Pick a card, any card. You lose!

Just how many weeks, well months now, is it since the "military action" in Iraq finished? Well its enough that I don't even need to go and check, I'm comfortable to say its been a long time now. And just how many weapons of mass destruction have been found? Well apart form the large piles of American dollars Iraq's most wanted seemed to have stashed away in every hide out, precisely none.

Of course this point has been made over and over, to the point where Bush can comfortably just shrug it off and tell us he really doesn't have to explain all over again to the media, why WOMD have not been found. The media just take it as red that he had a really good reason, one time, and they are really too lazy to remind him each and every day, and maybe start calling for impeachment. And the anti-Bushies are red in the face from telling the world there's something amiss here, so red in fact that they are begining to tire and fade.

My thinking on it is either there were weapons of mass destruction at the time Saddam "gone done a bunk", or there weren't. And either Bush and his minions will or wont ever find them. So we have four possibilities and I think the consequences of all of them are very, very serious. No one seems to be pointing out how bad it is, no matter which way the cookie crumbles.

WOMD did not exist and no WOMD ever found

This one means its time to impeach the President for lying to the nation. He categorically told us and the whole world he had conclusive proof that Saddam had WOMD and that Blix just wasn't looking in the right place, but he wasn't going to tell poor Blix where to look (just why no one has ever dug into it). In reality if there were no WOMD then of course neither Bush nor anyone will never find them. Since he'll never find them he'll always maintain they are "out there" just like the truth in X-files. Its likely we'll never know, since their non-existance is something that is extremely difficult if not impossible to prove.

WOMD did not exist but WOMD found

Clearly someone planted the evidence. Will we ever know? If we do find out about it then it'll be time to impeach the President again. I think we can all be assured that some of the Presidents finest stooges are right now figuring out how to plant some WOMD and get away with it.

WOMD did exist but WOMD not found

If no WOMD turn up after a long while eventually the US will tire of searching for them. Quite probably they hope people will get bored of asking about them and then they will eventually just quitely shelve the whole search. After all, as long as they are actively searching and not turning up anything, the spotlight is on them for not finding anything. It would be a lot easier for them to just declare the weapons as unfindable and get on with the real task in hand, finding the cash cow otherwise known as Iraqi oil.

The worse part of this scenario is that it basically means that UN weapons inspections are a complete waste of time. If a country can hide weapons of mass destruction so well that even the most powerful nation in the world, with the greatest survelliance and intelligence arsenels on the planet available to it cannot find them, well then we're kind of screwed aren't we? Every nation on the planet can now claim any weapons inspections as worthless, and then cite its own super-secret intelligence as an excuse for pre-emptive strikes. This doesn't exactly bode well for Iran and North Korea.

WOMD did exists and they are found

This is the one every Bush supporter believes will happen. If it does, and its possible to prove the find is real (conspiracy theorists will never swallow that one) then Bush and every smug, self congratulating Bush supporter will become so intolerable. that any opposition for the next election will be crushed like a bug under the wheel of a Hummer H2 speeding to the next gas pump. And for the rest of us? Well we should be glad that Bush is vindicated, we should be glad that the USA didn't attack under false pretenses. Shouldn't we?

Well no, not really. The problem is that it has been widely admitted by those close to Bush, that WOMD was simply the only pretense for war that they, and the pitiful bunch of sycophants who supported him (like Blair), could agree on. In reality they knew that Saddam's capability to actually use WOMD to do any harm to the USA was limited to say the least, and quite likely virtually none. Saddam, evil despot that him might be, was actually rather intelligent and he knew that any use of WOMD that could in any way be implicated with him would instantly result in the Wrath of Bush raining down on him. He knew that nothing, save nothing, would have given Bush more pleasure than to have been able to implicate Saddam for using WOMD. In the end Saddam was playing a reverse shell game, whether the WOMD were deployed and used in one place or another, or kept hidden up his sleeve, Saddam was bound to loose. He either showed his hand and lost for using them, or kept them hidden or destroyed them and lost because Bush would always say he had them still and invade anyway.

So the situation in which WOMD did exist and were found, would just vindicate the theory that even Americas supposed most evil and most powerful enemy was impudent even with an arsenel full of WOMD. He didn't even so much as lob one missile full of nerve gas in our direction before getting out of town. So what does that prove? Why is that something to worry about? Well remember that guy Osama? Did he have WOMD? No. Did he have a nation state and mass armies to threaten us with? No. Did he have to play hide and seek with weapons inspectors? No. Did he find himself with a carte-blanche to launch a suprise attack on the USA without any credible opposition? Yes!

Basically finding WOMD in Iraq will just mean that we completely wasted our time and $70 billion hunting down America's most wanted and his WOMD only to find that the real threat is still "out there". We'll be so busy dancing a gig around the Whitehouse as Bush is voted in for a second term that we'll forget Osama is still out there, and Saddam is still out there, and many, many more people than before we invaded Iraq will be out there, hating our guts for all the reasons the Americans hated the British right about the time when they decided the worlds most powerful nation sucked - big time. More on that for the next blog, it'll be a cracker!

