WIP

Not only Canadians, but the rest of the world too, is fascinated by the pomp and pageantry that surrounds presidential campaigns. But the dirty tricks seem to get dirtier as the years go by. And it appears to be aided by the fact that the Democratic and Republican parties have colluded to prevent some needed reforms when they see greater advantage for themselves by leaving the system as is. It would be a big help if the U.S. could ever manage to install a national election commission to run federal elections....like I think every other democratic country does in the world. Another big problem is not having a third party in charge of examining Congressional boundaries and redistricting. The House of Representatives also needs to be increased in size. The Wikipedia entry says the last increase was half a century ago in 1963, and the House only added a handful of seats in the last century. If each member of Congress had smaller constituencies, they would have a greater ability to represent the needs of the people in their districts, and likely would be less dependent on cash from campaign donors and lobbyists to win elections. It's not like things are perfect in Canada -- we have a couple of our own election fraud stories to deal with. But usually boring is better than high drama when it comes to electing politicians.

And your question really has nothing to do with the topic! I was not born in the U.S. in the first place! I was born in Canada, but applied for U.S. citizenship after discovering through one of my older brothers that I was still within the age limit -- at that time it was up till age 21. But, as I said before, even though I never lived in the U.S. for very long, I still have lots of American relatives, and besides, U.S. politics is always a topic of conversation when I visit my mother today. I have to stay informed.

It is easy to see how this latest game could spark a world war and nukes and everything else, when we consider how ruthless the competition for resources and trade is getting.

Maintaining dual citizenship is more difficult than you think. If you reach a point in life where you're pretty sure where you're going to stay, you're better off without it and just getting a passport now for travel.

I wasn't sure which one of the hundred Israel/Palestine threads to add to, but this one seems to be the most appropriate, as I have been wondering since the latest hostilities began: WHY? Why this time? And what was in it for the Netanyahu government, since a decision not to start a land invasion actually might cost him his job according to Israeli polls. But, this piece from NBC News has me wondering if the motives behind this flimsy 'War On Hamas' was just to do a test run for that long-believed plan of the Israel and the U.S. - the War Against Iran: What Gaza fighting taught Israel about possible war with Iran So, what we learn is that Israel is really happy about their new antimissile system "Iron Dome", the public support for the operations...including how well the civilian populations in most cities responded quickly and got to the air raid shelters...many times on a few of the days. And casualties were low, even less than expected....certainly much less than what residents of Gaza experienced from Israeli bombings. On the downside, we learn that in spite of all the bullshit, chest-thumping rhetoric, that Israel needs the United States....especially if they were to make a land invasion and occupation of Gaza. Israel, obviously cannot afford these high tech wars, and are fundamentally spending American money every time they launch missiles and go on bombing runs. So a full invasion is out of the question without U.S. backing....which they probably have anyway, since the tail has been wagging the dog through a series of Democratic and Republican administrations. The last U.S. Government to say NO to any of Israel's plans was Bush One. Since then, U.S. administrations jump to everything on the wishlist for new Israeli hardware, no matter the cost, and if Israel really wants an Iran War, they're going to get it, regardless of the fact that Obama is in his 2nd term now. And now that the test run is over, when will they start the big war? Stop pretending the US is an uninvolved, helpless party in the Israeli assault on Gaza I have one relation (I'm not going to get more specific) who is a pilot in the Canadian Forces, and was down a few weeks ago on a hastily planned visit with family and friends, because he was told that it would be very unlikely he would have the clearance to travel near the Christmas holidays, and not to make any plans for leave in the new year. He says what little he has been told is classified and cannot be shared. So, I wonder if any others have similar stories to tell, and exactly what is being planned for the new year!

From the pov of a former U.S. citizen who has many family members there, I'm often more plugged in and aware of U.S. politics than I am with what goes on here. But, I think most of us who were following the latest two year presidential extravanganza have moved on to other subjects. But there still are some interesting side bars and issues that I would like to see answered or at least get more information on. Let's start: 1. It's Still Not Over Yet! Believe it or not, the final vote tally still isn't in yet, but what's really shocking is how many votes remain to be counted: as many as two million....and most of them are in New York and California, so, it's not likely that Romney is going to pull a surprise come-from-behind win now. Irony of ironies, with mostly Obama votes remaining, it looks like Romney's final popular vote total will fall to 47%, or possibly lower. So, he ended up winning the 47% after all! Liberal schadenfreude is about to reach overdose levels. Just when you thought the dead horse of Mitt Romney's campaign had been beaten more than enough — and most savagely by members of his own party — Dave Wasserman at Cook Political Report projects that the final count of the popular vote, which is still ongoing, will show Romney winning 47 percent of the electorate. This could raise related questions like WHY aren't all the votes counted yet, and why did the Republican vote get counted so quickly, while so many predominantly Democratic districts are still trying to sort out the mess? What was most disturbing about the latest U.S. Elections, is the decline in democratic process. For example, the poorer and the darker your district was, the more likely it would have fewer polling stations per capita; 'malfunctioning voting machines', and given provisional ballots to fill out...which can be long forms that have to be completely filled in correctly or tossed; find that their names had been stricken off the voter lists through voter caging and other nefarious Rove tactics; or find that their polling station just happened to have "poll watchers" from 'True The Vote' and other Republican-sponsored groups. So, if you were dark and/or didn't have money, the greater the hurdles to exercise your democratic franchise to vote. I suspect there were no similar lineups at the polls in South Beach Florida and other millionaire bastions around the Country! Just more evidence that conservatives view the democratic process as an annoyance to a existential threat....depending on just how far out of synch the rich are with the interests and welfare of the majority....and that's pretty damn far now, as the wealth and income gaps keep growing and growing! And that leads to the next question I have after viewing some of the highlight reels of the meltdowns of Rove, Trump, Limbaugh and the nuts and bolts at Foxnews: 2. Was The Fix In For Romney and Republican Senate Candidates On Election Night? A lot of liberal, especially Democrat activists have been enjoying the comedy show...especially between Rove and Megyn Kelly on Election Night. But when I watched the clip, I wondered whether Rove was in denial...like John Stewart and similar talking heads are saying, or was he still confident of Romney winning Ohio because he was still sure that the fix was in? Recall the story about how the bean counters in the back room at Fox called Ohio for Obama because the districts still remaining to come in were going to be mostly Democratic. Well, does anyone really think that Rove was stupid enough not to realize that? He successfully fixed the vote in Ohio in 2004 for Bush, and you can bet for damn sure that he knows the details about every district in Ohio...and most other states as well....this is what he gets payed to do, and what his reputation as a campaign strategist hangs on. Anonymous, Karl Rove and 2012 Election Fix? That article about Anonymous and the Get Out The Vote Democratic strategists, reveals one of the key reasons why Republican vote-rigging failed this time -- it was too bloody obvious! The Republican Party had started making it more and more obvious that they weren't interested in the votes of certain minority groups for some reason, and seen a better return in running against them....especially Latinos, by targeting their populist appeals at white suburbanites fearing being "overrun" by immigrants and darkies. They were far less subtle with these tactics in this election than in previous campaigns. And now that it's over, and the results show it was a failure because of the backlash it created, they are back to courting the Latino vote again! Just like in the runup to the 2000 Republican Convention, where everyone who could speak Spanish was put on the stage. This time around, they refused to give any except for Marco Rubio any chance to speak at the Convention. Now, it's back to square one, as they try to do that balancing act that Dubya did, and try to tone down the rhetoric of the anti-immigration activists....let's see if it works this time! And then there are the fun stories that come out after the election: 3. How The Secret Service Said Goodbye To Mitt Romney In brief: he rode from his hotel to the convention hall in Boston to make his victory speech in a 15 car secret service motorcade, and as soon as the results came in, the detail leader told the agents to pack up and return to their base....and the Romneys had to hitch a ride with their son Tagg, back to the hotel....love it! And his statement a few days before election night - that he had only written a victory speech seemed to be more than bravado, judging from the fumbling mishmash of concession speech that he had to end up delivering instead. It seemed like Romney sure was sure that he would win! Was it just because he surrounded himself with a bunch of flunkies and yes men like a typical millionaire? Or, was it something he had been told by the operatives who were trying to fix the election for him. Obama had prepared both, according to Politico. But, Romney really was awfully damn sure that he only needed one speech on Election Night.

I'm long past the age where it's typical to want to hear new music...especially new and different sounding music, but occasionally I come across something that really gets my attention. I should point out that what I call "new" might be 20 years old....just after the time I stopped following new music. An example would be a song I kept hearing as bumper music on a podcast of the Shannyn Moore talk show, and decided to look it up. You may already know this one: Pictures Of You, by The Cure. I decided to pick a live version recorded in 1991, instead of the crappy music video for studio recording. It's a good live performance, and, I've noticed that ever since I discovered Youtube, I prefer concert videos: I also liked the Tea Party when they first came on the scene, maybe because they reminded me of the progressive rock that I was especially keen on back in the 70's...when some rock bands were trying to reach a little higher....make more complex music, and songs about bigger issues than just getting laid. I was a little surprised and disappointed that they never really caught on in a big way. I liked the way the Tea Party was going a little bit beyond the typical rock sound to incorporate Eastern music and what is either religious or esoteric mystical themes, depending on how you interpret them. They seemed to me to be a throwback to some of those prog rock bands of the 70's for that reason. If you like Mumford and Sons, and the way they try to work with roots music, I would suggest giving a listen to the Carolina Chocolate Drops, who base their sound on traditional Negro string band music made long before the era of rock n' roll. I first heard them on a podcast of the NPR music show: All Songs Considered. They show that the Appalachian folk weren't the only ones playing banjos and fiddles back in the old days:

Did you happen to look at how much prices increased between 2009 and 2011??? Or, consider how much higher prices are for all eight listed on those charts from 2009 to the present? A price drop from last year does not mean there is a trend towards lower prices! Now, what I've been talking about, is the estimates of future prices for rare earths if all of the new high tech products are to be made in the quantities proposed: Clean energy could lead to scarce materials Rising demand for wind turbines and electric vehicles could strain supplies of some rare earth metals. http://web.mit.edu/n...nergy-0409.html As the world moves toward greater use of low-carbon and zero-carbon energy sources, a possible bottleneck looms, according to a new MIT study: the supply of certain metals needed for key clean-energy technologies. Wind turbines, one of the fastest-growing sources of emissions-free electricity, rely on magnets that use the rare earth element neodymium. And the element dysprosium is an essential ingredient in some electric vehicles’ motors. The supply of both elements — currently imported almost exclusively from China — could face significant shortages in coming years, the research found. The study, led by a team of researchers at MIT’s Materials Systems Laboratory — postdoc Elisa Alonso PhD ’10, research scientist Richard Roth PhD ’92, senior research scientist Frank R. Field PhD ’85 and principal research scientist Randolph Kirchain PhD ’99 — has been published online in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, and will appear in print in a forthcoming issue. Three researchers from Ford Motor Company are co-authors. The study looked at 10 so-called “rare earth metals,” a group of 17 elements that have similar properties and which — despite their name — are not particularly rare at all. All 10 elements studied have some uses in high-tech equipment, in many cases in technology related to low-carbon energy. Of those 10, two are likely to face serious supply challenges in the coming years. The biggest challenge is likely to be for dysprosium: Demand could increase by 2,600 percent over the next 25 years, according to the study. Neodymium demand could increase by as much as 700 percent. Both materials have exceptional magnetic properties that make them especially well-suited to use in highly efficient, lightweight motors and batteries. A single large wind turbine (rated at about 3.5 megawatts) typically contains 600 kilograms, or about 1,300 pounds, of rare earth metals. A conventional car uses a little more than one pound of rare earth materials — mostly in small motors, such as those that run the windshield wipers — but an electric car might use nearly 10 times as much of the material in its lightweight batteries and motors. Currently, China produces 98 percent of the world’s rare earth metals, making those metals “the most geographically concentrated of any commercial-scale resource,” Kirchain says. Historically, production of these metals has increased by only a few percent each year, with the greatest spurts reaching about 12 percent annually. But much higher increases in production will be needed to meet the expected new demand, the study shows. China has about 50 percent of known reserves of rare earth metals; the United States also has significant deposits. Mining of these materials in the United States had ceased almost entirely — mostly because of environmental regulations that have increased the cost of production — but improved mining methods are making these sources usable again. Neodymium and dysprosium are not the most widely used rare earth elements, but they are the ones expected to see the biggest “pinch” in supplies, Alonso explains, due to projected rapid growth in demand for high-performance permanent magnets. Kirchain says that when they talk about a pinch in the supply, that doesn’t necessarily mean the materials are not available. Rather, it’s a matter of whether the price goes up to a point where certain uses are no longer economically viable. And from Price waterhouse Cooper: Rare Earth Metals Scarcity: A 'Ticking Time Bomb' for the World?, Asks PwC Seven core manufacturing industries could be seriously affected by a shortage of minerals and metals, which could disrupt entire supply chains and economies, according to new PwC research. PwC surveyed some of the largest manufacturing businesses across manufacturing, chemicals, automotive, energy/renewable energy, aviation, metals, infrastructure and high-tech hardware to see what impact such a scarcity would have, and where, over the next five years. Of these, business leaders in automotive, chemicals, and energy sectors fear they will be hit hardest according to ,b.PwC's Minerals and metals scarcity in manufacturing: A 'ticking time bomb', report. PwC's global sustainability leader, Malcolm Preston, said: "Put simply, many businesses now recognise that we are living beyond the planet's means. New business models will be fundamental to the ability to respond appropriately to the risks and opportunities posed by the scarcity of minerals and metals." The report's main author, Hans Schoolderman of PwC Netherlands, added: "The world's growing population, an increase in GDP levels and changing lifestyles are causing consumption levels to rise globally - creating a higher and higher demand for resources. Governments and companies should all be aware of the scope, importance and urgency of the scarcity of both renewable and non-renewable natural resources: energy, water, land and minerals." Among the minerals & metals on the 'critical' list are: Beryllium: used as a lightweight component in military equipment and in the aerospace industry. it is used in high-speed aircraft, missiles, space vehicles and communication satellites. Cobalt: a material used in industrial manufacturing. Used in jet turbine engines and automotive rechargeable batteries. Tantalum: used in mobile phones, computers and automotive electronics Flurospar: used in construction, cement, glass, iron and steel castings. Lithium: used in wind turbines and lithium-ion batteries in hybrid cars There are actually very few examples of new technologies having such high efficiencies that they are able to produce greater economic benefit with less energy. Most of the assumptions that economic growth can continue within physical limits of constraint, are based on nothing more than faith in technological progress that continued innovation and substituting of resource inputs, can continue on indefinitely in the future. And, I'm not a member of that church! I can see that this is a waste of time! And, I don't care enough about GMO either! Plus, my main objections to GMO is the manner in which they will further entrench the dominance of a few giant agribusiness conglomerates over food production. Just like the guy who fell out off the 50th floor and said, while on his way to the ground:"so far, so good!" Yeah, that must be it! I'd rather be fleeing into the woods from roving gangs of robbers and looters and try to fight for survival, than to collect my pension and live in one of the Caribbean Islands!

