg right in the face for years — it's called dependence on foreign crude oil. It has been totally visible, for miles and miles. And yet the Bush team has just kept sailing right into it, refusing to ask the American people to do anything hard to put America on a different energy course.
What is this iceberg staring us in the face? It is the fact that energy, broadly defined, has become the most important geostrategic and geoeconomic challenge of our time — much as the Soviet Union was during the cold war — for four reasons:
First, we are financing both sides in the war on terrorism: financing the U.S. military with our tax dollars, and Islamist radicals and states with our energy purchases.
Second, continued dependence on fossil fuels is going to bring on climate change so much faster in an age when millions of new consumers in India and China are driving cars and buying homes. And that's why renewable fuels and energy-efficient cars, buildings and appliances are going to be the biggest growth industry of the 21st century. The tougher the energy-efficiency standards we impose on our own companies, the more likely it is that they will dominate this new industry.
Third, because of the steady climb in oil prices, the seemingly unstoppable wave of free markets and free peoples that we thought was unleashed by the fall of the Berlin Wall is now being stymied by a counterwave of petro-authoritarian states — like Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Nigeria and Sudan — which now have more petro-dollars than ever to do the worst things for the longest time. They will poison the post-cold-war world unless we bring down the price of crude.
Fourth, we will never plant the seeds of democracy in Iraq and the wider Arab world if we don't also bring down the price of oil. These Arab oil regimes will not change unless they have to, and as long as oil prices are soaring they won't have to. Iraq will become just another Arab state that taps oil wells instead of developing its people.
The beginning of leadership for the president is to tell the American people the truth: This is not your parents' energy crisis. The price of oil is not soaring just because of greedy oil companies. It is soaring because of structural changes in the global energy market that could have vast consequences for America and the world if we do not respond in a comprehensive manner.
Toward that end, we need a tax on gasoline at the pump that will keep prices around $4 a gallon (still roughly $1 less than most Europeans pay), or we need a tax on vehicles that will make gas guzzlers prohibitively costly and hybrids and smaller cars enormously attractive. The sooner and the more we take the price of gasoline up — and keep it there — the sooner we can bring it down forever. If we want to make wind, solar and biomass more competitive, gasoline has to cost more, not less.
The president can start by pushing the bipartisan Fuel Choices for American Security Act, now wending its way through Congress. This bill would mandate that every car sold in America would not just have seat belts, but would also be flex-fuel capable so it could run on ethanol, methanol or gasoline. It would also pave the way for the rapid commercialization of plug-in hybrid vehicles, which would combine electricity and gasoline to get 100 miles out of every gallon of gasoline consumed.
Finally, the bill would offer Detroit loan guarantees for transforming its fleets in this direction. "We're going to have to bail out Detroit anyway, so let's at least get some public benefit," the energy expert Anne Korin said.
Yes, the president has wasted so much time, but if he finally rises to this challenge, Democrats — who should have taken the lead on this issue a long time ago — have got to work with him. If the Democrats shirk this energy challenge, as the Republicans have, I'm certain there is going to be a third party in the 2008 election. It is going to be called the Geo-Green Party, and it is going to win a lot of centrist voters. The next Ross Perot will be green.
Gas Pump Geopolitics by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

WAR PROFITS AND BAT MITZVAHS

2006-04-14T08:59:00.000-07:00

Friday, April 14, 2006 - Jim Hightower
David H. Brooks loves his little girl and, like any good dad, wanted her to have a memorable Bat Mitzvah. So, last November, David booked both floors of New York's opulent Rainbow Room for her party and sent private jets to fetch such musicians as Aerosmith, Tom Petty, Kenny G, Don Henley, 50 Cent, and DJ AM to entertain her and 300 of her best friends, each of whom was also given a little 'party favor', a bag of electronics and other goodies worth $1,000.

Total cost of the Bat Mitzvah bash: $10 million.

You could just write this off as yet another crass example of the excesses of the superrich, except for the source of Brooks' wealth. He is a war profiteer.

David Brooks is presently under investigation by the SEC for financial wrongdoing. To find out why he is also facing several lawsuits by investors for fraud and insider trading, you must read it in full at Jim Hightower's blog.

1 Timothy 6:10 - For the 'love of money' is the root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. 1 Timothy 6:9-11 (in Context)
1 Timothy 6 (Whole Chapter)
Love Of Money Is The Root Of All Evil: In America, Ignorance Of Money Runs A Close Second

Peak Oil News - Your First Electric Car

2006-03-06T08:47:00.000-08:00

Mitsubishi's plans to build a lithium-ion battery-powered electric car with a top speed of 93 mph and a range of 93 miles, offers a clean (and cute) alternative to gas-guzzling, but may not be available until 2010. Depending on how you look at things, 2010 might seem like a long time to wait, especially while distressing signs of economic collapse and chronic oil shortages loom large on the horizon. A lot can happen in 4 or 5 years, but new technology is accelerating rapidly at a rate that fuels promises of many amazing and wonderful new products over the next decade. Electric cars could be part of the mix, ...

...that is, if nothing untoward happens to halt the progress of industry in the meantime!

The hitch of course comes with the growing awareness that there is evidence that we face an equally rapid depletion of the world's oil reserves, just as more and more cars, trucks and other vehicles overwhelm and clog roads everywhere with increasingly unmanageable levels of traffic congestion.

In short, 'We have a problem, Houston'.

Tom Whipple writes in the Falls Church News Press, "Whether peak oil arrives with a bang or just sort of sneaks up on us, it is highly unlikely that ten years from now there is going to be enough liquid fuel to power all the world's cars, trucks, buses, planes, trains, and boats."

"If world oil depletion comes as soon, and supplies of liquid fuels disappear as rapidly, as [experts] suspect, gasoline-powered cars and light trucks will soon be museum pieces. Liquid fuels, be they from conventional oil, tar sands, liquefied coal, or cellulosic ethanol, will be in such short supply, they will have to be restricted to 'vital-to-civilization' uses such as farming, mass transit, railroads, and countless kinds of heavy industrial equipment."

"Thus it seems obvious that cars and light trucks will have to run on electricity if they are to run at all. Electricity is nearly universally available. Its availability can be quickly increased either through conservation or by building new generating stations— hopefully using renewable fuels. Unlike hydrogen-powered vehicles, EV technology is here now, it’s cheap and likely to get cheaper, and significant improvements in electric cars such as much better batteries and in-wheel motors may soon be available."

The transition from the liquid fuel cars and light trucks to electrically powered vehicles is not going to be pretty and will take decades. Worldwide, there are now over 600 million cars and over 200 million trucks and buses. When it comes, peak oil will be a worldwide phenomenon and is likely to arrive with little or no warning. Thus, except where governments move to subsidize fuel, prices will inexorably ratchet up and up and up.

At each price increase, some share of the owners of these 800-900 million vehicles (especially those that can not pass along the fuel costs) will park their vehicles and begin a desperate search for alternative forms of transportation.

Sales of liquid fueled cars and trucks will have nowhere to go but way down. Whether the worldwide automobile industry will be able to respond to this challenge is an interesting question. Collectively, we have trillions of dollars invested in the current vehicle fleet. Perhaps with a little ingenuity, some portion of this huge investment could be converted to electric power and not be simply left to rust along the roadside, or on driveways, or in parking lots.

