Merry X-mas and Happy New Deal

Resolved:

This house is our house.

I admit that some part of me is still scared as ever it once most was. I'll even admit that I wish I could lie and say I need changes in my life, but just a bit more here and there. Really, I know with the few important things that a bit more is good, but won't do for long (relatively speaking of course). But, fact is that I can't behold the future me as progress if I drag all the heaviest chains with me as I go there.

There will always be one or two killer things that we need help making good choices on. Similarly, there will always be a few sacred places that we're on the verge of finding. In other words, there will always be a few things to stay away from and a few things to run towards.

I'll dare to endeavor and better whatever those things are every day. Meanwhile, to become that superhero I've always dreamed, I'll not let life's attempts to fasten my joy to smaller and smaller things get me down. I'll know if I've succeeded if I ever become drowned in those fears and various giant sorrows and still manage to pull myself up to do good for myself and humankind, Earthkind - even if it's just when it matters the most.

After all, pain and pleasure aren't intrinsic to the omniverse - they're relative to how we learn about them and how we re-perceive them every day. Knowing this, I recommend seeking the humility to enjoy the finer things more and more (the really rich things that get better with age and build our health to greater and greater carrying capacities). Doing this of course, is much easier if you're verily open to new ideas; practice that.

Headliner In Life

Today's Headlines:

Over-Pressurized Easy-Cheese Can Linked To Man's Drowning

Coca-Cola Announces: Cola Nuts Never Actually Added; CEO baffled to describe mysterious nut's flavor

Fashion Police Arrest Nudist For Withholding Evidence

Hopscotch Secrets Revealed to Area Boys; deal made with handful of jacks

Archie Comics Declared Bankrupt in Content Audit; cartoonists revealed to be a group of dusty Atari gaming consoles

Acid-Rock Persists in Moving Inebriated Listener from the 70's; sweat barely kept in check by fading red bandana

Area Dogs Break Tradition With Profound Moment of Silence

Hip-Hop Same As Rock-n-Roll in Local Violinists Mind

Upcoming Hip-Hop Hook Recounts Story of Genesis

Headline Typesetter Dies Premat opeij jfa;f i

Bistro Chef Declares Moratorium on Special #2;waitstaff unaided in cleaning up public relations mess

Student Publication Censored For Editor's Protection

Quote of the day:

It takes practice to get good at practicing what you preach.


Found this very interesting film.

From Liveleak.com

Khoda - Over 6000 paintings used to create this animated thriller. What if you watch a film and whenever you pause it, you face a painting? This idea inspired Reza Dolatabadi to make Khoda. Over 6000 paintings were painstakingly produced during two years to create a five minutes film that would meet high personal standards. Khoda is a psychological thriller; a student project which was seen as a ‘mission impossible’ by many people but eventually proved possible...

Dark night with Bright Streetlight Sweet Serenity Saving Grace and Growing Goliath

In all my years as a human being I've learned one thing more than anything else: that being a human being means that there is always the most pressing need to learn and grow wiser. If you were to ask me what it means to grow wiser, I would say that it means to learn lessons by conquering fears. Growing in hope and growing in learning are closely related things, though not the same. If knowledge is power, then fear is ignorance. If I were to serve this higher knowledge to its moral end-of-the-rope, I would tie a knot where the teacher is and make as much good teaching as I can before I die. One of the greatest gifts in life is to create life and be it's greatest teacher - as parents we hold the place our children will walk into someday. Simultaneously, we pour every hope we have into our children, which means sometimes teaching lessons about fear. Where we put our children together to have new hopes put into them by hope-experts, that is where the Profession of Teaching becomes a reflection of the idea of 'teaching'.

In our society, one ought not inspire hope by running around creating fear lessons for everybody in the world. Except of course if you life depends on it - Emergency Human Resuscitators have fear training and filters, as do military, and many other emergency services. These groups' effectiveness at "fearing" someone into motivation/actualization/re-encouraging a calm center of bravery amidst a storm of physical or spiritual chaos are the legendary reasons they persist, despite their debatable outward repugnance. Most people expose themselves to some sort of fear training/fear dulling. Religion, horror movies, sports, and hazardous jobs are all known to produce people of character or burnouts from stress. These jobs are crucibles that test the mettle of people and break down all the barriers they've constructed regarding some particular dimension of their life. Fear only begets fear which only begets ignorance, which only ends up in less wisdom for the world. So if you want to hold true to your moral center, you have to fight fear though it discomforts. A healthy body requires some theoretical amount of rigorous use. A healthy spirit is signified by the fearlessness of cause and justifiably self-righteous courage. A healthy spirit requires some theoretical amount of rigorous use

Lifestyles which do not promote the health of the body take a dimension of capability away from people. Our collective effort is no longer worth as much if our collective effort has atrophied through apathy or luxury or plenty. Pulling our own weight is no longer possible - we have less towing capacity per kappita than previous kappitas, and we have borrowed our apathy, luxury, and plenty from the next ten generations at least... ALL THIS means that we have to pull our weight again, but our task has become harder - we now have to pull the weight of our selves, our parents and grandparents, our children, and their children's children on down the line for the next 9 or some other odd number of generations. Why did things get so drastic seeming? So we could buy lots and lots and lots and lots of stuff without consequence for as long as possible. I'm sure the concentrated dope-money of the Aristocracy-yet-to-be thanks us for our sacrifices. But hope remains yet, you story-loving listeners.

Lifestyles which do not promote the health of the mind are insidious ruiners of people and the downfall of civilizations. Every nation feeds itself physically and mentally. To god, we are naked pudgy ape descendents with complex facial organs and communication patterns, not the self-proclaimed hierarchy of virtue and order we claim to be at s'his feet. Technology has been brewed into service of our babble-ings. Math is the only babble we may yet have that isn't tainted by the biochemical progeny of ideas and words. By worshiping the stars and the shapes of the moon and sun, and knowing the planets and comets, and seeing the blueprints of life at each level, down to the grand unified level of the tiniest yet thing, the most complex yet, the most qualities of sides and explainations that cover all the turf with its unity in elegance and is magnitude in differences - by doing all that, we exercise our spirit with learning though the lessons not hit us in our face or our lives. Even if these lessons only hit us in our minds, they are the very things that will make up who we are, and where I implore everyone to think; every lesson you face will determine how fit or sick this society and geography will become; every choice that you make could help somebody else, or you, but the right answer will probably ever remain 'which choice benefits the most people' to which the answer you find is born of no ignorance, fears, hatreds, but we remain instead spiritually advanced in our enlightened worship of stars and trees and air and pure water. What makes a Saint is sometimes giving up all things for the greater good. Sometimes what makes a saint is capturing courage for masses of people who need to find courage. Sometimes what makes a saint is most kindly honoring that which was sacrificed despite the lack of kindness which destroyed it in the first place. Everyone can be a saint in someone else's life. The more we act for good, the more good we become, and then the place that our children step into, and their children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children will step into too.

I solemly release myself of the guilt of the price that was paid in History's blood to allow all these ideas to come so easily to my lips. Everyone dies, and the world will always be full of suffering. As long as I hold the lessons of the hard road of History in my heart as I speak and make the decisions of every day, I'm sure I will make some progress along this road. Then, one day, if fate is kind to us all, our children's children's...so on to the last set of children, will look back at all the struggle that continued on after I died and say, "well, I forgive him for not getting everything fixed, even though a lot of people suffered because he couldn't get everything right, after all he was born with an imperfect legacy, just like me, and look at all the progress he made despite his many setbacks." Likewise I forgive my own history and our collective history for all its flaws. I consider the matters over and done with, except where they bear some small issues to the present to be decided for the immediate future - that's life afterall.

Hope lies ever as the cream, on top of any foment and toil we swirl amongst each other in. Story telling is a form of hope, but only when combined with deep, still, or massive listening. We excel at certain types of story-telling, and we excel at certain types of listening. As we guide our children into the next generation of possibilities in a universe made microscopically of possibilities, let us accelerate their learning in the best kinds of story telling and the best kinds of listening. We'll seek not to censor, destory, defame, or demoralize, but only to nurture, to listen, to light, to walk, and to teach, that way better tomorrow is right on top, sitting at the tips of all our children's tongues.

Big oil? Earth to Big oil? Trickle Up?

Re-Posted From the NYT

Re: Energy and money and Utility Bills and the ever changing landscape of our collective livelihood.

Before you read the article below and my additions and reflections of it, I just want to point out a few things. First, oil is the bread and butter of commerce, construction, manufacturing (especially chemical), medical, and transportation industries. It also has a large share in the American utility and heating bill, and on top of all that, how much money we spend at the levy every Wednesday. Drastic humps in prices should either concern you for your own welfare, worry you as an indicator of the economies welfare, or make you downright paranoid; any of these would be an appropriate response to ubiquitous fluctuations.

Second: the Grand Earth-is-a-Garage Analogy. Pretend the wind stopped blowing. Air stopped moving, except where we pushed it or plants and animals breathed it. The air in your home would largely stay in your home. The air in your street and next to your park would stay put. Every car would leave a line of unbreatheable air. To understand this effect on our health, picture next that the entire Earth were a garage, with just enough room for however many billions of people are on it now. Would we choose to turn on millions of cars and likely commit a slow suicide with a chemical more addictive than tobacco, more liberating than LSD, and more party oriented that clean cocaine? Oil and gas have built a revolution of industry. The sooner we find the next revolution, the less like a Dinasaur atmosphered planet we'll live in.

Also (third), you talk about U.S. image worlwide, and how important restoring our credibility is - how about the country that still uses more oil per kapita than anyone else by far actually giving a shit about the whole Earth's environment enough to sign the Kyoto protcalls. Or is that to God-Damned Socialist for your punk-patriotic-fuck-you-a-thon called Military/Industrial/Media/Commercial/Lobbyist-central/non-progressive bi-partisanism...sorry, I didn't mean to yell.

Big Oil Projects Put in Jeopardy by Fall in Prices

Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times

A 76 gas station in La Jolla, Calif., in December, left, and May, right.

By JAD MOUAWAD

Published: December 15, 2008

From the plains of North Dakota to the deep waters of Brazil, dozens of major oil and gas projects have been suspended or canceled in recent weeks as companies scramble to adjust to the collapse in energy markets.

Just as a reminder, the "collapse" in the energy markets was caused in large part by a simultaneous stock, real-estate, oil, auto, and credit bubble bursting. In fact, energy markets have been collapsing here and there for many years. My theory is that lots of people talk about energy markets collapsing because they are paid to...politicians for example. In the recent Illinois governor media/U.S. Attorney farce, one of the best quotes I read was about how the U.S. Secretary of Energy was the most lucrative of all Cabinet posting positions. Could be there is a lot of inner-workings of energy markets that don't see the light of day and are thus not accurately reported on in print.

Multimedia

Graphic

Oil’s Long Price Rise, Quickly Undone

Related

OPEC Looks to Halt Falling Oil Prices (December 16, 2008)

Times Topics: Oil and Gasoline | Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries

In the short run, falling oil prices are leading to welcome relief at the pump for American families ahead of the holidays, with gasoline down from its summer record of just over $4 to an average of $1.66 a gallon, and still falling.

-demand gets Happy.

But the project delays are likely to reduce future energy supplies — and analysts believe they may set the stage for another surge in oil prices once the global economy recovers.

-supply Strikes Back.

Oil markets have had their sharpest-ever spikes and their steepest drops this year, all within a few months. Now, with a global recession at hand and oil consumption falling, the market’s extreme volatility is making it harder for energy executives to plan ahead. As a result, exploration spending, which had risen to a record this year, is being slashed.

Hang on with that first sentance there. Before you suppose it is an unanswerable contention or a real sentence, lets break it down. Oil markets - afore mentioned, transport/manufacturing/chemical/energy/heating/commerce in general are taking predicted hits as middle class incomes go down, commodity prices are going up, yadda yadda, things look dim for Joe Carpenter and Plumber alike. Meanwhile Alaska companies, and Oil companies make record, record, record profits like nobody's business; world demand has been soaring with the industrialization/McDonaldization/Americanization of India, China, Russia, and a host of others. This is common knowledge and enough to make a sane man crazy. Yet, as economics go, the more demand something is in, the more it is worth - hence record profits. But, the afore mentioned bubbles were blindly telling everyone that money was growing on trees at a reliably fast rate. That is, until the forest-fire-sale when the chips were counted at last and most of the players lost their shirts (picture mortgage derivatives, ambitious home-buyers, and pause a moment to remember the Bush changes to Bankrupcy law). That all these jumping guppies flew out of the tank in one fiscal year is just a sign of the danger of the computerized-24-hour world we've stepped into. Neo would know what to do. Exploration spending rates are a silly/tiny slice of the pie to discuss. Furthermore, Energy Executives are a dubious lot whose stress levels are no doubt concerned with money, not energy.

The precipitous drop in oil prices since the summer, coming on the heels of a dizzying seven-year rise, was a reminder that the oil business, like those of most commodities, is cyclical. When demand drops and prices fall, companies curb their investments, leading to lower supplies. When demand recovers, prices rise again and companies start to invest in new production, starting another cycle.

New production is constantly invested in, and everything and nothing in the universe is cyclical - so what. The current market, from Oil Shales to Oil Sheiks, from Porsches to fertilizers, has been subject to rampant de-regulation and instability ever since a certain Legacy Fundamentalist and dare I say Rapture-Right-Leaning Plutocrat's son was most dubiously elected into office. Let us not forget that the modus operandi of the "cycle" of economics in America is the Game - who's who in power politicos - who's who in fortune's five-hundred - Benjamin's C-notes - and the pennies of the poor. How many times does the Times have to say Trickle-Down is a joke before the number of times the Times talks about problems facing Big Oil goes down.

As familiar as the pattern may be, the changes this time are taking place at record speed. In June, some analysts were forecasting oil at $200 a barrel and companies were scouring the earth for new places to drill; now, no one knows how low prices may fall.

World demand for oil will continue to rise, despite the way it's value spiked in this nation during the Double-You Administration. People will always scour the Earth for new places to drill because we've all watched Beverly Hillbillies.

“It’s a classic — if extraordinarily dramatic — cycle,” said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and author of “The Prize,” a history of the oil business. “Prices have come down so far and so fast, it’s become a shock to the supply system.”

Anything that mitigates the windfall heroin-drip of cash into the Oil Titan's veins will cause much rumbling in the clockwork flappings of a corporate newspaper whose entire spasm of growth history was based on the Oil News. The supply system and myself are both shocked by the fields of un-ordered cars, the raise in energy bills, and our own conscious telling us we have a lot of work to do to shut down wal-mart while no longer over-packaging, over-buying, over-eating, and most of all, over-compensating with our vehicle choices.

The list of projects delayed is growing by the week. Wells are being shut down across the United States; new refineries have been postponed in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and India; and ambitious plans for drilling off the coast of Africa are being reconsidered.

I'd like to know if the growing list of delayed projects is in any way related to the growing list of companies who were tantilized into business models based on bubble-high-inflato-prices of oil. They should have spent all the drafting-plan-money on buying solar panels and fresh water stills for poor African farmers and herders who practice sustainable Trickle-Up economies.

Investment in alternative energy sources like biofuels that had flourished in recent years could dry up if prices stay low for the next few years, analysts said. Banks have become reluctant lenders, especially to renewable energy projects that may prove unprofitable in an era of low oil and gas prices.

Again, world oil prices will continue to rise. Banks will lend, or other banks will lend in place of those banks, which will now be called stupid banks. What is desperately needed in terms of investment in alternative energy is the kind of subsidies big Oil has been getting for millenia (given the rapid pace of today's information age, I thought some hyperbole was in order). Carter was about to make some good decisions for Energy Consumers of America when a sudden wool of GOP politics was thrown over the Executive Branch's Eyes. Since then we've paid for, as Taxpayers, stamped and collected: two Wars over oil, plenty of unmentioned (unmentionable according to Manufactured Consent) behind-the-scenes skullduggery regarding oil resources (Mexico, Venezuela, Isreal, to hint at a few), untold billions in tax subsidies/land grants/etc., and a national debt completely funded and fueled on the idea that America will some day be worth enough money to pay off all that national debt. When oil prices start kangaroo-hopping we start to wonder if that national debt number is going to punch us in the eye someday because we assumed it would never catch up with us.

These delays could curb future global fuel supplies by the equivalent of four million barrels a day within the next five years, according to Peter Jackson, an energy analyst at Cambridge Energy Research Associates. That is equal to 5 percent of current oil supplies.

Well, according to Peter Jackson of New Zealand where Lord Of The Rings was filmed, in the next five years the Kingdom of Men could overcome greed to launch an all-out campaign to rid the world of it's economic dependancy on the global oil trade. Shirefolk could touch the very heart of power in the world and teach us all that living active stress-free lives based on pastoral organic agriculture and handicrafts could lead to fabulous kegger parties and breakthroughs in song and dance. Once again, I wonder if the money spent on the 'delayed' activity and the money they plan to spend could build enough solar panels to provide hundreds of years of free "equal to 5 percent". It may not add up in the final analysis, especially depending on whose calculator you use to add the total costs, but so long as we're talking about 5 percent I think it is highly worth mentioning.

One reason projects are being shut down so fast is that costs throughout the industry, which had surged in recent years, are still elevated despite the drop in oil prices. Many companies are waiting for those costs to come down before deciding whether to go forward with new projects.

