Down the River

*
Stephen Colbert pretty much tore everyone a new one last night at the WHCD.

Here's a link from One Good Move.

"This is an edited version of Stephen Colbert's appearance at the White House Correspondent's Dinner. I think I got all the best lines and you can view his audition for White House Press Secretary here . "

You may not like Colbert's humour, but the truth within it and the courage to deliver it to an uncomfortable president and first lady is pretty impressive.

Continuing his adventures in the Political jugular,

Here is Colbert with Bill Kristol making him equally uncomfortable about his role in the Project for a new American Century.

And here is Jon Stewart with Robin Williams,

discussing "the Decider".

And Down by the River, 4 Dead in Ohio, Neil Young has a new album,

with a song to impeach the decider. (Hear it here )

Meanwhile here is Josh Bolton getting his own hot potato.(scroll down)

"Q: Quite often about he credibility of the UN, and it seems that
Bolton: And so has Secretary Rice..

Q: Yes and Rice has as well, but that seems to work in your favor when they do what you want them to do, but you violated the UN charter when you went to war against Iraq and you constantly lied to us about the reasons we went to war. ...in 1996 with the Project of New American Century and, you know, why do you have credibility other than you just got the bigger guns?

Bolton: May I ask what media outlet you're from?

Q: (garbled) Weekly.

Bolton: I see. We did not violate the UN charter in the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein and that plan was not drawn up in (H) at the Project for the New American Century."

"I'm always right and I never lie."
George Tirebiter

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The Awakened Heart

*
Last night, we talked about some pretty serious stuff over dinner.

Perhaps most serious was our discussion on what we as individuals can do to derail the high likelyhood of a true World War in the not to distant future.

The conversation led me to this piece out of a new book that I'm about to finish.

"I’m not quite sure why our hearts need to be awakened. Did we allow them to go to sleep as we became small adults, or does our heart lie dormant awaiting its time to blossom?

Either way, most of us know or have experienced a glimpse of the awakened heart. Perhaps it was the death of our father, or the death of a sister or brother. Perhaps it was your own near death.

Perhaps it was not death that awakened your heart.

Perhaps it was life as found in the new born babe.

Perhaps it was the care that was given to you as a child.

Perhaps it was the love of your partner.

Perhaps it was the love that you gave,

when you wanted to hurt because you were hurt.

And you saw your error.

And your heart awakened.

I think we all know that the love we have for our partners

is often not love.

I think we understand that the love we have for our children and parents

is often not real love.

I think we comprehend that the love we have for our friends and neighbors

is generally not love.

Many times our love is self serving.

Many times our love is charm and charisma.

Many times our love is just a good idea.

The love of the awakened heart is something different.

The love of the awakened heart is not the love of your self importance.

The love of the awakened heart is not the love of sentimentality.

The love of the awakened heart is not the love of your own goodness,

of your own forthrightness,

of your respect for others,

or of your honor to your own words and commitments.

The love of the awakened heart is the natural state of a child

who is not lost in the mystery of the sea of our knowing.

The love of the awakened heart is the love for a woman

who left you for another man.

It is the love for a man who left you without an education or youth.

It is the love for a father who touched you and violated you.

It is the love for a mother who had no time for you.

It is the love for a boss who treats you like a simpleton.

It is the love of a red light on a busy day.

It is the love of a bee sting.

It is the love of a blue sky that turns stormy,

and rains on your parade and party.

It is the love of your enemy,

Who would kill you if he had a chance."

Jesus said in the 5th chapter of Matthew,

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye?

Do not even the publicans the same?

Perhaps the first thing we do to derail this coming calamity

is look within ourselves.

Then, we look at our Cultural Super Ego.

Then we see ourselves for what we have become.

Publicans.

With and without the "Re".


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As a Stone

*
Yesterday I was traveling through the magic forest of Joshua Trees.

The Sun was sitting above the large mountains to my right.

In front of me and to my left was a Tormenta.

Soon, giant drops began to rain down on my car,

and as they hit, they exploded in the bright sun light.

I looked to my left,

and saw a vivid and complete rainbow that moved with me

as I barrelled ahead to my destination some 9000 feet in the mountains.

As the rain grew in strength,

it was suddenly replaced by large balls of ice, granizo.

These white balls of ice pummeled my windshield and hood

in the blinding light of the sun, turning my view into a bright,

ear deafening extravagant example of the natural wonder around us.

For a moment, I thought the windshield might explode,

or that I should turn back, or something.

That thought diminished as did the tormenta.

When I arrived at my mountain home,

I thanked the travel gods and opened up the

Tao Te Ching.

In harmony with the Tao,
The sky is clear and spacious,
the earth is solid and full,
all creatures flourish together,
content with the way they are,
endlessly repeating themselves
endlessly renewed.

When man interferes with the Tao,
the sky becomes filthy,
the earth becomes depleted,
the equilibrium crumbles,
creatures become extinct.

The Master views the part with compassion,
because he understands the whole.
His contant practice is humility.
He doesn't glitter like a jewel
but lets himself be shaped by the Tao,
as rugged and common as a stone.

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*photoart courtesy of John Fielder

Tao Te Ching new version by Stephen Mitchell

What It Is

*

I'm on the way to a hydrogen meeting today.

Here is a basic from last June.

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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art Rene Magritte, The Treason of Images

The Land of the Blind

*
If you think that electing the other side of the dime will stop the forward movement towards a global war, the kind with a Roman numeral after it, then Howard Zinn has bad news for you.

This is a must read for all who seek Peace, Freedom, and an Integrated Global Community.

America’s Blinders
By Howard Zinn
The Progressive
April 2006 Issue

Now that most Americans no longer believe in the war, now that they no longer trust Bush and his Administration, now that the evidence of deception has become overwhelming (so overwhelming that even the major media, always late, have begun to register indignation), we might ask:

How come so many people were so easily fooled?

The question is important because it might help us understand why Americans—members of the media as well as the ordinary citizen—rushed to declare their support as the President was sending troops halfway around the world to Iraq.

A small example of the innocence (or obsequiousness, to be more exact) of the press is the way it reacted to Colin Powell’s presentation in February 2003 to the Security Council, a month before the invasion, a speech which may have set a record for the number of falsehoods told in one talk.

In it, Powell confidently rattled off his “evidence”: satellite photographs, audio records, reports from informants, with precise statistics on how many gallons of this and that existed for chemical warfare.

The New York Times was breathless with admiration.

The Washington Post editorial was titled “Irrefutable” and declared that after Powell’s talk “it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.”

It seems to me there are two reasons, which go deep into our national culture, and which help explain the vulnerability of the press and of the citizenry to outrageous lies whose consequences bring death to tens of thousands of people.

If we can understand those reasons, we can guard ourselves better against being deceived.

One is in the dimension of time, that is, an absence of historical perspective.

The other is in the dimension of space, that is, an inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism. We are penned in by the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior.

(clip)

A careful reading of history might give us another safeguard against being deceived. It would make clear that there has always been, and is today, a profound conflict of interest between the government and the people of the United States.

This thought startles most people, because it goes against everything we have been taught.

We have been led to believe that, from the beginning, as our Founding Fathers put it in the Preamble to the Constitution, it was “we the people” who established the new government after the Revolution.

When the eminent historian Charles Beard suggested, a hundred years ago, that the Constitution represented not the working people, not the slaves, but the slaveholders, the merchants, the bondholders, he became the object of an indignant editorial in The New York Times.

Our culture demands, in its very language, that we accept a commonality of interest binding all of us to one another. We mustn’t talk about classes. Only Marxists do that, although James Madison, “Father of the Constitution,” said, thirty years before Marx was born that there was an inevitable conflict in society between those who had property and those who did not.

Our present leaders are not so candid.

They bombard us with phrases like “national interest,” “national security,” and “national defense” as if all of these concepts applied equally to all of us, colored or white, rich or poor, as if General Motors and Halliburton have the same interests as the rest of us, as if George Bush has the same interest as the young man or woman he sends to war.

Surely, in the history of lies told to the population, this is the biggest lie.

In the history of secrets, withheld from the American people, this is the biggest secret: that there are classes with different interests in this country.

To ignore that—not to know that the history of our country is a history of slaveowner against slave, landlord against tenant, corporation against worker, rich against poor—is to render us helpless before all the lesser lies told to us by people in power.

(clip)

If your starting point for evaluating the world around you is the firm belief that this nation is somehow endowed by Providence with unique qualities that make it morally superior to every other nation on Earth, then you are not likely to question the President when he says we are sending our troops here or there, or bombing this or that, in order to spread our values—democracy, liberty, and let’s not forget free enterprise—to some God-forsaken (literally) place in the world.