Maybe you could explain what 9/11 has to do with ME events - the most recent one you mention happening 40 years ago now. Are you arguing that Arabs are incorrigible, and there are no means to live at peace with them? If so, is the only thing stopping the genocide advocated by Gilad Sharon, the growing sense in Israel that their list of allies is shrinking, and if they go too far, Americans might start demanding that their Government cut off the allowance, and AIPAC and all of the Christian Zionists won't be able to stop it?

Hamas is neither moral, ethical nor civilised. Just from the title of the OP, I don't have to read too far into this topic to determine that it is just another baiting thread designed to dehumanize an enemy and justify any and everything done against them.....like this for instance: "Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn't stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren't surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too," he wrote in the Jerusalem Post. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/9688134/Ariel-Sharons-son-Gilad-calls-on-Israel-to-flatten-Gaza.html that's from Ariel Sharon's son to western media a couple of days ago. Many years ago, during the reign of Menachem Begin, when it started becoming obvious that increased settlements on the West Bank meant that Israel would never withdraw, even under a Labour Government, a prominent Israeli journalist at the time....who's name I can no longer recall, said he feared that his country was becoming exactly what they hated most, and eventually there would be a genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the territories that Israel covets. The first step along that way is to dehumanize the enemy. Turn them into gooks and savages who have no human qualities, so killing them is not the same as killing "real" people. I think the Nazis had a thing or two to say on the subject many years ago!

Yes, and I suspect that one of the mysteries of why nothing got done regarding carbon emissions, compared with previous actions to deal with cloroflurocarbons, comes down to the fact that actually doing something meant making significant changes to the way we live. I can't imagine a bigger one than telling people we're going to have to reorient our society away from car culture to even have a chance at sustainability. In southern Ontario, where I live, most of our steel production and factories built, are making car parts and assembling autos. Changing that voluntarily would require a great deal of cooperation and trust that our present system isn't even designed to consider positive virtues, let alone make steps towards. So far, the changes have been happening in typical gangster capitalist manner - our auto industry is being allowed to collapse (just like Detroit), and former auto workers and unemployed steel workers have to go work for minimum wage jobs at Walmart and Tim Hortons, and go into bankruptcy. And that's if they're lucky! In some cities, even those jobs are hard to come by. There was a story in Scientific American last month about the sudden and unexpected revival of America's freight rail service, and even a possible revival of passenger rail along some high traveled corridors like the East Coast. As time goes on, higher oil prices mean higher transportation costs for the trucking industry -- added with bankrupt state governments that keep raising tolls on the interstates and other toll roads to try to keep them in condition. Even without planning, there will be a gradual unwinding of a lot, possibly most of what we consider to be the permanent advances of modern life. So, I'll stay active on my computer, and get what I can out of it until the grid goes down. I'm not sure what I am going to do with all of the ebooks I have bought in the last couple of years, if I can't find a place to plug it in! If I had bought paper copies, at least I would have something to read by candlelight after the lights go out

No it's not! It's a flat out logical fallacy that has been argued by futurists like Julian Simon, who use the claim that substituting resource inputs and technological innovations will keep the joyride going......I just don't subscribe to that religion. That's what a UN report claimed a couple of years ago (I could look it up if I have to). They forecast a world peak population of 9 to 10 billion half way through this century, and then a steady decline in population. That sounds great, but the problem is there are a whole lot of assumptions contained in that rosy scenario, like reversing the 30 year trend of the reactionary trend restricting birth control for women....thankyou Ronnie Reagan, George Bush, Pope John Paul, a whole host of Muslim leaders too numerous to be mentioned, and many other smaller players who collaborated together to help reverse the declining trend in family size in Africa and many other nations! The glimmer of hope in that story is that Malthus doesn't have to be right about the human race being no better than other animals who will reproduce themselves until the point where they exhaust food resources, if there are no natural controls on population growth. It seems that we (or at least the female half of our species) is sensible enough to only have as many children as can be adequately provided for. But, even if we could take population growth completely off the table as an existential threat, we still have the problem of providing enough food to feed that 9 or 10 billion population as it peaks and very slowly declines to more manageable numbers.....which better be a damn lot less than 5 billion, if we are ever going to reach a permanently sustainable population based on carbon footprint numbers. Our present world food production is 40% irrigated with water drawn up at unsustainable levels. And then if we add unsustainable land use, the oil-based fertilizers and mined phosphates that will run out in a couple of decades....not to mention the still little understood impact on the total biosphere that our usage has on the wild plant and animal habitats facing extinction....well, it's still a big problem trying to get this species in line with sustainable living, and not becoming an extinct species ourselves in a couple of hundred years or so.

Rare earths are not dropping in cost! That's why the U.S. Government right now is subtly threatening to go to war with China if they keep withholding metals like neodymium for their own industries, instead of allowing them to be exported. Your Economist article is typical globalist big business BS! GDP is a sketchy measure of economic output to begin with (that's likely why governments prefer it to the old GNP previously used), and if we accept the obvious reality that modern globalized capitalist economies are dependent on fractional reserve banking (essentially banks creating money out of thin air), then economies have to keep growing to keep paying the new money that the banks loan out. If there is no economic growth and everyone starts to realize it, our money...which has no intrinsic value, will become worthless, and currencies will collapse worldwide, one after another. So, keeping this in mind, what the money fudgers at the Economist are really doing here is claiming greater energy efficiency by comparing the numbers with growing economies.....except that they're not growing! So, the chart...if you noticed, has projected economic growth numbers from 2010 (the last year they added real data) to 2030 that us pessimists who are trying to factor in peak oil and peak NNR's say will NOT happen! So, energy use per capita GDP in the future, will either be flat, or the increasing costs of energy supplies will start increasing those numbers, and there will be no future declines. But, back to the start -- in theory, if GDP could continue increasing and energy efficiency could also continue improving, that would still mean a continued net increase in total energy consumption. And that would require continued extraction of carbon sources, or major resource inputs to build millions of solar panels and windmills or a bunch of new nuclear power stations.....whatever it is, increased energy consumption will have impacts on the environment and lead to further declines in available NNR's. As has already been mentioned, this is a pretty lame attempt by you to try to reframe the psychological and neurological evidence on the differences between liberal thinkers and conservatives. I provided three links to recent, brief articles on what leads neuroscientists to the conclusion that there are differences in brain function between the way most liberals and conservatives think and develop a worldview (but you obviously didn't bother reading them), and you didn't bother to look at Robert Altemeyer's study of authoritarian personality types -- the people who are drawn to join often dangerous authoritarian movements and remain loyal followers. So, I didn't want to start drifting off to talking about psychology, but I was willing to point out where my prejudices lie, and why I am not going to just change everything I believe about climate change because of one study you cite an abstract of, which questions evidence of one, and only one part of the evidence - that droughts have increased and will continue the process of desertification in the future! On the contrary, what you have done with that story, and many others...is to take little shards and bits and pieces of what might be evidence to question the consensus of opinion shared by 97% of the world's climatologists. If you want me to join the so called climate change skeptic side, maybe you could provide me with evidence or at least a hypothesis of how adding carbon to the atmosphere and increasing the greenhouse effect does not result in higher temperatures and eventual permanent changes to our environment. A basic rule of physics is that you can't increase energy in a complex system without expecting changes, but that is exactly what the so called skeptics (like Richard Lindzen) are doing. And that doesn't even get to the main problem I have with business-as-usual, which all the liberal and conservative talkingheads in media adhere to: how do we resolve the conflicting conditions of living in a finite world with an economic system that demands constant growth, and a hedonistic culture addicted to novelty, that demands a constant supply of new and different products? If a product contains food that had its origin in GMO seeds, I would assume that there is some connection. Even if it can't be definitely determined, it could still be included on the label....like all of the processed foods that contain the warnings that they may contain peanut residue to advise those with severe peanut allergies. They don't know for sure either, but it's still on the label! That's not risk aversion; that's an aversion to living in denial! Which is what I think most conventional thinkers - liberal or conservative are doing on this subject. If a young child walks out on the street in front of a car, their first instinct is to close their eyes, not to jump out of the way. And that's because the child thinks what he or she can't see is not actually there. It takes a greater degree of maturity to come to the realization that the world exists whether we see it or not, and even more maturity to realize that, no matter how much we have enjoyed our present way of life, it cannot keep continuing on like this in the future. So far, what I have seen of most green activists and movements...and political parties, leaves me hugely disappointed, because their default position (which they will tell you openly) is that the public will go into denial if faced with too much bad news, and solutions have to provide a way to keep the present comfort levels going. To me, this is an impossibility, and most of their work is a waste of time!