Ahhh, but that is the trouble with scarcity when it comes to 'business as usual'. As costs rise, so do expectations for returns. Welcome to inflation; you've arrived at the first floor: perception. The afore mentioned 'Game' of Wall Street and Main Street and it's backbone in Military/Industrial Spending is fueled by willingness to gamble on one axis and permissability of gambling on the other axis. One is the level of risk one is accostumed to and the other is the fuzzy maximums and minimums of risk the government and the banks will allow you to risk (the denominator of which is the insurance companies, which is why so much of the tendencies come from and are duly or dourly noted by the actuaries). Many of the companies the Times is talking about aren't the same companies that are poised to find their way through innovation to growth despite oil's fluctuational behaviors.

“The global market has been turned upside down since the summer,” the International Energy Agency, a leading energy forecaster, said in a recent report.

The global demand market has gone up and down as has the global supply market (maybe I'm making that up) but profits continue to soar. Big news. Things change, yet things always stay the same.

In today’s uncertain environment, a slowdown in spending is inevitable, according to energy executives who are devising their budgets for next year. Last year, spending on exploration and production amounted to $329 billion, according to PFC Energy, a consulting firm. That figure is certain to fall.

An increase in saving is definitely warranted. What little spending will go on will have to be carefully picked: bombs? or hospitals?, imported goods? or made-in-Americans?, burger joint? or CSA boxes?, efficiency?(organic - Welcome to the Super-Green revolution of Socialism, coming to a school and a homeless shelter near YOU! if you dare) or expansion?(fattening, status quo, enter Zoloft ad and defunct HMO full of doctor bills)

“We’re in remission right now,” said Marvin E. Odum, the vice president for exploration and production for Royal Dutch Shell in the Americas. But once the economy picks up, he said, “the energy challenge will come back with a vengeance.”

Wrong, Mr. Odum. You're in remission right now. By the time you 'come back' to feed on the mono-theism of Energy Policy in the U.S., we'll have a hydra of pro-active oversight to block you from being able to exploit resources cheaply or have more closed-door access to my wallet. That's right, we'll have a government Bailout for homeowners funded by Barack Obamas promises for change. We'll have German style smart and sexy socialism to help make doing business in America a hell of a lot cleaner, and a hell of a lot cheaper. You'll regret that you ever loosened your strangle hold on us - we've gotten smarter than that. What do you expect when the car manufacturers are giving low emissions and high fuel efficiency to Europeans and Asians and and...whoever the hell else their giving it to.

Oil demand growth has weakened throughout the industrial world. The International Energy Agency projects that worldwide demand will actually fall this year, for the first time since 1983.

Shit happens.

So much surplus oil is sloshing around the world right now that some companies, including Shell, are using oil tankers for storage.

Could this have anything to do with the new cars piling up in Long Beach and other Ports?

Oil prices have declined by more than $100 a barrel since July, returning to levels last seen more than four years ago. They settled at $44.51 a barrel, down $1.77, on Monday in New York, as concerns about the economy outweighed efforts by oil producers to stem the slide in prices.

Maybe the world is becoming more efficient.

Prices could drop below $30 a barrel, according to Merrill Lynch and other forecasters, if the Chinese economy slows drastically next year, which looks increasingly likely.

In case you haven't heard, OPEC won't let that happen. I bet Venezuela is going to make out well in the coming years.

Different companies have different price thresholds for going forward with drilling projects. But across the industry, a price drop this big has “a dampening effect,” according to Mr. Odum of Shell. “The big uncertainty is how long this economic environment is going to last.”

The biggest cutbacks so far have been in heavy oil projects in Canada, where some of the world’s highest-cost production is concentrated. Some operators there need oil prices above $90 a barrel to turn a profit.

Oil sands, eh?

StatoilHydro, a large Norwegian company, recently pulled out of a $12 billion project in Canada because of falling prices. Similarly, Shell, Nexen and Petro-Canada have all canceled or postponed new ventures in the province of Alberta in recent weeks.

Producers are bracing for a painful contraction, and the drop in prices could crimp investments even in places where production costs are low. The Saudi monarch, King Abdullah, recently said he considered $75 a barrel to be a “fair price.”

Well, King Abdullah is knee deep in politics - fair enough, he should be. Interesting thing about a King is that they can be fair if they want to, or unfair if it suits them better. Either way, their subjects have to deal with the consequences. If "fair" is higher than status quo, then really someone is just trying to say, 'the price is going to go up'.

The kingdom, which has invested tens of billions of dollars in recent years to increase production, recently announced that two new refineries, with ConocoPhillips and Total of France, were being frozen until costs go down. In neighboring Kuwait, the government recently shelved a $15 billion project to build the country’s fourth refinery because of concerns about slowing growth in oil demand.

Sometimes the Times has the job of stating the damn blasted truth of everyday fleecing; supply goes down, demand goes up. Chinese people and Indian people get cars from their manufacturing, service, and tech jobs, oil prices go vroom vroom, ConocoPhillips and Total of France go wee wee wee all the way home. Fitting they should be able to boldly display their manuvering to stay on top - after all, they're on top, so that's where they deserve to be right?

The list goes on: South Africa’s national oil company, PetroSA, on Thursday dropped plans to build a plant that would have converted coal to liquid fuel. The British-Russian giant TNK-BP slashed its capital expenditure budget for next year by $1 billion, for a 25 percent reduction from this year.

Hmmm...sounds like a green technology. I bet the Chinese or the Bill Clinton/Gates initiative funds it instead, and makes money while improving the local economy, thereby strengthening the global economy.

In North Dakota, oil drillers are scaling back exploration of the Bakken Shale, a geological formation recently seen as promising, where production is more expensive than in conventional fields.

Sorry, we're not desperate enough for oil yet to be making a bunch of money off such a non-gushing-out-of-the-ground resource. Don't worry, we'll get to them soon enough.

“People are dropping rigs up there in a pretty significant way already,” Mark G. Papa, the chief executive of EOG Resources, a small natural gas producer, recently told an energy conference.

Another domestic producer, Callon Petroleum, suspended a major deepwater project in the Gulf of Mexico, called Entrada, weeks before completion because of what it described as a “serious decline in project economics.”

Further evidence of the top-heaviness of the Global Supply Chain.

According to research analysts at the brokerage firm Raymond James, domestic drilling could drop by 41 percent next year as companies scale back.

-which changes what will amount to a percentage point of our total over the course of ten years or so I imagine.

“We expect operators to significantly cut their activity in the coming weeks due to the holiday season, and many of these rigs will not come back to work,” the report said.

Jobs have been unfortunately lost lately, but the economic forces surrounding the U.S. have dictated that old jobs will be lost due to global competition. Sadly, we did not prepare for this day by devaluing our currency and increasing exports like China. Instead we limited our options by enjoying the high cost of low prices; our own manufacturing base has been undercut by our shopping choices so more money is flowing out of the country instead of in.

As scores of small wells are shut down, analysts at Bernstein Research have calculated that oil production in North America could decline by 1.3 million barrels a day through 2010, or 17 percent, to 6.14 million barrels a day. This decline, rather than cuts by members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, “will be the catalyst needed for oil prices to rebound,” Neil McMahon, an analyst at Bernstein Research, said in a conference call this month. The United States remains the world’s largest oil consumer.

As the largest oil consumer, will we just allow the price of oil to "rebound" from reasonable rates to overvalued rates because the analysts at Bernstein Research say that's probably what the market will force on the owners of relevant Capital.

The drop in energy consumption could afford some breathing room for producers, which had been straining in recent years to match fast-rising demand. But analysts warn the world can ill afford a lengthy drop in investment in energy supplies. To meet the growth in global population and the rising affluence expected in the future, the world will need to invest $12 trillion in order to increase its oil and natural gas supplies, according to the International Energy Agency.

...I'd like to know the reasoning behind the last $12 trillion figure there - is that assuming the highest profit or current profit rates and rate increases. Analysts are really just warning that the relative increase increase in energy output has trended slower than it has before for the first time since it had before. What? Yeah, analysts sometimes forget that less can be more if we share it better and distribute it more cheaply. Maybe once shrinking resources is crossed with growing demand, the inefficient distribution systems of the past will be thrown down in favor of socialized over privatized systems. Investing $ 12 trillion in systems that will only absorb large swaths of that investment in profit would be inefficient; efficiency dictates that we invest in a system with high sustainability rates, high rates of return in reducing the cost of living - peace, health, education, and infrastructure - oh my. Spend your bonus on that.

“If we cut back dramatically on investments, we could end up in a situation where supply growth goes flat when the economy starts to recover,” said Mr. Jackson, the analyst. “The steeper the decline, the steeper the response.”

