Earth Energy

In case you didn't see it, the Senate of the geographic state of the United States passed out an energy bill yesterday.

Here is the story:

Senate OKs Energy Bill; House Fight Looms
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 29.2005

WASHINGTON (AP) -- "The Senate approved an energy bill Tuesday that was more favorable to conservation, wind farms and ethanol and less kind to oil and gas producers than legislation passed by the House.

Hard bargaining lies ahead, especially with a pesky issue surrounding the gasoline additive MTBE remaining a potential deal breaker -- as it was two years ago.

The House, particularly Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, wants to protect oil companies and refiners who produced MTBE from environmental lawsuits brought by communities whose drinking water has been contaminated by the additive.

Supporters of the Senate bill, which has broad bipartisan backing and is silent on MTBE, say such liability protection would trigger a filibuster and send the bill to defeat, as it did in 2003. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said the House needs to work out a compromise on MTBE that can pass Senate muster.

Bush said the Senate-passed bill would help U.S. economic growth by addressing the root causes of high energy prices and the nation's growing dependence on foreign supplies. But the bill's critics argued it does little to reduce demand for oil, two-thirds of which goes for transportation, or reduce oil imports, which account for 58 percent of U.S. demand.

More environmentally friendly than the energy bill passed by the House in April, the Senate bill would funnel 40 percent of $18 billion in tax breaks over 10 years to boost renewable energy sources, energy conservation and alternative transportation fuels.

Among other key provisions are:

--Loan guarantees of up to 80 percent for developing new technologies for clean coal and next-generation nuclear power reactors.

--A doubling of ethanol use in gasoline to 8 billion gallons a year by 2012, a boost to corn farmers.

--A requirement for utilities to produce 10 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources, such as wind and biomass from garbage or plants, by 2020.

--Mandatory reliability standards for electric power grids, ending the current system of industry self-regulation.

--Tax breaks for people who buy gas-electric hybrid cars, more energy-efficient appliances or energy-efficient homes.

The bill skirted some of the most contentious energy issues, from drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge -- which is called for in the House bill -- to requiring automakers to build more fuel-efficient cars.

It also avoided mandatory reductions in heat-trapping emissions to address climate change, which some senators had wanted.

The bill ''is short on the truly bold action needed to break this country's addiction to foreign oil and long on the traditional boondoggles that waste taxpayer money and fail to promote energy independence,'' complained Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., one of the dozen senators who voted against the legislation.

In the last four years the Senate has passed energy legislation twice, only to see the effort fall apart without a final agreement with the House. Republican and Democratic lawmakers predicted that a compromise will require the close involvement of the White House."

While the Senate bill could be characterized as a decent first step forward.

The House Bill sucks.

And the good stuff will fall out in conference.


Then there is this story

France Will Get Fusion Reactor to Seek a Future Energy Source
By CRAIG S. SMITH
New York Times
Paris, June 28.2005

"An international consortium announced Tuesday that France would be the site of the world's first large-scale, sustainable nuclear fusion reactor, an estimated $10 billion project that many scientists see as crucial to solving the world's future energy needs.

"It is a great success for France, for Europe and for all the partners in ITER," President Jacques Chirac said in a statement released after the six-member consortium of the United States, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and the European Union chose the country as the site for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.

Nuclear fusion is the process by which atomic nuclei are forced together, releasing huge amounts of energy, as with the sun or a hydrogen bomb. The process has long been studied as a potential energy source that would be far cleaner than burning fossil fuels or even nuclear fission, which is used in nuclear reactors today but produces dangerous radioactive waste.

While the physics of nuclear fusion have long been understood, the engineering required to control the process remains difficult."


Perhaps the most uninformed excuse for not using the fusion nuclear reactor that we have been given, is because

the sun doesn't shine all the time.

It doesn't?

Exactly when does it not shine?

Or do you live in a different universe than I do?

Maybe.

The sun's capacity factor is better than any man made plant I know of.

As the boss said in Cool Hand Luke,

"What we have here is a failure to communicate."

