Detroit, Bush league

I've been following Detroit history of late, and it had a
great time in the 20th century with the car factories,
and then some over-zealous
cops ruined it all and started the riots, and gave us
some of the most Gi-normous FUNK and PUNK
music the world has ever seen.

MC5, Stooges, Parliament Funkadelic

The city was probably the first major city to be 

largely evacuated, and slowly it became derelict,

then burned out, then forest land.

Enjoy this nature spectacular
let's cut to the video:

Detroit prairie on cbc
Detroit ville morte .
Ανέβηκε από NewWorldOpposition. - Ανακαλύψτε περισσότερους webcam χαρακτήρες.

OOPS. in this next video, you can see the bush-ification
of the city and the boarded-up houses, and the fire that
claims so many parts of the city.



This having been seen, woodland creatures are all the more 
entering cities because we've stolen their habitats and 
food supply. They'll evolve into garbage eaters, and thus
children will learn about those "creatures in our garbage" 
and learn to fear nature. 

Every last gamma ray

In these post-Fuku-me days, it takes a
bald-faced cheeky oligarchy to push for more Nukes.
Thatcher went for it because while it looked like
private investment, everybody knows that nukes
are so heavily subsidised that they're worse than
if it were a public enterprise. But we gotta give
cushy jobs to lazy friends.
Well, more of the same these days.

It is telling of the racial differences between the UK
and Japan and Germany.

After Fukushima, once the dust settled, the Japanese
stopped all their isotope-shacks, and the Germans
put forward the plans to stop their plants as soon as
is practicable. NO OTHER NATIONS even
considered changing their tack. Tell you something?
I would rather be led by those kinds of people.

Then there's the whole why-not-thorium nukes?
the benefits are amazingly obvious, except that thorium
doesn't go BOOM. Therefore, no Western governments
want it. Neither does Iran, but that move may cost the
Persians.

Anyway, here's  story of how French power-brokers
have somehow paid off the UK's box tickers:

checkit: slog
How Britain’s energy future is dangerously compromised

EDF is foisting second-rate nuclear technology onto Britain, and we can’t stop them

Slog exposé of Britain’s woefully hands-off ‘secure energy’ policy is a tale of clever government omission in what it puts out about energy. A brief history of the inane reasons behind the UK’s choice of nuclear reactor type. A classic example of having no control over our own national destiny any more. The continuing story of the unaccountable obviating their responsibilities. And the obsession of governments throughout the world with nuclear development in terms of weaponry. this means "We dicked about with the energy football under New Labour, but now we need to get on with it, even though we can’t afford it. So over to you, EDF The Coalition Government which took power in May 2010 has backed the plans for new nuclear,and progress to new build remains on track. Uranium is the 92nd element in the periodic elements table that baffled us all at school; but the 90th place element in that table is Thorium. Never heard of it? Probably not, but Western scientists estimate that the nuclear energy available in thorium is greater than that available from all of the world’s oil, coal and uranium combined.

Thorium is approximately three times as abundant as uranium in the earth’s crust. In addition, thorium is present in higher concentrations (2-10%) by weight than uranium (0.1-1%) in their respective ores, making thorium retrieval much less expensive and less environmentally damaging per unit of energy extracted. Countries with significant thorium mineral deposits include: Australia, India, Brazil, USA, Canada, China, Russia, Norway, Turkey, Venezuela, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, South Africa, and Malaysia. Its availability is both broader and deeper than uranium, and it produces a fraction of the nuclear waste left after using uranium for electricity generation.

But it is a minority choice for reactors round the  world. A senior researcher explains with refreshing bluntness why:

“Ah, that’s easy. You can’t make bombs out of it. Bombs should, of course, have zero importance in the decision about which material to use for nuclear electricity generation. Thorium is plentiful, easier in terms of disposal, and vastly – hugely – more efficient than uranium. But you can’t make bombs out of it. So nobody uses it. It’s insane”.

A specialist media source tips me off by email as follows:

“I am not a rabid anti-nuclear person – I would not oppose new nuclear plants on condition they were based on thorium technology, which is (potentially at least) vastly superior to current uranium technology in terms of safety, clean-up costs, waste storage and nuclear proliferation risks. But we are not being offered thorium, and nobody anywhere seems to know or care about the difference between the two….the main difference between uranium and thorium is its thermal efficiency. Uranium’s is pitifully bad, which means there is lots of waste and lots of bad stuff left after the reaction, some of which remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years. Thorium’s thermal efficiency is – if I remember rightly – 97%, which means there is a fraction of the waste, and that waste is non-radioactive within 300 years.”

And finally, this from the US – source must remain vague I’m afraid:

“The major reason why thorium use for energy production has not made more progress over the past decades is that thorium is not nearly as easy to weaponize. The principal reason thorium hasn’t been used more widely to date is that the ore contains no fissile isotope.”

.... [GM BLOCK OF PROGRESS]

But EDF energy remains committed to diversifying the energy it has on hand to sell. Before the Delingpolar one at the Torygraph has an attack of the vapours, let me quickly review the “CETO” wave energy device being developed by Carnegie Wave Energy. It is a joint Australian-British endeavour, and its main plus point is having most of the equipment based on land – which makes it easy to maintain and cheap to run. The technology is also very power-dense, and capable of producing something like five gigawatts of energy per square mile. Astonishingly, it can also be turned into a desalination device when it is not needed for energy generation. No more standpipes for Britain, then. Amazing.

However, the exclusive rights to use the technology in the northern hemisphere have been sold to….EDF....
2

FRENCH NUKES ARE A BIG LOBBY. Testosterone pit
Russia’s Gazprom Tightens Its Stranglehold On Europe, France Falls: The Natural Gas War Gets Dirty Friday, August 31, 2012 at 5:19PM Why would France suddenly prohibit shale gas exploration? Sure, there are environmental issues with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, the methods used to extract gas from porous shale deep underground: flammable drinking water, earth quakes, cows that die, radioactive sludge in sewage treatment plants.... But French governments have had, let’s say, an uneasy relationship with environmentalists. Its spy service DGSE, for example, sank Greenpeace’s flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, in the port of Auckland, New Zealand, killing one person. No, there must have been another reason why the government of Nicholas Sarkozy prohibited shale gas exploration in 2011, after having already issued permits in 2010. A mini hullabaloo had broken out, stirred up by the European Ecologists and The Greens (EELV), the fringe on the French left. And Sarkozy caved! Without a fight! Enthusiastically. The government of François Hollande just confirmed the prohibition when Environment Minister Delphine Batho declared: “Hydraulic fracturing remains and will remain prohibited.” The clue: Sarkozy suddenly visited Japan on March 31, 2011, a couple of weeks after the horrific earthquake and tsunami, and the subsequent nuclear accident at Fukushima, to declare in front of shell-shocked Japanese that there was “no alternative” to nuclear power. He’d been dispatched by the almighty state-owned nuclear industry to tamp down on the growing anti-nuclear sentiment at home. Owned by the government, nuclear power plants produce 75% of France’s electricity and export some of it. No one who wants to be politically viable is allowed to hamper the industry. If someone strays off the reservation, he or she is dragged back soon. While Hollande campaigned on a vague promise to reduce dependency on nuclear power to 50%, it was understood as one of the bones he had to toss to environmentalists. Nothing would come of it. So when Batho, who wants to add more renewables to the portfolio, toed the party line by saying, “Nuclear power is an industry with future,” then qualified it with a “but,” it caused an outcry even among the Socialists. That’s the power the nuclear industry has over the political machines. But now another powerful entity turned up: Russia’s Gazprom. It’s the world’s largest gas producer, gas exporter, and gas distribution company with nearly 100,000 miles of gas trunk lines and branches. The Russian government owns 50.01% of it. At home, it has to sell gas under cost, one of the Soviet leftovers. It relies on high-profit sales from Europe to make up for it. But Europe is diversifying away from its single most important supplier. Competitors include Russia’s number two, Novatek, and Norway—the second largest natural gas exporter in the world. So, in April, Gazprom had to lower its European sales guidance for 2012. Its market share in Europe was 27% last year, and it’s shooting for 30% by 2020, but if the US shale-gas boom ever infects Europe, those plans would become a pipedream—and if the high-profit sales from Europe tapered off further, it would have to raise prices at home, a political nightmare. Hence its fight by hook or crook against shale gas in France. Gazprom’s “underhanded tactics” and “scaremongering about a new technology” have Moscow’s nod of approval and are designed to dissuade governments from developing their own shale-gas reserves, according to a report by Platts, a global provider of information on energy, petrochemicals, and metals. Efforts include all manner of operations, online and through encouraging demonstrations, but also paying public relation firms to spread “myths and misconceptions,” said Aviezer Tucker, assistant director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas. A “European Union-wide ban” on shale-gas production, he said, would be the “holy grail.” With France already knocked off, Sergei Komlev of Gazprom Export has been bouncing around the world in his fight against European shale gas. At a meeting in Qatar, according to Platts’ report, he gave a presentation. “Multiple Handicaps Will Retard Shale Gas Development Outside US” was the title of one of his slides. “Fortunately, it claimed, “European shale gas development faces numerous economic, regulatory, and political barriers before there are significant amounts of shale gas production, not sooner than in ten or more years.” Breathing room for Gazprom in the natural gas wars. In the US, natural gas may be the most mispriced commodity these days. Its price has been below the cost of production for so long that the industry is suffering billions in losses. But demand for natural gas by power producers has been booming—and it’s killing coal, one powerplant at a time. Read.... Natural Gas Is Pushing Coal Over The Cliff.

don't wanna give up my toys

Global warming denial has just been decisively connected

with childish selfishness in a new study.

One big finding of the study of Ego University is that

rich boys want their toys, and so do poorer ones
whose toys are of lesser quality.

They interviewed a new lobbying group called 

Big Boys' Toys, who were only too happy to 

respond:

BBT: You know, all this taxing of pollution will just 
stop us from the unlimited use of our toys, 
not because we can't afford, but because 
our shphincters will slam shut and we're going
throw hissy fits.

Here we see Mitt Romney's newest toy which he needs in Tampa Florida

for his future campaign for president of the Cayman Islands.
 

Every last drop of oil

Not being ones to waste stuff, be sure that businesses will
use every last drop of oil on, or inside the planet. You do
understand that, OPEC notwithstanding, the oil business
is a mafia, run by the US. Well, try to get them to turn
green, like Greenpeace.
Exactly

This is a trompe d'oil, for anybody who thinks that oligarchs will
stop before the last drop is gone.

It's up to you to find other means. Stiff them by biking.
Use an electric car.

Here's what Mark Jaccard has to say about the use of the
good-to-the-last-drop oil:
"my evaluation of the primary energy alternatives leads me
to predict that fossil fuels will not be abandoned and indeed
will sustain their dominant role through this century and
perhaps well beyond"
even though subsidies for Nukes and Oil are "$150 B per year
in the 1990s" and probably more today.
 --
Major oil companies around the world pay negative taxes.
If they were not subsidised, even more people would be
chucking their cars. Governments and companies are
colluding to keep the price at a particularly high level
whatever the world oil price is, but they know not to
go too high, because it will cause a revolution. If people
cannot get to work, they'll freak out.
So, governments subsidise the companies who pay
negative taxes, but not consumers.

the Book
Sustainable Fossil Fuels: The Unusual suspect in the quest
for Clean and Enduring Energy.

surfing on garbage saves the planet

No, no, nein, non

When the icebergs melt, we will not have the planet flooded
in a neo-Noah incident.

Indeed, the millions of tons of garbage that we produce
every day will come to save us from sinking.

 [source is in the file name]

This is how your plastic garbage comes back to your doorstep.


This goes as an epilogue to the story I compiled last year on
the plastic island floating around the Pacific, apparently, now,
on a tide of radiation from Fuked up Fukushima.

Garbage as an economic indicator. Guess what?
When people are afraid of recession, they throw away less
garbage. I suppose they sleep with their chicken bones
buried in the garden. Garbage to GDP.
A new economic indicator (I got it from Ritholz Big Picture)

You may think that what comes from the planet is merely recycled.
But you'd be wrong. What about oil? We dredge it up
and then make garbage with it. The garbage gets piled
up above the waterline. Ergo, we get saved by our garbage.
However, we may end up floating in it, and our fecal matter.

How to prevent cyclist squashing in London

Put your bike in one of these.


plan b
scare drivers to death

crush protection

make yourself conspicuous

I think being meek and out of the way is just one step towards being ignored and
then killed. So, get in their faces. Hogg a lane. They won't forget you then.
However, the may then have other reasons to kill you.

a major rethink of human culture

I'm not a big fan of philosophising, prefering to think and act,
and think again.

However, Chris Hedges gives me a lot to think about,
and allows thinkers to think outside the gilded cage
that has been set up around our political leaders.

Some ideas:
- Indians in America were killed as much for their  

egalitarian political economics of subsistence

as they were for the land they were sitting on.