I can't help noticing that even now, neither the green treehugging liberals or the climate change denying rightwingers are dealing with the fact that there are environmental and natural resource barriers to both windmills and nuclear power, if the arguments are just framed around providing today's constantly growing need for baseload power! Something has to be done about the way our society, our economies function first, and talking mumbo jumbo about 'green solutions' will do little or nothing to reduce the still-growing carbon emissions that are being added to the atmosphere and the world's oceans.

Sure, transition -- but here's the point -- today, about 95% of the extraction and refining for rare earth's is done in China, although the best estimates on rare earths are that two thirds of rare earth metals in the ground are NOT inside China's borders. That fact begs the question WHY has China been left with a virtual monopoly over such a lucrative (especially in the future) market, and the U.S., Europe and everyone else has been content to just buy them from China afterwards? The answer could be that so much digging and refining has to be done to get a significant quantity of rare earths, that the dirty job is left to nations like China -- which seem to have little or no regard for environment or the health of their people. Of course it's not like politicians and CEO's are concerned about our welfare over here! It's just that they have more dismantling to do of environmental regulations, health rules, and labour laws before they can turn us into the kind of disposable slave labour class that China has.

Some futurists, like Julian Simon for one, use the innovation and substitution excuse to try to slip out of the constraints our finite, physical world imposes on us. Sure, there are some materials that can be substituted...like the ones you mentioned; but you can't bring up the subject of new technological solutions without mentioning that many new high tech products require high amounts of rare earth metals and minerals like neodymium for one - required in the making of high efficiency magnets in these new windmills and many other products (this is one of the reasons why you don't see me making the typical "green technology solutions" arguments about merely substituting windmills and solar panels as our energy sources). Neodymium is an unusual metal with strange and now very useful properties, that had plentiful supply in the old days before it started being used more widely. Nowadays, there is a reasonable chance that the next world war will start from the present day behind-the-scenes competition between the U.S. and China over access to rare earths, every bit as much as it could start over oil or sources of fresh water. Futurist visions are typically hopes and wishes based on new inventions and proposed new ideas, but they come crashing to the ground because there are natural limits which make them unfeasible ......which is what is happening now to the U.S. space program...and will soon happen to the Russians, as they have also not been willing to spend the billions to design and build a new generation of booster rockets to keep their space program functioning. When I was young, we just assumed space travel was the way of the future....mostly based on what was technologically possible. And so did our governments apparently. They spent billions on spaceflight, but now that budgets are severely constrained, space stations and Mars and Lunar colonies are appearing more and more like unachievable luxuries, rather than future human outposts. We are becoming earthbound once again, as almost every space application except for a few satellites, doesn't get past the planning stage. I see the same process happening with commercial air travel...making it more and more a luxury for the rich, and then the private automobile will also price itself out of existence because of the fuel problem combined with the enormous demand on natural resources to keep building millions of new cars every year. This sounds like the decaying process James Howard Kuntsler described in a book 10 years ago called "The Long Emergency." The actual timeline of events will be difficult to try to predict, but the basic trend towards increased scarcities is already happening. But the biggest challenge for future generations is that the economic system that has governed the way of life of most of the world, is a capitalist system that demands continuous economic growth -- or the system will collapse. Now that we are approaching some of the hard limits that are constraining real economic growth, we are seeing more and more currency collapses, increased levels of debt, and destruction of entire national economies for their assets, just to keep the global banking juggernaut teetering on the verge of total collapse. I suspect that nothing will be done to stop the collapse because everyone would be required to make major sacrifices to stave off disaster, and our increasingly self-centered, self-absorbed, libertarian culture is more focused on stopping any 'free riders' than on settling for a system that could at least meet the basic needs of everyone. We are less likely to work for the common good than people were 50 or 100 years ago before the age of TV and computer devices allowed everyone to live in their own little bubble. So, I am expecting something like the collapse of the Soviet Union -- some survivors of that era I have talked with say that everything disintegrated all at once: one day they went to work to find the factory doors padlocked and all the lights out; the pension cheques stopped coming to all of the old people and disabled, and everyone was abandoned to fend for themselves. As we know now, behind the scenes, there were a tiny handful of high ranking Communist Party officials who bought up all of the devalued government assets and continued ruling as the new class of capitalist oligarchs. But, just like our system, the new capitalism in Russia is also due to hit the wall....likely some time in the next 10 to 15 years as their predicted oil reserves start declining. And, Russians will have to live through it all over again! I haven't been following Fukushima much recently; but the last I heard, the estimates for cleanup were between 40 and 100 years to complete. Even 40 years is an enormous cost! That huge, longterm cost of cleanup gets dumped on governments as the guarantor of last resort when a crisis like this happens. If every nuclear station in the world was chipping in to a fund to deal with these disasters, maybe that would cover the environmental cleanup. But, I doubt that will happen with Fukushima, the world will just expect a developed nation like Japan to pay for it all. Even Chernobyl was mostly dumped on the Ukraine....a country that was totally bankrupt after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The EU had to do some poking and prodding to get the one billion or so contributed so far; but that permanent solution - the concrete sarcophagus that will entomb the still melting reactor hasn't been started yet because of wrangling over money. The "temporary" containment structure, that was only intended for about 10 to 15 years, will have to be replaced, or Chernobyl will do it all over again! And...as previously mentioned, there are enormous quantities of concrete and metals needed to build a nuclear power plant....so it's not like an infinite number of nuclear plants can be built to supply an infinite amount of electrical power. There has been a number of books written recently by psychologists and neuroscientists, who are reaching definite conclusions that there are built in predispositions towards being liberal or conservative in our thinking. This looks like a good place to start: Brains Of Liberals And Conservatives Have Differences, According To Thirteen Peer-reviewed Scientific Studies Compiled By ProCon.org Political divides begin in the brain Defaulting to Conservatism And even without appealing to the findings in new brain research, psychologists have been aware that there are basic, fundamental differences in the way liberals and conservatives think for a long time. Robert Altemeyer studied and explained a lot of what is happening with these and other basic personality types in his book: The Authoritarians still available free online at the University of Manitoba. The book's main focus is on the followers in authoritarian extremist movements, but there is a lot of information that relates to modern politics. The differences indicate that there is some room for change -- conservatives may trend towards more liberal thinking and accepting new ideas if they do not perceive threat or that their core beliefs are in danger; liberals will become more conservative if they perceive some significant existential threat (no doubt this explains why politicians play the fear card), but liberal thinkers drift back towards their natural orientation after the threat is believed to be over, while the conservatives do not make a similar adjustment afterward. They are more likely to argue that the threat still exists, or will focus on a new threat. Conservatives will demand definitive answers to questions and put more trust in authority figures they accept, while liberals have more difficulty accepting what their own leaders say. Classic libertarians fall somewhere in the middle...being non-authoritarian, but also less empathetic than typical liberal thinkers. Jumping to conclusions are we? Where did you get that I reject "everything" the authorities say about nuclear and gmo? I have already aired where I find nuclear suspect, so no need to repeat it over again; and what I said about GMO was that if it is really safe, why is it so important to Monsanto to keep GMO products off of food labels? I don't know enough about GMO research and testing to determine how safe these products are...they certainly seem to be a step into uncharted territory...similar to that zero calorie fat called Olestra (the fat/polyester molecule). I am suspicious of new types of food that our digestive systems have never experienced before during millions of years of evolution. How long did it take to discover the dangers of hydrogenated oils? Or the residues of some plastic polymers like BHP? And my default position would be to suspect everything new coming out of Monsanto! Maybe you have to be realist to see a bleak future approaching! I came across a science story recently that most people have a default position of optimism...even in situations where optimism is unwarranted. The optimists get disappointed and kicked down, but get up and find reasons to feel optimistic again. All I know is that when I view 99% of the political and economic debates, I am totally baffled about why it is so difficult to introduce the concept that political decisions and economic policies cannot find some magic door to bypass natural resource constraints. The speculation on limits to growth really got started over 40 years ago when knowledge about what is in the ground was not as well known as today. The difference now is that existing low cost reserves are being increasingly tapped out, while new sources of cheap oil, metals etc. haven't appeared in decades. This is the major incentive behind the present Arctic gold rush. The sea bed under the disappearing ice is about the last, uncharted territory to be mined, and there seems to be more interest in taking the risks and developing any oil reserves up there, rather than stepping back and considering the reasons why it has suddenly become available for commercial development in the first place!

What was your source for the quote box info? I'm not questioning the veracity of the source, just wondering what else they have on this issue. I have no doubt that disputes over resources like water sources likely lie beneath the surface of debates that go on over superficial issues like religion and ethnicity. In Christian Parenti's latest book on climate change problems -- Tropic Of Chaos, he begins the first chapter by asking: "Who killed Ekaru Loruman?" A Turkana herdsman, living in northwest Kenya, who's murder went unsolved and pretty much forgotten, and needless to say - unreported in any international media because it was just another killing in an increasingly lawless region of East Africa, where tribal violence is getting worse as the years go by. But Parenti asked that question to start the book because the increased tribal tensions can be directly connected with the growing droughts and water scarcity in that area putting herders and farmers at each others' throats....mostly dividing up along their tribal affiliations. So what role does water scarcity play in the Middle East? Where a superficial analysis just focuses on religious affiliation.

Those finite limits may be hard to predict, but we are running out of technological rabbits to pull out of the hat when it comes to: how deep drilling rigs can go, or how much oil can be retrieved by pumping steam into old wells to keep them producing a little longer, or determining how much "tight" oil can be extracted from oil shales etc. The EROEI for getting "unconventional" oil like tar sands and shales is already estimated to be 8:1 by those hyping these sources; some independent analysis with a more skeptical approach, believe that new operations are likely as low as 3:1. Aside from the obvious environmental costs, it's easy to see how they're getting close to the level where there is no gains to be made taking it out of the ground. And it needs to be mentioned that it's the same problem with getting ores out of the ground too! Ore grades in a mine keep dropping, requiring more and more energy and effort to refine them; costs of extraction mean shutting down, at least temporarily until demand makes continued extraction worthwhile again. The big question now is when will costs of extraction reach the level where they start pricing modern industrial society out of existence? And that's why faith in the free market is an empty, vacuous religion that can't live up to its promises! Basic free market principles work (at least in theory) if there is a readily available supply to meet demand. When supplies start running out, demand just leads to higher and higher prices, and products made from NNR's will, one by one, reach levels where they are no longer affordable for making the stuff that fills the average Walmart. And that's what The Limits To Growth is all about. And, when things go wrong - like Fukushima and Chernobyl (which also isn't over yet) it gets very expensive. The cleanup of Fukushima will take at least 40 years by the most optimistic estimates....providing there are no more major earthquakes, and new technology can be created to remove all of the melted fuel rods and damaged reactors. And, it doesn't deal with the question of what to do about transportation fuels. We are likely going to see planes disappear from the skies during our lifetimes, and, unless there are major capital investments made now while it's still possible, to rebuild mass transit, it's back to horse and buggy days in a few decades...and most people will have to live like the Amish! Finding the truth is never without bias. Everyone, and I mean everyone, builds a worldview, a theory of the world and how things work. And we apply varying degrees of emotional attachment to our beliefs. So, when we are in a process of trying to find the answers, we will naturally give more weight to evidence that confirms existing beliefs, and look for ways to discount contrary evidence. And I'm not claiming to have no bias in that process. But there are basic differences between liberal thinkers and conservatives in the degree of adherence to beliefs, and the trust they put into authority figures. And when it comes to contrary evidence like your links - contending that there is no evidence of increasing droughts, I want to hear from the other side first before I accept it as fact. And it should be noted that, even if droughts aren't increasing, that's cold comfort considering all of the other devastating effects on weather that adding more energy to climatic systems have had, and will have in the future. And, since you bolded that part of my quote, you are also aware that I am aware that the climate changes due to natural factors, the question is what will the effects be on our weather of adding more and more heat energy to the system in the future? We are tinkering with the climate in a manner that has only occurred in the past when there have been high levels of volcanic activity, and the kind of life we have known since agriculture started, has been during the Holocene - a period of unusual stability in weather...which seems now to be coming to an end.

The *evidence* is widely available in data examining resource extraction and use, when compared with the estimates of non-renewable resources still in the ground that can be feasibly extracted to meet future demand. We don't even have to combine the deleterious effects of climate change to forecast a future crisis for civilization....but as we can see with the effects that droughts and floods have on the major food-growing regions, the system is already straining without considering the overpumping of aquifers and topsoil loss that is necessary just to meet present grain production totals. But, setting climate change and environmental issues like shortages of renewable resources (water and soil) aside for a moment, the constantly increasing demand for non-renewables is leading to shortages in most of the metals and minerals needed for industry. This is from the excerpt to Scarcity: Humanity's Final Chapter? by Christopher Clugston: Industrialism and NNRs It is understandable that we human beings would seek to improve our societal wellbeing—the material living standards enjoyed by our human populations—through industrialism. The material living standards associated with industrialized lifestyles such as those enjoyed by Americans and Western Europeans are far superior to the material living standards afforded by pre-industrial agrarian and hunter-gatherer lifestyles. Seemingly unnoticed, however, is the fact that our industrial lifestyle paradigm is enabled almost exclusively by enormous and ever-increasing quantities of nonrenewable natural resources (NNRs)—fossil fuels, metals, and nonmetallic (industrial and construction) minerals—which serve as the raw material inputs to our industrialized economies, as the building blocks that comprise our industrialized infrastructure and support systems, and as the primary energy sources that power our industrialized societies. As an example, NNRs comprise approximately 95% of the raw material inputs to the US economy each year. America currently (2008) uses nearly 6.5 billion tons of newly mined NNRs per annum—an almost inconceivable 162,000% increase since the year 1800—which equates to approximately 43,000 pounds yearly per US citizen.......................................................... Sixty eight (68) of the 89 NNRs that enable our modern industrial existence—including bauxite, copper, iron/steel, manganese, natural gas, oil, phosphate rock, potash, rare earth minerals, and zinc—were scarce domestically in 2008. Sixty three (63) of the 89 NNRs that enable our modern industrial existence—including aluminum, coal, copper, iron/steel, manganese, natural gas, oil, phosphate rock, potash, rare earth minerals, uranium, and zinc—were scarce globally in 2008. While there will always be “plenty of NNRs” in the ground, there are “not enough economically viable NNRs” in the ground to perpetuate our industrial lifestyle paradigm going forward. And, if you get the book, you'll find that every one those 89 NNR's mentioned, have an index subheading giving present extraction rates and the estimates of future availability, along with data sources from USGS, oil and mining companies, and others. It's not like this is information that is hard to find; it's just that it's the kind of information that only those in the oil and mining industries talk about....with government leaders occasionally. There is a reason why the oil companies started sinking billions of dollars into deep sea drilling and tar sands, shales etc. in the last ten years; and reasons why the U.S. Government started an aggressive campaign to secure the presently available "easy" oil around the same time. There are similar military and diplomatic moves being made regarding access to other minerals - especially rare earths, and the public presentations of the motives being regime change to promote democracy etc. are just pure bullshit! The U.S. has not only kept its oversized and expensive military, it is increasing the budgets! And the reasons may have something to do with lobbying by military contractors, but has little if nothing to do with "national security". It's mostly about trying to grab what's left before the Russians, Chinese or Indians or any other competing interests get to it first. The competition to secure land, resources and trade routes were the underlying causes of two previous world wars, and it will likely be the cause of the next....and possibly final world war. Nuclear power is extremely risky when things happen like tsunamis, earthquakes, or floods....like what happened with Hurricane Sandy. If the storm surge was larger, and the flooding was greater, that would mean no available backup generators to keep the reactor cores and spent fuel ponds from overheating....which is exactly what happened at Fukushima. But, aside from all of that, nuclear power is also extremely expensive to start up - moneywise, as well as the environmental and resource costs of building new nuclear power stations, mining uranium and the temporary-turned-permanent situation with the lack of decision on how to safely dispose of nuclear wastes. And considering the resource issues that would come with building new nuclear stations and keeping them operating safely in the future, nuclear is not going to be the magic bullet to provide free energy to power future desires for increased electrical consumption. But not how civilization works...especially as cities become larger and more specialized. And that is also wrong! Actually, modern monocropping is one of the big reasons for topsoil loss and without dumping fertilizers containing mined phosphates, potassium and oil-based nutrients in the fields, there would be nothing to grow in the following year. And those fields are being watered by overpumped aquifers (some of them actually being fossil aquifers), so the present system of big agrobusiness that has spread around the world is a ticking timebomb, waiting to collapse as soon as one or more of the key ingredients is gone. And the much heralded benefits of those Green Revolution hybrids have been way overblown also. These plants, which are now seedless - so farmers have to keep buying new seed every year - are specifically designed for a more limited range of environments. Extreme weather changes cause greater crop loss than with the traditional, more resilient plants. And exactly where are you pulling numbers from that price the costs of global warming into gas prices? If that's true, it is only the beginning of the peer review process - not the conclusion. Your previous link, and the new one, have pretty much the same thing to say about how the Palmer Drought Severity Index is calculated. There are other studies of drought severity in the U.S. and around the world which conclude that areas like the American Southwest are settling in to a permanent drier condition, similar to what existed prior to the 1800's, when the first Americans were arriving in the area. If areas like this turn back to desert, whether from cyclical weather conditions or global warming, it means the same thing for farmers - more water has to be pumped out of the ground to compensate for lack of rain. And rainfall levels have not been great enough to meet the demands of growers and migration of millions of people to cities like Phoenix - which have increased from 50000 to over three million since WWII. At present rates of groundwater use, the Ogallala Aquifer will be pumped dry by the year 2030. The growing deserts in Africa are the underlying, rarely mentioned cause of famines, religious and tribal wars, genocides and forced emigrations, and failed states. And, one last thing: you keep concluding your pieces by suggesting that everyone who questions business-as-usual has hidden motives desiring the end of the world or some sort of disaster. It should be obvious to anyone who can think straight, that there are much greater emotional reasons to try to cling to the existing paradigms than there is to question the future we are heading towards. I have a pension that I still have to wait another five years to start collecting, and I suspect that the rest of my savings, along with those of millions of others, will start dwindling away before we get very far into a comfortable retirement. What's happened in Southern Europe will spread the rest of that continent and North America as well over the coming years and decades, as most approaching retirement have to keep working if they have the option, and those already retired, will have to go back to work as pensions are cut - if they are healthy enough to do so. Otherwise, they will have to depend on younger family members for their very survival in the near future. So, when I hear health care issues bandied about, I remind myself that the only surefire health care system for our future is to do what is necessary to remain as healthy as possible as we age. An old Chinese curse says: may you live in interesting times, and I see everyone except for a scant few who have enough money and resources to be heading into a new era of declining expectations and greater dangers. It's not like I want this sort of future....I have children too....but I don't see a cornucopia of abundance by taking an honest look at where future projections will lead.

Can you throw rocks at someone's house if they blockade your house, and stop and search you and everyone else going in and out of your house....and draw up a restrictive list of articles you can bring in to your house - including preventing you from bringing in enough food to feed your children adequately? Or as one Israeli cabinet minister described it:"putting Gazans on a diet! So, how do you like that analogy?

And your adherence to freemarket mythology is the reason why you cannot consider issues like climate change. The concept that our economic system is faulty and unsustainable is just too horrible to consider. I expect most rightwingers will just keep on living in denial while everything collapses around them. And I would include Google and all of the high tech electronics and computerized toys we have created in the last half century. The other part of the mythology you subscribe to is one that is almost universal: that the achievements and inventions starting in the Enlightenment Era have allowed the human race to break free from the normal cycles of history - wherein civilizations rose and fell, and people lived virtually similar lives to their parents, grandparents etc. etc. and time became a linear progression from primitiveness to true enlightenment, which will eventually create a heaven on Earth where all of our needs, wants and desires can be satisfied....just like in the Star Trek movies. But, I am with a small minority of critics of technology, like Michael Hussemann, Richard Hernberg and James Howard Kuntsler, and maybe a few others, who note that human inventiveness alone cannot promise a better and brighter future. The resources - both renewable and non-renewable, have to be present and economically feasible to make those new inventions a reality.....and that's why we don't have flying cars, moving sidewalks today. It's why 2001 didn't produce a Space Odyssey, and the world is sliding into a process of decay and destruction already. And a big part of that decay will be all of this internet (dependent on high power-consuming router systems), computers, and related electronic hardware. So, you may as well enjoy Google and the internet while you can, because it is not going to be with us forever. It's difficult to say when the lights start going out, but I am expecting that if I live close to halfway through this century, I will live long enough to see the slide backwards into a world devoid of electricity - except for the wealthy few. "Messy" is exactly what causes civilizations to unwind. It's happened in the past, through disease epidemics and long periods of drought....it's become very conclusive in recent archaeological research that the Mayan and Anasazi Empires both collapsed due to drought destroying their ability to grow food. The same thing can and will happen today in our overcrowded world that has only barely managed to feed 7 billion people through unsustainable agriculture methods. No food...no civilization! Ancient Rome's population dropped to as low as 30,000 during the dark ages, when the grain shipments from North Africa stopped arriving. The same thing will happen to New York and every other major city when the time comes that agriculture and transportation systems start breaking down. I consider overheating the planet to be a major cost; but since you don't even recognize its existence, you fail to add in the true costs of burning carbon fuels for cheap energy. I just took a quick glance at your link. The first thing that needs to be pointed out is that this is not a Nature peer-reviewed research paper; that's why it is included in the Letters section. Two of the authors are civil and environmental engineers from Princeton, the third is an Australian scientist; but more important - that brief abstract doesn't flesh out exactly what their conclusions are. But, I would still like to see what other researchers in these fields say about their study, since many others have pointed to increasingly severe droughts as a greater threat from climate change than flooding and hurricanes, and other storm damage. Try telling the people in areas of Sub-Sahel or East Africa that there is no increase in droughts, since their lands have become too dry to till the soil over the last 30 years. The main cause of deserts around the world arises from the basic dynamics of how our atmosphere functions. From the Equator to about 30 degrees north and south of the Equator, there is the primary convection zone called the Hadley Cell. Warm air rises from the Equator, moves north and south as it cools, and drops its precipitation near the northern and southern boundaries of that cell. That's why we have these rainforests near the Equator with high levels of precipitation. The downside is that above the Hadley Cell, there is far less moisture, and what's available usually falls further north (or south), and the great deserts are the result. I should point out that, depending on which continent we're talking about, there are local geographic features which skew these results, but the primary systems govern the general flow of precipitation. And the downside has been that every climate modelling system created so far tells us adding more heat energy to the system results in increased precipitation in the wet zones and drier conditions where it's already dry. So, a major reason why the deserts are expanding, and droughts such as those being experienced now in much of the U.S. are going to be more or less permanent conditions and not a temporary aberration, is one of the long-predicted results of climate change. A simple rule of physics in complex systems is that every action (such as adding more energy) will have definite, if difficult to predict results on the system. Global warming may not predict every storm or drought; but as a general rule, we can expect more storms in areas receiving precipitation, and drought-prone regions turning in to deserts. And it's because of growing deserts and increasingly volatile precipitation patterns in the wetter regions, is why agriculture yields are dropping, rather than increasing. For most of the last 12 years (except for 2009) there has been a major drought in at least one of the grain-producing regions in the world, so we can expect more of the same, and worse even, over the coming years. And that's why it's not a good idea to be "messy" on the grand scale of things.

No, the Israeli attacks aren't justified, and NO, it doesn't always "take two to tango!" Latest news coming in from Israeli news is that the IDF activated their "Iron Dome" antimissile defense system two months ago. If that wasn't an obvious indication that they were planning attacks well in advance, such as the assassination of a Hamas negotiator, then I don't know what is! The first claims by the Netanyahu Government that missiles were launched at Israel from Gaza were never verified -- and the western media, U.S. & Canadian governments etc. just took their word on it that missiles had landed in Israel, that they used to justify launching their attacks. Obviously, some reaction could be expected from Hamas and other Palestinian groups in Gaza....and the Israeli Government was counting on it to justify further attacks. And the Israelis have a much greater capacity for violence than the Palestinians do -- as can be seen by the latest casualty numbers: 40 Gazans dead, 3 Israelis. And it has to be pointed out, again and again (since it's never mentioned in mainstream media) that Gaza is run as a virtual prison colony. Back when the last Israeli settlers were forced to leave Gaza, there was some expectation that Gazans - free of internal Israeli checkpoints and private, Israeli-only roads, could enjoy some semblance of independent home rule....but, the boot was never lifted off the throat of the residents of Gaza. I know already, that if I get any feedback for these observations, it's going to be the usual Palies-are-enemies-dedicated-to-Israel's-destruction type of comments, but I am no longer all that interested in unwinding the long, sordid history of this area of the world, referred to as The Holy Land for some absurd reason. All I know is that over the years, the Arab locals, both Christian and Muslim, never got used to having massive numbers of European Jews moving in to their territory and taking over, trying to establish a European model of living. And over the years, as it becomes more and more clear to Jews living in Israel that peaceful resolution will never be reached, the rational, pragmatic, and less religious Jews have gradually abandoned Israel over the years, while more and more Orthodox absolutist nutcases-willing to fight to the death, have replaced them. So, all westerners, wherever they live, need to drop the BS about Israel being "the only democracy and ally in the Middle East." The truth is that Israel is a burden for the West, both financially and rhetorically, as supporters of Israel have to justify increasing levels of barbarism by the Israeli Government. The next step will be ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from territories that Israel desires for their own. So far, they have been trying to carry out ethnic cleansing by more subtle means, such as the constant harassment of having to pass through military checkpoints, not being allowed on special Israeli-only roads, and lately by restricting the overburdened water supplies to Palestinian settlements. And if that doesn't work, they will just force them out....and all of the kneejerk Israeli apologists over here will be mouthing whatever the latest talking points are from the Netanyahu Government to justify their actions.

I just want to point out that Politico is still keeping a running tally of the vote count....because it's not over yet! There are still results trickling in from some of the holdouts....likely the Republican-dominated states like Florida and Wisconsin, where they've been busy trying to dump and disqualify ballots in Democratic-leaning districts. This is why clowns like Rove, Dick Morris and some of the other Dicks with inside connections thought that Romney was going to squeak by with a win....they thought they had this one fixed! And it should also be noted that if you count the vote totals on that page linked above (current as of yesterday) Obama's vote total is almost 3% higher than Romney's...not 1% or 2%, or whatever Foxnoise is reporting lately. And, of course, that's not including whatever votes the Repubs managed to disqualify. And before I forget -- the constant, driving meme on right wing media...which has filtered through on most of the MSM is that Obama doesn't have a CLEAR mandate to govern, and needs a bipartisan budget deal. But, of course, there was no such talk back when Dubya became President after losing the popular vote and even with vote-rigging in Ohio in 2004, only managed to win by 3% over John Kerry. Translation in English: Obama needs to sell out the Democratic base and cut Medicare and Social Security, so that taxes can be kept low for the rich, and there will be lots of money for the bankers and military contractors to play with! The sad thing is that the Obama Administration is making all the right noises to indicate that will agree to such a "Grand Bargain," as long as they are provided a figleaf, like allowing the Bush Tax Cuts to expire on millionaires and billionaires. There have been a number of independent polls in the last two years indicating that the majority of Americans are to the left of BOTH parties on economic issues; but unfortunately 99% of the media just regurgitates the talking points that the billionaires want them to present to the public! If the U.S. had a true democratic system, there would be lots of third parties coming up and challenging the two majors....rather than living on the margins, shut out from the process. And just like the last election and the one before that, the top-heavy Democratic Party takes little or no interest in combating vote stealing and voter machine rigging after the election, as long as they've won the important offices! The Democrats should have a grassroots organization to match the Republicans -- and they would, if they weren't so busy trying to shut them down after each election. The only reason Obama won, and they increased their lead in the Senate (getting rid of some blue dogs and bringing in true progressives) is because of certain minorities who were outraged by increasingly blatant and publicly acknowledged Republican vote-stealing attempts, that they went that extra mile to get their votes counted. But, the Democratic backlash failed to make much of a dent on the Lower House because Republicans dominate the local politics in so many states across the U.S. They gerrymandered more districts in 2010 to protect seats they feared losing in a close election. One of them was Paul Ryan's seat! An analyst on Wisconsin Public Radio declared last week that if Paul Ryan was still running in the boundaries of his district prior to 2010, he would have lost his seat in the House! And that's what Democrats could have accomplished if they were a real progressive political party, and not just one that talks left and carries out big business interests once they are safely back in office!