Humankind does not need these home made big fires anymore.

They are very old archaic notions.

They are uncool.

We want cool energy.

Not these big hot fires that need barbed wire and guards,

and government insurance, because no real business will insure this

lunacy.

Using Einstein's best idea, the photovoltaic effect,

Humankind will use nano tech bucky balls to transduce

photonic energy into electronic energy.

We will collect this electronic energy from every man made surface

that sees energy.

Some of that energy will be used locally or right on site.

Some may be brought into the electric grid,

the energy bank, so to speak.

Or, it is used to fuel a transportation appliance on site.

Or, it is shipped some where else where it is needed,

Or, it is stored chemically, thermally, electromagneticly, or kineticly.

The utility that collects this energy will also fuel our transportation,

Because Electric fuel will be a major transportation fuel of the future,

because the energy system will be unified.

No longer will there be a separate transportation system that runs on oil,

and a separate generation system that runs on coal, nuclear, and gas.

It will be mostly photonic and it will be unified.

And its going to happen sooner than you think.

Even if we have to kill ourselves to do it.

Which we may.

I guess it's something between a mystery and a tragedy.

I guess.



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An Apology

Yesterday, I was early to a meeting by about 30 minutes.

The meeting was in a small town, so I decided to check it out.

It was one of those main street towns,

where there had been a lot of work and money put into it,

trying to bring it back from the Wall Mart grave.

There was a new restaurant of sorts with TVs and a buffet.

The Southeast Asian owners looked lonely but content.

There was an internet cafe type place, but it was closed.

There was the old newspaper office that said something like "Since 1880".

The old red brick bank building was now a real estate office.

The old hardware store was now an antique store.

It was closed too.

I walked into the Blue Moon something or another.

It was full of a bunch of stuff I couldn't possibly want.

As I wandered through the store towards the rear,

I heard a voice.

"Can I help you?"

With my hands in my pockets and in my friendliest voice,

I responded.

"No Sweetie, I'm just looking around killing some time."

"Well, we are closed and

I'm not your sweetie."

I looked up to see a rather formidable example of a woman before me.

She had on a sleeveless top and her biceps were at least as big as mine.

I thought,

She is right after all, she would never be my sweetie.

I responded,

"Sometimes I use endearments loosely and inaccurately,

And I apologize."

She looked at me kind of hard and I think somewhere in there,

she was pleased.

And I could swear that her countenance changed.

I walked out slowly.


Even though I did not watch the POTUS tonight,

I suspect that he did not apologize,

For carelessly bringing this country to war,

just to secure oil and our other strategic interests in the mid east.

I bet he did not say that I'm sorry,

For the deaths and serious injury of 10,000 troops.

For the deaths of a 100,000 innocent Iraquis,

For the divisive and brutal nature of his administration,

For the tampering with the science on climate change,

For the outing of a CIA agent,

For inflaming much of the muslim world against us,

For allowing our civil rights to be stripped with the Patriot Act.

For stealing our social security and trying to put it in the stock market,

For backing out of treaty after treaty after treaty,

For ruining the good will and eroding our moral highground

by allowing our jails to become uncivilized harbors of indecency

and human torture,

For giving this country to the corporations and their lobbyist.

He could have said,

"I've made a lot of mistakes in the last five years,

and I apologize.

and I'm going to try to fix as many as I can in the next three."

If he had,

Our Collective Countenance would have changed.


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North American Gas Peaks

Much of the talk these days is about Peak Oil.

And there should be a lot of talk about it.

The Nations are already fighting for the last half of it.

And even though there is a great deal of natural gas remaining

in Russia and in Iran,

There is less and less in North America.

Now, according to this story, even the majors admit it.

Exxon says N. America gas production has peaked
Reuters
June 22, 2005

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - After weak prices in the 1990s due to oversupply, natural gas production in North America will probably continue to decline unless there is another big discovery, Exxon Mobil Corp.'s chief executive said on Tuesday.

"Gas production has peaked in North America," Chief Executive Lee Raymond told reporters at the Reuters Energy Summit.

