Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.

Mark Twain

Fun has a sacred dimension.

~ Adriana Diaz

Too Bad America - Democracy and Capitalism are NOT the Same Thing.

People believe what they want to believe and they see things in a way to support their own point of view something that props up how they have organized internally the world and reality around them. It is a rare man that is objective, honest and doesn't thrive on stoking his ego or quake at something or some one who challenges his beliefs. Until we produce those types of values in people AGAIN in our society and honor them in our schools and promote them in our businesses and institutions we will all suffer at the hands of the over inflated blustering of the hyper ego, bully, loud mouth syndrome that postures honesty and objectiveness but operates by deceit and corruption for their own gain period.

In other words honesty is all out of fashion. Schmoozing and game playing to get to the top, lying, cooking the books, outlawing laws and proclamations of virtue where hypocrisy is blatant have crippled this country.

Too bad for America that it has let the loud and aggressive trump the reasoned and objective. Too bad for America that it sold out its values to bully's and arrogance. Too bad for America it let it's President get his head blown off back in 1962. We haven't been the same since.

Back in high school I never turned the keys over to the loudest, biggest most aggressive tool because I knew we would only get in a wreck or pulled over. Not much about life has changed. Being stupid isn't cool, and neither is being corrupt or a phony. It only leads to the same old bad ending. Smarten up America putting those types of people in charge of our media, corporations and government will only lead to the same old bad ending.

You have been sold a bill of goods.

Ignorance is Not Bliss

Democracy and Capitalism are NOT the same thing.

If you are not allowed to laugh in heaven, I do not want to go there.

~ Martin Luther

Green Products Innovations - While Congress Sleeps

As we fixate on politics, politicians and infotainment I really hope OUR President gets through to the Defenders of Well Point and their Republican, Democratic and Media Fraud Outlets. While the astro-turf corporate media whips up frenzy and so called tea baggers, and while Corporate America consolidates and tries to corner every market there is I implore the powers that be to wake up, look around and start funding and investing in the green energy and technology revolution that is ripping across the globe. America is overwhelmingly represented and controlled by the Status Quo and they are completely and utterly asleep at the wheel!

Here's just some of the green tech innovations from 2009 by E Magazine:

Z5™: If independent laboratory tests prove that it works, the Z5 Global Group’s power-efficiency booster, a little pie-shaped alloy cylinder, could be retrofitted on any gas or diesel engine…cutting fuel consumption by up to 40%, increasing horsepower by 10% or better and reducing air pollution in the bargain. www.z55555.com

SeriousWindows™ : Serious Materials boasts windows that deliver performance four times higher than current Energy Star standards. They soak up waste heat from commercial building appliances, and can even serve as the main heat source in certain applications. www.seriouswindows.com

Zenith Solar Z20 Energy Farm: Using curved mirrors that can collect five times more than ordinary solar collectors, the Z20 produces both electric and thermal energy, making solar power cost competitive against fossil fuels for the first time. www.zenithsolar.com

The Acadia™: Hallowell International’s combined heating and cooling system for commercial buildings helps save up to 70% on energy costs by maintaining 200% efficiency even when outdoor temperatures drop below 0°F. www.gotohallowell.com

Inventions we could see “on the shelf” as early as 2015 include a tankless SCUBA system that enables humans to breathe underwater; infrared cancer detection, and cancer surgeries done non-invasively using ultrasound; bio-engineered blood vessels that make bypass surgery obsolete; and a “safe” way to clean up and dispose of nuclear wastes called PGM (Plasma-Gasifica-tion-Melting), which transforms radioactive material into inert material and gases that can be used to fuel gas turbine electric power plants - PGM Maker The EER Company

The choice is OURS tax payers - its your money WAKE UP CONGRESS - Pick up a phone, send an email, write your newspaper - today!

The US is the world's richest nation and the only industrialised democracy that does not provide healthcare coverage to all its citizens.

When you reread a classic you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before.

~ Clifton Fadiman

Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Why is President Obama supporting more drilling, more coal, and more nukes? Take Action Here http://ping.fm/nm9OL

Just last week, a Virginia Republican called disabled children God's "vengeance" against women because of abortion before introducing a bill to restrict access to pre-natal health care.

