May 14, 2010
May 13, 2010
May 12, 2010
Open letter to Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (and any other advocate of more off shore drilling)
Excerpt:
Dear Rep. Brown-Waite,
Early last month, I wrote your office regarding my concern with rising gasoline prices. I received your response in an email letter today and I have a few comments.
I strongly disagree that increasing domestic off shore production of oil and natural gas, eliminating the tariff on ethanol and building more refineries are viable solutions to reducing gasoline prices. I will not vote for any representative that advocates that. I believe the solution is to reduce consumption and demand, not increase production. In other words, the real solution is a long-term strategy, not quick short-term fixes like the ones that you advocate in your response.
Firstly, according to the figures that you cite in your letter, of the estimated 88 billion barrels located off shore, 74 billion are already available to oil companies for exploration and production, leaving 14 billion that would be available by opening the ANWR and the rest of the Gulf of Mexico. At the current rate of U.S. consumption, an additional 14 billion barrels of oil amounts to a supply that would last about 667 days – less than 2 years.
Secondly, an analysis performed by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the independent statistical and analytical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy, found in a report published in 2007 that opening up the outer continental shelf in the Pacific, Atlantic and eastern Gulf regions would result in production no sooner than 2017, and would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil production before 2030. In other words, more off shore drilling is not even a viable short-term solution.
Thirdly, the price of oil and gasoline is determined by the international market. Increasing domestic production does not mean that oil tapped domestically by multi-national corporations will go directly into American gasoline production, even with increased refining capacity. It will be traded as a commodity on the world market, and like with any other commodity, the price will be manipulated by speculators in such a way as to maximize profit for investors.
Fourthly, of the 74 billion barrels that your letter claims are already available for exploration and drilling, the oil companies have elected to not pursue production of the vast majority of that oil. That is because it is not economically viable (aka. profitable) to do so, even at today’s high prices. Nationally, only about a quarter of federal leased lands are being tapped for crude or natural gas.
Recovering oil from domestic shale deposits is also a costly process, and is not profitable unless oil prices remain high. In other words, actually tapping all of that oil is more likely to keep prices high than to reduce them. Increasing refining capacity will not have any effect unless the oil companies increase production, and corporations will not do so if it is not profitable to do so.
Fifthly, reducing the tariff on ethanol, and ethanol production in general is not a viable solution to high gasoline prices. Increased use of ethanol fuel will drive up the price of corn and other foods used to produce ethanol on the global market. Higher priced corn and sugar means not only higher food prices, but also higher priced ethanol. That would more than compensate for elimination of the tariff on ethanol. The only way that ethanol can reduce the price of gasoline when blended is if it costs less than gasoline. Even if ethanol would reduce the price of gasoline (and that is debatable at best), lower gasoline prices will not benefit Americans if we have to pay higher prices for food.
Lastly, the risks involved in off shore drilling have been clearly demonstrated by the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Read more, see the text of Brown-Waite’s letter, and get links here: http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m5d12-Open-letter-to-Rep-Ginny-BrownWaite-and-any-other-advocate-of-more-off-shore-drilling
And one more thing, get a Mike Malloy podcast here: http://www.mikemalloy.com/ (I already have one).
That photo of Stephanie Miller on the main page today was taken by me on the same day I met Malloy for the first time. He said Bart’s a “true patriot” and so is Malloy. Please do what you can and support both of them, or all you’ll have left on the air is Rush, Beck and Hannity.
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Debt forgiveness: Do loans, like milk, have expiration dates?
I just got a call from Judge Joe Brown’s producer. “We are interested in having your small claims court case on our show. What’s the case about?”
“Well,” I replied, “I loaned someone some money and she promised to pay me back and then she didn’t.”
“Sounds like an interesting case. How long ago did you loan her this money?”
“Approximately ten years ago.”
“Sorry,” the producer replied. “That’s too long ago. We can’t take your case.”
“But…er…uh…but…wait!” I stammered — but the producer had already hung up.
Then I got to thinking about my case. It’s an airtight case. My case is an excellent case! The only thing wrong with it is that I had been too much of a softie and allowed the person who had borrowed the money too much time to pay me back. Does this mean that loans, like milk, have expiration dates?
According to Judge Joe Brown’s producer, apparently they do.
