Government regulation?

I'm just glad they know what's important, aren't you?

On America and "Big Oil"

Additionally? We, the people, you and me, all the working class stiffs in the nation give "Big Oil", the oil companies like Exxon-Mobil and Shell and BP and all of them? We give them tax deductions and subsidies. Yep. The wealthiest and most profitable companies and industry in the nation and the world and we give them--they get--tax breaks.

We just aren't very smart.

Another documentary Americans need to see--but won't

We really should figure in the actual, true cost of oil as we use it.

It would surely make solar energy far more affordable, sensible and even logical.

Another important documentary coming out soon

This one is on the BP Gulf oil spill and our government's work--or lack of it--in the capping and cleanup, after the fact.
It opens June 19. Please take the time to see it, for all our sake.

"An informed citizenry is the bulwark of a democracy." --Thomas Jefferson

Link: http://truth-out.org/news/item/9261-the-big-fix-documentary-exposes-bp-us-government-on-gulf-disaster

Hoping to end all "fossil fuel" tax subsidies

Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent, Vermont) has introduced a bill today to end all fossil fuel subsidies.

This bill would save taxpayers more than $113 billion over the next 10 years, for starters.

In addition, it would take these tax subsidies away from "Big Oil", one of the most profitable industries and some of the most profitable companies in the nation and the world.

Another benefit would be to not any longer support companies and an industry that

--has us in the Middle East, fighting centuries-old wars and

--has us polluting the air

--has us adding yet more CO2 into the atmosphere, possibly (likely?) contributing heavily and mightily to global warming/climate change.

--adds some water pollution, at least, if not a great deal, before, during and after oil drilling but also makes for the obscene oil spills with tankers or oil rig blowouts or whatever.

And all those are just the minimum negative attributes.

It is long overdue that we end these ridiculous tax subsidies for all the reasons listed above, at least. The country needs it. We need the tax revenue, too. Giving wealthy people and companies tax deductions is just wrong, if not crazy.

If you would, please add and show your support by signing the petition today: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/end-polluter-welfare/

Going After "Big Oil's" Tax Subsidies: Great News

From the news today: Obama seeks halt to tax subsidies for oil industry And this is great news. The oil industry is the most profitable industry in the nation--and the world--yet we, the American people--give them tax subsidies and breaks. Does that make any sense to anyone? It's crazy. They should be quickly and summarily done away with and as soon as possible. Even with money coming from the oil industry to our Congressional representatives, this should be an easy goal to attain. It's good for America. It's good for business and it's good for every home in the country--even if they didn't have a car, let alone if they do. Kudos, Mr. President. I would salute this action regardless of the political party that originated it, certainly. (And the Tea Party, Libertarians and Independents should all be behind this. Link: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-seeks-halt-tax-subsidies-oil-industry-100325515.html

Is this the kind of America you want?

There was a story out this weekend: Russia oil spills wreak devastation--In Russia's northern oil fields, an environmental tragedy _ drip by drip USINSK, Russia (AP) -- On the bright yellow tundra outside this oil town near the Arctic Circle, a pitch-black pool of crude stretches toward the horizon. The source: a decommissioned well whose rusty screws ooze with oil, viscous like jam. This is the face of Russia's oil country, a sprawling, inhospitable zone that experts say represents the world's worst ecological oil catastrophe. Environmentalists estimate at least 1 percent of Russia's annual oil production, or 5 million tons, is spilled every year. That is equivalent to one Deepwater Horizon-scale leak about every two months. Crumbling infrastructure and a harsh climate combine to spell disaster in the world's largest oil producer, responsible for 13 percent of global output. I ask you, is this the kind of world we want here in America? Do we want such a tiny government that corporations can make an ecological mess as big and devastating as this and walk away, unperturbed? Did you see China's air, the weeks before they hosted the Olympics? You couldn't see through it. Sure, we want "smaller government." I get that. I'm on board for that. But I'll tell you what I don't want. I don't want an EPA that is so small and weak that it can't monitor corporations and their possible pollution so things like these take place here in America. I do, in fact, want--heck, need--clean air, clean water and soil. Aren't we all "on board" for that? Link: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ap-enterprise-russia-oil-spills-050153139.html

Things going on this holiday weekend

Two pretty big items this weekend (with links below): Now it's Exxon-Mobil, ruining Yellowstone National Park, after BP screwed up the Gulf and second, we, the US, now have American soldiers on the ground in Somalia (that's HOW MANY wars?) and we're sending in drones. Happy 4th, everyone. Links: http://news.yahoo.com/teams-gauge-exxon-oil-spill-damage-mont-river-152649789.html; http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/02/world/africa/02somalia.html; http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=Aud023eNfdsgxjNUTY1vg1ybvZx4?p=somalia+drones&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-701; http://news.yahoo.com/american-boots-hit-ground-somalia-drone-attacks-170751348.html

Ayn Rand just took it too far

Ayn Rand just took her praise and dedication of and support for Capitalism--unfettered Capitalism--too far.

