WIP

Speaking from the pov of someone who used to maintain dual citizenship earlier in my life and travels to the U.S. often today, since I still have lots of American relatives, I take more than a casual interest in U.S. politics, culture issues etc. When I was younger, I may have agreed with your mythical Neocon presentation of America as the greatest nation on Earth, and saviour of civilization....but, I grew up! A transformative moment for me was one that I did not realize while it was happening, but developed over a period of years after me and my family developed a close friendship with neighbours who originally came from Guatemala many years ago. Fact is that anyone growing up in Central America, Mexico or South American countries knows and appreciates firsthand the overt and covert meddling of U.S. political and economic interests....who declared that the entire New World was all part of the USA's sphere of influence not long after the conclusion of WWII. I would add that qualifier that I am speaking of people who belonged to the large underclasses of these societies, not the wealthy, priviledged elites who usually provide the leadership and act like the spokesmen for Latin American issues over the years that our media turn to for expert analysis. What my friend could tell you, from the personal experience of being a youth living in a Mayan village in Northwest Guatemala was that the media narrative presented to us in the 70's and 80's of the U.S. fighting "communism" in Latin America by supporting "democratic" movements and governments was a total fraud! In Guatemala's case in particular, the "born again" evangelical president - Efraim Rios Montt, was merely a paid hack representing the country's land owners and business interest. And their primary interest was to keep the indigenous majority population of the country marginalized. The so called "Communist" guerillas in the highlands who were supported by the peasants living in the countryside, did not come from Cuba and were not brainwashed and trained by Russian agents. There were a number of leftist movements that were engaged in a guerilla war with government forces for many decades because there were no peaceful avenues for majority rule and land reform. Remember that back in the 1950's, your beneficent empire had their School Of The Americas-trained military leaders overthrow the democratically elected government because proposed land reform threatened the interest of U.S. multinational corporations. And before I drift off track, the reason it became a personal experience for my friend was because, during the reign of Rios Montt, the CIA had drafted a counter-insurgency strategy (sound familiar) to drive the guerrillas out of their friendly base of support among the Mayans living in the countryside....and that was accomplished by unleashing Death Squads to attack and terrorize and punish the people directly for overt and tacit support of the rebels. So, one night, a death squad, made up of mercenaries and ununiformed police and soldiers attacked one night, and everyone who was able, had to flee into the jungle to escape from the death squads, or face the prospects of being killed or raped, as some were unfortunately. A few of those who were trapped in the village and beaten and raped, were left behind for that specific purpose - to act as a witness and a warning to others to join the mass migration of refugees across the Guatemalan border into Mexico's Yucatan Territory. Conclusion: many people here heard bits and pieces of these stories; we heard that many right wing gangs - like Reagan's Contra rebels were likely worse than any communists they claimed to be fighting; some may have wondered if the U.S. Government was spawning and supporting the worst right wing groups through the CIA, but few Americans and Canadians are aware that the game in Latin America (and the rest of the world) has never been about creating democracy and helping undeveloped nations flourish. The game has been played primarily to advance the interests of U.S.-based multinational corporations, and to secure the control of natural resources considered important for the vast military/commercial empire. And that game hasn't changed in our time right now, as the empire is in decline, and acting more ruthlessly than it did during the good old days when they felt secure in being able to control world banking, commerce and all of the necessary natural resources in foreign countries.

