No Impact Man Slips A Little But That Is To Be Expected – It’s like losing weight

Posted on October 20, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

I know at first this story won’t seem to have much to do with the post that follows, but I wanted to lose weight one day. I did not need to. I am 6’3″ and 180 pounds. (blush on my drivers license it says 165) So I cut back on ye old intake. All I really wanted to do was drop 5 lbs. to 175 because my pants were getting a little tight in the waste (sorry waist). In a couple of weeks I got down to 176 lbs. I got distracted. An environmental issue got hot and I just lost track. When I got back to thinking about how much I weighed, I got on the scales and I weighed 180.5 lbs. In a week even though I cut down some I was at 182! In was then that I became very aware of the theory of “set points” and what happens when you disturb them…

Anyway you must remember the No Impact Guy…I did a post on him last year:

http://noimpactman.typepad.com/

Join No Impact Week video discussions here!

Graham Hill, founder of Treehugger.com, is participating in No Impact week, starting October 18, and he wrote on the Huffington Post:

Instead of edicts – depriving you of your car or forbidding drinking your latte from a paper cup – the No-Impact week brought to you by Colin Beavan and Huff Po is instead the opportunity to try out lifestyle strategies that just may be more fun than you thought.

With the shape of the earth and our complex society, we need lots of people coming up with lots of approaches.

I look at No-Impact week as carbon-cleansing experiment in which I get to see which of my lifestyle choices actually contribute to my happiness.

He’s right of course! So join in!

Meanwhile, we’ll be having online video conversations every night of the week starting on Sunday at 5 PM EST, so tune in below. Sunday’s chat will be with Wood Turner of Climate’s Count on the topic of consumption and Monday’s (at 9PM EST) will be with Bill McKibben of 350 and Betsy Taylor of 1Sky on the topic of trash.

Hope to see you there.

He had his own blog and organization that the Huffington Post helped start:

What is No Impact Project?

The No Impact Project is an international, environmental, nonprofit project, founded in the spring of 2009. It was inspired by the No Impact Man book, film, and blog.

Mission

To empower citizens to make choices which better their lives and lower their environmental impact through lifestyle change, community action, and participation in environmental politics.

The No Impact Project was conceived by Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, following the success of his blog, book, and film, which chronicle his family’s year-long experiment living a zero-waste lifestyle in New York City. Central to his thesis is the notion that deep-seated individual behavior change leads to both cultural change and political engagement. Living low-impact provides a clear entry point into the environmental movement. This thesis is the bedrock of the No Impact Project.

Goals

Promote behavioral change
Enable the public to experience their own No Impact Experiment
Engage people who are not already tree-hugging, bicycle-riding, canvas-bag-toting, eco-warriors

He Got a documentary out of it

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1280011/

No Impact Man: The Documentary

MOVIEmeter:

Down 23% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.

Directors:

Laura Gabbert
Justin Schein

Contact:

View company contact information for No Impact Man: The Documentary on IMDbPro.

Genre:

Documentary

Tagline:

Saving the world, one family at a time.

Plot:

Follow the Manhattan-based Beavan family as they abandon their high consumption 5th Avenue lifestyle and try to live a year while making no net environmental impact. | add synopsis

NewsDesk:

Oscilloscope Laboratories plans on Making an ‘Impact’
:}

Then a book.. or was it the book then the documentary?

http://festival.sundance.org/2009/film_events/films/no_impact_man

NO IMPACT MAN

Then Colin turns things upside down. For his next book, he announces he’s becoming No Impact Man, testing whether making zero environmental impact adversely affects happiness. The hitch is he needs his wife, Michelle—an espresso-guzzling, Prada-worshipping Business Week writer—and their toddler to join the experiment.A year without electricity, cars, toilet paper, and nonlocal food isn’t going to be a walk in the park

Then he got phat:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33357744/ns/us_news-environment/

After year without, family finds middle ground

No TV? Toilet paper? Perceived sacrifices end up being nothing of the sort

Letting go
When the year was over, Conlin and Beavan didn’t want to set any more rules for themselves. After all the restrictions, they wanted to finally let it all go and see what felt right.

Mostly, they stuck to buying their food at the farmer’s market. But if they were short on groceries after a late night at work, they would stop at the supermarket — despite the packaging on the food on the shelves, despite the distance it had traveled.

While the amount of garbage they produced increased from a single quart every four days to five gallons, this was a far cry from the 90 gallons they produced before the experiment. Their refrigerator is back on, but their freezer is gone.

They started buying olive oil and some seasonings, even though they’re not made nearby. They began saying yes when friends invited them out to dinner. And they started using toilet paper again — but now it was made from recycled paper.

Neither of them wanted to bring back their giant, 46-inch TV. But once a week or so, if they’re in the mood, they’ll watch a drama on a laptop.

It was an obvious choice to keep the rickshaw bikes they’d come to love — three-wheelers with space for groceries and a seat for Isabella. But now, when it rains, they sometimes take the subway.