Of course Bush and Co. know all that. They had a different agenda for invading Iraq, WOMD was after all just a convenient excuse the world might swallow. Remember if that was their number one reason, what about humanitarian reasons? Nope, that wouldn't fly, the "allies" knew that America has an appaling record for supporting human rights across the globe, unless its in their own interests to do so. Now as Liberia and the Congo are exploding into public view we can see why. America just doesn't have the guts for a real humantarian rescue mission with no glory for the winner, or indeed no military winner at all.

It'll be interested to see what happens, but whatever does happens, we all lose.

What price freedom from evil?

Does anyone see the irony that Bush & Mothers of all F**k Ups Inc. now, only now decides there is a price tag on Saddam's head? Never mind the cliche that it smacks of plastering the world with some god old Texas cowboy's "Wanted Dead or Alive" poster. Never mind the huge and smoldering dung heap of lies, and deception associated with the puported reason we invaded Iraq. No, the irony is far worse. If capturing Saddam is so important, if he's such the source of all evil in Iraq, why heck isn't the price on his head some significant fraction of the fifty billion or so the government spent on invading his country? Surely putting the price on his head at $25 million just goes to show that really the don't seriously think Saddam is much of a threat at all. Ditto for Bin Laden.

If the US government had decided to put a $30 billion dollar bounty on his head the people of Iraq might just have collectively decided to turn him in and share the spoils, and carry on without him. After all that would have been $1000 each and about the same as one years of revenue from their oil fields once the evil-hordes (US corporations) came over and started sucking their oil fields dry. Yes, that would be just like vote buying on mass scale. But hey, why is over-throwing a country's leader by force with guns, explosives and civilian casualties any more acceptable?

Just how is buying the head of a country's leader with a big pile-o-cash any different from the kind of bribing and coercion of governments that happens every day? The world bank has done it over and over in South America, and the USA does it all the time all over the world. Remember the huge cash pile the US government was offering to buy the hearts and minds of Turkey? Was it $20 billion they offered to launch an invasion from the north? And didn't Turkey hold out for more just like Oliver Twist? Perhaps, they figured, that $20 billion is peanuts compared to what the bank of Uncle Sam can afford. After all if we can easily afford $10 trillion in tax cuts for the rich its not suprising they wanted to put a high price on making GWB's shock and awe invasion easier.

So its quite clear to me that GWB has no intention of ever paying out $25 million to someone for Saddam, dead or alive. Its just another cheap marketing trick from Bush Inc. that someone thought would make him look like he was really concerned about catching Saddam. After all, if Saddam was turned in tomorrow what would our government do with him? Turn him over to the World Court? Well that's not going to happen since Bush doesn't support the World Court or any other organization that might actually prosecute America for war crimes. Maybe they would have a little show trial down in Guantanamo Bay and then execute him? The alternative would be to lock him up like Rudolf Hess in his own custom prison for the rest of his life. The we would sit back and watch his imprisonment fester in our countries credibility for the rest of his life.

Personally I'm just waiting for Saddam or Osama Bin Laden to wise up and call GWBs bluff. Then they can turn around and put an even higher bounty on GWBs head. It would be funny to watch the international "who's the most valued evil-doer" bidding war that would ensue! Probably the only laughs we'd ever get out of the whole sorry-assed and sordid affair.

Face and voice recognition de-bunked

If anyone seriously thinks that face and voice recognition could be widely deployed to spot evil-doers (lets face it, you don't have to be a terrorist to be an evil-doer) they should think again. Why? Well did you ever notice how, every time someone appears on Arab TV purporting to Saddam Hussein, or Bin Laden, it takes our government days to pass judgement on whether its them or not? Think about it. It takes the government, with all its human experts and super-secret analysis techniques, days to pass judgement. So what chance does a machine at the airport have when its just some cheapo PC running Windows (they always do, have you ever noticed the number of X-Ray machines suffering from the blue screens of death?) and all the time it has is a few milliseconds?

Yes you can argue that the government is shooting for a much higher probability of being correct with their analysis. After all Saddam has a $25M price tag on his head (I'll be blogging about that next) so you want to be damned sure you're right. Right? Sorry but I think that is a bogus argument. The reason is, if and when face and voice recognition are widely deployed at our airports, on our streets, and in our phone systems, there will quite literally be tens of billions of recognition events every day. Hence any technology that is going to ever stand a chance of being practical will have to have an extremely low false positive rate. Otherwise thousands if not millions of people will be stopped, hauled off and get accused of being evil-doers every day. And if its false positive rate is bad than its likely that a good number of legitimate evil-doers will walk on by due to false negatives.