Okay, let's stop here and feel the cold dose of reality being dumped on all that optimistic euphoria....which so often motivates fools to part with their money to invest in the next "sure thing." First off, anyone who has money in gas-fracking better take notice of what concerns the industry experts -- the gas fracking boom was not driven by the arrival of new technology, but instead was driven by a financial bubble of venture capital that arrived after existing conventional natural gas wells started drying up: Here, one more time, is the contrarian story Berman and Hughes have been telling: The glut of recent gas production was initially driven not by new technologies or discoveries, but by high prices. In the years from 2005 through 2008, as conventional gas supplies dried up due to depletion, prices for natural gas soared to $13 per million BTU (prices had been in $2 range during the 1990s). It was these high prices that provided an incentive for using expensive technology to drill problematic reservoirs. Companies flocked to the Haynesville shale formation in Texas, bought up mineral rights, and drilled thousands of wells in short order. High per-well decline rates and high production costs were hidden behind a torrent of production—and hype. With new supplies coming on line quickly, gas prices fell below $3 MBTU, less than the actual cost of production in most cases. From this point on, gas producers had to attract ever more investment capital in order to maintain their cash flow. It was, in effect, a Ponzi scheme. http://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/US-Shale-Gas-Bubble-is-Set-to-Burst.html and to keep the gas flowing, there will be a constant need to keep drilling more and more new wells, since the average fracked well will decline 70% after the first year: Deliverability at scale. Although the shale gas resource is extensive, even the relatively optimistic EIA projections indicate increases in shale gas will offset only about half of supply declines in other key sources (e.g., Canada). Decline rates in shale gas wells can approach 70 percent the first year, creating a constant treadmill to find additional resources and drill new wells. http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2010/03/betting-the-house-on-shale-gas.html And that rate of decline will get faster and faster, since the producers are starting with the best sites available. Oh yes they are! And this shale oil "boom" is a prime example, since much of the drop in oil prices is due to speculators who believe the U.S. is about to become the next Saudi Arabia. The other part is due to the fact that when world oil prices go above $100 per barrel, world economies start stalling out. How else do you explain what happened to China? Since they are an oil importer now, the runup in oil prices raised their production costs while reducing demand for their products in America and around the world. The present recession started because of the spike in oil prices, and what they are calling a recovery right now is only due to the decline in demand for oil and the price drop in the last five years. And, exactly how long has your life been? In respect to the age of the planet that is! If you check some of the numbers on energy return on energy invested (EROEI), you'll find that in the beginning of the big oil boom...say in the 1930's, EROEI on those wells drilled in Texas and Oklahoma were in the 100:1 range. Ever since then, EROEI numbers have been in steady decline as oil companies keep going down the list from most profitable to least profitable. And that's what peak oil is all about. It's not a matter of extracting all the oil from the ground; it's reaching the point where oil extraction is so costly that life as we know it can no longer continue. Today's globalized world economy was built on the premise of cheap transportation. As oil prices continue to bump upwards, one product after another (including food) will be too expensive to ship across the Pacific. Peak oil and peak non-renewable resources (I'm going to have to get that thread started soon) are related to environmental chaos, but not one and the same thing. Shale oil and tar sands oil, is not going to create an overall increase in world oil supplies -- partly because, depending on the source, there are limited number of petroleum products that will be retrieved from them; but also because exploiting dirty oil will require more and more energy and water as developers move from the best reserves down the line to the worst. It's hard to say at what point the world economy will seize up, but eventually the costs of carbon fuels are going to greater than what they are worth. And the environmental costs of exploiting dirty carbon fuels keeps growing over the years also....even after production totals start to decline.

If Shady's theme that you better vote for the oligarch's favourite or The Man will fire you from your barely minimum wage job, then that should tell anyone with a clue that they have too much power over working people already and it's time for a revolution! I think Karl Marx had a few things to say about those with the capital owning the lives of those who provide the labour back about 150 years ago. It's too bad that lessons learned were all forgotten over the last few decades!

It's still total bullshit that Dawkins came up with 20 years ago in his essay: Viruses of the Mind. Every belief could be classified as mind viruses by this criteria.

Why not tell the whole truth? The U.S. used the post war period to establish itself as the world business and banking empire; so don't act like America didn't extract its pound of flesh from Latin America, Asia and Africa in the following half century.