The air conditioners once seemed like a necessity. But take them away, and the heat and the lack of electronic entertainment drove the family outside, where they spent most evenings at the fountain at Washington Square Park. They cooled off in the mist of the fountain, looked around at the virtual circus of performers who have made the public plaza their stage. They talked with neighbors.

No longer hunkered down in their family’s lonely bubble, they were out in the city. They loved

So there are HUGE journalist temptations here. MSNBC take the “regaining there balance” approach like they were some extremists and now they have come more to the middle of the road. There are other approaches…like to “laugh and say they were destined to fail”. Or like they do with Ed Begley jr. and twitter like his wife, “isn’t he just the oddest sort”

But fresh off my bout with weight loss I say “way to go” on a tough test, and congratulations on not rebounding too far.

This Just IN – A LEED Certified Builder in Florida..

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

Wow in the land of the badly built house there comes a bright spot. I mean really. Think about it. Every house in Florida should be hurricane impervious, and many parts of Florida should be off limits to human habitat. But they have a saving grace.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

U.S. Green Building

Council Names Florida’s

First Private-Sector LEED

Homes Provider

BONITA SPRINGS, Fla. (Oct. 14) – E3 Building Sciences has

become the first private-sector LEED Homes Provider in

Florida.

A LEED Homes Provider is responsible for overseeing the

certification of a LEED for Homes project. They act as the

liaison between the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC)

and the Green Raters gathering the LEED documentation,

which is necessary to verify the green attributes of both

single-family and multi-family residential dwellings. The

USGBC developed the family of LEED Green Building

Rating Systems, which are the leading national benchmarks

for measuring and certifying the sustainable attributes of

residential and commercial properties.

“We see our partnership with the USGBC as a LEED Homes

Provider to be a continuation of our commitment to bring

high performance buildings into the mainstream that are

economically, socially and ecologically sustainable,” said

Ben Millar, Director of Business Development.

Since E3 Building Sciences was founded in 2002, it has

specialized in the design, engineering, and third-party

verification of more than 3,500 energy-efficient buildings

for the residential and commercial sectors within the

U.S. Southeast, Gulf States, and the Caribbean. It is

the leading certifier of Energy Star homes in the State

of Florida. Such efforts have resulted in projects with

better indoor air quality, a reduced impact on the

overall environment, greater durability and sustainability,

and significant energy and operating cost savings to

building owners.

E3 Building Sciences is one of 36 LEED Homes Providers

nationwide. The Florida Solar Energy Center was

designated the first academic-sector LEED Homes

Provider in Florida.

### ###

E3 Building Sciences Contact:Ben Millar, Director of Business Development

E3 Building Sciences

3690 Via Del Rey

Bonita Springs, FL 34134-7592

Ben@E3BuildingSciences.com

Office: 239-949-2405

www.E3GreenBuilding.com

Media Contact:

Paul Nutcher

Green Apple Group

4775 N. Seminole Avenue, Ste. B

Winter Park, FL 32792

Cell: 407-579-8683

pnutcher@greenappleconsult.com

:}
Oh if you’re ever in China and you need a wind turbine…these people asked for a plug so here it is:

Best regards

Yours

Nina

Baotou Changan Magnetoelectric Machine Co., Ltd

Contact:

South Fuqiang Road NO.169,Rare Earth High–New District,Baotou,Inner Mongolia,P.R.China

Website: www.btycdj.com (This is Chinese web and our English web is establishing now)

E-mail: qingmuyue@gmail.com

Tel: 86-472-5329936

Fax: 86-472-5329927

MSN:qingmuyue@hotmail.com

Skype:caoyuannina

Peak Oil To The Oil And Gas Crowd Is Like Turds In The Punch Bowl

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

Yup, they don’t like it much:

http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20091014/OPINION/910139986/1021/NONE&parentprofile=1062

The fallacy of peak oil

By Kelly Sloan
THE RIGHT WORD

The onset of this week in Denver has been witness to a conference hosted by the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, a collection of hand-wringers, theorists, and computer-modelers (co-founded, incidentally, by none other than Randy Udall, brother of U.S. Senator Mark Udall), who subscribe to the proposition that the world has reached, or will soon reach, the point of maximum oil production. This historic juncture, the theory asserts, will serve to signal the beginning of the end of the fossil-fueled society, as worldwide demand transcends supply, resulting in a steady, irreversible decline in oil production, terminating at the moment when the very last thimbleful of crude is cajoled out of the ground.

Like virtually all successful fallacies, this one incorporates a large measure of truth; as a finite commodity, the world oil supply will, eventually, be exhausted. Insofar as this is the case, the theory is valid — all other factors remaining fixed, there WILL come a point in time where demand outstrips supply, and production thereby enters a terminal decline phase. The question, of course, is WHEN this will occur.

The most strident peak-oilers postulate that the date is imminent; indeed, many say it has already come and gone. The problem with their reasoning is best illustrated through an example from economic history.

In 1803, Thomas Robert Malthus presented the second edition of his “Essay on the Principle of Population.” In it, he laid out his theory that the rate of population growth would outpace the rate of increase in the food supply. He predicted that famine would ravage the earth in short order.

What Malthus forgot to consider was the role of technological advances in the food production industry. The Agricultural revolution spurred by improved tools, seeds and techniques, enabled many more people to be fed by the labor of many fewer people (and on less acreage).

In a similar vein, the proponents of peak oil tend to overlook some key factors: advances in drilling, exploration, production, and conveyance of oil and natural gas have served to make available sources which as little as a decade ago were considered unrecoverable, and hence not included on peak prediction spreadsheets. Horizontal and directional drilling capabilities, breakthroughs in well logging and evaluation technologies, and advances in production techniques serve as a few examples of innovations which have increased accessibility to, and improved recovery of, hitherto unobtainable resources.

Also conveniently ignored in the petro-doomsday scenarios, are the roles played by unconventional sources, such as oil sand, oil shale, and tight gas formations. For instance, Canada’s oil sands, which at last count hold more than 170 billion barrels of recoverable oil located in northern Alberta, were thought, 40 years ago, to be too expensive and technologically prohibitive to produce on a widespread, commercial scale. Today, oil sands production, both through mining, and in situ (in place) production, using modern techniques such as Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage, accounts for nearly 10 percent of U.S. oil imports, or half of Canadian oil exports. And conservative estimates place the number of recoverable barrels in our own oil shale at between 500 billion and 1.1 trillion (with a ‘T’). To put that in perspective, consider that the lower number represents roughly triple the proven resources in the Middle East.

I think you get the idea…but apologists for the renewable industry? Wow I never would have guessed that.

This Planet Is About Shot – They argue over climate change cause they do not want you to see the big picture

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

What the Industrialists of the world and their Bankers do not want you to see is that the oceans are depleted, the atmosphere is seriously screwed up (not just with green house gases), and the land has effectively been stripped. Humanity has literally sucked the resources out of this planet, goaded on by religious and political leaders.

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20090824001733data_trunc_sys.shtml

24 September 2009
New doomsday map shows planet’s dire state
by Kate Melville

Human activities have already pushed the Earth beyond three of the planet’s biophysical thresholds, with consequences that are detrimental or even catastrophic for large parts of the world, conclude 29 European, Australian and U.S. scientists in an article in Nature. This force has given rise to a new era – Anthropocene – in which human actions have become the main driver of global environmental change.

“On a finite planet, at some point, we will tip the vital resources we rely upon into irreversible decline if our consumption is not balanced with regenerative and sustainable activity,” says report co-author Sander van der Leeuw, of Arizona State University. The report started with a fairly simple question: How much pressure can the Earth system take before it begins to crash? “Until now, the scientific community has not attempted to determine the limits of the Earth system’s stability in so many dimensions and make a proposal such as this. We are sending these ideas out to be vetted by the scientific community at large,” explains van der Leeuw. Nine boundaries were identified in the report, including climate change, stratospheric ozone, land use change, freshwater use, biological diversity, ocean acidification, nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the biosphere and oceans, aerosol loading and chemical pollution. The study suggests that three of these boundaries -climate change, biological diversity and nitrogen input to the biosphere – may already have been transgressed.

Using an interdisciplinary approach, the researchers looked at the data for each of the nine vital processes in the Earth system and identified a critical control variable. Biodiversity loss, for example, is based on species extinction rate, which is expressed in extinctions per million species per year. They then explored how the boundaries interact. Here, loss of biodiversity impacts carbon storage (climate change), freshwater, nitrogen and phosphorous cycles, and land systems.

The researchers stress that their approach does not offer a complete roadmap for sustainable development, but does provide an important element by identifying critical planetary boundaries. They also propose a bold move: a limit for each boundary that would maintain the conditions for a livable world. For biodiversity, that would be less than 10 extinctions per million species per year. The current status is greater than 100 species per million lost per year, whereas the pre-industrial value was 0.1-1.

“Three of the boundaries we identify – 350 parts per million of atmospheric carbon dioxide, biodiversity extinction rates more than 10 times the background rate, and no more than 35 million tons of nitrogen pollution per year – have already been exceeded with fossil fuel use, land use change, and agricultural pollution, driving us to unsustainable levels that are producing real risks to our survival,” notes report co-author Diana Liverman, of the University of Arizona.

We are in the midst of a very large extinction event that we are essentially causing…

Mass extinctions require 2 events. In other words the Dinosaurs didn’t evolve into birds because of a single event…the comet strike. What happened was they filled every niche, ate themselves out of house and home. Probably started eating themselves, thus the gigantisism movement AND then the comet struck. Humans are heading for the same fate.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/17/mass-extinction-theory.html

Mass Extinctions May Follow One-Two Punch

Michael Reilly, Discovery News

The “Press” | Discovery News Video

Feb. 17, 2009 — As agents of extinction, comet and asteroid impacts may be losing their punch.

According to a new theory about how mass dyings work, cosmic collisions generally aren’t enough to cause a major extinction event. To be truly devastating, they must be accompanied by another event that inflicts long-term suffering, like runaway climate change due to massive volcanic eruptions.

In other words, a comet couldn’t have killed the dinosaurs by itself — unless they were already endangered species.