Also, we shouldn't forget that Saddam is one the most studied, photographed, and video-taped people on earth. Automated systems are lucky to get a few blurry ten by eights to base their recognition on. So I believe all the evidence indicates that fully automated systems are still years, if not decades away from being useful. The government should just stop wasting their money on the foolish notion it can use these systems now to "protect us". It should instead channel its efforts into finding out who is responsible for all of these people wanting to do "evil" against us. I for one, could recognize that person in a flash...

The Move On primary

Okay, I'm a little late on this one, but its still bugging me over a week later. I just fail to see why MoveOn didn't have the foresight to run their primary with instant run-off voting rules. Aren't they supposed to be a progressive organization that would actually support something as important as instant run-off?

I seem to remember complaints from MoveOn about how the people voting on it were worrying about voting for one candidate or another, just because they thought in the real Democratic primary their candidate wouldn't win. Well then, aren't those exactly the conditions under which instant run-off rules? If you really support someone but are afraid everyone else wont support them then go ahead put them first, and put your perception of the mass vote popularity poll winner second. Maybe you'll be pleasently suprised!

MoveOn missed a huge opportunity to show over one million voters, and all the mass media following their primary, just how instant run off works and can change the voting habits of Americans.

Seeing red looking for green

It looks like I'm not the only one who thinks the Department of Homeland Security color coded terroism alert status is a bunch of horse hooey (to put it politely). Its clearly just a clever marketing ploy to instill fear in the more gullable population. The only thing they missed out was the fluorescent purple level, to tell us the government fucked up, the WOMDs fell, and we've all been irradiated. Oh, and the white level to tell us we've all been lulled into such stupidity by the government brain-washing that we've been carted off to a padded white cell.

The other folks thinking like me are Democracy Means You where they have developed the Smiley Alert System. While you're visting the site check out some of their serious articles, its not all laughs and smilies at Democracy Means You!

What price the American dream?

Its looking like the US death toll in Iraq, after Bush declared the "hostilities" (invasion) over, will soon far exceed that from enemy fire during "hostilities". In fact it may have already done so but no one is really advertising the respective counts. It would presumably be deemed unpatrioitic to question why we are still having to forcibly opress the population from revolt. The population that was supposedly going to throw down its weapons, and then hug the American troops like long lost Western brothers they never knew they had.

However I'm not at all suprised. Imagine if the US Army magically, overnight, managed to install a perfect government, restore all utilities, deploy a full police force and Iraq was once again "at peace" (like it was before America Inc. invaded). Imagine we then managed to bring Iraq to the giddy heights of American "civilisation" and law and order. What would kind of peace would they have?

Well in the year 2000 the USA murder rate was 5.5 per 100,000 people per year. So with an average lifespan of 80 you have approximately a 1 in 200 chance of being murdered. And if you don't think thats too bad remember the aggravated assault figure is about 100 times higher so you'll have a 1 in 2 chance of experiencing that. And if you think that America is surely better than the rest of the world, for comparison in the United Kingdom the murder rate is around 1.5 per 100,000 people per year, or Spain where its 1.0 and Japan where its 0.6 (1995 figures). So yes, our murder rate sucks big time.

What does this mean for Iraq?

The population of Iraq is 24 million. Therefore if Iraq were to become as "peaceful" as America its murder rate would then be 1300 people per year, or 25 people per week; and its aggravated assault rate would be 130,000 per year or 2500 a week. Remember that's under the best of situations and never mind the rape, simple assault and robbery. And I think I've already blogged about the likely impact of the American dream on Iraq's prison population. The world prison population report shows that once again America leads the world with 686 per 100,000 people locked up in prison (roughly four times higher than the United Kingdom). Something to aspire too?

Now get real. Since we blew apart Iraqs civil infrastructure it now has a very large number of firearms on the streets. It has extreme water, food and power distribution problems. It also has two major religous factions that really don't get on with each other, and a good number of Baath party members roaming the streets with an axe to grind aginst pretty much everyone, and visa versa. Most people are without work, income or hope. So is it any wonder most are focusing their displeasure on the American forces? So one can imagine, even with the supposedly "American Dream" ideal level of crime, a large number of those 25 murders per week might invole the occupying forces.

However even in America, within the last ten years the murder rate has been double what it is now. In a time of civil unrest it could easily be five to ten times higher. Therefore I'm really quite suprised we're not seeing hundreds of US deaths per week. I suspect the only reason this has not been the case is that US forces are keeping well out of site if possible and spending all their time trying to avoid exposing themselves to risk. When they do come face to face with trouble they are enforcing peace with extreme prejudice as post "hostilities" civilian death statistics for Iraq are showing. If the Iraqi people ever do get it into their heads to gorganize, and start a revolt against the occupiers, one can only expect a blood bath of massive proportions to ensue.

Really, are you sure Hollywood doesn't influence acts of violence?

