Peace, Love, Harmony

I traveled to Arizona last week. While there I met a local Native American artist who was presenting the culture, arts and music of the Hopi nation at the hotel we were staying. I had a long conversation with him about what he was doing. As a artist, father and member of his reservation. I quickly became apparent that he was a very talented man working very hard to preserve and promote his culture and way of life. He is very active in education of the children in his reservation, he is creating works of art, writing music and carrying forth the traditions and role of dancing in his culture and for his people.

Over the past few years there has been a resurgence of a need and drive to preserve the roots and skills of the various Native American nations and tribes. They are regaining a pride in being who they are, proud of their history and accomplishments. Working hard to educate their own children in the ways of old and also educate the people around them about the value that can be gained from listening to Native American thinking and ideas on how to live and act.

It occurred to us that of all the cultural and ethnic groups in America today, the Native Americans have the smallest voice and no meaningful representation in the National government that is looking after their needs and looking to give back some of what was taken away from them over the past two hundred years through deceit and lying.

I was happy to hear that there are leaders in the local reservations that are working hard to preserve the good and wise of their past, but also that they are working hard to dig their way out of the third world conditions they live in now to also benefit form the progress and wealth that all other Americans enjoy.

Quoting Moonsee from his music: “Peace, Love, Harmony”

Vote for our country and the people

So the elections are coming in November. The Republicans appear to be concerned that they may loose enough seats that will allow the Democrats to gain control in the House. Whilst that may be interesting what we need are people in government that have a brain and that use it to focus on doing the right things to protect and save our country and the people. Not politicians that are only interested in money and power. That is what we have right now. The ruling regime is all about making money for themselves and their inner circle of big business and not about anything else. All the window dressing about protecting us and making us safer is just that. We are no safer now than we were 5 years ago. In fact we may be more venerable since our defense is all about bravado and showmanship. No real substance.

Let's get rid of the average and party line spouting politicians, and vote for candidates that understand that the average person is now much worse off than they were 5 years ago. The rising cost of energy has impacted every aspect of their lives, from the loaf of bread and glass of milk on their table to the gas in their car. Living has become a LOT more expensive for the average citizen and he has started to notice.

We now need people with courage and vision to run the government. People that care about our country, really care. That care about the people and the future of everybody, not just the elite 0.01% that are worth a billion dollars or more. That care about the environment and do not think that drilling for more oil is the solution to the energy crisis.

These people are out there. Let's find them and vote for them.

Bumper stickers

I drove behind a woman this past week that appeared to be Dazed and Confused. She had 3 bumper stickers on her car. The Christian fish, one for a local church and a third with a handgun and the text “let me be your huckleberry”. My reading was that she will be your friend as long as you behaved the way she wanted, if you did not you are likely to get shot. Maybe I do not get it, but gun toting Christians scare the crap out of me.

We also recently saw Dubja casting his veto on the stem cell bill. I do not get this either. My understanding (maybe incorrectly) was that the request was to harvest stem cells from what is essentially medical waste destined for the incinerator. What the researchers wanted was to take stem cells from a fetus that was left over from an in-vitro process and was to be destroyed. So the bill was stopped not on rational thinking but based on religious doctrine. This is why this method of running a country is so dangerous. This is why our forefathers left Europe to create the USA. To get away from emotional reaction and to live under a system where rational thought was the order of the day.

Oh, yes I saw another bumper sticker. Maybe we need more of these: “So many Christians, so few lions”

What a Maroon!

Quoting Bugs Bunny “What a Maroon”

That was may thought when I saw the footage of Dubja telling Putin that Russia needs a democracy like Iraq. I have to say that Putin’s response was mild to say the least. The threat to Russia that Dubja then offered, “Just you wait” was menacing.

I am at a loss as to what the current White House is thinking (assuming they are capable of thinking) but this is not smart. We have but a few real allies left in the world, threatening a country like Russia is not in our best interest. The country is already sacrificing young men and women at an alarming rate, just over 2,500 already and we are bleeding money at a pace that clearly cannot be sustained without untold long-term damage to the USA. Now we are threatening more countries, hinting at attacking Iran, North Korea and now Russia.

