Beardy Guy Musings

Welcome to the future. Peak oil is here or just around the corner. Iraq is the first in a series of oil wars. Take a good long look at this graph because it will only be getting worse. Welcome to your future. America, wake the fuck up.

Technorati Tags: Oil, Peak Oil, War

Cindy Sheehan confronts the coward:

CRAWFORD, Texas, Aug. 9 /U.S. Newswire/ – More members of Gold Star Families for Peace (GSFP) and Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) are traveling to Texas to join the protest outside of President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he is vacationing for the month of August.

Starting today, Gold Star families from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Arkansas and other states whose loved ones have died as a result of the war in Iraq will be joining one of their members, Cindy Sheehan, at the protest. Ms. Sheehan, whose son Army Specialist Casey Sheehan was killed in Sadr City, Iraq on April 4, 2004, has been in Crawford since August 5th, demanding a meeting with the President. These families will be joined by military families with loved ones currently serving in Iraq or about to deploy or redeploy to Iraq. All of these families are coming to Crawford, Texas to share their stories about the personal costs of the war in Iraq and add their voices to the call for a meeting with President Bush.

On August 3, 2005 President Bush, speaking about the dreadful loss of life in Iraq in early August, said “We have to honor the sacrifices of the fallen by completing the mission… The families of the fallen can be assured that they died for a noble cause.” Gold Star and military families coming to Crawford know that the cause was not noble; that their loved ones died, or are currently in harm’s way, serving in a war based on lies.

In the first 8 days of August, 36 service members died in Iraq; countless Iraq children, women and men are dying each day. All of the families traveling to Crawford will carry the message to the vacationing President: Honor our fallen and honor our loved ones' service by ending the occupation, bringing the troops home now and taking care of them when they get here.

President Bush has consistently tried to hide, and to hide from, the cost of the war in Iraq. This August, these costs are being brought right to his doorstep.

Technorati Tags: Cindy Sheehan, George Bush, Iraq, War

Oil hit $64/barrel today and it will continue to rise as will gas prices. If you’ve purchased a gas guzzler I’m laughing at you. When gas hits $5/gallon and your SUV is worthless I’ll be laughing even harder.
Congress and the president have put an new energy bill into play… and it is a giant step to nowhere.
And in other news, Juan Cole reports on US Dependence on Saudi Arabia for oil :

The Bush administration and its Neocons have shot themselves in the foot big time if they thought they could use Iraq to reduce US dependence on Saudi Arabia. If you want to understand the problem, look at it this way. The world produces about 80 million barrels of petroleum every day. But only a fraction of that is exported, since producing countries use a lot of it at home.

Rather than being marginalized, Saudi Arabia has entered a new economic golden age. This was not what the Neocons were going for.

Of course, a lot of the problem is at home. The United States is an oil hog. Sorry to be blunt. But these were the top oil consuming countries in 2004, below. The United States gobbles up a fourth of all the petroleum produced every year, even though it only has about 5 percent of the world’s population.

When the oil-based economy of the U.S. crashes I will laugh my ass off. Really. It will be hilarious.

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Oil, Peak Oil, Saudi Arabia, War

Writing for Infoshop News Kari Lydersen offers up an excellent story on Latin America’s new media alternative: TeleSur Takes to the Airwaves:

But now, there is a new and controversial alternative available throughout the region, which eschews melodramatic telenovelas and glitzy entertainment for hard reporting on the destruction of rain forests, the effects of globalization and poverty issues, along with promoting Latin American traditional and contemporary arts and culture. TeleSur, short for Television of the South, was launched in July, broadcast by satellite from Caracas, Venezuela, where it shares space with the government-run Channel 8 station. It is partially funded by Cuba, and has bureaus in eight Latin American countries and Washington D.C., along with freelance contributors throughout Latin America and the US.

TeleSur’s proponents are billing it as nothing less than a major step in community empowerment on the local level and Latin American solidarity and progress on the regional level. TeleSur vice president Aram Aharonian, a native of Uruguay, said the channel “is born out of an evident Latin American need, to rely on a source that allows all of the inhabitants of this vast region to express their own values, to broadcast their own image, to debate their own ideas and transmit their own content freely and equally.”

Technorati Tags: TeleSur, Venezuela

The BBC reports: Alaskan people tell of climate change:

For the past 20 years climatologists and ice and atmosphere scientists have been working in Alaska studying climate change.

Now they have discovered a rich new source of records extending their knowledge back by decades through the oral history of native Alaskans.

Barrow is the most northerly town in the United States, lying 300 miles inside the Arctic Circle.

And 92-year-old Bertha Leavitt is its oldest inhabitant.

“When I was a child”, she says, “it was so much colder and the winds in winter used to be fierce.” She remembers her elders telling in their stories that the weather was going to change. And since her childhood she believes this has come true.

Assuming humans do survive much longer I think those of the future will look back and wonder how those alive during this time were so easily misguided. How have so many allowed so few the power to completely destroy our planet? Why did we go along? Western nations and particularly the U.S. will be remembered as selfish gluttons that destroyed our planet.

