BE AFRAID AMERICA, BE VERY AFRAID

Something new (to me) has just alarmed me more than I can accept.

I am no hero, but I've been in some unpleasant situations in my life. I was vaguely involved in a shooting war, was aboard a ship with a fire reported in an ammunition storage room, had a hand caught in a lion's mouth (stupid is as stupid does), avoided a charging crocodile by inches and even had another deer hunter put a round in a tree about four inches from my chest.

But the other night I was watching, casually, the community television station when I should have been asleep in bed. (That's the channel the cable company is forced to include in every over priced subscription to their service.) What I saw and heard was a guy named Aaron Russo talking and running film and raising hell. He has a web site called freedomtofascism.com.

When I played the video I distinctly heard "It is time for civil disobedience" and "North American Union" and "make Congress destroy the federal banking system".

I know about the good effects of civil disobedience from Mahatma Gandhi's biographers and Martin Luther King, Jr., in person and in recordings.

But what was the North American Union? I am well aware that the Republican Party and Dubya Bush are anti union. But Russo indicated that it was part and parcel of the administration's plan for the United States. And it is not a desirable "union". Not in the least.

So I Googled it. There are pages and pages about this anti-American program. That B actor we elected twice apparently had smoke blown in his, um, face by the banking lobby. So did Bill Clinton. So, to, have far too many of our representatives in Congress.

My first reaction was, how in the world did this sneak past the public? So I read some more. According to the sources I perused, it seems that big banking and big media have connections we do not know about. They are almost joined at the hip. