United States attacks Canada to seize tar sands region

Let’s see. What oil rich region should the United States next invade? Hmmm. Politicians and oil companies are increasingly telling us that our future oil lies in the tar sands of Canada.   Only one thing lies between the United States and that oil: Canada might not simply give us their tar sands.  Problems like these, however, are ready-made for the United States military solutions. Hence, today I imagined that we might soon see the following news story.

I don't really believe that the United States has any plans to invade Canada, but I am trying to make a few serious points with this image. We all know how to pull this sort of land grab, because Americans are well-practiced in simply taking land from other people (ask Mexico and native Americans, and check out the size of the American Embassy in Iraq).  We are experts at inventing the need to go to war.  Here's a simplified version of the plan:  We claim that there are weapons of mass destruction in Canada.  We claim that there are French terrorists threatening America; we are good at inventing stories that serve as excuses to go to war.  Our mass-media goes along with the ploy because they are amoral conflict-mongers.  Eventually, the United States simply takes over the tar sands region of Canada.   Or at least that's how it goes in my imagination. It’s increasingly clear we have entered peak world-wide oil production, but American politicians don’t not dare to urge American citizens to cut down on their use of energy. Conservation is widely seen as un-American because it is usually framed as an approach that deprives Americans of their life-style, even though conservation and renewable energy makes far too much sense on many levels. And all of this crazy framing of the debate takes place while reputable scientists are offering solid evidence that with current technology and reasonable conservation measures we could now begin replace much of American fossil fuel usage with renewables. If I had to place a bet, though, I would put my chips on a future where Americans continue, as long as they are financially and militarily able, to engage in profligate oil usage (we use more than 9,000 gallons per second, enough to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool every minute of every day).  They will do this despite the fact that tar sands oil is an environmental disaster in the making .

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Climate Denial Meltdown

As we seem to be discussing conspiracy theories here lately, let's take a look at Climate-gate, the oft repeated Fox News banner of climate change denialism. This video is a good and detailed look at not only the emergence and initial rallying cry of Climate-gate, but also how a thoroughly disproved lie emerges again later as a new rallying cry. It is a pity that this video does not even bother to go into the criminal activity used to gather the misleading information. The forces of anti-reason are tireless, and this is just one of many subjects in which it manifests.

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It’s a good time to look into solar energy for your home or business

At the recent Earth Day celebration in St. Louis, Chris Klarer of Advanced Energy Solutions offered to give a video statement on the advantages of solar. In addition to producing clean and sustainable energy, there are substantial tax advantages for owners of businesses and homes. I went to the site of AES and used its calculator, determining that a solar system on my roof could provide more than half of my family's electricity. This was quite interesting, of course. What made things even more interesting are those tax advantages.  In addition to talking with Chris, I discussed these tax advantages with another a man who was promoting solar at his own booth (he was not selling anything, onlypromoting the use of solar panels). His numbers were even rosier than those suggested by Chris -- click on the thumbnail to see how he reduced the cost of a $12,000 installation to only about $2,000. I am, indeed, going to look further into solar electric for my home, but here is a hurdle: I live in an historic neighborhood, and I suspect that I'm going to have a struggle over getting a permit. I'll make my best arguments and see how far I get - - it would seem that there should be a way--after all, the state of Missouri is offering tax credits for solar, making it official public policy that solar electric is to be encouraged.  I'll report back after I learn more.

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The Free Market Problem

Paul Ryan and his supporters are trying to sell their spending cut and lower tax program and they’re getting booed at town hall meetings.  They’re finally cutting into people’s pockets who can’t defend themselves.  They thought they were doing what their constituency wanted and must be baffled at this negative response. Okay, this might get a bit complicated, but not really.  It just requires a shift in perspective away from the definition of capitalism we’ve been being sold since Reagan to something that is more descriptive of what actually happens.  Theory is all well and good and can be very useful in specific instances, but a one-size-fits-all approach to something as basic as resources is destined to fail. Oh, I’m sorry, let me back up a sec there—fail if your stated goal is to float all boats, to raise the general standard of living, to provide jobs and resources sufficient to sustain a viable community at a decent level.  If, on the other hand, your goal is to feed a machine that generates larger and larger bank accounts for fewer and fewer people at the expense of communities, then by all means keep doing what we’ve been doing. Here’s the basic problem.  People think that the free market and capitalism are one and the same thing.  They are not.  THEY ARE CLOSELY RELATED and both thrive in the presence of the other, but they are not the same thing. But before all that we have to understand one thing---there is no such thing as a Free Market.  None.  Someone always dominates it, controls it, and usually to the detriment of someone else. How is it a free market when one of the most salient features of it is the ability of a small group to determine who will be allowed to participate and at what level?  I’m not talking about the government here, I’m talking about big business, which as standard practice does all it can to eliminate competitors through any means it can get away with and that includes market manipulations that can devalue smaller companies and make them ripe for take-over or force them into bankruptcy.

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Creating Doubt in Science

There is currently a strong suite of Discovery Institute bills running through state legislatures to allow "alternative theories" to be taught in science classes. See list here: Antievolution Legislation Scorecard. There is not a direct link back to the Discovery Institute, but it is their wording, seen before and passed in places like Texas and Louisiana and Tennessee. From a legal standpoint, the bills look harmless, closely resembling intellectual freedom policies. But the point is clearly to sow confusion about the difference between science and just making things up, especially in regard to evolution and climate science. Hemant Mehta suggests that it would only be fair to show this video in churches where the churches put their books into science classes.

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