Technorati Tags: Climate Change, Ecology, Global Warming

Juan Cole discusses the role played by the American Right in creating and supporting the radical Muslim Mujahideen and al-Qaeda.

Reagan increased the budget for support of the radical Muslim Mujahidin conducting terrorism against the Afghanistan government to half a billion dollars a year.

One fifth of the money, which the CIA mostly turned over to Pakistani military intelligence to distribute, went to Gulbuddin Hikmatyar, a violent extremist who as a youth used to throw acid on the faces of unveiled girls in Afghanistan.

…

The American Right, having created the Mujahideen and having mightily contributed to the creation of al-Qaeda, abruptly announced that there was something deeply wrong with Islam, that it kept producing terrorists

Technorati Tags: 11, American Right, Iraq, Politics, Terrorism, War

I don’t think I’ve ever commented on any of the 9/11 conspiracies on this blog before. I think I will today. From day one I have believed that either the administration knew and let it happen or that they were involved directly. There’s a good bit already on the internet about this. In particular I’d like to direct you to The Bulldog Manifesto’s current article on the subject.
Seriously, go read it.

Technorati Tags: 11, Conspiracy, George Bush, Terrorism, War

A favorite food source for Ruby Throated Hummingbirds. I put two in last year and then added another five in this year. I've also planted nine Great Blue Lobelias and lots of red Bee Balm... The Hummingbirds are happy. The Cardinal Flower is the most vibrant red I have ever seen. Click the image to see a larger version or view my other Flickr Photos.

Technorati Tags: Cardinal Flower, Hummingbird Gardening, Native Gardening, Wildlife Gardening

Well that sick bunch of lying war criminals continue to use terrorism as a basis for torture of prisoners. The Washington Post is reporting that the White House Aims to Block Legislation on Detainees:

The Bush administration in recent days has been lobbying to block legislation supported by Republican senators that would bar the U.S. military from engaging in “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” of detainees, from hiding prisoners from the Red Cross, and from using interrogation methods not authorized by a new Army field manual.

Vice President Cheney met Thursday evening with three senior Republican members of the Senate Armed Services Committee to press the administration’s case that legislation on these matters would usurp the president’s authority and – in the words of a White House official – interfere with his ability “to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack."

Welcome to the New America.

Technorati Tags: George Bush, Iraq, Politics, Torture, War

No matter how hard I try I cannot stop listening: feist.

At the moment One Evening is my favorite song but that could change as soon as the next starts playing… maybe Secret Heart which I’m listening to now. I cannot concentrate to write these words while her voice is in the air.

Soft, sweet, velvet.

Technorati Tags: Feist, Music

The game of distractions and misdirections continue in D.C. From the start outing Plame was itself a distraction from the real issue that the Bushies decided early on that the best way to sell their carefully planned war was to terrify the American people with deadly chemicals, horrifying disease, and nuclear holocaust. We were told that a mushroom cloud would be the price of not invading Iraq.
Now we have an attempt to distract us from the distraction. Our attention moves farther and farther from the critical issue: Bush and the rest of War Crimes Inc. manipulated the public discourse for the purpose of committing our troops to an illegal, unjustified, and dangerous war.
Their propaganda efforts and manipulation of information have reached truly Orwellian proportions. They will, of course, continue to turn reality on its head and we must refuse their manipulated reality and their attempt to control our memory. Bush lied us into a horrible war and that’s not something we will forget. As the Downing Street Memo indicates, they were fixing the facts and intelligence around the policy. The evidence is there in plain sight.
All that said I do want to acknowledge that Rove is a lying scumbag… he fits right in with the current bunch, eh?

Technorati Tags: George Bush, Iraq, Karl Rove, Politics, War

Well it’s not at all surprising. The Patriot Act is being used to spy on the ACLU, Greenpeace, and other U.S. activists. Many of us new this was coming. Anyone that knows about past FBI activities in relation to the Black Panthers, AIM, and other activists have heard of COINTELPRO and knew it was just a matter of time. Welcome to the new America where critics of those in power are terrorists. Guess I need to be hiding in a hole somewhere out in a forest somewhere.
More: AMERICAblog, Irregular Times, Pam’s House Blend

Technorati Tags: ACLU, Activism, COINTELPRO, Patriot Act

Via the NRDC: Natural Resources Defense Council, the Seattle Times is reporting that Warmer Oceans May Be Killing West Coast Marine Life:

SEATTLE - Scientists suspect that rising ocean temperatures and dwindling plankton populations are behind a growing number of seabird deaths, reports of fewer salmon and other anomalies along the West Coast.

Coastal ocean temperatures are 2 to 5 degrees above normal, apparently caused by a lack of upwelling - a process that brings cold, nutrient-rich water to the surface and jump-starts the marine food chain.