As there seems no realistic alternative, the demand for electric vehicles will quickly overwhelm the ability of manufacturers to produce. As this will be a worldwide problem, filling domestic needs are likely to take priority, so exports may slow for a while. The need for personal transportation will be so great, the manufactures resources so limited, and personal wealth so reduced, luxury vehicles are likely to disappear for a time as the industry strives to produce utilitarian vehicles in large quantities.Welcome to peak oil!

Source: Falls Church News-Press Peak Oil - A Turning for Mankind

Electrifying Transportation

2006-02-22T06:19:00.000-08:00

A major barrier to freeing our country from its gas addiction has been that it is prohibitively expensive to replace gas stations with a new refueling infrastructure. GO cars do not have that problem since the existing power grid means you're only a socket away from getting the juice you need to recharge. Plug-in hybrids make efficient use of the grid, since most of the refueling will be done at night, when there is the least demand for electricity.

Displacing oil as America's car fuel might seem to be the ultimate in tilting at windmills, but an electric- car future has become a realistic political possibility because of an uncommon confluence of forces. For economic, environmental, and national security reasons, a wide array of interests, ranging from local governments to the neocons, are backing the push for plug-ins.

(Even the new, improved, 'environmenatally aware' and awkwardly 'green' White House is giving voice in support of the plug-in hybrid, in what many cynics see as nothing more than a Rove inspired attempt to divert attention away from Bush's glaring unpopularity and incompetence to lead the country intelligently. See: Bush Urges Funding for Alternative Energy and President Participates in Energy Conservation & Efficiency Panel).

Yes, even such notable national security hawks as Robert McFarlane, Frank Gaffney, and James Woolsey have launched a drive they call "Set America Free" to get our country off oil. Citing shrinking supplies, rising demand, and higher costs of oil that mostly comes from regions of the world hostile to the U.S., the neocons are hot behind a four-year crash program to slash oil consumption drastically. The centerpiece of their plan is to provide governmental incentives and mandates for the mass marketing of flexiblefuel plug-in vehicles.

Both private utilities and public power plants are enthusiastic plugin hybrid backers (for the obvious reason that transportation would be a massive new market for their product). Add in NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) and other environmental groups, state and local governments, renewable energy advocates, urban planners, entrepreneurs, health groups, and others—and the impossible becomes possible.

The City of Austin has been in the forefront of this burgeoning grassroots movement. Last September, the council okayed a "Gas Optional Vehicle Incentive Program." It will offer $1,000 rebates to the first 1,000 Austin buyers of plug-ins, promote such vehicles to local businesses, commit the city to purchasing plug-ins for its fleet, work with other cities with municipally owned utilities, and encourage America's 50 largest cities to adopt a similar incentive program.

"The road to a clean-car future will be bumpy, with plenty of false starts, roadblocks, wrong turns, and dead ends. It will be a longer, more circuitous journey than anyone cares to take. But the alternative is paralysis, to stay stuck where we are. And where we are today isn't anywhere we want to remain."

Two Steps Forward - Hybrids and Cleaner Vehicles: No Good Car Goes Unpunished

A City in Texas Starts Smart-Energy Driving - Hightower LowDown

Oilcoholics - Time for a Major Oil Change?

2006-02-09T06:45:00.000-08:00

America's dependence on fossil fuels and the impact of over consumption has never been more apparent than it is today.

The extent to which the world's largest and arguably most destructive, industry influences and dictates policy and politics--particularly in the United States today--is what is called PetroPolitics. Our collective addiction to oil is at the root of at least six fundamental issues facing our nation, and our planet, today: corporate-driven globalization, global warming, poverty, war, terrorism, and the undue influence of money on the political process.

"Addicted to Oil": How Can U.S. Fulfill Bush Pledge? - The U.S. imports approximately 60 percent of its oil, but relatively little comes from the Middle East. More from National Geographic News.

Bush Pushes for Alternative Energy - Good Morning America aired news on February 21, 2006 of Chairman Bush speaking about alternative energy, and additionally, 100 MPG plug-in hybrid electric cars. View this clip at CalCars.org. (Requires latest version of Apple QuickTime) Download this file (4MB)

'Addiction to oil' cure has a long way to go - The real driver of change is cost, said California Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Alan Lloyd. The price of oil on the international market is way up and out of U.S. control. More at SacBee.com

Oil independence is possible, but does America want it bad enough? - President Bush's State of the Union pledge to end America's oil "addiction" and his tour of emerging energy technology centers have touched off a national debate on how to achieve energy independence. There are ways to break America's oil addiction, experts say, but it won't be easy. Cures include stricter conservation, higher fuel-economy standards, alternative fuels made from common crops and next-generation batteries for hybrid cars that could get more than 100 mpg. More at MercuryNews.com

Austin Leads Charge for Plug-in Hybrids

2006-02-02T04:09:00.000-08:00

Municipal leaders in Texas' capital city, Austin, announced the formation of a new coalition of city governments and electric utilities united to lobby automakers to step up production of a new breed of plug-in hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles. These new vehicles would allow drivers to charge up their batteries via wall sockets overnight and make their entire round trip commutes to work the next day using only electricity--and no gas whatsoever.
Go to this article

2006 - The Year of the Plug-In Hybrid? - The EAA (Electric Auto Association) honors four entrepreneurs for major contributions to the commercialization of plug-in hybrids and electric drive technology. This technology is an exciting prospect - to bring electric drive technology to a mass market. More here

Bush lacks energy on energy

2006-02-02T03:50:00.000-08:00

The State of Energy: "President Bush devoted two minutes and 15 seconds of his State of the Union speech to energy independence. It was hardly the bold signal we've been waiting for through years of global warming and deadly struggles in the Middle East, where everything takes place in the context of what Mr. Bush rightly called our 'addiction' to imported oil.

Bush's remarks were woefully insufficient. The country's future economic and national security will depend on whether Americans can control their enormous appetite for fossil fuels. This is not a matter to be lumped in a laundry list of other initiatives during a once-a-year speech to Congress. It is the key to everything else.

If Mr. Bush wants his final years in office to mean more than a struggle to re-spin failed policies and cement bad initiatives into permanent law, this is the place where he needs to take his stand. And he must do it with far more force and passion than he did last night."

source: The State of Energy - New York Times

L.A. Times Editorial - The Cost of Silence

Winning the Oil Endgame

2006-01-03T04:57:00.000-08:00

Two centuries ago, the first industrial revolution made people a hundred times more productive, harnessed fossil energy for transport and production, and nurtured the young U.S. economy. Then, over the past 145 years, the Age of Oil brought unprecedented mobility, globe-spanning military power, and amazing synthetic products. But at what cost? Oil, which created the sinews of American strength, is now becoming an even greater source of weakness: its volatile price erodes prosperity; its vulnerabilities undermine security; its emissions destabilize climate. Moreover the quest to attain oil creates dangerous new rivalries and tarnishes America's moral standing. All these costs are rising. And their root causes-most of all, inefficient light trucks and cars-also threaten the competitiveness of U.S. automaking and other key industrial sectors.

The transition beyond oil is already starting to transform oil companies like Shell and BP into energy companies. Done right, this shift can profitably redeploy their skills and assets rather than lose market share. Biofuels are already becoming a new product line that leverages existing retail and distribution infrastructure and can attract another $90 billion in biofuels and biorefining investments. According to the Sustainable Energy Coalition's roadmap, the U.S. would set the stage by 2025 for the checkmate move in the Oil Endgame-the optional but advantageous transition to a hydrogen economy and the complete and permanent displacement of oil as a direct fuel. Oil may, however, retain or even gain value as one of the competing sources of hydrogen.

