Offshore Drilling: Things can only get better!

Money for Nothing, Drugs and Sex for Free!

Kittlitz’s Murrelet, (Brachyramphus brevirostris)

Keywords: A Culture of Ethical Failure, GW Bush and Co., Sarah Palin, Lucy Denett, Exxon, BP, Alaska, Arctic National [yours and ours] Wildlife Refuge, Polar Bear, Global Warming, Kenai Fjords National Park, Shooting Wolves From the Air, Endangered Species [Don’t be silly how could you possibly be a threat to the powerful polar bear?] U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Drill Baby Drill, Lipstick on Pig, Endangered Species Act, Kittlitz’s Murrelet [a critically endangered marine bird found in the waters off Alaska and Eastern Siberia, see photo,] Seward, Shrinking Glaciers , Melting Sea Ice, Biodiversity, Collapsing Ecosystems,  Climate Change, Sex, Cocaine, Graft, U.S. Interior Department, Minerals Management Service, Money for Nothing and Sex for Free, Taxpayer-Owned Coastal Waters!

Now to the Story …

Sex, drug use and graft alleged in U.S. Interior Department

By Charlie Savage
Published: September 11, 2008

WASHINGTON – (IHT) As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal – including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.

In three reports delivered to Congress on Wednesday, the department’s inspector general, Earl Devaney, found wrongdoing by a dozen current and former employees of the Minerals Management Service, which collects about $10 billion in royalties annually and is one of the government’s largest sources of revenue other than taxes.

“A culture of ethical failure” pervades the agency, Devaney wrote in a cover memo.

The reports portray a dysfunctional organization riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration’s watch.

The highest-ranking official criticized in the reports is Lucy Denett, the former associate director of minerals revenue management, who retired earlier this year as the inquiry was progressing. Read full story …

“When confronted by our investigators, none of the employees involved displayed remorse,” Devaney said.

Related Links:

• Arctic ice cover second-lowest on record
• 3 million acres of spruce killed in Alaska in 15 years
• Hilarious Polar Bear News!
• The Billionaires’ contribution to CO2 pollution

• How Much Carbon Dioxide Does Your Money Make?
• Look me straight in the eye & tell me you can’t …
• Arctic ice cover second-lowest on record
• The real games are in Alaska

• Death by Lethal Pollution
• Bering Sea Drilling Revisited!
• Arctic Marine Mammals on Thin Ice
• Our Oceans Are Dying

• How McCain the “war criminal” turned Psywar Stooge Against American Servicemen
• Must Israeli Politicians Bewail at Pearl Harbor Memorial to Become PM or President?

• A Haiku for Earth
• Critically Endangered Species: Arctic Sea Ice

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Shifting Focus from the CO2 Plague

written by a reader

Ever wondered how distorted a racist report on the environment could get? Would it come from a neocon academic or a politician?

Wonder no more!

Asian short-lived pollutants from Asian power plants, Asian cooking and Asian heating [Thai Massage?] could create summer hot spots in the central United States and southern Europe, the neocon “scientists” said.

Unlike the long-lived greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, the particle and gas pollution cited in this report only stays in the air for a few days or weeks but its warming effect on the climate half a world away could last for decades, the scientists said.

“We found that these short-lived pollutants have a greater influence on the Earth’s climate throughout the 21st century than previously thought,” said Hiram “Chip” Levy of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Err… that’s a very interesting find. How did you think of that?

“By 2050, two of the three climate models we use found that changes in short-lived pollutants will contribute 20 percent of the predicted global warming.”

Asian soot and Asian sulfate pollution would result in hotter, drier summers in the American Midwest and the Mediterranean section of southern Europe region, but the effects would [miraculously] spare Asia, Levy said.

That’s a very “interesting” [laughable] load of nonsense, Mr Levy. What you are essentially saying is that the consequences of Asian economic activity is like an environmental weapon, conspiratorially pointed at “us” alone.

Mr Levy’s report is of course a distorted political statement, not environment science, the purpose of which is to shift focus from the CO2 “plague,” and to put the onus of global air pollution on Asia [read China.] And in case you are also wondering as to who would encourage such politically-motivated utter nonsense disguised as science, wonder no more. It is Uncle Sam, of course, who else?

Related Links:

• Announcements from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program
• Exxon Mobil Lets Scientists Tell Its Story

It’s All About Big Oil, Stupid!

Palin using Alaska’s burgeoning population (!) as a pathetic excuse to destroy polar bears?

Our colleagues at FEWW reported earlier that “the state of Alaska [Gov. Palin] is suing the federal government because she says listing polar bears as a threatened species is hurting Alaskan oil and gas exploration and development …”

Republican vice-presidential candidate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin shakes hands as she campaigns in O'Fallon, Missouri, August 31, 2008. REUTERS/John Gress. Image may be subject to copyright.

Palin, a mother of five, said on Monday that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is pregnant in an announcement intended to rebut rumors that Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her child.

Evidently, she neither believes in family planning, nor cares about the terrible affects of unwanted teen pregnancy on her child. And sex education was out of the question, too!

Why would she give a damn about the environment?

On the wisdom of Sen. McCain choosing Gov. Palin as his running mate thinkprogress said: “Palin is a champion for drilling, the Bush-Cheney approach to energy policy that brought us $4.00-per-gallon gasoline and the rising threat of global warming.”

“Like McCain, Palin believes that oil drilling is the only solution to our energy problems. ‘I beg to disagree with any candidate who would say we can’t drill our way out of our problem,’ she says. She supports more drilling in protected areas of the Outer Continental Shelf and the Alaska Natural Wildlife Refuge, once attacking McCain for his ‘close-mindedness on ANWR.’”

Polar What?

AS Arctic sea ice continues to shrink, currently to its second-lowest level ever, with particular melting in the Chukchi Sea,  polar bears have to swim far off the Alaskan coast in search of suitable platforms to hunt food.

Nine polar bears were seen swimming in open water over a six-hour period on August 16, government scientists said, including one more than 50 miles offshore, World Wildlife Fund officials reported.

“That represents a huge increase over previous sightings, said Margaret Williams of the fund’s Alaska office. A total of 12 polar bears were spotted in open water between 1987 and 2003, Williams said.”

Dutiful mothers, female polar bears usually give birth to twin cubs, which stay with her for more than two years until they can hunt and survive on their own. Photograph by Norbert Rosing. (Source: National geographic). Image may be subject to copyright.

IS THIS RELATIONSHIP ANY LESS IMPORTANT THAN THE ONE BELOW?

Bristol Palin , the 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, is seen holding her brother Trig at a campaign event in Dayton, Ohio, August 29, 2008. REUTERS/John Gress. Image may be subject to copyright.

To the big oil, she is, like Condoleezza Rice, a godsend. She is an angel [sic] in disguise. Ok! Palin is nowhere near as ‘smart’ as Condi, but she would reach the voters Condi couldn’t possibly reach because Palin’s white, “attractive,’ has five children and is soon to be a grandma.

Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope said: “No one is closer to the oil industry than Gov. Palin. Along with her support for drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge and off our coasts, she also opposes a windfall profit tax on the richest oil companies. Under her leadership, Alaska has sued the federal government for considering listing the Polar Bear as a threatened species even though global warming threatens its very existence.”

The impact of global warming in Alaska is one of the worst on the planet. “Alaska has experienced an average warming of 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 °F) and about 4.5 °C (8°F) in the inner regions in winter months since the 1960s, the largest regional warming of anywhere in the U.S., according to records.”

The Alaskan landscape is covered with dead spruce trees after a major outbreak of spruce bark bettles in the arctic region in this file image. REUTERS/handout

“In Alaska, 35 percent forest, global warming is causing irreversible changes including droughts, forest fires, and infestations of tree-killing insects like spruce beetles and spruce budworm moths. In the last 15 years, the spruce beetles, which thrive in warmer climates, have destroyed a total of about 3 million acres (1.21 million hectares) of spruce forest in south-central Alaska.”

“The warmer temperature means Alaska’s peat bogs, which are nearly 14,000 years old, are drying up. Ed Berg, an ecologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has discovered that shrubs and other plants have been rooting in areas of peat big normally too soggy for woody plants to grow during the last three decades.”

Palin, however, doesn’t believe in sustainability or alternative energy. She said, “alternative-energy solutions are far from imminent and would require more than 10 years [sic] to develop” [The Post and Courier Charleston, SC, 8/16/08.] Never mind the fact that the Department of Energy has clearly stated that offshore drilling “would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030.”

It’s All About Big Oil [and Big Money, too,] Stupid!

“When I look every day, the big oil company’s building is right out there next to me, and it’s quite a reminder that we should have mutually beneficial relationships with the oil industry.” (Roll Call, 8/25/08)

In A Letter About Sarah Palin from Anne Kilkenny, quoting Anne Kilkenny, a resident of Wasilla, Alaska, where Palin was a mayor from 1996 to 2002, Mudflats wrote: “She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it
with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.”

A big spender, Palin must have already entered Wall Street International Banking Syndicate’s “Top Ten Most ‘Friendly’ US Governors’ Chart.”  In June 2007,  Palin signed into law the largest operating budget in Alaska’s history, more than $6.6 billion. (Source.)

“There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.” Said Anne Kilkenny, a homemaker.

Way to Go Gov!

Related Links:

• Arctic ice cover second-lowest on record
• 3 million acres of spruce killed in Alaska in 15 years
• Hilarious Polar Bear News!
• The Billionaires’ contribution to CO2 pollution

• How Much Carbon Dioxide Does Your Money Make?
• Look me straight in the eye & tell me you can’t …
• Arctic ice cover second-lowest on record
• The real games are in Alaska

• Death by Lethal Pollution
• Bering Sea Drilling Revisited!
• Arctic Marine Mammals on Thin Ice
• Our Oceans Are Dying

• How McCain the “war criminal” turned Psywar Stooge Against American Servicemen
• Must Israeli Politicians Bewail at Pearl Harbor Memorial to Become PM or President?

• Why You Should Be Afraid of Sarah Palin [& Co.,] VERY, VERY AFRAID!

A Day in South Ossetia

‘I’ve never heard anything so monstrous as people shelling a hospital’

Tom Parfitt travelled to Tskhinvali, in a trip organized by the Kremlin, to witness first hand the destruction caused by the battle for South Ossetia.

Ossetians stay in a basement of a destroyed hospital in Tskhinvali. Photograph: Mikhail Metzel/AP. Image may be subject to copyright

At a crossroads in the north of the city there was evidence of a fierce fire fight. … The heavy turret of one tank had been tossed across the street, falling through a shop front. Nearby on the ground lay a human foot. …

At the crossroads, Izolda Deppiyeva, 50, looked out on the scene of ruined ground floor apartment in a block riddled by gunfire. … “There was a great wave of pressure which twisted me and flung me against the kitchen wall.”

A former theater stage actress, Deppiyeva said she had lived for four days in a cellar with her relatives without food and water. … “I could not leave,” she said. “This land is my body, my home. We are a proud beautiful people and we are not leaving. I survived, I am alive!” …

Tina Zakharova, one of the doctors, pointed out chunks of shrapnel which had hit the building. “This is the humanitarian aid that Georgia sent us,” she said, “and that,” she said, pointing at a field hospital nearby, “is the help we received from Russia. Which do you think we should chose?” She added: “I’ve never heard anything so monstrous as people shelling a hospital.”

Colonel Konashenko said: “The Georgians could not get tanks through these narrow streets. So first they turned it to ruins with a Grad attack and tried to punch through here to the center of the city. There was heavy fighting in the streets. I think more than 500 bodies were pulled out of this part of town.”

Asked if there had been atrocities against civilians the Colonel replied: “I personally saw one man beheaded lying in the street and others say they witnessed civilians who had been finished off with a shot to the back of the head.” Read the full story here.

Copyright the author or the  newspaper/agency.

(For more images see source. WARNING! mature audience only!)

For other images click here.

Related Links:

• END NATO NOW!
• Portrait of a minor fascist
• Georgian war leaves 1492 Ossetians dead – local authorities
• 37,000 South Ossetian refugees flee to Russia
• Children made innocent victims of cruel war

The things EPA capo won’t do!

EPA management under Stephen Johnson: An organized crime operation!

As ethanol production drove up the price of corn this year, Texas Governor Rick Perry asked the Environmental Protection Agency in April to cut the ethanol mandate by 50 percent because the price rises were making it too expensive for farmers to feed livestock.

EPA ruled on Thursday that there was no evidence that the ethanol mandate would “severely harm” the U.S. economy by driving up food prices, thus rejecting the claim by Texas.

“This research found that the RFS mandate is not causing severe economic harm,” EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said and that the mandate was “strengthening our nation’s energy security and supporting Americas’ farming communities.”

The Renewable Fuel Standard, RFS, requires 9 billion gallons (~34.1 billion liters) in renewable fuels to be blended into the US gasoline supply in 2008, and 11.1 billion gallons (~42 billion liters) in 2009.

It is believed that about 34% of U.S. corn crop in 2008 would be used to produce ethanol.

Parry called EPA’s decision “a mistake that will only increase the already-heavy financial burden on families while doing even more harm to the livestock industry.”

In July 2008, Johnson said the EPA would not regulate greenhouse gas emissions. He said: “If the nation is serious about regulating greenhouse gases the Clean Air Act is the wrong tool for the job and it’s really at the feet of Congress to come up with good legislation that cuts through what will likely be decades of regulation and litigation.”

The states of Massachusetts, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in April for failing to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new cars and trucks. The lawsuit came one year after the Supreme Court ruled that the agency had the power to do so.

After calls by Sen. Barbara Boxer and three other senators for him to step down, Stephen Johnson said he wouldn’t resign.