This kind of one-two punch could explain more than the extinction of dinosaurs, Nan Arens of Hobart and William Smith Colleges said. In a recent paper in the journal Paleobiology, she and colleague Ian West argue that there are two types of events that can cause extinctions — “pulses” (quick, deadly shocks, like comets) and “presses” (drawn-out stresses that push ecosystems to the brink but may not kill outright, like million-year-long volcanic eruptions).

The chances of mass dyings go way up when both happen together, argues Arens.

WATCH VIDEO: What constitutes a mass extinction?

Related Content:

But are all mass extinctions created equal? Can researchers come up with a “Grand Unified Theory” of ancient apocalypse?West and Arens think so. They combed the last 300 million years of geologic record, noting impact craters, massive eruptions, periods of ancient climate change, and then comparing them to extinctions. The rate at which species die off spiked dramatically, they found, when a “pulse”-type event occurred within a million years or so of a “press.”The theory fits well for the dinosaurs. Around the time of their demise 65 million years ago, a comet slammed into the Yucatan Peninsula and a huge volcano, the Deccan Traps, was erupting in what is today India.

But other extinctions are problematic. The greatest dying in geologic history, the Permian-Triassic extinction, killed 90 percent of all life on Earth, but there is no record of an impact. Instead, all signs point to a 200,000-year-long volcanic eruption in Siberia as the murder weapon.

Weatherstripping – Having a leaking house does not make sense

Posted on September 17, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

It is an obvious point…the trouble really is in the temperate zones of the world. In theory where it is really hot most of the time you want either a totally open house or a totally closed house. In a predominately cold climate you definitely want a totally closed house. However where you have nice Springs and Falls humans like to “open up the house and air things out”. Thus weather stripping.

http://home.howstuffworks.com/home-improvement/repair/how-to-apply-weatherstripping.htm

How to Install Weatherstripping

If you had a 6-inch-square hole in the middle of your front door, you would certainly do something in order to plug it up. Yet there are thousands of homes in which a 1/8-inch-wide crack exists all the way around the door, and this gap is just about the equivalent air loss of that 6-inch-square hole. Letting these cracks exist is like throwing dollars out the door or window. Fortunately, weatherstripping can reduce your heating/cooling bills by as much as 30 percent while reducing drafts that can cause discomfort.

Your home may or may not need weatherstripping. Luckily, there are some very simple ways to find out. If you can feel cold air coming in around doors and windows on a windy day, you know the answer. If you are uncertain, you can create your own windstorm at the precise spot where you suspect air might be leaking. Go outside with a handheld hair dryer and have a helper inside move his or her hands around the door and/or window frame as you move the hair dryer.

Learn More

You may discover that all your doors and windows are airtight. Or you may find a door or window that is airtight around three edges but needs help along the fourth edge. What you will probably conclude, however, is that your home has several drafty areas that would benefit from weatherstripping.
In this article, we’ll show you how to install weatherstripping on all parts of your house. We’ll also examine the various types of weatherstripping, which is our first order of business

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherstripping

Weatherstripping

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Weatherstripping is the process of sealing openings such as doors, windows, and trunks from the elements. The goal of weatherstripping is to prevent rain and water from entering by either blocking it outright or by blocking most of it and returning or rerouting it. A secondary goal of weatherstripping is to keep interior air in, thus saving energy with heating and air conditioning.

The materials used in weatherstripping are thresholds, a piece of material, either a sweep or a J-hook, to match the door to the threshold, and the actual weathstripping itself.

Every exterior door, or door to an uninsulated room such as an attic, must be weatherstripped as required by code enforcement in various states of U.S.:}

There is so much of it out there:

http://www.randysurleymfg.com/

Randy Surley Manufacturing Company has a wide variety of commercial and residential weather stripping materials suitable for any circumstance. Our product line consists of perimeter weather stripping for doors and windows such as cushion and spring bronze, kerf, brush, and pile. We also have a wide variety of thresholds including interlocking, saddles, aluminum, and brass. We also carry many different door bottoms, sweeps, and seals. We are continually expanding our product line to meet your needs. Contact us if you do not see what you are looking for.
Manufacturer and supplier of premium weather stripping and door thresholds for interior and exterior applications for both commercial and residential jobs.

http://www.foamtapes.net/?gclid=CKGI456G-ZwCFQMNDQod4Uwqbw

Now You Can Buy Tapes Online From The Industry’s Leading Manufacturers at Competitive Prices!

Choose a category from below, use the toolbar on your left to select by material or go directly to our FAQ’s

	Gasket Tape
	Adhesive-Backed, closed cell foam and sponge tapes designed to prevent the escape of gas or liquid.

	Weatherstripping Tape
	Adhesive-Backed, open or closed cell foam and sponge tapes designed to protect an interior from external extremes in temperature.

	Mounting Tape
	Closed cell foam tapes with adhesive on both sides, designed to bond irregular surfaces together, primarily for mounting lightweight objects to surfaces.

	Glazing Tape
	Specially engineered double-coated mounting tapes designed specifically for mounting glass into window sashes.

	Flashing Tape
	Uncured Butyl Rubber tape designed to provide long-term, watertight window and door installations.

http://www.technologylk.com/products.aspx?category_dept=301&category_ID=1209&source_ID=google&keyword=Door_Weatherstripping&gclid=COGxyMqG-ZwCFSXyDAod0EjKbw
:}

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=howTo&p=Improve/Weatherstripping.html

Weatherstripping Windows and Doors

Skill Level: Beginner

You may not think that those small cracks and crevices around your doors and windows are a very big deal. But, did you know that a 1/8″ space between a standard exterior door and its threshold is equivalent to a two square inch hole in the wall? Closing those gaps can save you up to 15 percent in heating and cooling costs and also can reduce the demand on your heating and cooling system. Best of all, you can probably weatherstrip your entire home in a single day. Lowe’s is happy to provide this information as a service to you.

WHoooof

I March In The Labor Day Parade With IBEW 193 – Labor Unions are 300 years old

Posted on September 7, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

Which makes commercial oil production look like a baby at 150 (please see last weeks Posts).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union

As always it was very very cool, everyone gathered:

And Everyone marched:

Some places were crowded:

Some places weren’t. But it always amazes what things you never notice unless you are actually in the street. Somehow on the sidewalk they just do not stand out.

Then it was over, but we will be back next year:

Oil Celebrates 150 Years Of Commercial Production – But it doesn’t look older than when it was 10

Posted on September 4, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

( It’s Jam Band Friday – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyDie_4dOdU -)

Why is Oil so old and yet it acts like a little child…We start this post with video from the Energy Citizens protest against Cap and Trade…I have a sense of humor but this is just childishly bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMhNZB3Vndw

Courtesy of Wes King

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4s0nzsU1Wg&feature=related )

But I digress here are some really useful Stats about OIL I bet you never knew:

http://www.yelp.com/topic/los-angeles-10-facts-about-oil-and-gas-not-the-kind-that-comes-out-of-your-arse

10 Facts About Oil and Gas… not the kind that comes out of your arse….

08/02/2008 ART “The Permaculturalist” L. says:

http://www.edf.org/art…

With gas prices skyrocketing, public transit ridership is at an all time high. Instead of cutting back on public transportation services, we should be reforming our national transportation system to create more affordable travel options for the whole country.

Check out our 10 Facts About Oil and Gas to learn more.

96 Percent of the world’s transportation energy currently supplied by oil.
$75
Cost of barrel of oil on July 18th, 2007.

$131
Cost of barrel of oil on July 18th, 2008.

9.6 billion
Number of fewer miles Americans drove in May 2008 compared to May 2007.

10.3 billion
Number of trips taken via the U.S. public transportation system in 2007, the highest in 50 years.

44
Percent increase in price of diesel fuel paid by public transit agencies.

20
Percent of America’s public transit agencies that are cutting services due to budget constraints.

46
Percent of population that has no access to public transit.

$6,251
Amount the average two-worker household saves annually by taking public transportation instead of driving a car.

2030
Year by which lifting the ban on offshore drilling may start to impact the price of gas

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm63_M_4BF0&feature=related )

But if you want to see how Oil both behaves childishly and causes trouble all over the world, here is Greg Palasts take on it…

http://www.gregpalast.com/the-best-thing-in-the-world-for-big-oil/

The Best Thing in The World for Big Oil”

…Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Palast on why Saddam had to go.

“This war in Iraq has been the best thing in the world for Big Oil and OPEC. They’ve made the largest profits in the history of the world. The interesting thing about your book is you show how it was all planned from the beginning. The story is like a spy thriller.” — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Listen to RFK and Greg Palast on Iraq, a 20-minute conversation about blood and oil for ‘Ring of Fire’ from Air America.

The following is part of the story referenced in their discussion:

THE JERK: WHY SADDAM HAD TO GO

by Greg Palast
Excerpt from ‘Armed Madhouse‘

The 323-page multi-volume “Options for Iraqi Oil” begins with the expected dungeons-and-dragons warning:

The report is submitted on the understanding that [the State Department] will maintain the contents confidential.

For two years, the State Department (and Defense and the White House) denied there were secret plans for Iraq’s oil. They told us so in writing. That was the first indication the plan existed. Proving that, and getting a copy, became the near-to-pathologic obsession of our team.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqCtbEGcBBA&feature=related )
Cutting to the Chase several paragraph’s down the page and much intrigue and much spilled ink:

In the sanitary words of the Council on Foreign Relations’ report (written up by Jaffe herself), Saddam’s problem was that he was a “swinger”:

Tight markets have increased U.S. and global vulnerability
to disruption and provided adversaries undue potential in-
fluence over the price of oil. Iraq has become a key
“swing” producer, posing a difficult situation for the U.S.
government.

Now hold on a minute: Why is our government in a “difficult” position if Iraq is a “swing producer” of oil?

The answer was that Saddam was jerking the oil market up and down. One week, without notice, the man in the moustache suddenly announces he’s going to “support the Palestinian intifada” and cuts off all oil shipments. The result: Worldwide oil prices jump up. The next week, Saddam forgets about the Palestinians and pumps to the maximum allowed under the Oil-for-Food Program. The result: Oil prices suddenly dive-bomb. Up, down, up, down. Saddam was out of control.

“Control is what it’s all about,” one oilman told me. “It’s not about getting the oil, it’s about controlling oil’s price.”

So, within days of Bush’s election in November 2000, the James Baker Institute issued this warning:

In a market with so little cushion to cover unexpected
events, oil prices become extremely sensitive to perceived
supply risks. Such a market increases the potential lever-
age of an otherwise lesser producer such as Iraq…

I met with Falah Aljibury, an advisor to Goldman Sachs, the Baker/CFR group and, I discovered, host to the State Department’s invasion planning meetings in February 2001. The Iraqi-born industry man put it this way: “Iraq is not stable, a wild card.” Saddam cuts production, or suddenly boosts it, playing games with the U.N. over the Oil-for-Food Program. The tinpot despot was, almost alone, setting the weekly world price of oil and Big Oil did not care for that. In the CFR’s sober language:

Saddam is a “destabilizing influence… to the flow of oil
to international markets from the Middle East.”

With Saddam out of control, jerking markets up and down, the price of controlling the price was getting just too high. Saddam drove the oil boys bonkers. For example, Saddam’s games pushed the State Department, disastrously, to launch, in April 2002, a coup d’etat in Venezuela.

This could not stand. Saddam delighted in playing cat-and-mouse with the USA and our oil majors. Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t playing with mice, but a much bigger and unforgiving breed of roden

The original is not so bad either

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbsHOQmKhps )
I mean if you really want to set the world on fire:

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/discovery-news-2009-cool-jobs-burn-boss.html

Energy Citizens Rally Or Protest Was Not Just Surreal It Was Sad

Posted on September 3, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

I got into the rally because Roy Wehrle got stopped by Security. The lengths that they went to keep out “undesirables” was pretty amazing. Will Reynolds, of the Sierra Club went in and gave some materials to their Press Table. He was then barred from reentry by 2 Sangamon County Sheriff’s Deputies for distributing political literature. Apparently after that anyone seen talking to Will was a thoroughly dangerous man like in Alice’s Restaurant. When I went in the ballroom they pounced on mild mannered Economics professor Roy and turned him away.

Remember this is the compelling protest designed to defeat Cap and Trade WHICH is the INDUSTRIES proposal NOT the Environmentalists. I like a huge Carbon Tax myself. Most European countries pay 6 $$$ per gallon for their gasoline…and that tax money is invested directly into renewables and infrastructure. Why not do something like that in the US? This is what the “protest” looked like:

Photos by Wes King

This is what they stand for:

http://energycitizens.org/about/

About Energy Citizens

Energy Citizens is a nationwide alliance of organizations and individuals formed to bring together people across America to remind Congress that energy is the backbone of our nation’s economy and our way of life.

Energy Citizens are voicing their concerns about the impact climate legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives would have on American jobs, families and businesses. The alliance is urging the Senate to get it right and make sure that climate, energy and tax legislation would not take money out of Americans’ pocketbooks and cost millions of jobs.

See personal stories from people across the country, or take a look at the list of participating organizations that have joined Energy Citizens in support of American jobs and affordable energy

This is who paid for it:

http://www.redcounty.com/illinois-business-groups-schedule-anti-cap-and-trade-rally-sept-1st

Illinois Business Groups Schedule Anti-Cap and Trade Rally, Sept. 1st

By Warner Todd Huston | 08/31/09 | 07:41 PM EDT

A group called Energy Citizens made up of 23 Illinois business associations have scheduled a September 1st rally in order to protest the seriously damaging policies of the Cap and Trade bill. The rally will be held near the State Capitol in Springfield.

The event will start a noon and will be held at Crowne Plaza Hotel, 3000 Dirksen Parkway, Springfield, Illinois.

A notice was posted at the Illinois Farm Bureau website.

A lunch will follow the roughly 45-minute event, one of 22 rallies nationwide sponsored by the group Energy Citizens to oppose House-approved legislation. IFB members are encouraged to attend, and may contact their county Farm Bureau for additional details.

The Illinois members of Energy Citizens includes the Southwestern Illinois Employers Association and Wayne-White Counties Electric Cooperative, the Illinois Association of Convenience Stores, Associated Builder and Contractors of Illinois (ABC), Illinois Petroleum Marketers Association, Grain & Feed Association of Illinois, Growmark, Home Builders Association of Illinois, Illinois Association of Aggregate Producers, Illinois Coal Associations, Illinois Energy Forum, Illinois Farm Bureau, Illinois manufacturers Association, Illinois Petroleum Council, Illinois Pork Producers, Illinois Retail Merchants Association, Illinois Trucking Association, MidAmerica Energy, Mid-West Truckers Association, Illinois Oil & Gas Association, National Federation of Independent Business, Rural Electric Convenience Cooperative and the Illinois Fertilizer & Chemical Association.

The saddest part was they used local “personality” Bob Murray as the MC. I hate to pick on anyone but there is a reason that Bob moved from TV to Radio and there are no pictures available of him below the waist…I mean he is huge. When I walked in he looked pretty normal but when I got off to the side I was stunned. Then he made a joke about it. “I am so big”, he said, “When I asked my mom when I was born she said July 4rth….July 5th and July 6th”

http://www.spoke.com/info/pF0Rf1m/BobMurray

I just wanted to cry. They were giving away bright yellow Tshirts that read, “I will pass on $4 gas”. I wish now I would have grabbed one. There was even a sign that read, “RVer’s Against Waxman-Markey” and another sign that read, “Crap and Trade”. As I walked out Murray said, “The great thing about this country is that you can hold a meeting like this and then there is no one waiting for you in the parking lot to shoot your ass”. He then turned and launched into the Pledge of Allegiance.

WHAT a parking lot it was too. As I walked back to my car, past the hundreds of Lincoln Town cars, giant SUVs and the huge Chevys I noticed that they had filled up half of the parking lot with displays. There was a huge 16 head combine that had a Rural America Needs Affordable Energy banner slung across it. A huge semi trailer display for Illinois Crude Oil and Natural Gas. To add insult to injury the last display I walked by was 2 bucket trucks with their buckets up holding a banner that said Stop Cap and Trade. The trucks were owned by the Rural Electric Convenience Coop in Auburn that just put up a 1.2 million $$$ wind turbine.

It may take me years to get the images out of my head…..yuck

Oh and thanks to the college students who drove all the way from Chicago when we were thinking about disrupting this madness.

Energy Citizens Protest Rally In Springfield Was The Most Surreal Event I Have Ever Attended

Posted on September 2, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

I could add sick, disgusting, phony and funny to that list but why bother? I can show you how it was by example. But on the 150 aniversery of the first oil well..it is just plain sad. Oil guys used to be such roughnecks now they are kinda wussy.

The 2 most surreal events I had ever been to before was an Alice Cooper concert in 1969 and the Opening of Ticket Sales at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for the English Opera Peter Grimes in Los Angeles in 1984. I know Alice doesn’t need any explanation (it does really), but the opening of ticket sales for an obscure opera?

But first a picture:

(thanks for the pictures Wes King)

It is in a BALLROOM. I have never been to a protest in one of the ritzyest ballrooms within a 100 miles of Springfield. This is the most senior citizens I have seen at a protest not sponsored by the AARP ever. There is no ethnic diversity in the room. I have been to plenty of protests, some where there were simultaneous counter protests and I have never seen this Caucasion of an audience since my last KKK rally. It is probably tough to see but the 2 black skinned men in the room are a waitstaff member at the bottom of the picture and way off in the distance there is a black camera man for the only news organization I saw that day, Channel 20 TV. Considering the cost of this rally that in itself was bizarre. But back to Alice Cooper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA-sjSkRM4M&feature=channel

This Alice Cooper concert was when I was 14, and it was my first rock concert ever. It was in Peoria in a place since torn down called the Cow Palace. Which it literally was. A barn like structure with a dirt floor where they sold cows (and other live stock). It was my 3rd acid trip…my first in public and I was with my fiance’ Denise and some other San Jose (Illinois) crazies. All the lights were on so it was real bright, and all of the sudden the Wedding March starts playing, these flowers POP up on the stage and simultaneously a man in a tux (stage left), a women in a wedding dress (stage right) and a minister (center stage) all walk to the center of the stage. The audience was stunned. The minister performs the wedding complete with “is there anyone here who may object to this union”? Stunned silence. Towards the end of the ceremony Alice Cooper and his band in their full make up started peering through the flowers. At the “kiss the bride” part the room goes to BLACK, the stage lights come on low and giant trash cans come hurtling over the flowers, followed by Alice and the band…In that 2 second period my life changed for ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUFO_04J1r4

My second most surreal moment could take some set up but I will try to make it as quick as possible. But first another picture of the event:

I mean really do these people look angry? Do they look passionate about preventing “cap and trade” in the area of carbon production because it has already worked for sulfur? NO these people look like people at the Republican Convention in Minnesota last year.

Anyway in 1984 I lived in Las Vegas with a woman who celebrated her 30 birthday. I had patiently gone to the Lyric Opera in Chicago for 2 seasons with her. Then I said enough! I am not going to another Opera unless it is in English and I was off the hook for a couple of years. BUT someone (probably her sister) told her that Peter Grimes was playing at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in LA. Yes the same place where the Academy Awards are occasionally given out. So we got a room in a South Central L.A., yes the place that burned down in the riots which was surreal enough as it was. We went for a driving tour of the LA area (Hollywood, Venice Beach, Malibu) and then we had Oriental Food downtown someplace. The next day we had to go pick up our tickets at the Pavilion. Yes I know that seems quaint now but you had to physically pick up your tickets. While we were waiting in this 500 person line we were subjected to a surprise Japanese Performance Art piece.

http://www.musiccenter.org/

http://www.asianinfo.org/asianinfo/japan/pro-performing_arts.htm

http://outwestarts.blogspot.com/2008/03/attend-tale-of-peter-grimes.html

Nobody was looking up so I have no idea how it started, but suddenly you hear a huge horn sound…like a foghorn or something real deep and loud. I looked up and there on top of the Pavilion (4 stories maybe) was a long robed Japanese figure in an elongated paper masked, flanked on each side by 2 naked guys in diapers. He blew on this big horn again. It was about 8 ft. long and rested on the ground like an Alp Horn:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070905040636AAXDrTt