Oil Endgame
Read SEC's full press release here

For a complete selection of recent books, DVDs, and other relevant materials covering this topic, be sure to visit The Post Carbon Bookstore - Learning Tools for a Low Energy World.

Climate Mash

2005-12-03T05:45:00.000-08:00

From November 28th to December 9th 2005 representatives from 150 countries met at a Climate Conference in Montreal, Canada. The vast majority attending the conference signed the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, and representatives discussed the deepening world crisis and what should be done about it.* Representatives of the United States government, however, worked behind the scenes to try to block any positive action. They have played this role for several years.

It is outrageous that the U.S. government has taken an obstructionist approach to what is probably the most critical and urgent issue of our time. Powerful 'dirty energy corporations' like Exxon/Mobil are calling the shots on U.S. energy policy. Resources and lives are being wasted in a tragic war instead of going into energy conservation and development of clean, safe energy that would end our reliance on Middle East oil while generating millions of new jobs.

*Global warming demands action now. Scientists are forecasting a warming of between 2 and 11 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century. During the last Ice Age the world averaged only 9 degrees cooler than it is today. We thus face the very real possibility of a swing in global temperatures of Ice-Age magnitude within the lifetimes of our children. It is no exaggeration to say that, unchecked, global warming will cause more human suffering and destroy more natural ecosystems than has any other industrial pollutant in our history.

Climate stabilization will require an extremely rapid transition toward a clean energy future based on solar, wind and biomass-generated power, and zero-emission vehicles. It will take a powerful social movement to overcome political and corporate inertia and catalyze the clean energy revolution we need in order to avoid unimaginable change to human and natural systems. We need committed, skilled, persuasive climate communicators and advocates to make that movement a reality.

The Climate Mash - Check out "The Climate Mash" and watch Bush, Cheney and others getting down at the Climate Mash with extreme-polluter Exxon Mobil, accompanied by the zombies and vampires of global warming.
The Latest on Global Warming
Green House Network
Chaotic Weather in 2005 - Greenpeace Report
Inconvenient Truth
Wildfire Increase Linked to Climate

Energy Crisis in USA - No Plan 'B'

2005-10-16T04:51:00.000-07:00

“The oil crisis is very, very near. World War III has started. It has already affected every single citizen of the Middle East. Soon, it will spill over to affect every citizen of the world.”- Ali Samsam Bakhtiari, VP of the National Iranian Oil Company

The oil crisis has begun. Last summer’s storm season has exposed the Achilles heel of the U.S. economy, which is dependent on foreign OIL to keep the wheels of industry moving. We have reached what system analysts refer to as a single point of failure. It is the one area that if it breaks down, will bring the entire system down with it. Like it or not the U.S. economy runs on oil—cheap oil—and we are running out of it. Oil powers the U.S. economy in manufacturing, transportation, and agriculture. Without oil, the economy would cease to function. There is no other commodity other than water that can have such an effect on how and what we do. Oil is the lifeblood of the economy.

"With 12 refineries and 21 gas processing plants still out of commission, 90% of our Gulf oil production shut in, 72% of our natural gas production offline, 503 oil platforms destroyed, heavily damaged, or abandoned, energy imports soaring, and a rapid decline in non-OPEC oil production...".

Source: Jim Puplava Financial Sense Storm Watch

Rethinking Energy - The USA is a "crisis driven society" in urgent need of leadership and direction for its future energy needs.

A Greener World - A Dream Most Possible

2005-10-06T07:00:00.000-07:00

"We are faced with two choices. One is a cleaner, safer, more just and equitable world founded on a transformational shift in cultural values and technologies in harmony with the cycles of nature. The other is a world that descends into the darkest period in human history; one -- dare I say it? -- of apocalyptic proportions where people and cultures and nations fight for the last drops of oil before the lamps go out. The first choice rides on the wings of redefined personal values, while the second exploits cultural biases and human fears."

A Greener World - A Possible Dream - -- Bill Moore EV World editor in chief.

Signs of the Time

The storm that is coming is called "global warming." The ship we are on is called 'Titanic," and no one can quite believe that such a fine ship is sinking! The good news is that Solar-powered homes and renewable energy is becoming available, as are clean methods of transportation. The source of all energy has freely given us abundant supplies of the same, which we must learn to harness for everyone on earth to use and benefit from equally and freely. Does such a world exist or do we wait for it to arrive in vain? Rethinking Energy >>

Village Energy Comment - With most of the USA's current power supply coming from coal and other fossil fuels, we need a transition to clean, renewable energy sources that will protect the world's health, environment and quality of life.

A national commitment to clean energy would reduce pollution, create millions of high tech jobs, diversify our nation’s energy sources, add to America's energy security and save billions of dollars. A much-needed transition to solar, wind power and other renewable energy in every region of the United States holds the promise of a better future for us, our children and future generations.

Visit Village Energy - Rethinking Energy

NO MORE LIES. NO MORE LIVES

2005-08-27T08:10:00.000-07:00

George W was hardly the first draft-age man of means who used family connections to duck going to war (even while he professed undying support for the notion of sending others to fight). During the Civil War, for example, some of the young men who would later become famously wealthy Robber Barons avoided having to put their own butts on the line simply by paying $300 apiece for substitutes to serve in their stead. J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Philip Armour, Jay Gould, and James Mellon were among those buying their way out. For many of the banker and business elites of the time, war was strictly for others. As Mellon's father explained to him in a letter, "a man may be a patriot without risking his own life or sacrificing his health. There are plenty of lives less valuable."

Now that George W is president, this elitist attitude of "let others serve" has been lifted to the level of national policy. Rhetorically, BushCheneyRumsfeld & Company wrap their Iraq misadventure in bunting and images of 9/11, bellowing that "America is at war!" But that's a carefully crafted lie.

Stop the farce

War is life and death—way too important to be left to charlatans such as those running this farce. It should not be made easy for a society to undertake one. If the larger public pays no price, if our nation's military force becomes separated from civilian involvement and responsibility, then our leaders are licensed for malicious adventurism.

Would you be willing to take a bullet for Bush's adventurism? I wouldn't, nor would I want any of my loved ones to pay such a price. When you, me, and the great majority of Americans do not deem a war worthy of our own sacrifice (and when the war is so unworthy that the president is even afraid to ask us for sacrifice), there is a moral imperative for our democratic society to admit this to those few who have been put out there to make the ultimate sacrifice. And once we admit it, there is a moral imperative to get out of the war.

It's time for America to bring our troops home from Iraq. NO MORE LIES. NO MORE LIVES. To reign in future adventurism by the White House, we have to find a way to restore a broad level of public responsibility for the desperate act of waging war by putting every family at risk of losing a loved one—especially the families of the rich and powerful. Dealing in death is the most somber decision a people can make, and it ought to be a decision that gives the entire nation pause, that gives every person reason to tremble.

To establish democratic responsibility, we need to consider a national service program, or maybe a lottery system...or, better yet, a simple, new plan that we should call the "Leaders First" rule: All the politicians who support a shooting war will automatically be drafted or have one of their closest family members drafted to be first in the line of fire.

