Geo-Green Party

Just in case people miss the most important part of Fridman's recent article:

Democrats should have taken the lead on this issue (energy conservation and renewable energy sources) a long time ago

If the Democrats shirk this energy challenge, as the Republicans have, I'm certain there is going to be a third party in the 2008 election. It is going to be called the Geo-Green Party, and it is going to win a lot of centrist voters. The next Ross Perot will be green. ( I guarantee, I'll be standing with them!)

Death Toll in Iraq

The Department of Defense has identified 2, 389 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war.

I have been ambivalent about the war in Iraq.

Yesterday 30,000 people marched against the war in New York.

I wonder how many Iraq people have died because of our war against Salaam Husain.

I am reading the book by Kevin Phillips, a conservative advisor to past Republican presidents. He sheds light on the history of our oil dependence in this country. There is no way this recent war in Iraq was NOT about oil, according to Kevin Phillips. He also explains that there is an unholy alliance between the "Rapture Christians," the Republicans, the Security Industrial Complex, and the Energy.

None of the current trials and tribulations matter because it is all part of the end time prophecies. Just a sign that Jesus is coming back. No need to worry, it's all part of God's divine plan. This is what the gullible Christian conservatives think and the Republican leadership snicker behind their back; laughing all the way to the bank. The Rapture loo-loo's eat this ideology up, sell their souls to the devil, while the rich and mighty steal their money through "fear and faith".

Jesus said “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar and to God the things that are God’s. It’s sad but the reason we are in this mess is because these good people thought they were obeying God by not being worldly. Our civic duty is what we are supposed to render to Caesar. We are supposed to stay informed not stick our heads in the sand. These poor gullible Christians have believed a lie and are now responsible for the death of so many lives.

Do you think that God will say on judgment day that ignorance of our sins is acceptable excuse?

Fitzgerald to Seek Indictment of Rove

Fitzgerald to Seek Indictment of Rove: " Despite vehement denials by his attorney, who said this week that Karl Rove is neither a 'target' nor in danger of being indicted in the CIA leak case, the special counsel leading the investigation has already written up charges against Rove, and a grand jury is expected to vote on whether to indict the Deputy White House Chief of Staff sometime next week, sources knowledgeable about the probe said Friday afternoon. "

Climate Deterioration

What "should" Democrats stand for and if they don't what will the Geo Green Party stand for?

1. Ask cities to join the "Climate Protection Agreement."
2. Ask cities to purchase Green Vehicels
3. Modernize city buildings and make all new buildings Green Buildings that meet LEED standards.
4. Invest in clean and safe renewable energy.

Green Vehicle Solutions

One thing every county could be doing in Florida is purchasing "Green Vehicles" for their fleets!

The Free Press -- Independent News Media - Election Issues

The Free Press -- Independent News Media - Election Issues: "Powerful Government Accountability Office report confirms key 2004 stolen election findings"

GAO's Election report on electronic voting machines

The GAO has found evidence that may support the claims that the electronic voting machines may have been tampered with in the 2004 election.

The Problem with Diebold Voting Machines

There is no paper trail. There is no way to verify that the vote totals has not be tampered with. There needs to be a paper trail, just like when you use an ATM machine. If the bank makes an error, you have your recipt to prove your transaction.

Gas Geopolitics by Thomas Friedman

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
In recent days critics have accused President Bush and his new chief of staff of doing nothing more than shuffling around the deck chairs on the Titanic, as they shift, hire and fire senior White House officials while the president's popularity continues to plummet. Personally, I think that is a totally unfair charge — unfair to the captain of the Titanic.

After all, he knew where he was going. His lookouts just couldn't see the iceberg spar lurking beneath the surface in their path until it was too late. This administration, and its captain, have been staring the iceberg right in the face for years — it's called dependence on foreign crude oil. It has been totally visible, for miles and miles. And yet the Bush team has just kept sailing right into it, refusing to ask the American people to do anything hard to put America on a different energy course.

What is this iceberg staring us in the face? It is the fact that energy, broadly defined, has become the most important geostrategic and geoeconomic challenge of our time — much as the Soviet Union was during the cold war — for four reasons:
First, we are financing both sides in the war on terrorism: financing the U.S. military with our tax dollars, and Islamist radicals and states with our energy purchases.

Second, continued dependence on fossil fuels is going to bring on climate change so much faster in an age when millions of new consumers in India and China are driving cars and buying homes. And that's why renewable fuels and energy-efficient cars, buildings and appliances are going to be the biggest growth industry of the 21st century. The tougher the energy-efficiency standards we impose on our own companies, the more likely it is that they will dominate this new industry.
Third, because of the steady climb in oil prices, the seemingly unstoppable wave of free markets and free peoples that we thought was unleashed by the fall of the Berlin Wall is now being stymied by a counterwave of petro-authoritarian states — like Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Nigeria and Sudan — which now have more petro-dollars than ever to do the worst things for the longest time. They will poison the post-cold-war world unless we bring down the price of crude.
Fourth, we will never plant the seeds of democracy in Iraq and the wider Arab world if we don't also bring down the price of oil. These Arab oil regimes will not change unless they have to, and as long as oil prices are soaring they won't have to. Iraq will become just another Arab state that taps oil wells instead of developing its people.