No it won't, but rather than address the mirage of including shale oil plays in with proven oil reserves here, I started a new thread on the topic: http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index.php?showtopic=21868

There has been a flurry of attention surrounding a new IEA Report claiming that the U.S. is going to become a major oil producer over the next 20 years, even overtaking Saudi Arabia as the major world oil producer. Here's the story off the Reuters newswire: LONDON, Nov 12 (Reuters) - The United States will overtake Saudi Arabia and Russia as the world's top oil producer by 2017, the West's energy agency said on Monday, predicting Washington will come very close to achieving a previously unthinkable energy self-sufficiency. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said it saw a continued fall in U.S. oil imports with North America becoming a net oil exporter by around 2030 and the United States becoming almost self-sufficient in energy by 2035. "The United States, which currently imports around 20 percent of its total energy needs, becomes all but self-sufficient in net terms - a dramatic reversal of the trend seen in most other energy importing countries," it said. Sounds like great news! Maybe not for the environment if it was possible. And the prospects of ramping up oil production for another 50 or more years has caused a meltdown over at the Thinkprogress Climate section if you want to check it out: http://thinkprogress...-in-the-making/ But those oil production forecasts are based on a very large assumption -- that includes whatever can be taken out of the ground from shale oil deposits. So far, the exploitation efforts are concentrating in an area called The Bakken Shale Formation in North Dakota, because this is where the deposits most closely resemble something we can call oil and it could be retrieved at the lowest cost. The rule of thumb with all mining and all resource extraction is that the process of discovery, development and production follows the principle of picking the low-hanging fruit first. And the Bakken is that low hanging fruit when it comes to oil shale plays. This is similar to what we went through in Alberta, where the first Shell Oil operations were digging up surface deposits before trying to deal with getting the deeper layers of bitumen out of the ground. And in the case of shale oil deposits, the largest is called the Green River Formation, which presents added problems for development because these are kerogen deposits, which would require a lot of upgrading before becoming anything close to petroleum: The first problem is that shale oil is actually kerogen. Kerogen is a mixture of organic chemical compounds with the soluble portion is known as bitumen, the stuff of the Canadian Oil Sands. Not all of the organic chemicals come up as bitumen. The problem is what’s missing – hydrogen. Kerogen is carbon rich, but hydrogen poor. Extraction then is quite costly and energy intensive. Heat is needed to raise the viscosity and the heat would be applied to the rock that contains the kerogen. Lots of heat is needed. Then the kerogen needs refined and cleaned. Adding solvents or adding back hydrogen can improve the oil product results. And, when environmental, energy and dollar costs of developing are considered, a range of numbers are tossed in the air. The most dubious numbers, no surprise, coming from the developers themselves, who are busy counting the money coming in from venture capitalists looking for big profits. It's easy to see shale oil and shale gas plays turning out to be the current market bubble, rather than the energy of the future: Numbers passed around have U.S. shale oil worthwhile at perhaps as low as $35 a barrel, a number that challenges the imagination. Canada’s Oil Sands gets into financial trouble as oil prices get close to $50 so its a sure bet that the kerogen to bitumen step is going push it higher. But the reserves in shale are getting closer to market. Big breaks in technology will only help. And that could turn out to be an understatement! Before anyone goes running out to invest in shale based on this rosy IEA forecast, take a look at what people who work in the oil industry have to say on the subject of shale oil. Much of what you need to know is contained in the conclusion of this post on the Oil Drum: Conclusion: Resources are not Reserves, and Tight Oil isn't Shale Oil It is pretty clear that at current oil prices, developments in the tight oil formations will continue. It is not at all clear that even at $100 oil the shale in the Green River formation will be commercialized to produce oil, although a number of companies are working on it and will continue to do so. Oil shale is commercially produced in some countries like Estonia, but it is primarily just burned for power. In order to commercially convert the oil shale into oil, a more energy efficient method of producing it must be found (or, one would have to have extremely cheap energy and abundant water supplies to drive the process). I have heard from multiple industry sources that the energy return for producing oil from oil shale is around 4 to 1 (lower than for oil sands production), and that is before refining the oil to finished products. At this sort of energy return, oil sands will continue to be a more economical heavy oil option. Thus, my prediction is that despite having an oil shale resource that may indeed be far greater than the oil resources of Saudi Arabia (I don't think I have seen an estimate of Saudi's total oil resources), the reserve will continue to be close to zero for the foreseeable future because there are still many technical hurdles to overcome to realize a scalable, commercially viable process. Finally, I would say that if a commercially viable process for shale oil production from the Green River formation is developed, the environmental blowback will be enormous. The production of shale oil is more energy intensive (i.e., has higher carbon emissions) than for the oil sands, it has a high water requirement in a dry climate, and it is potentially a huge new source of carbon dioxide emissions. The environmental protests that would arise in response to a growing commercial shale oil operation would make the Keystone XL pipeline protests pale in comparison. See, the forecasts for U.S. future oil production will most likely drive down oil prices now, but that will only last until investors start realizing they are being had with both shale oil and shale gas! Like they say, don't count your chickens before they hatch. But that is exactly what is happening in this latest market bubble. Once the euphoria wears off, we will be back to the cold, hard reality that energy is going to be scarcer and more costly as time goes on, and magic cures like the promise of shale oil are just wishful thinking....for consumers that is....it would be a nightmare for anyone concerned about the environment if it was commercially feasible to develop the last scraps of carbon in the ground.