They 4 senators have also asked the U.S. attorney general to investigate whether Johnson had made false or misleading statements in sworn testimony before Boxer’s environment committee. Reuters reported.

Boxer said Johnson’s decisions on global warming lead, mercury and drinking water standards, were “harmful to the American people.”

What’s the point of spending billions of taxpayer money on science, education, NASA, NOAA, NCAOR … ocean and atmospheric research, when all it takes is a one person veto by the EPA capo [or indeed capo dei capi himself] to nix everything?

Related Links:

• 18 States Sue EPA Over GHG Pollution
• EPA Plays Piggy In the Middle

• The White House of Horror!!
• Disgrace, Disgrace, You’re Such an Ugly Disgrace …
• EPA official resigns citing Dow Chemical

• 60 Percent of EPA Staff Have ‘Personally Experienced’ ‘Political Interference
  
• Washington waste site: Recent reports confirm that the EPA needs a major cleanup
• EPA official no match for Dow

::

Antienvironmental, Antisocial, Anti American!

President [sic] George W. Bush lifts a Presidential ban on offshore drilling in a symbolic move.

“Today, I’ve taken every step within my power to allow offshore exploration,” Bush told reporters. “This means the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action from the U.S. Congress.”

President George W. Bush speaks on offshore oil drilling, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, July 14, 2008. REUTERS/Larry Downing. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

“Now the ball is squarely in Congress’ court … The time for action is now.” Bush said after signing a memorandum reversing a presidential ban previously instituted by his father [ Bush 41] when he was a President about 20 years ago.

If both the presidential and congressional bans were lifted, it would then be up to individual states to permit drilling off their shores, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. Florida’s Gov. Charlie Crist has expressed support for drilling while California’s Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reiterated his opposition. Reuters reported.

“Calls for more drilling will only increase the already record profits of big oil and will do little to reduce the costs of gas at the pump,” said Larry Schweiger president and chief executive officer of the National Wildlife Federation.

The presidential offshore drilling ban, instituted by Bush 41 in 1990 as per request of the big oil, and extended by President Bill Clinton, would have  expired in June 2012. Offshore drilling is allowed in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coasts of Alabama,  Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, but not Florida.

“The president cruelly is misleading Americans for attempted political gain,” said Florida’s Sen. Bill Nelson. “He knows ruining our coastlines won’t bring down gasoline prices nor solve our energy challenges.”

Related Links:

• Arnie Knows the Score!
• CO2 Emissions Must Be Criminalized!

• The White House of Horror!!
• EPA Plays Piggy In the Middle
• The right to disturb wildlife!!

• Bering Sea Drilling Revisited!
• GHG

• World Oceans in Extreme Danger

Nature Must Be Punished, Look at the Mess in California!

submitted by a CASF Member

Nature must not be allowed to do what she does best: Care for life!

Humanoids’ ignorance of Nature’s defense mechanisms hasn’t improved in 12,000 years! Take California’s wildfires, for example. Tackling the wildfires has become strictly a Freudian affair. Freud said:

“Against the dreaded external world one can only defend oneself by some kind of turning away from it, if one intends to solve the task by oneself. There is, indeed, another and a better path: that of becoming a member of human community, and, with the help of a technique guided by science, going over to attack against nature and subjecting her to human will.”

Way to go Sigmund!

Sigmund Freud, 1938

Nature is viewed as a malignant force to overcome. Humanoids fight nature trying their damnedest to prevent her from doing what she does best: Sustaining life!

Wildfires are an indispensable tool in Nature’s cycle-of-life toolbox. But, they have decided that the fires must not be allowed to burn naturally.

How dare she? Line up the crews. If 2 thousand firefighters aren’t enough, then get 5, 10, 20,000, if necessary! If you need even more, import them from half way across the world. Mobilize the National Guard!

Nature’s cycles of life have been ruining our lifestyles. No wonder the Government declared war on “evil” wildfires, a century ago!

If you couldn’t build your log cabin in the forest, on the riverbank, or on the beach, where you want to live, what good is Nature to you? Who needs nature, if she misbehaves?

If nature can’t provide you with enough rainwater when you need to put the fires out, or cleanse the air so that the smug doesn’t choke your kids, why should you let her go on?

Why hasn’t she provided you with enough carbon sinks to remove the greenhouse gases from the atmosphere to prevent you from boiling? What good is she?

Come to think of it, why is this stinking planet so small? Why didn’t nature create a planet 10, 20, 30 even a 100 times bigger, and cleaner?

Nature has failed to provide you with the “perfect” planet. She is hampering your progress. She must be punished. And if that doesn’t work, she must not be allowed to go on. If she continues like this, you don’t need her.

No Good For Living!

You build a dream log home in the woods; invest considerable time and money selecting the right refrigerator-freezer, freezer, microwave oven, coffeemaker, juice extractor/blender, bread maker, toaster, dishwasher, clothes washer, clothes dryer, state-of-the-art lighting, 50″ digital TV, set top box, DVD, VCR, projector, dehumidifier, ceiling fans, heating system, cooling system, bleeding-edge sound-surround stereo system, bathroom TV, whirlpool/Spa, floodlights, pool pump, water filters, waterbed heater, hair dryer, floor heater, dehumidifier, humidifier, ionizer, air filter, furnace, cooler … it takes months and months of planning, spending, traveling. Imagine life without the SUV! And then comes the evacuation order… the next day it’s all over. Mother nature has consumed everything. You finally decide this nature just isn’t conducive to lifestyle. This planet isn’t good for living!

Freudian Assault Against Nature Syndrome

Having reached the peak of Freudian Assault Against Nature Syndrome, there are only two courses of action available to humanoids:

(i) Look for a new planet, one that is a lot bigger and much cleaner than this “sh*tpit.”

(ii) Create a new, more disciplined nature, one that doesn’t bitch with you and knows how to work effectively, cleaning up the piles you leave behind.

When you’re through with Sci-Fi, then sober up to this fact: “In the humanoids’ declared war against nature, whichever side ‘wins,’ we will [all] be the losers!”

Related Links:

• California Inferno Rages On
• The problem is they don’t understand the fires in California!

• Images of the Day: California Fires
• Lightning Safety Awareness Week: June 22-28

• A Few Extreme Events Away

• 2008: Year of the Fire
• Raging Wildfires: Mother Nature ensuring the cycle of life?

• Nature’s Defense Mechanisms

• Killed by Homo Economicus
• Domination by Disinformation
• Is a Future Possible?

It’s 4th of July, once again!

submitted by a reader

It’s the Independence Day again and what have we done?

Just exactly what have we done in the past 12 months, since the last 4th of July celebration, to strengthen our “independence?”

Thanks (!) to our government’s three branches: the legislature, executive, and judiciary we have a country which is less stable, less healthy, more tyrannical and worse off than even the last 4th of July.

Since the last Independence Day we have made our great country far less safe ecologically, socially and economically.

