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Good News, but you won’t find it in US media

I have long believed that our “energy problems” are way overblown, both from the right (“drill, baby drill”) and from the left (“peak oil”). After all, the issue is energy, not oil, and we are literally awash in energy. The sun bombards us with trillions of times more energy than we need every single day. Scientists just have to come up with a better technology to harvest the sun’s energy, rather than our current cockamamie scheme of waiting millions of years for plants to fossilize into oil and coal, then burning it to dump tons of climate changing carbon and other even nastier pollutants into our environment.

Well, they have. There are wind turbines that take sun-generated wind and turn it into energy, and even solar cells, which directly turn sunlight into energy. But people still complain because we are “dependent” on liquid fuels like oil for our cars.

But now there is a solution for that too. A small company called Joule Unlimited in Cambridge Mass received a patent last year for a genetically modified organism that eats carbon dioxide (the main cause of climate change) and — using sunlight — directly changes it into liquid fuel, including gasoline and diesel fuel. And they have now demonstrated their process, and are starting to commercialize it.

Right now, oil is selling for over $90 a barrel, but this process produces the same amount of fuel for $30 a barrel. That’s right, you can start imagining paying one third as much for gasoline at the pump.

And since their process uses carbon dioxide as their main input, it is pretty much carbon neutral. And it doesn’t require massive amounts of land, as growing corn for biofuels does.

A reasonable question might be: is this for real? Well, the co-founder of Joule is George Church, the Harvard Medical School geneticist who helped initiate the Human Genome Project in 1984. And sitting on their board of directors is John Podesta, the president of the Center for American Progress, former White House Chief of Staff for Bill Clinton and a former principal on the National Security Council. Podesta also served on Obama’s transition team and many other political positions; many of which were technology related. Senator John Kerry toured their facility in October, and called the technology “a potential game-changer”. And in December, the World Technology Network named Joule the world’s top company in bio-energy research.

Ironically, the company doesn’t qualify for alternative energy grants or subsidies because its technology is so advanced that it doesn’t meet the definition for biofuels, which require some kind of agricultural raw material.

But what I find even more ironic is that this “potentially game changing” US company is receiving very little media attention in the US. I found out about it from an article in a British newspaper. Is there some reason why this isn’t getting more attention from the US corporate-owned media?

UPDATE: More good news to go along with cheaper fuels — a more efficient engine that lowers pollution.

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Ersatzomine: Republican Health Care Placebo

[from Fred Wickham’s Bullseye Rooster]

The new Republican congress has unveiled its alternative Health Care Plan. Ersatzomine™, a new, fast-acting placebo from Pfizer. While ObamaCare has resolutley ignored free-market solutions to the nation’s health problems, Pfizer buckled down to the challenge: produce an alternative to government mandated procedures in an attractive pill form.

“For less than $750 a month, a family of four can bypass the bureaucratic U.S. economy-destroying process of hospital visits altogether,” announced Speaker of the House, John Boehner. “I have kept in close touch with the Pfizer team at their Research Center. They have devoted months and months of intense trial and error with various inactive sugars and the result is a drug that will finally meet the exacting terms of the Hippocratic Oath: First, do no harm.”

Pfizer spokesman, Dr Web Temeril says, “the amazing thing about our ‘pretty pink pill’ is that it acts as fast as you think it does. Even, in some cases, as fast as you want it to. We’re certain that seniors, and others who can’t wait forever for results, will take to it like a fly takes to brown sugar.” Questioned about the unusual ‘fly takes to brown sugar’ simile, Dr. Temeril said, “We are presently using ‘like a duck takes to water’ to promote other products and don’t wish to weaken the slogan’s franchise.

Already, illegal drug firms are manufacturing fake Ersatzomine by putting ordinary C&H sugar in gelatin capsules. But FDA Director, Dr. Felix Frueh, cautions, “While cane sugar may be an effective placebo in the short term, it has not had the benefit of rigorous testing in the Pfizer labs.”Thanks to the ready supply of raw sugar Ersatzomine promises to be a shot in the arm for Pfizer shareholders. “But we have to remember,” says Dr. Temeril, “that it’s a turbulent world, and sugar exporting nations are not all friends of the U.S.”

Boehner says no tax money will be spent to promote the plan. Instead, Pfizer will promote it on TV, magazine ads, bus posters, internet ads, radio commercials, and door-hangers using funds procured from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and their business allies throughout the world.

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US – China Relations

Funny video (if you don’t take it too seriously) about Chinese President Hu Jintao visiting DC:

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Republican Doublespeak

Republicans who are gearing up to repeal the health care reform bill are trying to make the case that health care reform is bad for jobs. They even named the repeal bill the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act”. Now they are claiming that 650,000 jobs will be lost as a result of HCR, based on an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.

But the actual estimate by the CBO is that a small number of people — around half a percent — will choose to leave their jobs voluntarily. As economist Paul Fronstin put it “People voluntarily working less isn’t the same as employers cutting jobs”. Or economist Paul Van de Water, who says “The number doesn’t mean what they say it means”.