Does this mean that if it takes forever for a person to pay off his or her home loan, then that house will automatically revert to becoming the debtor’s property after a certain number of years — whether this person pays on the loan or not?
Does this mean that all those third-world countries that were strong-armed into borrowing money from the World Bank are now free and clear of their debts — because it took them too long to pay down their loans?
Does this mean that the Mob can no longer knee-cap you if you don’t ever pay back your bookie?
Does this mean that the U.S. government will no longer have a seven-trillion-dollar deficit if we just wait long enough for it to become the next generation’s problem?
Sure it does.
Judge Joe Brown rules!
****
Please vote for me ASAP so that I can get a scholarship to the Netroots Nation convention in Las Vegas this July! Vote here: http://www.democracyforamerica.com/netroots_nation_scholarships/810-jane-stillwater
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May 11, 2010
May 10, 2010
My kids’ mom is SO Berkeley that…we actually survived Mothers Day!
Did you know that there’s a website out now that is completely devoted to jokes about Berkeley moms? Blond jokes and Polish jokes are out now. Berkeley Mom jokes are in. “My mom is so Berkeley that….”
Hey, I’m a Berkeley mom.
So when my daughter Ashley and son Joe asked me what I wanted to do for Mothers Day this year, I got to thinking about Berkeley. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s drive around Berkeley to all the places we used to hang out at when you guys were kids.” Tot lots? Soccer fields? Elementary schools? No way! My kids had different kinds of memories about their pasts.
First we went to the Cafe Mediterraneum up on Telegraph Avenue, where I used to sit and gossip in the 1970s and drink caffe lattes while my kids played under the table. Other kids may have gone to Blue Fairyland for daycare but not mine!
“My mom was so Berkeley that she raised me at the Med.”
Then we drove by People’s Park. “I was there when we first started to plant its gardens back in 1969,” I told the kids. “I was there for the riots and the tear gas. And I got my picture on the front page of the Berkeley Barb during our victory parade.”
That’s just great. “My mom is so Berkeley that she was a cover girl for the Berkeley Barb….”
Then we drove by the University of California. I always measure my life by this benchmark: “Am I having as much fun now as I did while going to Cal back in the 1960s?” And the answer is still always no.
“My mom is so Berkeley that she used to take us to hunger strikes up on Sproul Plaza.” And I still do.
Next we drove down past the old Mandrake’s nightclub, where I first met one of the backup guitarists for a band called Joy of Cooking. Two months later I was pregnant. “That’s not my child and goodbye,” said the lead singer for a band named Commander Cody and The Lost Planet Airmen.
“My mom is so Berkeley that she spends our entire Mothers Day making us listen to stories about when she was a Flower Child.” Damn straight. And before that I was a Beatnik. And don’t you forget it.
Next we drove past the law office where I used to work. “Remember when I used to work for Bob Treuhaft? He was a lawyer for the Free Speech Movement.” And his wife Jessica Mitford had gone to Spain to fight against Franco in the 1930s.
“My mom is so Berkeley that she used to take us to reunions of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.”
Then we drove past the infamous Woolsey Street House, where Alan Ginsburg, Chogyam Trungpa, Timothy Leary and Country Joe McDonald used to hang out in the attic with the crew of the Floating Lotus Magic Opera.
“My mom is so Berkeley that she can remember taking LSD back when it was still legal.”
Then we drove past the now-defunct Mothers Motors, where I first met Ashley’s father. He and I used to go on road trips on his Velocette. And I tried to learn to drive his old Triumph Bonneville.
“My mother is so Berkeley that she gave us motorcycle helmets for our birthdays and I went on my first chopper ride when I was three weeks old.” Not only that but you were conceived after a Grateful Dead concert.
But now all that’s changed. Berkeley is starting to become just another bedroom community. One of my daughters has rebelled and become a Yuppie. And I myself have become just another aging and forgotten recluse who doesn’t even own a cell phone — let alone an iPod.
“My mom is so Berkeley that she’s beginning to talk about being buried in the back yard when she dies….”
Next we drove up toward Tilden Park to Lake Anza, the merry-go-round and the Little Farm. How many times have I dragged the kids up there when times got tough for me, the ultimate Berkeley single mother? I can’t even count them. And we used to go to Edy’s for hot caramel sundaes when things got tough too but Edy’s went out of business. As has Mr. Mopps, Berkeley’s legendary toy store.