Both the Republican and Democratic parties have embraced this notion. George Bush, in his Inaugural Address on January 20, 2005, said that spreading liberty around the world was “the calling of our time.” Years before that, in 1993, President Bill Clinton, speaking at a West Point commencement, declared: “The values you learned here . . . will be able to spread throughout this country and throughout the world and give other people the opportunity to live as you have lived, to fulfill your God-given capacities.”

A more honest estimate of ourselves as a nation would prepare us all for the next barrage of lies that will accompany the next proposal to inflict our power on some other part of the world. It might also inspire us to create a different history for ourselves, by taking our country away from the liars and killers who govern it, and by rejecting nationalist arrogance, so that we can join the rest of the human race in the common cause of peace and justice.

Howard Zinn is the co-author, with Anthony Arnove, of “Voices of a People’s History of the United States.”

If we are to truly lead the World,

We must become the World.

and an Earthfamily.



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Real Leadership

For those of you who have forgotten or for those of us who have had to block it out of our minds because of a deep deep depression of leadership, here is what a POTUS is supposed to sound like.

The Opportunity for Private Citizens to Effect Positive Change
in an Increasingly Interdependent World
William Jefferson Clinton
March 28, 2006
London Business School

(intro)

It seems to me fairly straightforward that the major mission of our time should be to move from an inheritably unstable and unequal interdependence, to a more integrated world locally, nationally and globally.

And to me, every successfully integrated community or organization has three characteristics: you have equal opportunities, shared responsibilities and shared values, shared sense of belonging and community that crosses all the lines that would otherwise divide us.

What is keeping us from that sort of movement and what we need to do?

I think that there are four challenges all of which have economic components and other components.

There is a security challenge.

It has been warped by overemphasis on what happened in Iraq. But there is a security challenge from terror, weapons of mass destruction, slaughter of innocents in place like Darfur and from the threat of global epidemics in an interdependent world. The security challenges are best addressed cooperatively. Our position should be that we will cooperate whenever we can, and act alone only when me must, not the reverse.

The second thing that I would like to talk briefly about is global warming. I believe that it is the only existential threat that, those of you who are students here, your generation faces. It could literally undermine your ability to raise your children and grandchildren.

A whole spade of new books and studies have come out in the last couple of months, and I will just cite two or three. A dig through the ice pac in Antarctica, deeper than any before it had achieved has enabled us to measure the pattern of climate warming in the last two hundred years.

The climate is warming more rapidly than anytime in the last two hundred thousand years. Homosapiens stood up on the planes of the savannah in East Africa somewhere between 130,000-150,000 years ago. This goes back before the time when our species was on the planet. The last ice age receded 15,000 years ago that allowed people to move across the globe. There were five civilizations on earth five thousands years ago.

We are playing with serious fire.

The Indians and Chinese are in this huge fight now to see who can get the most oil. We may be at a point of peak oil production. You may see $100 a barrel oil in the next two or three years, but what still is driving this globalization is the idea that is you cannot possibly get rich, stay rich and get richer; if you don’t release more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

That was true in the industrial era; it is simply factually not true. What is true is that the old energy economy is well organized, financed and connected politically. The new energy economy is underfinanced, under organized, entrepreneurial and in need of the type of research and development work that we routinely did when we were trying to sequence the human genome or go into space.

But just with existing technologies for conservation and clean energy, we can more than meet the Kyoto protocols if we were remotely serious about the targets and in the process create jobs in the developed and developing world on a scale that is otherwise unimaginable to me.

It is just a question of whether we accept this, but I can only tell you that I have studied this data seriously.

I consider it an existential threat to your future.

It may be the most remote security threat you face, but the only one who has the chance to change the life of everybody on the planet for the worst.

And yet it is a phenomenal opportunity. "

(clip)

The final thing that I want to say is fairly simple but maybe the most important of all.

People ask me all the time, okay I get how we can push for equal and shared opportunities; I get how we can have shared responsibilities for security and climate change, but how in the world can we ever have a shared sense of community with all the different religious and other problems we have?

(clip)

Underneath all of this, most people who use religion as an excuse to kill are just politicians trying to get power. In every religion there is a conviction that there is a truth, but there is a very great deal of difference between saying there is a truth and saying that any person in this lifetime can be in full possession of it, much less turn it into a political program that is fully true, so that if you reject it you don’t deserve to live.

All we have to do to build a global community, an integrated global community, is to have people believe that every person is entitled to dignity and a chance, that competition is good but cooperation works better, that our differences are really important but our common humanity matters more.

