Solar Power Discombobulator

Fellow Progressive Blogger Murky View points out that commercial Solar Power available for home use is now becoming popular; Solar Industry takes LCD cues

And I had blogged about Canadian Tire providing both Solar and Wind generators for the home.

Now it turns out large scale commercial solar power is becoming cheaper, thanks to one of them science fiction devices a solar power concentrator, or as this guy would call it a discombobulator.


Cheap, Superefficient Solar

Solar-power modules that concentrate the power of the sun are becoming more viable.

The thinking behind concentrated solar power is simple. Because energy from the sun, although abundant, is diffuse, generating one gigawatt of power (the size of a typical utility-scale plant) using traditional photovoltaics requires a four-square-mile area of silicon, says Jerry Olson, a research scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in Golden, CO. A concentrator system, he says, would replace most of the silicon with plastic or glass lenses or metal reflectors, requiring only as much semiconductor material as it would take to cover an area the size of a typical backyard. And because decreasing the amount of semiconductor needed makes it affordable to use much more efficient types of solar cells, the total footprint of the plant, including the reflectors or lenses, would be only two to two-and-a-half square miles. (This approach is distinct from concentrated thermal solar power, which concentrates the heat from the sun to power turbines or sterling engines.)

See:

Ambrose

Environment

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Rememberance or Revisionism

There has been a torrent of blogging on Rememberance Day and its importance this weekend. But unfortunately there is also a mistaken belief that all the wars fought were for Freedom and Peace. Such is not the case.

As I blogged here before WWI was an Imperialist war of aggression, a useless war, one that did not produce peace and freedom.

Our warmongering PM in his speech launching Veterans Week went back so far as to include the Boer War, our first expeditionary war, another example of an Imperialist War.

While it is important to remember and respect our veterans, who believed the State Propaganda of the day that they were fighting just wars, just as todays soldiers believe the State Propaganda about Afghanistan being a just war, this is no excuse to embrace warmongering revisionist history.

War is the health of the State. There are very few just wars.

Now what really gets my goat is when progressive, left wing bloggers also get sucked into saying this stuff. Forgetting their history. Espcially galling is when it is NDP bloggers who say this stuff. As one did in his blog. They forget the CCF/NDP opposed all wars, including WWII. And they opposed forced conscription. Thank goodness for that. As I wrote in reply to this particular Dipper there was only one just war for Freedom;

The Boer War was an Imperialist war of agression by Briatin and Canadians fought in that war. WWI was an Imperialist War. The Korean War was the first hot war of the Cold War. Viet Nam was not a war but a police action which Canadians fought in as volunteers and are now recognized as 'veterans' thoubh we did not decalre war on Viet Nam nor did Canada officially suppport that war.

The only anti-fascist wars that were fought by Canadians were the volunteers who went to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War, who were declared illegal combatants by the Canadian State and have never been recognized as veterans, and WWII.

The fight for freedom against fascism was the only just war of all these.

And the current Tory government has opposed recognizing the volunteers who fought in Spain against Fascism as veterans! So not all Veterans in the war for Peace and Freedom were recognized in Canada this weekend.

Even the Vets who did fight in WWII did not get fair treatment from the State.
The Merchant Marines were not recognized for forty years, because they were civilian volunteers. And like returning Vets after WWI those who fought fascism came home to find no State support for them. The Night War Vets Seized the Vancouver Hotel

Not only should we Not Forget but we should also Remember the cry; Never Again War!

See:

White Poppy Debate

White Poppies

WWI Xmas Mutiny

The Working Class Dies For Harper

Not MacArthurs Republican Party

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Israel Lies Cost Lebanese Lives

Well the truth comes out. Israel was to blame for the loss of its soldiers, which set off this summers war on Lebanon. It was all a pretext to invade and destroy their neighbour who is in economic competition with them.

Of course it was also a benefit to the US which wanted Israel to show off its military strength in the region as a warning to Iran.

The result was thousands of civilian lives lost in Lebanon, the destruction of the Lebanese infrastructure. A war crime by any other name.

But it also showed that Israels military might was not up to the task of taking on a locally based resistance movement. Something the US has failed to learn as well in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And Israel still does not have its captured soldiers. Which was the pretext for the war in the first place.

Israeli army blamed for for Hezbollah capture of soldiers

A panel investigating the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah on July 12 this year, has blamed the Israeli military. Investigators concluded the Israeli military ignored intelligence warnings that Hezbollah would attempt to abduct soldiers, and that there would be a major escalation on the Israel-Lebanon border in 2006. They also found the military was lax in protecting the border. The patrol that was ambushed by Hezbollah acted 'almost as though it was going on a hike,' investigators said.

The July 12 abduction led to a month-long war which resulted in the deaths of 1,500 people, mostly Lebanese civilians, severely damaged Lebanese civilian infrastructure, displaced about 900,000 Lebanese and 300,000 Israelis, and disrupted normal life across all of Lebanon and northern Israel.

Also See:

Lebanon

Israel

Imperialism

Iran







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The Joys Of Privatized Medicine

Here is another example of the perils of privatized medicine. I love the headline. As I have said before the business press tells it like it is.

A private monopoly threaens non-profit medicine in the U.S. But hey its a 'private' monopoly which the right wing loves they just hate 'public' monopolies. Here a private monopoly threatens the very existance of non-profits. Thats American competition for ya. The competition is not between capitalist corporations but between a private monopoly and public services. The monopoly will win of course. And that will leave the non profits relying on further taxpayer subsidies to make up for their loss.

Now if America had socialized medicine like Canada then the 'advantages' of cost reductions this private monopoly has would be a public advantage. Something the US state refuses to do right now under the Bush regime, which is use its economic clout to buy drugs at a discount.

Cancer Capitalists

Cancer treatment is one of the few bright spots on Dr. Dale Fell's income statement. His nonprofit Mission Hospital in Asheville, N.C. loses money on its emergency room, its pediatric division and its care for indigents. But not on radiation used to zap tumors at a cost of up to $50,000 per patient. Oncologists send 1,700 patients a year to Fell's hospital, one of two in western North Carolina with a radiation department.

Then last fall US Oncology, the giant cancer care services company, received approval from state regulators to buy a linear accelerator and launch its own radiation department three miles away from Mission. "This could cripple us," Fell says. He has sued state regulators, alleging us Oncology's radiation license violates state law.

Founded in 1999, US Oncology manages the business affairs of 1,000 cancer doctors, injecting practices with financial savvy and a competitiveness seldom seen in medicine. US Oncology's affiliated physicians treat 550,000 patients a year--one in seven new cancer sufferers. The company helps practices claim bigger chunks of the $80 billion cancer care market by recruiting new physicians, adding treatments and conducting clinical trials. It recently became the nation's single largest purchaser of chemotherapy drugs, spending a projected $2 billion this year. The clout allows US Oncology's doctors to demand drugs at a 24% discount on wholesale prices. US Oncology booked $239 million in operating income (defined as earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation) in 2005, on revenue of $2.5 billion.

The company has attracted a swarm of critics, often nonprofit or community hospitals, alleging that US Oncology destroys the fragile local economics of the U.S. health care system. The company has had to defend four whistleblower lawsuits alleging improper Medicare billing. (None went to trial.) Nonprofit hospitals in North Carolina have accused it of trying to push through anticompetitive legislation to help carve out a monopoly.

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Capitalism Is Not Sustainable

The Conservatives state the obvious, that Canada has not met its Kyoto targets. They then dismiss the targets as impossible to meet so why bother trying. But the fact is that the world has also missed its Kyoto targets.

Greenhouse emissions grow more rapidly

Greenhouse gas emissions have been increasing four times as fast as in the 1990s, giving added urgency to international talks on climate change. Research carried out for Unesco found on Friday that the rate of increase in emissions from burning fossil fuels between 2000 and 2005 was four times that between 1990 and 2000.

The reason? Globalization and the spread of fordist production models of capitalism.

The accelerated rise is a result of rapid growth in developing economies such as China, India and Brazil, as well as the failure of developed countries such as the US to mitigate their greenhouse gas output. Even in countries such as the UK, which is on target to meet its Kyoto commitment to cut emissions by 2012 by 12.5 per cent compared with 1990 levels, emissions have been rising in recent years.

