Welcome to the Everywhere War

This week the US government publicly admitted that it is building a case against an American citizen that it claims is a member of Al-Qaeda who is planning terrorist attacks against America. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be shocking news – the various branches of justice in the US build cases against people for illegal activities all the time, and terrorism is certainly an illegal activity. However, this case is remarkable because the end result of the folder of evidence being put together will not be a trial before a judge and jury in a court of law. Instead, if the justice department puts together a convincing enough case, the CIA will be authorized to immediately kill the man with a drone strike from the skies above whichever country he is currently hiding in.

No trial is needed, it seems; and the man will not be given the chance to defend himself, as is usually the right of every American citizen who is accused of a crime. Instead, a combination of bureaucrats and politicians, with President Obama ultimately at its head, will become judge, jury, and executioner of this man, and quite possibly of many of the people around him at the time the CIA strikes, who will no doubt find their own lives being taken as ‘collateral damage’.

This isn’t the first time such an attack will have happened, of course, although it does seem to set a precedent for the US government openly admitting that it is considering assassinating one of its own people. A US citizen and Muslim cleric named Anwar al-Awlaki was killed by a drone strike in Yemen in 2011, with similar justifications from the government. Equally, if we put aside the issue of American citizenship, countless others have been murdered by US drone strikes over the past few years on the basis of confidential information that we are not allowed to see – but the justice department, the military, and the US government all assure us that anyone killed was definitely an ‘enemy combatant’.

We are now in the middle of what geographer Derek Gregory calls ‘the everywhere war’ – an unannounced worldwide conflict in which every nation is a potential battlefield and every person a potential target. Gregory points to the militarization of the US-Mexico border and the use of computer viruses against Iranian nuclear reactors as examples of the worldwide spread of this war. Sticking with the Middle East, the US has essentially extended its war against Afghanistan into Pakistan, where it constantly conducts air and even ground raids in its attempt to find members of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. That war has extended again across the gulf to Yemen, where regular drone strikes have stirred up such resentment that the country is constantly on the brink of revolutionary collapse. Such a collapse would, of course, give the US even more reason to continue with the strikes to defeat a new ‘radical’ government. The normal rules of war do not seem to apply – the US feels it can attack whoever it wants whenever it wants with complete impunity, all in the name of ‘national security’.

Some of the blame for this ‘everywhere war’ must lay with Al-Qaeda and Islamic militants themselves, of course, who have attacked indiscriminately. But the US needs to be held to higher standards than the people it calls terrorists. It needs to approach things in a manner that respects the law, precisely to show that it is different from Al-Qaeda. And randomly exterminating people without trial simply because they happen to be in the poor, underdeveloped nations that these extremists are targeting, is not going to demonstrate to the world that the US is morally superior. The US government is becoming bolder about its belief that it can target anyone it wants with this week’s announcement – but it needs to reverse that policy, and quickly.

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Green energy windmills killing tens of thousands of birds!

There are a number of green energy projects vying for market share. Solar. Natural gas. The SH-Box by NRGLab, to name a few. But only one source of energy is killing over 83,000 birds each year – wind.

Bald and golden eagles, hawks, and falcons are but a few of the species of birds being victimized by the mills’ massive turbines. Grainger Hunt, an authority on the subject, explains why the birds are susceptible: “There’s nothing in the evolution of eagles that would come near to describing a wind turbine,” he says. “There’s never been an opportunity to adapt to that sort of threat.”

Although these birds of prey are no longer on the endangered species list, their populations are still considerably low compared to numbers from the turn of the 20th century. Disturbing their habitats, stealing their eggs, or killing an eagle is, in accordance with the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act of 1940, punishable by up to two years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

Yet the United States seems to hold certain sectors of their energy industry to a double standard. BP paid $100 million in fines for harming migratory birds during the 2010 Gulf oil spill. The previous year, PacifiCorp, the northwest U.S.’s leading utility supplier, paid $10.5 million for electrocuting 232 eagles in their power lines.

However, not a single wind farm has faced criminal prosecution since President Barack Obama took office in 2008!

In Altamont Pass, California, wind farms are responsible for more than 60 avian deaths per year, while more than 573,000 birds across the country have been killed so far. That number could even be substantially higher, since most companies are reluctant to admit how many birds they’ve butchered.

Wildlife advocacy groups are up in arms about the Obama administration’s indecisive double standard. “It’s the rationale that we have to get off of carbon, we have to get off of fossil fuels, that allows them to justify this,” says Tom Dougherty, formerly with the National Wildlife Federation. “But at what cost? In this case, the cost is too high.”

If the U.S. enforced federal laws concerning murderous wind mills, then green energy companies would be forced to regard avian populations and migratory patterns before starting construction on new farms. Even so, experts agree it’s unlikely that birds and wind mills will ever co-exist peacefully. Can you blame them? Giant metal blades whirling at incredible speeds versus creatures with hollow bones -- doesn't seem like a fair fight.

NRGLab is against bird murder! We developed a source of alternative energy that’s carbon-free, compact, and completely safe for your home, office, or bird sanctuary. It’s called the SH-Box -- a poly-crystalline electoral generator set to revolutionize the way people think about energy. Follow us on Facebook, and visit nrglab.asia for more information on our next SH-Box auction.

Recent hack and crash prove computers rule the world

On Tuesday, a hacked Twitter account caused the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 to temporarily plummet, resulting in several minutes’ worth of world-wide panic. A tweet posted by the Associated Press claimed that President Barack Obama had been injured in a series of explosions. It was quickly refuted by White House staff and, moments later, @AP posted a retraction and apology: “The @AP Twitter account has been suspended after it was hacked. The tweet about an attack on the White House was false.”

But it was too late. The damage had been done. Word spread and the market took a massive hit. Luckily for panic-stricken investors though, it rebounded as soon as the record was set straight.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is currently looking into the root of the compromise. So far, the Syrian Electronic Army has stepped forward and claimed responsibility, but their claim remains unfounded. (Days before, Twitter had suspended the group’s account after they took credit for hacking three of CBS’s largest accounts: 48 Hours, CBS-Denver, and 60 Minutes. Suspicious activity..?)

The Associated Press has nearly 2 million followers on Twitter, but none of them were responsible for the recent stock market snafu – their computers were.

You read right. Computers caused the world to plunge into madness for a few short minutes. Automated online trading systems are programmed to scan the Internet for news updates via buzzwords, and then execute trades immediately, without reservation. Once these systems identified “Obama,” “explosions,” and “White House,” they started a fire-sale.

Concerned yet? Have we put too much trust in our computers?

21st Century terrorism has taken on a variety of faces. Suicide bombers driven by religious beliefs. Psychotics with private arsenals. But perhaps the ones who wield the most power in our digital age are cyber terrorists, like those responsible for the AP hack. They were able to incite panic on a global scale with only a few keystrokes. Authorities are scrambling to figure out when and where the next attack will take place. This time it was the stock market. Next time – the nuclear launch codes?

Now you have to be concerned...

Big business addresses climate change?

Late last week, the U.S. Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) gave their recommendations to President Obama regarding climate change. According to the BCSE, investing in green-energy will not only stimulate the tech industry, but could pull the entire economy out of the hole Americans currently find themselves in. Thank goodness for the sequester then, which, if left unresolved, will result in billions of federal spending cuts, leaving little to no room for green-energy investing. Hooray, for split Congresses.

In a letter from the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change to the National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA) “the window to prevent catastrophic climate change is rapidly closing.” The Task Force requested suggestions on how federal agencies could cut down on their carbon emissions. In reply, the BCSE released a factbook entitled 'Sustainable Energy in America', in which they identified economic-based legislation as the “optimal policy.” They also recommended the following measures:

1. Allow existing power plants to achieve target emission rates.

2. Use an output-based approach to setting emissions standards for New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) of greenhouse gases.

3. The Department of Energy should implement efficiency measures, including appliance and equipment standards, manufactured housing efficiency standards, and previously announced programs for commercial buildings.

4.The federal government should follow through on commitments made in the White House Executive Order 13514, including making greater use of federal performance contracting, aggregating procurements within federal agencies, between federal agencies, and leveraged with state and local government procurements, and clarify that Combined Heat and Power (CHP) qualifies under this executive order.

5.Federal agencies should support efforts to strengthen the smart grid, especially distributed generation at disaster centers, hospitals, etc., and should implement and update climate change adaptation plans to improve resilience.

6.Congress should continue to support research, development and deployment of homegrown and clean energy sources.

These actions could significantly cut into America's carbon emissions, and would set a positive example for the rest of the world to follow. As previously quoted, “the window to prevent catastrophic climate change is rapidly closing.” We have passed the development period. It' time for implementation. It's time for change. It's time for the SH-box and other innovative green initiatives to finally get the recognition, and the funding, they deserve and need to save the world.

Forward on Climate Rally -- Feb. 17th

On Februrary 17th, the Forward on Climate Rally will be held in Washington D.C. People are expected to gather to urge President Obama to address climate change; a promise he made during his inaugural speech when he first took office five years ago. The rally is being organized by the Sierra Club, 350.org, the Hip Hop Caucus and a few dedicated environmentalists.

The Rally’s message focuses on minimizing the environmental footprint the United States is currently leaving on the planet. If the President continues to support the nation’s outdated and obsolete infrastructure, and we continue to depend upon coal mines, oil pipelines, and hazardous fracking operations, the US will be left on the wrong side of history as the rest of the world moves towards renewable, clean energy. (Politicians like to use the term ‘clean coal’ but, lets face it, that’s like saying ‘jumbo shrimp’ — a bit bigger, and better, sure, but still coal at the core.)

It’s time congress puts aside their moral differences on social issues like gun control and abortion and focus on something we can all agree on: we need clean air to breathe, for instance. The U.S. energy policy must reflect what the rest of the world already knows — we need to decrease carbon emissions. Plain and simple. Legislation on tax breaks only rewards corporations with lawyers clever enough to find the loopholes. Climate change isn’t something that can be negotiated, or treated like a stock option. It has to be dealt with seriously; scrutinized from every angle. No bad ideas. All suggestions welcome.

I know what you might be asking: who cares if there’s a little more carbon in the air? I hear cows, and their methane gas emissions (farts) have also contributed to global warming.

The latter happens to be true, but that doesn’t mean that man-made carbon emissions haven’t already taken their toll. Just look at the super-storms that have ravaged the U.S. over the last several years. The droughts. The floods. Scientists have linked these so-called ‘natural’ disasters to elevated levels of carbon in our atmosphere.

How can we undo the damage? Only with time and by changing our energy habits. We need new sources of affordable and efficient energy — not more nuclear power plants, or drills. We don’t need to open more coal mines. What we need is the SH-box by NRGLab.

The SH-Box produces clean electricity from patented crystal technology for pennies per watt. What’s holding NRGLab back? A lack of global government response and cooperation. It’s time for America to take a stand, and the Forward on Climate Rally might just be that motivating voice, screaming, “Get up off your butt, already!”

If you live near Washington D.C., or have the ability to take off of work and make the commute, I encourage you to join the Sierra Club February 17th. Let your voice be heard. Tell President Obama you’re ready for the change you were promised. And while you’re at it, you might tell him to look into NRGLab, and the way we’re approaching energy reform.