You can get up here about all the platitudes you want about how great this is, but if half the people aren’t a part of it in the end,

the system will collapse.

So I ask all of you

to think about that. "

(close)

This is the way

Real Leadership

thinks and speaks.

The bleed and greed dribble we hear today,

is Demagoguery.


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Earth Trustees

*
This document by John McConnell seems to be worth a read.

Earth Magna Charta
By John McConnell
Founder of Earth Day

A world view, goal and agenda for the people of Earth that will provide a healthy, sustainable future.

Prelude

"The people of planet Earth have the raw materials, natural resources, and the technology for all to enjoy a life of quality. But they are still restricted by the evil that has dominated history.

They lack the vision of the great future now possible and how to attain it. As a result, the world is filled with confusion and conflict.

This Earth Magna Charta provides the needed vision and the way. Individuals and institutions can now be trustees of Earth, seeking in ecology, economics and ethics policies and decisions that will benefit people and planet.

In the present state of the world, this Space Age trustee concept has a chance of tapping the best in human hopes and aspirations and providing a healthy, innovative and fulfilling future for our planet and its people.

In this new future, deeds will demonstrate what is best in creeds. Young Earth Trustees will lead the way.

Our Miracle Planet

In this Magna Charta we will consider what we have, as a human family, on this miracle planet we call Earth. To understand the possibilities and how we can each participate in realizing them we need to think about basics.

Actions good or bad begin in the mind.

To plan and achieve the best future we must look at our assets and liabilities. Experts will confirm the abundance of raw materials and natural resources on our planet. (They have a value of hundreds of trillions of dollars.)

There is more than enough to provide and maintain a healthy life-style for everyone, with more for those with greater ability and initiative.This is possible now because of our advanced technology.

A major problem is how to restructure the social institutions of money, credit and property rights so that there will be a level playing field where rights and responsibilities will be recognized and realized.

The Earth Magna Charta provides guidelines to achieve these goals - recognizing that people with different cultures and creeds will apply them in different ways. But all can warmly support the goals presented here. Aided by the sense of connectedness and the spirit of cooperation engendered by thinking of themselves as Trustees of Earth - all benefit.

(clip)

Organization

There is no official Earth Trustee authorizing organization. Anyone is welcome to use the name as long as they base their effort on the principles set forth in this document. Any existing organization that adopts these purposes can be an Earth Trustee business, school, church or temple.

Any neighborhood, city or state can form an independent Earth Trustee Committee to further these purposes in their own way.

All are invited to share what they are doing with others."

Communications

Our new global communications with its Information Superhighway can under this Charter bring rapid change to heal, nurture and improve life on Earth. To accomplish this requires a radical change in attitudes and policies of mass media.

They must seek in every way possible to define and further Earth Trustee goals. While plans and methods for achieving goals will differ, affirming points of accord will increase harmony and accommodation."

Nice to know that the Founder of Earthday,

might also be the Father of the Earthfamily.

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*Andre Masson / The Earth (1939)

Whole Earth Day

Yesterday was Earth Day.

And I spent most of the day outside.

I don't think I even looked at a computer.

And that is quite an unusual occasion for me these days.

Earth Day was originally started by John McConnell.

"When I first conceived of Earth Day, a global holiday to celebrate the wonder of life on our planet, I thought long and hard about the day on which it should fall. It must be meaningful. One that might be accepted universally for all of humankind.

When the Vernal Equinox dawned on me, I immediately knew it was right. The Earth tremor that shook our California dwelling at that moment seemed an omen of confirmation. What could be more appropriate than the first moment of Spring, when day and night are equal around the world and hearts and minds can join together with thoughts of harmony and Earth's rejuvenation.

Just as a single prayer can be significant, how much more so when hundreds, thousands, millions of people throughout the world join in peaceful thoughts and prayers to nurture neighbor and nature.

And so it came to pass we initiated the celebration of Earth Day on March 21, 1970.

The first Proclamation of Earth Day was by San Francisco, the City of Saint Francis, patron saint of ecology. Designating the First Day of Spring, March 21, 1970 to be Earth Day, this day of nature's equipoise was later sanctioned in a Proclamation signed by Secretary General U Thant at the United Nations where it is observed each year.

Earth Day was firmly established for all time on a sound basis as an annual event to deepen reverence and care for life on our planet."

Of course, Earth Day in the United States is April 22nd. Everyone gets in the act, General Motors, even the Bush Administration.