Asked whether production would continue to decline even if two huge arctic gas pipeline projects were built, Raymond said, "I think that's a fair statement, unless there's some huge find that nobody has any idea where it would be."

"The facts are that gas production continues to decline, and will start to decline even more rapidly. By the time we get to that period (2010-2012), we'll need it badly."

While the number of U.S. rigs drilling for natural gas has climbed about 20 percent over the last year and prices are at record highs, producers have been struggling to raise output.

Experts said easy onshore and shallow water basins have been mostly tapped or are off limits for environmental reasons, and new technologies like horizontal drilling have been draining wells in two or three years, a much faster rate than the five years or more during the 1990s. "


In order to move natural gas from these countries to the West, large Liquified Natural Gas ports will need to be developed. Conveniently then, there is this story,

Senate Gives Feds Power to Approve LNG Terminal Sites
By Richard Simon and Miguel Bustillo,
Los Angeles Times
June 22, 2005

"WASHINGTON -- The Senate voted on Wednesday to give federal regulators authority over the location of liquefied natural gas terminals, despite objections from governors that states should be have an equal say in deciding where such projects are built.

Republican and Democratic officials from city halls to Capitol Hill have expressed concern that the terminals could become targets of terrorist attacks or pose other safety risks, and they have sought a role in siting them.

But President Bush has pushed to put Washington in charge of deciding where terminals are built, saying that a lengthy approval process could delay the building of facilities critical to providing the natural gas needed to fuel the nation's economy.

On Wednesday, a majority of the Senate agreed with him. The lawmakers voted 52-45 against adding a provision to the energy legislation that would have given governors the authority to veto or impose conditions on the terminals.

As a result, the Senate bill -- like energy legislation approved by the House -- would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the final word on where terminals are built, virtually ensuring that the provision will be included in any final bill that emerges from Congress.

The action came as the Senate headed toward approval of a sweeping overhaul of national energy policy, a Bush priority that has gained momentum as energy prices have surged.

In another action, the Senate rejected, 60-38, a proposal by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., and John McCain, R-Ariz., to establish a mandatory cap on industrial emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

The measure garnered five fewer votes than a similar version two years ago. "


That vote couples with this story which speaks to the devastation that Climate Change is now predicted to inflict on the continent of Africa.

Global Warming in Africa: The Hottest Issue of All
by Michael McCarthy and Colin Brown
The Independent
June 22, 2005

"All the rich nations' efforts to alleviate poverty in Africa will fail unless climate change can be checked, a coalition of British aid agencies and environment groups warns today.

To combat climate change, rich countries must cut their greenhouse gas emissions further, far beyond the targets laid down in the Kyoto Protocol, they say. But more than that, aid policy for Africa as a whole needs a complete rethink in climate change terms, because the continent is uniquely vulnerable to climatic shifts, with 70 per cent of its people being immediately dependent on rain-fed, small-scale agriculture.

It says the 14 African countries already subject to water stress or water scarcity will be joined by a further 11 nations in the next 25 years. Rainfall is predicted to decline in the Horn of Africa and some parts of the south by as much as 10 per cent by 2050, while the land may warm by as much as 1.6C, all of which is likely to affect the crop harvests for hundreds of millions of people.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu says in the foreword: "It is important to understand that Africa and climate change are intrinsically linked, as climate change will affect the welfare of Africans for years to come." Western countries have a moral obligation to act over global warming, he says, as these wealthy countries have emitted more than their fair share of greenhouse gases.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that Africa will suffer more than the rest of the world from global warning.

And as temperatures rise, sea levels will rise, the moisture in the soil will evaporate, and the rainfall will become more erratic - crashing to earth in downpours that wash away crops. As the lowlands dry up, farmers will be forced to move into higher areas that are now covered with forests. The ensuing deforestation will lead to soil erosion and the destruction of some of the region's most important river channels.

Tony Juniper, the executive director of Friends of the Earth, said: "Policies to end poverty in Africa are conceived as if the threat of climatic disruption did not exist." Nicola Saltman of the World Wide Fund for Nature added: "All the aid we pour into Africa will be inconsequential if we don't tackle climate change."