Completely,  utterly "free markets" leads to things like Gulf of Mexico oil spills and the collapse of both national and international economies and markets, as we've so tragically experienced recently.

Capitalism needs limits because there is no limit to greed.

On why we need NPR

From an op/ed column from The Washington Post (by Leonard Downie, Jr. and Robert G. Kaiser):

...Americans benefit when powerful institutions and important issues in their lives are scrutinized by good reporters on their behalf. Yet this kind of ambitious local news coverage by commercial media has diminished in community after community in recent years.

Recognizing that, NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — the government-created nonprofit institution that distributes federal dollars to public television and radio stations — have begun helping public radio stations do a better job of news reporting in their communities. CPB is funding Local Journalism Centersthat will enable dozens of public radio and television stations to work together in seven regions of the country to produce in-depth coverage of such subjects as education and the impact of the Gulf oil spill in southern states and coastal cities, economic change in the upper Midwest and Upstate New York, health care in central Florida, the environment in the Pacific Northwest, immigration and cultural change in southwestern cities, and evolving agribusiness in Great Plains communities.

NPR is working with local member stations on similar initiatives, including investigative reporting, as well as digital content sharing and Web site development that help stations stretch their limited resources. NPR also intends to begin a multiyear experimental partnership with selected member stations to cover the impact of state government actions in each of the 50 states, after many newspapers cut or closed their state capital news bureaus. Some individual stations are collaborating with nearby stations and new nonprofit news organizations to provide more local news to listeners.

And that's just part of the reasons we need NPR, locally and nationally.  How can we protect ourselves if we don't know what's going on?  It's as I said here earlier, if we don't have NPR, who's going to watch over government and corporations and report back to us what they do together, out of our sight?  

It surely isn't going to be Fox "News".

Link to original post:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-gap-we-need-npr-to-fill/2011/03/17/ABhu3Jm_story.html?fb_ref=NetworkNews

Things we need to remember from 2010

Sure, it's one thing to "move on" and get on with the new year and that's fine but there are things from this year just past we need to remember, in part so they're handled and the people are not forgotten.  In part, too, so people who are responsible aren't let "off the hook" for their responsibilities.

Herewith, then, are some of the biggest:

--In January of last year, the desperately poor people of Haiti were struck by a devastating earthquake, from which they are still recovering.  They deserve to not be forgotten;

--The BP oil disaster which began at the end of April.  We certainly can't forget this happened.  We can't forget the devastation, both natural and economic, at least, that it reeked on the Gulf region.  We can't forget that so many millions of barrels of oil gushed into the area and we can't forget that it's still down there, doing more harm.  We have to hold BP responsible for all the damage inflicted, and truly for years;

--We can't forget the April earthquake that struck the island Sumatra in Indonesia and the devastation that wrought.  These people need our help--the help of all of us in the world;

--We can't forget the October earthquake on that same island of Sumatra and for the same reasons as above;

--Then there was the October tsunami that struck--again--Indonesia.  These people had a rough, rough year;

--Then there was Hurricane Tomas that then struck already-hurting Haiti.  It's crucial we don't forget--and so, abandon--the Haitian people.

--We need to remember that our health care system is badly, badly broken and needs fixing.  Too many big businesses are sucking far too much money out of our personal, individual accounts and out of the national budgets.  That and too many people are either going without care or simply, worst case scenario, dying.  It's badly fixed and needs fixing and as soon as possible.  What little remedy we got this year with the Health Care Reform Act of 2010 should absolutely not be revoked and should, instead, be augmented with more stipulations, beginning with a "public option" for insurance;

--Finally, we need to remember that we're all Americans and that we're in a bit of one heckuva bad economy right now and that we need to be Americans and work together to solve our problems.  And for you and me, the "person on the street", if you will, that's all well and good but what we really need to get in this new year is representatives in government--particularly in the US House of Representatives--that want and need our government to work for all of us, the people, and not just for the representatives and not simply against the opposing political party.  We don't have enough time on our clock to waste with in-fighting between these political parties.

There is no doubt more but I thought these the "biggest of the big" and things that needed to be kept in mind, in case we can help any or all of these people in the new year.

It seems crazy that we fight all these obscene wars around the world when we should be taking all that manpower, materiel and just plain money and start just helping each other with all the natural disasters we face each year, let alone the poverty, homelessness, disease and starvation.