F.Y.I. - In 2010 Republican state legislators have introduced bills in Michigan and Oklahoma to ban divorce, to abolish the 12th grade in Utah, and force people in South Carolina to pay their state tax bills with solid gold instead of money.

Action Alert - Clean Energy NOW!

Why is President Obama supporting more drilling, more coal, and more nukes? I can tell you -- in one sentence each -- why these are the wrong paths for our energy policy.

# 1. Offshore Drilling: Every known drop of oil in the U.S. makes up less than 2% of the world's remaining supply, yet we consume 25% of the world's oil, meaning no matter how much we drill, we won't have enough to be sustainable.

# 2. Coal: We have plenty of coal, but its CO2 emissions are responsible for global warming, and the ways of getting coal have leveled hundreds of mountains and poisoned hundreds of miles of waterways -- oh, and the technology the coal industry refers to when talking about 'clean coal' doesn't exist.

# 3. Nuclear: Yes, nukes are almost CO2 emission-free, but we have no guarantee that nuclear waste can be safely stored for the length of time it's toxic, and one nuclear accident is all it takes to kill millions.

And that's just off the top of my head. And, one more thing, so nobody accuses us of nay-saying, there's enough sunfall in the United States to power the entire world, add to that wind and geothermal and our energy needs are taken care of -- if we go down that path.

So please, take a minute right now, and tell President Obama he needs to stick to the right path -- clean, renewable energy -- and not fall for the lies of the dirty energy industry:

http://www.environmental-action.org/new-energy-paths?id4=ES

Thank you -- and after you send your message, please help out by passing this message along to your friends and family, and invite them to take part as well.

More facts:
If you turn on a light switch 10,000 times, 7.98 of those times, it was thanks to solar power, and 33.59 it was thanks to wind power. The rest is nukes and fossil fuel.

1. In 2007, according to the Department of Energy, 84.9% of our energy comes from fossil fuels. This includes coal (22.43%), coal coke (.02%), natural gas (23.28%), and petroleum (39.77%)

2. In 2007, nuclear power accounted for 8.29% of our energy

3. In 2007, 6.71% of our energy came from 'renewable sources', this includes biomass (3.54%), biofuels (1.01%), waste (.42%), wood (2.11%), geothermal (.34%), hydroelectric (2.41%), solar (.08%), and wind (.34%)

Instead of investing yet more billions in energy sources that are dirty, unreliable, and already make up the vast majority of our energy sources (fossil fuels and nukes account for 93.18% of our energy), why not go with the new clean, and underutilized energy sources?

Sincerely,

Dan Stafford
Environmental Action Organizer
http://www.environmental-action.org

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

~ Booker T. Washington

All beings seek for happiness; so let your compassion extend itself to all.

~ Mahavamsa

Tell the Senate: Confirm Dawn Johnsen to the Justice Department http://ping.fm/DnBEV

Read about what "you’ll" get from health reform and speak up - now is the time - http://ping.fm/wNNUh

Network Nukes Boosters
Reports on New Nuclear Plant Leave Key Questions Unasked Take Action - http://ping.fm/SuRbH

Tell the Washington Post not to waste ink on a pro-torture columnist http://ping.fm/kOIjo

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

~ Ray Bradbury

All the arts we practice are apprenticeship. The big art is our life.

~ M.C. Richards

You're stronger than you seem; Braver than you believe; And smarter than you think you are. When shall we live if not now?

~ M.F.K. Fisher

You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Wear a Condom Save a Planet - Being Stupid is NOT Cool!!!!

As a strident environmentalist now for over forty years I leaped at the opportunity to take part in the great condom giveaway by the Center for Biological Diversity. The overpopulation issue runs in cycles with the american consciousness. This is not the first time this issue has been brought to our attention. Unfortunately the stick your head in the sand crowd has tried to revive their ancient forms of control (religion) through abstinence only programs that rely on making and keeping people stupid.

By choosing to take a more responsible approach towards our reproductive behavior and loosing the frat boy mentality that our actions don't add up to anything we can ensure a healthy future for our planet and each other.

