The Gasman Cometh

All eyes have been on the Senate’s budget wrangling which has allowed some interesting things to slip under the radar that may otherwise have received more cameras and klieg lights. Majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada recently convened a clean energy summit in DC, inviting such political luminaries as Bill Clinton and Al Gore as well as words of wisdom from noted oil wildman T. Boone Pickens to discuss how to prepare America’s future as a sustainable energy producer. Most conversation has been focused on revamping the country’s electrical grid by renaming it a smart grid which is currently ill-equipped for handling wattage loads from wind and solar farms which factor largely into the overall scheme of things. However, Pickens takes things a step further as he pounds the pulpit pushing for natural gas to be diverted from electrical production to transportation.

California voters might recall Pickens backing Proposition 10, the Alternative Fuel Vehicles and Renewable Energy Bonds measure which proposed to fund rebates for the purchase of high-efficiency or alternative fuel vehicles, the latter being code for cars running on natural gas. There was also money dedicated to researching renewable energy solutions, but the crux of the initiative was to encourage the purchase of cars which would require natural gas to run. Pickens, it so happens, owns a large chain of natural gas stations called Clean Energy which explained why a Texas oil tycoon who achieved wealth through aggressive company purchases in the 1980’s would be shelling out massive amounts of cash to pass a proposition in another state. Voters rejected this by about a 60-40 margin.

 

Loosen the Belt, Here Comes the Cash

There has always been a certain joy experienced when I happen to catch stock market news filled with unhappy premonitions and arrows pointing towards hell. While I understand that the implications of our current dire straights reach far and wide, possibly even affecting someone as disconnected from money as myself, I must admit that the idea of a complete economic collapse is exciting. Not necessarily because I revel in the idea of a Mad Max-esque world with roving gangs of bandits and bizarre outposts of civilization operating on jerry-rigged technology but because I feel that the utter depths of foolishness which propel the world forward cannot be stopped without the bottom of the bucket falling out.

In a recent op-ed piece, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof examines the issue of Guantanamo, the US’s military foothold on Cuba which houses the nameless accused in America’s war on the world. Barak Obama has asserted his intentions are to close the prison down as a gesture of transparency and responsibility and Kristof argues that the military should leave as well. Ideally, his plan would have the base handed back to Cuba but realizes the political difficulty in doing this so he proposes a secondary plan borrowed from the Public Library of Science: convert Guantanamo into a research center to combat tropical disease.