All I can say is that November 2008 cannot come soon enough for us to try and get some sensibility back into the White House.

Individuals make a difference

Four and a half years ago our electricity bill was just on $100 per month. Now it has soared to just over $400 a month. We live in the same house with basically the same appliances etc. The rising cost of energy is clearly around us. We have dealt with it with our cars but the more subtle and less talked about home energy costs have also jumped leaps and bounds.

At the same time the effects of global warming, warmer oceans, more extreme weather, drought and storms is becoming more apparent and harder for the naysayers to deny. Summer started really early in Texas and many our areas this year, so the cumulative effect of rising energy costs and much warmer temperatures is keeping the fans and air conditioners running longer and harder.

The case for solar power must now start to make even more sense than before. The cost of the equipment is now getting to the point where the monthly savings pay for the equipment in around 3-4 years. After that you are ahead of the game. So where is the government in pushing solar power for government and private use? Clearly MIA!

The other big issue that is facing many communities is a reliable water supply. With the drought this year some areas are already struggling because the planning in the communities is absent and generally investment in infrastructure is way behind. We need to take care of ourselves since the leaders and politicians will not. Many folks are already using rain water capture systems to provide their water. Many are completely self sufficient. Assuming you have the space and your local rules do not prevent it; take a hard look at rain water capture to at least water you garden.

We can each make a difference as individuals. Using solar power and rainwater to make ourselves more self sufficient and less dependent on the politicians and big business.

Our poor earth must once again pay the price.....

So the gas prices keep rising. Exxon and the other fat cat oil companies keep reporting record profits. Exxon pays their chief gouger over $400M in retirement monies. Our price at the pump keeps rising. What is the solution? Drill for more oil in the fragile Arctic and bribe all the tax payers with a $100 refund! This sounds like a great solution to me. I can't wait to get my 100 bucks. I think I can fill my car twice at the current prices for that. By the time I get it, it may be down to one tank?

Here is what the genius politicians are saying...........

"The New York Times

G.O.P. Senators Hurry to Quell Furor Over Gas

By CARL HULSE

Published: April 28, 2006

WASHINGTON, April 27 Senate Republicans tried on Thursday to get the upper hand in the escalating political battle over high gasoline prices by proposing a $100 rebate for taxpayers and by suggesting that they might increase taxes on oil-industry profits.

The Republican proposal also called for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil production, a provision sure to draw opposition from many Democrats and even some Republicans.

"The American consumer is the one that needs the break today, and we need to be taking steps to make sure that they aren't emptying their wallet every time they fill their tank," said Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, as the leadership unveiled its legislative response to an issue quickly taking over the Congressional agenda.

The Republican plan includes a provision that could levy a significant tax on oil company profits, a provision that President Bush promised to veto when a version appeared in a Senate bill last year. The proposal came on a day when Exxon Mobil reported a 7 percent gain in its first-quarter earnings."

So we finally actually may consider making the greedy oil companies pay their fare share of the taxes. How about taking back the $4B in research grants that they clearly do not use for energy research and do not need when they are making the outrageous profits they do, and using that to really develop alternative fuels and educating the public on conservation for a change.

But then there will not be any reason to exploit the Artic Oil fields, and who cares about them anyway, they are melting so fast they won't be there much longer to matter. Ironic that is, pulling the oil from the Arctic fields will pump more greenhouse gases into the air to help melt the ice faster! Now that makes sense doesn't it. Oh yes , sorry, I forgot, there is not such thing as global warming, that is just mumbo jumbo from the left wing extremists.

