Beardy Guy Musings

It’s time again for a little Iraq check-in. We’ll start with some photographs of the real situation in Iraq, photographs that American news outlets systematically refuse to print. Warning: they are graphic. Unlike U.S. audiences that view a cleaned up CNN version of Iraq, these sorts of uncensored scenes are shown on Arab satellite television all the time.

Then there is the ongoing story of Donald Rumsfeld, who, just like FEMA’s Brownie, is doing a heck of a job according to Bush. There are some though, most notably a growing number of Generals that have, you know, actually gone off to war. Generals like Retired Major General John Batiste who, on Friday 4/14 said of Rumsfeld:

We went to war with a flawed plan that didn’t account for the hard work to build the peace after we took down the regime . . .” and added, “We also served under a secretary of defense who didn’t understand leadership, who was abusive, who was arrogant and who didn’t build a strong team.”

Then there is the story of Iraqi’s who are fleeing their homes. 65,000 more Iraqis have been displaced during the past two weeks by ethnic violence and reprisal killings.

Then there is this from Patrick Cockburn, Situation in Iraq could not be worse:

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A cruel and bloody civil war has started in Iraq, a country that President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair promised to free from fear and establish democracy. I have been visiting Iraq since 1978, but for the first time, I am becoming convinced that the country will not survive.

I wonder, what would America’s Iran look like?

Technorati Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush, Iraq, War, War Crimes

Among many others Bloomberg.com is reporting that, according to the U.S., Iran Could Produce Nuclear Bomb in 16 Days. Ok, I’m terrified, truly terrified. I’m building my bomb shelter. I mean, not long ago it was 10 years until d-day, but now it’s 16 days! These bloodthirsty Iranians are just out of their minds. We must defend ourselves now, the sooner we bomb them the better. Did I mention, I’m terrified! Is that a mushroom cloud I see? Thank God that Bush and his trustworthy administration are on this. I’m sure that with each minute they are diligently collecting piles of evidence from sources we can rely on. Yes, lets bomb Iran, let’s do it now!

Iran, defying United Nations Security Council demands to halt its nuclear program, may be capable of making a nuclear bomb within 16 days, a U.S. State Department official said.

Iran will move to industrial scale'' uranium enrichment involving 54,000 centrifuges at its Natanz plant, the Associated Press quoted deputy nuclear chief Mohammad Saeedi as telling state-run television today.<br /><br />Using those 50,000 centrifuges they could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 16 days,'' Stephen Rademaker, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, told reporters today in Moscow.

Technorati Tags: George Bush, Iran, Nuclear, War

Be one of the first visitors to the website I just finished for Java Cabana! I should say it’s almost finished as we are still fine tuning the content. Not a huge site, not too fancy… but I think it has turned out quite well. If I’ve never professed my love for the Java let me do so now. My favorite Memphis coffee shop with many memories of the place going all the way to the early days in 1992. There’s nothing in this world as tasty as a Java Shake.

Technorati Tags: Java Cabana, Memphis, Coffee Shop

The Washington Post is reporting that Bush knew the truth but ignored it when he repeatedly asserted that the trailers were biolabs. Yes, I know, it’s a big surprise that Bush and Co. lied. Damn hell, how many lies could one man tell? Just think of all the potential with the buildup to war on Iran!! Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War:

Administration Pushed Notion of Banned Iraqi Weapons Despite Evidence to Contrary

On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile “biological laboratories.” He declared, “We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.

A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq – not made public until now – had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president’s statement.

The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped “secret” and shelved. Meanwhile, for nearly a year, administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories.

Technorati Tags: George Bush, Iraq, Biolabs, War, War Crimes

My good friend Banana over at Liar Paradox has a very interesting thought on Bush’s real immigration plans:

Bush is planning a land war in Iran. But Americans would burn Bush to pieces if he instituted the draft…see? Americans don’t want to fight in wars for Exxon and Halliburton. These are just not the kinds of jobs that Americans want to do. Well under Bush’s new and improved illegal immigration reform he’s got over 20 million immigrants from Central America and Mexico that he can send over there.

Wouldn’t surprise me one bit.