For the economy to recover, we'll need to see more people getting good jobs next year than we had this year. In order to do that we need to make the wisest of investments today to make sure tomorrow sees investments' value blossom bigger than ever. Those investments will come in the form of sacrifices, and those that blossom will be hidden among the ones that don't. How fast we get there depends entirely on how much we sacrifice, how closely we participate in our own affairs, and how much we're willing to risk losing to get there.

The State of the Anchorage Column

My friends, the column is strong, as are the people who stand nearby it. Despite the cold, the snow, the adversity of finals and foibles, things are going along apace towards progress.

Finals are finished and I'm looking forward to the next set of classes. I'm more anxious to see my grades than I have been in a long time. Guess that's the hope of improvement speaking. I'm very thankful for all the opportunities I've been graced by, and I am astounded to look at my progress and see some.

The world at large is getting smaller. Where would we be without the internet? I wonder. With so much information available, it is a very exciting time for someone like me, who is obsessed with perspective and words.

My plan for the holiday is to send gifts, find work, play music, clean house, and just play. Oh, and the cross-country skis are being used again, mostly at night so far. Such sojourns are good time to catch up on all that thinking there is to do. Bas-relief shadow and color of nightscapes make for interesting backdrops on which to post musings.

Most of my thoughts lately are focused on destroying my costs of living in favor of unselfish-sufficiency; though pragmatic matters of gentility's manners may prevent a pure reckoning of my reasoning. I have been craving fried chicken for some reason...

The Anchorage economy is sheltered so far, though I often think that will abruptly change whenever it changes. Though, maybe people just can't help but be addicted to a little doom and gloom, and not really that much will change even as we watch all the financial balls dropping (or sucking back in, if you know what I mean). With the economy showing some primary indicators of continued job loss, unpredictable changes in rates of commodity and currency valuations, and with the omnipresent bandwagon of doomsday scenarios (did someone step in Y2K?, cause there is something ripe-smelling coming from the general direction of media and other affluent quagmires), all indicators are that humans should remain being humans and not voluntarily discorporate as much as we do.

Yes, I'm talking about war. There is a lot I'll work towards in the coming year, but they will all be things within my reach. War is something that words can fight against by winning over the tide of people in the pool party of Nationalism we're all participants of. If you build it, they will come. If peace is sexy, prudence will come around to join the party.

So I hope not to see military actions. For far too long have economic interests dictated policy in the United States. Without the many voices of dissent in Washington, we've all agreed on certain radically destructive things for a couple of generations now (the munitions factory, the trickles of the economy, the hopeless pursuit of chasing evil with lobbying dollars, to name a few). Without the chorus of anger and despair having voice, the equilibrium of policy will ever be deaf to reality. Until ideas wield battles, the decor of Congress will strike banally bland notes to our eyes.

Despite wealth's popularity, I don't fear the Earth's ability to cope with our pusuit of it - I fear only for the difficulties our collective progeny will face. I know how much despair can sting, and I'd hate for our unwillingness to grant them a Sea Change be a tarnish on the perfection of our legacy. Unfortunately for all of us, the only cross on the map representing a doorway to economic salvation is the most personal and obvious of beginnings: We have to start at home, holding the whole of humanity in our minds as we day to day do things. Then we take our lucrative proficiency to work with us, and strike down the corridors of destruction. Difficult part is, we'll have to rely on what few avenues of beautification we currently have to sustain us while the demolition and construction occur. In the past, this difficult part has cheifly kept us and change apart, since no one wants less when given the option of more.

More is no longer an option.

Please live simply, that others may simply live, and please keep your scope right where you can see.

Garlic Head

Today's Headlines:

Garlic Clove Dies After Heroic Battle with Vampire

Area Dogs Wage War On Latest Blurry Hint of Motion

Studded Tires Still Fear Lonely Scourge of Summer

Harpoon Collectors Pine For Good Ole Whalin' Days

Drill Enthusiast Mourns Flickering Battery Indicator

Idle Sled Dogs Implicated in Neighbor's Yard Poo; Owner Weary of Action

George W. Bush Confused by Own Confusion - Confused by Middle Part Too;neo-Con Implicated

Okay, really, that last part has become a cheap shot - let's move on as a nation to get to the serious work part. The WE Change part. The one from the: "make change" and "be the change you want to see."
So, we let sleeping dogs lie, let the old ways be old ways and only hinder them as they clash with the new ways, but mostly we do things like new ways are good ways are usually hard ways.

I know. That wasn't even a sentence at the end.

But, that isn't the end of it is it. What is it? It's punishment. How many more Cheneys and Rumsfelds and I know, I know, there are more like a statistician would know where the ever-elusive truth of an entity like government lay exactly - exactly how many favors and deals are on the up and up, and how many are on the take, and how many many many of them are one part one and another part both. oOOh la la. Howdy holler. Did someone say profit motive? But, what is legislation but opportunity knocking. Who's checking? Chequeing? Who checkered the board and grew up playing checkers?

Was that even a question at the end? Government obviously would benefit from transparency to air out dirty laundry, that left to itself must be relatively festering. Their higher selves won't mind the intervention. They obviously need someone else's discretion to help direct them to appropriate venues for their adversarial predilictions, like hockey matches or NASCAR beer lines. Who doesn' t want to stand in a beer line?

Whatever. I've never been to a hockey game. But in any one idividual's life is the government really that much of a problem? Well, maybe yes for some, maybe some places many, but our problems usually reside closer to home, where we could act locally.

Now that Obama doesn't need our help being lifted to the highest office, our collective energies will be where? Ascending? Dissipating? Who will we lift up now?

We're all bastards unless we quit spending so much money on bombs and other ways to kill people. No One Person wants to kill people (though we're all revved up and anxious so...), we'll discount the rediculous few of you who do - so let's not ever be the aggressors. Let's work within whatever systems have been created to do the good we want to do, and then solve our aggressive problems with cooperative powers. Of course we reserve the rights: to change our minds, to help fix the system we're working in (the UN? too scary to give up a bit of sovereignty for the good of the world - okay we'll start with all these crazy trade agreements instead), to be proud of who we are and what we do so much that our skills and products and information are sought after the world around. God bless THAT America - the one that sees past the noise of our pollution informational and otherwise, and squashes the idea that it's ok to finish your job as President with SUCH UNREASONABLY ANSWERED QUESTIONS (U.S. LEGAL MILITARY TORTURE, DOMESTIC SPYING AND OTHER DISEASES OF THE PATRIOT ACT, BANKRUPTCY ACT RE-REFORMING, FAIRNESS DOCTRINE REINSTATEMENT, PUTTING "CLEAN" BACK IN CLEAN AIR ACT, CLEAN WATER ACT, AND how about...

...sending our sons and daughters to die solely on the basis that you thought it was the "right" thing to do. There is evidence Mr. Bush that you took this country for a killing spree intentionally for baseless reasons. You fooled us twice. Shame on us.

We're starting all over again. Not easy, but this time we'll pay more attention. This time we'll find time to. This time we'll disregard all the meaningless things that distract us from the larger picture. This time we'll negotiate a better deal for ourselves, finding ways to work harder and pay ourselves first and pay our community too. We could rely on bread and share it too, so why can't money do that too, and time and truth, count those in too? Of course we will, of course we do.

Critique of Dick Cavett's Critique of Sarah Palin

The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla

Written by Dick Cavett, published on the NYTimes website
Bio: [The host of “The Dick Cavett Show” — which aired on ABC from 1968 to 1975 and on public television from 1977 to 1982 — Dick Cavett is also the coauthor of two books, “Cavett” (1974) and “Eye on Cavett” (1983). He has appeared on Broadway in “Otherwise Engaged” “Into the Woods” and as narrator in “The Rocky Horror Show,” and has made guest appearances in movies and on TV shows including “Forrest Gump” and “The Simpsons.” Mr. Cavett lives in New York City and Montauk, N.Y.]
Edited by Phillip Bunker
Bio:[The guy sitting at his computer - which was ordered from Dell, and has traveled with Phillip to many places. The computer was sent to Phillip's address, the box itself opened by Phillip's wife, and the words that were typed into the computer were produced in Phillip's brain - with little reference to the cultural elite and broadcast media of the United States. Mr. Bunker has appeared consistently in Real Life for upwards of thirty years now and has been an invaluable asset in the lives of many ordinary and extraordinary people. Also, Mr. Bunker has consistently and systematically thought critically about life and the things he hears and says. Mr. Bunker lives in Alaska, though is content with only choosing to live in one city at a time.]
Hi,
I'd like to think I'm a wordsmith of some sort - not which sort, which isn't sorted out yet. Not Wasilla-an either. I'm a robust Anchorage and Eugene hybrid, with a little Corvallis, Albany, and a dose of Washington from the epicenter of Seattle tossed in for good health.