“My mom is so Berkeley that she used to read Sartre while we swam in Lake Anza.”
Then there were all those scholarships. I must have applied for a million scholarships so that my kids could go off to camps in the summer. Camp Tuolumne near Yosemite, the YMCA’s Camp Gualala, Cal Camp down near Santa Cruz, the Lawrence Hall of Science. Even the official NASA U.S. Space Camp. Did I leave anything out? Day camps. Overnight camps. Girl Scout camps. Science camps. Martial arts camps. Music camps. My kids went to Cazadero and Ashley learned how to play the saxophone. Joe played electric guitar back then. He still does.
“My mom was so Berkeley that we never even saw her during the whole month of July.” Hey, I believe strongly in the curative powers of fresh air.
And to finish off our fabulous Mothers Day Berkeley tour, we went off to the Albany Twin to see that movie “Babies”. It doesn’t get much more Mothers Day than that. Then we went to the Cafe Tibet for dinner but it was closed so we ended up at an organic Thai food restaurant that served pumpkin curry and brown rice.
“My mom is so Berkeley that we all grew up on Edy’s sundaes and brown rice.”
And I am also still enough of a Berkeley mom to still hope for — no, demand! — world peace. “Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World Peace in one generation!”
Screw all these people who still think that violence and neo-fascism and “war” is the answer. It is definitely not. All we have to do is make a graph that will project into the future all current Pentagon expenditures for weapons and all death by violence in all countries where Washington sends military aid or is currently conducting this or that “military action” — and what we will see is a red line going up and up and up until there is nothing left of the whole human race.
“My mom is so Berkeley that she still thinks that nonviolence is still the only answer.”
I’m also so Berkeley that I can’t stand living without some kind of hope that there will someday exist a better world for my children.
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Gulf oil slick can be seen from space
Excerpt:
Remember the movie Deck the Halls, in which Danny DeVito went nuts and wanted his Christmas lights seen from space? Well, BP just one-upped him, because the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico can be seen from space.
A May 4, 2010 photo on NASA’s web site taken from the international space station clearly shows the magnitude of the oil slick in the Gulf …and if you live near the coast in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, or Louisiana it’s headed your way.
BP, the corporation responsible for cleaning up the mess, failed to cap the oil leak that is gushing from a hole they drilled almost one mile below the surface of the ocean. So far, estimates of the amount of oil released into the Gulf of Mexico range from 210,000 to 2.5 million gallons per day since April 20th. That means there could be as much as 50 million gallons of crude oil floating on the waters in the Gulf today, although our friendly corporate media will tell you it’s only about 4.2 million gallons. Keep in mind that it takes only one quart of oil to poison 250,000 gallans of seawater for all marine life.
According to the Independent UK, the oil spill may be five times worse than previously thought. Ian MacDonald, a biological oceanographer at Florida State University, said he believed, after studying NASA data, that about one million gallons a day were leeching into the sea, and that the volume discharged may have already exceeded the 11 million gallons of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, widely regarded as the world’s worst ecological disaster. Mr MacDonald said there was, as of Friday, possibly as much as 6,178 square miles of oil-covered water in the Gulf.
Wayne Madsen, writing for Global Research, claims that “the Obama administration…conspired with BP to fudge the extent of the oil leak, according to our federal and state sources.”
Guillaume Decamme, writing for Agence France-Presse, states that Admiral Thad Allen, head of the US Coast Guard, suggested BP is considering what he called a “junk shot” to plug the main leak.
They’re actually going to take a bunch of debris, shredded up tires, golf balls and things like that and under very high pressure shoot it into the preventer itself and see if they can clog it up and stop the leak, said Allen, who is leading the US government’s response, on CBS’s Face the Nation.
Great! With all the marvels of modern technology at hand, it’s come down to golf balls and shredded tires to save the ecosystem in the Gulf. I don’t know how that sounds to you, but to me that sounds like we are…nevermind, you fill in the blank.
Get links here: http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m5d10-Gulf-oil-slick-can-be-seen-from-space
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Oil slick update
Excerpt:
Sifting through the information, trying to make sense out of what is happening with the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico can be confusing. Trying to write an article about that is like trying to mix a cocktail with cognitive dissonance, misdirected anger, a little Chinaco Anejo, lime and bovine excrement.