Technorati Tags: George Bush, Immigration, Iran, War

Lots going on right now as the War Criminal in Chief prepares his second war of aggression, this time against a nation that will be able to defend itself: Iran. If Bush gets his way we are in a great deal of trouble. The mess caused by the crime against Iraq has largely been contained in Iraq. This will not be the case if we start something with Iran. If you think oil and gas are expensive now, just wait. Bombing Iran will trigger major blowback and our lives will change in ways we only glimpse in nightmares and not just in terms of the energy markets. The effects will surge through the global economy and the violence will spill far outside of the middle east.

Here’s a small sample of Iran related news. Of course there is the Seymour Hersh article, The Iran Plans. It’s long but well worth the time:

Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?
The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran fro pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increase clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams o American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting dat and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.

A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”

Then there is this article from the Washington Post, U.S. Is Studying Military Strike Options on Iran:

The Bush administration is studying options for military strikes against Iran as part of a broader strategy of coercive diplomacy to pressure Tehran to abandon its alleged nuclear development program, according to U.S. officials and independent analysts.

No attack appears likely in the short term, and many specialists inside and outside the U.S. government harbor serious doubts about whether an armed response would be effective. But administration officials are preparing for it as a possible option and using the threat “to convince them this is more and more serious,” as a senior official put it.
…

Preparations for confrontation with Iran underscore how the issue has vaulted to the front of President Bush’s agenda even as he struggles with a relentless war in next-door Iraq. Bush views Tehran as a serious menace that must be dealt with before his presidency ends, aides said, and the White House, in its new National Security Strategy, last month labeled Iran the most serious challenge to the United States posed by any country.

Many military officers and specialists, however, view the saber rattling with alarm. A strike at Iran, they warn, would at best just delay its nuclear program by a few years but could inflame international opinion against the United States, particularly in the Muslim world and especially within Iran, while making U.S. troops in Iraq targets for retaliation.

Then there is the Congressman from Texas, Ron Paul, who has this to say about Iran being the next Neocon target:

The significant question we must ask ourselves is: What have we learned from three years in Iraq? With plans now being laid for regime change in Iran, it appears we have learned absolutely nothing. There still are plenty of administration officials who daily paint a rosy picture of the Iraq we have created. But I wonder: If the past three years were nothing more than a bad dream, and our nation suddenly awakened, how many would, for national security reasons, urge the same invasion? Would we instead give a gigantic sigh of relief that it was only a bad dream, that we need not relive the three-year nightmare of death, destruction, chaos and stupendous consumption of tax dollars. Conceivably we would still see oil prices under $30 a barrel, and most importantly, 20,000 severe U.S. causalities would not have occurred. My guess is that 99% of all Americans would be thankful it was only a bad dream, and would never support the invasion knowing what we know today.

Even with the horrible results of the past three years, Congress is abuzz with plans to change the Iranian government. There is little resistance to the rising clamor for “democratizing” Iran, even though their current president, Mahmoud Almadinejad, is an elected leader. Though Iran is hardly a perfect democracy, its system is far superior to most of our Arab allies about which we never complain. Already the coordinating propaganda has galvanized the American people against Iran for the supposed threat it poses to us with weapons of mass destruction that are no more present than those Saddam Hussein was alleged to have had. It’s amazing how soon after being thoroughly discredited over the charges levied against Saddam Hussein the Neo-cons are willing to use the same arguments against Iran. It’s frightening to see how easily Congress, the media, and the people accept many of the same arguments against Iran that were used to justify an invasion of Iraq.

Technorati Tags: George Bush, Iran, Oil, Peak Oil, Ron Paul, Seymour Hersh, US Terrorism, War, War Crimes

I just finished watching Global Players with Sabine Christiansen which was a discussion of oil. Various important oil folk were there: Edmund Maduabebe Daukoru (Nigerian minister of State for Petroleum Resources, President of the OPEC Conference), Malcolm Brinded (Group Managing director Roy Dutch/Shell), Claude Mandil (Executive Director of IEA), Kevin Rosner (Institute for Analysis of Global Security), and Kjell Aleklett (President of ASPO). I was not impressed.

