Sen. McCain's nuclear plan: An economic and environmental disaster

Sen. John McCain has repeatedly called for building 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030, with the ultimate goal of 100 new plants. The plan would be extremely costly to taxpayers, presents significant risk for the economy and the public, and does little to solve America's energy problems.

McCain's radical expansion of nuclear power would have major consequences for America that his campaign has either not disclosed or not considered, even though nuclear power is constantly referenced as one of the centerpieces of the McCain energy policy.

A $280 billion cost to taxpayers: Nuclear plants are enormously expensive. The cost of 45 reactors is likely to be at least $315 billion, while 100 reactors would cost at least $700 billion. Under Sen. McCain's plan, taxpayers are estimated to be on the hook for $126 billion to $280 billion in failed nuclear loans.

A job creation fantasy: New nuclear power plants would create, at best, one- fourth as many jobs as Sen. McCain claimed during the second presidential debate, costing taxpayers as much as $19 million for each job created.

Fails to take advantage of cleaner, cheaper alternatives: Clean energy technologies such as energy-efficient products and wind and solar power can deliver more energy much sooner than building new nuclear power plants, and create more jobs at a lower cost to taxpayers—without the risks. John McCain has consistently failed to support those lower cost alternatives, and his costly nuclear plan would continue to keep better alternatives underfunded and at the back of the line.

It's clear that Sen. McCain's nuclear proposal would be an economic disaster. It would also risk environmental disaster by creating enough waste to fill a second Yucca Mountain-sized dump and dramatically increasing the amount of nuclear waste transported on our roads and rails. Finally, Sen. McCain's plan would do nothing to deal with our current energy crisis because no new power would be generated until at least 2019.

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U.S. has plundered world wealth with dollar: China paper

The United States has plundered global wealth by exploiting the dollar's dominance, and the world urgently needs other currencies to take its place, a leading Chinese state newspaper said on Friday.

The front-page commentary in the overseas edition of the People's Daily said that Asian and European countries should banish the U.S. dollar from their direct trade relations for a start, relying only on their own currencies.

A meeting between Asian and European leaders, starting on Friday in Beijing, presented the perfect opportunity to begin building a new international financial order, the newspaper said.

The People's Daily is the official newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party. The Chinese-language overseas edition is a small circulation offshoot of the main paper.

Its pronouncements do not necessarily directly voice leadership views. But the commentary, as well as recent comments, amount to a growing chorus of Chinese disdain for Washington's economic policies and global financial dominance in the wake of the credit crisis.

"The grim reality has led people, amidst the panic, to realize that the United States has used the U.S. dollar's hegemony to plunder the world's wealth," said the commentator, Shi Jianxun, a professor at Shanghai's Tongji University.

Shi, who has before been strident in his criticism of the U.S., said other countries had lost vast amounts of wealth because of the financial crisis, while Washington's sole concern had been protecting its own interests.

"The U.S. dollar is losing people's confidence. The world, acting democratically and lawfully through a global financial organization, urgently needs to change the international monetary system based on U.S. global economic leadership and U.S. dollar dominance," he wrote.

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ZERO : An investigation into 9/11

Part 1

ZERO: An Investigation into 9/11, has one central thesis - that the official version of the events surrounding the attacks on 9/11 can not be true. This brand new feature documentary from Italian production company Telemaco explores the latest scientific evidence and reveals dramatic new witness testimony, which directly conflicts with the US Government's account.

Featuring presentations from intellectual heavy weights; Gore Vidal, and Noble Prize winner Dario Fo, the film challenges assumptions surrounding the attacks. In the words of the Italian daily newspaper, Il Corriere de da Sera, "What results is a sequence of contradictions, gaps, and omissions of stunning gravity."

The importance of this film can not be overstated. If its thesis is correct, the justification for going to war in Iraq is built on a series of outrageous lies.

http://zero911movie.com/site/

Mammon, the god of excess

In an essay especially pertinent to contemporary American society, L'Exil d'Hélene, Albert Camus noted, "Greek thought always restrained itself behind the idea of limits. It never exceeded limits, neither the sacred, nor reason, because it denied nothing, neither the sacred, nor reason. It made allowance for everything, balancing shadow and light. Instead, our Europe, launched toward the conquest of totality, is the very daughter of excess (writing in the immediate aftermath of World War II, I'm certain Camus would note here not only Europe but especially the America of our times.) …. In its folly it extends the eternal limits, and immediately obscure Erinys fall on it and tear it apart."

Reading Camus' essay in the midst of the bedlam of the ongoing collapse of Capitalism falling to pieces around us helped me pinpoint the idea for this concluding essay of the Definitions series: Definitions: The Proletariat; Definitions: The Intelligentsia; Definitions: The Bourgeoisie. Mammon is the God of Excess and the very personification of the capitalist god (or rather its demon), even though now a fallen god.

The natural subject for this essay is Capitalism itself, in fact, the underlying subject of the whole essay quartet. However, since Capitalism is too vast to treat here, the god-devil image of Mammon is more accessible. For the very basis of Western society is the personification of a Weltanschauung, a view of life, which is the illusion of the possibility of a life without limits. Many readers have recognized the hubris of our economic-financial world this 2008 as the direct result of our attempt to exceed universal limits. For the worship of Mammon, the Golden Calf, the love of wealth, marks our times.

In the Bible, "Mammon" is not a demon but simply the Aramaic word meaning "wealth" or "property." Sometimes it is translated as "money." In the Middle Ages, in religious writings, in the fiery sermons of the fanatical Dominican monk in Florence, Girolamo Savonarola, and in literature, Mammon is personified as the demon of avarice and wealth.

For modern men as for medieval men Mammon is the personification of the excessive love of money and wealth. By extension then Mammon is the god of excess. Mammon demands that its worshippers strive toward excess, that they exceed the eternal limits of the Greeks. America has obeyed the abominable god's commandments.

Excess! Surplus. Extravagance. Intemperance. Exceptionalism. Outrageous expectations. Exaggerated presumptions. Too much. Too big. Too fast. Too much of everything. Too, too, too….

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Revealed: why evil lurks in us all

Psychologists have struggled for decades to explain why ordinary people participate in atrocities such as the Nazi Holocaust or the Stalinist purges.

Now experiments carried out in Britain reveal that most people obey authority unquestioningly and would also walk past an injured stranger who did not come from their own ethnic or social group.

The findings will shake the long-held British belief that this country is immune from the kinds of tyranny found in other parts of the world.

Research carried out at Lancaster University on football supporters found that they failed consistently to come to the aid of an injured supporter from a rival team. Secret cameras filmed individual Manchester United fans as they ignored a Liverpool fan played by an actor while he writhed in pain on the floor. When the actor wore a Manchester United shirt, the supporters helped him in 80 per cent of cases. When he switched to a Liverpool shirt, all but a handful walked straight past. The results of the research will be revealed in a BBC programme, Five Steps to Tyranny , on the nature of evil to be presented by Sheena McDonald this week.

A separate experiment - again filmed with secret cameras - shows the majority of people on a train complying with a stranger's order to give up their seat. When the stranger is accompanied by a man in a uniform, not a single person chooses to disobey.

McDonald said she was shocked by what the experiments showed: 'The majority of people have a psychological tendency to obey and conform. All of us involved in the programme found ourselves looking at our own lives and examining whether we were beginning on the first step to tyranny.'

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