Where did this meme come from - is Sun Media running some BS to eliminate public broadcasting now? Sure, shut down the CBC and TVO here in Ontario, and let's end up in the same media mess the U.S. is in where all broadcasting aside from the fringes is run by corporate sponsors. I could agree with reforming the CBC...especially CBC television which runs in some nether world between being a public and a private broadcaster, but not shutting it down, that is just stupidity!

There was a lot of euphoria among blacks in 2008 on the thought of having a black president, and why shouldn't there be? There was a similar euphoria among some whites who thought something along the lines of 'look how liberal and progressive I am with my vote for Obama sticker on my car. But, that was last time. There were some harder to find voices in 2008, who wondered what he really stood for, and why Wall Street was funding his campaign back when he was running against Hillary for the nomination....but most people...even on the other side were willing to give him a chance and see what he would do. Aside from Foxnews and the night time lineup on MSNBC, the mainstream media tries to pretend to be nonpartisan. But, the real problem with MSM is that they are dependent on the same money that the politicians live on. Who's going to do a serious investigative report on ALEC or the role of Super Pacs in the electoral process? Why don't any reporters interviewing Ben Bernanke or other government officials ask them if they have any conflicts of interest, since they are in the revolving door between acting as government watchdog and working for major banks? Similar to a previous director of MMS who had previously worked for BP and Chevron on two separate occasions. It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to become suspicious that many politicians and government officials are only in government to pass favourable legislation for when they go back to the private sector to cash in!

Well, as long as Republicans are promising even worse, then they are not in any position to win Latino voters. As long as the voices are Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and every major Republican candidate wants to get their picture taken with him, then they become the even worse option. Obama didn't really have to do anything except make some noises about the Dream Act. All of the campaigns by Republicans trying to gin up the voter fraud story, while they couldn't provide any evidence to support their claims, would come across as a blatant attempt to eliminate as many minority voters as possible. One of the tactics - the demand for photo ID with expiry dates....usually a driver's license...was pointed out a number of times that not everyone owns a car and has a driver's license. The lower the income, the more likely someone lives in an urban center, the less likely someone will own a car or have a current driver's license. But, even if it had a serious objective than creating a subtle form of poll taxes, there was little or nothing to gain from requiring picture ID, since that would only stop someone impersonating another voter. It was just part of a series of attempts to put roadblocks in front of the lower income demographic groups that are less likely to vote Republican. Although it should be noted that these tactics also hit at least some usually Republican supporters like the elderly and disabled veterans. The Democrats have had that 'white voter' problem ever since Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. He knew it would be a problem for his party in the South, and it would be a wedge issue in the northern states. But Johnson, RFK, and other Democrats took many years to step up on that issue. They reasoned that the alternative to doing something to improve the situation for blacks in America and do nothing, would have had worse repercussions over all. At that time, the U.S. economy was booming...the middle class was getting richer and still growing in size...so, I would suspect was that some of the thinking would be that whites outside of the deep south would give the benefit of the doubt to civil rights, the war on poverty and other programs to balance out living standards. And it worked.....at least for awhile! The big problem for Democrats today, is that they try to fashion themselves as populists -- working on behalf of the poor, the marginalized and the downtrodden, but they want or need the money from many of the same people who finance the Republicans! So, they can never talk like Democrats of old. I recall a few years back coming across FDR's 1936 Democratic Convention speech accepting the nomination when he was running for re-election. One part that really jumped out was his comments about the bankers:"they hate me, and I welcome their hatred!". Can anyone imagine Obama or any other Democrat (Bernie Sanders doesn't count) even coming close to a statement like that today? The best we can get is multimillionaires should pay marginally more in income tax....no talk of real banking reform, prosecutions for fraud at Goldmann Sachs and others, no talk about a transaction tax.

