"Burning Our Rivers: The Water Footprint of Electricity" (This study looks at the mis-allocation of fresh water in the use of cooling off gigantic machinery used in the making of electricity at coal fired, nuclear and natural gas plants. Fascinating read.

Thermoelectric energy (including coal, nuclear and natural gas) is the fastest growing use of freshwater resources in the country. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reports that 53% of all of the fresh, surface water withdrawn from the environment for human use in 2005 went to operating our thirsty electrical grid.1 


 Water behind dams is not included in USGS numbers. So, while all other sectors of society are reducing per capita water use and overall water diversion rates, the electrical industry is just getting started. 


 This report is a snapshot of the current water impacts of electrical production and an introduction to the choices we face as a nation trying to sustain water and energy in a warming world. Many watersheds in the United States (U.S.) are already running out of water to burn—especially in the Southeast, the Great Lakes and in many parts of the West. Over the last several years, Georgia has experienced water stress because Georgia Power’s two nuclear plants require more water than all of the water consumed by residents of downtown Atlanta, Augusta and Savannah combined.2 


 In 2011, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) reported that, in at least 120 vulnerable watersheds across the U.S., power plants are a factor contributing to water stress.3





James Kunstler: "Hostage Racket" (Kunstler's latest blog describes his self-education as to what was medically wrong with his own body and mentions his newly published book which pokes holes in techno "magic" which makes thinks all the worse.)


Anyone seeking to understand the deplorable physical condition of the general public need only stroll through the supermarket aisles and see the endless stacks of manufactured sugary shit that pretends to be food in this culture. That whole matrix is coming to and end, too, by the way, but probably not soon enough to save the multitudes programmed into metabolic disorder. They will just have a shorter life-span, aggravated by loss of income in a cratering economy and everything that comes with being impoverished. The doctors themselves by and large know almost nothing about nutrition, and make no organized effort to militate against the homicidal processed food industry - which brings me to the second side note.


Namely, that the diminishing returns of extreme bureaucratization and turbo-specialization in medicine has only made the doctors generally stupider and more inept. My own situation is a case in point. For two years I suffered an array of peculiar symptoms ranging from numb hands to supernatural fatigue. My ex-GP showed no interest in investigating the cause. Even my request for a toxicology workup was essentially shrugged off. I had to become my own doctor. For a while I suspected Lyme disease, which is raging in my corner of the country. I went to see a Lyme specialist who didn't accept insurance (because the insurance companies did not recognize his aggressive treatment protocols as falling within the current "standards of practice" - and this because the medical establishment doesn't know its ass from a hole in the ground about Lyme disease).


Anyway, I asked the Lyme specialist to include a test for cobalt levels in my bloodwork because I thought there was an outside chance I had cobalt poisoning. The reason I thought this was because Google searches of my symptoms kept pointing to metal-on-metal hip replacement failure. I had gotten just such a metal-on-metal hip replacement in 2003. The hardware was developed because the orthopedists wanted to give younger patients a longer-lasting implant. That's when the diminishing returns of technology stepped in and kicked everybody's ass, including mine.


My cobalt blood test came back off-the-charts high. (My many Lyme tests all came back negative.) Wouldn't you know, though, that the Lyme specialist wanted to treat me for Lyme anyway. He ignored the cobalt numbers and wrote out a prescription for $400 worth of antibiotics. He was the proverbial guy with a hammer to whom everything looked like a nail. I declined that course of treatment and instead went to my new GP for a first appointment and asked for an additional cobalt test, along with one for chromium. (My hip implant is an alloy of titanium, cobalt, and chromium.) They both came back way over the toxic level. Apparently, the rotation of the metal joint has been shedding metal ions into my system for nine years.

European Bank Blowups Hidden With Shell Games: Jonathan Weil

Eurozone debt crisis 'in dangerous new phase' warns IMF chief

On waiting to give up on searching for a job

Gerald Celente: “Things Are Going to Get Much Worse…Society Is Breaking Down”

China losing its edge for low cost labor

Paul Krugman: "Free To Die"

California shacking – three trends crushing the California housing market. Young workers moving back home, household incomes back to 1990s levels, and lack of an entry level market.

Middle Class Death Watch: As Poverty Spreads, 28% of Americans Who Were Part of the Middle Class Have Fallen Out of It

A Record 50 Million Americans Are Now Medically Uninsured

Matt Taibbi: Rogue Trader My Ass

A Motley Fool Poster Explains The "Shadow Banking System" And Why It Is Crisis Prone

Two Views In The Healthcare Debate: CNBC's Dylan Ratigan vs. Chamber of Commerce's James Gelfand + One Bonus Ratigan Video

Ratigan points out We the People are being left out of the current health care debate. We are haggling over values systems (abortion) to hide who is really benefitting from the current Health Insurance monopoly in this country. Lower quality, higher premiums and Ratigan asks, "Do you think your employer really cares as much about your health as you? You should be the "decider" of what type of health care you will need over your life, not the government, not the Insurance Company."

Ratigan also shows Auto Insurance commercials pitting All State vs. Geico vs. Progressive and wonders why we the citizens who can pick among competing car insurers cannot pick among competing health insurers which would drive down prices, and jack up quality? Good questions, Dylan.

Finally, I love how Dylan reframes the debate by saying, "Tell Congress healthcare shouldn't be a collective decision made by Corporate Communitsts or the National Government." Keep fighting the fight, Mr. Ratigan.




On the other hand is James Gelfand of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who says people are afraid health care costs will go up under the Democrats healthcare plan.

Liz Clayman doesn't want to eat out of Gelfand's hand. She points out that private health insurance costs have jumped over 74% in the past eight years for small businesses. She rhetorically asks, "This is an outrage, is it not?"

Clayman then asks this corporate flack for his solution to this problem. "Well, actually it should be pretty simple. It shouldn't cost us a trillion dollars, we shouldn't have to raise taxes by $600 Billion, we shouldn't have to slash Medicare by another $500 Billion," and then he suggests we get costs under control (the same thing the Democrats have been seeking to do since the 90s), and that we do this with tort reform, regulate the Insurance companies (did he really say "no more turning people away"?), but then this blow light says there are really only 10 million people in this country who don't have health insurance. That tells me right there this shill, this sellout, is no more than a squawking parrot of people who've got free health insurance as part of their employment package (like Congressmen and Banksters and Corporate Execs), while not having any idea how many people driving taxis, digging ditches, working in bars, hotels, and convenience store have absolutely zilch health care insurance because they cannot afford the payments.

What David Lareah was for the National Realtors Association in its run up through the Housing Bubble (chief Kool-Aid dipper), so to is James Gelfand to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Except whereas Lareah blew happy smoke up consumers' asses, Gelfand is trying to drive spikes of fear into consumers' minds and hearts.

Ratigan talks more sense than Gelfand, no question about it.


Bonus - MSNBC's Ratigan Calls out Guest for Lying: Coming on Television and Lying is Not Journalism

Former Blue Cross/Blue Shield "Spokesjerk" Says He Only Did It For The Money