Holiday Done

Ok the holidays are over, the kid is almost back to school and a small shift in the amount of light can be felt. I am set to resume my public discourse with myself.

1. Another Canadian Company is going to get a piece of the Alaska action. Mother Palin has deemed that TransCanada is the best company to put up a gas pipeline. Damned socialist with there health care and taxes. It makes the Canadian companies have to work that much harder I guess. The second best was a Chinese company. Communist, I am glad they lost.

2. I was reading this article over at TPM about the Bush administration’s EPA being so pro-corporate as to deny California the right to regulate car emissions. (This is the party of States Rights, right?) And then the Pope says people concerned with global warming are out of line. The ruling elite are pissed, the church is upset, the monied interests concerned. The stars are aligning, as the people most entrenched in the current paradigm are threatened. They are digging in their heels and pinching the profit from the cheap inefficient hydrocarbon fueled economy. Actually they are taking profits by the tanker load. (as an aside one full tanker coming out of Prince William Sound now has almost $100,000,000 worth of crude onboard.)

I recall reading that economies need a new focus, a new thing to produce to stimulate growth anywhere from every 7-14 years. This is the next big thing, efficiency and new energy. Alot of other economies are getting it. It is going to be bigger than oil as it will effect everyone and everything.

Currently the people who set policy and focus the energy of the government are old oil execs or in Alaska’s case, have had there families supported by employment in the industry. Not that one can’t eat at the trough and still be a critical consumer. You would hate to put your husband out of work and the truth is that everyone in Alaska is a dependent of Big Daddy Oil. Oedipus did what he had to do and it was painful too.

Credit to Palin for putting in some funding for renewable energy development in Alaska, but we should be going gang-buster on this. Thinking simplistically, we should tax the hell out of big oil with carbon taxes and use it to develop the next energy base. KISS.