Some good news this time

NRDC announced a victory against the ongoing insanity and typical short term ideologies of Dubja and the gang this week. What follows is a quote from an email sent to NRDC supporters this past week:

"NRDC Member, I am thrilled to report a major victory in our long courtroom battle to block one of the Bush administration's most dangerous attacks on the environment: a proposed massive rock mining project in Florida's fragile Everglades. Four years ago, the administration issued permits for the first phase of this gargantuan scheme that would have bulldozed and dynamited 30 square miles of the world's most famous wetland ecosystem in order to produce a billion tons of limestone rock for use in roads and parking lots. The resulting 80-foot deep pits -- so big they'd be visible from outer space -- would have destroyed vital Everglades habitat for a variety of rare plants and animals, including the endangered wood stork. The pits also threatened to poison the drinking water of millions of Miami-Dade County residents by allowing dangerous micro-organisms to infiltrate local wells. Thanks to your financial support, NRDC went to federal court and charged the Bush administration with violating the Endangered Species Act and other environmental laws. Last week, that court ruled in our favor and delivered a stunning setback to the administration and its mining allies. In his ruling, the judge chastised the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for rushing to issue the permits at the mining industry's behest, ignoring clear evidence of environmental dangers, while misrepresenting the facts and disregarding the law. This is a tremendous victory for our natural heritage and it belongs in large part to NRDC Members like you. Not only did you fund this case, but you sent thousands of messages to Bush administration officials protesting their harmful mining scheme. That powerful outcry helped raise awareness in Florida of the serious environmental risks of this project. I want to thank you for all of your donations and efforts in this important campaign to save one of America's greatest natural treasures. Together, we have sent this White House a message loud and clear that we will not stand for the corporate-sponsored destruction of our last wild places. And, with your help, we are going to prevail in more battles to come. Sincerely yours, Frances Beinecke President Natural Resources Defense Council"

This is great news for once. But is is a small victory in the enormous battle to protect our fragile earth and home. Here are 2 examples................

This week's Newsweek (April 3, 2006) has an article about Global Warming. If this was my primary source of data I would come away thinking that Global Warming is just another scam by liberals to stop me from having fun. It again continues the myth that the scientific community is I quote "widely divided" on the matter suggesting that there is no scientific basis for arguments supporting Global Warming and it's dire consequences. This is pure propaganda from the Dubja anti-environment engine (driven by Oil of course). We need to support the few that are speaking out and doing their level best to raise awareness and find a spot above the clamor and politics to focus on what is right for our precious earth instead.

A related issue is the alarming downward trend in Energy R&D spending by both Public and Private sectors. In an article published in the March 2006 edition of IEEE-USA Today's Engineer is a chart showing that Public expenditure peaked at just over $8B around 1980 and has dropped off to just over $1B in 2004. Both the Democrats and Republicans have quietly been cutting back on Energy related R&D. What are these folks thinking. (Oh, sorry I forgot, when you keep getting those big checks from big Oil your mind stops working)! To their credit private sources have remained steady around $3.6B over the past 2 decades, dropping off in the 1990's and now showing slight signs of improvement, but still below previous levels. So the Dubja gang is not putting it's money where it's mouth is when he says we must stop our oil addiction. If we are not spending time and resources to find alternatives and options to reduce energy wastage and the world wide (almost) increasing use of oil we will not cure the addition. Depending how long we get to live, some of us will see the cold turkey cure for the addiction in the future, when the oil runs dry and we have not prepared adequately for the inevitable eventuality.

Dubja and Humpty Dumpty

From the New York Times:

"March 18, 2006

Judges Overturn Bush Bid to Ease Pollution Rules

By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

WASHINGTON, March 17

A federal appeals court on Friday overturned a clean-air regulation issued by the Bush administration that would have let many power plants, refineries and factories avoid installing costly new pollution controls to help offset any increased emissions caused by repairs and replacements of equipment.

Ruling in favor of a coalition of states and environmental advocacy groups, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the "plain language" of the law required a stricter approach. The court has primary jurisdiction in challenges to federal regulations.

The ruling by a three-judge panel was the court's second decision in less than a year in a pair of closely related cases involving the administration's interpretations of a complex section of the Clean Air Act. Unlike its ruling last summer, when the court largely upheld the E.P.A.'s approach against challenges from industry, state governments and environmental groups, the new ruling was a defeat for the agency and for industry, and a victory for the states and their environmentalist allies.

