Co2 Art

Warm Winter: No Ice in the Baltic Sea

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:56:00 +0000

Normally, the Baltic is Frozen this time of year

Normally this time of year, the northern section of the Baltic Sea (the Gulf of Bothnia) and the Gulf of Finland have a lot of ice cover, similar to the above, if not completely covered.

This year, both bodies of water are almost completely ice-free.

Meanwhile, last year it was Hudson Bay in northern Canada that was near ice-free until much later in winter than usual. This year, Hudson Bay is close to normal.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Rio Tinto Alcan Locks Out 800 Workers in Quebec

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 22:13:00 +0000

It seems that corporate tax cuts do not go a long way to slake the thirst of profit loving foreign owned corporations.

For example, the news that Rio Tinto Alcan has locked out 800 workers in Quebec.

Maybe something you could get away with at some point, like 3 years ago when they shut down the Beauharnois plant that was using outdated technology, and the price of aluminum had dropped by half. (RTA is continuing to make efforts to assist the Beauharnois region to transition to potential new economic drivers)

But considering that Rio Tinto made $14+ bil in 2010...

and the occupy movement has helped people understand just how vastly disproportionate the earnings of the wealthy are to their contributions

and Quebecers voted for a guy who tragically died in the last federal election

and Harper's gloriously generous corporate tax cuts have only served to foster greater corporate greed

and (last but definitely not least) the Habs are really stinking out the joint...

I do not like Rio Tinto Alcan's chances of coming out of this smelling like a rose... despite any of Steve Harper's best efforts to sell out his fellow Canadians

More likely - they will be smelling like a smelter

Group Raises $40,000 on Kickstarter to Film Disappearing Magicians

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:57:00 +0000

No pun intended!

A threatened colony of magicians in India will be digitally preserved at least by a group that put together a proposal and posted it on Kickstarter.

The colony of street artists, magicians and jugglers came together in the 1950s as the life of the traditional traveling performers in India became difficult to manage.

Now, the land in Delhi has been sold to developers and has an appointment with the bulldozers. So the film is

The producers raised the $40,000 needed with about four days to spare.

Eco Art: Community Installation Creates World's Largest Paper River

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 14:27:00 +0000

A fascinating collaborative community environmental art installation created a "River of Life" in a Missouri town last year.

The installation started at the "grass roots", with elementary schools collecting paper to be recycled.

The paper was then converted to a pulp and dyed blue with a biodegradable dye. On the big day, people from the entire community got involved to create the impressive "river", which wound through area parks and fields.

The pulp created was biodegradable, so the entire river would return to the earth.

The kicker was that the pulp was also impregnated with non genetically modified winter wheat seeds, which would sprout and grow in the spring into a river of wheat! Therefore the project's full name, "River of Life - Bread of Life"!

The entire project was conceived and supervised by eco and fibre artist, Shirah Miriam (Mimi) Aumann. Photos can be seen on the artist's facebook page.

Montreal Art Center Attracts Cultural Clout to Thriving Griffintown District

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:56:00 +0000

One of downtown Montreal's last frontiers is "Griffintown".

Nestled along the north side of Lachine Canal between the Old Port, Old Montreal and Little Burgundy, At one time this area was the industrial heartland of an entire country. Where there used to be barges lined up waiting to go through the Lachine Canal locks loaded with chain and grain, now you are most likely to find aspiring actors and actresses lined up hoping to get on as an extra with one of the area's film studios or shoots.

One of the latest arrivals into this storied scenario is the Montreal Art Center. Located in a former engine works, the Montreal Art Center is already home to approximately 30 artists and will be adding more in the coming months up to a maximum of about 100 once the second stage is completed next year. The artists work in open concept studios and all have the opportunity to hang their work in their own spaces and in the main gallery. The Montreal Art Center is a private venture that neatly complements the condo developments and general atmosphere of the area, which also includes the Notre Dame St. antique dealers, the Lachine Canal National Park and cycle path. Also quite nearby are cultural features such as the Parisian Laundry art gallery and the reborn New City Gas complex, home to such events as C2-MTL, a "creative commerce" conference planned for May, 2012, in the structure, originally built in the 19th Century to provide light for the streets of Montreal.

Artprize: Making Art an Economic Force to Be Reckoned with

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 20:33:00 +0000

The third Artprize just wrapped up in Grand Rapids MI a couple of days ago.