Source: The September 2005 Jim Hightower ‘Lowdown’

Smart-Energy Driving

2005-08-05T08:09:00.000-07:00

No president has really been serious about conservation and renewable energy, but Jimmy Carter at least made a symbolic statement in the 1970s by having some solar panels installed on the White House roof. Shortly afterward, however, Ronald Reagan, backed by the oil boys, defeated Carter, and that was the end of that —one of Ronnie's first acts in office was to order that those damned solar panels be taken down and junked. Since then, every president has made the obligatory Earth Day nod to solar, wind, and other alternatives as a means of breaking America's self-destructive oil habit, but there's been miserly commitment behind their rhetoric. Using its political and lobbying clout, King Oil has been able to maintain its hegemony over energy policy, its stranglehold on the economy, its preeminence over the environment, and its priority call on military action.

In the quarter century since Carter tried to tell us something important with his solar gesture, every president has been in deliberate denial about where America is headed if we don't get off oil. And now, we're there:

•America's oil consumption has increased 25% since 1980—we're now chug-a-lugging 20 million barrels of oil every single day (up from 16 million in 1980).

•Global consumption is above 83 million barrels daily and rising rapidly.

•U.S. gasoline prices are approaching $3 a gallon.

•To keep the crude flowing, the U.S. is deploying its military all around the world at a staggering cost in money and lives.

•The chemical refuse of our gasoline addiction is fogging the globe with greenhouse gases that are altering our planet's climate,

The world's supply of recoverable oil is fast running out. An energy policy (or the lack of one) that leaves us with no alternative but swilling more oil is suicidally stupid. But where's the leadership? Neither the White House nor the Congress, neither the Republican nor the Democratic party, has a plan for coping with what is clearly a looming disaster. They're not even discussing it.

Cut the leash

If our leaders are too corrupted, too weak, and too unimaginative to cut America (and ultimately the world) free of our tether to Big Oil, then we must do it ourselves. A good place to begin is for us to start buying cars, trucks, and other vehicles that get 500 miles per gallon.

Village Energy has the lowdown on "gas-optional" or GO Cars here.

Source: The Hightower Lowdown - subscription required

More at Village Energy

War of the Worlds

2005-06-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

Art imitating life is the best way of describing the latest Spielberg film, War of the Worlds.

When huge spider-like 'Tripods' stalk the American landscape in search of more blood to suck from the terrified masses running in vain to escape these strange marauding invaders, we become witness to a CGI special effects extravaganza of shock and awe mass destruction by cruel aliens with monstrous machines, bent on world domination, and spreading a terror and fear not seen before. The aliens use superior weaponry capable of directing huge streams of destructive high-voltage electricity at everything in their path, vaporizing their human prey, and leaving a swathe of bloody debris behind them on their relentless march of terror. H.G. Wells' classic sci-fi novel, (written in 1898), terrifies us to this day with its horrific tale of invaders from another world, whose pre-planned harvesting of the earth is carried out with cruel and deliberate precision.

The chaos that follows in the wake of such devestating and overwhelming power that we see being unleashed so unmercifully throughout the film, reminds us of present day attempts by vain and ambitious men with their own desires for world domination of a different kind, but are no less deadly.

New World Order

GreatBigGlobalGiantCorp, the highly profitable, multibillion-dollar corporations that can buy political favors, start wars, destroy environments and control the destinies of entire nations, are hot out trying to rule the world, --only this ain't science fiction.

Bloodsucking by greedheaded corporate giants intimidate and spread fear among us just as much as the terrible nightmarish vison of aliens taking over the earth in Spielberg's film. Towering menacingly from above, anything in their way gets zapped out of existence. --so much like the death and displacement of people and things when war rages and profits soar.

Common people question the tactics being used by multinational corporations, who want to advance their particular brand of 'new world order' anyway they can, without reservation, and as if it were their divine appointment to do so. Does that mean GreatBigGlobalGiantCorp will stop greedheaded bloodsucking? Don't be insane–bloodsucking is wildly profitable! It is also the behavior we can expect to see corporate heads the world over delighting in and spreading by their dandy bad examples to every strata of society.

Like in War of the Worlds, however, there is every reason to believe that the corporation creeps will have their weaknesses and vulnerabilities like the aliens. And ike the story's final chapter, will bring a sudden end to the reign of evil darkness, destruction, fear and dispair we must say describes our civilization. The meek shall inherit the earth. Despise not the day of small things.

Two Worlds Collide

As the disparity between the super rich and the extreme poor continues to divide and isolate the two, one from another, some comfort at least can be found in knowing that there is a day of reckoning coming to a neighborhood near you soon. The film is grim, much as we might say of present day conditions that offer little cheer to the poorest of the poor who represent the worst victims of the profoundest injustice through their sufferings and lack of enough.

When the inevitable conclusion unfolds to expose and reveal all that is wrong with a society that encourages and manifests unacceptable levels of hatred and intolerance through violent clashes of differences, and beliefs, --like religious, or political differences, we may be certain that chaos and destruction will follow as a result. Perhaps we could better understand the violent divides and wars of attrition taking place throughout the world if we knew and understood that this same struggle has blighted man's history since time began, and will unfortunately raise its evil head one last time to breathe out its threatenings one more time.

You can be certain that in the last days there will be some very hard times. People will love only themselves and money. They will be proud, stuck-up, rude, and disobedient to their parents. They will also be ungrateful, godless, heartless, and hateful. Their words will be cruel, and they will have no self-control or pity. These people will hate everything that is good. They will be sneaky, reckless, and puffed up with pride. Instead of loving God, they will love pleasure. Even though they will make a show of being religious, their religion won't be real. Don't have anything to do with such people. 2 Timothy 3.1-5

"A little that a righteous man has is better than the riches of many wicked." - Psalm 37:16

“ Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people. ” (Proverbs 14:34)

'GO' (Gas Optional) Cars OK to GO

2005-06-11T08:26:00.000-07:00

• America's oil consumption has increased 25% since 1980—we're now chug-a-lugging 20 million barrels of oil every single day (up from 16 million in 1980).

• Global consumption is above 83 million barrels daily and rising rapidly.

• U.S. gasoline prices are approaching $3 a gallon.

• To keep the crude flowing, the U.S. is deploying its military all around the world at a staggering cost in money and lives.

• The chemical refuse of our gasoline addiction is fogging the globe with greenhouse gases that are altering our planet's climate,

The world's supply of recoverable oil is fast running out. An energy policy (or the lack of one) that leaves us with no alternative but swilling more oil is suicidally stupid. But where's the leadership? Neither the White House nor the Congress, neither the Republican nor the Democratic party, has a plan for coping with what is clearly a looming disaster. They're not even discussing it.

Cut the leash

If our leaders are too corrupted, too weak, and too unimaginative to cut America (and ultimately the world) free of our tether to Big Oil, then we must do it ourselves. A good place to begin is for us to start buying cars, trucks, and other vehicles that get 500 miles per gallon.

We're talking about using two affordable, available technologies that are already achieving amazing fuel economy on America's roads and cutting pollutants to little or zero.

