COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Friday, July 11, 2008

Save the Planet



36 comments:

  1. The glossary of nowhere:

    http://kunstlercast.com

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  2. Running on Empty

    Life without cheap oil:

    http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/special_feature/running_on_empty/life_without_cheap_oil.html

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  3. Arnold Blasts Bush on Climate Change

    Flying the length of Calif daily in his Gulfstream.
    Worthless Fucking Nazi Pig.

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. Bob,

    Got some pics of Saturn? Tiz true its rings are melting?

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  6. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq5wULiOyWk

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  7. Here's a nicer planet and a nicer selection of Holst, performed on the Big Moog.

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  8. Tes,

    That recording best is listened to on a quadraphonic system.

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  9. Metuselah, If you're talking about Tomita's version, you're right, my dad had that system in his car, but he just had a demo tape with Tomita's crappy version of the Star Wars theme. I had the 8-track of the Planets, in plain vanilla stereo, and I bought it again on vinyl in 1979. My mother thought it was funeral music, but then I was a pretty weird girl from the gitgo.

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  10. http://columbia.jp/~tomita/COAQ-15.html

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  11. Ooo, DVD, probably 24 bit audio from the master tapes. Damn, I gotta get it.

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  12. Tes,

    There be a torrent out in the wild.

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  13. Of course. When I say, "I gotta get it" that hasn't meant "I gotta buy it" for almost a decade now.

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  14. Best way to recycle the plastics is not to, that's what I say.

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  15. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  16. And the beat goes on...

    US judge sides with environmentalists, blocks gas drilling project in Michigan forest
    07-12-2008 3:35 AM
    By JOHN FLESHER, Associated Press Writer

    TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (Associated Press) -- A federal judge has overturned a decision by the U.S. Forest Service to allow oil and gas drilling near a forest and a river in Michigan's northern Lower Peninsula.

    U.S. District Judge David Lawson of Detroit ruled Thursday the agency had acted "arbitrarily and capriciously" in 2005 by giving Savoy Energy LP of Traverse City a permit to drill an exploratory well near the Au Sable River's south branch.

    The proposed wellhead would be located in the Huron-Manistee National Forest about three-tenths of a mile from the Mason Tract, a 4,679-acre wilderness area prized by anglers and other outdoor recreationists.

    Forest supervisor Leanne Marten said when approving Savoy's application that the project wouldn't significantly harm the environment and the company would be required to keep noise to a minimum.

    But the judge ruled the Forest Service didn't consider how degrading the area could harm tourism, and said the agency did a "woefully inadequate" job of evaluating how the drilling might affect the Kirtland's warbler, an endangered songbird that nests in the area.


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  17. Is not the INCREASE in the cost of oil going to slow down china and india's appetite for crude?

    from a macro economic POV, if the cost in real dollars has 4x'd in the last 24 months, how will this impact the CONSUMPTION of oil by the rest of the world..

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  18. CONSUMPTION has already decreased a lot more than is reflected in the price.
    ...Airliners retired, SUV's for sale w/o takers.
    China, India, no subsidies?

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  19. The Chinese are gearing up electrical production:
    Cultural Devolution, while the Indians are already pushing ahead with sweet sorghum ethanol production.

    Both use much smaller amounts of fuel, both in per capita and real terms, than US. So the economic impact is smaller.

    In China, for instance, the largest motorcycle engine permited is 250cc. There are few SUVs in the driveways, in Peking

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  20. Sorghum bicolor.


    Mongolia has vast tracks of land that are perfect for such grasses. Tibet is already swallowed. Wonder who would be next.

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  21. Federal courts run the National Forests, might as well just get rid of the Forestt Service. Court rules arbitrarily and capriciously that the Forest Service did the same. Every last project is taken to the court, now.

    Maybe the judge likes to fish there.

    Mat, the Rooskies ought to be doing some deals with us.

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  22. angry Democrats reject Obama?
    Raise $10 million for Clinton campaign debt, urge her return

    By Andrea Shea King

    A promotion for the retirement of Hillary Clinton's campaign debt

    More than two million angry Democrats are rejecting Sen. Barack Obama as the likely Democratic nominee for the presidency this year, according to a new protest organization.

    "I hate to use this word but it's fascist, and that's the approach they're taking to silence any Hillary Clinton supporters," Will Bower, co-founder of PUMA/Just Say No Deal, an exploding coalition of voters who say they have raised $10 million in just days to pay down Clinton's campaign debt.

    "Barack Obama wants to give his acceptance speech in a stadium because he intends to minimize any pro-Hillary supporter dissent. It's not because he wants to include more people. He knows that if they pull any shenanigans at convention, the Hillary delegates will walk out, and they don't want that to be seen or heard. They're bringing as many Obama supporters as they can to fill that stadium. It's fascism," he said.