So let’s start congratulating [sic] everyone all around. A heartfelt thanks [sic] to you:

Mr. President [sic], Vice President and the rest of Cabal.

Senators and Representative.

Each and every n-starred General, mid and low-ranking officers and all other military personnel, wherever you may be.

Judges, lawyers, police officers…

Experts, scientists, teachers…

And last, but by no means least, to all of you ordinary people for making it easy for the above mentioned to remove the last remaining vestiges of freedom, sanity and subsistence out of our great [sic] nation!

God [sic] Bless AMERICA, and god bless YOU!

Image of the Day: Blind scientists examining the elephant

The Exponential Growth Economy’s White Elephant!

“Blind monks examining an elephant” by Itcho Hanabusa (1652–1724). Each blind monk can only “see” the part of the elephant he has examined.

Blind “Experts”

Blind Expert #1. It’s the oil addiction!

Blind Expert #2. Nay, nay; it’s the coal-fired power plants.

Blind Expert #3. Nay, nay; the SUVs.

Blind Expert #4. Nay, nay! It must be the sprawling suburbia.

Blind Expert #5. Nay, nay! It’s …

Blind Expert #6. We NEED more trees to protect the economy.

…

Blind experts Nos. 1 – 8 urged the next U.S. president to “protect the country” not by way of changing the predatory exponential growth economy, but instead by means of “funding for research and forecasting” to dodge the climate change.

Related Links:

• Blind scientists examining the economic elephant
• World Problems:The Root Cause Matrix
• First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities

• How to Ensure National Security AND Create a Healthy Economy!
• The 13 things you should know about the world before you depart prematurely!
• Gore the revolutionary; Gore the exclusionary

I’m a War President, Not a Weatherman!

The Best Caption Competition Winners:

– There’s no war here.

– Don’t trouble me with national emergencies, I have a war to fight.

– Our troops need all the money we can send them to fight the enemy over there.

– Don’t be sissies! This is nothing like the 1993 deluge.

President George W. Bush talks to the media after viewing receding floodwaters on Normandy Drive in Iowa City, Iowa, USA, on 19 June 2008. EPA/MATTHEW HOLST / POOL. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

Midwest Flood Victims Feel Misled by Feds

“They all told us, `The levees are good. You can go ahead and build,”‘ said Parks, who did not buy flood coverage because her bank no longer required it. “We had so much confidence in those levees.”

“People put all their hopes in those levees, and when they do fail, the damage is catastrophic,” said Paul Osman, the National Flood Insurance Program coordinator for Illinois. “New Orleans is the epitome; a lot of those people didn’t even realize they were in a floodplain until the water was up to their roofs.”

This used to be a road, and we parked our trucks right there!

Volunteers sandbag a building submerged in Burlington, Iowa June 15, 2008. Officials moved paintings, books and documents out of harm’s way on Sunday as record flooding in parts of the U.S. Midwest partly submerged the University of Iowa campus in Iowa City. REUTERS/Eric Thayer (UNITED STATES). Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

Who Cares?

“We reported to the president in ’94 that the levee system was in disarray, the levees were not high enough to take care of any potential problem. People didn’t understand their flood risk and there wasn’t good co-ordination across federal, state and local governments,” said Gerald Galloway, a professor of engineering and flood control expert.

“The same thing applies today,” Galloway said. “It’s amazing that in the face of [Hurricane] Katrina and now this particular challenge that we continue to relearn the same lessons.”

Galloway’s recommendations to improve the levee system were basically ignored. He said that he’s experiencing much the same response now from officials as in 1993.

Related Links:

• Floods
• China “Frankenstein”
• Midwest Flood Victims Feel Misled by Feds
• More levees at risk from surging Mississippi as Bush tours flood areas

• Drought (Index Page)
• In Spain, Water Is a New Battleground
• California ‘Mojavefied’ by 2011?
  

• First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities

.

Early “Dividends” of Climate Change

Could Food and Fuel Riots Break Out Across the U.S.?

Iowa Survives, But only Just!

Climate fury stays execution of Iowa—for now, any way. The worst flooding in the Midwest, at least in the last 15 years, is receding.

A home is flooded along the Mississippi River near Gladstone, Illinois June 16, 2008. Flooding in the U.S. Midwest is taking a toll on freight carriers, costing barge lines about $1 million per day and likely disrupting railroads for months to come, said traders and industry executives on Monday. REUTERS/Eric Thayer. Image may be subject to copyright. See PRO fair Use Notice!

The early dividends are as follows:

• The price of corn at the Chicago Board of Trade rocketed past $8 a bushel [a bushel of corn or maize weighs about 25.4kg; wheat and soybean, about 27.22kg.]
• About 3.3 million acres of cropland was deluged [2 million acres of soybeans, and 1.3 million acres of corn.]
• An estimated 2 million acres wasn’t planted.
• About 21 percent of Iowa’s 25million acres of cropland were flooded.
• At least twenty-six people have died since May 25 as a result of the storms or tornadoes in the Midwest.
• Up to 40,000 Iowans in 11 counties, declared federal disaster area, including 30,000 in Cedar Rapids were evacuated.
• About 200,000 gallons of drinking water were distributed.
• Nearly 5 million sandbags were used.
• Mississippi River, the main shipping artery to the export terminals in the Gulf of Mexico is closed due to high water levels caused by heavy rains throughout last week.
• The President [sic] is spending a day in Iowa

The Iowa flooding will have a significant impact on the global food prices because the United States exports 54 percent of the world’s corn, 36 percent of soybeans and 23 percent of wheat.

“Estimates show 3 million acres of corn under water and probably 2 million didn’t get planted. So that gets you up to 5 million or over 700 million bushels, and that takes out the entire carry-out [stocks carried over to the next crop,]” said Glenn Hollander, a grain merchant on the CBOT trading floor.

NO estimates are yet available concerning the permanent damage done to the soil.

Special Feature Short Story:

Environmental Disasters: Too Close for Comfort?

Related News Links:

• Soy up, leads corn and wheat recovery
• Midwest flooding spurs record corn prices
• Union Pacific enacts force majeure amid floods

Background Information:

• Could Food and Fuel Riots Break Out Across the U.S.?

• We Need Food!
• Fueling Food Shortages
• Buffett the Poor

• Emerging Food Crisis
• Food Riots Grip Egypt, Haiti, El Salvador
• World Poverty Index
• Japan: The land of rising . . . err . . . Prices!

• High food prices seen leading to strikes, protests in Asia
• Now, the world’s problem is food: Here come shortages, rising prices and riots
• Corn for Food, NOT for Fuel
• Riots across Egypt amid rising food prices

• Is a Future Possible?
• Topsoil
• 500 Weather-Related Disasters A Year
• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities

• Bangladesh police clash with garment workers
• Kenya police disperse food protesters
• Soaring living costs cloud U.N. climate talks
• Deep climate cuts urged; food price a wake-up call
• USDA head downplays calls to cut biofuel mandate

• Food: Worse times ahead
• Food (Index Page)
• But Will It Prevent Food Riots in the US?
• Biofuels

Fuel and Food Strikes Flare in South Korea

Fuel and Food Strikes Spreads to South Korea

About 18,000 operators of construction machinery went on strike in South Korea on Monday demanding cheaper fuel and higher pay, joining thousands of truckers who began their strike last week.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. Lee may be forced to resign in the coming weeks.