Combined, the two technologies create "plug-in, flexible-fuel hybrid vehicles," for which a more manageable moniker would be "gasolineoptional," or GO cars. As you know, hybrids are already out there. The Toyota Prius and Honda Civic use electric batteries to supplement their gasoline motors. The battery-powered motor provides acceleration, and the gasoline engine kicks in at cruise speed, combining to give happy owners an average of about 50 miles per gallon of gasoline (60 in the city). Electric motors are more efficient, and these hybrids use other new technologies to improve gas mileage. For example, when you hit the brakes on conventional cars, all the forward motion energy is lost—turned into heat between brake pads and brake drums— while hybrids capture that energy to recharge their batteries. Three years ago, these hybrids were mere curiosities, but sales have taken off, with demand jumping by 88% a year. Toyota plans to offer a hybrid version of all of its models by 2012, and every American, Japanese, and German automaker will introduce at least one hybrid model within the next two years..

Roger Duncan at Austin Energy is traveling the country promoting the idea that the time is ripe for a convergence of municipally owned electrical operations with the transportation sector. The fit becomes natural through the increased use of gas-optional vehicles (GOVs).

Preferring the term "gas-optional" vehicles rather than Plug-In Hybrid Cars, Austin Energy has adopted a strategy to diversify and grow its electric utility operations and hopes to convince cities nationwide to follow their lead.

DO SOMETHING!

Information: For solid data and analysis, Austin Energy is a reliable source. A recent 25-page report called Transportation Convergence is available from AE, which includes the 'Gas Optional' incentive program adopted by the Austin City Council. AE can also provide copies of the 'Set America Free' proposal for U.S. energy security, issued by various neocon organizations.
Contact: Jeff Vice at www.austinenergy.com or call 512-322-6087.
Legislation: Get your own city council to adopt the Austin 'Gas Optional' incentive program. Copies available from Austin Energy at www.austinenergy.com or 512-322-6087.
Agitation: Get involved with the California Cars Initiative.
Source: Jim Hightower - A city in Texas starts smart-energy driving
'GO' Cars: New Energy® News

Get Your Free Subscription to New Energy News from Village Energy - Serving the Global Village

The Globe and Mail: Welcome to the Age of Scarcity

2005-05-25T10:06:00.000-07:00

The Globe and Mail: Welcome to the age of scarcity
For a world hooked on oil, the new supply-demand paradigm promises to be as transforming a period as the oil gushers were to the last century. Whether it happens this year, or in two decades, few would argue that depletion is a preventable event.

Price may well be the first hint of this new global energy reality.

A barrel of crude, which cost as little as $10 (U.S.) a barrel in 1998, is now worth five times that after breeching the $50 barrier earlier this year. A few analysts warn the price of crude could double again in the next couple of years. Even more optimistic forecasters agree that the days of cheap oil are likely gone forever, and that scarcity, coupled with rising demand and a falling U.S. dollar, will mean years of sustained high prices.

"After you drive a car off a cliff, it's too late to hit the brakes," he says. "In effect, we have gone over the edge of the cliff."

Two key changes have conspired to make world oil markets much more volatile. There is surging new demand for oil in fast-growing China and India, where the middle class is taking to the road in a big way. And in the Middle East, mega-producer Saudi Arabia appears to have run out of spare production to turn on and off the tap at will.

"The question is not whether there are buried hydrocarbons. It's at what price you can extract them, and does the technology advance fast enough as the horizon of fuels recede?"

After the Oil is Gone - The Long Emergency

2005-05-17T07:02:00.000-07:00

After the Oil is Gone

By Katharine Mieszkowski - May 14, 2005
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/05/14/kunstler/index.html

Say goodbye to your suburban house, yoke up that horse, and stand by to repel pirates! Author James Howard Kunstler talks about the dire world of his new book, "The Long Emergency."

Suburbs will collapse into slums. Farmhand will be a more viable career choice than public relations executive. And avoiding starvation will replace avoiding boredom as the national pastime.

Those are just a few of the predictions that James Howard Kunstler makes in his new book. "The Long Emergency" paints a dystopic view of the United States in the wake of what Kunstler dubs the "cheap oil fiesta." It's a future the author insists is not apocalyptic. Calling it the end of the world [would] be too easy.

No, Kunstler believes the human race will survive as we slip down the other side of Hubbert's Oil Peak. But the high standard of living we've built by gorging on cheap oil will not. America, as a political entity, will be history too.

When will the doom begin? It has already begun.

Read the entire article here: After the oil is gone
America kept in dark" as carnage escalates; Iraq heads for civil war

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

A plug-in gas-electric vehicle may be key in saving fuel and cutting pollution

2005-05-06T05:42:00.000-07:00

Is there a car that can cut America's oil imports to a trickle, dramatically reduce pollution, and do it all with currently available technology? Greg Hanssen thinks so. His company* has already built one such car -- a converted Toyota Prius that gets 100 to 180 mpg in a typical commute. Andrew A. Frank thinks so, too. The University of California at Davis professor has constructed a handful of such vehicles. His latest: a converted 325-horsepower Ford Explorer that goes 50 miles using no gas at all, then gets 30 mpg. "It goes like a rocket," he says.

These vehicles are quickly becoming the darlings of strange bedfellows: both conservative hawks and environmentalists, who see such fuel efficiency as key to ensuring national security and fighting climate change. Reducing dependence on the turbulent Middle East "is a war issue," says former CIA Chief R. James Woolsey, who calls the cars' potential "phenomenal."

What's the secret? It's as simple as adding more batteries and a plug to hybrids such as the Prius. That way, the batteries can be charged up at any electrical outlet -- letting this so-called plug-in hybrid travel 20 to 60 miles under electric power alone. Since most Americans drive fewer than 30 miles a day, such a car could go months without visiting the filling station. "The only time you would have to gas up is when you go out of town," says Felix Kramer, who founded the nonprofit California Cars Initiative to promote plug-ins. Run the internal combustion engine on a blend of gasoline and biofuels like ethanol, and it would use almost no oil products at all. "That changes the world," says Frank J. Gaffney Jr., president of the Center for Security Policy.

CalCars is using the Toyota Prius as a high-visibility platform to demonstrate the fuel economy benefits of a grid-pluggable hybrid that offers an extended EV range. The California Cars Initiative is a group of entrepreneurs, technologists, environmentalists and other citizens working to spur the adoption of efficient, non-polluting automotive technologies.

Greg Hanssen and his colleagues at *EnergyCS, for example, replaced the Prius' existing 1.3-kilowatt-hour nickel metal hydride battery with an advanced 9-kWh lithium ion battery pack. They hope to offer a conversion kit to Prius owners. It carries a weight penalty of about 170 pounds.

In a project sponsored by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), several utilities, government agencies, DaimlerChrysler is building a fleet of up to 40 PHEV Sprinter delivery vans.

However, David Hermance, Toyota's executive engineer for environmental engineering, says, "We keep looking at the concept, and at some point it might be feasible, but it isn't there yet," says. Hybrids are estimated to cost $2,000 to $5,000 more than conventional cars to make, and the larger batteries for plug-ins would add several thousands dollars more.

Last December, (2004) the bipartisan US National Commission on Energy Policy included plug-ins as an element of its energy strategy. The ‘Set America Free’ coalition is meanwhile pushing for $2 billion in incentives, pointing out that "if all cars on the road are hybrids and half are plug-in hybrid vehicles, U.S. oil imports would drop by 8 million barrels per day." (Business Week)

Giving Hybrids A Real Jolt

The Benefits of Plug-In Hybrids

CalCars (Plug-in Prius) Founder Felix Kramer on Science Friday - Streaming information is available at http://sciencefriday.com/streaming.html and http://www.sciencefriday.com/audio/

Energy Efficiency and National Security

2005-04-18T06:34:00.000-07:00

"Some people like to fool themselves by thinking that a larger gas tank is the same as higher gas mileage. But when inevitable shortages occur because of world oil depletion and inadequate gasoline refining capacity, fuel prices will increase, everyone will be subjected to gas rationing, and a larger fuel tank will not help."