Maybe this is a reading comprehension issue, because you keep totally missing the point! Every time there is a flurry of new money chasing the "next big thing," the money rushes in before there is any realistic assessment of the profit potential. And this happened with the real estate boom, the tech bubble, every single commodity boom etc. etc.; if enough people see a company stock go skyrocketing and they're told it's the Next Big Thing, they will keep putting money on it until reality sets in....but that's usually not until new money starts drying up and stockholders realize that the profit projections are just pie in the sky. And then of course, there is the rush to the door as everyone tries to unload the stock and get what little money they can out of it. I should add that what you call "the normal free market," is a psychotic, irrational method of running economic activity, prone to booms and busts when left on its own. The myth of Pareto Efficiency that pro-capitalist economists hold on to as their primary religious tenet, is only a myth -- one that only works in theory, and in very small, limited examples which do not take into account that the players in the game are irrational and do not make rational choices, which would be necessary to make the market the ultimate arbitrator of what's good or bad. And it needs to be stressed that capitalism is an economic system that only works with expanding economies. In an overcrowded world that is fouling its environment and exhausting the resources in the ground that have been used to build the capitalist edifice, this economic system in all its forms - liberal or conservative - has no solutions. Back to the irrational boom in gas development: the costs of new drilling is not going to pay for itself, unless gas prices stay high -- and even with that, the drillers have to keep constantly drilling new holes in areas that will show a declining return on investment -- like I said before, this is exactly the same progression as every other energy resource extraction and mining operation -- the developers pick the most profitable "low hanging fruit" first, and then move on as prices rise, to spending the money, resources and energy to try to extract the rest. And, at some point, as the returns on new wells decline...even in a scenario with rising gas prices, a point will be reached when investors will begin to realize that this new industry can't produce the future profits they are expecting, and there will be a rush to the door! And the fact that this idiotic report projecting the U.S. as the new great energy producer only took a look at total reserves in the ground, without making any assessment of what the real costs of getting to that resource, and in the case of most of the shale oils - turning into useable products, is the main reason why this rosy scenario for the oil and gas industries will never happen. And you have identified the key reason why carbon fuels were allowed to flourish and dominate our way of life -- the total costs of using coal, oil and gas, have never been completely priced in for the consumer. If the externalized costs of all of the air pollution (I forget what the percentage is now of lung and heart disease directly attributed to coal-fired electrical stations now....but it's pretty damn big) and our growing realization of the greatest externalized cost of taking half of the total carbon fuels locked up in the ground and dumping it all in the atmosphere -- have never been priced in for the consumer. Imagine if, right from the beginning, the costs of burning coal to heat houses and then to fuel boilers at generating stations were added to the bill, or the carbon costs of gasoline had to be payed at the pump! The cost to the consumer would have been so high that the massive electrification projects would have proceeded at a much slower and more limited pace, and of course The Highway Lobby - which tore up railway and streetcar tracks and fueled the building of suburbs many miles away from the workplace - creating the need for massive highway systems to be constructed....all this wouldn't have happened....or certainly wouldn't have happened at the breakneck speed that it did in the 20th century! And now, that some of us are starting to realize that the party is over and we've reached the limits to growth, we also realize that our world would not be facing the prospects of total catastrophe today if development occurred at a much slower pace and made some attempt to be sustainable in the future. Too much...Way Too Much attention is payed to looking at what money is doing without trying to examine for real, physical factors that underlay politics and economic theory. The fundamental cause of the last recession was the runup in oil prices, driven as high as $150 per barrel by the panicked flurry of large scale users to secure future supplies. The price jump started because (without realizing it at the time) the world had reached the peak conventional oil production limit. New, unconventional oil would not be put on the market unless prices reached a certain threshold, and economies all around the world started contracting as they were forced to incorporate higher oil costs into their business plans. And this provided the catalyst for the boom in derivatives investing -- because the large financial players, who had been spending the last decade or so searching foreign markets for kinds of returns they had come to expect, weren't finding anything in any of the real markets. So, they created derivatives -- which are essentially bets on existing investments....no different than trying to win money at the casino! Except that these casino games were rigged by the house, and people buying and selling mortgages had no idea they even existed! So, in a nutshell, without going into further detail, from everything I have read over the last few years about the banking and market meltdown, I have come to the conclusion that it did not originate in the trading of paper -- but was caused by a small class of wealthy - at least borderline psychotic financial dealmakers trying to concoct new ways of making money, as higher energy prices reduced their previous profit returns. And if we look at previous economic booms and busts, we find that most...possibly all of them have their source in the price and availability of oil. And as the price of oil rises, we keep moving on to more expensive and dirtier oil and related carbon fuels, which percentage wise dump more carbon into the atmosphere. So, it's a lot harder to say if the drop in oil consumption itself will be enough to reduce total carbon output. So far, the recession of the last few years hasn't stopped the rise in carbon emissions; it has only reduced the increase. But, at some point, the stuff in the ground becomes too expensive to run the kind of economic systems we have now. I came across an article recently in Scientific American...of all places, on the revival of the railway industry. Due to high gas and diesel prices, trains are starting to look good again for the first time in decades. And not just for shipping freight; there is also talk about revamping some of the passenger rail service that is becoming more popular as air travel increases in price; and even talk of building high tech sailing ships for moving freight across the oceans. The best we could hope for would be an unwinding of the Industrial Era such as this; but for a rational acceptance of the constraints on consumerism, it would first require the realization that our world has less and less resources available to provide for our use, and that we live in an overly-militarized world with lots of lethal weapons, so sharing resources in common would make more sense than the ruthless grabs for power that are increasing right now....so, there are two stark choices: 1. bring our expectations in line with whatever is necessary for a sustainable future for the world's inhabitants or 2. engage in a bloody fight to the death and eventual extinction of the human species from the face of the Earth.

Whenever I badmouth Americans, I am including Canadians too now, as we have settled into living under Conservative Government that marches in lock step with U.S. Neocon interests. If Americans (or Canadians too now) feel insulted by what the rest of the world is saying, then they have a responsibility to learn about what their government is doing; what corporations based in their nation do in foreign lands (Canadian mining companies in particular, are destroying the image of Canada in many foreign lands now), and speak out against it! If the average American does not speak out against a president who starts undeclared wars for reasons that could not be justified later, and his successor continues the war policy, starting new wars and proxy wars, and refusing to allow any investigation of the previous regime; or allows the press leaks of him having a Kill List of foreign enemies to be targeted for assassination (I'll conclude here for now), and does nothing or says nothing about it, then they deserve to be lumped in together with their Government's foreign policies.