I was chatting via Zuckerberg's Folly with a chap in Ireland the other day and he remarked on the price of gasoline, which is quite high Home Aisles, approaching $9/gal. When I remarked on the recent increases here, he rather acidly compared the (much lower) rates we Yanks pay to the prices he pays there.
Scale: (Fyeieio) Which it is a matter of. The USer economy depends to a frightening extent upon the internal mobility of the people and goods. But this is a freaking BIG place. It is further from Albuquerque to Philadelphia than it is from Calais, France, to Moscow, Russia. It is further from Albuquerque to Denver or Phoenix, our nearest metropoli, than it is from Hamburg to Munich German--from one end of Germany to the other, i.e. It's further from Albuquerque to Houston than from from Land's End to John O'Groats, including the watery parts.
Algebra: Where I buy most of my fuel, today 86 Octane "regular" was $3.69; diesel was $4.04. Friday, "petrol" in Eire was One Euro, 50c/liter--diesel was E 1.46. There's 3.785 liters/gallon. The dollar traded Friday for about .71 Euros, so dollars/gallon in Ireland = (Roughly: 1.5 (bucks/Euro) times 1.5 (Euros/liter) x 3.785) = $8.52/gal. Right pricey. In my very economical car (Escort ZX-2: 40 mpg on the road), at Brit/Irish prices, it would cost me over $150 in fuel alone to travel to the nearest metropolis (Denver or Phoenix) and return.
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Just Us: Both Michael Moore, and Glenn Greenwald weighed in on the relevance of Nuremberg and Tokyo trials of WW II war criminals, relative to the "killing of bin Laden." Moore reveals himself as a naif with this piece. Greenwald investigates it as an example of "American exceptionalism."
Osama was kept "alive" (okay, we'll never "know") by the Busheviks because he was useful as a bogeyman. Anytime Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, or any of the rest of that criminal enterprise needed to promote a new 'initiative' for their voluntary 'waqr' in Iraq, they'd trundle out Usama, either vicariously through 'terror alert' notices, or more directly, through the latest video. Remember the bin Laden vid that was released on the eve of their election theft in 2004?
ThePrez needed a "victoray" to pave the way for (cosmetically) removing some troops from Afghanistan this summer, as he "promised" the ('professional") left he would. He HAD to deliver, or risk their permanent disaffection, which St. Barry cannot afford. He's gotta be SEEN, at least, as wanting to end the wars, whatever the truth is. He was NEVER gonna get the 'victoray' in the field. That left bin Laden. B'bye, bin Laden (narratively, if not physically).
VICTORAY! End of story...
I agree w/Mike & Glenn that the treatment of bin Laden violates the 'principles' followed at Nuremberg and Tokyo.
But to me, all that that actually illustrates is how "thin" those principles were to begin with, and how cosmetic. They were merely stage dressing for the executions that the winners were gonna have, as the perquisites of their victory, no matter what.
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Energy Sources: Zuckerberg's Folly (aka "FaceBook") erupted with dismay and much gnashing of teeth (yestiddy/Sattiddy) at Prezz-O's announcement that his regime is going forward with plans to drill more in the deep ocean and in delicate ecosystems like the Arctic, no matter that this is 100% GUARANTEED to fuck-up SOMETIME and inflict ANOTHER environmental catastrophe upon us, the planet, and the whole of life on earth. But that's okay, if it saves corpoRat profits, one guesses.Actually, imagining Prezz-O would decide any OTHER course would be/is delusional. DStop drilling? Are you ouddayer fuuking MIND?!?! FUGGEDDABODIT!!!
NOBODY is EVER gonna stop DRILLING (and spilling) as long as there is a ONE, SINGLE unamortized dollar of value in ALL the buildings, rigs, refineries, leases, ships, trucks and any other gear bought for the exploitation of petroleum.
Similarly, there will NEVER be any effort to universalize "Renewable" energy as long as the Owners do NOT have a way to charge the Users for otherwise free energy.
The biggest technological impediment is NOT the lack of a more efficient energy collector, it's the absence of a reliable METER, so the fuckers can BILL you for the energy they DON'T own.
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