The strikers are also angry over the policies of the new President Lee Myung-bak, who came to office amid a landslide victory in December, but has since become increasingly unpopular because of a decision to resume imports of U.S. beef.

Protesters chant slogans at a candlelight vigil on a street leading to the U.S. embassy and the presidential Blue House in central Seoul June 10, 2008. REUTERS/Lee Jae-Won. Image may be subject to copyright. See PRO Fair Use Notice!

There have been waves of street protest in the recent weeks demanding the government to repeal of the U.S. beef deal. The South Koreans are concerned about the threats of mad cow disease associated with the US beef.

Adding to the pressure, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions is expected to call on its 600,000 members to stage a walkout against Lee’s privatization and pension reform plans, Reuters reported.

The strikes have so far cost Korea $3.5 billion, the commerce ministry said.

Related News Links:

• South Korea warns of crisis as truckers strike – 16 June 2008
• U.S. meets South Korean minister on beef dispute – 13 Jun 2008
• South Korea truckers’ strike adds to Lee’s woes – 13 Jun 2008
• Mass protests in South Korea, cabinet offers to quit – 10 Jun 2008
• Bush, S.Korea’s Lee talk about beef deal – 07 Jun 2008

• Two dead in Europe fuel protests (Video report)
• Strikers and breakers clash in Spain (Video report)

Related Links:

• More Fuel Strikes Flare Across Europe
• Fuel Protests Flare in Europe

• Pinheads in the House: Fanning Oil Chaos
• Stop the Oil Speculators

• Could Food and Fuel Riots Break Out Across the U.S.?

Could Food and Fuel Riots Break Out Across the U.S.?

Update: More Fuel Strikes Flare Across Europe

Europe Fuel Protests Turn Deadly

Two truck drivers were killed in fuel protests in Spain and Portugal, while a third driver received serious burn in a suspected arson attack.

The imapct of haulers’ strike is now being felt throughout the Spanish and Portuguese economies.

In Spain the country’s 18 car factories are running out of parts and fuel. The car industry accounts for about 5 percent of Spain’s GDP.

As the blockade continues in the European nations, consumers rush to stockpile food and fuel causing severe shortages in some areas.

Related Links:

• Two dead in Europe fuel protests (Video report)
• Strikers and breakers clash in Spain (Video report)

• More Fuel Strikes Flare Across Europe
• Fuel Protests Flare in Europe

• Pinheads in the House: Fanning Oil Chaos
• Stop the Oil Speculators

msrb

If you thought your assets were safe, think again!

One Day Soon, A Tiny Wall Street Black Hole Will Suck In the Rest of Your Assets!

Original Entry: Black Holes Suck!

The Goal of the Cabal is to Strip YOU of Everything You’ve Got. Then Your Hearts and Minds Will Follow!

UNEP: A Weapom of Mass Deception?

UNEP Clumsy Scaremongering Diminishes the Seriousness of Environmental Threats

Original Entry: UNEP Issues Some CO2 Reduction Snakeoil!

President Carter: Israel has at least 150 atomic weapons

What a Wonderful World!

So Reassuring to Know the World Won’t End with a Whimper

Former US President Jimmy Carter speaking at the 2008 Hay Festival. Photograph: Barry Batchelor/PA. [Image may be subject to copyright. See MSRB Fair Use Notice!]

President Carter:

“The U.S. has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union (Russia) has about the same, Great Britain and France have several hundred, and Israel has 150 or more. We have a phalanx of enormous weaponry … not only of enormous weaponry but of rockets to deliver those missiles on a pinpoint accuracy target.” (Source)

What are those precious human qualities that President Carter has, but have eluded most presidents before him and certainly all Oval Office occupants after him?

Related Links:

• What A Wonderful World [Video]
• Warren Buffett: “If the world were falling apart I’d still invest in companies”
• Nuking Earth for Lifestyle

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In Petroleum We Trust!

The New Oil-Rule Economy will replace the “old” economy in the very near future. A single company/organization will have a monopoly on about 80 percent of “economically recoverable” global oil reserves. It will dictate “production,” pricing, and delivery (and will even decide on the end user – who may or may not buy the oil). How much is too much for a barrel of oil, $40, $240, or $4,000? Soon, the current monetary system will be of no value. — S.H. Saloor, The Management School of Restorative Business, May 2004.

Crude oil reaches another record high at $124.61 a barrel

The price of a barrel of crude oil reached another record high in London and New York last night with US light crude at $123.69 in New York trading ( in after-hours trade it hit $124.61 a barrel). In London, Brent crude settled at $122.84 a barrel, an all time record.

In Petroleum We Trust (Gas coupon printed in 1973 oil crisis)

It is believed that tight supply concerns, higher world energy demand forecasts and the weak dollar are the main factors that are pushing up oil prices. According to a recent report by Goldman Sachs, the price of crude oil could reach $200 a barrel in as little as six months due to tightening supplies.

Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil shares rose by 1.3% and Chevron’s climbed 2.2% on the New York Stock Exchange.

Related Links:

• Crude oil climbs to fresh record
• Oil Trades Above $124 After Reaching Record on Supply Concerns
• Unstoppable oil, gold, lifts resource shares
• On The Way To Armageddon: Could We Make A Detour?

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Let Them Eat Bullets!

Delivering Climate Security: International Security Responses to a Climate-Changed World

According to the above-titled report written for Britain’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), governments around the world have hugely underestimated the potential conflicts resulting from climate change. The highlights of the report are:

• If climate change is not slowed and critical environmental thresholds are exceeded, then it will become a primary driver of conflicts between and within states

• In the next decades, climate change will drive as significant a change in the strategic security environment as the end of the Cold War,” said Mabey.

• If uncontrolled, climate change will have security implications of similar magnitude to the World Wars, but which will last for centuries

• A failure to acknowledge and prepare for the worst case scenario is as dangerous in the case of climate change as it is for managing the risks of terrorism or nuclear weapons proliferation

• Unless achieving climate security is seen as a vital and existential national interest it will be too easy to delay action on the basis of avoiding immediate costs and perceived threats to economic competitiveness

Source

Can the world elite brand the poor and starving masses as “terrorists” in order to eliminate them?

Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.” According to a report by New York Sun.