Energy efficiency is vital to the success of American Energy Independence. A nationwide improvement in energy efficiency will reduce the negative impact of energy price swings and energy shortages, and in so doing increase economic and national security.

The overall average MPG would be higher for a plug-in hybrid than for a hybrid that is dependent on fuel to re-charge the battery, because a percentage of the vehicle's mileage could be powered by electricity obtained from the grid, rather than only from the car's fuel tank. Plug-in hybrid cars could be the shortest path to freedom from Middle East oil.

If renewable energy is added to the grid and grid energy is used to charge the hybrid battery when it is plugged-in, then renewable energy would indirectly contribute to the highway fuel efficiency of the vehicle. In this way, wind, MOTO (motion-of-the-ocean), and solar energy could help reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

Unprecedented warnings from the scientific community indicate that the planet's ecosystems are stressed near the point of collapse; business as usual is no longer possible, and we have little time left to respond. Civilization is also approaching a nexus of social crises. All of these problems result from the nature of our existing economic system, and we cannot expect solutions from political leaders or corporations.

Which ever way you slice it the message remains clear that Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream is most probably inescapable at this late stage of the game. In the words of James Howard Kunstler, "We're literally stuck up a cul-de-sac in a cement SUV without a fill-up."

Since World War II North Americans have invested much of their newfound wealth in suburbia. It has promised a sense of space, affordability, family life and upward mobility. As the population of suburban sprawl has exploded in the past 50 years, so too has the suburban way of life become embedded in the American consciousness.

Suburbia, and all it promises, has become the American Dream.

But as we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge about the sustainability of this way of life. With brutal honesty and a touch of irony, The End of Suburbia explores the American Way of Life and its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era, as global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. World Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now, some scientists and policy makers argue in this documentary.

The consequences of inaction in the face of this global crisis are enormous. What does Oil Peak mean for North America? As energy prices skyrocket in the coming years, how will the populations of suburbia react to the collapse of their dream? Are today's suburbs destined to become the slums of tomorrow? And what can be done NOW, individually and collectively, to avoid The End of Suburbia?

from Energy Efficiency and National Security, Surviving Peak Oil and THE END OF SUBURBIA

What Can Be Done?

2005-04-13T08:54:00.000-07:00

Many of us were taught long ago that the Earth is God’s creation, and that we have a duty to care for it—to “till and tend the garden.” However, we are not good stewards of the garden if we allow it to be ravaged by the forces of climate change brought by the heedless pursuit of material things. Many of us have worked as conservationists to protect the living landscape of our country—the great American land. If climate change is not addressed with urgency, the consequences will be devastating for America’s natural areas. From the vast wilderness areas to the small community land trust lands, from the noble efforts of Theodore Roosevelt to today’s conservation efforts—our protected areas are now at risk. We are on the brink of the greatest tragedy in American conservation history—if we let it happen. We have not created protected areas across our great land for them to become experimental sites for monitoring the effects of climate change.

President George W. Bush and his administration have shown no interest in giving positive leadership on the climate change challenge. They have opposed the Kyoto Protocol and refused to work with the international community within the framework of the U.N. climate treaty. They have opposed the McCain-Lieberman climate bill as well as efforts to treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act and to strengthen vehicle mileage standards, and they have pursued a wrongheaded energy strategy while resisting international efforts to frame renewable energy goals.

We cannot know how much the positions of the Bush administration will change for the better or if they will change at all. We must hope for the best but plan for the worst. We therefore need a strategy that does not depend on the Bush administration cooperation and one that makes it increasingly difficult for the administration to persist in its opposition.

Changing U.S. energy and climate policies has proven extremely difficult in the face of powerful industry opposition. That is why a powerful popular movement for change is so essential. I am
reminded in this context of Teddy Roosevelt’s words:

“Here is your country—
Do not let anyone take it or its glory away from you
Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skim
Your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.
The world and the future and your very children shall
Judge you according as you deal with this sacred trust.”

President Theodore Roosevelt

Our Sacred Trust is to Care for Earth and Each Other

2005-04-13T08:30:00.000-07:00

The Long Emergency: World Energy Crisis

2005-04-11T07:23:00.000-07:00

What's going to happen as we start running out of cheap gas to guzzle?

It is no exaggeration to state that reliable supplies of cheap oil and natural gas underlie everything we identify as the necessities of modern life -- not to mention all of its comforts and luxuries: central heating, air conditioning, cars, airplanes, electric lights, inexpensive clothing, recorded music, movies, hip-replacement surgery, national defense -- you name it.

The few Americans who are even aware that there is a gathering global-energy predicament usually misunderstand the core of the argument. That argument states that we don't have to run out of oil to start having severe problems with industrial civilization and its dependent systems. We only have to slip over the all-time production peak and begin a slide down the arc of steady depletion.

"The Long Emergency is going to be a tremendous trauma for the human race. We will not believe that this is happening to us; that 200 years of modernity can be brought to its knees by a world-wide power shortage. The survivors will have to cultivate a religion of hope -- that is, a deep and comprehensive belief that humanity is worth carrying on. If there is any positive side to stark changes coming our way, it may be in the benefits of close communal relations, of having to really work intimately (and physically) with our neighbors, to be part of an enterprise that really matters and to be fully engaged in meaningful social enactments instead of being merely entertained to avoid boredom. Years from now, when we hear singing at all, we will hear ourselves, and we will sing with our whole hearts."

- - Adapted from The Long Emergency, 2005, by James Howard Kunstler

Related Links:
Nu Energy® News - Renewable Energy News for a Nu Age
PEAK OIL: A TURNING FOR MANKIND by Colin Campbell
Energy Independence - There has to be a day of reckoning. Many believe it is here already
Village Energy - Get Light Electric Vehicles from Village Energy

Supervolcano

2005-04-09T06:06:00.000-07:00

On April 10 th 2005 Discovery Channel will televise Supervolcano, a docudrama which exams what would happen if the volcano at the base of Yellowstone National Park suddenly erupted. And if the resulting super-volcanic eruption would be anything like the last one– which plunged the world into darkness for six years, tipped us into the last Ice Age and reduced the human population to just 2,000 people. To order this exciting new Discovery Channel program on DVD today, simply click on the DVD cover (above).

Corporate Fascism & the End of Nature

2005-03-25T06:26:00.000-08:00

Daily Kos: Robert Kennedy Jr Implies Bush a Fascist
Sun Jan 30th, 2005 at 00:58:51 PST

I went to a lecture by Robert Kennedy Jr. tonight. As he got started, I realized something. Perhaps is it not me who is moving to the mainstream - perhaps the mainstream is moving to me. I realized this as Robert Kennedy Jr. said the "F" word, the "M" word and the "H" word - all in the context of Bush, corporate power and American democracy.

Fascism. Mussolini. Hitler. Bush.

fas-cism - A philosophy or governmental system marked by stringent socioeconomic control, a strong central government usually headed by a dictator, and often a belligerently nationalistic policy. (Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary).

