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Dirty Energy vs. Clean Power
Dirty Energy vs. Clean Power
The Past Battles the Future at Seneca Lake
Let’s amend the famous line from Joni Mitchell’s “Yellow Taxi” to fit this moment in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. There, Big Energy seems determined to turn paradise, if not into a parking lot, then into a massive storage area for fracked natural gas. But there’s one way in which that song doesn’t quite match reality. Mitchell famously wrote, “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” As part of a growing global struggle between Big Energy and a movement focused on creating a fossil-fuel-free future, however, the residents of the Finger Lakes seem to know just what they’ve got and they’re determined not to let it go. As a result, a local struggle against a corporation determined to bring in those fracked fuels catches a changing mood not just in the United States but across the world when it comes to protecting the planet, one place at a time, if necessary.
It’s difficult to imagine a more picturesque landscape, a more tranquil locale, a more bucolic garden spot than the Finger Lakes region. Each year, it draws tens of thousands of tourists to gaze at the waterfalls in Watkins Glen, to kayak and canoe in its deep waters, to dine in its farm-to-table restaurants and enjoy the homespun hospitality of its bed and breakfasts. Lush vineyards rustle on tree-studded hillsides. Wine Enthusiast magazine gave it top honors last year, calling it “one of the most vibrant and promising wine regions of the world.” There are fruit and vegetable farms and sugar maples, too. In 2013, the state’s maple syrup production ranked second only to Vermont’s.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Greece, Democracy and Magical Thinking
Greece, Democracy and Magical Thinking
Regardless of what the Greek people choose, at least the choice will be theirs, along with the consequences.
What is representative democracy but organized bribery on a mass scale?Politicians seeking control of the spigots of state wealth and power promise endless swag to voters. Those who promise the most swag and do so with the most inspirational Soaring Rhetoric ™ win elections and gain control of the spigots of state wealth and power.
What are promises of endless swag but lies cloaked in magical thinking? The magical thinking has many manifestations: the aptly named Laffer Curve, used to justify cutting taxes to the already-wealthy; entry into the Eurozone, a magical land of unicorns and endless prosperity, based not on hard work and the creation of value, but on membership alone; the blowing of serial asset bubbles in real estate and stocks (works equally well in Asia and the West), and various iterations of Manifest Destiny: it’s our right to grow rich, preferably on the labor and resources of others.
Representative democracy offers choices with no consequences: no matter which politico and party is elected, the promises of endless swag remain unchanged.
In contrast, direct democracy offers choices with consequences: voters make a choice of policies that, whether intended or not, have consequences.
This forces voters to actually ponder consequences rather than indulge politico promises of endless swag in return for supporting a corrupt, predatory, parasitic status quo that benefits the few at the expense of the many.
Even direct democracy is easily corrupted by magical thinking. The actual consequences may be ignored in favor of magical-thinking dreams of only good consequences and no trade-offs or sacrifices, all powered by the magic of debt.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Former CIA Director: We’re Not Doing Nearly Enough To Protect Against The EMP Threat
Former CIA Director: We’re Not Doing Nearly Enough To Protect Against The EMP Threat
On Monday we covered the release of an open letter written to President Obama, issued by a committee of notable political, security and defense experts — which includes past and present members of Congress, ambassadors, CIA directors, and others — on the country’s concerning level of vulnerability to a natural or man-made Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP).
An EMP has very real potential for crippling much of our electrical grid instantaneously. Not only would that immediately throw the social order into chaos, but the timeline to repair and restart the grid in most estimated scenarios would take months to a year or more. Those curious on learning exactly how devastating an EMP can be can read our report on the topic from last summer.
This week, we’ve been fortunate enough to get several of the authors of that open letter to join us and explain in depth what they conclude needs to be done to protect against the EMP risk: former CIA Director and current Ambassador James Woolsey, Executive Director of the EMP Task Force Dr Peter Pry, and security industry entrepreneur Jen Bawden.