In the earlier case, a panel including two of the three judges who ruled on Friday decided that the agency had acted reasonably in 2002, when it issued a rule changing how pollution would be measured, effectively loosening the strictures on companies making changes to their equipment and operations.

But on Friday, the court said the agency went too far in 2003 when it issued a separate new rule that opponents said would exempt most equipment changes from environmental reviews and even changes that would result in higher emissions.

With a wry footnote to Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass," the court said that "only in a Humpty-Dumpty world" could the law be read otherwise.

"We decline such a world view," said their unanimous decision, written by Judge Judith W. Rogers, an appointee of President Bill Clinton. Judges David Tatel, another Clinton appointee, and Janice Rogers Brown, a recent Bush appointee, joined her.

"This is an enormous victory over the concerted efforts by the Bush administration to dismantle the Clean Air Act," Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, whose office led the opposition from the states, said in an interview."

So the Judges finally saw what so many of us already knew: the current White House can barely read childrens rhymes or fairly tales and their lawyers are not much better.

Thank you reason and rational thinking. Finally we have some people that are not beholden to the money of big industry and oil and that consider the future of our environment as well. This is a step forward for a change, not backwards like we have seen for the past 6 years.

Speaking of going backwards, maybe more people will start to see the light and truth and put even more pressure on their representatives in Congress and Senate to vote against drilling in Arctic now. The Senate just approved such drilling in a bill this week. That must be stopped. We cannot let the oil companies into this precious bio zone and destroy it as well just to make even more money than they already do. We do not need this oil. Spend the money on alternative replinishable fuels and more fuel efficient engines instead.

About face, turnaround, go the other way.....

From:

"The New York Times

March 13, 2006

News Analysis

A Bush Alarm: Urging U.S. to Shun Isolationism

By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, March 12 — The president who made pre-emption and going it alone the watchwords of his first term is quietly turning in a new direction, warning at every opportunity of the dangers of turning the nation inward and isolationist, and making the case for international engagement on issues from national security to global economics.

President Bush's cautions on the dangers of pulling back behind American borders — in trade and investment, in immigration and in his effort to make the spread of democracy the signature of his second term — first cropped up in his State of the Union address six weeks ago."

Desperate times are calling for desperate measures in Dubjaland. At first he was the ultimate isolationist, go-it-alone advocate walking on this earth. Anybody who disagreed was the enemy. Charging headlong into Iraq essentially on our own, despising all but a few that we had bought over onto our side.

Now he is advocating against isolationism at every opportunity. What happened? Did they finally work out that going it alone actually does not work and that you need strong partners both politically and financially to really get significant things done in this world.

Going into Iraq essentially on our own has cost thousands of lives all round and now created a civil war like we have not seen in along time. We do not see freedom or democracy at work, just death and destruction. Please do not tell me that freedom is expensive and must be fought for. We created this mess of death and failure because we did not want to head the advice of our then allies and friends. In our headlong rush to war we forgot that friends are their to help and advise and sometimes it pays to listen to them.

Now that we are in this mess we have few friends to turn to, we spurned them all and wining their trust and friendship back will take many long hard years.

Are the people finally coming to there senses?

In a CBS poll reported today the White House and Dubja are being rated at an all time low for just about everything that is important to Americans today. See www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/27/opinion/polls/main1350874.shtml for the details. But despite the fact that people are now finally seeing that we have a President that simply does not care about them, they still need to see that he does not care about their county in the same way that they do. For example the administration keeps pushing oil exploration in the few protected and fragile eco havens in America, despite the State of the Union cry to decrease our dependency on oil.

A case in point is the Red Desert in Wyoming (Cheney country, surprise surprise!) The following is a quote from the NRDC website on the threats to Yellowstone in general, and the Red Desert in particular:

"When the American buffalo rebounded from near-extinction and gray wolves returned to the wild, they found their refuge in the tawny grasslands and pine-covered ridges of Yellowstone National Park. When grizzly bears lost most of their habitat to logging and development, the northern Rockies provided them with the thousands of square miles of wild forests and meadows they needed to survive. Without the vast stretches of Rockies wilderness, where will the next species go to be replenished?