There is even an Earth Day. gov site. It has a picture of the POTUS outside with an ice chest and some buckets. The page opens with,

"Earth Day is a time to celebrate gains we have made and create new visions to accelerate environmental progress. Earth Day is a time to unite around new actions. Earth Day and every day is a time to act to protect our planet."

Yet, best I can tell, this site has next to nothing to say about global warming.

It's like celebrating the health of your Mom while she is in bed with a fever of 104 degrees, all the while talking about how much progress has been made fixing up her car.

True, if you get into the site and look towards the bottom, you'll see some tepid inititiaves such as this:

"President Bush has committed America to meeting the long-term challenge of global climate change by reducing the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions to economic output by 18 percent by 2012 compared to 2002. "

The top of the Earth Day.gov site says

"Celebrate and Accelerate".

And pretty clearly, these policies will accelerate the growth of carbon in our atmosphere and they will increase the likelihood of even more dangerous positive feed backs that will ultimately accelerate the change even more.

I don't know if we should celebrate that though.

Some Day, Earth Day will not be Eco Event.

It will be a Political Event.

Some Day,

We will celebrate the time that the Earth became whole.

We will celebrate the day that we all became sailors.

We will celebrate the day that a true and operable Earth Union

is created.

And like the European Union,

We might elect our representatives to the Earth Congress.

Or, through the use of our advanced communication tools,

it might be a true democracy of the whole.

Some Day,

We will celebrate the Day the Earth Became Whole,

And the POTUS will not be there.

Some Day.


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PC PV's

*
There are many strategies for creating photon to electron devices which can deliver the transduced energy that surrounds us at a price we can afford, in the amounts we will need, in the time we have to deploy them.

First generation photovoltaics, although very proven and very reliable, have production cost issues. There is a lot of energy in a standard silicon solar cell. Besides the energy in the mining and the tranportation of the raw silicon, there is energy that is inputed to control the environment to grow the crystal. There is also the energy in the glass on the cover and in the metal that frames the panel. These costs can be managed, but few see one sun silicon providing more than 5 units of energy for every unit of energy that it took to produce the panel.

Providing more suns on the crystal with less imbedded energy will increase that ratio.

But the exciting field of photon to electron conversion is moving quickly now into second and third generation technologies.

Here is a story from Renewable Energy Access that tells part of the story:

Thin-film and Organic PV on the Rise
by Lawrence Gasman, Principal Analyst, NanoMarkets LC
April 17, 2006

"The combination of better materials, the evolution of thin-film transistor technology, and new production methods is establishing thin-film and organic photovoltaics as a hot area for investment. Recent market forecast and analysis carried out by my firm NanoMarkets LC, indicates that revenues from PV modules that use materials such as thin-film amorphous silicon, CIS/CIGS, cadmium telluride, small molecules, polymers or organic dyes will reach $2.3 billion by 2011.

(clip)

Why is thin-film PV taking off now? It has been around for more than a decade and until quite recently its main claim to fame has been as the key enabler for solar powered calculators. Today, however, thin-film is benefiting from a "perfect storm" of market drivers.

Solar power of all kinds is attracting considerable interest, because of high prices and dire predictions for continued reliance on fossil fuels. And thin-film PV is getting particular attention, in part, because it gets around the current shortage of silicon that the traditional PV market is currently experiencing.

(clip)

A radically new direction for creating PV is represented by printing. "Printing" in this case, may mean either traditional printing technologies that have been associated with graphics printing for decades or centuries.

Or it may mean ink-jet printing. Not all materials lend themselves to this approach, though. It is particularly associated with organic materials. However, at least one firm is pursuing the goal of a silicon ink. Printing will supposedly bring down the cost of PV in a radical new way, ultimately resulting in orders of magnitude and improvements in cost per watt."

Imagine every ink-jet printer becoming a photovoltaic manufacturing device?

Imagine every computer and printer combined with a special cartridge

and a special plastic carbon substrate being capable of making a PV?

This marriage of the PC and the PV would be truly revolutionary.

And it would be a classic disruptive technology,

just like the Cell phone was to the land line.

It would allow buyers of PC's to manufacture the energy device

they will need to run the PC that they have just purchased,

and their lights, or their PDA.

What if you could download the program with your PDA/cell phone,

and even order the printing cartridge for your the ink jet printer,

from almost anywhere?

What if the plastic sheets were ubiquitous?

Then, the energy that is invested in the manufacturing process,

is greatly reduced.