Upwelling fuels algae and shrimplike krill populations that feed small fish, which provide an important food source for a variety of sea life, from salmon to sea birds and marine mammals.

“Something big is going on out there,” said Julia Parrish, an associate professor in the School of Aquatic Fisheries and Sciences at the University of Washington. “I’m left with no obvious smoking gun, but birds are a good signal because they feed high up on the food chain."

…

“In 50 years, this has never happened,” said Bill Peterson, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Newport, Ore. “If this continues, we will have a food chain that is basically impoverished from the very lowest levels."

…

This spring, scientists began tracking anomalies along Washington’s coast, from the appearance of warm-water plankton species to scores of jellyfish piling up on beaches. A Guadalupe fur seal, native to South America, was found dead in Ocean Shores.

Parrish is documenting unusual breeding behavior among common murres on Tatoosh Island off the Olympic Peninsula. In 15 years of monitoring the murre colony, this is the latest the birds have initiated breeding.

“They are starting very, very late and then just giving up,” she said.

…

The trend toward warmer temperatures began in fall 2002, said Peterson, the NOAA oceanographer. No one is pointing to one direct cause for the warmer waters, but many scientists suspect climate change may be involved.

While Peterson is concerned about the unusual ocean conditions, he is more worried that people will not take notice.

“People have to realize that things are connected - the state of coastal temperatures and plankton populations are connected to larger issues like Pacific salmon populations,” he said.

Technorati Tags: Climate Change, Ecology, Global Warming, Ocean Ecology

Ecologically Sustainable Living at the Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage:

Dancing Rabbit is an ecovillage set amid the hills and prairies of rural northeastern Missouri. Our goal is to live ecologically sustainable and socially rewarding lives, and to share the skills and ideas behind that lifestyle.

Very inspiring. This is the way we need to deal with peak oil.

Technorati Tags: Activism, Community, Ecology, Energy, Natural Resources, Oil, Peak Oil, Simple Living, Sustainable Development, Sustainable Living

Peak oil got you down? Check The Community Solution to Peak Oil.

In particular I want to direct you to Agraria:

What does life in a post-Peak Oil world look like? Here’s the first visioning of our small, low-energy, sustainable community proposed for Yellow Springs, Ohio – Agraria.

Thanks to Jack Burns for pointing me to this.

Technorati Tags: Community, Community Agriculture, Community Development, Energy, Natural Resources, Oil, Peak Energy, Peak Oil, Sustainable Development

For some strange reason I find this story very believable.

Jonathan over at Irregular Times has a write-up about the MEK Mystery:

Yesterday morning, one of our readers alerted us to an article written by former weapons inspector Scott Ritter and published by the Arab news service Al Jazeera. In that article, Scott Ritter charges that the United States government is already at war with Iran. Part of Ritter’s charge is that the Bush Administration is conducting military espionage within Iranian borders. Much more shocking is the claim by Ritter that the USA is supporting a terrorist group in Iran called Mujahideen-e-Khalq (shortened to MEK for friendliness to English-speaking tongues).

Is the MEK a terrorist group? Well, the U.S. State Department says so. The MEK is on the USA’s official list of terrorist organizations. That means that it would be a serious crime for any American to give any support to the MEK. For the President of the United States to provide support to the MEK would certainly be an impeachable offense.

There are also charges that the MEK is responsible for recent bombings in Iran, bombings that killed and injured large numbers of civilians, just like the bombings this week in London. For President Bush to give preachy statements condemning the terrorism in London even while providing logistical and financial support to acts of terrorism in Tehran would be a betrayal of all his promises to the American people, exposing the War on Terror as a crass sham.

…

If no congressional investigation is launched, then this story will continue to grow, especially overseas. The failure to address charges that the Bush Administration is supporting a terrorist organizations will be interpreted as a sign that the Bush Administration has something to hide, and will contribute to the continuing disintegration of America’s reputation in the world.

Technorati Tags: Iran, MEK, Mujahideen-e-Khalq, Scott Ritter, Terrorism, War

My good friend Hannah has a new blog. She’s off to a good start and I’d like to suggest you go have a look.

Technorati Tags: Memphis Blog

At the moment the death toll stands at 33 after several explosions. Sounds like a typical day in Iraq.

Technorati Tags: Iraq, London Bombings, War

My first attempt at a videocast… so don’t laugh too hard. A brief tour of our native garden landscape. Just entering its second growing season our native wildflower garden is doing very well. Our plants are all native and provide food to wildlife such as bees, butterflies, and birds. Plants discussed: Bee Balm, Purple Coneflower, Columbine, Missouri Primrose, and Black-eyed Susan.

You’ll need Quicktime 7 to view due to the h264 encoding.

Subscribe via the Videocast-Podcast which is also available as a direct Mov download runtime: 5'17, 8.5 MB.

Technorati Tags: Birding, Birds, Flowers, Garden, Gardening, Native Landscaping, Natural, videocast

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free People.

Nor have We been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Technorati Tags: American History, Declaration of Independence, Independence Day