Saturday, March 31, 2012

We're Winning The War On The Environment


The SNWA watergrab is not about the water. They'll take the water if they can, but this is actually about money.

What would some people do for a big chunk of 15 billion dollars?

Would they threaten the Nevada State Engineer?
Would they buy off the Clark County Commissioners?
Would they would they put the people of a Las Vegas deeply into debt for the rest of their lives for something they don't really need?

You're damn right they would.

This has been happening all over the Third World for decades. And this is now happening all over the United States.

Corrupt or misled municipalities have been committing to boondoggle projects all across the country that have drained their communities of generations of wealth.

This is the next predatory loan scam.

The people of Las Vegas don't need more water. If there are water restrictions, they'll just have to cut back on waste. There's plenty of time to build a pipeline if the situation becomes desperate.

But if SNWA does that; the pipeline construction mega-corporations, developers (of projects outside of Las Vegas), land speculators, and oligarchy banks won't get their money now.

Beware of a rapid effort to ram this boondoggle through before the people of Las Vegas have time to organize against it.


Thursday, March 08, 2012

Bad News, Good News, Consequences, Action

First the bad news; the Earth is full. 



Now the good news; Abundance is our future.




As both Paul Gilding and Peter Diamandis point out; we are in a difficult predicament, but we have hope for a much better future.

However...

This isn't the future we are presently headed for. Our present path leads to a catastrophic compounding of our problems. For example; The true cost of oil.




But, things don't have to be this way.
The oil oligarchs want us to keep paying for oil, no matter how bad we don't need it. They are afraid of losing their multi-billion dollar income stream. This is literally insane behavior. They are more concerned about the survival of their companies than they are the survival of humanity.

Now for the great news:
a DOE funded company has developed a new lithium ion battery that has three times the charge capacity at half the cost of present lithium ion batteries. This is the price/performance point that some analysts consider the "holy grail" of battery characteristics required for mass commercialization in automobiles.

We don't need gas in cars built from now on.



Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The People of Las Vegas are Finally Waking Up



The list of expensive boondogles, etc. is even more impressive in print. See the list here. 

Oh, and by the way; most of the watergrab water isn't actually for the people who are going to get stuck with the bill. They already have water. And if they ever have to ration water, it would be far cheaper than draining Rural Nevada - so that they can continue to waste.

Taking action before the commitment makes much more sense than complaining afterward. Take Action Now!

Monday, February 27, 2012

Friday, February 24, 2012

It's READY!


Yeah!!!

It's ready.
I'm ready. 

 

It took three years to get here... (Actually, it took a lifetime.)

I'm ready to take a stab at a full-length feature – about crowd-source designing a new culture – adapted to real-world conditions.

No small task, I admit.
But it's what we need most. We need a vision.
No, there won't be any drugs involved. But that's more your decision than mine.

The vision I'm speaking of is one of insight. We need a vision of our ideal. We need a vision of empowerment. We need a vision of freedom. We need a realistic concept of our ideal future – without being too idealistic.

But what is too idealistic? Is the dream of a true democracy too idealistic? Is living tomorrow, after living like there's no tomorrow, too idealistic? Is working together towards a goal that satisfies us all too idealistic? ...If so, we're dead.

Common sense should not be too idealistic.

Common sense wisdom has kept our species alive for tens to hundreds of thousands of years. Television news personalities haven't even been around for a hundred.

Much religious wisdom is common sense wisdom. When you here it, it just makes sense.

We need a common sense vision of who we want to be.

I need your help in creating that vision. I need your ideas – so that I can group them into a video – which hopefully will be much more than just a collection of ideas and wisdom. With your help, we hope to assemble a plan.

Please visit my Kickstarter presentation to hear my offer.

Monday, February 06, 2012

What Is The Matrix In The Real World?


In the movie The Matrix, the matrix represented the system of lies we are told to keep us from understanding the real world.



But what happens when we get past that system of lies? What is the truth?

Is there is an authentic matrix in the real world?

I would offer that it is the system of life that makes up our world.
...the matrix of life.

It is all around us, even in the air we breath.

In the real world, the “construct” was not constructed – it evolved. It developed, over billions of years into an exquisite Environment that is far more advanced than anything humanity has ever created – or even imagined.

In the real world, the matrix is the cocoon of life that brought us into existence – and keeps us alive and happy.

We're barely beginning to understand what the real world matrix (of life) is – as we destroy it – and replace it with a matrix of lies. The biggest lie is the lie that this is good for the economy.



In the real world no economy will have snowball's chance in Hell if our matrix of life collapses – and it's beginning to collapse. Every ecosystem on the planet is in decline. So what do we do about it? In our real world full of lies, we pay to make our eminent collapse inevitable.



The next biggest lie is that we have no alternative. All of our lives, Americans have put up with our own tax money being used against us. We've grown to accept without question that we are essentially being led to slaughter for short-term monopoly profits. Very few have been willing to commit their life to saving everyone's lives. And now here we are; past peakoil per capita, past a global warming tipping point, and past the extinctionrate that was the end of the line for the dinosaurs. We are now cornered. We now have no alternative but to fix things – whatever the cost. But everyone keeps hoping somebody will do this for us. No one person can do this. Not Obama. Not anyone – can do this alone.

We have to break away from the system of lies that keep us from understanding the real world. We have to make the effort ourselves. We have to make the effort together. We have to realize that there is no long-term plan. THERE IS NO PLAN!

In the movie The Matrix, a spoon was used as a metaphor for imagined reality. Inside The Matrix, a young prodigy exclaimed “there is no spoon.” But in the real real world, there definitely is a spoon, and it continues to exist long after you throw it away.


The third biggest lie is that what is good for the GDP is good for humanity. We have accepted a system that only recognizes money as wealth. The matrix of life is real world wealth. Money is just paper. And maximizing paper at the expense of real world wealth is simply shooting ourselves in the foot – and then the leg – and then the torso...

And finally, the most underrated lie we believe is that; what we do as individuals doesn't matter. I'll refer to a fortune cookie I recently received:

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

How They Intend To Collapse Our Economy


Everyone knows that competition in the marketplace leads to innovation.
Everyone knows that monopolization of a market leads to stagnation and price gouging.

So why is Congress trying to pass legislation to destroy competition to the music and movie industry?
That's what they've been paid off to do.

The SOPA and PIPA are bills that were essentially written by the established record industry and the established movie industry. Without huge donations to members of the House and Senate, these bills would have gone nowhere. This is what legislation for sale looks like.

For years we've witnessed the established music and movie industry trying to sue their competition out of business.

Quite a few years ago, I committed to never buy music again from the music monopoly – after they sued MP3.com out of business.

The music industry's goal isn't to build a better mousetrap.
Their goal is to dominate the mousetrap market – and make you eat their crappy cheese. 
And if they stifle freedom of speech - too bad. 
As far as they're concerned, only money is speech.

But this isn't just the music and movie industry committing what should be crimes.
Every industry that has paid to move legislation through Congress has pushed monopolistic laws. That's why we see almost every industry out there monopolized.

A government for sale to the highest bidder writes the worst legislation. Because the people who want the worst legislation are willing to bid the highest.

This is the root of our crisis.
We have to get money out of politics, or our system is guaranteed to fail.