Ironically theConservatives are partially right, the solution is not more Kyoto but the elimination of capitalism. Since the 'scientific' evidence shows captialism is not sustainable, but the very cause of global warming, either in its monopoly corporate model or it's state capitalist model.

Paul Crutzen, professor of chemistry at the Max Plank Institute for Chemistry in Germany and a Nobel Prize winner, said: “The jump in emissions is remarkable. One would expect a smoother transition but it seems there has been a tremendous shift in the past five years.

The lower rate in the 1990s was most likely due to the collapse of the communist regime. Unfortunately, once emissions go up it’s very hard to bring them down
again.”

Capitalism is a system that is unique, it is not merely an economic system but a system that requires production of value, not use value; that is material goods, but exchange value. In order to continue to make 'profits', interest, credit, exchange rates,etc. it must conitually expand and grow. Capitalism is rapacious growth for its own sake.

No reform of capitalism, no exchange of carbon credits, no green technology can save the planet from captials dominion.

Only we can. The Internationale, speaks of the Working Class, the proletariat, becoming the human race.

Arise, the damned of the earth,
Arise, prisoners of hunger,
For reason thunders in its crater,
It is the eruption of the end!
Let us make a blank slate of the past,
Army of slaves, arise, arise!
The world is changing at the base,
We who have been nothing, let's be everything!
|: This is the final struggle
Let us gather, and tomorrow
The Internationale
Will be mankind! :|

As long as the class system exists, as long as we work as cogs in the global capitalist machine, we are doomed to planetary ecological destruction. When we recognize our interests as a species, as the human race and abolish the class society and capitalism only then will we be able to save the planet. Otherwise we will continue to be trapped in the no sum game of jobs or the environment, short term gain for long term pain.

Real class conciousness is planetary conciousness, species conciousness, which is why Marx declared that for the destruction of capialism to occur we need to abolish the proletariat, thus we need to abolish class relations, the very social structure of capitalism; producer, worker, consumer, owner, employee, all of these relations reduce our human-ness, and thus our species being.

And as such these social relations of capitalism are poisioning the planet. Not bad corporations or negligent nation sates, but the very social relationships we share under and through capitalism.

The German Social Democrats hoped that capitalism would evolve into socialism, the revolutionary social democrats of the Third International thought a revolution in production would change capitalism into socialism.

But that has not occured. Because the socialism they envisioned was not socialism but a better reformed capitalism. A friendlier nicer capitalism. We need to abolish capitalism, and create a society based on our common humanity, of production for use not exchange. That is real socialism,the abolition of the wage system and that is the only solution to the environmental crisis that faces our species and all other species on the planet. Anything less will reduce us in the next century to barbarism.

The choice is clear Socialism or Barbarism.

Also See

Kyoto

A Critique of Kyoto Capitalism Is NOT Sustainable

Socialism

industrial ecology

Social Ecology.

Green Capitalism



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Liberal Or liberal Media

Back in the days when Toronto Sun columnist and right wing nutbar Lubor Zink would rant on about the liberal left media bias he meant 'liberal' veruses 'conservative'. You know like J.S. Mills versus Edmund Burke. Today's Blogging Tory no longer makes such distinctions. They talk about the Liberal Media bias as in Liberal Party of Canada, versus the Harpocrite Conservatives.

They view the corporate boards of the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star as havens of Liberal backroom boys. And they are right. But that is no different than the havens of Conservative backroom boys in the Sun chain or the National Post and the Asper dominated media. But that is not the same thing as liberal or conservative politics, it is PARTY politics. And as such both parties have left and right, liberal and conservative adovactes.

So lets get off our high horses and stop the generalizations about the media and which ideology dominates it. It is one thing to point out the corporate political party interconnections, but to blanketly condemn the media as being too left, too liberal when really speaking of it being Liberal or Conservative is to mix metaphors. The press is the agent of capitalism right or left, liberal or conservative, Liberal Party or Conservative Party. It is a capitalist press and will always defend the status quo.

Which is why I read the Financial and Business Press, they speak the truth about capitalism and power. Whomever they support politically you know will be good for capitalism. And those they oppose may not be bad for capitalism perse but just not as good for their readership.

See:

Media Bias


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Post Your Own Caption

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White Poppy Debate

The debate over wearing white poppies for Rememberance Day was not just a story in Edmonton or in Canada. It was a world wide debate this weekend.

Lest We Forget

White Poppies

Afghanistan






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Words of Wisdom

From veterans on Rememberance Day. Something that armchair warmongers like Harper will never understand because they never have been in combat.

Afghanistan puts new slant on day

Military mourners called it a different Remembrance Day than most - 34 soldiers have died in Afghanistan this year, and while troop support remains high, criticism of the mission is mounting.

"I have the utmost respect for our soldiers, but honestly, we need to get the hell out of (Afghanistan)," said Leduc native Wave Reynar, a man most military types would listen to.

The 62-year-old is a recently retired U.S. Marine Corps gunnery sergeant, who's fought in Vietnam, Granada, Iraq, and saw legions of casualties while serving in Beirut.

War has brought him silver and bronze stars, lunches with U.S. presidents, and even a purple heart.

But it's also brought grief - Reynar's son was killed in Iraq.

"That miserable war isn't worth one more life," Reynar said before bursting into tears at the Leduc Legion, where he was celebrating Remembrance Day with friends, among them several members of the RCMP.

Aart Van Sloten - would-be father-in-law of slain soldier Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, killed in the 2002 friendly fire incident in Afghanistan - agreed dialogue over pulling out is reasonable.

He spoke after attending a Remembrance Day ceremony at Rundle park yesterday at a bridge named in Dyer's honour.

"We send troops to the armpit of the world and they go through hard times there. No one likes war and every time we hear of another soldier's death it gets harder.

See:

Lest We Forget

White Poppies

Afghanistan






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Eating Raoul

Recent findings about early hominds shows that they were not vegan as earlier thought. Which was the reason scientists thought they became extinct.

Hominid extinction theory long in the tooth

The findings came as a surprise, since Paranthropus had previously been thought to have a fairly unvaried diet, especially when compared with the emerging hominids from the genus Homo - the line we are descended from. Their finicky eating had been cited as one of the reasons Paranthropus eventually went extinct in the face of a drying African continent. Meanwhile, the varied tastes of Homo meant it was better equipped to handle changing environmental conditions."Since we have now shown Paranthropus was flexible in its eating habits over both short and long intervals, we probably need to look to other biological, cultural or social differences to explain its ultimate fate," said lead author Matt Sponheimer.

So why did they become extinct?

Well perhaps it was because our ancestors ate them.

After all some folks still eat our primate cousins. Something the scientists have overlooked.

the food supply of the Huaroni tribe, who has lived in the rainforest for thousands of years and is one of the last tribes in the Amazon to voluntarily live in seclusion in the rainforest, Hartley says.They’re not farmers, she says, but hunter-gatherers, so they rely on eating monkeys, snakes and birds, among other things.

Of course eating our relatives is a bad idea. For several reasons. Not the least is it leads to their extinction. And it could lead to ours.

Team finds HIV-related virus in gorillas
In May, the same research team published results tracing the seeds of the AIDS pandemic to chimpanzees living in Cameroon. At the time, scientists reported evidence - gathered through genetic analysis of fecal samples - that chimps were infected with HIV-1 by eating infected prey monkeys and, in turn, humans became infected by butchering infected chimps for food.

And it is of course a moral issue as well. Which maybe why scientists have not looked at this possibility as the reason for the extinction of prehistoric non-homo hominds.

Drive to give 'human' rights to apes leaves Spanish divided
Spain could soon become the first country in the world to give chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and other great apes some of the fundamental rights granted to human beings under a law being proposed by members of the ruling Socialist coalition.

Moral 'bastards' have brain hormone problems
Research by primatologists Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal at Emory University has shown that monkeys also have what look like moral values. When two monkeys work for food, a fair split is expected. If a fair division is not received, it elicits cries of outrage and hurled food by the wronged partner. Moral values have powerful physiological representations in humans, too, and we feel them strongly when they are violated.

See:

Evolution

Primates

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