A news report today demonstrated that Hollywood really does influence acts of violence. The US Army has been sending troops into battle pumped up on Wagner's "Ridge of the Valkyries" which is exactly how the movie "Apocalypse Now" begins. I wonder why they didn't choose Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" that was used in "Platoon"...

A chimp is down!

Its somewhat unfair to chimps, but that's what my friends call him. Anyway, this photo shows that Bush couldn't even manage to master the Segway transporter. The sharp eyed will notice he was trying to drive while using a tennis racket, which I guess is the next best thing to a mobile phone. Unfortunately this wasn't a photo of the first recorded Segway fatality. More info.

Who's been throwing cat litter in MY home?

Well that's what it looked like... Seriously. Imagine a bag of cat litter, dirt, sand and some mysterious black stuff that looks like volcanic ash. Now throw it all over your home so five hundred square feet of your floor and belongings are covered in it. That's what happens when a dozen roofers take a showel to your roof, rip the tar and gravel off, wheel barrow it over the exposed rafters and dump it over the side of your building. All day.

Okay, so it wasn't all bad, we knew it was coming. In fact we've know for a long time. A very long time. For three weeks now we've had our entire place covered in plastic. Since last September we've had half our ceiling covered with plastic sheeting that I'd hurriedly put up on a couple of sweaty summer evenings before dashing off to Europe on vacation. Thankfully rain stopped play that time. For over a year this roof project has been in the planning (thanks mostly to our neighbour Chris), and for three years we've known it would have to be done.

So finally it happened.

But nothing ever really prepares you for seeing the neon sign on your roof top water tower for the first time... through the ceiling.... as you're laying in bed.... And you never really thought the FedEx planes were that loud as they fly overhead. And no one ever told the cats what it would be like. Of course they've had three weeks of people ballet dancing in hob-nailed boots all over our roof as they ripped the other side of the building to shreads. I'm sure it was quite an ordeal for them but we'll never know since they haven't told us (yet) where their cat-a-blog is. But they seem to have taken the cataclysm (pun intended) in their strides and even the little cat-fish Lulu came out of hiding eventually. And Suz, well she's so gray and fluffy you probably couldn't tell if she'd be rolling in the dirt all day long anyway. She probably thought it was just raining cat litter again... fish, frogs, cat litter - whatever. Nap time.

Tomorrow I'll get to watch from home as the dirt continues to rain down while they rip the final quarter of the roof up. We'll see if I manage to do any work and which of me or the cats ends up more traumatised.

Model T says "Shame on you Ford!"

The Sierra Club is about to try and shame Ford into doing something about its pathetic average gas mileage. Guess what, Fords Model T, grandaddy of them all made almost a century ago, got an average of 25 miles per gallon. The average Ford car now gets 22.6 miles per gallon. The ads will run in the New York Times and Business Week soon.

Sure they miss the point of all the other car innovations since then, like cup holders, in car TVs and leather seats (actually the Model T probably had those too), oh and being able to go 0-60 in under 6 seconds. But they are a very entertaining way to make the point - there's always a price to be paid for progress in any technological direction. With 100 years of innovation behind it the car industry has clearly shown little, if any interest in fuel efficiency.

And the little one said "Roll over"!

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety finally thought about testing the safety of SUVs against side impact from... SUVs. And surprise only 2 out of the 12 tested ranked as good. I wonder if this will do anything to dispell the myth that SUVs are safer than cars? Probably not because most SUV owners will agrue "but most vehicles on the road are cars so I'm less likely to get injured".

Well even if that's true, its an arguement that can't stay true forever. Eventually if we all behave like Mr or Mrs "I like to be up high" SUV driver all vehicles on the road will be SUVs then we'll be back to square one. Your only opportunity to be safe will be buying a Hummer or Escolade sized vehicle. Well I really don't need to go there, because I've been down that road before.

More interesting in the IIHS were their historical records of how deaths on the roads have decreased. In the early 80s to 2000 driver deaths per million car registered decreased by 47% from 164 to 87 per million, and that's ignoring any increase in the average number of miles driven (no statistics there). However during the same time frame deaths from side impacts only declined by 23% from 42 to 32 million and most of the blame can be laid fairly and squarely on the increase of deaths caused by SUVs striking vehicles. The percentage of deaths caused by trucks and SUvs in side impacts increased from 29% to 57%, that's almost double and it includes all the SUV-SUV collisions. In an SUV-car collisions alone you're six times as likely to die in the collision.

It doesn't really matter which way you slice it, more SUVs on our roads are causing more deaths per vehicle per collision. Its a simple consequence of basic physics. SUV owners will tell me I should sell my dangerous small car and drive something as big as them to protect myself from their iilk. Doesn't that strike you as somewhat selfish? Its like the NRA telling me I should carry a gun and load up on a bullet proof vest to protect myself from gun carriers. Or for someone to tell me they have a right to the freedom to rob me, and I should buy a lock, bars, alarm and had better fund a well paid police force to protect myself.