So, I’m going to take the weekend off and just post a few articles you can read and sort out for yourself.
The first is from Greg Palast. He claims BP has failed to put safeguards and containment equipment in place in the past and will do that again. Read more here. Having been a fraud investigator looking into the Exxon Valdez spill, he probably knows what he’s talking about.
The second is from our beloved mainstream media, the AP. Apparently the containment box failed to cap the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. Here’s a nice quote, “I wouldn’t say it’s failed yet,” BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said of the containment box. “What I would say is what we attempted to do … didn’t work.” Ummm, if it didn’t work, how is that not a failure? Read more here.
The third is from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Apparently only 4.5 percent of the Gulf of Mexico is closed for fishing. Read more here. No biggie, shrimp has a better texture when coated with oil.
The fourth is from the Attorney General in Alabama. Apparently BP was offering $5000 to any Gulf coast fisherman that agrees not to sue them. While their livelihood and source of income, dating back in some cases to the 1800′s, is now cut off indefinitely, five grand will settle it, huh? Not so says AG Troy King. Read more here.
Meanwhile, tar balls are washing up on the beaches of Alabama. Read more here.
Oil rig workers are coerced into signing waivers.
The Houston Business Journal finally admits oil has washed ashore in Louisiana.
With confirmed sightings of oil across a 50-mile chain of islands that line Louisiana’s Southwestern coast, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) has ordered the affected area closed to public entry.
And the capitalist hagiography has little room for saints.
Lastly, the final question always is, “what can we DO about this?” The truth is not much, but some people are getting together and trying to do something: It’s called the Zeitgeist movement. Check it out. There is a video here that tells it like it is:
You can sort through it and come to your own conclusion. I have to BBQ some shrimp and enjoy them while I can still afford them. I promise better coverage on this disaster tomorrow.
Read more and check out the Zeitgeist video here: http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m5d9-Oil-slick-update
Get some kind bud and some time, because it will blow you mind…
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May 8, 2010
May 7, 2010
Contradictory reports about size and movement of oil slick
Author’s note: I am sure a lot you have been following this. Even if you have, you may not have seen the flyover video in the article that is on my Examiner page. It is a birds-eye view of the size and scope of this slick and is truly frightening.
Excerpt:
How large is the oil slick approaching the shores of Gulf states? When will it wash up on the pristine beaches of the Florida panhandle? Is it large enough to hitch a ride on the Loop Current and travel around the Florida peninsula? Anyone following reports in the media should be uncertain, because the reports are unclear and sometimes contradictory.
Consider, for example, this chart from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (it is too large to post in this article). It tracks the movement of the oil slick from May 1 through May 6. The position and size of the oil slick in the chart on May 1 clearly does not match the NASA satellite photo taken the same day. The oil slick in the NOAA chart is much farther east and farther out to sea than the satellite image shows.
Further reports tend to add to the uncertainty, rather than clearing it up. The Houston Business Journal reported yesterday that “oil has washed ashore on the barrier islands near Louisiana for the first time.” The AFP reported the same.
Other reports have stated that oil washed ashore in Louisiana as early as April 30th, with AP photos clearly showing that.
So what are we to believe? How large is this oil slick and when will it wash up on the beaches of the Gulf states?
There is another uncertainty regarding the size of the oil slick and the amount of oil that is gushing into the Gulf. The Telegraph UK reported yesterday that “the well is currently spewing 5,000 barrels a day, or about 210,000 gallons, but that figure could reach 60,000 barrels a day, equivalent to 2.5 million gallons a day, if efforts to stop the leaks fail.” The figure was given in a briefing by executives from BP and Transocean, which owned the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig, to the Congress House Energy and Commerce Committee. The window between 210,000 and 2.5 million gallons of oil per day is a very large discrepancy.
Dr. Ian MacDonald at Florida State University produced a spill-size estimate based on aerial overflights taken on April 28. The bottom line: on April 28 there was a total of 8.9 million gallons floating on the surface of the Gulf. Based on his flow charts, that means the leak surpassed the quantity of oil that the Exxon Valdez spilled on May 1, and there are about 18.8 million gallons of oil floating on the Gulf of Mexico today. Keep in mind that it takes only one quart of oil to poison 250,000 gallons of seawater for all marine life.