Our folly is our own. Our success or failure about living within our means is up to us. There are no guarantees. We are the architects of our own ruin or success. Understanding the planet and how it works and our impact upon it leads us to two roads sustainability or destruction. There are so many liars out there making the wrong decisions for the wrong reasons and so many gullible people out there believing them education is the key.



I'm not sugar coating it anymore we have entered the sixth mass extinction event in the planets history but this time the cause is not geological or cosmic, but human overpopulation. All of the key factors that pose the gravest threats to threatened and endangered species land use change due to urban and industrial development, competition for water and other resources, environmental contamination, and climate change are driven by the pressure of 6.8 billion people and growing on this planet.

Global population is projected to reach 9 billion by 2050, but absent efforts to make BIRTH CONTROL widely available, it could reach as high as 15 billion. That number is far beyond the Earths carrying capacity.

250,000 people are added to the planet EACH DAY!

The combination of rapid population growth and extremely high levels of consumption makes the United States beyond STUPID and a key factor in the overpopulation equation.

The London School of Economics recently concluded that investing in making birth control available to all the people of the world who want it is nearly five times as cost effective as controlling greenhouse gas emissions through technology.

50% of all pregnancies in the United States (40% world wide) are unintended, meaning that universal access to birth control would provide a crucial means of reducing unsustainable fertility rates.



Absentee management does not work. Sticking our heads in the sand and hoping it gets better doesn't work. We need to properly and effectively manage all aspects of our daily, personal, national and global lives.

We are not marionettes we have been given brains to use and free will to enact upon. Outdated and archaic morals used in the past centuries to control behavior do not apply and are not useful or even relevant in a modern world. They are often ignored but education and facts backed by science and embraced by the whole of society if part of our daily discourse will lead to success and sustainability.

The education and empowerment of women to choose when to bear children and how many to bear is crucial.

The octomom is an embarrassment of ignorance, and an example of extreme stupidity and further proof that an unregulated market is reckless and unconscious of its end results.

The small narrow paradigm of profit that no other reality outside of making money exists is wreaking havoc on our lives through war, environmental degradation, the extinction and elimination of our food chain through the death of our pollinators, overfishing, and the poisoning of our beef through factory farming. The poisoning of our water, air and soil all spreads the onslaught of cancer as we re-ingest the poisons we have willingly spread into our food chain.

So wrap that rascal and educate your children about sex, unintended pregnancies last a life time, and use birth control in its many forms both to prevent and terminate unintended pregnancies. The responsibility of raising a child is a life time commitment. Sticking your head in the sand doesn't solve anything. Denial is a curse of epic proportions.

Good luck citizens you need all of it you can get in your uneducated, look the other way, hope for the best narcissistic, distracted and deluded stupor that consumes your every waking moment.

Be conscious of YOUR world and be aware of YOUR planet and find out what is going on behind closed doors both politically and personally or we only hurt ourselves. There is no OTHER planet to escape to - we make our own beds and ignorance is NOT bliss, or affordable. Being stupid is NOT cool. It makes you easier to manipulate by those whose only concern is the small narrow paradigm of increasing profit no matter what the cost, and there is always a multitude of costs and unintended and purposely ignored consequences.

Take action here and here
Learn more here

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes the ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Solar World Round Up - Presidents Day Special

I'll say it again it's all kabuki theater to divide and conquer. The powers that be will try to string out dirty oil's business model, but with REAL alternatives why the hell would any one want to destroy their tax base by ruining the beaches and tourism trade with offshore drilling?

Kabuki theater but everyone must play no matter how much influence you have you have a vote and a voice so make it heard. I've got news for the rabid corporate funded tea party people waving guns and drawing Hitler mustaches on their President. The President is not the enemy of their own sad misfortune.

They and the middle class have been marginalized by the corporatist the people who worship at the feet of corporate america as if the status quo gave a damn about them.

The only thing the status quo cares about is their profit margin and if that means freezing your wages, increasing your work week, cutting your benefits, polluting your water, contaminating your food and depleting all of our resources through overfishing and clear cutting or charging you more for your health care then too bad sucker you were born poor and have forgotten the golden rule. The guy with the gold makes the rules.

But even the corporatist know that health care reform has to happen because it cost even them too much. Don't look at the donut look at the hole and ignore the kabuki theater.

