Which Side Are You On?

Approval Ratings: The Public v. McCain on Bush. Great third party ad. With a nod of thanks to markmc03.

( Video behind the cut . . .nuff said . . . )

Which Side Are You On?

Approval Ratings: The Public v. McCain on Bush. Great third party ad. With a nod of thanks to markmc03.

( Video behind the cut . . .nuff said . . . )

Reaping What Has Been Sown?

Steven Cohen has been more right than wrong about the USSR/Russia over the years. A snippet from a prescient May essay for those of you looking for something a bit more substantial on the Russia-Georgia and, ultimately, Russia-USA situation.

The Missing Debate - Stephen F. Cohen - The Nation - 01 May 08

"During the last eight years, Putin's foreign policies have been largely a reaction to Washington's winner-take-all approach to Moscow since the early 1990s, which resulted from a revised US view of how the cold war ended [see Cohen, "The New American Cold War," July 10, 2006].

In that new triumphalist narrative, America 'won' the forty-year conflict and post-Soviet Russia was a defeated nation analogous to post-World War II Germany and Japan--a nation without full sovereignty at home or autonomous national interests abroad. The policy implication of that bipartisan triumphalism, which persists today, has been clear, certainly to Moscow.

It meant that the United States had the right to oversee Russia's post-Communist political and economic development, as it tried to do directly in the 1990s, while demanding that Moscow yield to US international interests.

It meant Washington could break strategic promises to Moscow, as when the Clinton Administration began NATO's eastward expansion, and disregard extraordinary Kremlin overtures, as when the Bush Administration unilaterally withdrew from the ABM Treaty and granted NATO membership to countries even closer to Russia--despite Putin's crucial assistance to the US war effort in Afghanistan after September 11. It even meant America was entitled to Russia's traditional sphere of security and energy supplies, from the Baltics, Ukraine and Georgia to Central Asia and the Caspian.

Such US behavior was bound to produce a Russian backlash."

And this new update on the situation by the Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel who also happens to be Cohen's wife.

Blood in the Caucasus - Comment - Katrina Vanden Heuvel - The Nation - 13 Aug 08

"I am heartsick at the violence and brutalities on all sides. Georgian, South Ossetian and Russian friends have all suffered. Yet commentary in the US media, almost without exception, has turned a longstanding, complex separatist conflict into a casus belli for a new cold war with Russia, ignoring not only the historical and political reasons for South Ossetia's drive for independence from Georgia but also the responsibility of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili for the current crisis. So eager have commentators been to indict Vladimir Putin's Russia that they have overlooked Washington's contribution to the rising tensions."

Reaping What Has Been Sown?

Steven Cohen has been more right than wrong about the USSR/Russia over the years. A snippet from a prescient May essay for those of you looking for something a bit more substantial on the Russia-Georgia and, ultimately, Russia-USA situation.

The Missing Debate - Stephen F. Cohen - The Nation - 01 May 08

"During the last eight years, Putin's foreign policies have been largely a reaction to Washington's winner-take-all approach to Moscow since the early 1990s, which resulted from a revised US view of how the cold war ended [see Cohen, "The New American Cold War," July 10, 2006].

In that new triumphalist narrative, America 'won' the forty-year conflict and post-Soviet Russia was a defeated nation analogous to post-World War II Germany and Japan--a nation without full sovereignty at home or autonomous national interests abroad. The policy implication of that bipartisan triumphalism, which persists today, has been clear, certainly to Moscow.

It meant that the United States had the right to oversee Russia's post-Communist political and economic development, as it tried to do directly in the 1990s, while demanding that Moscow yield to US international interests.

It meant Washington could break strategic promises to Moscow, as when the Clinton Administration began NATO's eastward expansion, and disregard extraordinary Kremlin overtures, as when the Bush Administration unilaterally withdrew from the ABM Treaty and granted NATO membership to countries even closer to Russia--despite Putin's crucial assistance to the US war effort in Afghanistan after September 11. It even meant America was entitled to Russia's traditional sphere of security and energy supplies, from the Baltics, Ukraine and Georgia to Central Asia and the Caspian.

Such US behavior was bound to produce a Russian backlash."

And this new update on the situation by the Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel who also happens to be Cohen's wife.