ArtPrize 2010 Retrospective from Paul Moore on Vimeo.

In case you haven't heard of it before, Artprize is the unique visual art competition that takes over an entire city and awards a $250,000 prize for the winner. The winner is selected American Idol style by the general public from amongst 1,500+ artists.

This year's winner was Mia Tavonatti, who entered a monumental 9'x13' stained glass mosaic entitled Crucifixion.

A powerful example of the economic impact, consider: one restaurant alone was planning this year to increase its sales by more than $300,000 over the course of the event. That is, one single restaurant brings in way more than enough from the event to pay the cost of the grand prize.

Last year, estimates of the total economic impact were in the range of $7 million. This year a more detailed study will be done.

No doubt these studies will only graze the potential benefit of converting this mixed economy city, known for furniture manufacturing, Amway and religious publishing among several other industries, into a high profile cultural center.

Back in the early '80s, Chemainus on Vancouver Island showed how a small town could leverage art and creativity to literally turn its fortunes around with its innovative mural program. That success spawned dozens, if not hundreds, of copycats. Most likely the same will hold true for the Grand Rapids Artprize.

Before you know it, there could be an "Artprize" type event in every state and province. Hey, the more the merrier!

This event has proven a novel experiment in many ways. Not only is it a wake-up call for the many detractors who fail to see art and culture as an economic engine - people who would rather spend money building jails - it has also been a lesson in humility for the art establishment, many of whom see themselves marginalized in all the hoopla, as they are left on the sideline to whimper about what they call the "poor quality" of the work in general, or the final 10, etc.

You Can't Be Rich on Shattered Land

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 01:15:00 +0000

This song about fracking by Alex Hickey is pretty self-explanatory. Sad song and beautiful singing...

Alex is enroute from her home in NS to a tour of a few stops in Ontario after appearing in Montreal last night. You can check out the tour schedule here.

Citizen Journalist Charles Leblanc Arrested for Protesting on a Megaphone

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 04:02:00 +0000

Freedom of Speech at Issue

Two videos from Leblanc's blog.

First a detailed and interesting report on the situation shown on CBC in New Brunswick. Second Leblanc's own video, showing his arrest.

It brings to mind an encounter I had in New York a few years ago with a group of artists, including Erika Rothenberg, who were setting up a reprise of the installation shown at right, the "Freedom of Expression National Monument".

They were setting up right in front of the court house in downtown Manahattan, as shown below on an image borrowed from Rothenberg's website.

Certainly gives one pause to consider.

One of the CBC stories above gives quite a bit of background into Leblanc's history with the Fredericton Police and of him being "banned" from the NB Legislature.

At this point I am near speechless.

The fact is that we have much less "freedom of expression" than is commonly believed. Will have to digest this for a while... and one can only imagine how Charles Leblanc feels.

What Happened to the REC Mega Solar-Grade Silicon Plant Announced for Quebec?

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:10:00 +0000

Obama credibility not the only casualty of solar power outage

Three years ago, "REC Silicon, a division of the Norwegian multinational group Renewable Energy Corporation, has announced its intention to invest more than $1.2 billion to build a manufacturing plant in Bécancour," Quebec, northeast of Montreal.

The Quebec government and REC made a lot of hay over this, emphasizing how the company had done an exhaustive analysis before deciding to set up shop here.

As this was supposed to be up and running in 2012, to all appearances things have been rather quiet on the REC front.

A quick search turns up a couple of articles in French, one from Radio Canada a year ago and another from this January in Le Courrier Sud, a newspaper in the Bécancour area, both of which indicating that the project is presumed shelved or ditched altogether.

Interesting that no cancellation announcement appears on the REC website, nor anywhere that I can find, at least in English.

Looks like this became another casualty of the problems that seem to have plagued the solar industry since the onset of the recession. Sept '08 certainly not the most opportune time to have made a major announcement in solar energy.

Interesting also to consider this situation in the context of the embarrassing time that Barack Obama has been having with the whole Solyndra solar debacle, bankruptcy, FBI investigation etc. One thing it seems to show is that market conditions could hardly have been worse for anyone trying to implement this type of project.

Is Terrance Corcoran a Leaf Fan? Losers Lead - Leaders Lose?

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 18:24:00 +0000

It would appear the answer is "yes", as this person is clearly impaired in his ability to tell a "leader" from a "loser".

Case in point: his piece in yesterday's National Post stating, "New global report shows Canada among leading nations in Internet, communications technology". Considering that Canada's ranking in this report came out at 13th, 14th, 57th, 12th, 111th, 24th, 13th and 17th, as seen on Michael Geist, Canada is anything but a leader!

The overall rating of 26th is pathetic - wouldn't even get us into the G20 in tech. Needless to say, Canada's relatively low connection rates in mobility are probably somewhat a reflection of our mobility providers' overpriced and predatory sales practices.

Perhaps Corcoran forgot what finishing 27th out of 92 countries looked like at the '76 Olympics in Montreal. In that event, placing 27th out of 92 countries, meant we harvested 11 out of a total of 613 medals given out. That's what finishing 27th out of 92 countries looks like on the world stage beyond a pundit's keyboard.

Given the economic situation in the world right now, and the fact that our government is promising to fill billions of dollars worth of new prisons with new inmates, and is bound and determined to cut arts, culture and social programs, and the cost of education is soaring, it is scary to contemplate that we just received something like 11 out of 613 medals in internet and technology.

Go Leafs Go!

"One Random Year" Artist's Video Shows Snippets of Life

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 01:05:00 +0000

Montreal visual artist Bettina Forget is working on an art project in which she videos a random minute each day for a year.

The videos will be edited into a 6-hour film, which will be shown at Visual Voice Gallery (in the Belgo) in Montreal in 2012.

The clip above is done with the 1-minute clips edited down to five seconds, for a one-month preview.

Interesting. My first response is to wonder how random it could possibly be. Thinking about that question makes it that much the more interesting.

Farmers Vote Against Conservative Plan to Remove Canadian Wheat Board Exclusivity

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 14:41:00 +0000

62% of all western Canadian farmers who grow wheat have voted to retain the Canadian Wheat Board as a "single-desk" to buy farmers' wheat and market it to the world.

The Conservative government has declared its intention to allow other buyers to get into the action. This will dovetail nicely with the Conservatives' ongoing program of selling out all Canadian resources to corporate foreign control.

That would also open the door to the classic exploitation of small farmers that has existed since time immemorial, where farmers would basically be bidding against each other to sell their crops and buyers could shop around for the lowest prices.

Another obvious result would be the continuing erosion of the viability of the family farm, as larger farms would be in a position to bid prices lower and eventually continue to buy out smaller farmers who would have a tougher time to compete. The end result - a landscape of corporate-owned mega-farms.

Now that the farmers have voted decisively on the matter, the Conservative government is left to spin the result this way and that, quibbling about who was qualified to vote, etc., and stating that the vote is not binding. Meanwhile, the farmers say that the government does not have the right to shut down the CWB without first consulting them in a vote. So they will force the issue in court if the government follows through with its delared intention to end the CWB's exclusivity as of Aug., 2012.

9-11-11 Persona Association: Kiefer Sutherland, Jack Layton, Michael Ignatieff,Jack Bauer

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 22:05:00 +0000

OK how about Michael Ignatieff to counter terrorism and Kiefer Sutherland takes over his grandpa's old job?

"Copy that."

Arctic Ice Extent Near a New Record Low

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 03:32:00 +0000

The most recent satellite data indicate that there is a strong possibility that the extent of ice in the Arctic could be at a new low before melting stops later this month.

According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, this year's ice pack is already quite a bit below the minimum levels reached in all other years except for the record low 2007. So, even if the ice-covered area began growing again as of today, 2011 would already have the second-lowest ice coverage in the Arctic ever measured. In addition to 2007, 2008 and 2010 are currently the 2nd and third lowest ice years.

Global warming deniers can huff and puff and blow a lot of smoke, but it is pretty tough to explain how the ice in the Arctic, that has endured for millions of years, continues to vanish right in front of our eyes, year after year. Especially difficult when you consider that changes in the ice extent should occur gradually and randomly. Without global warming it is impossible to explain how four of the past five years are also the four lowest years of Arctic ice in recorded history.

The minimum ice mark will only be confirmed after a clear pattern of ice expansion returns, however the minimum could be reached any time between today and the next 1-3 weeks.

Glass of Water is Source of Creativity

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:27:00 +0000

1995: Ballard Power says their new battery will power a car and the only exhaust will be a glass of water. "All you need is hydrogen."

