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?