Those who control oil and water will control the world - Digg

New superpowers are competing for diminishing resources as Britain becomes a bit-player. The outcome could be deadly

I have long been saying that it was water not oil that really matters in the world. If you have ever thought Tibet was about land you would be greatly mistaken, unless you were referring to the watershed from those mountains. There will come a time in the not so distant future when oil hits $200 a barrel, or maybe even $150/barrel that Americans decide they have had enough and make the hard switch to biofuels. I am not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I can put two and two together and many large corporations have been buying farm land for decades and losing money on it.  They wouldn’t do that if there wasnt a future profit motive to it. That tells me others have seen a biofuel future too.

When America refuses to pay the burden of oil, it won’t take long before we are producing most of our own fuel, as we did more than a century ago. Then let us ask what happens to the rest of the world. The hardest hit will be developing countries that often rely on food subsidies from the US. We will simply say, I am sorry there is no wheat or corn for you, because we moved our surplus production that you have relied on for decades into sorghum, switchgrass, and oilseed crops. Don’t think for a moment that Americans aren’t going to feel that pinch too. Given our habits most Americans would rather have cheap fuel, then they would a sandwich especially when the cheap bread goes to five dollars a loaf.

In some respects $5/loaf will be good for the people. years ago when government statistics were put together they gave a much higher weight to food prices when they decided what poor was. For years now food has not kept up with the price of housing, which has over taken the American budget. Of course this being the American government we are talking about, they are likely to decide that after decades of study and sitting around with their heads up their asses that the cost of housing really is what we should base poverty levels on. Coincidence? I very much doubt that, this is the US government we are talking about.

I know what some of you are thinking, so what if a bunch of people in Africa starve. Well you should care, not just because they are human beings either. Africa is not only a land of tribal peoples, but of great Muslim extremism. if you think we have the Islamicists pissed at us for our involvement in those oil rich countries, think what happens when we tell the ones we have been feeding all these years to suddenly go fuck themselves. Without water and without food, they have nothing to live for except to hurt us, and hurt us they will. They flock to terror training camps with not a holy crusade, but revenge in their hearts…

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Is there a solution to all of this? Not an easy one, and not one that doesn’t mean changing our habits and demanding better fuel efficiency now, rather than cheaper fuel prices later. We will never see dollar a gallon gas prices again, but I do believe it is possible to see twenty miles per dollar spent on fuel.

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Don’t be a Dick

Dick Cheney is neither stupid nor naive. I can say a lot of things about the man, but neither of those really apply. However the rhetoric he is spouting about freedom while perusing the Middle East might lead one to that conclusion.

“You and I know what it means to be free…”

That is one of the most laughable things I think I have ever heard the man say. Americans have no idea what freedom is. If you think it is having an alternative between Coke and Pepsi or McDonalds and Burger King, you would be wrong. Freedom was having the choice of dozens of smaller locally owned businesses to choose from that Coke, Pepsi, McDonalds, and Burger King forced out of business in a war of corporate consumerism. America rolled over, because giving up freedom to choose was supposed to be the cool thing to do. Too much individualism would lead us down the dark and murky path to anarchy. Bullshit! Too many choices meant we were free to choose something other than the establishment.

We keep telling the troops that we are fighting to give the Iraqi and Afghan peoples freedom, but that is the last thing we want them to have. Do you know what happens when they have true freedom? They inevitably make choices that are not in our best interests. The Palestinians had the freedom to vote and what did they do? They chose Hamas. What is needed right now in Iraq and Afghanistan is not freedom, it is security.

“We’re helping them fight back because it’s the right thing to do and because it’s important to our own long-term security,” Cheney said. “As President Bush has said, the war on terror is an ideological struggle and as long as this part of the world remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment and violence ready for export.”

If these people wanted freedom, they would need us to fight back for them. When The World Trade Center was attack, we were told this was a financial attack on America. Oh how right they were. What has been the cost of it so far? I am not talking just about the deficit spending by the government either. How has the rise of prices and down turn in other areas affected your ability to function? How will the war affect your children’s economic well being? We were told this war would pay for itself? Will it fix the economy of the dead and dismembered?

Dick tells the troops we are doing this because it is the right thing to do. I scratch my head at this notion. These were people who didn’t yet want freedom, they weren’t willing to give up everything in the name of it. Janice Joplin got it right when she sang “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose…” When the pain of change is less than the pain of death for you and your family, then you are ready for freedom. Neither the Iraqi nor the the Afghani people were ready for that yet. What we did was give them anarchy in the name of our own national vanity.

Dick wants you to believe that their lack of freedom was a threat to our nation’s interest, he also thought that helping corporate giants squash middle class mom and pop businesses was good for your freedom. It is time to think for yourself and not be a Dick!

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Morning News Round Up! 3-07-08

Terrorism is in the news again today. Yesterday it was a bicycle riding bomber hitting Times Square early in the morning. This is a clear sign of terrorism in my book, the bomb like two others before it weren’t powerful enough to do any sort of real damage, nor were they placed at times when the there were likely to kill people. These explosions were meant to scare, the very definition of terrorism.

Potential terrorism makes its way into the headlines again too, as US military commanders warn al-Qaida may be targeting big US targets to meet recruiting goals and and maintain their street cred. While it would have been nice to get some warning on 9/11 I think we overdo it sometimes with all the reporting. I barely here it anymore. On the other hand I am not sure why al-Qaida feel the need to hit big targets. There goal has always been to instill fear and chaos, but there are much easier ways to scare lots of people than hitting big heavily defended targets. Frankly, I think far more people would be scared and for a longer period of time with far more chaos if they would hit a series of small town targets. Think of what would happen if a dirty bomb went off at your kids grade school spring performance, a biological agent released at a mega-church in the burbs, or a vest bomb filled with shrapnel let loose at a crowded high school dance. These are the kinds of things that scare me.

The UNC Student Body President was found shot to death in the street. Police believe it to be just another random act of senseless violence. If this is random violence, why is it news worthy? In the wake of other school shootings it should be noted, but why is it worth mention in a Yahoo Insider headline? The reason it is big news is she was a pretty blond white girl. While I don’t deny my own attraction to pretty blond white girls, it in no way makes me forget or deem the murders of non-whites as less important. Every time you see this story in the coming days take a moment and think about these statistics. Black and Hispanic women are more likely to be murdered than white women, Asian women are most likely to be the victims of domestic violence, and Native American women who are raped on a reservation by a non-indian almost never have their attack investigated. When you see the picture of pretty blond Eve Carson, take just one moment and think about all the women who are raped, murdered and abused that don’t look like her.

On a side note to this there is a good post from Holly on her blog, Menstrual Poetry, about unreported crimes against women.

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