Then these 4 nearly naked Japanese guys rappelled down the front of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Australian style to some really weird Japanese music played through the Pavilion’s very small very tinny outdoor speakers:

swatman6.tripod.com/srt1.html

This rapel took forever. When they landed in front of us they did some short welcoming ritual (I am guessing). The guy on the roof blew the horn again. These naked guys jumped up and down once, turned and ran to the entrance way. They threw open the doors and ran inside the building and the guy on the roof was gone. People were so stunned nobody actually went through the door. Then people started clapping and several brave soldiers advanced into the que.

So there you have it. What I witnessed at the Energy Citizens protest rally yesterday was somewhere between an Alice Cooper Concert and a Japanese Performance Art piece on my surreal scale. WHOA

Yahoo Attacks The Illinois State Fair – Well not really but my Yahoo account was attacked

Posted on August 27, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

The reason this Post is so late in the day is because I opened my web browser today and it showed that I had 35 messages waiting for me. Someone had unleashed a worm on my address book and it was busy sending all my friends spam. Some of it dangerous spam. I was mortified. I spent over 2 hours checking to make sure it was originating on my computer. People sent some of it back to me so I could see what the heck was spewing out of my account. Then in consultation with my computer expert Afredo I determined that just changing my email password could halt the attack…So I did and it ended. I had to blow off lunch with David Lasley, Dave Fuchs and the Sangamon County Democrats just to get to here…Damnit.

There were some things that I saw at the Illinois State Fair that I did not really care for. One of those things was the prominence of Biofuel in both of Governor Pat Quinn’s tents. We all know that biofuel, especially ones made from foods, distract people from getting rid of the internal combustion engine. It also drives up food prices so this:

and this:

were NOT appreciated.

Though the latest craze in biofuels is watermellons that are farm waste:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/08/26/watermelon-fuel.html

Watermelon Juice: The New Fuel?

Michael Reilly, Discovery News

Fill ‘er Up | Discovery News Video

Aug. 26, 2009 — A staple of backyard barbecues and summer time snacks, watermelon is also a promising new source of renewable energy.

According to a new study, leftover watermelons from farms’ harvests could be converted into up to 9.4 million liters (2.5 million gallons) of clean, renewable ethanol fuel every year destined for your car, truck, or airplane’s gas tank.

Agriculturally, watermelon is a peculiar fruit — each year farmers across the country leave between 20 and 40 percent of their crop to rot on the ground. These are the ugly ducklings of the lot; though perfectly fine on the inside, the misshapen or blemished melons simply won’t sell at the grocery store.

“If a crow lands on a melon, takes two pecks at the rind, and then flies away, it’s no good,” Wayne Fish of the United States Department of Agriculture in Lane, Oklahoma said. “I had farmers telling me, ‘I’m leaving one-fifth of my melons on the land. Is there anything I can do with them?'”

Across the United States, he estimated that 360,000 tons of watermelons spoil in fields every year.

Some local growers wondered whether the waste melons could be turned into ethanol, the clean-burning fuel derived from plant sugars. In a series of new experiments published yesterday in the journal Biotechnology for Biofuels, Fish and a team of researchers showed that they can.

What’s more, watermelon juice may turn out to be the perfect way to optimize industrial-scale production of ethanol from corn, molasses and sugar cane.

Then there was this. What the hell. This causes Earth Quakes in Texas yet it makes it to the State Fair?

Fracking is Coming to Decatur. People better get ready for it:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,526233,00.html

Drilling Eyed as Possible Culprit Behind Texas Earthquakes

Sunday, June 14, 2009

CLEBURNE, Texas — The earth moved here on June 2. It was the first recorded earthquake in this Texas town’s 140-year history — but not the last.

There have been four small earthquakes since, none with a magnitude greater than 2.8. The most recent ones came Tuesday night, just as the City Council was meeting in an emergency session to discuss what to do about the ground moving.

The council’s solution was to hire a geology consultant to try to answer the question on everyone’s mind: Is natural gas drilling — which began in earnest here in 2001 and has brought great prosperity to Cleburne and other towns across North Texas — causing the quakes?

“I think John Q. Public thinks there is a correlation with drilling,” Mayor Ted Reynolds said. “We haven’t had a quake in recorded history, and all the sudden you drill and there are earthquakes.”

At issue is a drilling practice called “fracking,” in which water is injected into the ground at high pressure to fracture the layers of shale and release natural gas trapped in the rock.

There is no consensus among scientists about whether the practice is contributing to the quakes. But such seismic activity was once rare in Texas and seems to be increasing lately, lending support to the theory that drilling is having a destabilizing effect.

On May 16, three small quakes shook Bedford, a suburb of Dallas and Fort Worth. Two small earthquakes hit nearby Grand Prairie and Irving on Oct. 31, and again on Nov. 1.