Energy and Resources News

The growing struggles of the working class in Europe and internationally against mass unemployment and government austerity policies are exposing the reality behind the façade of bourgeois democracy. In every country, the government, whether conservative or nominally “left,” is cutting jobs and wages and slashing social programs in complete disregard for the overwhelming opposition of the population.

Elections, parliamentary debates have no effect on policy. The state does the bidding of the financial aristocracy, tearing up the living standards of the masses in the interests of the bankers who are responsible for the economic crisis. The financiers and corporate executives are making more money than ever by exploiting mass unemployment and growing social distress to slash wages and increase the exploitation of the working class.

Where the best efforts of the trade unions do not suffice to hold the workers in check and struggles break out that challenge the plans of the capitalists, most prominently in France and Greece, the state uses its powers of repression to smash strikes and protests. In France, the Sarkozy government has deployed riot police to break up workers’ blockades of oil depots and attack protesting students with tear gas and rubber bullets, arresting hundreds across the country.

Do You Really Believe in Miracles?

by David Ray Griffin

n Open Letter to Terry Allen, Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, David Corn, Chris Hayes, George Monbiot, Matthew Rothschild, and Matt Taibbi.1

According to several left-leaning critics of the 9/11 Truth Movement, some of its central claims, especially about the destruction of the World Trade Center, show its members to be scientifically challenged. In the opinion of some of these critics, moreover, claims made by members of this movement are sometimes unscientific in the strongest possible sense, implying an acceptance of magic and miracles.

After documenting this charge in Part I of this essay, I show in Part II that the exact opposite is the case: that the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center implies miracles (I give nine examples), and that the 9/11 Truth Movement, in developing an alternative hypothesis, has done so in line with the assumption that the laws of nature did not take a holiday on 9/11. In Part III, I ask these left-leaning critics some questions evoked by the fact that it is they, not members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, who have endorsed a conspiracy theory replete with miracle stories as well as other absurdities.

President Obama's proposal to open vast expanses of American coastlines to oil and natural gas drilling drew criticism from both sides in the drilling debate.
The plan, which President Obama said would balance the need to produce more domestic energy while protecting natural resources, would allow drilling along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska. It would end a longstanding moratorium on exploration from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.

The 33rd Annual Conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers was held in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada on September 14-15 and was co-chaired by host Premier Shawn Graham and Maine Governor John Baldacci.  Throughout the years, the governors and premiers have forged a partnership and expanded economic ties, including cooperation on energy and environmental issues.

As a result of NAFTA, North America is already a well-integrated energy market with Canada and Mexico among the U.S.’s top energy trading partners.  Through the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), the North American Energy Working Group has further integrated a continental energy strategy.  Other initiatives are also pushing towards a single North American energy policy.

The Western Governors’ Association annual conference was held in Park City, Utah on June 14-16, 2009. The meetings were attended by three Canadian western premiers.  Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer and Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall spearheaded plans to develop a cross-border Western Energy Corridor.  Both have announced that they intend to establish a Western Energy Corridor Coalition to further promote the initiative.  The proposed energy corridor would be the largest of its kind in the world. 

http://www.borderfirereport.net/dana-gabriel/towards-a-north-american-energy-corridor.php

There may be as many as 503 billion barrels of oil in the Bakken Formation that runs under Saskatchewan, Manitoba, North Dakota and Montana

60,000 tons of waste in the form of used reactor fuel with nowhere to go......
 

“We are poor, but we are not stupid peasants......"

Re: Revisiting NAFTA threatens oil sales to U.S.: Cannon, Nov. 15.

Newly minted Foreign Affairs minister Lawrence Cannon recently expressed his fear that "revisiting NAFTA", the controversial trade deal with the U.S. would, "... threaten (Canadian) oil sales to the U.S.

His fears are somewhat justified, but only in the narrow confines of the existing deal, which was designed to be flexible. It is not heresy to suggest that Canada needs new markets for its surplus crude oil and refined petroleum products.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/letters/story.html?id=4a831209-41fd-4241-b36f-1a2701621c36

U.S. oil companies in Alberta can use NAFTA to sue the Canadian government if any level of government passes a law restricting their profits, says Maude Barlow, a senior advisor to the United Nations.

Barlow, the UN’s official expert on water policy and founder of the non-profit Council of Canadians, says Chapter 11, a relatively obscure clause in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) allows companies from member countries to sue national governments for lost profits if any new laws adversely affect their profit. Barlow is especially concerned because of the sheer power of the oilsands economy, which she calls “the biggest capital project in the world.

http://www.srj.ca/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=88&twindow=Default&mad=No&sdetail=3206&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1957&hn=srj&he=.ca

Canadian activist Maude Barlow has been appointed as the United Nation's first senior adviser on water issues, a role she hopes to use to establish water as a human right and to convince Canada to "change its shameful position" on the issue.

Barlow, chair of the citizens' advocacy group Council of Canadians, will work with the current president of the UN General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann.

"This is a wonderful opportunity to advance a more democratic and transparent method of policy making around water at the global level than now exists," Barlow said in a press release. "Water is a commons, a public trust and a human right."

• Self-reliance beckons for communist state
• Estimate means reserves are on a par with US

Friends and foes have called Cuba many things - a progressive beacon, a quixotic underdog, an oppressive tyranny - but no one has called it lucky, until now . Mother nature, it emerged this week, appears to have blessed the island with enough oil reserves to vault it into the ranks of energy powers. The government announced there may be more than 20bn barrels of recoverable oil in offshore fields in Cuba's share of the Gulf of Mexico, more than twice the previous estimate.

There is little doubt that NAFTA has brought about the loss of Canadian sovereignty over its own resources and further threatens its water supply. Through the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), bulk water transfers are being discussed. The SPP is carrying on where NAFTA left off, and this includes further gaining access to Canadian oil, gas, electricity, and water. The Montreal Economic Institute, which is a think tank, is now urging Canada to export its fresh water for financial gain. This will mortgage Canada’s future for possible short-term benefits. A continental resource pact, which includes energy and water, is all part of deeper integration into a North American Union.

http://intelstrike.com/?p=298