Clean Coal - Right Here, Right Now

The big issue of the day, and the one they led Sixty Minutes off with, is one I’ve been avoiding in my writings because I’ve had no position on the subject, and that is the pet issues of both Obama and Mc Cain in the presidential campaign, Clean Coal. Both candidates were heartily for Clean Coal. Some would say it’s an oxy-moronism, and I’d have thought so too but apparently they’ve had the technology since the 1980’s to “sequester” the carbon from the coal and return it to the ground in liquid form. Don’t ask me how. Others have said that this is an excellent way to increase oil yields on oil rigs. That’s another reason for doing it. What is clear to me now that clean up coal may be our only salvation because it appears an impossibility for the United States to get off coal as a fuel for electric power plants. It’s abundant and there is no good substitute in the massive qualities we’ll be needing for energy in the future. Keep in mind that India and China have really stepped up their construction of new coal fired plants. So we will have to share this technology with those nations as soon as we get it into wide-spread production. Some have said that the 2050 guidepost is way too optimistic, and that if we haven’t cleaned up our coal in twenty years we are pretty much toast, as far as global warming is concerned. New evidence is manifesting every day that global warming is accelerating. And keep in mind that sometimes global warming can result in dramatic cooling and if the gulf stream conveyer belt is shut down by Greenland’s melting ice then this could through Europe into a near ice age, impacting the lives of hundreds of millions of people. I think President Obama does well to speak out on this clean coal issue. It’s kind of like condoms in the schools. You might call that an “oxy-moronism” too, but you would be whistling in the dark. You have an ongoing problem. And the sooner a person can come up with a solution to it, the better. Saying “the problem shouldn’t exist” or saying that “we shouldn’t have any coal-fired plants at all” is rather pointless, because India and China are building them regardless. Especially if we’re going to be driving more hybrid cars we’ll be needing more and not less electric power. Some say that modifying these plants- - all that infrastructure- - will be expensive. My response is at least we know what we’ll be doing. With “cold fusion” we are dabbling in ignorance and nobody has a clue when of if there will ever be a workable model. Some have talked about getting ethanol from switch grass, because it grows naturally and unlike a farm product can be harvested with a minimum of energy expenditure for ethanol 85. This is one area where former President Bush was actually making sense and I wish he would have said more about it. But too many people were mocking him. Some figures peg production of hydrogen for fuel at an energy cost of anywhere from 65% to 115% of total output. In other words, output could be LESS than input. This won’t work. We need to go with a solution that is doable and doable right now. Our first priority is to get off of our addiction to foreign oil. If we don’t do that first we’re nowhere. All these other forms of energy may have potential but if we can’t get production rolling NOW then what’s the point? Now is when we need the energy and the “green” stuff can follow later.

Obama’s first hundred days have now come to pass. People refer it to chapter one of an eventful Presidency. The US is trying to take a more flexible stance with certain nations. Thom Hartman said the reason why the Taliban is not popular in Indonesia is that that area has no US presence to taint public opinion against us, so that the secular parties are gaining there. Secular parties appear to be gaining also in Pakistan as that government appears to be becoming more cooperative in eradicating the Taliban at long last. I think this is what Richard and Phyllis were discussing is the fact that we are giving Pakistan money. Women don’t want to go behind the veil or lose their rights. In terms of this idea that Obama has criticized the US for being a presumptuous nation or something last night Joe Biden defended the remark. I guess in the world of diplomacy it isn’t sheik to apologize for just anything without their being a compelling reason. And there is the handshake seen round the world between President Obama and Hugh Chavez. Biden defended that, too. As long as I took a copy of Chavez’ book, I guess I would read it, unless it really is in Spanish. Of course the whole thing with Piracy isn’t going away.

Bill Handel says there will be a hundred outbreaks of the Swine flu by this time tomorrow and hiss figure for the US was forty. I had heard much less. People say that this viral composit of swine and bird and human DNA flu may have “mutated down” so that it doesn’t kill everybody it comes in contact with. If you want to impute intelligence to the evolution process perhaps the virus knows that its best chance of survival is to produce less lethal symptoms. Some have speculated how a sudden pandemic might impact the “economic recovery process” that we are now in.

Last night it was ABC network news and “At the Movies” and then Sixty Minutes, where Joe Biden got his own segment. We need to be reminded of the depth and compassion of the man and his forthright remarks. It’s the sort of thing a wishy-washy man like the President needs to hear on frequent occasions. I continue to think it’s a good thing Obama chose Biden over all the other possible candidates.

OK this is extra credit material. Chapter 14 of the I Ching opens “The sun shines in the heavens and all things around become manifest”. So it is with the aspirations of the Orion Federation. The dark line in fifth place stands for the fifth dimension. The things that lie herein are not made manifest. It is believed that “The Solar Federation” reference in “2112” refers to the moment of triumph. Victor Kiriacus today said that the Greaks, such as the Spartans, were victorious because they “never stopped fighting”. This was the key to the North Vietnamese’ success in 1975. I want to talk a little about the seven dimensions. The Pyramid as a geometric form has some interesting qualities. Your average cube has eight points and six sides. The Pyramid reverses that having six points and eight sides. Each point represents a dimension. The eight sides may well stands for the eight triagram elements in the I Ching. Heaven is contrasted with Earth, Thunder is contrasted with wood, the Mountain is contrasted with the Lake, and fire is contrasted with water. Each side of a pyramid is a triangle consisting of three corners representing the three elements of the triagram. The vertical height angle is something I figured out in Excel in 2005 and it’s 54.735 degrees vertical ascent. The edges of which would each have double this number of degrees. A circle would fit around all six points of a pyramid. The people of the Federation profess to live in the Telestial realm. This word means distance, but more to the point means distant-up-close, such as in telescope, television, or telephone. People are what they are largely because of engrams. Like bacteria, you really cant survive without them and only a few of them are bad. We thus depart company with Scientology on this issue. Pre-borns derive their engrams from previous lives. Concurrent lives, or lives that overlap into current time are considered completely within the realm of possibility. Life is seen as an endless chess game or football game, where there are more than two players and the interactions are bound only by geometric laws and the illusion of free will. To say that free will is but an illusion is not to negate the other over-riding axiom “never stop fighting”. Psychic aware is by no means an appeal to some occult supernatural source. To be “occulted” by a supernatural power is to be in it’s shadow, the light of which is your goal. The shape of the shadow determines the shape of the challenges you need to overcome. The sixth dimension is rather a natural process. Clairvoyance, precognition and telepathy are natural processes and are merely awareness of the things that are. Most likely a person so enlightened would not “stumble through life”. Were one to stumble now it would be his own volitional affair. Engram errors are to be overcome naturally. Volitional transgressions must be forgiven by the one who is transgressed against, or they shall remain unforgiven. To be aware is to be alive. To not be aware is not to be fully alive. Religion forces death upon those who would not choose it, were it up to their own volition. (Selah)