2008: MIT's Dr. Daniel Nocera discovers a way to produce hydrogen from a glass of water using photosynthesis. "A glass of water can power a house for a day."

2010: A glass of water is still a mystery to physicists.

2011: Co2 Art hypothesis: Unlimited creativity can be derived from a glass of water * therefore * creativity can power the world..

TODAY'S SUNSHINE SHILL - New Co2 Art Feature

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 21:17:00 +0000

As Canadian journalism transforms from the rudderless, so-called objective ideals of people whose typewriters could almost be heard from the barrooms they so often frequented, into today's slick new, well-oiled communications arm of the global petroleum industry, we thought there should be a way of saluting the pioneers of the new paradigm.

You don't have to look far to find merit worthy candidates. You basically just have to open your eyes in the presence of almost any corporately owned newspaper.

So TODAY'S SUNSHINE SHILLS are proud to offer you a couple of gems: The Vancouver Sun, with:

Greenest city moniker an Orwellian nightmare

Green economies don't create wealth, but dissipate it, which should send a shudder down the spine of every person in Vancouver

By Harvey Enchin, Vancouver Sun

And, not to be outdone in any way, the Calgary Herald, with its:

Corbella: Al Gore's convenient untruths about Alberta's oilsands

Pipelines are most environmentally safe way to ship oil

By Licia Corbella, Calgary Herald

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Neither of these articles are clearly labeled as opinion pieces on the online versions.

Neither of these articles provide a rudimentary news story anywhere within all the chicken feathers you have to shovel through to get at any actual information.

Both of these stories read like haphazard collections of cut-and-pastes lifted from right wing comments found on the internet and canned talking points.

This is truly outstanding work. That peregrine falcon stuff was classic!

Congratulations one and all!

Expo No Go: Why Acknowledge a Mumbo Jumbo of Countries Which Don't Appreciate Our Conservative Values and Tim Horton's Culture?

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 17:49:00 +0000

Can you spot the trend?

"Canada refuses to back Edmonton's bid for the 2017 World Exposition"

"Canada pulls out of 2012 World Exposition in Yeosu, Korea"

With the soaring triumph of Expo '67 in Montreal now a distant memory, and the transformation of Vancouver into a world-class city with Expo '86 also a fond, fading memory, has Canada now reached the point of being an internationally inept cultural basket case?

Does anyone seriously believe that we are able to spend $30-60 million on a Libya mission but Heritage Minister James Moore is unable to scrape together $10 million for a Canadian pavilion at Expo 2012 in Korea? At least 100 other countries will be participating in this global event and Liberal Small Business and Tourism critic Joyce Murray is urging Harper to reverse this decision.

Harper spends a billion in the blink of an eye for his G8 meeting or for increasing imprisonment of Canadians - yet they refused to spend considerably less for Edmonton to shine on the world stage in 2017?

It is very unlikely that budget constraints alone are the real reasons for these incomprehensible moves. What could possibly explain such a trend of decisions that are so blatantly anti-business and reflect so poorly on our country from a cultural or economic point of view?

One possibility is simply a lack of know-how and confidence. Perhaps the government just does not know how to participate in an international exposition, let alone host one, and wants to save itself the embarrassment. Perhaps Harper is just weary, or wary, of seeing his policies ridiculed on the international stage.

Or, perhaps the core issue here is something darker, something a little more evil. Something along the lines of "why should we acknowledge a mumbo jumble world of countries we can't even pronounce, which clearly do not appreciate our Conservative Canadian values and Tim Horton's culture?" Let's just continue to soak our supporters' minds in culture they can relate to and forget about all these foreigners.

Bigotry within Our Borders

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:16:00 +0000

Canada's chronic illness, the reciprocal bigotry infecting two of its three founding nations, is threatening to lurch into pandemic status under the Harper Conservative majority.

Until anglophone and francophone Canadians get over their apparently uncontrollable tendency to attack one of the main important strengths that their country has going for it, the future will continue to be uncertain, if there is a future at all.

We now have a conservative territorial government appealing a Supreme Court of Canada decision requiring the Yukon to build a french-language high school. Bad enough that it would take a court edict to force you to build a school where none exists. The fact that you would go to such lengths to avoid having the phenomenal asset of a regional high school in a second language is simply incomprehensible.