So let me see if I got this straight.

North America is running out of the Natural Gas

That is a major fuel for its electric utilities.

Therefore, the states will be forced to build dangerous LNG terminals

in their waters, so we can import more gas from Iran and Russia,

In the meantime, Climate Change is ignored,

in the face of the a flood of evidence and scientific study.

predicting and warning that hundreds of millions will perish

because of the developed worlds emissions into the planet's eco system.

And five less senators vote to do something about it?

Oil is trading at over 60 dollars a barrel.

And the POTUS is going to tell some more stories tonight

about the War to liberate the Middle East.

Of its Oil.


Oh Man,

this is so stupid,

it is making me dizzy.

We need an earthfamily.


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Thought, Time, and Love

"Thought is time.

Thought is born of experience and knowledge,

which are inseparable from time and the past.

Time is the psychological enemy of man.

Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time,

so man is always a slave to the past.

Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant conflict and struggle.

There is no psychological evolution.

When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts,

he will see the division between the thinker and thought,

the observer and the observed,

the experiencer and the experience.

He will discover that this division is an illusion.

Then only is there pure observation

which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time.

This timeless insight

brings about a deep, radical mutation in the mind."

A deep, radical mutation of the mind.


I have been thinking of this sentence all day.

What constitutes a deep, radical mutation of the mind?

What does it look like?

Let's start with love


"What is love?

The word is so loaded and corrupted that I hardly like to use it.

Everybody talks of love ,

every magazine and newspaper and every missionary

talks everlastingly of love.

I love my country,

I love my king,

I love some book,

I love that mountain,

I love pleasure,

I love my wife,

I love God.

Is love an idea?

If it is,

it can be cultivated, nourished, cherished,

pushed around, twisted in any way you like.

When you say you love God what does it mean?

It means that you love a projection of your own imagination,

a projection of yourself clothed in certain forms of respectability

according to what you think is noble and holy;

so to say, `I love God',

is absolute nonsense.

When you worship God you are worshipping yourself,

and that is not love. "


This a deep radical mutation of the mind.

It may be the basis of a new operating system

for the human biocomputer,

And the Earthfamily

Beyond Windows.


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Top of the World 

Earth Eye

Google has now got their satellite and map system on line.

You can type in a place and then click satellite in the upper right,

and it comes right up.

I've already looked at my place of birth,

where I live now,

where I go in Mexico,

and at Falluja.

Couple this with the satellite site here

and the World is at your finger tips.

Literally.


If you must watch something that moves,

This is much better than the cracker jack crap

that appears on the weekly Sunday Morning propaganda parade .


And if you grow tired of looking down.

Look up.

Tonight you can look to the west at sunset and see

Venus, Saturn, and Mercury bunched up.

Jupiter is overhead.

The moon is almost at your feet.

The earth is turning into its shadow.

It provides you a perfect viewing perch to see half the universe.

Each night.

Kind of thoughtful actually.


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Leadership

Here is Jon Stewart on leadership.

And here is Tom Delay leading the defense

for the brain.

And here is the leader of the dems,

talking about loving your neighbor.

Rove said that the libs were wimps.

Now they are saying

We aren't wimps.

We didn't act like wimps.

That's not fair to say we are wimps.

Did we act like Wimps?

We are reasonable rational people.

Not wimps.

Besides, we were behind you on this war.

Until we turned into wimps.



Talk about shaping.

and controlling the dialogue.

This was no gaff.

This was a heat sinking missile between the twins.


This bunch understands attack.

They attacked Iraq,

without telling the Congress,

without telling the public,

without telling the UN.

This story speaks of the bullet in the gun.

Helen Thomas says that this president is the first

in all her time in Washington,

Who actually wanted to go War.

"Beware of the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry, [who] infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so.

How will I know?

For this I have done.

And I am Julius Caesar."


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The Sixty Dollar Oil Question

Oil futures for August delivery traded at 60 dollars a barrel yesterday.

for the first time.

ever.

