ALTERNET ARTICLE ABOUT BIOFUELS

A new article in Alternet reveals once again that coal, not biofuels, will be "the answer" in the eyes of the transnational capitalist class once the oil starts to run out.

In fact, I have no idea why the good folks who program the web page at hubbertpeak.com are so jazzed about the 1999 book "The Solar Economy" these days, given all the things said about it on the amazon.com page.

My point is this: when the oil really starts to run out, the corporate leadership will go with what gets a really huge energy return on energy investment, not with what makes the most sense ecologically. And that's coal. It's not "clean" biofuels, and it's not solar. It's coal. It might be uranium too, to a small extent, but a much wider-scale use of uranium would itself create a uranium shortage, so that's not likely. But coal will just create more carbon pollution.

When push comes to shove, the Kyoto Protocol will be scrapped, because the alternative will be scrapping capitalism. Unless, of course, we scrap capitalism first.

IF A VOTE FALLS, AND NO MEDIA ARE THERE TO HEAR IT...

Congress voted against permanent military bases. Did you read about it? I didn't.

STUDENTS WALK OUT ON CLASSES




EN MASSE: Hundreds of students from Montebello High, Garfield High and Roosevelt High walk along Whittier Boulevard to Soto Street.
(Carlos Chavez / LAT)


March 24, 2006

It's in the LA Times here... I suppose it's meaningful that student victims of racism protest measures designed to make "suspects" of those with a particular skin color or culture. Working people should defend the right to move from one nation to the next in search of work, while the national representatives of capital negotiate "free trade agreements" that allow capital to move from one nation to the next in search of profit without being asked for its "green card" or hiding from "la migra."

But the real issue here is one of why they aren't protesting any of the other things that need protesting, such as the enormous waste of time constituted by standardized tests, or the fact that high school graduates in America today have, almost all of them, learned to hate reading and writing. Maybe they ought to conduct "teach-ins" to dispel the myth that education will get you a better job. All the possession of a degree will do for you is move you up in the queue for a pool of jobs that remains the same whether you are educated or not. The race to acquire degrees is about the competition for jobs. The jobs will not get better if you get a PhD.

How about teach-ins to show how capitalism is dismantling global ecosystems? I suppose, at any rate, that walk-outs are better than sitting there in class, bored.

FRANCE ESCALATES; BRAZIL DEFORESTS

The Washington Post reports it as gang violence.

and a new report discusses deforestation in Brazil...

ANWR -- WHAT REALLY HAPPENED LAST WEEK

Here is a cogent article explaining what actually went on with the ANWR bill in the Senate -- long after the fact -- sorry, I should have seen this one coming...