Here's the political reality: those who benefit from, or depend upon, the status quo are going to fight dirty against any meaningful change. They will see radical change as a mortal threat. In practice, this means that the carbon industries (especially coal), wealthy suburbanites (whose lifestyles, jobs and investments are most likely to generate extremely large carbon footprints) and conservative extremists (whose market fundamentalism finds itself at odds with the reality-based community) will be in the future, as now, the sworn enemies of intelligent change (or, as they would have it, "skeptics").

We aren't going to change that, for reasons that are deeply entrenched in our societies, and these are extremely powerful interests, with the ability to at least slow real national progress. Thus we have a need (radical change) which is blocked by a political reality. In such a conflict, even the most fundamental of steps - a real international price on carbon - will be an extremely hard-fought victory at the national level in all our countries.

We need national action, but maybe it's time to rethink the rest of the approach. After all, legislation and markets, while absolutely essential, represent only one instrument in the tool chest we need to fight climate catastrophe. We also need technical invention, widespread innovation diffusion, new models and new approaches. And these things are much more difficult for the carbon lobby to stymie, if done at the proper combination of local and regional levels.

Years from today, when the current financial crisis is over, historians are likely to agree that it would have been far better if the Bush administration had declared a state of emergency earlier in the process so that the necessary steps could have taken to avoid a complete financial meltdown. The media could have been used to bring the American people up to date on market-related developments and educated in the bizarre language of structured finance. Knowledge is power; and power can prevent panic.

Now we're in a terrible fix. People are scared and removing their money from the banks and money markets. This is intensifying the freeze in the credit markets and driving stocks into the ground like a tent stake. Meanwhile, our leaders are caught in the headlights, still believing they can finesse their way through the biggest economic cataclysm since the Great Depression.

If something is not done to increase the flow of credit immediately, the stock market will tumble, unemployment will spike, and many businesses will grind to a standstill. We could be just days away from a severe shock to the system. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson's $700 billion bailout does not focus on the fundamental problems and is likely to fail. At best, it puts off the day of reckoning for a few weeks or months. Contingency plans should be put in place so the country does not have to undergo post-Katrina bedlam. [More]

We have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour.

And there are things to be considered. Where are you living? What are you doing? What are your relationships? Are you in the right relation? Where is your water? Know your garden. It is time to speak your truth. Create your community. Be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

There is a river flowing now, very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold onto the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and they will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, and push off and into the river, keep our eyes open, and our head above the water. See who is in there with you and Celebrate.

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally. Least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt. The time of the lone wolf is over, gather yourselves!

WE ARE THE ONES WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR.

Predictions of global oil production peaking, and then running out, have been around almost as long as oil was discovered in the second half of the 19th century. Time and again, such dire predictions turned out to be false, largely because of the Peak Oil’s apparently sound but actually deceitful logic: while it is true that, as Peak Oil maintains, oil is a finite natural resource that is bound to run out some day, it does not follow, again as Peak Oil argues, that therefore oil is or must be running out soon.

A major flaw of Peak Oil is that it is based on a static, or technology-neutral, assumption: it implicitly assumes that limits to oil are set as natural, innate, and immutable. Yet, limits to oil, like those to most other resources, are determined as much (if not more) socially as they are naturally. Research, development, and technological advances have made (and will continue to make) both the amounts of oil reserves and of oil production much more fluid or elastic than perceived by the champions of Peak Oil.

Another equally-flawed proposition of Peak Oil is that it implicitly views the limits of oil supply independent of substitutes or alternative sources of energy. These include solar, wind, non-food bio-fuel, and nuclear energies. They also include natural gas. Further, they include “unconventional” oil: Tar Sands, Heavy Oils, and Oil Shale. Although, with the exception of natural gas and nuclear technology, the use of these substitutes is sill quite expensive, and therefore, limited, technological advances are bound to reduce their cost and increase their sue. [More]

While the U.S. Senate predictably capitulated to the demands of Wall Street, for the first time in recent memory the House listened to the American people and blocked Paulson’s bailout of his rich buddies by U.S. taxpayers. The same House that refuses the public’s demand that the Bush regime be held accountable and its gratuitous wars halted refused to hand over $700 billion to the financial institutions whose irresponsibility has brought the U.S. to its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

We must be thankful for this sign that American democracy is not completely dead and supplanted by executive branch authority. However, whatever bailout package that emerges will fail unless it takes into account the following.

Any package that maintains the mark-to-market rule and permits the resumption of short-selling will undermine itself. In panic conditions without the existence of a market, the mark-to-market rule results in asset prices being driven below their values, thus eroding balance sheets and producing insolvencies. Short-selling permits short-sellers to profit by destroying the share prices of institutions suffering balance sheet problems, thus eliminating their ability to borrow and driving them into failure. A bailout, however large, that maintains the mark-to-market rule and permits short-selling will pour money into a black hole. [More]

The 9/11 attacks prompted the United States to return to Afghanistan to overthrow the Taleban regime and destroy Al-Qaeda. Overthrowing the Taleban regime was the easy task. But the stabilization and reconstruction effort has suffered a calamitous failure. The Taleban and Al-Qaeda are regrouped and reinforced. Their top leaders continue to elude capture. Afghans at first welcomed their liberation from the Taleban. They are now very resentful of the Americans and their use of overwhelming force, resulting in large numbers of civilian casualties.