Despite these questions, the Bush administration is set on sacrificing more of the country's most cherished wild places to satisfy energy corporations. Wyoming's Red Desert, for instance, is slated for a massive oil and gas project even though it is an oasis of prime wildlife habitat for elk, mule deer, hawks and eagles. With its single-minded focus on leasing more public land for development, the administration also has announced plans to remove Yellowstone's grizzly bears from the Endangered Species List. NRDC will oppose this premature effort in court.

The Bush administration is now considering a proposal to expand the Smoky Canyon Mine, a phosphate mining operation, into the pristine Sage Creek and Meade Peak roadless areas of Idaho's Caribou-Targhee National Forest. Phosphate mining has already released dangerous amounts of toxic selenium into the streams, groundwater and soils of this region, threatening local drinking water supplies and jeopardizing the survival of imperiled Yellowstone cutthroat trout, as well as elk, mule deer and other wildlife. Expanding the mine would increase these pollution risks and set a dangerous precedent for other harmful development in the unspoiled wild forests of Greater Yellowstone."

Now more than ever we need to speak up, rally support and redirect our country to a path of preservation and protection, instead of the head long rush to destruction just to make Exxon and other oil companies even richer than they already are at our expense.

Misleading us again

In the manner we have now become used to the White house speaks with forked tongue or from both sides of it's mouth as the sayings go. In late January we learned that NASA had attempted to limit what James Hansen their top climatologists had to say and from speaking publicly about Global warming and the long term effects of not reducing air pollutants. Of course the NASA politicians quickly denied that this was happening. See the NY Times article for more details. To his credit Mr. Hansen continues speaking and writing undeterred.

Then came the State of the Union address. In the list of issues we heard that we must reduce our dependency on oil. A laudable and very urgent issue that we all need to be helping with. However, right after the speech ever faithful Dick starts lobbying for drilling in the thankfully still protected Alaskan forests. Followed shortly by the President saying that ExxonMobil making an outrageous profit of the backs of you and me is good and right. If the oil price had not been allowed to skyrocket, ExxonMobil would not be so brimming with cash. While the oil companies have a bunch of their servants in the White House bowing to their every wish we will not cure the Oil addiction.

You can do something about this now. Go to the NRDC Action site and help in the battle to change the direction we are on to drill for more oil and feed the addiction a little longer. We do not need to be cured, the future generations will do that. Well folks, the future has arrived.

The back of the mountain is broke

A few weeks ago we went to see Brokeback Mountain. As movies go it is okay. The story is not that special and the acting is average. I do not think it is worthy of all the hype the movie is getting. (I am gay friendly so that is not an issue). What is really great in this movie is the amazing scenery that you get to see for significant periods of the movie. The mountain scenes were shot in near Calgary in Canada. If you love nature and mountains I can highly recommend visiting Kananaskis http://www.kananaskis.com/ and further north Banff and other parks deeper in the Canadian Rockies to see largely unspoilt mountains, animals and places to photograph and explore. It is great in summer and winter.

So what else is broke? Not surprising has been the debacle in Palestine. My dear friend Dubja has been telling us that the war in Iraq is about bringing democracy to the middle east and establishing freely elected governments. Well why are we all so bent out of shape that the "wrong" guys won the elections. By all accounts the elections were free and fair. So what the problem. Hamas my be considered terrorists by some, but they are not the first terrorists to be elected into government by free and open elections. By the way most people forget that some of the former Israeli Prime Ministers were terrorists in their youth.

Well the State of the Union also touched on the subject of the US's addiction to oil. Well at least it is publicly acknowledged and the suggestion that we go after biofuels and Hydrogen fuels. That is great. How about getting really serious and spending a few billion on making it happen instead of the hundreds of billions we are wasting giving record profits to Exxon-Mobil! Apparently Dubja does not think Exxon-Mobil making outrageous profits while the rising cost of gas in the US is seriously damaging and retarding our economy is a problem. I can't wait for 2008 to get a new regime in the White House. It cannot get much worse that this, can it?