Anyway, I was reading this guy's article in the NYT (word up to my homey Vinny in Brooklyn), and through the miracle of technology I can just go ahead and reply like he were here in front of me.

He talks of Sarah Palin, which is a subject I've been interested in. Too bad she's so popular in the media. I, like my silly friend Dick Cavett, the writer of "The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla," am convinced that anything the media likes is most likely something I shouldn't like - the media and I serve different masters. My master is the ideals represented in my own heart, applied to the world through my actions and intentions. To put it broadly (albeit vaguely), I believe that I work for a cause of goodness and justice. The media, on the other hand is mostly a lot of self-serving commercial crap. Even the good shows are full of pithy content complacent in the dumber-ing down of America. If you don't believe me, and need more persuading than that, well, you wade through your own bullshit while the rest of us trek for somewhere with greener grass.

The subject of Governor Palin has given me pause lately. The pause is for the inward battle. One side says, "surely this woman is lacking in intellect, surely this is a bad sign for our society." The other says, "listen to your friends in Alaska, many of whom aren't sending a good woman down the river." Neither side is easy to ferret out, mainly because celebrity is more complex than politics, which is more convoluted than the truth. I only listen to critics of Palin - or anyone for that matter - if they have legitimate, logical analysis with historical or scientific evidence. I suck at it, but that's what I try to do. I'm the first to admit that I've been conditioned to fall into every trap they (being Status Quo proponents) decided to set for me. Over time though, like the Philosophers of antiquity, I chide myself for speaking or listening without careful consideration. Gradually I hope for more truth and less monkey-babble pseudo-meritocracy propaganda war nonsense.

But wordsmiths make wordswords, and so these words I offer are merely advocates of balance in the wordweapon war. The printed black is the article, titled above from the New York Times, and the orange writing is my response.

Electronic devices dislike me. There is never a day when something isn’t ailing. Three out of these five implements — answering machine, fax machine, printer, phone and electric can-opener — all dropped dead on me in the past few days.

I suggest technology is too large a part of your life, debilitating your efforts to be in a good mood.

Now something has gone wrong with all three television sets. They will only get Sarah Palin.

As you may have anticipated, I suggest television is taking up too much attention in the lives of everyone. Fortunately, those so enlightened stay away from anything with too many commercials. But, you're right, all three or five major networks are probably in love with Sarah. She gets ratings - why? Well, she appeals to soccer moms and hockey moms for obvious reasons, and she has that whole "God is important" thing, which is important to most people even though most people don't share her precise views on the matter. She appeals to people because she's attractive, composed, traditional, and has an honest face. Most of all, I posit, there is plenty of leftover negative energy from the last two years of campaigning, and much of it is going to Sarah while the media transitions into its next iteration.

I can play a kind of Alaskan roulette. Any random channel clicked on by the remote brings up that eager face, with its continuing assaults on the English Lang.

... eager and hopeful face, with its continuing assaults on the stereotypical image of popular politics. Before all the national attention came, Sarah was a fairly simple story of small town success, imperfect though she is. Some measure of attention must be given to the good parts of her rise - that there is no reason any woman or man in America can't achieve what she has achieved and that such a level in politics could be so accessible to someone with old fashioned small town pride (albeit a bit backwards here and there). Aside from claiming the intrinsic value of snobbery, it is worthless to attack someone's character by criticizing their speech patterns, albethey contrived or albethey genuine. You never know when the next Franklin or Jefferson may show up with a caterwauling calling card, and our society won't survive if we rely on people who all talk like news-reporters. Granted we should watch out for Grants and for Jacksons bearing similar small town pride.

There she is with Larry and Matt and just about everyone else but Dr. Phil (so far). If she is not yet on “Judge Judy,” I suspect it can’t be for lack of trying.

Once again, it is the wisdom of the folk, not the elite who are capable of, and to a large extent excited about the idea of changing this country. Oprah voted for Obama! We all agreed with her. I'm sure the Palin family is very excited to be etching some fame into their history, but I would probably be doing the same thing to some extent (though I wouldn't be caught dead in some of the company she's likely keeping, but that's me not her). But, if we want people to come together for change, if we want to create new leaders, we have to be willing to accept their observance of whatever demographics they choose to appeal to. Too bad there aren't more women in politics on the Dr. Phil show. Too bad we don't have more "freaks" for alternative party choices - say, Socialists, or Anarchists, or Populist-Farmers-United-For-Universal-Organic-Food-ists. Yeah, if Palin can get on Judge Judy, I bet your local P.F.U.F.U.O.F.s has a better shot. Hell, the less conformity, the better for anyone who really wants change.

What have we done to deserve this, this media blitz that the astute Andrea Mitchell has labeled “The Victory Tour”?

What we did to deserve this was repeatedly commit idolatry and gluttony with reference to the role media plays in our society; the object of our idolatry and gluttony was television. As it became the center of our living rooms, so did it become the center of commerce and power in our civilization (indeed the pervasiveness extends to practically all of humanity). I'd say that the Lion's share of the greatest writers of our time, the greatest minds, most entertaining, most compelling have been poured into advertising and media in the last, um...50 years or so, with far more attention paid to the dollars than the due diligence. We deserve whatever we wrought, but hopefully we can change that.

I suppose it will be recorded as among political history’s ironies that Palin was brought in to help John McCain. I can’t blame feminists who might draw amusement from the fact that a woman managed to both cripple the male she was supposed to help while gleaning an almost Elvis-sized following for herself. Mac loses, Sarah wins big-time was the gist of headlines.

First of all, she did help John McCain, if nothing else than with her (blindly recieved, stamped and delivered) rhetorical efforts aimed at striking fear into the base of the GOP, encouraging any loyal fanatics to do anything necessary to stop the Obama Revolution. They listented to her, but we of the Revolution had the higher hand.

Second, feminists are difficult to broadly categorize in any fair way. Some unknown percentage of feminists are against Palin for her support of Patriarchy, War, and Anti-Abortionism, but some are also glad the GOP finally turned to a woman to solve their problems. Either way, any person who believes women should comprise half the demographic of democracy (and therefore representative seats, etc.) should be delighted at the female presence in the candidate line-up for the '08 election. Moreover, women should probably be a bit weary of dismissing, without substantial non-superficial proof of negative demagoguery, a good role-model for their own children. Otherwise kids see a woman scorned in the attempt of something because she was on the losing side and had overstepped her capacity, was too ambitious. Maybe if there were more women like Sarah in the GOP, it wouldn't be such a bastard when it comes to Reagan-worship and big money politics. Maybe the Democratic party would respond by encouraging more of it's soccer moms to lead the way.

And, about McCain, he lost the '08 election as soon as Bush won the '04 election in my opinion. Bush did everything he needed to do to make sure progressives were going to take over for a while.

I feel a little sorry for John. He aimed low and missed.

Aiming low is something that most politicians are forced to do to pick up a low-brow audience - one we created through consumerism and our cultural efforts to encourage conformity and unity. We thought we had good reasons to say the pledge of allegiance and trust the government - Pearl Harbor, the Nazi Party, the threat of nuclear war. But, when fear strikes, the first thing that happens is we collectively forget that we created the bomb, sold IBM's to the Nazis, and took two of Japans populous cities away with nuclear bombs for their infraction of our territory. Thereby, our government takes steps to make sure it is overly capable of protecting us, starting with making sure we support all of its actions, no matter how stupid we have to be to accept them. It is only because our culture has yet to grow out of it's moral infancy and intellectual subjugation that John "aimed low." I mean heck, look at Bush. He aims low, acts low, even has low approval, but that didn't stop him from taking over our country, doing terrible things, and then getting away with it (back up, that last one TOTALLY remains to be seen).

What will ambitious politicos learn from this? That frayed syntax, bungled grammar and run-on sentences that ramble on long after thought has given out completely are a candidate’s valuable traits?

Ambitious politicos won't mimic Sarah Palin, you tool. That "frayed" syntax, impure though it may be, could be a face of things to come. We could use another Lincoln. Oh, Sarah has a long way to go to be Lincoln, and we already have the best Lincoln in Obama. Thats why we didn't vote for Sarah as much as we voted for Obama. But, you notice I didn't say "we didn't vote for McCain." A symbolic triumph for the progressive agenda at the heart of most working class Americans is that old white guys will lose elections for a while. Sorry old white guys - you're not necessarily the problem, and we still love the best parts of you, but you certainly haven't been a part of the solution for a number of years. Time to let others have a turn. Call it utilitarianism.