The PV panel is not just assembled locally, it is manufactured locally.

Not that long ago,

I imagined that someday we would see power paints, and rectennas,

and carbon based thin film technologies that will completely replace

our present very old archaic ways of deriving our energy from the

carcasses

of the dead.

And honestly now,

it should come as no surprise to the brujo in us all,

that this "derived energy" from the dead,

would have just a little more than a just a little karma attached to it.

A PC PV disruption to that inglorious final act might be the kind of

disruption we need.

Besides, I've seen that opera.

It sucks.


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A Significant Relief

As we anticipate the release of the Inconvenient Truth,

the new film about Al Gore's effort to awaken America

to the real challenge of climate change,

The Washington Post has released a convenient headline,

to help soothe them back to sleep.

Climate Change Will Be Significant but Not Extreme,
Study Predicts
By Rick Weiss
April 20, 2006; Page A08

Earth will experience significant climate change in the coming century as a result of greenhouse gas buildups, but the more extreme estimates of global warming generated by some studies are unlikely to occur, according to newly published research.

"This still commits us to quite a bit of climate change, but it leaves the door open to avoiding the largest and most devastating consequences," said Gabriele C. Hegerl, a Duke University climate expert who led the study.

(clip)

Climate scientists from around the world have for more than a decade concurred that climate sensitivity's most likely value is in the range of about 2.5 degrees to 8 degrees Fahrenheit. But because many factors can affect global temperatures in poorly understood ways -- including the extent to which the oceans have tempered climate trends -- scientists have not been able to rule out more extreme calculations suggesting a warm-up of 16 degrees Fahrenheit or more.

The new work, described in today's issue of the journal Nature, reaches back 700 years. It recalculates the relationship between atmospheric composition and climate, taking into account the climate-affecting impacts of sun-blocking volcanic eruptions; carbon dioxide levels derived from air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice; and temperature data derived from tree rings.

The result: Climate sensitivity almost certainly falls within the more conventional range of current predictions, with only a 5 percent chance that it will exceed 11 degrees Fahrenheit."

Let's see, I'm a skeptic and I hope Climate Change is a mass delusion

of the green infested minds of ecologist and recyclers,

who have somehow infected the minds of all the Academies of Science,

and the great majority of the World's scientists who are screaming out

for our leaders to do something to avoid a catastrophe,

and I read the Washington Post, because it is a fine middle of the road

presenter of the facts, (not like that liberal NYTs)

and I read that Climate Change will be significant,

but not extreem.

Thank God. That is a significant relief.

I can go about my day now and quote the Post that there is only

a 5% chance that the temperature will arise above 11 degrees.

Jeezus Freezus you guys.

This is the equivalent of saying that the estimate of the height

of the ledge that is about to break off,

that you and I and all of our pals are standing on,

is only 200 feet tall and not 300 feet, as some have estimated.

Of course, all of us, except for maybe a couple of broken leg

nested pairs will die, even if the fall is just 100 feet.

Nowhere in the story is the lead of the story confirmed.

Nowhere in the story is 11 degrees described as "not extreem".

The headline is a fabrication of the seriously skewed opinion

that climate change increases of even 5 degrees will be survivable.

I am not aware of any serious researcher

who believes that human civilization, as we know it,

can survive anything close to an 11 degree increase.

So the Post would have us believe that a 95 % chance of the avoidance

of complete total extinction is good news?

Just how bad does the corporate control of this critical issue

have to be before reporters and editors throughout the country,

and the rest of the world

walk off their jobs and say.

That's it.

No more lies.

We need to respond to this issue now,

or we are doomed.

That would be the significant relief the rest of us are seeking.

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art courtesy of Laura Walker Scott

Alien Nation

Scottie resigns

And speaking of an "alien" reality,

I spent Easter visiting with new acquaintances.

And it was an eye opener.

We spent the entire day without saying one word about

Climate Change, Peak Oil, the War in Iraq, Nuking Iran,

the War on Terrorism, the rise of Fascism in the United States,

the demise of an independent and energetic and truly free press,

the rights of aliens (illegal or otherwise)

the 1/2 trillion dollar annual deficit,

the 9 trillion dollar national debt,

the 300 billion dollars and counting spent on Iraq,

the mounting trade defict with China,

the impending Petrodollar collapse,

the softening of the "sky high" red hot housing market,

the President, his shoot em up Veep, or Dr. Strangefeld.

You are probably asking, "did you talk at all"?