But that would make too much sense, right?

Let's hope it's a happy new year, indeed.

Links:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Tomas_(2010)
http://yearinreview.yahoo.com/2010/us_natural_disasters#Natural Disasters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2010_natural_disasters
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100905151748AAONyZk
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69P0QN20101026
http://sickothemovie.com/checkup/

Inside the American Petroleum Institute

No accountability from Big Oil

In defense of "Big Oil"

Is there anyone for whom this doesn't seem true?

As a nation, we are becoming more and more accustomed to a sense of helplessness. We no longer rise to the great challenges before us. It’s not just that we can’t plug the oil leak, which is the perfect metaphor for what we’ve become. We can’t seem to do much of anything. --Bob Herbert, columnist, The New York Times Link to original quote here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/opinion/22herbert.html?src=me&ref=general

"Peak oil": here already? (guest post)

After BP oil spill, 'peak' oil seems nearer than ever By David R. Francis David R. Francis Mon Jun 21, 12:23 pm ET .The oil that's flooded into the Gulf of Mexico has created big concerns about the environmental and economic damage. Another serious outcome has gotten far less attention: peak oil. By prompting President Obama to suspend deep-water drilling in US offshore waters, the Gulf oil spill is pushing up the date at which the world's conventional oil production peaks. By itself, the United States suspension would bring forward that date only a little. But if other nations with offshore oil output or potential also stop risky offshore exploration and drilling, it could speed the arrival of peak oil at a more alarming rate. Without alternative supplies of energy to offset it, a decline in oil production would send shock waves through the world, rattling economies and politics alike. Competition for resources could be fierce. In a geological sense, the world is still awash in oil. The US Geological Survey estimates 3,000 billion barrels of conventional crude are buried in the world, about a 46-year supply if no more oil is found, according to the National Center for Policy Analysis, a public-policy research firm in Dallas. The problem is getting oil out of the ground. Much oil is inaccessible – or so expensive to drill that it's not feasible even if oil prices surged. Sometimes the environmental risks (think BP's Deepwater Horizon fiasco) may be too high. Estimates vary on when oil production will climax. Take your pick. Peak oil: •Happened five years ago, holds Matthew Simmons, chairman emeritus of Simmons & Co. International, a Houston investment-banking firm for the energy industry. •Will be reached within five years – or "we may have already reached it," says Richard Miller, a London consulting geologist who up until 2008 worked for BP preparing private reports on prospects for peak oil. •Will happen around 2025, according to Leo Drollas, chief economist of the Centre for Global Energy Studies in Lon­don. He figures the world has 6 million barrels per day (b.p.d.) of unused conventional oil output capacity, about 4 million of that in Saudi Arabia. In addition, Canada has about 170 billion barrels in its oil sands, and Vene­zuela has some 400 billion barrels of heavy oils, more than Saudi Arabia's conventional oil reserves. A lot more oil could be discovered on land if, say, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, and Venezuela offered reasonable financial terms for international oil companies to come in, Dr. Drollas maintains. Considering the nationalism prevalent in such countries, an open-door policy for foreign oil companies "isn't going to happen," says Dr. Miller. Furthermore, he notes that output from existing oil fields is declining at a rate of 2 million to 3 million b.p.d. a year. Usually production starts to fall after about a third of the oil has been extracted. In the Gulf of Mexico, the decline can be fast. Another major BP platform, Thunder Horse, was brought into production 18 months ago at 250,000 b.p.d. It was already down to 80,000 b.p.d. before being recently shut down for maintenance, says Mr. Simmons. More than 700 other platforms in the Gulf produce an average of only 40 b.p.d. (The costs of disposing of a platform are large.) Typically, production losses are offset by new finds. The International Energy Agency has calculated that it would take the discovery of six new fields the size of those in Saudi Arabia to maintain current world oil output through 2030, Miller says. "I don't know where they [the fields] are hiding," he adds. •David R. Francis writes a weekly column. Link to original post: http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100621/cm_csm/307446