As expected, most talk was to the effect that there’s plenty of oil, just not much extra capacity. Plenty there for 50+ years but acknowledgment that conservation must be taken seriously not only because oil is a limited resource but also because of climate change. Strange, that while they acknowledge oil as a limited resource they outright rejected the notion of peak oil… almost reflexively when it was brought up by Kjell Aleklett. I know very little of him or his work with the Association for the Study of Peak Oil but truthfully I was not at all impressed with him. To put it bluntly he was a pushover. Perhaps it was a language related limitation… the discussion was in English and while he certainly speaks English I’m just guessing that any slowness or hesitation in his responses might of been language related. I don’t know.

In any case, it was a chance to promote the concept of peak oil that fell flat.

Technorati Tags: Climate Change, Oil, Peak Oil

Dipshit on the news, and I’m paraphrasing here, “I prayed to god, thanked him for saving us.” That was a woman in Tennessee that survived the tornados though her home was destroyed. Golly gee, so god saved her? I suppose god hated her house though? What about the folks down there that died? I suppose god was trying to punish them or offer some sort of lesson to someone?

Of course when someone’s home is destroyed it is sad but when they thank god for the miracle that they survive, honestly, I laugh and I laugh hard. Oh, yes, thank you lord for saving me but what did you have against my home?

As an agnostic I just don’t get this god/faith/miracle thing that people seem to love to talk about when natural or even man made disasters strike. Do they really believe this “god” saved them personally? If so do they think god was too busy to save the neighbor? Funny.

Technorati Tags: Faith, Dog, God, Faith, Religion

Slowly another little iddy bit of truth seeps out regarding the wiretaps. Yes, big surprise, the unlawful spying includes domestic calls as well. According to this release by Congressman Adam Schiff of California the Attorney General won’t rule out warrantless wiretaps of purely domestic telephone conversations. Ah yes, well one day we will all understand (or will be made to understand) that his royal highness King George has no limits to his powers.

WASHINGTON, DC – During a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee today, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-CA) questioned Attorney General Alberto Gonzales about the NSA’s secret domestic wiretapping program.

The Administration has cited the Authorization to Use Military Force and the commander in chief powers as authorizing the NSA to intercept international communications into and out of the U.S. of persons linked to al Qaeda or related terrorist organizations.

After citing his concerns that there was no limiting principle to the Administration’s claim of authority in the War on Terror, Rep. Schiff asked the Attorney General whether the Administration believes it has the authority to wiretap purely domestic calls between two Americans without seeking a warrant.

“I’m not going to rule it out,” responded the Attorney General.

Technorati Tags: Alberto Gonzales, George Bush, NSA, Spying, Wiretaps

The news just keeps rolling on and on and on with the war criminals and terrorists in the White House. Truly amazing that they keep going, denying, and redefining reality. I think it’s clear that they do not fear the Democrats or the American people. They will continue to whatever they please, whenever they please because they know they can. The good folks over at Irregular times discuss different Dicks for different decades.:

“If the President does it, it can’t be illegal.” — Richard M. Nixon, 1977

“President Bush’s chief spokesman said today the president has the right to declassify sensitive information whenever he chooses and that when he does, it is effective immediately.” — Washington Post, April 6 2006

It’s not a politically-motivated leak, it’s an on the spot declassification and disclosure in the national interest.

If the President does it, it can’t be illegal.

Also from Irregular Times, an excellent discussion of the ever expanding ground of spying on citizens and activists:

It’s been a week of frightening revelations about how far the Bush Administration is willing to go in order to enforce its political agenda on the increasingly unwilling American population. Of course, there was yesterday’s announcement that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney both appear to be involved up to their necks in the leak of classified information designed to punish Ambassador Joseph Wilson for revealing that Bush and Cheney knew about the lack of good evidence for an Iraqi nuclear weapons program before the invasion of Iraq.

Ah, but did you hear about the new evidence of the FBI spying against American peace activists, without there being any suspicion of the activists ever committing a crime? Yep. FBI agents were caught watching a group of antiwar protesters gathering outside a bookstore in Denver to go to a peaceful march, writing down their license plate numbers to enable further investigation.

And then, did you catch the news that attorneys connected to the Electronic Frontier Foundation have seen secret documents indicating that, without any legally required search warrant or judicial authorization, AT&T cooperated with the Bush Administration to engage in a huge Internet and telephone dragnet spy operation against millions of Americans. Yes, you read that right. The Bush White House, through the NSA, has been spying without a search warrant on millions of Americans.