Kennedy did not say: Bush is a fascist. Instead he said (in sequence):

1. Fascists are corporate plunderers of the commons
2. Mussolini and Hitler were from the fringe radical right, and were irrelevant until corporations bolstered them
3. Bush is a corporate plunderer of the the commons

Read between the lines. The implication can't be mistaken. Kennedy called Bush a fascist, and the progressive Seattle audience clapped and roared approval. There were Congressmembers in the audience - it was a mainstream crowd that had paid money to hear Kennedy speak.

Kennedy sounded like a man speaking at a radical rally. He talked of the extreme, radical, anti-democratic corporate powers that are destroying our nation - in economic, political and spiritual terms.

This is what we call a backlash. Vice President Gore says "police state" in a speech. Robert Kennedy Jr. implies Bush is a fascist, and I and other radicals are calling ourselves Democrats. Times have changed - and this was impossible to miss tonight. I felt at home, listening to a fiery speech about the defense of the republic in a mainstream setting, with a mainstream speaker, amongst a mainstream audience. Sure, we were progressives - but the words were radical. And lately more and more of the "sold-out Liberals" that I have been at odds with as a radical have been making sense to me.

Here is something in Salon on Kennedy's talk of fascism in America (emphasis added):

This week Kennedy declares war on this new "enemy within" -- the term his father applied to the Mafia lords who were subverting American politics, business and labor -- with a passionate, sweeping indictment of the Bush-sanctioned rape of our environment in the latest issue of Rolling Stone. Kennedy lays out in legal-brief detail how, under Bush, the federal agencies supposed to be guarding our air, water and natural resources have been systematically turned over to the industry foxes that are ravaging them. But the tone of his lengthy essay is far from lawyerly. Kennedy's original subtitle was "Corporate Fascism and the End of Nature."

Another source on Kennedy calling Bush fascist (commondreams.org):

In the book, Kennedy implies that we live in a fascist country and that the Bush White House has learned key lessons from the Nazis.

"While communism is the control of business by government, fascism is the control of government by business," he writes. "My American Heritage Dictionary defines fascism as 'a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership together with belligerent nationalism.' Sound familiar?"

He quotes Hitler's propaganda chief Herman Goerring: "It is always simply a matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

Kennedy then adds: "The White House has clearly grasped the lesson."

Kennedy also quotes Benito Mussolini's insight that "fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."

"The biggest threat to American democracy is corporate power," Kennedy told us. "There is vogue in the White House to talk about the threat of big government. But since the beginning of our national history, our most visionary political leaders have warned the American public against the domination of government by corporate power. That warning is missing in the national debate right now. Because so much corporate money is going into politics, the Democratic Party itself has dropped the ball. They just quash discussion about the corrosive impact of excessive corporate power on American democracy."

Democracy is worth fighting for. It is a wonderful concept, and the American republic is worth keeping around for the next generations. I'm in - are you?

America's National Drug Problem

2005-03-18T05:53:00.000-08:00

In the swirl of statistics constantly spinning around us, here's one that caught the eye: The fifth leading cause of preventable disease and death in America is––Our over the counter medicines.

Specifically, adverse reactions to prescription drugs are responsible for 100,000 deaths a year. This is but one of the startling findings in an important and easy-to-use book called Worst Pills, Best Pills, just published by the Health Research Group of the consumer watchdog organization, Public Citizen. Pill by pill, this 900-page compilation profiles in plain English pluses and minuses of the medicines you or a loved one might be taking.

There has been a lot of publicity recently about Vioxx, a heavily-advertised widely-consumed arthritis drug that Merck & Co. had to pull off the market because it was found to increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes. The industry rushed out to say that Vioxx is a rare exception to an otherwise perfectly safe plethora of pills on the market.

Not. The Health Research Group finds that 53 top-selling prescribed drugs "should not be taken under any circumstances." It also lists 181 drugs under its "Do Not Use" category – ranging from antidepressants to toenail-fungus drugs – offering safer alternatives to each.

Besides the dangers of specific pills, the greater problem is that America has become massively overdosed. Thanks to pharmaceutical sales reps that hustle doctors to push their brands, and thanks to the surge of slick drug ads on TV, we have a national drug problem. Indeed, the book's researchers concludes that "the greatest epidemic of drug abuse in American society is among those patients who are the victims of misprescribing or overprescribing."

The good news is that each of us can do something about it. To find out more about Worst Pills, Best Pills, call 1-800-289-3787, or go to worstpills.org.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Worst Pills, Best Pills, January 2005.

Jim Hightower

Experts weigh super-volcano risks

2005-03-09T07:22:00.000-08:00

On August 27, 1883, the 'super-volcano' Krakatoa exploded and changed the world in a way that has never been repeated since in modern times. Experts say that another such event would have an equally colossal impact on a global scale.

A soon to be aired BBC TV Drama that was postponed from its originally scheduled showing in early January 2005, (because of the tsunami disaster), is entitled, Supervolcano. The authors emphasise that while catastrophic eruptions of this kind are rare in terms of a human lifetime, they are surprisingly common on a geological scale.

Geologists have called for a taskforce to be set up to consider emergency management in the event of a massive volcanic eruption, or super-eruption.

In the instance of Krakatoa's erupting in 1883, the devestation had huge local impact as an estimated 40,000 people died in the tsunami that followed. The global impact meant even greater consequences for the rest of the world's population as ash and debris circled the earth for at least 3 years after the event as sulphuric acid droplets formed in the atmosphere, blocking out sunlight, and causing global temperatures to plummet and crops to fail.

No wonder the authors want to highlight the issue now, which they feel is being ignored. They emphasise that while catastrophic eruptions of this kind are rare in terms of a human lifetime, they are surprisingly common on a geological scale.

The effects, say the authors, "could be sufficiently severe to threaten the fabric of civilisation" - putting events such as the Asian tsunami into the shade.

The fallout from a super-eruption could cause a "volcanic winter", devastating global agriculture and causing mass starvation.

Another past super-eruption struck at Toba in Sumatra and is thought by some to have driven the human race to the edge of extinction. Signs from DNA suggest human numbers could have dropped to about 10,000, probably as a result of the effects of climate change.

The volcanic winter resulting from a super-eruption could last several years or decades, depending on the scale of an eruption, and according to recent computer models, could cause cooling on a global scale of 5-10C.

"We don't want to be sensationalist about this, but it's going to happen," said Professor Stephen Self, a geologist at the Open University in Milton Keynes and a member of the working group that produced the report.

The report, released by The Geological Society in the UK, identifies at least 31 sites where super-eruptions have occurred in the past. They include Lake Taupo in New Zealand and the Phlegrean Fields near Naples, Italy.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Experts weigh super-volcano risks

RELATED INTERNET LINKS:
The Geological Society
Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO)
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
US Geological Survey

BIOWILLIE - Of All The Fuels I've Known Before

2005-03-05T06:22:00.000-08:00

Have you got "BioWillie" in your tank?

I'm talking about a clean-burning alternative fuel that Willie Nelson is helping to market through a new company called Willie Nelson Biodiesel. What is it? It's essentially vegetable oil, mainly soybean oil, though the used frying oil from Dunkin Donuts or Sid's Greasy Spoon also works.