While corporate media is snoozing and telling you only the story THEY want you to hear the story that will make them more money the rest of the world is evolving.


______________________________________
SOLAR WORLD ROUND UP - President's Day Version 2/15/10

French Nuclear Power Company Acquires Solar Thermal Systems Manufacturer
A news release said the acquisition of Ausra “launches Areva's new global solar energy business.” The market for concentrated solar plants is expected to ...

NTPC to foray into solar power projects
Photo: GP Sampath Kumar The National Thermal Power Corporation is set to enter the solar power generation field in a big way with a plan to develop four ...

Nigeria: Nexim, Others to Work On Renewable Energy
He said that NEXIM and its partners would support hydro power energy generation, solar energy generation, thermal energy generation, biofuels and biomass ...

Indian photovoltaic production capacity tops 1 GW per year
... solar power generation by almost ten times by 2013 through a combination of PV and other technologies like solar thermal or steam-based generation. ...

Testing begins on Advanced Parabolic Trough Solar Radiation ...
The testing is designed to assess performance efficiency under commercial operating conditions before being deployed at proposed solar thermal energy power plants throughout the world.

Redesign the Paradigm » Solar Thermal as an Option to Fossil Fuels
Solar thermal energy (STE) systems utilize high temperature collectors that reflect concentrated sunlight collected from mirrors or lenses. The resulting solar radiation (heat) is focused to specific collection points. ...

Solar power to come to Covington
In addition, The Center will receive a solar thermal water heater from the company Apricus Solar Water Heating. Hannah Solar CEO Pete Marne said his company ...

US Senate considers legislation for 10m solar roofs
A US Senator has introduced legislation to incent more than 10 million solar electric and solar thermal systems over the next decade. ...

Geothermal Heating – Renewable Energy That Saves 70% On Your ...
Renewableheating101.com is a great resource for any more information on renewable heating technologies, such as geothermal heating, solar thermal, solar electricity, dx geothermal, radiant heat, and hybrid system design. ...

SoCal power authority partnering with Ice Energy to reduce peak energy demand
Other methods of energy storage include flywheels, compressed air, pumped storage, and solar thermal. Flywheels store power in the form of rotational energy ...

_______________________________________________
There is a lot going on people and Fox News, Corporate Network News and all other Status Quo Channels of Information won't tell you about it until they learn how to make a buck off of it - in the meantime the future evolves right before our eyes and would be here already if not for the status quo milking their outdated technologies and crippling business models. Drill baby drill - that's right but drill down on education or you will be the unwitting dupes manipulated and fleeced by big daddy corporatist and their push to outlaw governance for the people, by the people.

Take Action Here and Here

"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little." ~Edmund Burke

The Great Condom Giveaway - There are eight short sequential clips Happy Valentines Day - http://ping.fm/1YNI2

If you want your dreams to come true, don't oversleep.

~ Yiddish Proverb

Think on This ...
Do not rail at anyone. Do not hold grudges. Do not hold ANY of those tendencies that have so long made for disturbing conditions in the experience.

Edgar Cayce Reading 1311-1

If the solution isn't beautiful, I know it's wrong.

~ Buckminster Fuller

The beautiful is everywhere.

Fernand Leger

Amateurs look for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work.

Chuck Close

Click here to learn more or be reminded of why we started to reform health care - quitters never win - http://ping.fm/hFsSL

Recommended preventive care will be covered without deductibles – checkups, colonoscopies, mammograms – no matter if you buy your own policy or get coverage through your job.

Programs to increase the number of primary care doctors, with incentives for them to practice in rural areas, so you get quality care no matter where you live.

No threat of losing your life savings to pay for care. Insurance companies can’t stop paying your claims and leave you with a lot of medical bills.

If you get cancer or other serious illness, there is no cap on the amount of needed care that your insurance will cover.

too many people simply don't know how they will benefit from reform!

And no matter your age, a pre-existing condition or your family history, you can't be denied insurance coverage.

Or that preventive care that can keep you healthy – like getting an annual physical, mammogram or colonoscopy – wouldn’t cost you a dime out of pocket.

Did you know that you and your family could choose the exact same health care coverage that members of Congress get under the leading health reform proposal?