Bushit! Bushit I say! If you're worried about car safety you go to the car manufacturers and you jolly well tell them to make safer cars which they can and have. But they haven't even made a scratch on the surface compared to what be could done. But you know what, were all expendable, expensable assets. As a consumer theirs a price on our head and they've pretty much reached the point where safety improvements, so they say, cost more than our lives. That's the argument by Ford and many others when obvious safety issues such as rollover deaths, and exploding fuel tanks came to light.

But even that is a lame argument. Most improvements to technology are expensive to start with when manufactured in small numbers. By the time they reach the mass market they cost peanuts. Do you really think an airbag costs $1000 to replace? Of course not, that's just their way of recouping some of their original investment. The part certainly cost less than $100 to produce, quite likely more like $20. Likewise does it really cost a few thousand extra to add some extra steel impact bars in your doors? Of course not - extra steel $1, time spent welding (by robots) $.50, lives saved in side impact with SUV - priceless.

Perhaps, in a militant and somewhat medieval stand of defiance, car owners should strap a large, sharp, forward and rearward pointing pole on the roof of their cars. At SUV level that is. Of course we'll do it for "safety reasons" because there will be a camera on it so we can see what the road looks like when "we are up high". I'm sure it must be a nice view up there... And if you've forgotten how it feels "down there" remind yourself what its like to be driving on the freeway surrounded by eighteen wheeler trucks. Maybe that will be just enough intimidation for people up high to keep their eyes on the road and off their cellphones...

Damn those revisionists, I can out revise them!

"Now there are some who would like to rewrite history; revisionist historians is what I like to call them," Bush said in a speech to New Jersey business leaders.

Referring to the ousted Iraqi president, Bush said, "Saddam Hussein was a threat to America and the free world in '91, in '98, in 2003. He continually ignored the demands of the free world, so the United States and friends and allies acted."

Could a bigger crock of revisionist history have poured from his jabbering lips? If he ever paused to look back at history he might have noticed the imprint of his big dumb ass all over it, but fortunately for him his blinders are large and his wee-beedy eyes are just that.

When I look back at the beginning of the twenty first century century guess what I'll tell the young kids? That's right: "Oh I hated the president with his wee beedy eyes and the smug look on his face: 'Oh you're gonna buy my Bushit oooOOOOOooooooh!'".

My daddy drinks because I cry

Some people may have noticed that one side effect of the recent economic downtown has been somewhat of a baby boom. Or maybe its just my imagination, or just a result of the age of all my friends. Either way it sure seems like everyone I know decided they'd give the old economy a boost with some extra consumers.

For me, or rather my girlfriend, this has resulted in a distinct uptick in the number of baby shower invitations appearing in the mail. Coming from England I wasn't too aquainted with the concept of baby showers until I crossed the big wide pond also know as The Atlantic Ocean. In England we tend to wait until after the birth to wet the baby's head - both in the font of the local church and at the bar of the local pub.

Fortunately I've managed to avoid all but one baby shower so far. I don't quite remember the excuses but after my first and last experience of the baby shower experience I can honestly say I think I've had my fill for a life time. I've nothing against people getting together to celebrate a couples imminent and relatively permanent loss of freedom, not to mention sleep and cash. But turning the whole event into an obscene "proto-consumer" welcoming ceremony with enough booty to knock over a mothercare saleswoman (sorry, British joke there) and enough credit card debt to fund a small Middle Eastern invasion, well frankly it just aint my cup of tea.

So I was rather happy, after a rather circuitious surfing spree, to come across a web site that offers among other things, a rather unique line in baby apparel. No not "baby-Tees", but Tees for babies. What better wake up call for the soon to be parents than a baby T-shirt pronouncing My Daddy drinks because I cry? Or for the politically minded how about My IQ is higher than the Presidents? Or for the testosterone over-achieving baby I can kick your baby's ass!.

So be warned, if you invite me to your baby-shower I can promise you that the gift won't be coming off your list, unless you happened to register with T-Shirt Hell. And if you don't believe people actually buy these shirts, think again....

The Long Dark Tea-time: now in colour!

Memefest has launched a competition for graphic artists:
Your mission: Rethink your role as a visual communicator in a market-dominated culture.

See the submissions so far in the gallery. One of my favourites is below. Click the image for one of the movie submissions (Quicktime required).

The decline and fall of American democracy

The latest issue of Adbusters is carrying an interview with Richard Faulk that mentions both fascism and Orwell. So once again I find myself reading something and thinking "exactly".

In particular Faulk mentions how dangerous it will be if the Democrats are unable field a candidate with the strength to stand up to Bush and his War Inc. cronies. Another weak candidate with wishy washy policies and pathetic rhetoric will lead to yet another defeat for Democrats. After that we'll have well over 50% of the population feeling disenfranchised from the so called democratic process offered by two party politics. Faulk fears this will spawn acts of radical resistance to the perceived fascism reigning and raining down from above.

This will be exactly what the government wants as an excuse to tighten the thumbscrews on the American people and start passing legislation like Patriot II and who knows what other repellant sequels they come up with.

And the rest, as they say, will be history.

I pledge allegiance, to unbrand

Because my country has sold its soul to corporate power,
Because consumerism has become our national religion,
Because we've forgotten the true meaning of freedom,
And because patriotism now means agreeing with the president,
I pledge to do my duty . . . and take my country back.

I'm not sure when I came to the conclusion America was my country. But I think its because America is so much in control still even with only 5% of the worlds population. Its important to me that those 5% are not leading the entire world astray, and that the residents within that country, contributing to is sustinance with tax dollars, do their best to regain control from the corporations and their oligarichal puppets.

So here, visit the web site and put your tax deductable dollars where your mouth is, instead of into the mouths that will bite you if you protest.

Ditto

Fresh from The Morning Fix, my sentiments exactly.

Hydrogen can be bad, mmm-kay

It appears that more people are looking into the potential risks of adopting a "hydrogen economy". Today's edition of Science magazine is reporting results of research that leaks from all the hydrogen activities will cause hydrogen to make its way into the upper atmosphere and potentially cause havoc there. Hydrogen in the upper atmosphere combines with oxygen forming water and doesn't rain down on us, instead it upsets the balance of the ozone ayer (where we still have one).

As was pointed out in a rant to Wired magazine last time they were hyping up hydrogen, the story isn't all good. The goodness of hydrogen depends so much on how you make it, distribute it, use it, and now it seems, how you stop it from breaking free into the environment. Get any of those wrong and hydrogen rapidly begins to look like a very bad idea.

We should not be surprised to hear that the hydrogen strategy adopted by the current government is promoting generation of hydrogen from fossil fuels, probably the least efficient and environmentally friendly way to do it. Naturally it also puts most money back into the pockets of the emcumbant energy providers: big oil and gas. Potentially even more money than they get now because using producing hydrogen from fossil fuels, distributing it by road and only then using it in cars is, on a net basis, less efficient than just sticking with current gasoline engines. So we'll need to suck even more oil and gas out of the earth to keep on going and naturally that's exactly what Halliburton and their buddies in office want to hear. Meanwhile they'll be rolling with laughter as they go about marketing how wonderfully environmentally friendly they are for promoting hydrogen use because "hydrogen" and "environmentally friendly" have become synonymous in most peoples minds.

Yes, there are many problems with hydrogen and fuel cells that large investments from the government and big oil can help solve. But lets be clear, these people aren't about to put themselves out of business over it. If they accidentally discovered a staggeringly efficient, cheap and easy way to generate and use power without fossil fuels, it would never reach the light of day by their hands.

I for one intend to make my own small dent on the energy problem, in the next twelve months I'll be selling my fuel inefficient Audi (23 mpg max) and replacing it with a nice new Toyata Prius that not only gets well over 50mpg, it is also rated as a PZEV: partial zero emissions vehicle. That's about as close to no emissions you can get without actually being zero emissions. In fact it may even be true, considering a pure electric vehicle usually gets its electricity from fossil fuel powered generation, that the Prius could even have lower net emissions than the electric car rated as zero emissions.

Furthermore now my home is getting some skylights I'll have a way to get a cable onto the roof without making a hole in it. So I intend to throw a solar panel or two up on the roof and generate some electricity to power some low voltage LED lighting and maybe even my computer.

What we really need is power to the people!

To Boise and Back: Corporate life forms need you!

This is part two of my "Boise and Back" blog entry.

While putting my feet up in the exit row of a South West Airlines 737 I got to thinking about how corporations and people (natural people) have got themselves into this deeper and deeper symbiotic relationship. Its quite obvious that corporations need people, we are their consumers, their source of income, their lifeblood. But when it comes down to it, in vast parts of the world not only do corporations need people, but also people need corporations.

Now corporations are not real phyiscal entities, they are purely a legal fiction, they have no substance without a little legal document known as a corporate charter. The earliest corporate charters were issued by the Kings and Queens (and later the governments that replaced them) to groups of people to carry out a specific often risky task with special priviliges like limited or no liabilities and reduced or zero taxation of profits. In modern times charters are usually granted for an indefinite period and carry with them many, many substantial benefits.

These benefits allow corporations to accumulate wealth without most of the emcumbances that people have. They can escape many, if not all taxes (Enron / Cheney links), never have to pay death taxes, and seldom risk substantial penalties commensurate of the crimes they do commit. This accumulation of wealth has put corporations in the position to great things, things of such scale and risk that they are out of reach of all but the most wealthy individuals and non-government organisations. The trouble is, that by and large they don't do anything that is not connected with making and accumulating more money which is what economists call "growth". All the common measurements of corporate success are based on increases in revenue, profits and capitalisation. This should hardly be surprising: corporations exist to accumulate and protect wealth.

The problem is that over the last one hundred years or so people have become blind to the rationale behind some of the fiscally inspired "great" things corporations do. In fact we've become so blind that we've forgotten that governments can acheive great things without corporations. They can put a man on the moon (okay some people will argue and argue about that one), wipe out smallpox (doh, they forgot some and left it to get in the hands of evildoers), and stop genocidal megolomaniacs from taking over the world (I had to add "genocidal" just so you would know exactly which megolomaniac I was talking about). Unfortunately such activities are risky, require lots of cooperation between many groups, and are expensive. So few, if any politicians have the balls any more to risk their careers for the common good because they know when ever a government screws up there's always someone looking for a scapegoat to blame.

Naturally its in the best interests of corporations to continue this status quo of docile consumers fulfilling their manifest destiny of "I, consumer". And if some terrible event should come to pass that has us all hiding at home is it any wonder virtually the first advice from our president is to go out shopping. Heck yeah! When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping!

So how exactly do corporations continue to perpetuate the myth (that's my assertion, you can choose to believe whatever you want) that no matter what happens we must continue to shop 'til we drop. ? Well let me give you a little list.

They can force us to buy their products by removing all other choices. An example is when the big box discounters move into town and put out of business all the local small stores by using thier massive "economies of scale" (see below).

They effectively brainwash us with subliminal and often not so subliminal advertising that is everywhere humans are from a very early age. If you think "brainwash" is an unrealistic or unfair description of advertising why you do think companies like Pepsi, Coke and others are so anxious to sign deals to advertise their products in schools? Why can't they just call it quits until the proto-consumers have at least developed the skills to make an educated or informed product choice? They call it "developing brand loyalty" however if, for example, they were putting up advertising promoting certain political ideologies, religious beliefs, or something other than brand loyalty at school, we'd probably be outraged, call it brainwashing and put an end to it right away? Wouldn't we?

They can trick us by marketing products that are symbiotically dependent. For example marketing fast food as the great solution for quick and cheap nourishment that will free us from the chore of food preparation and give us much more time to enjoy life. Naturally they neglect to mention it is neither nourishing nor cheap (not to mention hell on the environment and small food producers) and all the time we free up will in any case be spent in front of the TVconsuming more advertising. So when we are poor and they then sell us the notion that we must be thin and wealthy and wouldn't a whole bunch of exercise equipment, health food, lip-o-suction, and get rich schemes be the perfect antidote for our miseries? And if at the end of it all we find ourselves depressed because we are unable to acheive their lofty ideals of health, wealth and beauty depressed, well why not pop in some anti-depressants to make all the worlds ills go away (just thinking about it makes me depressed!).

They can flat out lie to us. Worked great for Nike, and as long as corporations are able to claim the have free speech rights, it will continue to work for all other corporations.

They can pander to our inner selfishness. Yes that's mostly our own fault, but what, after all, is the constitution there for anyway? Its mostly to protect us from the selfish deeds of others and the world from our selfish deeds. If there were no selfish people then for the most part we could all just work it out. Above all we need protection from anything that seeks to exploit our selfish needs. This is kind of marketing that exploits them is basically another form of brainwashing - find something we have a weakness for (consuming), reward us doing it, and punish us for not doing it.

They can scare us with fear based marketing which has proven to be particularly effective in the post 9/11 years. 3M and HomeDepot can tell you all about the benefits of 300 million consumers rushing out to buy duct tape and plastic sheeting. Granted 3M weren't actually the ones who thought that idea up, but any marketing person who had would have had a brilliant career ahead of them. When it comes down to it most of advertising is after all either fear based or greed based (see above). And if anyone says the government doesn't have an marketing influence just look what happend when Bush senior uttered the infamous words "I don't like brocolli". So yes, of course they have you by the balls. Now when big corporations team up with big government and start whispering in each other ears and dipping in each others pockets.... Well you know even if you're not going to buy that SUV because it'll make you feel successful/more important/more powerful, you'll certainly but it because you're afraid of driving a small car because its just so much safer.... After all what happens if you're in your little 30+ mpg mini and one of those big SUVs out there hits you and squashes you like a bug? If you ask me if the world wanted safe cars all they would have to do would be to put a twelve inch sharp spike right in the middle of the steering wheel. We might even get out and walk once in a while!

They (and in case you've forgotten, we're talking about corporations) can sell us their products under the misconception that we are actually doing some good. Okay, that comes under the lies category too, but I think there's enough of a distinction between lying about the goodness of a product, and (no matter how crap the product is) lying about how buying it will do good. Yes sometimes the measurement of doing good is very hard to define. But lets not forget when a company starts bragging about not using sweatshop labour, chances are they are now simply using "minimum wage" labour which, as the 20% of Americans living poverty know, even in America is not even close to a "living wage". Goodness knows what living on minimum wage in a third world country is like but it'll surely make any trailer park, food stamp funded existance seem like luxury. So yes, we'll easily swallow the story that the WTO is good for creating millions of jobs around the globe in the nations poorest countries. But lets not forget that what is really happening is we're putting our own local workers out of work in exchange for exploiting cheap labour of others in far off, out of sight countries like Vietnam. Then we concentrating the profits of their labours in few mega-corporations for the benefit of maintaining the "economic growth" of the first world nations and the bank balances of a few super rich CEOs and lucky investors. This is probably the least efficient way of helping someone who is living in the gutter far from site. After all do you think you'd really miss a $0.25 tax on each pair of sneakers made in the USA that goes directly to someone in a country that would otherwise have been making them for you?

Finally, for the most sinnister way in which corporations are now infiltration our lives. They can devote vast resources to removing peoples fundamental ability to live a life independently of their products and influence. As an example, how about Monsanto marketing hybridized grain to farmers in India based on the claim it will vastly improve their crop yields? Heck yeah, I'll have some of that, three bags full! Unfortunately they forgot to tell them the important fact that hybridized grain doesn't breed true so the farmers can no longer hold back some seeds for next years planting. So now each year they have to go back to Monsanto and buy more grain to plant which was previousl free. So the spend a significant amount of money to do so requiring yet more grain to be planted to make a bigger profit. And it turns out the same grain is less resistant to local diseases so the farmers now also have to buy pesticides to protect it. Then cross pollination causes the hybridized grain to contaminate non-hybridized plantings of farmers nearby. Pretty soon the farmers find themselves sucked into an unbreakable cycle of consuming Monsanto and other big-bio companies' products and pursuing ever larger profits of scale to maintain their increasing dependency. Of course this is all no surprise to any Western farmer - the small farmer is all but extinct in this part of the world except where heavily subsidized by the state.

Ultimately those who do not buy into the story of economic growth are no good to corporations. Hence to maintain the falacy that corporate growth is the only useful measure of success for society, society will have to evolve at the behest of corporate influence to marginalize, exclude and eliminate these "un-consumers". In such a society it will be impossible and illegal to grown your own food, to generate your own power, to refuse government mandated medication, school your own kids, build your own computer, access media or communicate with others without monitoring, to act anonymously, etc. etc. the list goes on.

This may seem laughable but every one of them is something that has roots in ideas extolled by todays corporations as being "good for business", and consequently being lobbied for with big corporate donations (lets face it - bribes) in Washington. And when good business is the only measure of success of our country, then opposing success is opposing our own country, which is ... un-American... right? See, they've got you... its un-American no to support big corporations and to not go shopping.

So shouldn't you be afraid, very afraid?

Nah, just kidding, I'm just messing with your head. Really, I was making it all up, go to bed, take a Paxil, don't worry about it. Tomorrow's going to be a brand new day and you can go out shopping and everythings going to be alright!

Good bye dollar, hello euro

Americans may not know how to type a euro (€) symbol on their computer but that wont stop the euro from kicking the dollar's ass. Bush's statements today that the weak dollar valuation on the free markets are "contrary to US policy" just go to show that the rest of the world has little or no confidence he has any ability to strengthen the US economy. My prediction is that Monday will see a marked decrease in confidence in the dollar, marked foreign disinvestment as funds move to Euros, and consequently a rapid decline in the dollar value.

I wouldn't be the first one to predict this either, many have predicted that the next few years will see the euro on the rise at the expense of the dollar. William Clark wrote a very interesting essay for Independent Media Center on how the invasion of Iraq might be aimed at preventing oil nations from switching to trading in the euro. Although the reasons for the rise of the euro are different, the consequences are the same: very bad news for the US economy.

To appreciate why you have to realise that the EU nations represents a larger, more stable and less malevolent market to invest in than the USA. The dollar is currently the most favourite currency to maintain reserves in, but if the dollar is slipping and the US government can do nothing to prop it up, then it is natural for money to flow elsewhere and most likely into euro investments.

Of course a weaker dollar will help exports but as most people know, the USA is fond of imports so all of a sudden we'll find many of our staples costing more, and meantime the government will be trying to jack up interest rates to attract more foreign investment. Of course higher interest rates is the opposite of what the economy needs right now. Housing markets will stagnate, buyers who have borrowed to the hilt to buy at low, non-fixed mortage rates will suddenly find themselves at best unable to sell their properties to move, at worst when their adjustable mortgages start cranking up they will be default on loan payments. That may take a year or so to have an effect but when it does it aint going to be pretty.

What can I say? Phil has seen a shadow and yes folks, we're gonna have a bad time. In the mean time I'm looking at Euro based mutual funds.