What’s frightening in this story is not just the carnage an EMP could wreak, but the apparent rabid intransigence with which the electrical power lobby is fighting any responsibility for defending against one:
Chris Martenson: Now, we’ve had a commission to assess the threat to the United States from an EMP attack, which delivered a report back in 2008. In fact, I found no less than two congressional commissions, a National Academy of Science report, other U.S. government sponsored studies, including your own. All have raised heightened concerns about this issue. All have found, all of them, that the EMP threat poses a significant and existential threat to the United States, and yet here we are still talking about this. Why is that?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
American Pharoah: What A Perfect Description For The Guy In The White House
American Pharoah: What A Perfect Description For The Guy In The White House
A horse named “American Pharoah” just won the Triple Crown. Is this some sort of a sign for America? The office of the presidency was greatly strengthened under previous administrations, but now Barack Obama has grabbed an unprecedented amount of power for himself. In this article, I am going to focus on immigration, but Obama’s power grab is certainly not limited to this area. And as I have written aboutpreviously, if there is some sort of major “national emergency” over the next year or so, the legal framework has already been created for Obama to use his “emergency powers” to take total control of virtually everything. So is comparing Obama to the pharoahs of ancient Egypt unfair? I don’t think so at all. He is certainly acting as if he would like the powers of a dictator, his policies in the Middle East would make the pharoahs proud, and without a doubt Obama loves the adoration and worship of his fans. In my opinion, he is the closest thing to a pharoah that the United States has ever seen.
Just consider Obama’s approach to immigration. The laws of our land require him to protect our borders, but he has left them wide open and has openly encouraged illegal immigration because that is what he decided was best. He also attempted to use his “executive powers” to grant amnesty to millions upon millions of immigrants that were in this country illegally. Fortunately, that action has been blocked in the courts (at least for now), but Obama says that he is going to keep trying to do everything he can to “bring them out of the shadows”.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Germany, France Call for Fiscal and Political Union. Public Ignorance Vital for Success of EU Power Grab
Germany, France Call for Fiscal and Political Union. Public Ignorance Vital for Success of EU Power Grab
Since Europe’s sovereign debt problems exploded onto the scene in 2010 the European Union has masterfully exploited the crisis to strengthen its grip over the old continent. It has stripped once-proud, independent nations of the last vestiges of their economic sovereignty. It has also pulled off the long-cherished dream of banking union, which was quietly consummated last fall.
Now, with the help of Berlin and Paris, it is looking to complete the coup. And this time not in the shadows, but in broad daylight.
The first move was to prep the masses. In an article published in The Guardian,Emmanuel Macron, France’s Minister of the Economy, and Sigmar Gabriel, the German Vice-Chancellor, outlined the broad strokes of the plan, calling for greater fiscal and social harmonization in the Eurozone while conceding that other EU countries like Britain should be allowed to settle for a less integrated Union based on the single market — at least temporarily:
Our common goal is to render it unthinkable for any country in pursuit of its national interest to consider a future without Europe (meaning, one assumes the EU) – or within a lesser union.
Straightening A Crooked Brussels
“The euro was built on a Franco-German understanding but also on a typically European compromise,” they write. “This gives France and Germany a particular responsibility to straighten what is crooked” — an eminently fitting phrase.
“A new, staged process of convergence is needed,” the authors add. This would involve not only structural reforms (labor, business and the environment) and institutional reforms (functioning of economic governance) but also social and tax convergence – all in the name of addressing the “critical flaws in the architecture of monetary union.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Government – Designed for Robbery
Government – Designed for Robbery
Why I’m Looking Forward to the Next Big Crash
First, the Dow dropped 190 points on Monday – or 1%. It was threatening to close below 18,000 for the first time in almost three weeks. We’ll wait to find out. Yesterday, a London-based magazine and a TV station interviewed us. Both asked if we were “pessimistic.”
“Of course not,” we replied. “We expect today’s financial system to fall apart in a terrible crash and depression. But we’re looking forward to it.”