News Reports:

• U.N. Security Council must act preemptively – on climate change – this global threat requires a war-room mentality

• Security risk from climate said underestimated
• Sam’s Club, Costco limit bulk rice purchases
• Sam’s Club, Costco Ration Rice Amid Hoarding Worries
  

Special Links:

• Future in the Making
• Index of Human Impact on Nature (HIoN) March 2008
• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Giga Trends
• World Problems: The Root Cause Matrix

Vermont Towns Vote to Arrest Bush and Cheney

The Sweet Taste of Vermont Maple Syrup!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Voters in two Vermont towns on Tuesday approved a measure that would instruct police to arrest President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for “crimes against our Constitution,” local media reported. More . . .

Que pasa? I know noth-thing. It’s them you want! public domain Photo.

Dr Strangelove Returns!

I see your World War III bet and raise you by one billion killed, tops…

In the early 60s, though you heard about ‘nuclear deterrence,’ ‘mutual assured destruction (MAD),’ ‘first strike capability,’ ‘counterforce,’ ‘second strike capability,’ ‘fail-deadly’ and ‘missile gap,’ there was still optimism in the air. For one thing, the Commanders-in-Chief could still be portrayed as ‘decent’ folks. For another, most of the Zionist and Nazi Scientists had fled Europe to become US citizens, so there was no immediate danger of Europe starting another world war. And Israel had not yet declared its intentions to rule the world by proxy.

And then, of course, there was Dr Strangelove!

Dr. Strangelove, probably one of the best political satires of all time, satirized the Cold War apparatus, the military-industrial-complex, ridiculing the comic strip characters who created the doctrine of MAD and the alphabet soup of hideous terminologies and ‘power’ acronyms that accompanied the farcical concepts.

In ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,’ a delusional US Air Force general orders a first strike nuclear attack on the Soviet Union to foil an imaginary Communist conspiracy (read ‘War on Terror’) to ‘sap and impurify’ the ‘precious bodily fluids’ of the US Citizens replacing it with fluoridated water, which he believes was the cause of his impotence.

His warmongering buddy, Air Force General Buck Turgidson, whose character was loosely based on Air Force General Curtis LeMay, tries to convince the President to launch a full scale nuclear attack against the Soviets. He believes a first strike attack against the Soviets would destroy their capability to retaliate effectively. Moreover, he believes the human cost of the US ‘victory’ is ‘acceptable’ with the collateral (American) casualties of, ‘no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops…’

In the 2007’s somewhat twisted rerun of Dr Strangelove, it’s the commander-in-chief [sic] himself who is ‘running around like a madman with a razor blade in his hand.’ He strikes other countries with ‘shock and awe’ bombardments on the pretext of his bogus ‘War on Terror,’ and dispatches most of his fleet to exotic places throughout the world to threaten other countries [and create strategic footholds, in addition to the existing inventory of 737 U.S. Military Bases throughout the world.] Armed nuclear weapons go missing after ‘routine’ flights across the country. And to top it all, the madman crows about starting WW III.

His reason is no longer just his ‘impotence’ caused by the Communists’ fluoridated water [or was it ‘incompetence,’ ‘psychosis’ and ‘derangement’ caused by Southern Comfort and the Colombian snowbirds?] In fact he has little to do with anything, except that is for rubberstamping the ZioCon cabal’s ideologies and plots in his self-proclaimed role as the ‘decider.’

The cabal perceive the ‘Soviets,’ Chinese, Indians, Sunni and Shi’a as strategic, resource-depleting, ecological (polluting) and ideological threats to their ‘last-man-alive-wins’ theology.

In Dr Strangelove the US bomb explodes in Soviet Union triggering the Soviets’ ‘Doomsday Device’ which in turn guarantees MAD. According to their estimates, life on Earth’s surface would be extinct in ten months. So the mad scientist, Dr Strangelove, recommends sending small numbers of people to deep mineshafts to protect them against the nuclear fallout while they repopulate USA.

I see your World War III bet and raise you by 10 mineshafts, 60 million dead in Russia, 400 million killed in china, 340 million deaths in India…; I raise you by 20 mineshafts and ‘20 million killed in USA, tops…’

by S.H. Saloor
The Management School of
Restorative Business

Related Links

Missing Nukes: Treason of the Highest Order [Not endorsing the article’s source!]
737 U.S. Military Bases = Global Empire
Bush warns Putin over ‘World War Three’
Bush warns of WWIII if Iran goes nuclear
Putin Warns Against More Iran Sanctions
Bush: “Madman with a razor blade in his hand”

Out of Control: War Costs May Total $2.4 Trillion

“The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could total $2.4 trillion through the next decade, or nearly $8,000 per man, woman and child in the country, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate scheduled for release Wednesday.” By Ken Dilanian, USA TODAY. Read more…

The real costs of the fraudulent ‘war on terror’ in monetary terms are Immeasurable!

A number of major items are missing from the $2.4 trillion war account, namely the enormous ecological, social and human costs of the catastrophes caused by the fraudulent “war on terror.”

1. Total cost (!) of killing the future by NOT replacing the current “laws of jungle” rules of cannibalistic hegemony with a sustainable economy.

2. The sum values of irreplaceable ecosystems in Iraq and Persian Gulf that have been destroyed as a result of Mr. Bush’s fraudulent “war on terror.”

3. Full cost of NOT educating the nation to offset the widespread ignorance among this and the next generations because all the money was misappropriated under the guise of the fraudulent war and there was nothing left for education.

4. The cost of NOT fighting the onset and reemergence of various viral and infectious diseases caused by war, poverty, man-made climatic catastrophes and the crumbling social and economic infrastructure, all of which could have been prevented by spending the nation’s wealth [and credit] wisely to addressing the critical issues instead of diverting all the money to the fraudulent war. These are the manifestations of a hijacked government riddled with racketeering, deception and outright larceny by the elite and special interest groups.

5. Full cost of all future consequence arising from genocide of Iraqis, including rehabilitating surviving war victims.

6. The cost of “re-humanizing” the American [and British] image in the minds of the world’s “other” 6.2 billion peoples.

Related Links:

War Costs Spiral Out of Control

Domination by Disinformation

The Death of Homo Sapiens Sapiens (Part 2)
Perpetuating Domination by Disseminating Disinformation

To illuminate Ed Crane’s findings about the ‘ruling elite’ (see Part 1) and the cabal’s strategies of using academics, scholars and ‘experts’ to legitimize their domination over the populace, the author’s quick search for a few examples included the following case, probably the most egregious example of how ‘experts’ dupe the populace.

Need more abstractions? Try science fiction! So many academics, scholars and ‘experts’ cannot possibly be wrong.

Enter the cosmologist extraordinaire, ‘animated’ Lucasian Professor of Mathematics and ‘perfect wheelchair figure,’ academic, scholar and ‘expert’, Stephen Hawking.

Hospitable Planet Ahoy!

Hawking, the ultimate authority on how the Almighty’s mind works [sic], says humans must colonize other planets to avoid extinction. “Sooner or later, disasters such as an asteroid collision or nuclear war could wipe us all out. But once we spread out into space and establish independent colonies, our future should be safe.” Note how easily the slick ‘expert’ hides behind science fiction to distract attention from the impending threat of runaway Global Warming as a pressing reason to evacuate our home planet and “to boldly go where no man has gone before!”