Yes,

They talked about putting a giant plasma screen on the outside

above the bar, overlooking the pool, so they could watch the Spurs.

They talked about their maid who they give lots of things to,

like their old dishes and their old clothes,

but who can't speak English, and who is probably "over paid".

They talked about real estate being where its "at".

They talked about going to Cancun and to "Cabo"

They talked about sweeteners and about losing weight.

Their outside patio was furnished with nice plush outdoor furniture,

that sat on an all-weather rug that had faded a little

from its original rust color.

The outside cooker was one of those really nice stainless steel dudahs.

Inside, the furniture looked like it belonged In WRH's San Simeon.

I counted 19 Lions without going into the bedrooms.

The stucco red tiled house was about half the size of the lot,

so another huge one peered over us, just a few feet away

on the other side of the prefab concrete wall.

Outside, on the drive, was a Lincoln Navigator and a nice BMW.

These folks are pretty, ambitious, success oriented decent participants

in what is generally considered the American dream.

They don't worry about Climate Change making their world

and their childrens world a nightmare.

They don't worry about Peak Oil and resource depletion

dragging the developed and developing nations into an long series of wars.

They don't fret about the rise of the militarism,

which is attempting to justify the murder of millions of innocent earthlings,

with the help of a compliant media, & proven distortions of the truth,

all mixed in with a liberal dose of demagoguery,

So that we can go in, and control strategic resources.

And, for just a moment,

I was jealous.


You can beam me up too, Scottie.

This nation is a little too alien.

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photo courtesy of Alien Nation

Righting History

*
There are lots of ways to tell the future.

One of the best ways is to look at the past.

And even though history belongs to the victors,

occassionally even the victors can't hide all of the truth.

Here is Rob Newman on the History of Oil. (watch this)

It comes from the Dossier

which has a lot of good videos you can watch.

You should also check out Google Video ,

And You Tube is another site you should know about.

But you don't need videos or documentaries to tell you

what you should know.

Most of us know.

Don't we?

Watch the History.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -George Santayana

"The only thing we learn from history is that we never learn from history." -Hegel

"Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt - particularly to doubt one's cherished beliefs, one's dogmas and one's axioms." -Will Durant

"I have had my solutions for a long time, but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them." -Karl Friedrich Gauss

"He who fights monsters should see to it that in the process, he does not become a monster. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you." - Nietzche

"The more extensive a man's knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do." -Benjamin Disraeli

"All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke

"As for adopting the ways which the State has provided for remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man's life will be gone. I have other affairs to attend to. I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad." -Henry David Thoreau

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger" -Friedrich Nietzsche

"History is written by the victors." -Machiavelli


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art courtesy of Katonah Museum of Art

China Syndrome

*
Even as the poles warm and the hurricanes grow in strength at the tropics, the United States government continues to ignore the reality of climate change, and it continues to postpone acting decisively to help mitigate the emissions which are causing the dangerous anthropogenic change in our climate.

One of the excuses for not acting, is the so called "loop hole" for China in the Kyoto treaty.

Here is a story from Le Monde that shows that China is well aware of the dangers it faces from Climate Change.

China: the sky darkens
Le Monde
By Agnès Sinai

The Chinese government made it clear at the UN climate change conference in Montreal last December that it was aware of the extreme dangers that China faces from both immediate and long-term climate change.

Every spring, fierce winds, sweeping across the arid landscape of Inner Mongolia, blow walls of sand hundreds of kilometres eastwards, periodically enveloping Beijing and turning day to night. The authorities have planted thousands of hedges in the path of these dry whirlwinds, but the long green line is powerless against the force of the wind and the advance of the dunes.

Sandstorms could well disrupt the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The rise in temperatures is more pronounced in the great loess plains of the north than in the south of the country. According to predictions for the 21st century drawn up by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, rainfall will continue to increase in the south and decline in the north, where drought, which is already reducing yields, will directly threaten agriculture and undermine economic development.

China’s glaciers retreated by 21% during the 20th century. A doubling in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would affect the distribution of major crops. China’s food-producing potential will be reduced by 10% as a result of climate change and extreme climatic events .

Scientists attribute the recent unprecedented rise of temperatures in the Sanjiangyuan region to global climate change. According to Greenpeace (4), the average temperature in this area has increased by 0.88C over the last 50 years, causing the glaciers to retreat, melting the permafrost (5), affecting rain regimes and increasing evaporation rates.