The beginning of leadership for the president is to tell the American people the truth: This is not your parents' energy crisis. The price of oil is not soaring just because of greedy oil companies. It is soaring because of structural changes in the global energy market that could have vast consequences for America and the world if we do not respond in a comprehensive manner.

Toward that end, we need a tax on gasoline at the pump that will keep prices around $4 a gallon (still roughly $1 less than most Europeans pay), or we need a tax on vehicles that will make gas guzzlers prohibitively costly and hybrids and smaller cars enormously attractive. The sooner and the more we take the price of gasoline up — and keep it there — the sooner we can bring it down forever. If we want to make wind, solar and biomass more competitive, gasoline has to cost more, not less.

The president can start by pushing the bipartisan Fuel Choices for American Security Act, now wending its way through Congress. This bill would mandate that every car sold in America would not just have seat belts, but would also be flex-fuel capable so it could run on ethanol, methanol or gasoline. It would also pave the way for the rapid commercialization of plug-in hybrid vehicles, which would combine electricity and gasoline to get 100 miles out of every gallon of gasoline consumed.

Finally, the bill would offer Detroit loan guarantees for transforming its fleets in this direction. "We're going to have to bail out Detroit anyway, so let's at least get some public benefit," the energy expert Anne Korin said.

Yes, the president has wasted so much time, but if he finally rises to this challenge, Democrats — who should have taken the lead on this issue a long time ago — have got to work with him. If the Democrats shirk this energy challenge, as the Republicans have, I'm certain there is going to be a third party in the 2008 election. It is going to be called the Geo-Green Party, and it is going to win a lot of centrist voters. The next Ross Perot will be green.

Fur Is Dead: Learn what happens on fur farms and in the wild

Did you know millions of cats and dogs are killed for their fur? Many of then were companion animals. There are no regulations governing the China fur industry. Check out the video "Dog and Cat Fur Trade" PLEASE, DO NOT WEAR FUR!

A New Bike Liscense Tag for Florida

Experts say Global warming is behind 2005 hurricanes

"TIME magazine in a recent cover story on global warming got even more to the point: 'Be Worried. Be Very Worried."

Gas Prices

Good guys / bad guys

50 miles a gallon / 5 miles a gallon

.... who is partiotic

I'm The Decider

Oh do we love to HATE BUSH!
Click to hear: I'm The Decider

MSNBC Picture of the week

Here is a picture from the April 13-20 MSNBC Picture of the week. Don't know if Rob Ostermaier is the photographer or the editor. What do you see when you look at this picture? I see a couple that has been poor most of their life and now life has handed them yet another blow. They have probably lost everything they own, which was very little to begin with.... When you are old and you can not start over, what do you do? Don't you feel horrible for these people? I wish I could find them and help them somehow. I wrote MSNBC and asked them if they would help me find them, but I doubt I'll ever hear back. People in other countries think that Americans are selfish, greedy and don't care. We do, we just don't know how to help. When we give money for disasters, we find out half of the money is given to crooks. You would think you could trust the Red Cross. But now we find out that they have been mismanaged as well. Wasn't Bob Dole's wife (a Republican) the head of the Red Cross before she went to Congress? Seems like the Republicans leave a trail of corruption behind them wherever they go. We don't know who to trust anymore even for charitable causes.

What is an "UNCONFERENCE"?

This is one idea you won't want to miss, because it is too valueable and important to not pass on to others. Enjoy.

Blog Tools: ProBlogger Blog Tips

Blog Tools: ProBlogger Blog Tips
You will find a great list of blogging tools at this website. So much to learn, so little time!

Maybe Iran is telling the truth and we aren't listening

Iran says they are developing nuclear energy. The Bush administration says they are developing nuclear weapons.

I think that the Iranian leadership knows they are running out of oil and they aren't telling anyone. They know that the oil supply has peaked or is about to peak and what that will mean to Western civilization. I think they are preparing for an oil-depleted future and developing nuclear technology for energy, not war. Our government is too myopic to even consider this as a possibility. They are focused on turning the Middle East into a gas station so we can continue (for the short run) living in denial. We are living off of inventory and it is becoming harder and harder to replace the depleted world supplies. Our government has no plan for the future. Iran does.

Demand for oil is growing and I believe Iran knows the Middle East has less oil than everyone thinks. I think they know there is a limited amount of time to prepare for a tight world oil market. Maybe, Mr. President, Iran is telling the truth. Maybe they are developing nuclear energy, not nuclear weapons.

The fact that a major oil producing country is turning to nuclear energy should be a wake up call for Americans and should make us sit up and take notice. But not us. All we want to do is go and bomb them and complain about how much the price of oil is at the pump. Anyone else see a problem here?