One needn't look far to find other examples of governments promoting ignorance in this country. Quebec, of course, has it down to a science, legislating poor second language skills on 80% of its children!

It must be said, however, that there is no greater force in the service of bigotry and ignorance in Canada that I am aware of, than the Sun media group. Never mind that this is where propaganda is presented as journalism. Never mind that thousands of pages are painstakingly dumbed down to ensure that no reader might accidentally acquire any useful morsel of information. No, Sun Media's master genius lies in its ability to bolster circulation and spread conservative/Conservative propaganda so efficiently, by inflaming anti-Quebec and anti-ROC sentiments simultaneously on both sides of the Quebec border - like a double-headed serpent!

Then we have our Conservative federal government which, as speculated by Dr. Dawg and others, may now be at the point of writing off Quebec altogether and instead seeking to build support in ROC by fanning the ever-smoldering anti-Quebec flames.

Memo to the Yukon: A brand new high school is a good thing.

Memo to Canadians: A second language is a good thing.

If we can't embrace our obvious assets and remove bigotry from within our borders, it is hard to imagine Canada as the country I have always pictured it as.

Canadian ETC Group Warns Against British Geo-Engineering Experiments

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 17:47:00 +0000

A wacky British "Earth-cooling" project that has the flavour of mad science or a '50s comic has attracted negative reaction from around the globe, including Canada.

A group of British scientists are preparing to unleash an experiment intended to mimic the effect of a volcano, ultimately scattering water and other particles into the atmosphere, with the result of "cooling" the Earth. The project involves a balloon the size of Wembley Stadium connected to the ground by a hose.

According to the Guardian article, ETC Group, a multinational NGO based in Canada, has come out strongly against the whole concept.

"What is being floated is not only a hose but the whole idea of geo-engineering the planet. This is a huge waste of time and money and shows the UK government's disregard for UN processes. It is the first step in readying the hardware to inject particles into the stratosphere. It has no other purpose and it should not be allowed to go ahead," said Pat Mooney, chair of ETC Group in Canada, an NGO that supports socially responsible development of technology.

ETC Group has created a body of work that addresses global environmental issues and has been actively cautioning about jumping into geo-engineering of many types.

In an open letter to the IPCC's working group meeting held in Peru this June, ETC said, "The prospects of artificially changing the chemistry of our oceans to absorb more CO₂, modifying the Earth’s radiative balance, devising new carbon sinks in fragile ecosystems, redirecting hurricanes and other extreme weather events are alarming."

Among the potential risks are "accidents, dangerous experiments, inadequate risk assessment, unexpected impacts, unilateralism, private profiteering, disruption of agriculture, inter-state conflict, illegitimate political goals and negative consequences for the global South is high".

Burning Man Sees Role as Global Catalyst for Creative Culture and Social Entrepreneurship

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 14:12:00 +0000

Burning Man 2011 is now in full swing, as the organization behind the event seeks to spread its philosophical approach to creative community building around the world.

The week-long annual assembly of thousands of participants in the middle of the Nevada desert is now in its 25th year and this year's event began yesterday with the art theme: "Rites of Passage".

As a rite of passage for the organization, Burning Man's new, or additional, orientation as a vehicle for social change and entrepreneurship provides an obvious connection with the theme. The event known as a place for radical self expression and radical self reliance now becomes a catalyst for radical, global, cultural community building.

Burning Man's new vision for itself as a catalyst, called the Burning Man Project, was announced in a series of press releases over the past number of months.

The project's endeavours will tap into BM's unique body of know-how and experience, gained over decades of creative community building of both the practical and conceptual sort. The physical and logistical challenges alone of bringing tens of thousands of people together to live, create and share in the middle of the empty desert, putting up and tearing down "Nevada's fifth largest city" are easily imagined. One of the ideas of the project is that the knowledge gained from this work gain be applied in many communities around the world where similar challenges are faced. Since the Burning Man settlement, Black Rock City, is built from scratch each year and removed without leaving a trace, a multitude of basic issues such as food, water, shelter, sewage, refuse, communication and transportation are dealt with.

The Burning Man Project has six pillars: Art, Civic Involvement, Education, Culture, Philosophical Center and Social Enterprise. Each of these related areas are being addressed from the standpoint of the "ten principles" of Burning Man. All of which is elaborated in plenty more detail on the links given.