Help spread the word http://ping.fm/pVdEg

they go by names like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute, Americans for Prosperity, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity…the list goes on and on.

Corporate polluters are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to block progress on clean energy jobs, independence from fossil fuels and efforts to fight global warming.

The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue.

~ Anonymous

In the face of the climate crisis the U.S. needs to look for ways to "decrease" petroleum consumption, not for ways to increase it.

Take Action Here: http://ping.fm/m95EH

Hundreds of thousands of existing jobs and billions of dollars of economic activity depend on clean coasts and healthy coastal waters.

Oil is toxic to the plants and microscopic animals that form the basis of the marine food chain. It also poisons birds, mammals, and fish.

Hurricane damage caused at least 124 different spills totaling over 17,700 barrels (743,000 gallons).

Each year U.S. drilling operations send an average of 880,000 gallons of oil into the ocean.

There are over 5,600 offshore oil and gas platforms and over 27,000 miles of pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico...drilling.

Crude World Violent Twilight

This is a repost from domestic fuel - I thought the review summed up the world as it is rather nicely - there are links to take action below.

Book Review – Crude World
Posted by Joanna Schroeder – February 9th, 2010



Yesterday I declared this the Week of Oil. While the Obama administration is calling for more green jobs and support of the clean tech industry, it is also calling for more research on ‘clean coal’ and more off-shore drilling. It’s these last two items that really seem to fire people up so I decided it was high time I learned more about oil’s world and I began by reading “Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil,” by Peter Maass.

This book takes you on a journey around the world and throws you into the violence that surrounds nations’ quest for oil. It’s not pretty. To reiterate what most people already know, the majority of oil left in the world lies in volatile areas. And not just the Middle East, but areas of Africa and South America. Too many people believe that oil leads to wealth and the revival of a country. However, too often, it leads to corruption by government officials, increased poverty and unrest – not to mention the environmental devastation that occurs.

The sad thing is that despite knowing better (America is all for human rights, right?) our own corporations support these evil regimes. A case in point that Maass discusses is Equatorial Guinea and its corrupt dictatorial President Teodoro Obiang. His reported salary is $60,000 a year (US dollars) but it was recently discovered that he has bank accounts in access of $700 million. The bank accounts reside in the U.S.

So while he’s rolling in the dough, the people of his county are uneducated, underfed and lacking in basic amenities like clean water and electricity. Eventually, the Senate released a report detailing “money laundering and foreign corruption” after being tipped off by journalist Ken Silverstein, and in the report wrote that oil companies operating in the country “may have contributed to corrupt practices in the country.” Naturally, the oil companies denied paying bribes (which is illegal), a few hands were slapped and business as usual resumed. The only true losers were the citizens of Equatorial Guinea.

This type of story is told over and over again in Crude World and Maass reminds us that we need to start looking at our dependence on oil not only in terms of energy security and environmental issues, but in terms of the human rights issues that prevail in countries rich in oil. Our thirst for oil feeds the fires of corruption, instability and violence in many regions around the world. We must stop choosing to ignore this cost of oil that is not represented in the price at the pump.

Ultimately, Maass stresses the importance of conservation and development of renewable energy. He also favors a Publish What You Pay approach that requires companies to disclose contracts they sign or payments that make and receive. And finally he proposes one last remedy: social values. “Even when enforced aggressively, laws alone cannot do everything; they need to be complemented with social pressure that opposes unethical and exploitative profiteering.”

If you have decided to stop looking the other way and confront the ills that are born with our addiction to oil, then this is good place to start.



Take Action Here and Here
Learn more Here (outstanding pdf download - post on your favorite bulletin board - get the word out)
Save Our Environment.Org

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
~ Lin Yutang

There are more than 80,000 man-made chemicals in use in the U.S. Every American alive today, including newborn babies, has hundreds of chemicals flowing through our blood.

Awareness can be best achieved and honed through working outside.

~ Lionel Aggett

The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.

~ Henry David Thoreau

If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.

~ Albert Einstein

We are all activist - in what you shop and pay for, in what you eat, do and say and habits. Choose wisely your purchases are votes with dollars. And dollars is all "they" understand. - Paul

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, the soul of genius.

~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart