Monthly Archives: October 2009
How Soon Will Torchlight Parades Come to America?
Saturday, March 21, 2009
How Soon Will Torchlight Parades Come to America?
According to reports, disgruntled taxpayers took a bus ride to visit the palatial estates of AIG executives to protest their bonuses. The citizens are being distracted by the bonuses, which are mere pocket change compared with the huge gobs of money the US government has thrown at AIG and other entities, but that’s another story. Here I want to make an observation on the anger of the masses, which is nothing to trifle with, as history has shown.
Elites obviously believe that the protests aren’t always going to be peaceful, that it’s only a matter of time until there are nasty visits from torch-wielding crowds. They may be right. And they are making preparations to deal with citizen anger.
For example, according to PR Watch,
Harvard Law School is hosting seminars in April and November to teach “Public Relations, Communications and Media Strategies for Dealing With an Angry Public.” They’ll be teaching techniques for dealing with people who “are angry because you’ve let them down” or who “want to embarrass you publicly,” as well as “environmental groups threatening you” over issues such as “the use and disposal of toxic materials.” You can visit their website for details. A flyer announcing the seminars carries endorsements from officials with the U.S. Air Force, Federal Aviation Administration, ConocoPhillips, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.
Another sign that companies are seriously worried about unrest is this Marketwatch article, which informs us that “U.S. companies are being advised to batten down the hatches for their annual meetings this year amid rising anger among investors and the public over bonuses, bailouts, layoffs and slumping share prices.” An expert suggests that they are anticipating violence at annual meetings.
If it’s not possible to keep the pot from boiling over, torchlight parades could occur, and considering the number of guns owned by Americans, the situation could become very ugly. That is no doubt behind the preparations for mass internment.
Difficulties Facing Renewables
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Difficulties Facing Renewables
In addition to the need to use fossil fuels to build the equipment for renewable energy sources (raising the question of ultimately how “renewable” they are), a recent news item tells us that T. Boone Pickens’ plan to build the world’s biggest wind farm has been stymied by two problems: financing and the grid. Specifically, the credit crunch is limiting the funds available for financing renewable energy projects, and America’s grid isn’t up to handing the power that the wind farm would be feeding into it.
The lack of money for financing is crimping just about everything. We are also supposed to be looking forward to a revival of nuclear power, but the skyrocketing costs of these large-scale, high-tech installations is killing the nuclear renaissance even before it gets started. And while various costs are being quoted for upgrading the grid, they are all astronomical.
Thus, dreams of expansive wind farms, solar parks, and other installations need to be tempered with the reality of cost, which ultimately comes down to the price of fossil fuels.