These are people who are stuck in a job they don’t want but stay there because they need health insurance. I personally know a couple of people in that position — they hate their current job but can’t leave because they would lose their health insurance. Some of these people are close to retirement age, but are waiting until they become eligible for Medicare. Some are younger and want to start a company, but can’t because they need health insurance.

So the Republicans take this report and twist it around 180 degrees and call it “jobs lost”, but in reality it should more accurately be called jobs gained! After all, if someone voluntarily gives up their job, that obviously means there is likely a job opening for someone else. And not only that, but the company that trades a worker who hates their job but stays there for the health insurance for someone who actually wants the job probably gains a more productive worker. It’s a win-win!

Not to mention those people who will be able to leave their current jobs to start new companies. Think of how many new jobs that will create.

Of course, the only job loss that these politicians care about is losing their own jobs. But in their world, black is white, and jobs gained is jobs lost. And some people will believe them.

UPDATE: Good news. Republican and former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says that Republicans should drop their efforts to repeal the current HCR bill and instead build on the current legislation:

It is the law of the land and it is the platform, the fundamental platform, upon which all future efforts to make that system better, for that patient, for that family, will be based. And that is a fact. I know the discussion of Washington is repeal and I’m sure we will come back to that discussion … [The bill] has many strong elements. And those elements, whatever happens, need to be preserved, need to be cuddled, need to be snuggled, need to be promoted and need to be implemented.

Frist also said the current bill was “beautiful on paper” and that Republicans should “love” the fact it adopts a “federalism” approach to health care. Note that Frist made his fortune from the family-founded for-profit hospital chain Hospital Corporation of America.

UPDATE 2: As usual, let’s give Jon Stewart the (hilarious) last word on this:

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The Real Tragedy


© Rob Rogers

I love how some people want to blame the Tucson shootings on a random nut job, but then fail to mention how we have dramatically cut funding our mental health system, which dumped all those random nut jobs out on the streets.

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Eisenhower’s Warning

Fifty years ago, Dwight D Eisenhower warned America about the growing power of “the military-industrial complex”. His words were unfortunately prophetic:

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well.

But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government.

We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.

Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

UPDATE: Read this article in the New Yorker about new information recently uncovered about this important speech.

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McCain still has the ability to surprise me

John McCain wrote an editorial in the Washington Post praising Obama, even calling him a patriot. He also — without mentioning her by name — defended Sarah Palin, doing a better job than Palin when she attempted to defend herself.

If this is the beginning of a new political civility, then it is a damn good start.

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Only Fox News would celebrate MLK day this way

Fox News celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. day in its own unique and ironic way. The article “Ronald Reagan – More of a Friend to Blacks than Obama?” by Michael Reagan (president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation), claims that Ronald Reagan did more for blacks than Barack Obama. But the article does it using crude sniping, especially its conclusion:

Today, as our nation honor’s [sic] Dr. King, less than a month before the hundredth birthday of Ronald Reagan, it’s fitting to note that Ronald Reagan did more to improve the lives of African-Americans than any other president since Abraham Lincoln. Unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that America’s first black president has made life worse for us all—and especially for black Americans. History does not judge presidents by the color of their skin, but by the content of their policies.

So are we to forget about the Ronald Reagan who aligned himself with the apartheid government of South Africa? Or the Reagan administration which famously classified ketchup as a vegetable so they could cut funding for low-income school lunches? Or the Reagan who opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (calling it “bad legislation”), and fought to restore federal tax exemptions to schools like Bob Jones University who discriminated against blacks? The Reagan who pandered for racist votes? My family was personally affected, when as governor of California he cut funding for the Head Start school that my mother ran, which studies had shown actually saved the state money by keeping disadvantaged kids in school.

So how does Michael Reagan support his argument that his father was a friend to blacks? Yup, you guessed it, using stories that show that some of his father’s best friends were blacks. sigh

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What happens when your 15 minutes of fame is overdue


© Tom Toles

UPDATE: Even the media is getting tired of Sarah Palin. As brilliantly reported by Stephen Colbert:

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Theories of International Politics and Zombies

I kid you not. This is an actual book title by political scientist Daniel Drezner, which you can buy on Amazon:

What would happen to international politics if the dead rose from the grave and started to eat the living? Daniel Drezner’s groundbreaking book answers the question that other international relations scholars have been too scared to ask. Addressing timely issues with analytical bite, Drezner looks at how well-known theories from international relations might be applied to a war with zombies. Exploring the plots of popular zombie films, songs, and books, Theories of International Relations and Zombies predicts realistic scenarios for the political stage in the face of a zombie threat and considers how valid–or how rotten–such scenarios might be.

Drezner boldly lurches into the breach and “stress tests” the ways that different approaches to world politics would explain policy responses to the living dead. He examines the most prominent international relations theories–including realism, liberalism, constructivism, neoconservatism, and bureaucratic politics–and decomposes their predictions. He digs into prominent zombie films and novels, such as Night of the Living Dead and World War Z, to see where essential theories hold up and where they would stumble and fall. Drezner argues that by thinking about outside-of-the-box threats we get a cognitive grip on what former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously referred to as the “unknown unknowns” in international security.