How do we get there, Mr. Spock? Exactly, which alien star system did you say we were heading?

Here is a myth created by the cabal with the crafty professor’s woven narrative serving to legitimize it. A natural disaster such as an asteroid collision [a very low probability event, since no one has detected an asteroid heading our way—save for Hollywood] is sandwiched together with another event of higher probability, a human-made disaster like a nuclear war that “could wipe us all out,” to create a ‘confusion combo’ for the mind. The narrative, which reinforces the myth, warns us that one way or another Earth will blow up. The ‘expert’ then invokes science fiction to offer the only possible way out [sic] of humanity’s dilemma: Colonize other ‘hospitable’ planets—an event with a near zero probability of occurring in our lifetime [there are no means available to travel to any such necessarily distant planet, even if one was observed.]

Would nuclear Armageddon mind waiting a ‘jiffy,’ while we tank up, load our gear into the spacecraft and get our backside in gear [and bid farewell to the zombies who wish to stay behind and blow each other to kingdom come?] How many people are going, by the way, Scotty? Has the Federation authorized us to beam up any ‘black,’ ‘brown,’ ‘red,’ or ‘yellow’ aliens aboard the craft, Mr. O’Brien? Have the pioneers been screened by the Israeli security? Is any passenger carrying liquids? Will the ailing commander in chief be going with us, Bones?’

Hell hath no fury like a soul tortured!

Why does our ‘expert’ tout nuclear Armageddon as inevitable [sic], yet leaves out of his narrative the man-made environmental catastrophes, including the runaway global warming, triggered by the excessive energy consumption that have already driven 15 of the 24 ecosystems to the verge of collapse and threaten to destroy the remaining life support systems imminently? Whose interest is he serving?

Why does the professor portray human race as one incapable of impeaching and incarcerating a handful of genocidal psychos who live among them to stop a potential nuclear war, yet he expects them to find phantom planets in ‘Deep Space Nine’ and travel there by science fiction means to colonize them?

Reading Between the Lines

The myth tells us that human race was destined to fail monumentally on Earth. Humans could not quite ‘hack’ it here (perhaps because on Freud’s advice they attacked nature with their techniques guided by science until they drove life to the verge of extinction, see Part 1); however, the same species can avoid extinction if they ‘warp drive’ [science fiction speed] to ‘alien stars’ and colonize ‘hospitable’ planets that orbit them. This unadulterated Orwellian doublethink is fallacious ‘antimatter’ even by Hollywood science fiction standards.

[Note Orwell’s description of ‘doublethink’ in his dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four: “The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. … To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient”.]

The mythmakers aim to demoralize and dissuade the audience from changing their ways, looking for alternative, engaging in less environmentally destructive activities [environment-friendly activities pose a serious threat to the cabals’ perceived interests] or taking restorative measures where possible to help save what is left of the dying ecosystems. The doom scenario suggests since ‘the end is nigh’ we might as well carry on with business as usual—more cars on the roads and more flying lavatories in our skies. Homo economicus model does not allow value judgments!

The professor is trying to ‘pull the wool over our eyes’ by keeping the events timeline, the key item of information, out of the fabric of his narrative. Which of the two events happens first, professor, the nuclear Armageddon, or the salvation of humanity on a phantom planet? When will the nuclear war happen? How long would it take before the techniques guided by science could eventually ‘matter-antimatter’ humans into deep space?

[How much time have we left before the environmental catastrophes including Global Warming (caused by techniques guided by science) deliver our eviction notice? How many hospitable planets are out there orbiting alien stars did you say?]

To further reinforce the myth, in January 2007, Stephen Hawking and fellow academics at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein and other scholars who had worked on the Manhattan Project building the atom bomb, but were deeply concerned about atomic bombs—another glaring example of Orwell’s doublethink?] moved the hand of their symbolic Doomsday Clock two minutes closer to midnight, their imagery of the Apocalypse [note the connotation of Rapture!]

Lord Martin Rees, another of the ‘experts’ who is also president of The Royal Society (surprise, surprise!) and a fellow sponsor at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists fears that the terrorist will detonate a nuclear weapon [the only terrorist who is threatening WW III by way of Nuclear Armageddon right now is non other than the madman George W. Bush] in a large city “killing tens of thousands along with themselves, and millions around the world would acclaim them as heroes.” [He dose not specify, however, which of the two vile acts he fears more!]

Interestingly, the acquisition of nuclear weapons technology by the terrorist state of Israel and their growing stockpile of nuclear warheads did not compel the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to readjust their clock.

As Captains sea-Cook and Flint might attest with significant hubris, ‘them’ folks at the Royal Society, Britain’s ‘elite’ scientific academy do not dish out their Copley medal to just any expert!

Why Not Use a More Conventional Technology?

The ‘old-fashioned’ chemical-propelled rockets are out, of course, you will have noticed. Not because enormous quantities of chemicals (oil) would be required for the rocket fuel (and most everyone knows by now we are running out of oil and opportunity), but because the professor’s snake oil must offer a proportionately extreme remedy [sic] that is in line with and does not belie or belittle enormity of the ‘problem.’ So, we are told to use the much faster matter-antimatter annihilation technology propulsion system, like the Star Trek’s Enterprise, to beam human race up and out, before ‘fit hits the shan’ here on Earth!

The less technologically prohibiting alternative [sic] of terraforming Mars, which other ‘experts’ have previously suggested, is no longer ‘hip,’ of course, because most everyone dislikes lackluster science fiction!

Beam Us Up Ricky!

On who will beam us up, the professor’s natural choice is the one and only, larger than life swashbuckling tycoon, Virgin’s immaculate buccaneer, Sir Richard Branson, of course [who else in the world would have a bigger ego or the monetary incentive to save homo economicus?)

Meanwhile, ‘Ricky’ the mass aviation ‘expert’ who is responsible for a generous share of CO2e pollution and, arguably, the spread of various communicable diseases globally, is waiting tickets in hand outside his ‘Galactic Spaceliner’ ready to scalp the J.Q. Public.

We truly sympathize with Stephen Hawking because of his unfortunate affliction with Lou Gehrig’s disease (aka Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS) which takes a tremendous toll on its victims’ emotional and financial resources; however, we do not believe that the distorted narrative emanates from his disability, nor the copious medication administered to keep him alive. [We have also ruled out pesticide poisoning caused by ingesting New Zealand wine-he does not drink New Zealand wine!]

Hawking’s carefully formulated narrative is tantamount to wartime propaganda prepared by the cabal’s disinformation apparatus. The cabal is hiding behind the professor’s disability using his silent, priestly gaze to reinforce their myth. The disinformation must not go challenged.

As for our message to Kaptain Kirk: Keep your flying lavatories off our skies!