I wonder if the people who have to live along the Atlantic Coast are still willing to take such a stupid complacent attitude about global warming? It's one thing to live in denial while you don't have to directly deal with a problem and can still put it off; but after such a disaster, a lot of people living in flood-prone areas are going to start seriously thinking of relocating if they can afford to. Your list from Livescience is a joke! Now that Christie and Cuomo are going to Obama looking for billions of dollars for reconstruction, and major insurance underwriter - Munich RE, is advising insurance companies to drop flood insurance entirely in some of these areas, denying the obvious is no longer an option! If there is money to be made, you can bet for damn sure that an insurance company will be there to collect premiums. If they're dropping insurance coverage and no other companies are stepping up to offer coverage, that should tell you something about future risks. And, for what it's worth, past disasters - like Galveston occurred during a time when there was no way to provide advanced warning of major storms approaching. The New York & New Jersey coasts had more than four days warning before Hurricane Sandy arrived. Without that, the death tolls would have been in the hundreds or thousands.

You'll have to clue me in on how continental drift is playing a role in sinking cities. I would figure that continental drift occurs much too slowly and gradually to be a factor in what's happening now in many coastal areas. One factor that those arguing for remedial efforts preparing for future climate change have to consider is that levee systems, breakwalls, and other efforts to protect major cities leave unprotected areas more prone to storm surges...since the water has to go somewhere! Remember the celebrating last year about the levees holding in New Orleans....while to the east, the area around Lake Pontchartrain...rural cajun impoverished areas, were almost completely ignored. A couple of weeks after the floodwaters receded, I recall listening to a BBC feature talking to some of the locals, and wondering where the hell were the American reporters on a story happening right in their own backyard? No money, no story....especially in an area that's hot and humid and has lots of mosquitos! It's a shame and almost criminal that major media only concern themselves with big cities....especially the wealthier neighbourhoods in those cities (I couldn't help notice that as soon as the subways were running and the power was back on for Wall Street, news coverage of the most severely damaged areas in Lower Manhattan, the Bronx, and Long Island, started dwindling away even while many areas were left without power, running water, or anyone arriving from FEMA or the Red Cross, all to make room for whether Justin Bieber really broke up with Selena Gomez! Oh well, at least they have their priorities straight!