Bush and Hu Discuss Intellectual Property

According to the Washington Post, President Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao (speaking through a translator) disscussed several topics inclusing intellectual property: According to the Washington Post Hu said: "We understand the American concerns over the trade imbalances, the protection of intellectual property rights and market access. We have taken measures and will continue to take steps to properly resolve the issues."

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the idea of any kind of property fly in the face of Commune-ism?

Would someone please remind our leaders who are annoyed with the Chinese for not respecting property rights that the Chinese are COMMUNE-ISTS....

MAYBE THIS IS AN OVER SIMPLIFICATION BUT I THOUGHT THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF COMMUNISM NEGATED THE IDEA OF PERSONAL PROPERTY RIGHTS. THE IDEA OF THE COLD WAR TO STOP THE SPREAD OF COMMUNISTS; WASN'T IT REALLY A BATTLE ABOUT WHO OWNS WHAT, THE GOVERNMENT OR INDIVIDUALS.

The Chinese don't respect intellectual property rights. Why should that suprise anyone? THEY'RE COMMUNISTS!

Rolling Stone : The Worst President in History?

Rolling Stone : The Worst President in History?:

"ILLUSTRATION BY ROBERT GROSSMAN"

This says it all, doesn't it?

O'Reilly Radar > Web 2.0 as Rainforest

"'The difference between this Web 2.0 model and the previous one is directly equivalent to the difference between a rain forest and a desert."

This is a great anaolgy that describes why the Web 2.0 movement is so important for democracy.

What Podcasting is all about

Here is a good workshop on podcating.

Forget Computers. Here Comes the Sun. - New York Times

Forget Computers. Here Comes the Sun. - New York Times

More hope for alternative energy advocates.

Wal-mart moves toward the Energy Green Zone

There are a lot of reason's to NOT like Wal-Mart. But the environmental community is taking notice of Wal-mart's CEO, Lee Scott recently. Wal-mart is a giant with tremendous leverage in the market place and Lee Scott wants to move Wal-mart into the energy green zone.

In October, Scott announced a preposterously ambitious goal to transform Wal-Mart into a company that runs on 100 percent renewable energy and produces zero waste. Since then, he has impressed greens with specific commitments to cut the corporation's greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 percent over the next seven years, double the fuel efficiency of its truck fleet within 10 years, reduce solid waste from U.S. stores by 25 percent in the next three years, and double offerings of organic foods this spring, selling them at prices more affordable to the masses.

This will really help our planet. This is something to be excited about!

Jackson Brown: Lives in the Balance

I was listening to a recent CD by Jackson Brown. On it is a song he wrote years ago about the Viet Nam war. His words were prophetic:

LIVES IN THE BALANCE

I've been waiting for something to happen

For a week or a month or a year

With the blood in the ink of the headlines

And the sound of the crowd in my ear

You might ask what it takes to remember

When you know that you've seen it before

Where a government lies to a people

And a country is drifting to war

And there's a shadow on the faces

Of the men who send the guns

To the wars that are fought in places

Where their business interest runs

On the radio talk shows and the T.V.

You hear one thing again and again

How the U.S.A. stands for freedom

And we come to the aid of a friend

But who are the ones that we call our friends--

These governments killing their own?

Or the people who finally can't take any more

And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone

There are lives in the balance

There are people under fire

There are children at the cannons

And there is blood on the wire

There's a shadow on the faces

Of the men who fan the flames

Of the wars that are fought in places

Where we can't even say the names

They sell us the President the same way

They sell us our clothes and our cars

They sell us every thing from youth to religion

The same time they sell us our wars

I want to know who the men in the shadows are

I want to hear somebody asking them why

They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are

But they're never the ones to fight or to die

And there are lives in the balance

There are people under fire

There are children at the cannons

And there is blood on the wire

(c) 1986 SWALLOW TURN MUSIC, ASCAP

Taking time out

So I have been taking time out to read blogs instead of writing. Some really interesting stuff in blogsphere. Anyway, I'll probably burn in hell for posting this, but this was too funny. I'm sure Jesus would even laugh.

Jesus, I will survive.

Obama: Dems Should Stress Oil Independence

Democrats should stress energy independence, education improvement and science investment in the 2008 presidential campaign, Sen. Barack Obama said Monday.

Family Watchdog

This is a little off topic for me, but a good thing to know about if you have small children. This is a way to find out if anyone in your neighborhood is a sexual offender.

George Bush and renewable energy

Well I'm a believer in giving credit where credit is due. I have to admit that I am a "renewable news junkie" I read/scan any good news I can find on the development of renewable energy as an alternative to fossil fuels. I came across something I didn't know about our president, George Bush.

Today I was reading a summary by The Australian Wind Energy Association. According to this report, Texas, under then governor, George Bush, adopted one of the most progressive RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standards) in the country. They were leaders in creating "feed-in" tariffs that allowed producers of wind energy to connect to the grid and make it profitable to generate electricity.

That is one of those little known facts about Texas and our president...