Technorati Tags: Dick Cheney, FBI, George Bush, NSA, Leaks, CIA Leak, Spying, Wiretaps

Looks like Bush’s magical filtering machine broke down today at the “town meeting” in Charlotte, NC. Dear Leader was challenged for his lies and hypocrisy by a man named Harry Taylor:

You never stop talking about freedom, and I appreciate that. But while I listen to you talk about freedom, I see you assert your right to tap my telephone, to arrest me and hold me without charges, to try to preclude me from breathing clean air and drinking clean water and eating safe food. If I were a woman, you’d like to restrict my opportunity to make a choice and decision about whether I can abort a pregnancy on my own behalf. You are – [Momentary interruption by Bush]

Okay, I don’t have a question. What I wanted to say to you is that I — in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate, and –

And I would hope — I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself inside yourself. And I also want to say I really appreciate the courtesy of allowing me to speak what I’m saying to you right now. That is part of what this country is about.

Technorati Tags: George Bush, Harry Taylor, War, War Crimes, Wiretaps

The Seguin Gazette-Enterprise discusses Eric Pianka’s prediction of humanity’s demise. He seems to think it will be a disease such as Ebola. Perhaps. I tend to think it will be a combination of events with climate change and peak energy at the center. Time will tell I suppose.

AUSTIN — A University of Texas professor says the Earth would be better off with 90 percent of the human population dead.

“Every one of you who gets to survive has to bury nine,” Eric Pianka cautioned students and guests at St. Edward’s University on Friday. Pianka’s words are part of what he calls his “doomsday talk” — a 45-minute presentation outlining humanity’s ecological misdeeds and Pianka’s predictions about how nature, or perhaps humans themselves, will exterminate all but a fraction of civilization.
…

“This is gonna happen in your lifetime,” he told his St. Edward’s audience. “Do you wanna go there? We’ve already gone there. We waited too long.”

A very dark and gloomy future… at least for humanity.

Technorati Tags: Ecology, Eric Pianka, Global Warming, Peak Oil

Excellent article on Learning to Identify Plants by Families which also discusses learning the uses of plants. The author, Thomas Elpel, has an extensive site of his published books on different aspects of primitive living. Looks like an excellent resource. I learned a good bit in just this one small article.

I thought I “knew” most of the plants discussed in the class, but Robyn, the herbalist, used an approach I had never seen before. We happened across several members of the Rose family, and Robyn pointed out the patterns– that the flowers had five petals and typically numerous stamens, plus each of them contained tannic acid and were useful as astringents to help tighten up tissues. An astringent herb, she told us, would help close a wound, tighten up inflammations, dry up digestive secretions (an aid for diarrhea) and about twenty other things. In a few short words she outlined the identification and uses for the majority of plants in this one family.

Some of my books listed the family names of the plants, but never suggested how that information could be useful. I realized that while I knew many plants by name, I never actually stopped to look at any of them! This may sound alarming, but it is surprisingly easy to match a plant to a picture without studying it to count the flower parts or notice how they are positioned in relation to each other. In short, Robyn’s class changed everything I ever knew about plants. From there I had to relearn all the plants in a whole new way. I set out to study the patterns among related species, learning to identify plants and their uses together as groups and families.

Technorati Tags: Primitive Living, Ecology, Plants, Using Plants, Self Reliance

As a follow up to the post regarding Time Magazine’s article on climate change I thought I’d post this little nugget drawn from a lengthy discussion of the article over at the PeakOil.com forums:

… It’s CO2 and other greenhouse gases, as well clearing forests and other human activities. And glaciers are almost uniformly in retreat.

Why is this a concern to peak oilers? It has a huge effect on sustainability. There are cities that rely on glacier meltwater for their water systems, and the glaciers may be gone in ten years. It’s not only New Orleans that is likely to be abandoned due to global warming. And what about farming? If your peak oil plan is a homestead in the country and growing your own food, you should be very concerned. Unpredictable weather is a farmer’s bane. How will you know what to plant, or when, if the weather changes drastically from year to year?

The killer drought in the west is, in all likelihood, caused by global warming. If it isn’t, it is exactly what we would expect if the earth keeps warming, based on historical data. And it’s causing a cascade of problems that should be of concern to peak oilers. Farming and fishing have been decimated. The lower water levels means coal barges can’t bring their cargo east, where it’s most needed. Towns are losing their water supplies. Hydroelectric plants have reduced output. Nuclear power plants find their intakes are being left high and dry as lakes and rivers retreat. And oil companies have been forced to stop production because no one can spare them any water.

If you want to read the thread from the beginning, click.

With each day that passes I’m further convinced that this truly is a crisis and we are in it right now. We may not fully realize it now but in the future those looking back will see that by 2006 we were in it. I realized today that I also believe that this is something that will be hitting us pretty damned hard within the five to ten years. Many of the articles and studies seem to by picking up on now as the point of no return and 100 years from now as the point that we will be seeing the catastrophe squarely in the face. In Hollywood it is a neatly packaged event with a clearly marked starting and ending point that comes upon humanity in days or weeks. In reality “it” is now and the intensification over the next decade will bring the people of the planet to a point of absolute realization and panic. By that I mean that those most comfortable, particularly those in America, those that continue to pretend it’s not happening, will be freaking out. It will become the focus of life and will be seen as a primary danger. Between here and there we’ll also be dealing with peak oil and various resource wars which will complicate the situation.

I’m glad I chose not to have children.

Technorati Tags: Climate Change, Ecology, Global Warming, Hurricanes, Oil, Peak Oil

This week’s cover story at Time is climate change and they seem worried: By Any Measure, Earth Is At … The Tipping Point:

Polar Ice Caps Are Melting Faster Than Ever… More And More Land Is Being Devastated By Drought… Rising Waters Are Drowning Low-Lying Communities… By Any Measure, Earth Is At … The Tipping Point

The climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame. Why the crisis hit so soon–and what we can do about it

No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you’ve heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us.

It certainly looked that way last week as the atmospheric bomb that was Cyclone Larry–a Category 5 storm with wind bursts that reached 180 m.p.h.–exploded through northeastern Australia. It certainly looked that way last year as curtains of fire and dust turned the skies of Indonesia orange, thanks to drought-fueled blazes sweeping the island nation. It certainly looks that way as sections of ice the size of small states calve from the disintegrating Arctic and Antarctic. And it certainly looks that way as the sodden wreckage of New Orleans continues to molder, while the waters of the Atlantic gather themselves for a new hurricane season just two months away. Disasters have always been with us and surely always will be. But when they hit this hard and come this fast–when the emergency becomes commonplace–something has gone grievously wrong. That something is global warming.

As I often say in regards to the corporate media finally covering a story, better late than never. But why is it that they so often wait until the problem is so obvious? They say suddenly and unexpectedly? Um, no. No, I don’t think so. Many of us have been saying for many years that these days were coming but it was an inconvenient truth to be ignored until there was no other choice. We can expect the same with other serious problems such as peak oil. In the short term it’s easier to ignore the problem, pretend it does not exist and hope that it will not rear it’s ugly head in our lifetimes. Better to leave these messes we’re creating to our grand children or great-grand children. Well, surprise surprise, these problems are showing up in your lifetime.

These two problems, climate change and peak oil, are deeply interconnected, and we should remember that as we craft solutions. Had we taken the advice of environmentalists 20 or 30 years ago we would, at this moment, have a better energy and climate situation. Instead, citizens chose convenience and capitalists (as we would expect) chose to maximize short term profits. Sustainability was not a part of the equation and now we will suffer. The day will come when we realize that government, bought and paid for by capital, will never put forward the best solutions to our social and ecological problems.

If we want solutions we’re going to have to actively develop a radically different society. We’re not talking about new laws or a half-assed jump to a new technology such as ethanol. Everything about our current lives must change. Everything. To sum it up, we’ll need to decentralize, localize our energy and food production as well as the production and consumption of goods. Malls and boxmarts are over as are the shelves of shit they sell.

My guess is that Americans are far too stupid and stubborn to make these radical changes to their lifeway willingly. No, most will do nothing until they are literally forced by reality to adapt and it won’t be pretty.

Technorati Tags: Capitalism, Climate Change, Global Warming, Hurricanes, Peak Oil, Sea level rise, Sustainable Development

Yes it is coming and it’s coming sooner than expected. The article suggests as little as a decade to take steps, I’m not so sure we have that long. In fact, I think it’s probably to late. I hesitate to suggest that because I would never argue that we should not try… we should make every effort, we should take radical steps. The Christian Science Monitor reports on the projected level of ocean rise due to climate change:

Arctic temperatures near a prehistoric level when seas were 16 to 20 feet higher, studies say.

Global warming appears to be pushing vast reservoirs of ice on Greenland and Antarctica toward a significant, long-term meltdown. The world may have as little as a decade to take the steps to avoid this scenario.

Those are the implications of new studies that looked to climate history for clues about how the planet’s major ice sheets might respond to human-triggered climate change.

Already, temperatures in the Arctic are close to those that thawed much of Greenland’s ice cap some 130,000 years ago, when the planet last enjoyed a balmy respite from continent-covering glaciers, say the studies' authors.

By 2100, spring and summer temperatures in the Arctic could reach levels that trigger an unstoppable repeat performance, they say. Over several centuries, the melt could raise sea levels by as much as 20 feet, submerging major cities worldwide as well as chains of islands, such as the present-day Bahamas.

The US would lose the lower quarter of Florida, southern Louisiana up to Baton Rouge, and North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The ocean would even flood a significant patch of California’s Central Valley, lapping at the front porches of Sacramento.

These estimates may understate the potential rise. The teams say their studies provide the first hints that during the last interglacial period, ice sheets in both hemispheres worked together to raise sea levels, rather than the Northern Hemisphere’s ice alone. This raises concerns that Antarctic melting might be more severe this time, because additional melt mechanisms may be at work.

“It sounds bad,” acknowledges Jonathan Overpeck, a University of Arizona researcher who led one of the two studies. He notes that rising temperatures are approaching a threshold. But “we know about it far enough in advance to avoid crossing it.” The challenge, he and others say, is to take advantage of the remaining window by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases substantially.

The two studies were published in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.

Ice on Greenland and Antarctica is already thinning faster than it’s being replaced - and faster than scientists thought it would, notes Richard Alley, a paleoclimatologist at Penn State University and member of one of the research teams. Only five years ago, he notes, climate scientists expected the ice sheets to gain mass through 2100, then begin to melt. “We’re now 100 years ahead of schedule,” he says.
…

But the window for action is relatively short, Dr. Overpeck says. CO2 remains in the atmosphere for more than a century after it’s first emitted. And it takes time to implement policies and adopt technologies. Thus for all practical purposes, the tipping point may come sooner than atmospheric chemistry would suggest.

So, within five years we’ve jumped 100 years ahead of schedule? I predict that in five more years, 2011 we’ll be told, again, that we are 100 years ahead of schedule. We’ll be told that it is now… right now.

Thanks to Dave Lucas for pointing me to this article.

Technorati Tags: Antarctica, Arctic, Climate Change, Global Warming, Greenland, Sea level rise

As the public begins to realize that we have a serious energy problem we begin to see the grasping at easy solutions that do not exist. Ethanol is a great example. It takes energy to make energy! Burning coal to convert corn to ethanol is not smart and not a clean solution. The Christian Science Monitor has a great story on the problem of ethanol:

Carbon cloud over a green fuel

An Iowa corn refinery, open since December, uses 300 tons of coal a day to make ethanol.

Late last year in Goldfield, Iowa, a refinery began pumping out a stream of ethanol, which supporters call the clean, renewable fuel of the future.

There’s just one twist: The plant is burning 300 tons of coal a day to turn corn into ethanol - the first US plant of its kind to use coal instead of cleaner natural gas.

While the story is focused on the climate change aspects of burning coal for the conversion of corn which only tells one part of the story. Ethanol is being put forward as a replacement for oil. Lets remember that before corn can be converted it must be grown and that also requires substantial energy input. Jumping into the rapid development of coal burning ethanol production plants is not the answer. It’s more of the same bullshit. A quick “fix” that will only make our problems worse. It’s the kind of solution we can expect from the best government capitalists can buy.

Technorati Tags: Climate Change, Coal, Ecology, Ethanol, Global Warming, Oil, Peak Oil, Energy

Very interesting interview on Democracy Now! this past week and it’s worth downloading. Former GOP strategist Kevin Phillips discusses american theocracy, politics of radical religion, oil, and borrowed money. During the interview he has this to say about peak oil:

AMY GOODMAN: Kevin Phillips, you talk about radical religion, about debt, and about oil, about this being an oil war. You also talk about peak oil. That’s not talked about very much in the mainstream. Explain.

KEVIN PHILLIPS: The peak oil idea is that just as the United States oil production peaked in 1971, that we have a limited amount of oil globally, and that it’s something that can’t be re-created. It’s running out. And the expectation of some is that the oil production of the non-OPEC countries will peak at some point during the 2010s, and that then the production of OPEC itself will peak in the 2020s or 2030s. Now, some people think that Saudi production has already peaked.

Now, if you believe this, and it’s possible, then we face an enormous convergence, again under specific oil-related circumstances, of a global struggle for natural resources as the price of oil climbs, as we turn the armed services into a global oil protection service, which has been happening, and as we see the administration refuse to grapple with the need to really curb oil consumption in the United States, which is mostly through transportation and especially motor vehicles.

And I just have a sense, as many others on the conservative side do, this administration has no strategy to deal with these converging problems, be they foreign policy, military, oil, debt. They are like the three little monkeys on the old jade thing – the one sees no evil, one speaks no evil, and one hears no evil. Do they know anything? You know, that’s an open question.

I think I’ve probably already said this previously but just to be clear, I believe that peak oil has already occurred. Furthermore, we can expect that U.S. aggression will prove to be just another in a long line of oil-based wars.

Technorati Tags: Democracy Now!, Kevin Phillips, Oil, Peak Oil, Politics, Religious Right, US Army, War

For any of my readers that have seen V for Vendetta but who may not know much about anarchism: A for Anarchy. For those of you that don’t know, anarchism has a part to play both in the story in the movie as well as the story of it’s creation. I’m not going to write a review of the movie because I’m not very good at writing movie reviews. Suffice it to say that I enjoyed it and would recommend it. That said I can appreciate the review by William Gillis of Human Iterations who did not like it much. But yes, back to anarchism, the folks over at A for Anarchy have done a good job of putting up a nice intro to anarchism for viewers of the movie. From the site:

THERE IS ANOTHER WAY

“Tonight, you must choose what comes next. Lives of our own, or a return to chains. Choose carefully. “

This website is intended to introduce fans of the film/graphic novel V For Vendetta to the history and philosophy of Anarchy. V For Vendetta was originally a comic produced in the mid 1980s by Alan Moore and David Lloyd about a man who destroys the corrupt state he lives in, promoting Anarchy to the masses all the while. This core message of Anarchy has been severely twisted in the film verison. So much that Alan Moore has asked to be withdrawn from all media references and to have his name removed from the film’s posters.

Anarchy, with its long and varied past, has been repeatedly suppressed and misrepresented. The many successes and movements in the Anarchist community are almost never mentioned in schools or by corporate controlled media. Hollywood’s current filtering of V For Vendetta is far from surprising when taking into account the general message of fear that mainstream news instills in its audience. Thus, this website was created to help individuals familiarize themselves with the Anarchistic viewpoint and to realize the power everyone of us has to make a difference.


Yet, while A For Anarchy hopes to touch on many aspects surrounding Anarchy, it does not claim to be an end all source for anarchistic theory. Rather, this site is meant to act as a portal through which, hopefully, movie goers will realise that an action packed life is endlessly more fulfilling than flickering images on a screen. The site is broken down into areas of main importance, each providing only a brief overview of their respective topics. We encourage you to follow up on any areas that interest you by following the links, keep fighting, and never give up.

Technorati Tags: Anarchism, V for Vendetta

As usual Juan Cole has a couple of posts worth reading. Top Ten Catastrophes of the Third Year of American…



And Allawi on Iraq in Civil War.

Americans are just now realizing that we will be in Iraq for a long, long time. There will be no pull out as long as we continue to believe we can drive and consume our way to happiness. Let’s hope American families remember that when the draft comes. An oil-based life has it’s price and we will pay it.

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Oil, Peak Oil, War