It was the top story on Bloomberg.com

Asian Stocks Slide as Crude Oil Rises; Samsung, Honda Lead Drop
June 24 (Bloomberg)

"Asian stocks fell on concern crude oil at $60 a barrel will boost energy costs and prompt companies to cut their earnings forecasts. Samsung Electronics Co. and Honda Motor Co. led declines.

Oil prices at around $60 a barrel will put pressure on corporate profits, as most companies have based income forecasts on the $50 mark,'' said Koji Uchida, who helps oversee $17 billion at UFJ Partners Asset Management Co. in Tokyo.

An index of energy shares was the only gainer among the benchmark's 10 industry groups.

Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average lost 0.6 percent to 11,502.04, as more than four shares fell for every one that rose. South Korea's Kospi index dropped 1.1 percent, Asia's biggest loser.

Rising crude oil prices also pushed down U.S. stocks yesterday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had its biggest loss in almost 10 weeks.

Crude oil for July delivery jumped 2.3 percent to $59.42 a barrel. Earlier, it touched $60 a barrel, the highest price for a contract closest to expiration since trading began on the New York Mercantile Exchange in 1983. "


And in a rare moment of candor for a government official, there was this story a few weeks ago out of Australia.

Anderson fears for oil reserves
ABC News (Australia)
Friday, May 20, 2005

"Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson believes high fuel prices reflect the inevitable decline in the world's oil and gas reserves.

He expressed deep concern about the long-term future of oil and says fuel prices will have to be high enough to encourage more exploration.

Mr Anderson says the world could reach peak production of oil and gas far sooner than predicted because of the rapid increase in energy demands in China.

"We are using stored energy left over from ages gone by at an alarming rate and it isn't re-making," he said. "While people talk about new technologies and they say as soon as oil reaches a certain price everybody will switch over to hydrogen and what have you.

"The reality is that it may not be as simple as that and you have to wonder whether over the next decade we won't start to get towards peak production and that could be a very interesting time and a very challenging time."

And there is this news from the future from the Onion

Solopec Nations Warn Sun's Output May Fall Short of Demand
The Onion
June 23, 2056

RIYADH, MUHAMMAD ARABIA—"The governing board of the Solar Output Power Exporting Countries announced Monday that, in spite of attempts to raise production levels, increased global-power consumption may begin to outstrip the sun's output by early next year.

"Our solar-accumulation arrays in Muhammad Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, and Mexico are operating at full capacity, and still, we're struggling to meet demands," said Muhammad Arabia's Prince Fayahd al-Saud, whose family has controlled the world's energy market for more than 100 years. "

In a very short time, the sun will not be able to meet the world's energy needs."


SOLOPEC, formed in the '20s to regulate solar-energy prices, currently includes the sunlight-rich nations of Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Muhammad Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Venezuela, Iran, and Iraq.

The consortium supplies more than 90 percent of the world's solar energy, generating 35 billion charge-pads daily. Solar futures traded on the Newer York Exchange have risen 53 percent this year, with prices exceeding 55.6 credits per 400 ArabThermalUnit charge-pad as of June 14.

While some accuse al-Saud of engineering the shortage to increase prices, as his SOLOPEC energy embargo achieved in the '30s, al-Saud insists that production increases are not possible at any price.

"Once again, human consumption has expanded to meet available supply," said SOLOPEC economic director Hermann Villalobos of Mexico City. "With today's fully automatic homes, artificially sentient robotic cities, 32-lane automatic roadways, floating antigrav-suspended skyscrapers, air-conditioned city-domes, and 96-inch personal fusion-screen monitors, the energy demand of human civilization has never been higher.

Why, last year, the wattage requirements of leisurebots alone exceeded the entire world's energy-consumption rates of 1988. It's no surprise that SOLOPEC can barely keep up."

MIT scientist Glen Schraeder said he predicted the shortage a decade ago.

"The U.S. must reduce its dependence on foreign solar power," Schraeder said. "The sun was created billions of years ago, with the formation of our galaxy. When its unused energy output is gone, it's gone.