Blood in the Caucasus - Comment - Katrina Vanden Heuvel - The Nation - 13 Aug 08

"I am heartsick at the violence and brutalities on all sides. Georgian, South Ossetian and Russian friends have all suffered. Yet commentary in the US media, almost without exception, has turned a longstanding, complex separatist conflict into a casus belli for a new cold war with Russia, ignoring not only the historical and political reasons for South Ossetia's drive for independence from Georgia but also the responsibility of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili for the current crisis. So eager have commentators been to indict Vladimir Putin's Russia that they have overlooked Washington's contribution to the rising tensions."

The Tide Is High - UK Wave Power

More wrong footing going on in the UK? I can still remember when Professor Salter's "ducks" were the new great thing and the UK was on the cutting edge of wave power. Sounds like they got did in by the govmint not unlike the wind industry in the United States. Shades of Dick Cheney's private energy powwow with the energy powers that be. That and cheap North Sea oil. Both the UK and USA are now paying bigtime for conservative government policies (from both of the main parties).

Wave Power All At Sea Until Tide Turns - Times (UK) - 17 Aug 08

"Some say Britain is making the same mistakes as in the early years of wind power. 'We don’t have a wind industry because in the early days of wind turbine development it wasn’t taken seriously by government,' says Fraenkel. We did not invest in the technology, allowing Danish and German firms to develop it. Now they are making money across the globe.

Tide and wave power will need government help to become commercially viable. Otherwise they too could be developed abroad, and we will miss the chance of a lucrative industry offering highly skilled engineering and manufacturing jobs.

A man particularly aware of Britain’s neglect of renewables is Professor Stephen Salter, generally regarded as the pioneer of wave power. He invented a device in the 1970s called Salter’s Edinburgh Duck, which could extract 90% of energy from waves. But the UK government withdrew funding from wave power in 1982, many believe because of the influence of the nuclear industry.

"Britain boasts almost half of Europe’s tidal stream sites — where the underwater currents can be used to drive turbines — and 47% of Europe’s wave resource."

"'The government put into research and development for nuclear something like half a billion a year, for about 17 years,' he [John Griffiths] says. 'If they had put 10% of that [into wave and tidal power] every year since 1999, the marine power situation would look different.'"

The Tide Is High - UK Wave Power

More wrong footing going on in the UK? I can still remember when Professor Salter's "ducks" were the new great thing and the UK was on the cutting edge of wave power. Sounds like they got did in by the govmint not unlike the wind industry in the United States. Shades of Dick Cheney's private energy powwow with the energy powers that be. That and cheap North Sea oil. Both the UK and USA are now paying bigtime for conservative government policies (from both of the main parties).

Wave Power All At Sea Until Tide Turns - Times (UK) - 17 Aug 08

"Some say Britain is making the same mistakes as in the early years of wind power. 'We don’t have a wind industry because in the early days of wind turbine development it wasn’t taken seriously by government,' says Fraenkel. We did not invest in the technology, allowing Danish and German firms to develop it. Now they are making money across the globe.

Tide and wave power will need government help to become commercially viable. Otherwise they too could be developed abroad, and we will miss the chance of a lucrative industry offering highly skilled engineering and manufacturing jobs.

A man particularly aware of Britain’s neglect of renewables is Professor Stephen Salter, generally regarded as the pioneer of wave power. He invented a device in the 1970s called Salter’s Edinburgh Duck, which could extract 90% of energy from waves. But the UK government withdrew funding from wave power in 1982, many believe because of the influence of the nuclear industry.

"Britain boasts almost half of Europe’s tidal stream sites — where the underwater currents can be used to drive turbines — and 47% of Europe’s wave resource."

"'The government put into research and development for nuclear something like half a billion a year, for about 17 years,' he [John Griffiths] says. 'If they had put 10% of that [into wave and tidal power] every year since 1999, the marine power situation would look different.'"

Amory Lovins' Congressional Testimony on Nuclear

Lovins clicks off the many reasons why new nukes are a bad and expensive joke. Only six minutes of testimony so he hits the highlights.

( The video . . . )

Amory Lovins' Congressional Testimony on Nuclear

Lovins clicks off the many reasons why new nukes are a bad and expensive joke. Only six minutes of testimony so he hits the highlights.

( The video . . . )