The truth is, no one knows how much oil has already leaked into the Gulf, and no one knows how much will before the well is capped or a relief well is drilled to stop the flow. Stopping the flow of oil into the Gulf may take up to three months, and the results of efforts to cap the leak yesterday are not yet certain.
Alabama Governor Bob Riley said favorable weather conditions meant the response effort would have a few more days to try to reduce the slick and mitigate its impact on the shore. He said: “If we can get three or four days I think we’re going to be in pretty good shape.” US Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry said: “We do have the gift of time. It’s a gift of a little bit of time.”
According to oceanographers, marine biologists and ecologists, time has already run out for much of marine life in the Gulf. Not only will shallow water animals be poisoned by the oil slick, but also hail-sized droplets of oil that coagulate like tarballs will fall to the bottom of the sea. They will be consumed by smaller organisms and passed up the food chain, resulting in death throughout the entire Gulf ecosystem.
While this giant oil slick has not yet washed up on the beaches of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, it is not a question of if, but when. And the devasting effect on marine life is even more of a certainty, but no one will really know how bad it is until it hits the shores.
Read more, get links and view a flyover of the oil slick here: http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m5d7-Contradictory-reports-about-size-and-movement-of-oil-slick-leave-FL-residents-uncertain
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May 6, 2010
To Maria, Re: Immigration email circulating among teachers
Hi Maria,
If you are looking for the truth, you have come to the right web site. Bart is correct, the email that you wrote in about is total hog snot. As a rule, never trust an anonymous email because they are written that way so the author cannot get sued if they are caught lying.
That immigration email has been circulating in various forms since January 2008, supposedly written by “a teacher” in various states, including Florida, California and Oregon.
You can view information about the email here: http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/is_a_letter_from_an_anonymous_teacher.html
And here: http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/pellgrant.asp
The pieces at the above links contain links to more information about CARIBE, WAIT and other things mentioned in the email. FactCheck.org and Snopes.com are great fact-checking resources for those chain emails and just about anything else.
Now that you’ll be armed and dangerous with facts and the truth, give the right-wingers hell at the water cooler!
Greg
Orlando Independent Examiner
Just an aside question, are there any parts of Florida that aren’t “red”?
New York Times’ coverage of Gulf oil leak omits key fact
Authors note: This is yet another fine example of the so-called “liberal media” myth and the death of real journalism in the U.S. Apparently the culture that brought us Steno Jude is still actively at work.
Excerpt:
The New York Times, also known as the “paper of record,” omits a key fact in a recent article about the Gulf oil disaster by failing to let readers know that the so-called “experts” downplaying the oil disaster are bought and paid for by the oil industry.
Few media outlets in America have yet covered the fact that a $500K device may have prevented the catastrophic oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, but that is not the story here. The story is that corporate media is killing journalism in America.
Brad Friedman, writing on The BRAD BLOG, has once again exposed a lie of omission by “The Grey Lady.”
Downplaying concerns that the Gulf oil leak could lead to an ecological disaster, the New York Times cites the Gulf of Mexico Foundation as an expert source. The “paper of record”, however, fails to mention that this so-called “conservation group” is financed by the offshore drilling industry.
Friedman’s work speaks for itself. He has been on the New York Times for years, like a fly on washed up marine animals. This is not the first time Friedman has exposed the Times for lies of omission.
According to Friedman:
John M. Broder and Tom Zeller Jr. of The New York Times are kind enough today to offer a front page “News Analysis” which works very hard to offer “balance” on the Gulf oil rig gusher by downplaying concerns of an unprecedented ecological disaster noting “the Deepwater Horizon blowout is not unprecedented, nor is it yet among the worst oil accidents in history.”
They even offer a scientific “expert” to help support that thesis:
What they don’t do, however, is let readers know that Dokken’s “conservation group,” the Gulf of Mexico Foundation, is actually sponsored in large part by the offshore oil drilling industry!
And according to Marian Wang writing at ProPublica yesterday:
At least half of the 19 members of [the Gulf of Mexico's Foundation's] board of directors have direct ties to the offshore drilling industry.
Seven other board members are currently employed at oil companies, or at companies that provide products and services “primarily” to the offshore oil and gas industry. Those companies include Shell, Conoco Phillips, LLOG Exploration Company, Devon Energy, Anadarko Petroleum Company and Oceaneering International.