ExxonMobil and the like don't want you knowing this, but if you take veggie oil and process it slightly to remove the glycerin (which, by the way, is what soap is made of) – you have a ready-to-go fuel for diesel engines. Whether you have a diesel pickup truck or a Mercedes, it'll run on this stripped down veggie oil without requiring any modification to the engine. Just tank up and go!

Willie has been tanking up his tour buses with it for some time. There's nothing new or complicated about the concept – French inventor Rudolf Diesel's original engines ran on vegetable oils.

So Nelson and partners are going back to the future, working with truck stops and convenience store chains to market the veggie-based fuel under the BioWillie brand. The fuel's average price is $1.79 a gallon, and while the major concentration of biodiesel pumps is in the Midwest, Nelson hopes to spread it from sea to shining sea.

Exxon tells us to put a tiger in our tanks, but BioWillie gives us a bigger bang for the buck. Not only do you get a fuel that is better for your engine at a competitive price, but biodiesel also is much better for the environment, it can be an economic boon for America's family farmers, and your exhaust fumes can smell like donuts! Oh, and Willie notes that there's one more big plus – we can put "farmers back on the land growing fuel and keep us from having to start wars for oil."

Rep. Denis Kucinich is preparing legislation to help develop of this new biodiesel industry for America. For information, call 202-225-5871.

Jim Hightower

"Willie Nelson Bets on Biodiesel," Wired, January 14, 2005, www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,66288,00.html.
"Willie Nelson puts name on clean-burning biodiesel," Austin American-Statesman, January 15, 2005.
"Now appearing on local stages: Willie Nelson and Austin Biofuels," Austin Chronicle, January 20, 2005.

Sweeping stun guns to target crowds

2005-03-04T05:04:00.000-08:00

New Scientist Breaking News - Sweeping stun guns to target crowds

Weapons that can incapacitate crowds of people by sweeping a lightning-like beam of electricity across them are being readied for sale to military and police forces in the US and Europe.

This is the sort of 'technical breakthrough' that has many people wondering how it will be used and for what reasons. Crowd control issues are of prime importance to police and law enforcement agencies, and especially in light of the worrying aspects relating to acute shortages of water and food and the resultant breakdown of law and order where large populations are located, i.e., cities and suburban areas. But as this article mentions, human rights groups are appalled by the fact that no independent safety tests have been carried out, and by their potential for indiscriminate use.

The weapons are designed to address the perceived shortcomings of the Taser, the electric-shock gun already used by 4000 police departments in the US and undergoing trials with some police forces in the UK.

It hits the victim with two darts that trail current-carrying wires, which limit its range to a maximum of seven metres. As a single shot, short-range weapon, the Taser is of little use in crowd control. And Tasers have no effect on vehicles.

Meanwhile, Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems (XADS), based in Anderson, Indiana, will be one of the first companies to market another type of wireless weapon capable of firing a stream of electricity like water out of a hose at one or many targets in a single sweep," claims XADS president Peter Bitar.

The gun has been designed for the US Marine Corps to use for crowd control and security purposes and is due out in 2005. It is based on early, unwieldy technology and has a range of only three metres, but an operator can debilitate multiple targets by sweeping it across them for "as long as there is an input power source," says Bitar.

Read On (not for the faint hearted)

Casino Nation

2005-03-03T08:35:00.000-08:00

Lyrics by Jackson Browne
Music by Jackson Browne, Kevin McCormick, Mark Goldenberg, Mauricio Lewak, Jeff Young

In a weapons producing nation under Jesus
In the fabled crucible of the free world
Camera crews search for clues amid the detritus
And entertainment shapes the land
The way the hammer shapes the hand

Gleaming faces in the checkout counter at the Church of Fame
The lucky winners cheer Casino Nation
All those not on TV only have themselves to blame
And don't quite seem to understand
The way the hammer shapes the hand

Out beyond the ethernet the spectrum spreads
DC to daylight, the cowboy mogul rides
Never worry where the gold for all this glory's gonna come from
Get along dogies, it's coming out of your hides

The intentional cultivation of a criminal class
The future lit by brightly burning bridges
Justice fully clothed to hide the heart of glass
That shatters in a thousand Ruby Ridges
And everywhere the good prepare for perpetual war
And let their weapons shape the plan
The way the hammer shapes the hand

Lyrics from the album THE NAKED RIDE HOME

(Swallow Turn Music, ASCAP; Eye Cue Music, ASCAP; Bossypants Music/Songs of Windswept Pacific, BMI; Bateria Music, ASCAP; Glad Brad Music, Inc., ASCAP)

Kama Sutra - What's Your Position on the Matter?

2005-03-02T07:11:00.000-08:00

Thought for the day: "You might need to study the 'Kama Sutra' in order to find out your position on the matter."

Imagine: 500 Miles Per Gallon

2005-03-02T06:55:00.000-08:00

MSNBC - Imagine: 500 Miles Per Gallon - The current crop of hybrid cars get around 50 miles per gallon. Make it a plug-in and you can get 75 miles. Replace the conventional fuel tank with a flexible-fuel tank that can run on a combination of 15 percent petroleum and 85 percent ethanol or methanol, and you get between 400 and 500 miles per gallon of gasoline. (You don't get 500 miles per gallon of fuel, but the crucial task is to lessen the use of petroleum. And ethanol and methanol are much cheaper than gasoline, so fuel costs would drop dramatically.)

There are transition costs—gas stations will need to be fitted to pump methanol and ethanol (at a cost of $20,000 to $60,000 per station). New technologies will empower new industries, few of which have lobbies in Washington.

Nevertheless, every option that would take us away from dependency on oil and petroleum, (and the nightmare of global warming), should be pursued with purpose and determination. With global warming threatening to continue unabated unless something is done now, driving a fuel efficient car like a hybrid is something that everybody can do to help protect our planet.

A plug-in hybrid would be an even better option: More than half of the electricity generating capacity of the U.S. Power Grid is idle at night, so it makes perfect sense that owners of plug-in hybrids would take advantage of this situation while energy is less in demand and less costly.

"We need to cure our addiction to oil," says AFS Trinity CEO Edward W. Furia, former director of the U.S. EPA’s Middle Atlantic office. "Our current 20 mpg national average vehicle fuel efficiency is embarrassing. While 50 miles per gallon in cars like the Toyota Prius is great for today, to address our transportation energy needs in the near future our national average fuel economy should be more than 200 miles per gallon."

"With most global oil supplies centered in an unstable Middle East, demand rising with the expansion of China and India, and some experts predicting oil prices of $150 a barrel and $5-plus per gallon gasoline in five years, Furia believes that technologies such as the Extreme Hybrid(tm) are a matter of national security. This technology could dramatically change the geopolitical landscape within a decade," he said.

Source: EV World - AFS Trinity Unveils 'Extreme Hybrid' Flywheel Technology

The Price Is Wrong

2005-02-28T23:28:00.000-08:00

The Price Is Wrong

$50 a barrel can't wean the world from oil.

Is the internal-combustion engine dead? Listening to all the voices calling hybrid vehicles the future of transportation, you might think so. Alternative energy is back in style among the chattering classes. But oil prices would have to go a lot higher to make so-called renewables--such as solar and wind energy--commercially viable. That means their future won't be decided by consumer tastes or market conditions, but by government policy.

Austin Leads Charge for Plug-in Hybrids

Bush Lacks Energy on Energy - February 2006 - See what's happening one year on ... the price is still wrong!