IshitUnot: Truthdig

By Chris Hedges  
Hedges: How Our Demented Capitalist System Made America Insane

When civilizations start to die they go insane. Let the ice sheets in the Arctic melt. Let the temperatures rise. Let the air, soil and water be poisoned. Let the forests die. Let the seas be emptied of life. Let one useless war after another be waged. Let the masses be thrust into extreme poverty and left without jobs while the elites, drunk on hedonism, accumulate vast fortunes through exploitation, speculation, fraud and theft. Reality, at the end, gets unplugged. We live in an age when news consists of Snooki’s pregnancy, Hulk Hogan’s sex tape and Kim Kardashian’s denial that she is the naked woman cooking eggs in a photo circulating on the Internet. Politicians, including presidents, appear on late night comedy shows to do gags and they campaign on issues such as creating a moon colony. “At times when the page is turning,” Louis-Ferdinand Celine wrote in “Castle to Castle,” “when History brings all the nuts together, opens its Epic Dance Halls! hats and heads in the whirlwind! Panties overboard!”

The quest by a bankrupt elite in the final days of empire to accumulate greater and greater wealth, as Karl Marx observed, is modern society’s version of primitive fetishism. This quest, as there is less and less to exploit, leads to mounting repression, increased human suffering, a collapse of infrastructure and, finally, collective death. It is the self-deluded, those on Wall Street or among the political elite, those who entertain and inform us, those who lack the capacity to question the lusts that will ensure our self-annihilation, who are held up as exemplars of intelligence, success and progress. The World Health Organization calculates that one in four people in the United States suffers from chronic anxiety, a mood disorder or depression—which seems to me to be a normal reaction to our march toward collective suicide. Welcome to the asylum.

... The war on the Native Americans, like the wars waged by colonialists around the globe, was waged to eradicate not only a people but a competing ethic. The older form of human community was antithetical and hostile to capitalism, the primacy of the technological state and the demands of empire. This struggle between belief systems was not lost on Marx. “The Ethnological Notebooks of Karl Marx” is a series of observations derived from Marx’s reading of works by historians and anthropologists. He took notes about the traditions, practices, social structure, economic systems and beliefs of numerous indigenous cultures targeted for destruction. Marx noted arcane details about the formation of Native American society, but also that “lands [were] owned by the tribes in common, while tenement-houses [were] owned jointly by their occupants.” He wrote of the Aztecs, “Commune tenure of lands; Life in large households composed of a number of related families.” He went on, “… reasons for believing they practiced communism in living in the household.” Native Americans, especially the Iroquois, provided the governing model for the union of the American colonies, and also proved vital to Marx and Engel’s vision of communism.

Marx, though he placed a naive faith in the power of the state to create his workers’ utopia and discounted important social and cultural forces outside of economics, was acutely aware that something essential to human dignity and independence had been lost with the destruction of pre-modern societies. The Iroquois Council of the Gens, where Indians came together to be heard as ancient Athenians did, was, Marx noted, a “democratic assembly where every adult male and female member had a voice upon all questions brought before it.” Marx lauded the active participation of women in tribal affairs, writing, “The women [were] allowed to express their wishes and opinions through an orator of their own election. Decision given by the Council. Unanimity was a fundamental law of its action among the Iroquois.” European women on the Continent and in the colonies had no equivalent power.

Rebuilding this older vision of community, one based on cooperation rather than exploitation, will be as important to our survival as changing our patterns of consumption, growing food locally and ending our dependence on fossil fuels. The pre-modern societies of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse—although they were not always idyllic and performed acts of cruelty including the mutilation, torture and execution of captives—did not subordinate the sacred to the technical. The deities they worshipped were not outside of or separate from nature.

... The demented project of endless capitalist expansion, profligate consumption, senseless exploitation and industrial growth is now imploding. Corporate hustlers are as blind to the ramifications of their self-destructive fury as were Custer, the gold speculators and the railroad magnates. They seized Indian land, killed off its inhabitants, slaughtered the buffalo herds and cut down the forests. Their heirs wage war throughout the Middle East, pollute the seas and water systems, foul the air and soil and gamble with commodities as half the globe sinks into abject poverty and misery. The Book of Revelation defines this single-minded drive for profit as handing over authority to the “beast.”

... The Native Americans understood there are powers and forces we can never control and must honor. They knew, as did the ancient Greeks, that hubris is the deadliest curse of the human race. This is a lesson that we will probably have to learn for ourselves at the cost of tremendous suffering.

... “Ethnological Notebooks,” Morgan’s insistence on the historical and social importance of “imagination, that great faculty so largely contributing to the elevation of mankind.” Imagination, as the Shakespearean scholar Harold C. Goddard pointed out, “is neither the language of nature nor the language of man, but both at once, the medium of communion between the two. ... Imagination is the elemental speech in all senses, the first and the last, of primitive man and of the poets.”