I think the message most Americans are hearing right now, as Dick Cavett of the "Dick Cavett Show," co-author of "Cavett" and "Eye On Cavett" has so aptly demonstrated, is that if you aren't a genius or even an eloquent intellectual, or even if you don't sound like a news reporter, that you are BAD. BAD YOU. DON'T RAISE YOURSELF ABOVE YOUR STATION IN LIFE. OBEY!!!! OR YOU WILL BE SCORNED BY THE ALL SEEING POWERFUL EYE OF THE MEDIA. BEHOLD!!! THE EYE OF MORDOR IN SPACE, THE NEWS ROOM OF ST. PETER AND PAUL, BEHOLD THE EYE OF RA, AND YOU ALL BE IN AWE WHILE WE pass around these buckets for your donations. Please, can't you just picture him up there, you know, all powerful and completely aware of all your FLAWS. Just a penny in the bucket will earn you relief of all I'm threatening you with...

And how much more of all that lies in our future if God points her to those open-a-crack doors she refers to? The ones she resolves to splinter and bulldoze her way through upon glimpsing the opportunities, revealed from on high.

So what if talking about God gets the GOP base out to vote. We certainly refer to "change" and "Obama" and "hope" as if they were open-a-crack doors that we hope will splinter and bulldoze the opposition to opportunities for positive change in direction.

What on earth are our underpaid teachers, laboring in the vineyards of education, supposed to tell students about the following sentence, committed by the serial syntax-killer from Wasilla High and gleaned by my colleague Maureen Dowd for preservation for those who ask, “How was it she talked?”

My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.

And, she concluded, “never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”

Well, the decently paid (though is it ever enough, no matter how much you have) teacher in Alaska are probably telling their kids that they have to learn to write well, otherwise they'll have trouble going to college. They could be telling their kids to engage the world to make it better, because even though they don't look or sound like most of our Presidents and Senators and Congressmen and Rich People, and even though they may have a lisp or walk funny or spend too much money on clothes, that they CAN and MUST be involved if there is to be any hope of making this lauded and vaunted CHANGE happen. Of course our politicians should be informed, but why didn't the media respond to her interview with extensive coverage of the situation in Darfur? Wouldn't that satisfy the greivance. No. Not enough TV watchers truly care about Darfur to prevent them from voting for McPalin. Are we surprised that a cheerleader for this demographic wouldn't know it either? No. Could the media ever take the high road and not blast a newcomer for not being glued to the NPR dial?

It’s admittedly a rare gift to produce a paragraph in which whole clumps of words could be removed without noticeably affecting the sense, if any.

Yeah, well, dictation is rarely grammatically perfect, as it is verbatim from spoken word, not from a calculator of words. You see, colloquial stylings, which are compellingly accessible and attention getting against a bland backdrop, are representative of real communication between friends and neighbors. Unlike calculators of words, people often mumble or stumble, they grasp for words, often looking to their audience to supply a missing concept: "what is the word I'm looking for?" I'm convinced that humans engaged in conversation are using some form of telepathy to fill in all the blanks we leave out in the interest of time. I'm truly, truly sorry that Sarah never joined the debate team in school to become better versed in discussing relevent political issues. I'm even sorrier that the GOP was so desperate for an image makeover that they chose a woman who probably doesn't read the Newspaper very effectively or efficiently every day. How many of us actually do? Not many?

(A cynic might wonder if Wasilla High School’s English and geography departments are draped in black.)

To my knowledge Wasilla High School was never ashamed of its home-town daughter, despite her inability to sound high-falutin' on-air with all those cameras pointed at her. I imagine that Sarah has pretty good grammer when she isn't spin-doctressing. I think this paranthetical critique above would be better stated, a realist might wonder if America's education system is draped in somnambulence, and if so how do we pull that wool out of their eyes.

(How many contradictory and lying answers about The Empress’s New Clothes have you collected? I’ve got, so far, only four. Your additional ones welcome.)

Yes yes, you're very clever. You can count to four and laugh at people you're pointing fingers at. Well done intelligentsia. You really showed us commoners what-for this time. And well done on exposing that clothes thing. Brilliant addition to the national debate.

Matt Lauer asked her about her daughter’s pregnancy and what went into the decision about how to handle it. Her “answer” did not contain the words “daughter,” “pregnancy,” “what to do about it” or, in fact, any two consecutive words related to Lauer’s query.

Bill Clinton was asked about his blow job, and the words "blow" and "job" didn't appear in his answer. Neither did the word "penis" or "oval-office-face" and, quite frankly, I wish he'd avoided the question all together and we had all just moved on instead of focusing on a media culture bent on discussing the private parts of highest office of the country. I get it though, the GOP did it, why can't we? Well, that's my point you see.

I saw this as a brief clip, so I don’t know whether Lauer recovered sufficiently to follow up, or could only sit there, covered in disbelief. If it happens again, Matt, I bequeath you what I heard myself say once to an elusive guest who stiffed me that way: “Were you able to hear any part of my question?”

Niccccce.

At the risk of offending, well, you, for example, I worry about just what it is her hollering fans see in her that makes her the ideal choice to deal with the world’s problems: collapsed economies, global warming, hostile enemies and our current and far-flung twin battlefronts, either of which may prove to be the world’s second “30 Years’ War.”

No offense for asking such a simple loaded question. What makes anyone the "ideal" choice? Well for one thing, she apparently isn't afraid of dealing with collapsed economies, global warming, hostile... et al, all of which, if repeated frequently enough, will keep ordinary people too afraid to do anything. For another, no one is an "ideal" choice. That's what an "ideal" is - like Plato's Cave - we have to be content with flawed imperfect humans as leaders, even if they go to some crazy church you happen to be afraid of. Some people, who aren't afraid of her church (for whatever crazy reason) consider Sarah to be an illustrious example of change. Their voice counts, and superficially, they are correct. If that bothers you, I suggest you become a teacher or other influential member of society and try to change things to be more in line with your world view. It is within your right to do so, and some might say it is your obligation to do so.

Has there been a poll to see if the Sarah-ites are numbered among that baffling 26 percent of our population who, despite everything, still maintain that President George has done a heckuva job?

Hey, you're the one writing for the New York Times. I think you just needed a sentence to put "Sarah-ites" into print.

A woman in one of Palin’s crowds praised her for being “a mom like me … who thinks the way I do” and added, for ill measure, “That’s what I want in the White House.” Fine, but in what capacity?

Fine indeed. In the capacity of a person in touch with the common wisdom and values of the people, that is what people want in the White House - someone they can trust to see through the old ways into the new ways that support the people and put sanity and parental wisdom back into Washington.

Do this lady’s like-minded folk wonder how, say, Jefferson, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, et al (add your own favorites) managed so well without being soccer moms? Without being whizzes in the kitchen, whipping up moose soufflés? Without executing and wounding wolves from the air and without promoting that sad, threadbare hoax — sexual abstinence — as the answer to the sizzling loins of the young?

Well, frankly, some of these issues I feel some expertise on. Jefferson, Lincoln, and the Roosevelts probably wouldn't have hesitated to shoot a wolf, and if they were allowed to do this from an aircraft, they probably would have preferred to. But, seriously, Sarah-ites are not convinced soccer moms are the only people smart and tough enough to change Washington and begin the work of changing our culture. Instead, soccer moms are convinced that ambitious politicos and old white guys are definitely not the way to go. They just didn't know that Sarah is actually an ambitious politico and usually votes with the old white guys - that's why the GOP picked her.

(In passing, has anyone observed that hunting animals with high-powered guns could only be defined as sport if both sides were equally armed?)

Many say that hunting is a heritage (airborne or not) and anyone who has taken any entry level Humanities class has probably learned about the role hunting played in creating our species - the cooperation it takes, the skill, the agility, the exposure to the elements. Don't chide a connection to our past. If you're pissed off at zealous gun nuts, then say so. I'm sure they're not afraid to hear it. Maybe if you spend some time in Alaska, you'll meet people who regularly engage in the harvesting of animal resources to honor their ancestors and enjoy the fruits of their efforts. Once all those government subsidies run out up here, I'm sure we'll be glad we have lots of high powered guns and the animals don't.

I’d love to hear what you think has caused such an alarming number of our fellow Americans to fall into the Sarah Swoon.

Heard.

Could the willingness to crown one who seems to have no first language have anything to do with the oft-lamented fact that we seem to be alone among nations in having made the word “intellectual” an insult? (And yet…and yet…we did elect Obama. Surely not despite his brains.)

Indeed we did elect Obama, though I'd say more for his Spirit of Leadership than his brains, because too many intellectuals were insulted by Bush and his supporters. Sarah's colloquialisms are insulting to people who consider themselves "above" that; I rarely lament insulting an intellectual of that type, but only people on TV try to insult an intellectual by calling them "an intellectual." Needless to say, TV people are stupid and should be ignored.

Sorry about all of the foregoing, as if you didn’t get enough of the lady every day in every medium but smoke signals.

Every channel is a smoke signal, I posit.