Correcting the zombie gap in international relations thinking and addressing the genuine but publicly unacknowledged fear of the dead rising from the grave, Theories of International Relations and Zombies presents political tactics and strategies accessible enough for any zombie to digest.

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New Palin Map


© Mike Luckovich

Palin has played the victim card too many times.

And if her response to the Tucson shootings wasn’t tone deaf enough, her next public appearance is at a gun and hunting convention in Nevada.

UPDATE: I guess she just can’t stop herself. Jon Stewart points out the obvious, but does it hilariously:

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Late Night Political Humor

“Sarah Palin’s reality show will not be returning as she contemplates a possible run for president in 2012. When a candidate walks away from a reality show, that’s when you know they’re serious about being president of the United States.” – Jay Leno

“Sad news. It looks like ‘Sarah Palin’s Alaska’ won’t be back for a second year. How does that make her feel? She was governor, almost vice president. She gets one year. Snooki’s on her third year.” – Jay Leno

“Sarah Palin should pick The Situation from ‘Jersey Shore’ as her vice president. That way, we can get rid of two reality shows at once.” – Jay Leno

“Wikipedia is 10 years old this week. Well, I read that on Wikipedia, so it’s probably not true.” – Craig Ferguson

“The two biggest websites right now are Wikipedia, where you go to learn about things you care about, and Facebook, where you go to learn about people you stopped caring about years ago.” – Craig Ferguson

“Due to the recession there are now 15,000 less lawyers. Nobody ever talks about the good things that happen because of the recession.” – Jay Leno

“Police are looking for a man in Phoenix who robbed a bank and told the teller he wanted the money in twenties, forties and sixties. Authorities believe he could be one of President Obama’s economic advisers.” – Jay Leno

“The blizzard was three hours of howling wind — kind of like Rush Limbaugh’s radio show.” – Conan O’Brien

“Chinese President Hu Jintao will be at the White House next week. The good news is, he has no plans to foreclose. We can stay another month.” – Jay Leno

“Former U.S. House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, has been sentenced to three years in prison. One year for money laundering and two more for his performance on ‘Dancing with the Stars.'” – Jay Leno

“Arnold Schwarzenegger is going on a speech-doing tour, and they’re charging $400 for tickets. Imagine how much he would get if he could actually speak. He’s the Tour-minator. The tour will end in I’ll-Be-Back-remento.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“San Francisco celebrated the opening of the nation’s first gay history museum. The museum is called ‘San Francisco.'” – Conan O’Brien

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People in glass houses shouldn’t condemn WikiLeaks when they supported the IRA

Congressman Peter King (R-NY) is calling for it to be made illegal for Americans to support WikiLeaks, by adding them to the Treasury Department’s “economic blacklist”. This would put WikiLeaks on the same list as terrorist groups and international drug dealers. And indeed, King has publicly likened WikiLeaks to a military act of aggression.

I guess he is entitled to his own opinion, except that Congressman King was himself a longtime supporter and fundraiser for terrorists!

In the 1980s, King frequently traveled to Northern Ireland to meet with IRA members. In 1982, speaking at a pro-IRA rally in Nassau County, New York, King said: “We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry.” He called the IRA “the legitimate voice of occupied Ireland.” A Northern Irish judge ordered King ejected from the former’s courtroom, describing him as “an obvious collaborator with the IRA”. He became involved with NORAID, an organization that the British, Irish and US governments accuse of financing IRA activities and providing them with weapons. He was banned from appearing on British TV for his pro IRA views and refusing to condemn IRA activity in the UK.

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Muslims and the Christmas Spirit

Amazing news from Egypt:

Muslims showed up at Christmas Eve mass services in churches around Egypt and at candle light vigils held outside, offering their bodies and lives as “shields” to Egypt’s threatened Christian community. Among those shields were beloved comedian Adel Imam and movie star Yousra, popular Muslim televangelist and preacher Amr Khaled, the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak, and thousands of citizens who have said they consider the attack one on Egypt as a whole.

The Coptic church celebrates Christmas on January 7, but Christmas almost didn’t happen after a New Year’s eve bombing attack at Saints Church in Alexandria by terrorists which killed 21 people. According to one Muslim student “This is not about us and them. We are one. This was an attack on Egypt as a whole, and I am standing with the Copts because the only way things will change in this country is if we come together.”

The Bishop of Alexandria said that Muslims attending the funeral of the Christian victims of the bombing had treated them like Muslim martyrs and had erupted in applause at the condemnation of the terrorists.

Millions of Egyptians changed their Facebook profile pictures to the image of a cross within a crescent – the symbol of an “Egypt for All”. Around the city, banners went up calling for unity, and depicting mosques and churches, crosses and crescents, together as one.

I can’t help but compare this to our response to the recent terrorist attack in Arizona.

[Hat tip to Juan Cole.]

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Equivalence

It probably isn’t this bad, but I did get a good laugh out of this:


© August J Pollak

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