    The voters who still are supporting Clinton are doing everything they can to make sure that doesn't happen, raising an estimated $10 million since Independence Day to retire her debt.

    Nearly 18 million people voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential primaries and many of them believe their candidate was cheated out of being the Democratic nominee for president.

    Now more than two million, based on donation and other records, are determined to protest the nominating process and push for an open convention in Denver this August.

    "The seeds of discontent for the birth of the PUMA/Just Say No Deal movement were planted during Barack's poor performances at the debates, the media assault on Clinton after Iowa, Obama's arrogance on the campaign trail, and the DNC's selective application of its own rules," Bower explained.

    "We said we are not falling in line just because Obama and (David) Axelrod and the DNC were saying 'All right, this is over, let's all get behind Barack Obama.' There are plenty of us out here saying, 'No this is not over. You have treated us very unfairly and in fact, anti-democratically,'" he said.

    Bower said Hillary supporters were so incensed with the DNC's action they wrote about it at their blogsites. The issue went viral, spreading rapidly across the Internet. One irate blogger came up with the acronym PUMA after blogging "Party Unity, My A**." The abbreviation eventually evolved into the puma cat logo used at multiple sites.


    Barack Obama

    It took only days for PUMA and dozens of other grassroots organizations and political activists to discover one another and convene a conference call. They agreed to band together and call the movement Just Say No Deal.

    "We formed this coalition to give people time to say 'Look, everything is still on the table. You still have months before November to make this decision' " Bower explained.

    PUMA/Just Say No Deal now represents and gives voice to more than 230 grassroots organizations, blogs and millions of self- professed PUMAs intent on one mission: NOBAMA!

    "On June 8th the coalition was born and within 24 hours we were on Fox News," Bower said. Since then, he and several other coalition members have done dozens of television, radio and print interviews. And they've met with the Republican presumptive nominee, Sen. John McCain and his campaign advisor Carly Fiorina.

    "We felt reassured after that meeting that come November, we'd be voting for McCain, but we still haven't made that choice. We want him to work for our vote," Bower said.

    PUMA/Just Say No Deal members are pushing varying agendas and voting strategies, but the factions are united in their unwavering decision to not "fall in line" in supporting Barack Obama. For many of the disenfranchised Democrats, the choice will be John McCain. For others, it will be a third party candidate, a write-in, or no vote at all.

    "A lot of us still want Hillary to get the nomination, but we all agree that none of us want Obama to be the next president," Bower said.

    "We're letting the Democratic National Committee and other party leaders know that PUMA/Just Say No Deal members are serious. We're not going to take this lightly and we're prepared to vote for John McCain if need be."

    Bower said he believes his group is creating an impact with the Democratic National Committee.

    "They are worried. They saw these past few weeks how much money we're still raising for Hillary Clinton. Originally they said 'Hillary has until the convention to pay off her debt if she wants to be on the roll call.' Well, then we started making money for her. And then they moved it up to July 15th. So we started making a lot of money for her."

    "We started an initiative just before the 4th of July to raise money for Hillary, and so far we've raised approximately $10 million. Sources tell us that's less than $5 million away from being in the black. By this weekend Hillary's debt will be finished."

    Bower makes it clear that Sen. Clinton has not asked the organization to do anything. "We're doing this on our own. We don't want the DNC to use her debt as a strong-arm tactic to keep her or her supporters from having a voice at the convention. All of us are contributing what we can. None of us want Barack Obama to be the next president."

    Coalition members donate in increments of $20.08. "That way they know it's from us," Bower explained.

    It's not just the money giving the DNC angst.

    "Some of their superstars are now having to spend all of their time addressing us specifically," Bower said. “Donna Brazile's (superdelegate and DNC rules committee member) job now is fighting the PUMAs. Ed Rendell created a group called Hound to address the PUMAs. So some of their best people are having to devote all of their time and energy just to address us."

    Money raised by PUMAs also doesn't go to Obama's campaign or the DNC coffers.

    Bower also pointed to polls indicating shrinking support for Obama.

    "CNN did a poll at the beginning of June that showed 1 of every 5 Clinton supporters would not vote for Obama. Well, just one month later that's now 1 in 3. So we're getting our numbers up and we're growing strong. And if the DNC's not worried about us, then they're clueless as to this movement."

    They also credit Obama with helping their effort.

    "In the last two weeks we've seen Obama go back on his campaign promises – FISA, campaign finance, especially the Iraq war," Bower said.

    "There is a movement afoot," Bower confided. "It hasn't hit the ground yet, but we want to target down-ticket Democrats who have been complicit in the DNC's dealings these past few months. You'll probably be hearing more about that soon. Some of Obama's original supporters are leaving him. Eight super-delegates left Obama this week. People are realizing Obama will be a dead weight to them and that's why these eight delegates have switched back over to Hillary's column. And I'm expecting there'll be more to follow."

    "He's only the presumptive nominee. And he's doing everything he can, the DNC is doing everything it can, to shove Hillary out of the process when she has received more votes than any primary candidate in history," he said.

    The coalition believes the Democrat leadership in Congress is supporting Obama because they want a weakened executive branch and Obama is an inexperienced, manufactured candidate who'll have to rely on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

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  23. CONSUMPTION has already decreased a lot more than is reflected in the price.
    ...Airliners retired, SUV's for sale w/o takers.
    China, India, no subsidies?


    My point is there is no shortage of crude of any meaningful amount... and with the price at 147 a barrel any and all old capped wells throughout the world are being uncapped...

    the old standard was $30 profitability for a barrel. factor in a 30% decline in the dollars that would be the new benchmark of about $40 a barrel.

    Now with at 140 a barrel it is PROFITABLE to send wetbacks down a dry well with teaspoons to recover oil.....

    So everybody and every thing is now being pressed into fuel from chicken fat (read tyson and chevron) to soy, ethanol, switchgrass, algae, solar, wind, geothermic, electric fuel cell, coal, tidal pools and others CAN the world (not the USA) support 140 a barrel oil?

    If food has tripled to the world, fuel and gone up 4x can MOST of the world afford to buy fuel the way it was used to getting it? I THINK NOT...

    I am afraid the great big oil price bust is about to happen, thus KILLING any alternative energy program for another 40 years...

    after the war with iran happens, and it will, we will be accused of faulty intel again, that iran didnt have wmd, nor did they actually have the advanced missiles they claim to have, and that us wiping their military out in 48hrs was not needed, we should have talked longer.

    then the dust will settle and the world's oil will be plentiful and the price will collapse....

    this is why we need an alternative minimum OPEC oil tax...

    if oil goes below $60 a barrel the difference should be taxed and put into alternative energy tax credits for small businesses and home owners.

    we need to offer tax investment credits for solar panels on every strip mail in the usa.

    we need to offer cities and towns tax credits for micro bio diesel set up to use the waste veggie oil from restaurants.

    we need to start a new "made in the USA" export program to aggressively sell american MADE devices that save energy and dont pollute...

    This is a historic opportunity to change the dynamic.

    It's time to take the ENERGY business back from those lucky enough to be sitting on dead dinos....

    technology...

    btw...

    the exhaust from a typical car or truck burns less than 46% of the fuel...

    amazing...

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  24. "Mat, the Rooskies ought to be doing some deals with us."

    Lots of forest in Lithuania, Bob. If it was up to me, I'd clear both the trees and the local wild beasts pretending to be people there.

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  25. we need to offer tax investment credits for solar panels on every strip mail in the usa.

    And, we could turn off all the neon lighting and parking lot lights at night, when the stores are closed. There's this big mall here that gets on my nerves. Closes at 10pm, but dozens and dozens of parking lot lights are blazing away all night long. Could see it from space. This goes on all across the country.

    --
    Mat, I was thinking, over in the east, if I was a Russian, I'd be fearing the Chinese, out that way.

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  26. Can't be that high, WIO: Only thing halfway close to that bad were old two cycle Marine and possibly Cycle engines:

    Modern "cat" equipped engines use an oxygen sensor in the
    exhaust, that constantly senses the presence of any residual
    oxygen and feeds back this information to the fuel injection
    system controller. The controller constantly fine-tunes the
    fuel being fed to the engine, to ensure that the air-fuel
    mixture is "stoichiometric"; that is, a "perfect" mixture
    which results in almost no excess oxygen or unburned fuel.
    This requires a ratio of 14.7 parts of air to one part of
    fuel by weight. Very little carbon monoxide, unburned
    hydrocarbons, or nitrogen oxides, are formed when the fuel-
    air ratio is so tightly controlled, but what small amounts of
    these pollutants do result, are eliminated by the "cat".

    Dew Point of Exhaust Gas

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  27. Yeah, but you're Swedish, you're all a bunch of paranoid MF'ers.

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  28. "And, we could turn off all the neon lighting and parking lot lights at night, when the stores are closed."
    ---
    That would be CONSERVATION, which is UN-AMERICAN.
    ...just ask your average "conservative" dogmatist.

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  29. Clean Up America!
    (Nuke China)

    Cross over San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, head north for half an hour, and you'll reach Mount Tamalpais State Park, home to redwood groves and, a little ways up, panoramic views of the bay.

    As it turns out, though, the park is also home to large amounts of pollution from Asia--dust, sulfur, trace metals--blowing in from across the Pacific.

    "We call it the persistent Asian plume," says Steven Cliff, an atmospheric scientist currently working with the California Air Resources Board.
    On some days, one-third of the state's background air pollution can be traced to Asia, and researchers are now looking into whether the plume could be disrupting cloud formation and rainfall in water-starved California.

    'Rat's link.

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