(clip)

Wanted: a global policy

But all this is just a drop in that rising ocean unless the rise in temperatures across the region can be countered by a global policy to combat climate change.

According to Anja Köhne, project manager at the World Wildlife Fund’s European policy office, “the Chinese government realises that climate change is a serious problem threatening food supplies and national stability. China has 200 million poor whose living conditions could be made even worse by rising temperatures.

This is a potential cause of political destabilisation.”

(clip)

According to Lester Brown of the US research organisation the Earth Policy Institute, over the next 25 years the planet will suffer an ecological catastrophe if China’s population adopts current US lifestyles.

If, by 2031, each Chinese were to use as much oil as an American does today, the country would get through 99m barrels of crude oil a day. Worldwide daily production is currently some 79m barrels. If, over the same period, per capita coal consumption were to reach US levels, China would burn 2.8m tonnes of coal per year, more than the current annual global production of 2.5m tonnes.

“Climate change,” Brown warned, “could spiral out of control”

While the US government pitters away its wealth on phantom foes,

and the US media pitifully panders to the powers that be,

the real threat to our world and what is left of the peace,

continues to rumble.

You may not hear it yet.

But it is there.

It is there.

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*art courtesy of Inga McCaslin Frick

The Empty Tomb

dali

As a child,

I remember Easter as a time that I got new clothes.

Everyone got new clothes.

And we all went to church.

Even my dad went to church on Easter.

That's a nice metaphor.

New clothes.

For the New Person.

I always thought the empty tomb,

was a stronger image than the cross.

Like Bill Hicks said,

wearing the cross around your neck,

to honor Christ,

is a little like wearing a carbine on your lapel

to honor JFK.

Jesus is probably up there right now saying,

"I don't know Dad,

I'm not going down there quite yet,

They are still wearing those crosses".

"Folks: It's time to evolve ideas. You know, evolution didn't end with us growing thumbs. You do know that, right? Didn't end there. We're at the point, now, where we're going to have to evolve ideas. The reason the world is so fv(ked up is we're undergoing evolution. And the reason our institutions, our traditional religions, are all crumbling, is because ... they're no longer relevant. They're no longer relevant. So it's time for us to create a new philosophy and perhaps even a new religion, you see. And that's OK 'cause that's our right, 'cause we are free children of God with minds who can imagine anything, and that's kind of our role." Bill Hicks

Maybe we should focus less on the cross,

and more on the empty tomb.

And our new clothes.




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Knowing and Naming

Dali

We all know that to name something is not to know it.

I may know the names of my colleagues,

but it takes time to really get to know them.

You have to visit with them and learn something deeper about them.

The same is true for news stories or for scientific ideas.

You can have the news story named for you by the MSM,

but you do not know the event.

You do not know how your car works simply by naming it.

You may know that Einstein explained the photovoltaic effect,

and ultimately got the Nobel Prize for that work, (not relativity)

but that doesn't mean you know how photons are converted to electrons,

or how you might use "that effect" to power your home or car someday.

Here is a nice video from One Good Move with the Nobel prize winning Richard Feynman.

"Feynman was one of the most influential American physicists of the 20th century, expanding greatly the theory of quantum electrodynamics, quark theory, and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium. "He reconstructed almost the whole of quantum mechanics and electrodynamics in his own way, deriving a way to analyze atomic interactions through simple diagrams (now known as Feynman diagrams), a method that is still used widely.

Apart from pure physics, Feynman is also credited with the revolutionary concept and early exploration of quantum computing, and first publicly envisioning nanotechnology, i.e. the ability to mass produce atomic-scale machines."

Earlier in the week, I spoke at a MENSA meeting.

You know, they are the folks who are certifyably smart.

After my talk, I asked for questions and the hands went up

like we were in a Holy Roller service. (and they are smart)

There in the room was a large poster of Einstein.

Since I was talking about plug in hybrids and renewable energy in general,

I mentioned that Einstein received his Nobel Prize for the PV.

So, in one sense, he was the Father of Solar,

or at least "solid state" solar.

He also was the father of E= MC squared.

In November 1954, five months before his death,

Einstein summarized his feelings about his role

in the creation of the atomic bomb:

"I made one great mistake in my life...

when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt

recommending that atom bombs be made. "(clip)

In Iran, the distinction between the use of Nuclear Energy

For peacetime,

or for War,

is as blurry as the truth of this technology is clear.

We know that Nuclear Energy can be used safely.

And its name is the Sun.

Ask Al.

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