Burning Man Live Webcast

To see Burning Man right now, there is a live webcast feed here. The soundtrack on it is from the BM radio, BMIR.

German Nuclear Shutdown Will Cost 9,000-11,000 Jobs, New Dangers of Nuclear

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 17:32:00 +0000

Is the world already too dependent on nuclear power?

Germany's decision to shut down nuclear power generation years early, following the earthquake and nuclear disaster in Japan this March, will result in up to 11,000 job losses at E.ON, the country's largest energy company.

This was confirmed last week as E.ON posted a net loss of €1.49 billion for the quarter ending in June, compared with a profit of €1.63 billion for the same period last year. Company officials blamed the loss on the government's decision to bump up Germany's nuclear free date from 2036 to 2022, as well as on a new tax on nuclear fuel introduced last year.

In order to cut costs over the next years, CEO Johannes Teyssen said the the company's board needed to make deep job cuts, primarily in administrative areas, according to a report in DW-World.de.

"We cannot afford any unnecessary management levels, processes, and duplication of work," Teyssen said when presenting E.ON's half-year results in Dusseldorf.

The company is now projecting profit for the year in the order of €2.1-2.6 billion, a reduction of 30-40% on earlier estimates.

Meanwhile the nuclear shutdown is continuing to reverberate around the Germanan economy. Bayer, for example, employer of 35,000 in Germany, has threatened that they may have to pull out of Germany if energy prices are not competitive. As it is, Bayer is in the midst of a 4,500 worldwide layoffs, while planning to add 2,500 employees in Russia, China, Brazil or India.

In abandoning nuclear, Germany will have to replace the 23% share of the country's energy it produces. The share of renewables is expected to rise from an already high (in proportion to many countries) 17% to an estimated 35%.

The situation is also impacting other countries. A Swedish energy company blamed huge losses on the German decision. E.ON announced a 15% price hike to its 5 million U.K. residential customers and France, which is highly dependent on nuclear, is now faced with the sudden unrelated difficulty of extremely low water levels in rivers that are used to cool their reactors. At one point in June, Switzerland had requested that France shut down one of their reactors.

While just scratching the surface of recent developments, it is evident that, as countries struggle to readjust their power models in the wake of the Japan earthquake, there is another danger of nuclear power that has been overlooked.

That is that nuclear power is extremely addictive for world economies.

This Guy Still Thinks He's Orchestrating a Campaign for Richard Nixon

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:31:00 +0000

Could the truth really be worse than you ever imagined?

In this case, quite possibly.

A fascinating read in The Guardian concerning the rise of Roger Ailes and Fox News.

Everything that you always suspected is true.

Murdoch-Fox Journalism is not Postmodern, it is Dishonest

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 18:57:00 +0000

Canadians were taken by surprise a month ago by the sudden resignation of CTV Quebec City Bureau Chief, Kai Nagata.

"Nagata's personal experience is an in-the-flesh example of how the adoption of economic values and assumptions, this time in the TV journalism industry, have slowly overtaken journalism's traditional values," wrote Flora Stormer Michaels a few days ago in The Tyee, in a perceptive analysis of Nagata's very public statement.

Over this same timeframe, Canadians have also had the benefit of dissecting the whole News of the World phone-hacking scandal in the U.K. This scandal has rocked the right-wing Murdoch's global media empire to its core, with subsidiaries Fox News and others treading very carefully around the perimeter of this issue as best they can.

The story got a lot of traction, which was surprising, in a sense, because of the dismal reflection it cast on all contemporary media. But of course other networks and papers had more to gain by making Murdoch look bad so they ran with it for all it was worth, until the Norway incident and U.S. debt crisis knocked everything else off the front pages.

Sniffing around on the morning after journalism's brief moment in the news, we wonder what can be gained. Does Nagata's initiative end as an item with "100,000 page views and 1,300 comments" on a blog? Does Murdoch go one step back and two steps forward?

Micahels writes that Nagata inadvertently refers in his "manifesto" to two competing cultural stories about what journalism is: The "old" journalism is about keeping citizens informed for the public good, where information, which wasn't a commodity, allowed citizens to hold their democratic leaders accountable. The "new" journalism is about using whatever attracts eyeballs.... (...for the purpose of generating revenue).

This view suggests that the current state of journalism is a postmodern movement, where reality is defined by a socially scripted story, which has become (as if randomly): "create content that will generate the most interest and revenue."

Sorry, I don't buy it.

What Michaels refers to as "new journalism" is not what they wish it were.

It is not a "cultural story" that the good corporate citizen has gone MIA. It is simply greed at work in an unethical age.

Over and above basic greed, a political filter which demands cultivating good will for the political system perceived to be most favorable towards business, is also now entrenched. This is present in virtually all news media today, to a greater or lesser degree. It is up for discussion whether this has been premeditated, or has just been a gradual encroachment.

Let's hope that the actions of Kai Nagata and other enlightened journalists can turn this around.

Free Energy?: Waste - to -Oil not Free But Good to Go

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:07:00 +0000

With several promising technologies for producing "free energy" now amongst us, experience is showing that, while nothing in life is "free" something looks sure to give in the near future. Thermal depolymerization, the technology required to efficiently transform plastic and all sorts of waste into oil and other usable products has been around for years.

These technologies were invented in the 1990s and the industry has been spearheaded by a privately-owned company, Changing World Technologies, (CWT) since it was founded in 1997 by Brian S Appel.

Unlike many world-changers, this one actually has or had functioning units in the field on a fully-scaled basis. But, just as the company seemed ready to literally change the world, a combination of factors have apparently stalled its progress.

A subsidiary started jointly with ConAgra Foods, Renewable Environmental Solutions, LLC, (RES) has an industrial facility in Carthage. MO, that has proven capable of transforming 250 tons of turkey offal and fat per day into 500 barrels of renewable diesel. Located adjacent to the ConAgra Butterball turkey plant, the RES facility has run into a variety of problems, including higher than expected costs, resident complaints about odor, an unsuccessful IPO by the parent company, and presumably the collapse of oil prices in '08. It operated for years, was shut down in 2009 and is expected to reopen (or has reopened) shortly, apparently as a wholly-owned CWT property.

Appel has stated that by processing all the agricultural waste in the U.S. using this system, enough oil could be produced to eliminate imports.

Similar technology has been developed by the Blest company of Japan. This concept focuses on plastic to oil, also has working units in the field and has demonstrated some scalability. Again this technology has been around for a while.

Plastic to Oil Fantastic from UNUChannel on Vimeo.

Another plastic to oil player is Agilyx, in the U.S. They have been running a pilot operation in Portland, OR, and are presently ramping up a demonstration scale plant. Agilyx has recently announced major "upstream and downstream" investments from Waste Management and Total.

Agilyx, whose process yields approximately 200 to 240 gallons of synthetic crude per ton of waste plastic, is eyeballing the 162 million tons of industrial and municipal plastic finding its way to landfills each year.

Keeping in mind the these multiple ways of producing enough petroleum to quench American thirst are already out there, and that the oil sands of Alberta are also ramping and ready to build and fill new pipelines, it only adds to the intrigue when one considers, for example, the 38 million hectares of the non-edible oil crop, Jatropha, that are on the drawing board in India.

In a deal announced today between Bharat Petroleum and SG Biofuelssome 80,000 acres were specifically identified out of a total of 250,000 involved in the project. Under Indian government targets, in order for biofuels to meet 20% of the petro supply, 38 million hectares will need to be planted. According to regulations, the inedible oil crops must be planted on wasteland so as not to jeopardize food security.

We will continue to follow these developments as we try to get everything in perspective and develop an overview of the global energy situation, as we ll as Canadian and North American perspectives..

Pierre "Bourqueing" Up the Wrong Tree

noreply@blogger.com (Offroad Artist) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 16:38:00 +0000

For the past couple of years and certainly through the recent federal election campaign, Pierre Bourque's Newswatch has been one of the more balanced general news sources out there.

His coverage of the Turmel situation, unfortunately, is fast undoing a lot of hard-earned cred from the perspective of this writer.

Even today (eons, in media terms, after the story broke), this non-issue continues to hog headlines on Bourque's front page with Sun-esque, simple-minded, empty derision, the likes of:

'Chompers' Turmel a huge liability NDP REFUSES TO DUMP DEAD DUCK LEADER

The article linked to, in the Hill Times, is far more even-handed in its treatment of Turmel, mentioning precedents, such as Transport Minister Denis Lebel, who belonged to the Bloc Quebecois prior to joining the Conservatives.

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