And the Gulf was 5 degrees warmer than usual....but as usual, those who want to deny climate change can't accept that warmer oceans make more powerful storms and lengthen the hurricane season as well. I certainly would never deny the effect of the -NAO blocking ridge. The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and Arctic Oscillation (AO) veer between positive and negative over decades. During periods of strongly "blocking" or negative NAO's and/or AO's, the Arctic is indeed quite warm compared to Those who are doing the research have noticed that the melting polar ice cap has had made some unexpected changes to both the Arctic Oscillation and the NAO in recent years, namely that the sort of blocking ridge that forced Hurricane Sandy to come ashore is three times as common now, likely because of the increased heat energy in the melting Arctic Ocean in late summer: Arctic sea ice loss can cause blocking ridges Blocking ridges occur naturally, but are uncommon over Greenland this time of year. According to NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, blocking near the longitude of Greenland (50°W) only occurs about 2% of the time in the fall. These odds rise to about 6% in winter and spring. As I discussed in an April post, Arctic sea ice loss tied to unusual jet stream patterns, three studies published in the past year have found that the jet stream has been getting stuck in unusually strong blocking patterns in recent years. These studies found that the recent record decline in Arctic sea ice could be responsible, since this heats up the pole, altering the Equator-to-pole temperature difference, forcing the jet stream to slow down, meander, and get stuck in large loops. The 2012 Arctic sea ice melt season was extreme, with sea ice extent hitting a record lows. Could sea ice loss have contributed to the blocking ridge that steered Sandy into New Jersey? It is possible, but we will need to much more research on the subject before we make such a link, as the studies of sea ice loss on jet stream patterns are so new. The author of one of the new studies, Dr. Jennifer Francis of Rutgers, had this say in a recent post by Andy Revkin in his Dot Earth blog: "While it’s impossible to say how this scenario might have unfolded if sea-ice had been as extensive as it was in the 1980s, the situation at hand is completely consistent with what I’d expect to see happen more often as a result of unabated warming and especially the amplification of that warming in the Arctic." http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/archive.html?year=2012&month=10 Jeff Masters There are people who measure these things: As we detailed in our previous Nature’s Edge Notebook, in about the year 1900, after thousands of years of little or no change, sea level started rising steadily. This was due to man-made global warming, as climate scientists have repeatedly shown, which resulted in water expanding as it warmed and in new melting of land-based ice. In the 1990s the rate of sea level rise suddenly sped up — again for reasons that the climate scientists can link only to man-made global warming. It is now expected to increase another two or three feet by mid century, and as much as six feet by 2100. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/11/new-york-can-be-a-vibrant-venice-as-sea-level-now-rises-say-engineers/ It should be noted that not all of the sea level rise is due to melting ice sheets. Much of the increase so far, and in the decades ahead will be due to thermal expansion of the world's oceans. Another factor is that many overdeveloped coastal areas are sinking! I don't know about New York, but I have heard recently that Boston is concerned, and Norfolk Virginia, another major sea port is sinking rapidly...even faster than New Orleans, and in 20 to 25 years, when combined with the effects of rising sea levels, the city may have to be abandoned.

And as bleeding heart already asked: what's your point? I already covered that point that Bush II was the last Republican presidential candidate to reach out to latino voters. In fact, he was trying to float another amnesty act like Reagan did in the 80's, but the growing "border security" movements like the Minutemen, succeeded in stalling it out with their nativist backlash. Notice that McCain -- another southern Republican, who had previously been considered a moderate who was sympathetic to latino issues had done an about face in 2008 and was talking about border fences and deporting illegals himself....so the Republicans were already on their way to becoming a whites only party four years ago. Of course he was! And the outreach to latino voters by Bush was primarily the Turd Blossom's idea in the first place. He has no soul, and has no interest in policies other than whether they win or lose elections for Republicans, but Rove had enough brains to realize that with changing demographics, Republicans had a better opportunity of bringing in latinos than they did with winning a share of the black vote. I think you have to go back to Jack Kemp, before you can come up with a single Republican national politician who made any serious effort to win black voters. But Rove, and the Rove strategy got shouted down by all of the nativists emoting about Mexicans taking over.....and of course most of them never have thought about the fact that, if they live in California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, they are living in former Mexican territory to start with. But this time around, Rove was not about outreach to latinos! This year's strategy was about voter harassment and suppression tactics which he was sure would be enough to suppress a large enough share of those black and brown votes to allow Republicans to slide in with that shrinking older white voter base.....but Rove's big plans backfired: Why Voter Suppression Is Mostly a Republican Tactic Voter Suppression Worked - In Reverse Not that anyone should feel sorry for the Turd Blossom! He was earning commissions on the donations he received from the billionaires for his Crossroads GPS Super Pac; and he made money on the other end while placing ad buys. And that was one of the big flops right there, as we are now learning that Rove was concentrating on buying ad time on national radio and TV.....likely because that's where the biggest commissions are earned, while the more effective advertising was at the local level -- like the Democrats were doing in the battleground states. So, if Rove has damaged his reputation so badly that he never gets hired by anyone ever again, he's still a multimillionaire who likely had his best earning year ever as a political operative.