This was not exactly the answer they were looking for… And there’s not enough time in an interview to explain why this view makes any sense at all. The audience must have thought we had lost our mind.
We also had a meeting with our old friend and editor of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report Marc Faber yesterday. He helped make sense of our “pessimism.”
“The system is corrupt,” he said. “The government. The banks. The central banks. Big business.”
People always use their wealth and power to try to protect themselves. Sometimes they use it to take wealth and power away from others, too. That’s corruption.
Of course, that’s what government was designed for: to allow one group to rob another. If the elite could take no advantage from it, why would they bother with government at all?
Dirty Work
We baby boomers took over in the 1980s. We have been in charge ever since. Since then, we’ve corrupted the economy, the markets, and government. By the 1970s, some of the dirty work was already done: The Nixon administration had ditched honest money. Now, the coast was clear. We could use this new credit-based money to pervert the whole shebang.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
We need a new economic system
We need a new economic system
As the 2016 election begins to come into focus, economic populism appears to be the order of the day. The Center for American Progress, the Campaign for America’s Future and National People’s Action,Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Bill de Blasio and the Roosevelt Institute have all in the last few months released programmatic calls to action highlighting the need to tackle economic inequality. This is, of course, laudable — it’s not every day that virtually the entire spectrum of Democratic Party insiders and outsiders concurs that our increasingly unequal distribution of income and wealth is a central problem to be addressed. But are calls for reform and redistribution enough?
I am opposed to very little of what is being presented in these various platforms and proposals. They are, for the most part, perfectly sensible ideas — such as financial transaction taxes, increases to the minimum wage and using government funds to build and repair infrastructure such as roads and railways — that would be, for the most part, noncontroversial if we were living in an era of sensible politics. But the fundamental fact is that we are not.
Instead, we are living in the era in which the corporate institutions at the core of our politics, along with the radical financial inequalities our system now produces, have undermined the power relationships that once allowed for traditional reforms. The labor union — the fundamental institutional power base for tempering the excesses of a corporate economy — is regrettably in terminal decline, down to 6.6 percent of workers in the private sector. Long-term structural shifts in the political economy have rendered the program of regulation and reform more or less inoperative.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Muskular Magic
Muskular Magic
Elon Musk, Silicon Valley’s poster-boy genius replacement for the late Steve Jobs, rolled out his PowerWall battery last week with Star Wars style fanfare, doing his bit to promote and support the delusional thinking that grips a nation unable to escape the toils of techno-grandiosity. The main delusion: that we can “solve” the problems of techno-industrial society with more and better technology.
The South African born-and-raised Musk is surely better known for founding Tesla Motors, maker of the snazzy all-electric car. The denizens of Silicon Valley are crazy about the Tesla. There is no greater status trinket in Northern California, where the fog of delusion cloaks the road to the future. They believe, as Musk himself often avers, that Tesla cars “don’t burn hydrocarbons.” That statement is absurd, of course, and Musk, who holds a degree in physics from Penn, must blush when he says that. After all, you have to plug it in and charge somewhere from the US electric grid.
Only 6 percent of US electric power comes from “clean” hydro generation. Another 20 percent is nuclear. The rest is coal (48 percent) and natural gas (21 percent) with the remaining sliver coming from “renewables” and oil. (The quote marks on “renewables” are there to remind you that they probably can’t be manufactured without the support of a fossil fuel economy). Anyway, my point is that the bulk of US electricity comes from burning hydrocarbons, and then there is the nuclear part which is glossed over because the techno-geniuses and politicians of America have no idea how they are going to de-commission our aging plants, and no idea how to safely dispose of the spent fuel rod inventory simply lying around in collection pools. This stuff is capable of poisoning the entire planet and we know it.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
US fall from virtuous republic to tragic-comic empire described perfectly by Roman historians
US fall from virtuous republic to tragic-comic empire described perfectly by Roman historians
The ancient Greek historian, Polybius, celebrated the Roman republic of ~ 150 BC under its constitution with balance of powers among the Senate, two elected consuls, and the general citizens:
“Such being the power that each part has of hampering the others or co-operating with them, their union is adequate to all emergencies, so that it is impossible to find a better political system than this.” – The Histories, Book VI, Section V: On the Roman Constitution at its Prime
Americans and people around the world were equally proud of the United States Constitution as “impossible to find a better political system than this.”
About 100 years after Polybius’ account, Rome’s republic had descended into oligarchic competition for power. Contemporary to Julius Caesar, the Roman historian and government insider Sallust blasted the decline of virtue in government:
“To those who had easily endured toils, dangers, and doubtful and difficult circumstances, ease and wealth, the objects of desire to others, became a burden and a trouble. At first the love of money, and then that of power, began to prevail, and these became, as it were, the sources of every evil. For avarice subverted honesty, integrity, and other honorable principles, and, in their stead, inculcated pride, inhumanity, contempt of religion, and general venality. Ambition prompted many to become deceitful; to keep one thing concealed in the breast, and another ready on the tongue; to estimate friendships and enmities, not by their worth, but according to interest; and to carry rather a specious countenance than an honest heart. These vices at first advanced but slowly, and were sometimes restrained by correction; but afterwards, when their infection had spread like a pestilence, the state was entirely changed, and the government, from being the most equitable and praiseworthy, became rapacious and insupportable.” – Conspiracy of Catiline, The Argument
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
One Last Look At The Real Economy Before It Implodes – Part 6 – Solutions
One Last Look At The Real Economy Before It Implodes – Part 6 – Solutions
All problems, all crises, have at least one solution, if not many solutions. There is no such thing as an unwinnable scenario. Some may not be smart enough or courageous enough to see it, but the solution is always there, waiting to be discovered. The only fight that cannot be won is the fight in which the enemy makes all the rules and we foolishly abide by those rules. Life is not a game of chess, and a man can choose to be more than a pawn anytime he has the guts to do so.
In the past, I have likened the liberty movement to a rebellion against not just tyrants but the game itself – a group of people willing to walk away from the chess board and make their own rules. I stand by that assertion. However, simply walking away is not enough; we must also be willing to take actions that will destroy the game entirely.
In order to accomplish this task, any rebellion against corruption of power must be self-critical – more self-critical of its own weaknesses than opposing propagandists could ever be. Most of our problems as a society are being caused by a relatively small number of elitists, but we will never be able to undo these problems without understanding our weaknesses as much as the enemy’s weaknesses. In this final installment of my six-part series, I will talk about REALsolutions to the inevitable economic implosion in front of us, but I will also discuss the shortcomings of the liberty movement as an obstacle to the success of those solutions.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Smart Meters: Enforcement Of Mandatory Water Restrictions Is Only Just The Beginning
Smart Meters: Enforcement Of Mandatory Water Restrictions Is Only Just The Beginning
Smart meters are now being used by authorities to crack down on “water wasters” in the state of California, but this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as what they can be used for. Ultimately, smart meters are designed to be part of an entire “smart grid” that will enable government bureaucrats “to control everything from your dishwasher to thermostat“. And in recent years, there has been a massive push to install smart meters in as many homes in the United States and Europe as possible. Back in December 2007, there were only 7 million smart meters installed in this country. Today there are more than 51 million. On the other side of the Atlantic, the European Parliament has set a goal of having smart meters in 80 percent of all homes by the year 2020. This is being promoted as the “green” thing to do, but could it be possible that there is more to these smart meters than meets the eye?
In Long Beach, California authorities were getting complaints that a local McDonald’s restaurant was wasting water in the middle of the night.
So what did the authorities do?
They installed a smart meter which instantly started providing incriminating evidence against McDonald’s. The following comes from CBS Los Angeles…
The Long Beach Water Department says sprinklers at a McDonald’s restaurant on Bellflower Boulevard went on for 45 minutes at a time, twice a night, for an undefined number of nights. Complaints continued to mount as water pooled and wasted. The department, however, could do little about the wasting.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Texas Town First Of Many To Switch To 100% Renewable Power
Texas Town First Of Many To Switch To 100% Renewable Power
On March 18 the city of Georgetown, Texas announced that it would soon be generating 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources.
Georgetown agreed to purchase the power from a 150-megawatt solar farm that is to be constructed by SunEdison and online in 2016. Coupled with a 2014 agreement to buy wind power, Georgetown will be able to generate all of its electricity needs without any help from coal, oil, natural gas, or nuclear power.
Texas, the largest oil producer in the United States, is not normally known for its green tendencies. But Georgetown will be the first of many cities in Texas and around the country that will increasingly turn to renewables for electricity. And that has less to do with environmentalism than it does with dollars and cents. Solar has seen its panel prices fall by more than 63 percent since 2010, with wind posting similar cost declines. As a result renewables are the fastest growing form of electricity.
Related: The $6.8 Billion Great Wall Of Japan: Fukushima Cleanup Takes On Epic Proportion
That is upending monopolies held by utilities, which are fighting back against insurgent solar and wind. Utilities are trying to block new entrants into the market, which has earned the solar and wind industry some new and unlikely allies. In North Carolina, for example, a Republican state representative issponsoring legislation that will open up the market for third party ownership and financing of solar, something that is currently illegal. Dubbed the “Energy Freedom Act,” the legislation could provide a dramatic boost to renewable energy in a state that has in the past banned state agencies from preparing for the threats of climate change.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Logic of power II
Logic of power II
We’re not trying to live like our ancestors, but to do something totally new: to preserve the most helpful complex technologies, while shifting to a political and economic system where power is fully shared.
— Ran Prieur
It seems like ages ago when I wrote about the logic of power. To sum up that post, I argued that it is not possible to fix domination by seizing power. When a group outdominates the current dominators, they become the new dominators. This really ought to be clear by now to anyone looking to “change the world.” It has nothing to do with faulty characters of the revolutionaries. It has to do with the logic of power. Boggles the mind, though; people still try again and again to grab power from their “oppressors.” And they are equally frequently admonishing fellow revolutionary spirits to “dismantle” power as though it were scaffolding.
What is power, anyway? It seems to me that power in its most basic sense is potency. Ability to do, to accomplish. We are all given power along with life, and all adults have, fundamentally, more or less the same amount. In the personal sense, of course, individuals vary somewhat, depending on their levels of energy, their vitality, strength and perseverance, and their specific talents. Their power also waxes and wanes depending on state of health, age, and other factors. But in the “state of nature” personal power fluctuates within a relatively narrow range.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Three Acronyms That Best Describe This Era: TINA, TANSTAAFL and FUGAZI
The Three Acronyms That Best Describe This Era: TINA, TANSTAAFL and FUGAZI
TINA and the complacent belief in free lunches strip the resiliency from a system and leave it vulnerable to collapse.
It’s tough to select three acronyms that best capture the current perfection of central planning, central banking and centralized propaganda. FUBAR (f**ked up beyond all repair) is tough to beat, and for those with a taste for absurdist humor, ROTFLMAO is equally appropriate–especially when “official” economic data is issued by various Ministries of Truth.
After long deliberation, I’m going with TINA, TANSTAAFL and FUGAZI as best defining our era: there is no alternative, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, and f**ked up, got ambushed, zipped in (to a body bag).
Let’s start with TINA, there is no alternative, because this drives the other two. TINA is the favored phrase of those benefiting from the current arrangement; if they can sell everyone on the idea that this is the only possible arrangement, the tax-donkeys and debt-serfs (i.e. the bottom 90%) will passively accept their lot in life and those at the top of the heap will have a free pass to most of the wealth and power.
But TINA also expresses a systemic rigidity that suppresses the variability and volatility needed to maintain real stability and not just a phony extend-and-pretend pseudo-stability.
