May 2013
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Truthdig - The Death of Truth →
Great timeline article by Chris Hedges exploring the political saga of Julian Assange and Wikileaks versus the Corporate State Empire.
It includes an interactive timeline as well as two audio clips from interviews with Mr Assange.
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Transnational Institute | Planet Earth: A... →
State of Power 2013
Which are the biggest companies in the world? Which corporations control them? How does their power compare with states?
These infographics are produced as part of TNI’s State of Power 2013 report, a visual insight into who is dominating the planet at a time of systemic economic and ecological crisis.
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The Major Sea Change in Media Discussions of Obama... →
The controversies over the IRS and especially the AP phone records appear to have long-lasting effects
by Glenn Greenwald
Full Article
My commentary:
Great article by Glenn Greenwald. Funny how it takes a direct assault on the establishment media’s civil liberties to get them to speak up about the out of control executive branch. The establishment media has been silent for over a...
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Peak oil, climate change and pipeline geopolitics... →
Nafeez Ahmed: Root-cause environmental and energy factors driving violence will continue to destabilise Arab world without urgent reforms
Good comprehensive article on the Syrian predicament. A predicament that will befall all the repressive oil exporting states as their oil production peaks and declines and climate change continues to bite harder into global agricultural output. Debt can only...
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What determines energy abundance? Flow. →
Energy abundance depends entirely on the rate of the flow of oil, gas and other resources, Cobb writes. It is not, as many suggest, dependent on supposed, but often unverified, fossil fuel reserves in the ground.
Great, well sourced, article from Kurt Cobb. Energy abundance is not about sketchy, guesstimated resources that may be in the ground and incorrectly referred to as...
April 2013
6 posts
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Peak oil isn’t dead: An interview with Chris... →
A good interview with some nice graphs. Chris Nelder does a great job of pulling in all the major details of peak oil and how they are impacting the global economy and the average American.
One issue I have is with two incorrect statements made in the intro by the interviewer, Brad Plumer [emphasis mine]:
But after a worrisome series of price spikes starting in 2007, oil triumphalism is once...
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March 2013
6 posts
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New ‘Monsanto Protection Act’ Could Give Monsanto... →
fuckyeahpermaculture:
Monsanto lobbyists have successfully pushed a last minute change into the Continuing Resolution spending bill which was approved by U.S. Congress recently. If not vetoed by President Obama, this will give Monsanto immunity from U.S. government action regarding the safety of any and all new GMO crops and will take away the Judiciary system’s constitutional mandate to review...
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February 2013
2 posts
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Deficit Reduction = Recession →
A great post by Richard Heinberg. The sequester and any other deficit reduction measures will reduce GDP in a nearly 1:1 ratio. If you think the private sector is going to step in and replace that government deficit spending in a recessionary environment then you are being delusional.
His recommendation is the way forward, but we won’t do it voluntarily.
The best way forward would be,...
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January 2013
1 post
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December 2012
1 post
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The Great Slow Down in US Shale Gas Production
The growth of the shale gas production rate has slowed tremendously over the past year compared with the year prior. This is due to many complex factors interacting with one another. Probably the biggest set of factors that impacted the production rate was the supply glut that triggered the pull back in drilling programs and the steep production decline curves of already producing shale wells.
...
November 2012
8 posts
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ECPA Amendment Passes, As Senate Judiciary Votes... →
From the Huffington Post:
WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Thursday to force cops to get a warrant to spy on your email. It was a first step toward beating back the “growing and unwelcome intrusion into our private life in cyberspace,” as Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who offered the amendment, put it.
Read the full article.
Well it looks like Glenn...
“Neoliberalism is a philosophy which construes profit making as the essence of...”
– Henry Armand Giroux (via azspot)
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We Need to Retreat From the Beach - New York Times →
It’s a rare thing these days to hear a voice of reason in a major media outlet.
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FBI's abuse of the surveillance state is the real... →
That the stars of America’s national security establishment are being devoured by out-of-control surveillance is a form of sweet justice
Commentary by Glenn Greenwald
As usual, Glenn cuts through the mainstream media static and distraction and highlights the larger and more important issue. In this case, the completely out of control Surveillance State of America. The fact that this...
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Two views of the election and America in general
Read this week’s installment of Clusterfuck Nation to get James Howard Kunstler’s take on the election, American culture and how we are progressing through the long emergency.
A Look in the Mirror
Then follow that up with Chris Hedges view of the role of Liberals in the dog and pony show we call American Democracy and his view of the American Empire and how it is viewed by the...
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I am a scientist. I'm not in a position to answer... →
Federal scientists muzzled on oilsands Environment Canada researchers told to follow script on contaminants in snow
Full article
Call them what they are…tar sands. There is no free flowing oil there, it’s bitumen.
October 2012
10 posts
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PROOF: GOP Party Bosses Rigging Elections For... →
We need to make sure that all electronic voting data is checked for this sort of manipulation immediately after the general election.
Electronic voting machines should have a paper trail. PERIOD.
Re-blog and share this far and wide. Obama isn’t an angel or perfect by any means but we can’t have another illegitimate administration running this country further into the ground.
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U.S. sues Bank of America for $1B in... →
It’s about freaking time!
It should be for much more than a billion. I bet Countrywide sold a billion worth of fraudulent mortgages to GSEs every year during the housing bubble.
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Ross Perot endorses Mitt Romney
From the Washington Post Blog:
“At stake is nothing less than our position in the world, our standard of living at home, and our constitutional freedoms,” Perot wrote in a statement. “Mitt has the background, experience, intelligence, and integrity to turn things around.”
Really Ross, our constitutional freedoms are at stake? Like the Bush administration didn’t take most of them away...
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The Presidential Debate: A Dismal Failure
Ahh, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney…don’t they look dapper in their officially sanctioned uniforms of the Corporate State.
The debate was unfortunately yet another failure to come to grips with reality.
Not once during the debate did either Romney or Obama address the following:
Nearly 7 years of declining convetional crude oil production and anemic growth of total liquid fuels...
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Why Don't Americans Care About Democracy at Home? →
A very comprehensive and thoughtful essay about the many ways Neoliberalism has affected, manipulated, co-opted, marginalized or crushed every sphere of public life that is vital to democracy. And how Americans are just letting it happen through their ignorance, apathy, docility or sheer indifference.
It is a long read but I highly recommend reading it. Please share it.
September 2012
4 posts
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Global oil exports in decline since 2006: What... →
A great, easy to understand post describing the Export Land Model and the predicament of oil importing nations.
Export Land Model … a simple model that seemed to explain a lot. Here’s how he set up his first case: Brown assumed that a hypothetical oil exporter—which he designated as Export Land—had reached its peak in oil production. He assumed that domestic users in...
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Obama Administration Asks Appeals Court for Stay... →
Last week, round one in the battle to strike down the onerous provision, one that saw [Chris Hedges] joined by six other plaintiffs including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg, ended in an unqualified victory for the public. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest, who accepted every one of [their] challenges to the law, made her temporary injunction of the section permanent. In short, she declared...
August 2012
6 posts
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Is solidarity a thing of the past? →
From the post:
Political commentators in the United States have long puzzled over the phenomenon of lower- and middle-class voters voting against their own obvious interests, primarily their economic interests. Many explanations have been offered. Certainly, the political propaganda disseminated by the rich through the media which they own and through the political discourse which they now...
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Energy policy: Follow the money →
The best energy policy money can buy…
Read the rest of the post at Smart Planet
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Euro Zone Crisis: Why Young Spaniards Are Packing... →
Interesting article about the emigration of highly educated, young, unemployed professionals from Spain to Asian nations with booming economies. (I personally think ‘booming’ is a relative term, considering the continued slow down of China, et al.) The article also briefly touches on some of the immigration programs being put in place by these Asian nations to fast track the best and...
