Today the US Senate by rule needed sixty votes to approve the Canadian pipeline. They didn't make it. Now the Republicans have no basis to say that Congress has not spoken because they have and they turned the pipeline down. The President has not said he opposed the piipeline but in general said he wants it to go through, don't ask me why. Were I president I would be opposing it. The President is only concerned about the legal mechanics of government and the sovreign rights of certain states like Nebraska. Newt Gingrich and John Boehner continue to lie and say that this pipeline will bring us oil and lower our oil prices at the pump. Gingrich talked about opening up all these US reserves now off limits and how many barrels of oil it would produce. What he fails to say is how MUCH of a dent this would make in domestic gasoline prices at the pump. Gingrich and Bohner seem to continue to labor under the apprehension that somehow "If the pipeline comes through the US then we are making a deal with Canada and in doing so we will Prevent - - Canada making a deal with China to get the oil. But China has already agreed they want the oil and the only problem Canada has is how to get THIS oil to them. The US can make it harder or easier for China to get that oil already agreed on. I vote they make it harder, and the Senate agrees. Thom Hartman says wind turbine electricity is already so prevelent in Texas that the electric companies are telling them to STOP production because the grid can't handle all the extra voltage. What the grid needs is to be more computurized to rerrout surplus voltage to other sources. Also the President rightly fingers the rise in gasoline prices as a bottle neck distribution problem and this could easily be solved by a few Presidential executive orders, which he fully has the power to do and in my guess, intends to use it.
The solar electrical storms of course come every eleven years. I knew that. It just seems I can't remember when the last "quiet" period was. This current storm wasn't as bad as feared but some (polar?) airline routs were re-routed away from the poles I guess, where the magnitism is the highest. They are saying however even now they expect these solar storms to get worse and last for years. In 2003 the last storm knocked out the vast grid in Quibec and plunged millions into darkness. This may happen again. With each passing year we are all more vulnerable with increased electronics, to more information disruption due to black-outs.
Unemployment first time claims are up for the past month and the stock market appears to have stalled out lately and the robust upward pace has not continued. My guess is that the whole Iranian thing will cease to be an issue in a few weeks as, as Thom Hartman points out, fifteen different investigative agencies of the US government all concur that there IS no threat of Iran building a bomb. They aren't even close to that. There is not even any decision that they have agreed to TRY to build a fission bomb. So all this talk of war is highly premature. The best time to end a war is before it starts. That way there can't be any of this crap about "disrupting the moral of troops that are already stationed in the theater of battle" or anything. President Obama is stating the obvious. War is hell and it costs lives and causes pain to a lot of people, and of course will hinder the efforts to reduce our US spending deficet something fierce. Which is something the Republicans all SAY they are for, but if "future behavior is best judged by past performance" none of these Republicans has any moral credibility at all.
Now they have dolphins wearing sponges over their snouts to protect them. Bears give themselves sponge baths. Elephants use stools as step ladders on their own. Crows bend wires to get food out of a glass. Animals are smarter than we think. There are many stories of "psychological games" that cats play with their owners, as far as threatening to knock something over or other stunts. We know now that APES know how to use an I Pad and associate pictures with English words. It is alltogether possible that our whole attitude about animals for food may change. It costs us a tremendous ammount of resources to raise grain using valuable land in resources, just to fatten cattle and sheep up for slaughter, when the animals could be eating grass anyhow. They say that chickens that eat grubs and worms produce healthier meat than do factory farm chickens. We know that people who live sheltered lives not only have compromized immunity, but are also prone to more allergies as the body attacks itself. In the coming centure we as a society will "grow" in ways that aren't apparent even now for this author. But a lot more problems are being "worked on" and even Solved than the doom and gloom Tea Party set can possibly believe.
This blog will probably be the last one at least for a few days till perhaps late Monday. For me even that short time off is a long time these days. We wish everyone a happy March Madness, and remember not to arrive an hour late to work on Monday, but if you miss Church, that's no big deal, ha, ha.
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