Afghanistan has been at the center of great power games for centuries. But outsiders have always failed to tame the spirit of resistance of its people. At the peak of their dominance, the British and Russian empires played the Great Game. In the Cold War, it was between America and the Soviet Union. Today, as the United States, the only hyperpower in the world, tries to reshape the Afghan state, it finds the new game as difficult as ever.

As the turbulent presidency of George W. Bush comes to a close, it leaves a legacy of two wars, with colossal economic and human costs. And America needs a president who knows how to extinguish the fires of war abroad and how to lead his own country into a period of renaissance once again. [More]

It is reliably reported (The Times, London) that the McCain camp is expecting a miracle, its expectations rather resembling those of a millenarianist group camping on a hillside awaiting The Second Coming. The anticipated miracle is the shotgun marriage of Sarah Palin’s pregnant 17-year old and her 18-year old redneck (his description, not mine) boyfriend (aka, in polite Republican circles, as her “fiancé”) coming just in time to save a faltering political campaign.

For those who don’t know America well, big white weddings with all the trimmings remain - despite the social and sexual upheavals of the last half century, despite wars and threats of wars - an important part of popular culture... It is by appealing to such boiled-frosting, satin-ribbon fantasies that Republicans hope to push John McCain over the campaign finish line and into the White House. The last week or two of the campaign would be ideal timing, surrounding John McCain and Sarah Palin in a fluffy, sugar-sprinkled haze. Imagine voting against the distinguished-looking old man in a tuxedo on the front pew with the beneficent countenance of a proud grandfather? Or the mother, gowned rather than in mukluks and hunting gear, eyes moist, watching “her baby” march to the alter?

Clearly, this is not matter on which an election anywhere should rest, much less in the world’s most powerful country, one staggering through war and financial crisis. Indeed, the Republican campaign, as it well deserves, has faltered on the merits. McCain is a tired old man with a sour temperament and a narcissistic personality who picked as his sidekick a person who would have reached the limits of her talent as captain of a cheerleading squad. Although certainly not the limits of her ambitions, but isn’t that what America is about, your reach exceeding your talent? [More]

Much like Paul Simons (he has a wiki) song Gracelands, incidents and accidents, hints and allegations all make it through the Wikipedia mesh filter but actual living people or special purpose companies stand little or no chance of being mentioned. Because Wikipedia has already decided that their search engine shouldn't be cluttered with novelty, innovation and special events in the world.

You will have no problem finding a mini-series from TV, the scores, tables, characters, follow-ups and web-links. This apparently passes as a valuable resource in the world of knowledge. Try finding the same information about your favourite local expert in the field of candle making or wood carving. They would certainly have no chance at all. The sycophantic little turds. All they want to do is tabloid the lives of famous TV hosts and the most recent world events.

Call it the consequences of irresponsible American invasions, call it the irrational exuberance of short sellers, call it the catastrophe of subprime lending, call it the mismanagement of leveraged products, blame it as you may, American markets are facing unprecedented meltdown and doomsayers see little promise in the federal bailout package. Ironically, the Wall Street has noticed that Shariah-compliant investments - which avoid speculative risk and debt-ridden greed - have fared much better in these troubled markets...

The Quran prohibits speculative risk, warning the faithful to avoid games of chance in which the probability of loss in is much higher than the probability of gain. Shariah-compliant investments, therefore, avoid speculative risk, including interest rate options, naked equity options, futures, derivative and numerous leveraged products purportedly designed to hedge investments. Many of these financial products attract speculators in hopes of making quick money... In addition to prohibiting high risk investments, the Quran also prohibits no risk investments... Islam does not prohibit passive investments. Nor does it prohibit giving interest-free loans. Debt is not contrary to Islamic law. Charging interest is.

The federal bailout package that the Bush Administration is selling as a quick cure of all problems will only aggravate the underlying cancer of interest-bearing debt. It is unlikely that the infusion of more money will reform institutions and companies built on layers of interest-bearing debt. When the best and the brightest are engrossed in finding ways to make money with money, and no more, the system may look creative and intelligent but it is geared toward shared destruction. [More]

An American complains to an Australian journalist “My vote doesn’t count… but I’m still going to vote”. It’s the Electoral College that counts and there’s only 7 states left that will decide whether Obama or McCain inherit the biggest mess in history. But don’t panic.

The latest Michigan poll gives Obama a 5% gap putting the state with Obama instead of being a Tossup. CNN now gives Obama a 9% gap in Pennsylvania (Joe Biden was born there & represents next door Delaware). These 2 states give the Obama camp 255 of the 270 electoral college votes they need. The New York Times still lists another 6 states as Tossups (Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada & Arizona) but Florida has also come into play with a 48%:48% CNN poll.

So, as long as the electoral votes in his camp stay steady, there are now 4 independent pathways to an Obama victory. If he wins either Ohio (ahead) or Florida (dead-even) he wins straightup. If he wins Virginia (ahead) and any other tossup state he wins. Or, the long shot, if he wins New Hampshire (ahead), Colorado (ahead) and New Mexico (behind), or any other ‘red’ state, he wins without needing Ohio, Virginia or Florida.

Of course standing against those pathways is the Supreme Court and a mass of extremist media outlets like Fox News. On the other hand there is a 5th way he might win – any combination, or all, of the above and they’ll start to call it a landslide. An Obama victory won’t solve the planet’s problems but it might give America a chance to avoid destroying itself and taking the rest of us with it. It’s a chance. The rest of the world hopes you take it.