Quotes from and on BP's--and America's--Gulf oil spill

--Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that the spill, which is ravaging beaches and wildlife, will not be contained until the leak is fully plugged and that even afterward "there will be oil out there for months to come." The disaster, which began with an oil rig explosion in mid-April, will persist "well into the fall," Allen said. A containment cap placed on the gusher near the sea floor trapped about 441,000 gallons of oil Saturday, BP spokesman Mark Proegler said, up from around 250,000 gallons of oil Friday. It's not clear how much is still escaping; an estimated 500,000 to 1 million gallons of crude is believed to be leaking daily. --BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward: "We're going to clean up the oil, we're going to remediate any environmental damage and we are going to return the Gulf coast to the position it was in prior to this event," he told the BBC. CG Adm Allen on "Fox News Sunday" that he doesn't "want to create any undue encouragement" and that "we need to underpromise and overdeliver." The oil is coating and miring waterfowl in the sticky mess, and dead birds and dolphins are washing ashore. Scientists say the wildlife death toll remains relatively modest, though, because the Deepwater Horizon rig was 50 miles off the coast and most of the oil has stayed in the open sea. The oil has steadily spread east, washing up in greater quantities in recent days. Small tar balls have washed up as far east as Fort Walton Beach, about a third of the way across the Florida Panhandle. Government officials estimate that roughly 23 million to 49 million gallons have leaked into the Gulf and say they are using a variety of strategies to curb its spread. "What we're doing right now is bringing all the skimming equipment in the United States that's not being used for anything else and bringing it to bear down there," Allen said on ABC's "This Week." At Pensacola Beach, Buck Langston and his family took to collecting globs of tar instead of sea shells on Sunday morning. They used improvised chopsticks to pick up the balls and drop them into plastic containers. Ultimately, the hoped to help clean it all up, Langston said. "Yesterday it wasn't like this, this heavy," Langston said. "I don't know why cleanup crews aren't out here." With no oil response workers on Louisiana's Queen Bess Island, Plaquemines Parish coastal zone management director P.J. Hahn decided he could wait no longer, pulling an exhausted brown pelican from the oil, slime dripping from its wings. "We're in the sixth week, you'd think there would be a flotilla of people out here," Hahn said. "As you can see, we're so far behind the curve in this thing." Link to original post: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100606/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_1063 For photos of the after effects of the spill: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_sc2694

Quote of the day--where we are now

“We are staring into our future and it does not work. The gush of filth” (BP’s Gulf Oil spill) “is a reminder that we have surrendered our independence to a technology we cannot master. Our energies are misdirected to expensive foreign wars whose purposes grow ever more obscure. We rail at one another in “cultural’ clashes irrelevant to our real problems.” “Meanwhile, the clockwork precision of our classical constitution has ground to a halt—depending as it does on consensus that no longer exists. Taking the long view, this is how republics die. ‘Someone’ clearly has to do ‘something.’ What do you propose?” --“Tony” from an article in yesterday’s New York Times, “Generations in the Balance” Link to original post: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/opinion/20judt.html?th&emc=th

And now for something completely similar...

(With apologies to Monty Python's creators for appropriating their line).

Now, the latest energy news:

HOUSTON (Reuters) – A natural gas pipeline exploded in north Texas on Monday afternoon, CNN reported.

The blast was originally thought to be an oil well explosion.

An electrical crew was digging a hole when it struck the gas pipeline, an emergency services spokesman in Hood County, Texas, said.

WFAA-TV, the Dallas/Fort Worth station, reported three people were dead and 10 were unaccounted for after the blast.

People dying in large numbers in China, in coal mine explosions and collapses.

People dying in record numbers here, in the US, in the same.

An oil well explosion and leak in the Gulf of Mexico, creating the biggest natural disaster ever.

And now this.

Mind you, this last one is small (unless you're one of the 3 dead or one of their family or friends) but what is it going to take to point us all, as a nation--if not as a world--that we need to invest heavily in the far safer, cleaner and so, smarter solar power, particularly with photovoltaic cells?

If we all have these on our businesses and homes, along with new and better battery technology which, from what I understand is coming along pretty well, all things considered, we would need far less energy companies since we could create a lot of our own power through a calendar year.

Our air would be far cleaner. We would pollute far less, having gotten rid of coal, the transportation of coal and the burning of fossil fuels.

We could also, then, switch the jobs from out of coal mines with their requisite coal dust and health problems for the miners, to much better, cleaner jobs, perhaps installing the solar cells or some other, better, cleaner work.

Is it easy?

Certainly not.

Can we do it overnight?

Again, no way.

But do we need to do it?

I think we all know the answer to that is a resounding "yes".

And it would be "something completely different..."

Link to original post:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100607/us_nm/us_natgas_blast_texas

British Petroleum's gift to the world

It's not just the gulf, folks.

At this point, I'm sure the other big oil companies realize this isn't just British Petroleum's problem, too. Far from it. This is going to create problems for "Big Oil" in many parts of the world, not just the "slow to get it" United States.

Note: In all fairness and accuracy, this shows that a "dye" travels this path. Question: Is the dye as thick and heavy as this oil? Doubtful. Would that effect the results? I would surely think so, if in nothing else but time it takes to travel this path, at minimum.