Last year I was: Economic Left/Right: -8.12 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.44

I took the political compass test about five years ago. I forget my score back then, but I was close to Friedman territory -- socially libertarian and on the economic right. I've changed alot since then....even since I first joined here four years ago! In light of the fraud and failure of wars on terrorism, war on drugs blah blah blah etc., I am even more of a social libertarian, but the big change is how I view economics today. Since I have turned anticapitalist I guess that puts me on the far left now: Economic Left/Right: -9.12 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.92

What I do know about Bahrain is that it is a Shiite majority nation dominated and being pilfered by a Sunni royal family. The U.S. appears to be taking sides...whether they have considered it or not....in getting involved in a sectarian conflict that could ignite all over the Middle East; since there are significant and oppressed Shitte minorities in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and the Gulf States. And a war with Iran..the only significant Shia dominated nation seems to play into that larger theme. At least according to the Wikileaks cables, Saudi Arabia has been quietly behind the scenes trying to instigate an American/Israeli attack on Iran. It's easy to see a lot of ways to go wrong in this latest geopolitical chess game.

Let's put it this way: the claim of a Muslim threat to western civilization now that seemed to have got started with Francis Fukiyama's "Clash of Civilizations" bs, could be better explained by historians as a reactionary movement against western control of their resources....in particular the oil, and a negative reaction to western culture, mostly from TV and movies. If we and the U.S. in particular, weren't meddling in their lives, and so deeply involved in getting oil out of the Middle East, nobody would care what the Muslims were doing or not doing.

No one is just an innocent bystander any more! Not on a political discussion forum at least. Re: "the class that feels as though it cannot possibly compete in a free and open market and needs the bar to be lowered," etc. Is that it, or is that most who are clearing that bar right now are not aware, or do not want to be aware of the fact that our system is far from a meritocracy! All you have to do is work for one family business run by the 2nd or 3rd generation misfits to be aware of that fact! And there are privileges with being a white man, regardless of whether there is any awareness or acknowledgment. Discrimination can be simply and easily accomplished and very difficult to reveal and/or correct, and a personal example I have of that was in my own workplace a couple of years ago, after our personnel/human resources manager was fired. We learned that a private email of hers was discovered wherein she bragged to the wrong person about how well she had enforced her personal rule of not hiring any South Asians or as she called them @#$%^'s. There had apparently been complaints from some who were turned down after applying during a 5 or 6 year period, but no smoking gun! And that's the problem with all of these right wing believers in the meritocracy....where everyone succeeds or fails based on their personal merits....it's bullshit! And the sooner we admit and acknowledge that as long as their are different races, ethnicities, even genders, then those who try to shut down affirmative action and related programs, are the ones who are ramping up racial and ethnic tensions for no valid reasons. There aren't that many people who have even a modest claim that they didn't get a job or a promotion because of some black guy etc. So why give in to the rightwing motives of greed and self-interest and risk increasing the racial and cultural divides?

No, that is not what happened! Sandy gained strength after leaving the Bahamas, and didn't lose much on its approach to landfall. What you are lucky with is that it was moving so fast...so it didn't linger on the coast as long as Irene did last year. Sandy was still at near full strength when it combined with the other storms. Okay, I just looked it up -- it's called a Blocking Ridge. And the high pressure cell came off Greenland and forced Hurricane Sandy to make a sharp turn....unless you also want to deny that too! I have heard electrical engineers claim that if the storm surge lasted longer, the damage to the subway and other underground electrical systems could have been permanent because of the corrosive effects of salt water. They're lucky the surge only lasted a few hours. They may not be so lucky next time! 1821 is a hell of a long time ago! And sea levels were not near as high back then either. Will New York just wait for its luck to run out and end up with most of the city flooded some time in the near future?

You spend so much time arguing this subject, you should at least know some of the fundamentals. If the storm is larger in total size (like Sandy) and it is approaching coastal port areas like New York and the New Jersey coasts, that wider storm surge water gets forced into a narrower channel. That should be enough information necessary to tell you that the danger of a storm is not all about wind speeds....unless you're a complete idiot. What are the damage estimates now for Hurricane Sandy? 50, 60 billion? The numbers keep rising every time I check a new story on the subject of storm damage. And your point about Sandy being a "fluke" because it was a combination of three storms is also pure idiocy! Because, as many meteorologists have noted so far, the warmer Gulf and Atlantic waters are enabling hurricanes and tropical storms to form later in the season than previously, and the Nor'easters are occurring earlier in the fall season. So, this sort of "superstorm" is an anomaly that will become more and more common over the coming years.....just like those 50 and 100 year floods and droughts that are happening every 3 or 4 years now.

Since 2. wasn't even started 30 years ago when the first warnings about climate change were coming out, then 1. is the only strategy left....which also wasn't done in case you noticed! We always hear in health that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," and that would have been a sensible strategy, but it may be too late already, and strategy 1. will require retreating from cities like some areas of New York, Atlantic City, and Norfolk Virginia, as they become increasingly susceptible to rising sea levels and storm damage. One foot of sea level rise represents 50 to a 100 feet of lost land area depending on elevation.

Is he still All In? I guess everyone will eventually find out if it makes the supermarket tabloid front pages.

What I would like to see some talk about is the fact that your so called 'Muslim sympathiser' Obama has been the president who has expanded targeted killings without any regard for finding a means for due process, and because he's the Democrat, and has "Hussein" as his middle name, the Repugnants and their knee jerk conservative base are unable to criticize him on the basis of violating international law and civil rights at home! So, who has the military empire that considers itself to have the right to invade any country, anywhere around the world that doesn't meet their demands? I'll give you a hint: it's not a Muslim country. Let Egyptians decide for themselves what sort of government they should have, regardless of whether it's called a "Muslim Government." Turkey has a government also that is equivalent to the Muslim Brotherhood; but since they play ball with U.S. and Israeli interests, nothing is said about it! As for the rest of the M.E. - how many of these banana republic oil sheikdoms are propped up with the guns of the U.S. military? It's all about controlling the oil supply, not democracy! Otherwise, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the Gulf Emirates would be pressured by the U.S. to democratize. But they are doing the exact opposite - talking democracy in regards to the dictators that don't support their interests, the ones that do are protected from democracy....as we are seeing right now in Bahrain, if anyone cares to take a look. Total horseshit! I live in Ontario, and I am still able to recall this so called sharia law controversy. The real story was that some Muslim groups wanted non-binding sharia tribunals that were equivalent to those that were already had by Orthodox Jews and some Christians of some variety I can't recall. And the opposition came from two Muslim women's groups. And the McGuinty Government's answer was to abolish all religious tribunals....since it was likely that a court challenge would have ruled that you either allow all religious tribunals or none at all.

Windmills or no windmills, the point needs to be made and underlined that just replacing carbon fuel sources with renewables will not solve our environmental problems if nothing is done about the way our economic system functions -- specifically, the need for constant increases in energy supply to provide increased economic growth. Windmills may have a low....but by no means a zero carbon footprint! Because the production of windmills....especially the mining and refining of rare earth metals, such as neodymium, which is essential for these new, high efficiency windmills, is a significant source of carbon emissions.....not to mention that rare earth elements become even 'rarer' as demand increases and supplies become exhausted....just like every other metal and mineral. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-05/china-rare-earths-leave-toxic-trail-to-toyota-prius-vestas-wind-turbines.html http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=rare-earths-elemental-needs-of-the-clean-energy-economy