Hiroshima Peace Memorial

A living proof that steel structures don’t pulverize into fine dust, or self-mutilate, even when an atom bomb is detonated above them!

Hiroshima Peace Memorial, commonly known as the Atomic Bomb Dome or A-Bomb Dome, part of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.

The atomic bomb codenamed “Little Boy” was detonated almost directly above the building (the hypocenter was 150 meters away) on 6 August 1945. The building has been preserved in the same state as immediately after the bombing, and now serves as the reminder of nuclear devastation and as a symbol of hope for world peace and elimination of all nuclear weapons.

The A-Bomb Dome is a living proof that steel structures don’t pulverize into fine dust, or self-mutilate, even when an atom bomb is detonated above them!

The image files are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License (cc-by-sa-2.0). In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it under this or a similar cc-by-sa license.

Union of Concerned Scientists Issue Some Global Warming Snakeoil

The following post was submitted by Catherine T. CASF Member.

Global Warming Snakeoil

[The Union of Concerned (sic) Scientists have recently posted an article on their website under the banner of Global Warming, titled: Ten Personal Solutions. Unfortunately the article lacks adequate substance and stands short of persuading the informed readers that their personal choices can have a significant impact on global warming.

Ed Crane said: “The history of mankind is a history of the subjugation and exploitation of a great majority of people by an elite few by what has been appropriately termed the ‘ruling class’. The ruling class has many manifestations. It can take the form of a religious orthodoxy, a monarchy, a dictatorship of the proletariat, outright fascism, or, in the case of the United States, corporate statism. In each instance the ruling class relies on academics, scholars and ‘experts’ to legitimize and provide moral authority for its hegemony over the masses.”

Not surprisingly, UCS’s Ten Personal Solutions fails to make an impact in the absence of an appeal to readers for radical changes in their politics, businesses and lifestyles that are urgently needed to save the planet from the looming ecocide.

Cindy Smith, a member of Creating A Sustainable Future (CASF), has prepared a brief reply to the UCS’s Ten Personal Solutions to Global Warming which follows their article. – S.H. Saloor, The Management School of Restorative Business.]

***

Global Warming: What You Can Do

Ten Personal Solutions

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/ten-personal-solutions.html

Individual choices can have an impact on global climate change. Reducing your family’s heat-trapping emissions does not mean forgoing modern conveniences; it means making smart choices and using energy-efficient products, which may require an additional investment up front, but often pay you back in energy savings within a couple of years. Since Americans’ per capita emissions of heat-trapping gases is 5.6 tons—more than double the amount of western Europeans—we can all make choices that will greatly reduce our families’ global warming
impact.

“The Ten Commandments”

1. The car you drive: the most important personal climate decision. When you buy your next car, look for the one with the best fuel economy in its class. Each gallon of gas you use is responsible for 25 pounds of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. Better gas mileage not only reduces global warming, but will also save you thousands of dollars at the pump over the life of the vehicle. Compare the fuel economy of the cars you’re considering and look for new technologies like hybrid engines.

2. Choose clean power. More than half the electricity in the United States comes from polluting coal-fired power plants. And power plants are the single largest source of heat-trapping gas. None of us can live without electricity, but in some states, you can switch to electricity companies that provide 50 to 100 percent renewable energy. (For more information go to Green-e.org.)

3. Look for Energy Star. When it comes time to replace appliances, look for the Energy Star label on new appliances (refrigerators, freezers, furnaces, air conditioners, and water heaters use the most energy). These items may cost a bit more initially, but the energy savings will pay back the extra investment within a couple of years. Household energy savings really can make a difference: If each household in the United States replaced its existing appliances with the most efficient models available, we would save $15 billion in energy costs and eliminate 175 million tons of heat-trapping gases.

4. Unplug a freezer. One of the quickest ways to reduce your global warming impact is to unplug the extra refrigerator or freezer you rarely use (except when you need it for holidays and parties). This can reduce the typical family’s carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 10 percent.

5. Get a home energy audit. Take advantage of the free home energy audits offered by many utilities. Simple measures, such as installing a programmable thermostat to replace your old dial unit or sealing and insulating heating and cooling ducts, can each reduce a typical family’s carbon
dioxide emissions by about 5 percent.

6. Light bulbs matter. If every household in the United States replaced one regular light bulb with an energy-saving model, we could reduce global warming pollution by more than 90 billion pounds over the life of the bulbs; the same as taking 6.3 million cars off the road. So, replace your incandescent bulbs with more efficient compact fluorescents, which now come in all shapes and sizes. You’ll be doing your share to cut back on heat-trapping pollution and you’ll save money on your electric bills and light bulbs.

7. Think before you drive. If you own more than one vehicle, use the less fuel-efficient one only when you can fill it with passengers. Driving a full minivan may be kinder to the environment than two midsize cars. Whenever possible, join a carpool or take mass transit.

8. Buy good wood. When buying wood products, check for labels that indicate the source of the timber. Supporting forests that are managed in a sustainable fashion makes sense for biodiversity, and it may make sense for the climate too. Forests that are well managed are more likely to store carbon effectively because more trees are left standing and carbon-storing soils are less disturbed.

9. Plant a tree. You can also make a difference in your own backyard. Get a group in your neighborhood together and contact your local arborist or urban forester about planting trees on private property and public land. In addition to storing carbon, trees planted in and around urban areas and residences can provide much-needed shade in the summer, reducing energy bills and fossil fuel use.

10. Let policymakers know you are concerned about global warming. Our elected officials and business leaders need to hear from concerned citizens. Sign up for the Union of Concerned Scientists Action Network to ensure that policymakers get the timely, accurate information they need to make informed decisions about global warming solutions.

***

A Response to the UCS

by Cindy Smith
Creating A Sustainable Future

The Union of “Concerned Scientists,” or overpaid hypocrites?

Moses smashing the Tables of the Law, a painting by Rembrandt van Rijn

This must be a sick joke in 10 installments. Why don’t the Concerned Scientists tell you

1. The total number of “the best fuel economy cars” our planet can sustain?

2. Maximum amount of energy we could consume before the ecosystems collapse irreversibly?

3. The threshold at which the Energy Star turns into a “white dwarf!” How many more refrigerators, freezers, furnaces, air conditioners, water heaters … could we buy? Prey tell!

4. What is the total number of refrigerators and freezers that can remain plugged in?

5. How many new homes would it take to offset the “old” family’s carbon dioxide emissions reduction?

6. How much difference would their suggested steps make when each year more than 65 million cars and light commercial vehicles hit the roads globally?

7. See my reply to No. 6, above.

8. What are the total volumes of “good wood” that consumers can buy each year without destroying the forests and the environment?

9. When they doubt you, tell them to plant a tree! So you must be the good guys, otherwise you wouldn’t be saying that. Right?

10. Should we let policymakers and elected [sic] officials know we are concerned about global warming, climate change, dwindling natural capital before we impeach them for starting illegal wars, murdering a million plus people, torturing prisoners and spying on citizens, or after?

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