I do not wish her ill. But I also don’t wish us ill. I hope she continues to find happiness in Alaska.

That will depend on how many GOP old guard toadies she brings with her.

May I confess that upon first seeing her, I liked her looks? With the sound off, she presents a not uncomely frontal appearance.

You fucking chauvinist pig - what do you think your afore mentioned feminists think about that tidy little phrase.

But now, as the Brits say, “I’ll be glad to see the back of her.”

Ibid.

**********

PS: Lagniappe for English mavens: A friend of mine has made you laugh greatly over the years. David Lloyd is a comic genius (I can hear you wince, David) who wrote for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Cheers,” “Taxi,” “Frasier,” Jack Paar, Johnny Carson and me, not necessarily in that order. As a language fan, he has preserved many gems for posterity in his prodigious memory bank. Here comes my favorite:

A Navy lecturer was talking about some directives on the blackboard that he said to do something about, “except for these here ones with the asteroids in back of.”

Even David couldn’t make that up.

Geographic Diffusion of Innovation and Its Implications in Leadership

Obtusely as ever, I'm just trying to figure this one thing out - why is it that very often civilization proceeds from the most trying of times to progress, while during times of stability and happiness, our achievement levels dwindle? My only evidence to sight is my casual reading of the Dune series by Frank Herbert and a meandering of my own observations of Truth. After all, as Ani Difranco says: "we all rehearsing for the Presidency."

Arrakkis, Dune, Desert Planet. The inhabitants of this harshest of climates were an unerringly efficient, capable, and moral society (in reference to themselves of course). Noble, yet barbaric in terms of the amount of risk they lived with (risk of pain, injury, death, or even just general discomfort or irritation associated with "primitive" existence where nature is not mitigated for the comfort of humanity. Robustness follows, and with it some measure of graceful nobility - respectability.

On that note, I wonder what the histogram of U.S. president's and their geographic origins would show, considering Hawaii and Alaska finally, after years of being states, have now both contributed to the playing field of Presidential Race figures, including the first U.S. President born in Hawaii. Like Alaska, Hawaii has a tremendously important cultural heritage of native wisdom, far more in line with the emerging demographics of South American and Central Asian nations (in particular). Since I consider many of these emerging nations (India, Iran, Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, etc.) to be a cultural blow-back from the corporate conclusions of the European conquistadors from antiquity, I'm very curious to see if the "melting-pot" of ideas in the United States will actually effect our self-preservation by the embracing of non-European perspectives as mainstream. Or, maybe I just want to justify my own insignificant yet irritating chafe at being a semi-marginalized outlier. So I like fucking Nirvana - what's the beef with that?

Apple's singularity of successful dogma competes with Microsoft's egalitarian modernist democracy, and consequently, both organizations produce variations on a theme, but whose origins in theory are of different ilk. Surely we see these characterizations - which brand is more "elegant" or "pure"? Which is the "smart" choice or the "pragmatic" choice? Granted that viewed from above - each of the opposing brands are dreadfully similar overall. But, to AN INDIVIDUAL there probably is a right and wrong answer as to which one is superior. Each computer owner has an opinion, strong or weak; they may slightly prefer PC's, or they may be die hard Apple fans. Which is more familiar to them? More importantly, which has been prone to urging their investigations? Which has resounded some internal, personal chord with respect to their respect? Which brand has earned my trust?

In the other corner of the consensus room, the outliers exist on the fringe. Some folks don't have computers, or know how to utilize them much. Some prefer their trusty typewriter, or mid-level word processor briefcase. Some love Henry David Thoreau's ideas and just want to make and use pencils, teaching their children to do the same. Some are astronaut-visioned or mental magicians who process information in ways our experiences cannot fathom. Each choice is one decision made before we are ourselves that determines our course, but only through the evolution of our actions. Our choices, through one interpretation, are essentially: follow your heart - either against the herd's (herds'?) folkways, or along with it, depending on your ilk; or, supress your desires to: follow your peers despite their irrelevance to your heart's desires, or to become a counter-insurgent to injustice.

Based on what little is at hand, and how important everything is, seems like the robust upbringing will win more often than not, but that the constant progress of consensus towards the acceptance and inclusion of diversity is by far the most paramount course.

I guess we'll see. Thus the American experience as a universality is the fight to stay domesticated while remaining as wild as possible, and therein has historically lied our strength. The only trick now is to start spending money on things we're supposed to spend money on, instead of getting wilder and wilder as we have been. After all, if we take more time to clean and trim our fingernails, floss our teeth, and keep our nose clear, our pleasure to pain ration-rationalization should shoot up at least a little bit, and every day will be a little bit brighter.

A.I. makes D.N.A. M.I.A.?

Does artificial intelligence make war with humans in the long run?

I'd say we have too many good ideas to get rid of, no matter how much trouble we've been.

If they throw good parties we're far more likely to bring gifts.

If they give us unprecedented trade goods, things will be fine.

If the playground of the development of AI is benignly encouraging and the structure of its character is selfless at first...well there is the matter of allowance...

Well, who needs robots anyway?

I'm sure we can make everything we need and leave no trace so that robots aren't necessary. But, maybe a robo-vacuum would be okay. So long as it purred.

Infinosphere

So within the infinity of possibilities there is a light, luminescent as it represents such a difficult to pin down range of unimaginability. On the face of any idea is a fuzzy gray aura, which, to us, may represent any number of imaginable, reasonable, maybe even every day routine, but nonetheless different interpretations of that idea.

Take healthy food for example. It glows different colors for us all. With the memory of taste, the sense of smell, the whole enchilada of what the eyes take in (which is certainly more than just the rainbow) a fresh juicy apple makes an aural holographic imprint on our existence, and we JUST KNOW down to our core that the air and water and earth embodying the apple are the purest in the universe, having been shoved through the sieve of creation. The fruit is so pure, that when we eat it, it actually removes impurities from our bodies, thus making us healthier. I personally believe (despite lack of hard evidence) that the more toxins we take in as children, the more our bodies crave toxins as adults and changing the nature or scope of those toxic levels (i.e. detoxifying) is tough unless its slow. But, lets face it, everyone, everywhere, will one day need to somehow find a way to fly over the walls of change, of our own instinct. Society has come up with as many ways to deal with this basic fact, as there are number of civilizations that have ever existed anywhere at any time.

So we make a plan, which mitigates losses and maximizes yields. But sometimes a plan isn't enough. Sometimes we need a way. One way. The one way forward has nothing to do with mitigation, nothing to do with ego, nothing to do with history, nothing to do with time, nothing to do with society, nothing to do with reality as you know it. Call it Tao if you want to, call it that thing you will one day wish you had said to yourself all those years; call it the years of ancestry's thinking that becomes the wisdom of the folk tales, how it becomes the life lessons we emerge from. Call it hope, love, god, tao, or the human cheeseburger of tasty shamanic principles. I am an egg, who will continue to hatch whether the shell lets me out or not. Since I'm not going anywhere in this shell, I'm going to enjoy my time pecking and writing on the walls of this home.

You Confront the Future You

-just like autumn leaves, we're in for change...love is the province of the brave. - Band: TV On The Radio, Album: Return to Cookie Mountain, Track: Province

This world takes all kinds and makes them one. Some are acute with their visionary take; some are obtuse with their persistent adherence to tried and true methods; both kinds swing and dance and sing about their experiences, making all different, all possible, all beautiful choruses over time.

In each life living, each liver functions according to its own design, where each uniqueness is an inefficiency valued for its very nature. The inefficiencies of the world build up to fight entropy, whether that be anarchy fighting moderation, or dogma running with the torch regardless of how it stumbles. Without the discord there would be no progress, and so the minds of each member grope for inefficiencies and refuse to pull punches or refuse to refuse. Alternately running the show, each side tends to reflect against the opposite until so much energy is built up that the mirror shatters and evades everyone into the cold. From cold, we return to ourselves, forced back into efficiency, to begin the dances that warm us all up and fight entropy once again.

Swing, rock, cha-cha, it's all the same.

Penne alla Outlier Turning Point

Let it be said that the death penalty is nihilism and it's bad.

I don't know about god, but I've learned that setting the stage for things is more important than projecting the outcomes of those things.

Where the stage is set for us, it is easier to imagine stage left and stage right, up to the lights or through the trapdoor; easier to see the smiles or jeers of the audience than the subtle, robust nature of globally hybridized forms of complexity. Worst of all, we allow advertising psychology to pry into our own homegrown microcosms of complexity and reflections of the almighty Now: our children.

Paring away an external image-shod sphere of reality reflected to a viewer, past the intricacies of paradigms fishing for truth, past the pragmatic commerce we're subject to drowning in, there we've held a simple task since birth: observe, go on, or give up. Implicit in all those is an infinite lot of decision making (again with the biology and history).