The Gulf of Mexico Foundation’s president is a retired senior vice president of Rowan Companies Inc., an offshore drilling contractor.
The Times’ article on the Gulf oil leak is a good example that no media outlet should be trusted to provide unbiased, truthful information. Readers must question everything, from every source, no matter what sort of reputation the publication may have.
Read more and get links here: http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m5d5-New-York-Times-coverage-of-Gulf-oil-leak-omits-key-fact
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May 5, 2010
Madam Jane Predicts: No more war because no more gas!
Almost everyone in America knows which celebrity won “Dancing with the Stars” last time, that Sandra Bullock has just adopted a new baby and even that one of the Jonas Brothers is now married. But how many of us Americans are aware of the most important news event on this planet in the past 10,000 years? How many of us are aware of a new study by the U.S. military informing us that, worldwide, consumer demand for gasoline will outstrip its supply in just a year and a half, and that we could be almost without any fuel at all within just 20 years?
According to a report from the U.S. Joint Forces Command, “By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day.”
This is the biggest news event in history — even bigger than the recent CNN headline that Betty White has refused to pose naked!
Not all that many people have noticed the fact that we may be completely out of gas as quickly as even five or ten years from now. But Madam Jane has noticed. Why am I not surprised? Our cynical and surly Madam Jane always manages to throw a wet blanket on everything.
“Not only will there be NO gasoline in 20 years, but there will also be darn little electricity — because you can’t run generators (or even hybrids) without gas,” predicted Madam Jane, having once again dusted off her old crystal ball. Nor will we have any food — because we will be all out of the petroleum-based fertilizers that we now rely upon to grow food, and also there will be no way to get said food to market even if we were able to grow it. Plus you won’t even be able to get YOURSELVES to the market — without any gas for your cars.”
Madam Jane is SUCH a drag. And she’s no fun at parties either.
“Parties? What parties? When a gasoline-based world has no more gasoline, it’s over. Who wants to party without disco lights, birthday cake or mp3 players? And with no access to people you could invite from your FaceBook page? Not me.” That’s a downer.
And that’s probably the same reason why corporate-owned media news feeds haven’t picked this story up yet. It’s just too up-close and personal to appeal to the average American viewer. No one wants to hear about disasters that will personally effect us that intensely. We all love hearing about far-away tragedies like the earthquake in Haiti — not tragedies occurring in our very own back yard. And because this hot story is being so ignored, Madam Jane doesn’t even get to be on any talk shows either — not even the liberal ones, not even Oprah!
She probably just made all this stuff up because she’s tired of having all her other spot-on predictions be so blatantly ignored.
“But I know what I know,” states The Madam. “And if no one believes me, then too bad for them. But if I was you, I’d be getting real busy stocking in a big supply of bicycles, canned food, Huggies and candles.”
Ignore Madam Jane. Next thing you know she’ll be telling us to start building bomb shelters like they did back in the 1950s. Ha!
“But some good things WILL come out of this catastrophe,” predicted Madam Jane stoically. “I can clearly predict that there will be no more giant trans-global wars on the scale of Afghanistan or Iraq.” Why is that? “Because armies cannot conduct wars of that magnitude without gasoline to run their airplanes and tanks. Look at Afghanistan for instance. It’s pretty much landlocked and all of the Marines’ equipment there — from their Bradleys to the roast beef they are served at their DFACs — has to be all flown in by air. And how long do you think that war will last without fuel for the planes?”
PS: Here’s another really important multi-millennial story that is being largely ignored: “If that horrendous BP oil spill off the coast of Louisiana isn’t capped, like, yesterday,” flatly states Madam Jane, “all living things in the entire Atlantic Ocean could die out. All of them! And if something like that also happens to the oil rigs off Santa Barbara, there goes the entire Pacific Ocean too. And then there goes the planet….”
Madam Jane, you need to take a happy pill and start watching “Dancing with the Stars” more.
http://www.inteldaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/eia1.jpg
****
Please vote for me so that I can get a scholarship to the Netroots Nation convention in Las Vegas this July! Vote here: http://www.democracyforamerica.com/netroots_nation_scholarships/810-jane-stillwater
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Sen. Mary Landrieu: Big Oil’s Big Easy