We must look for alternative energy sources throughout the universe now."

The truth is.

If we don't get cracking on building a solar hydrogen economy now,

Some one else will.

Can we afford 60 dollar oil?

We're going to find out.


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How to get Rich

I spent the day in a How to get Rich class.

It is even sanctioned by a government entity,

so I will get credit for it as continuing my education.

Don't ask me why or what overtook me.

It was mostly convenience and some deep dark part of me

that wanted to see what the hoopla was about.

Remember the Tom Cruise role in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia?

He was Frank T.J. Mackey, author of "Seduce and Destroy,"

a self-help system for men to get women to sleep with them.

Well, today we had a guy who looked or at least acted just like him.

And he was author of How to Get Rich in Real Estate.

During the day he let us know that

All colleges and college teachers teach liberal crap.

He let us know that housing prices are too high,

and when the bust comes, which it will,

he will buy in big and ride the next wave of real estate appreciation.

And just because he is highly leveraged now,

that won't stop him, because he will just declare bankruptcy

and set everything back to zero.

So he apparently believes that socializing his losses is OK.

Just as long as he can continue to privatize his profits.

So called liberal issues establishing limited protections

for those who do not understand

his particular blend and style of fraudulent behavior

are just a bunch of unnecesary government meddling.

He is aware that workers are losing their pensions.

But they were foolish for believing in the work myth

perpetrated by an out of date education system.

He says these hard working steady folks are toast.

Fannie May is toast.

Stocks are toast.

He hates tree huggers

and Birkenstock wearers.

And lovers of amphibians.

He hates regulators.

He hates bureaucrats.

They would have the temerity to

keep him from building

16 units on a property that he paid practically nothing for.

He could build 7 but not 16 small efficiencies.

He bragged about paying nothing,

and then complained that the bureaucrat was taking away his

rights.

Ultimately, he built a super duplex with 14 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms.

I'm not kidding.

Like he so proudly said,

there is always a loop hole.

Like TJ Mackey and his seduce and destroy strategy for women,

this destroyer is on the prowl for those who have a high need

to sell.

Like people who have lost their pensions,

or their wealth in a bear stock market,

or their health,

or their job.

or even just their youth.

This destroyer is not looking to build community,

or to make us all a little richer or happier.

He is looking to make someone else take it in the Twins,

as he must have said a hundred times.

He had a laugh that made a hyena sound soothing.

And he did it over and over and over and over again.

He was only occasionally rude with some members of the class.

He wore cool shoes, a cool shirt and cool pants.

His briefcase was cool.

His hair was perfect and a little long.

He was tan.

He was rich.

He ended the day

with some groovy dribble

about how all of us are geniuses

and we all deserve to be rich too.

But for one of him to be rich,

Thousands of us have to take it in the twins,

because they showed high need.

As he said,

do the math.

I have had more fun before,

But it didn't last that long.



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The Longest Day

Yesterday was the longest day of the year.

And last night was the shortest night.

"The Summer Solstice is the time when the Sun turns in its tracks and it begins its tropical journey south towards the equator. This year, it happens on the eve of the 22nd of June (June 21). This major calendrical event is the focus of religious and social festivities in all cultures; Christian society marks the event with St John the Baptist's Day (June 24).

Midsummer is the central point of the magical year: traditional hilltop bonfires are lit to revive the power of the Sun; flaming disks are thrown into the air; blazing wheels are rolled downhill; leaping and dancing around and through the fire are ritual encouragements for maximising the harvest.

Magical powers are heightened and the little people are about.

It is the ideal time for gathering magical herbs: pluck them before dawn, before breakfast, while the dew still wets the petals. Fern and fern-seed is gathered on Mid-Summer's eve, to harness the power of the Sun. Golden solar flowers such as St John's wort, mugwort and mistletoe, the golden bough, are worn as garlands.

Astrologically, the June Solstice marks the entry of the Sun into the Cardinal, Water Sign of Cancer.

The Tropic of Cancer is the actual degree of latitude over which the Sun stops its journey north, and then turns, having gone as far north as it is going to each year. Cancer is ruled by the Moon and Mid-summer celebrates the elemental powers of fire and water, so people would light fires and bathe in the dew on the morning of Mid-summer's Day.

Even in the twenty-first century, people still love to come together and surf the cosmic wave of energy that is released at this time. The solstice places emphasis on the first Cancer/Capricorn full moon on Wednesday, June 22 at 04:14 UT, focusing on bringing new Life into the individual soul.

Keynote: "I build a Lighted House and therein dwell."

If you look at the sun tonight, it will set as far to the north as it will set.

And as you watch for the position of the Sun at sunset,

Watch for the moon to rise.

It will be in the position of the rising Sun on the Winter Solstice.

For it will be the full moon in Capricorn.

"If at all possible, be in meditation at the exact time of the full moon.

If you are unable to do this, choose a time within 12 hours before or after to align with these energies and be part of a global meditation. Know you are uniting with many others who also are attuning to the energies available at this Global Festival, and that this group focus creates a powerful channel for the meditation to be potent and effective.

Prior to your meditation take the needed time to create a sacred space

and spiritually align your energies. "


I guess you could call this kind of stuff a little off the edge.

But watching a full moon rise is always a beautiful and powerful thing.

Connecting to the big things in our world,

helps connect us to the little things as well.

And it helps us get our priorities straight.

Watching the heavens and feeling the earth turn

as we race through space and the creation

reminds us

that we are indeed on a starship.

And that we are all crewmembers of this fine craft.

Starship Earth.

Today is a powerful day.

Try to make the most of it.



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What it is About

Last night, at my Father's Day dinner,

a really smart friend of my 30 year old son asked me,

What is your blog about ?

I responded that I have a very clear idea of what it is about.

And that, as best as I can tell,

no one else has the slightest idea whatsoever

what in the Sam Blazes earthfamilyalpha is all about.

Some have called this an environmental blog,

and it is true,

I speak of climate change and of the odd notion we have

that it is civilized to throw your trash into the air.

I marvel how we allow ourselves and our corporations to dump

chemicals

into our most precious resource,

our air

without even a tipping fee or other charge for the disposal rights.

I question why the free marketers don't attack this kind of leak in the

pricing mechanism.

They apparently want the market to work.

Their way.

Some have said that this is a solar or renewable energy blog.

And it is true, I speak of the solar hydrogen economy

and power paints and heliohydrogen.

I speak of moving away from carbon,

which is a smart thing to do,

mostly because our carbon fuels are moving away from us.

Peak Oil is definitely coming in your lifetime.

Probably by Tuesday.

Some have said that this is an anti war site.

It is a pro peace site.

The cultural myth that if you just war enough,

you will finally win peace,

is a perilous road that

leads to perdition.

Others, have wondered if this is a political blog,

which criticizes the present government for its monstrous shortcomings

because I want some other business light party to rule instead.

That may be true,

the Perfect should never become the enemy of the clearly better.

But this is no political blog.

Earthfamilyalpha simply proposes that

With the advent of advanced global communication,

new forms of social contract can be created

which transcend the geographic state.

These new cybercoops or cyberstates will bring humankind

to higher levels of cooperation and understanding.

I told my dinner guests,

that as a visionary,

you can't get too excited when no one knows

what you are talking about.

It pretty much comes with the territory.

But Still,

Try to go through your day without your country.

See yourself as a citizen of the world instead.

Try to imagine all the news you hear and read without nations.

See that we have painted ourselves into a corner here.

Try to imagine a new super ego.

Try to grasp a new psychological condition.

Try as if your life is at stake.

Because it probably is.

Begin to think about how people of conscience

can come together and form a new union,

a new invention of social contract.

a new dimension in cooperation.

An earthfamily.

That is what it is all about.



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Crash

I just saw Crash,

And it made me cry and it made me laugh.

It made me hate humankind and love humankind.

It depressed me and uplifted me.

It gave me hope and it made me despair.

It showed our potential for good and our propensity

to hide behind our masks of hate and indifference.

Here is part of an Austin Chronicle Review by Steve Davis:

There is a visual image that dominates Crash from its opening credits: blurred spheres of light moving in a seemingly random fashion, sometimes colliding soundlessly, only to continue on their uncertain paths. These abstract illuminations, of course, are headlights floating along the streets of Los Angeles, an urban landscape in which a car accident is the most common form of personal interaction.

Set over a 24-hour period during an unusually cold Christmas season, Crash follows the intertwined lives of a multicultural group of Los Angelenos: two African-American carjackers, a Brentwood housewife, a Latino locksmith, a Persian store owner, and a white policeman, among others.

The brilliantly conceived screenplay by Paul Haggis and Bob Moresco employs a narrative device made familiar to moviegoers in the films of Robert Altman (Nashville) and more recently Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia), one in which the paths of seemingly unconnected individuals frequently cross according to the laws of contrivance and coincidence.

In one of the most beautifully directed, scored, and edited sequences in recent movie memory, a "villain" in the film acts selflessly, contrary to the expectations you've imposed on him. At this point, Crash starts to rattle your chain in a way that few films have, bearing lucid witness to the full dimensionality of the human species.

Like most works of art, Crash gets under your skin in a way that is incapable of explanation. It transcends that which can be articulated through mere words.

It's the most compelling American movie to come around in a long, long time.

That's pretty much the way I feel.

If more movies were like Crash,

The earthfamily might not.

Here, in the City of Angels,

every segment of humankind is represented.

All of the tensions and stereotypes are used meaningfully.


But I don't think this is just coincidence working.

If it is,

It is very intelligent coincidence.

The creation creates itself well somehow.

In the Crash,

there is

Hope


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The Pathetic Act

Here is Jon Stewart on the Patriot Act.

And here is Senator Frist being, well, pathetic.

And here is the reality of this horrible war.

Although the word is often confused with pitiful,

and is often misused these days,

Pathetic means having a capacity to move one

to either compassionate

or contemptuous pity.

And here is Condi Rice,

(scroll down if necessary)

but the lack of a followup question by George,

is what is pathetic,

Probably the contemptuous kind.



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The Profits of War

Here is the C Span 3 video of the Conyers hearing on Thursday.

It's pretty long.

So is this war.

But not nearly so long as it is for those

who have loved ones,

who gave up their lives.

Or for those who lost

their legs,

or their sanity,

to the profits of war.

And here is Philippe Sands, director of the Centre for International Courts and Tribunals at the University College in London.

As a barrister, he was involved in cases before English and international courts, including those concerning the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, the British detainees at Guantanamo Bay and detained asylum seekers in the UK.

He's author of Lawless World - America and the making and breaking of international rules.

Professor Sands says that British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australian Prime Minister Howard could face charges amid claims that the Iraq war was illegal.

Professor Sands also says United States President George W Bush and US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld also could find themselves in similar predicaments.

Professor Sands says if Mr Blair or Mr Howard travel outside of their own countries after they've left office, they could face prosecution.


And here is a NYT story about a new book by Larry Diamond, a former member of the Coalition Authority.

Mr. Diamond suggests that the decision to turn the American presence into a formal occupation fueled Iraqi suspicions that the United States did not want a truly sovereign Iraq but wanted to dictate terms that would serve America's own economic (i.e. oil) and military interests.

When Mr. Diamond returned to the United States in April 2004, he says he wrote his old friend Ms. Rice a long, confidential memo, recommending that America "disavow any long-term military aspirations in Iraq," establish a target date for the withdrawal of our forces, respond to concerns about Iraqi detainees, proceed vigorously with a plan to disarm and reintegrate Iraqi militias and send "significantly more troops and equipment."

The memo concluded: "If we do not develop soon a coherent counter-insurgency plan combining political and military, Iraqi and international initiatives, we will creep closer and closer to that tipping point, beyond which so many Iraqis sympathize with or join the insurgency that we cannot prevail at any bearable price."

Whose price?

Those who pay.

Or those who profit.


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