When two sides clash, the product is defined by a deciding factor or a bird-shot set of deciding factors. I do not really deem myself worthy to construct stick figures of quasi-mathematical anecdotes of reality, but here goes.

picture two cones made of light, the narrow ends locked together. The cones are made of very complex laser light with many amazing properties. The cones are dancing, the narrows between the hips and the shoulders are two battling tips of Tornado cyclones, though if this imagery scares you, then picture a cyclone of rose petals instead. So the rose petals are swirling in a patterned trajectory, but if time were to slow down to the point where it almost stops, we'd observe that same laser light projecting the three dimensional surfaces of the things we see (and seem three dimensional to us in normal time). At super slow time we'd be able to stop and observe the particles that make up this laser light, and we'd find they have amazing properties (which also coincidentally remind us of properties of many other aspects of the world surrounding us). At super fast time we'd observe how there are perhaps many light cones like this one but with subtle differences (since we apparently live in a universe filled with distorted mirrors with anti-entropic properties). Fast time would enlighten our understanding of the properties of one dancing light cone by allowing us to observe slightly variant population members within context of the entire population. No matter how fast or slow we make time however, someone in the future will observe more closely than we are able or change time or optics to bring our own findings into question (possibly - depending on the outcomes of hypothesis testing). Besides, if we look to closely or too long at such powerful ideas, we'll start to lose sleep over it, and that isn't really very good for you now is it.

So why are the cones dancing? Well, the music is compelling. We dance to the same music, though we can't hear it the same way light does. The music is like the smoke that the light is visible on - the backdrop of existence and the creamy potage we all sup from. The dancing takes the form like so many other things of distorted mirrors in a rational fun house. The closest we can come to explaining such unrational rationalities is that mathematics is a glass sphere with every possible mathematical formula etched into it. This sphere then is crammed into the music making esophogas of the epidermal layer immediately outside the universe - thus everything popping out of this space-time fabric is corollary gossamer in powers of binary geometries that evolve wings to counter entropy elsewhere by propogation.

If we look at the cones we see that one of them is stronger and clearer, while the other is a faded image of the other with subtle changes. The amazing properties of the composition of these two cones (other than they're burned into being by the ping pong pronouncements of light at hyper-intesnse speeds) is that by looking really really close, you see the cones have a music all their own which is rippled radially and axis-trajectoried along each half of the double cone. There are specialized zones along the ripply, unpredictable, but beautiful sheen of cone dermis. Some regions specialize in inputting from things outside the cone-body. Other regions focus on expelling conal material, while still others focus on translating inputs into considered and appropriate outputs.

By far the most amazing property of these cones are that they talk to each other and sometimes help each other into complex organizations through spontaneous self-governance. The subtle and plying music of language stems from the skin of the cone, the music it hears, the dance it does, the words it chooses, the other cones around it, and most of all, the constant music of creation that everyone hears all the time and that goes into everything that is made. However the quantum level cone property became the relativistic cone property, so the emptiness of before the universe was filled with after the universe.

For whatever reason lately, I've been thinking that acute and obtuse have become very apparent in our society as angles that people take on life. George Bernard Shaw said that reasonable men adapt themselves to the world around them (obviously people who took acute angles in their analysis of the geometrics of the world), while unreasonable people (obtuse) make the world adapt to them. Acute angles are sharp, specific, pointed, and trend (lately) toward being a bit too narrow to truly cast a wide enough net to the voting masses (despite their particular correctness on the issue they're pointed at). Obtuse people are dull, broad, and cast a wide tent for their ilk. Both acute and obtuse aren't right as a right angle. Right angles say the truth is normally in the middle somewhere, it's specific location unknown but the direction is indicated. Sadly the middle way is never right either pragmatically or morally, but attempts to take the strenghts of both - not just map and not just compass, but both together. It is especially in this way that broad historiography would reveal elegent decision geometries - the fundamentals of a society will predictably hinge on outcomes of competition, and compassion and conflict will swing dance through humanoid landscapes casting geometries of future events as it flourishes to capture the details of such a mind-bogglingly rich tidal zone of laser light against the smoky music.

Penne alla Tapanade with Scallops

Thirty second chef assumptions:

1. You have frozen meat or seafood.

2. You go to an acceptable grocery store and buy high quality fresh and frozen produce, acceptable dairy products, naturally nested eggs, and as much locally produced food as possible given your circumstances.

3. You avoid the majority of processed durable foods found in the center aisles of the grocery store (except where good foundations of nutrition are found in accordance with exceptionally well-flavored products, especially sundries, naturally preserved items, and estate produced liquids).

4. You are interested in cooking and possess common sense (therefore you most likely already read and follow detailed recipes even though you already basically know how to cook).


Penne alla Tapanade with Scallops:
-you could add in as many servings of vegetables as your diet requires.
-other proteins and pasta shapes can be substituted.
-tomato sauce can be substituted for other sauces, but is considered the best dietary choice.

Start with cooked penne pasta - molto al dente, cooked in salty water, drained and tossed with Extra V Olive Oil.

Nearly equal to the weight of the cooked pasta, puree your acceptable tomato sauce with black olives, roasted garlic, and raw or roasted mushrooms (or smoked, or other vegetables).

Marinate some scallops with white wine or other vinegar (or wine or other acceptable flavorful liquid), preferably while the scallops are thawing in the fridge overnight.

Bake the pasta after mixing with sauce, any pesto you have on hand, Feta or other acceptable cheese (on top), and maybe some more pesto.

Right before pasta is served (preferably with acceptable bread and salad):
With high heat and a bit of butter or other acceptable fat, cook the scallops and 1/4 cup liquid (the marinade with the scallop's own juices) until the liquid is evaporates - just as the liquid evaporates, add a little more liquid (any acceptable including marinade, milk, or even cream or cream cheese) and continue cooking over medium heat until scallops are done: note - the timing and temperatures of this process are dependent on the size of the scallops and their state of thaw, so in order to facilitate proper cooking, large scallops need generally lower heat and relatively smaller diameter pans, and small scallops need generally higher heat and relatively larger diameter pans.

Feel free to add more pesto and vegetables, or cheese if you need more cheese to survive.

ps - avoid work, especially in regards to making a living, as it is bad for your health; take the example of recreational jogging versus running for fear of your life: which is more hazardous to your health?

I like Green Inc.

Working with high school debate kids, we focus on certain questions that are momentous in the world today and often controversial in the way that both sides have compelling cases. Like Michael Valentine Smith from Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Hienlen, I personally find the detailed and momentous examination of microcosms of our ethics and values, such as Nuclear vs. Oil vs. Green Technologies, to be the most compelling of issues lately.

Technology is a reflection of our culture. Take basket weaving; how often have you heard of basket weaving being derided as a pariah of the uselessness of higher education? Yet, historically, basket weaving is highly prized for its economical practicality and also lauded as a measuring stick of comparative Anthropology. But, for all our recent technology, we find so many containers sold in the cheapest stores in America are more expensive than what weaving a basket would cost. Further, plastics are non-biodegradable petroleum derivatives, and worse, we're not so sure that microwaving genetically modified processed food in plastic doesn't cause cancer or Alzhiemer's (etc.)

We're happy being unsafe as long as it is convenient. Tragically, the real world forces that try to tear apart our peace and prosperity (I'm referring here to human nature in aggregate, not pointing fingers at some conveniently ethereal, ideological, "other" enemy) are not only opposing viewpoints, but the sum of judgments against us. In other words, we can't tra-la-la through our day pretending that we live in a bubble - everything we do becomes us and is reflected back to us. This phenomenon of karma only increases as our information concentration increases. After all, if we cover the country roads with billboards, then the view from the road will be of an artistic facade which obscures the real nature of a country. Any regular passenger or driver of a car on such a road would have no knowledge of alternate truths (see Plato's The Cave). So through the aggregate of our media do we paint the truth we cling to; so we create the ladder we climb on.

I contend that Nuclear Power is unsafe, that Green technologies are a coming sign of the First Great Worldwide Consumer Reformation, and that anti-socialist/anti-union sentiments in the United States stand in the way of defeating Corporatism in the name of humankind. However, I believe the Free Market (such as it is) will build as many nuclear plants as is economically sustainable - given the rising demand of power, we could tax the development of nuclear plants and the revenue of such plants, and many plants still would be build by private interests. This is assuming of course that we remove other barriers to building plants. Our tax of these industries could fund oversight, research, and regulation of the admitted evils of Nuclear waste and Nuclear proliferation. Meanwhile, those two negative aspects will be kept minimal through federal levies on nuclear power.

Innovation is the Platinum core of progress. Our country clearly craves change. The second step in this infinite journey is latching on to new ideas while balancing the ideal benefits of the past - every new idea we embrace is saying 'yes' to the question of step 1 - can we change?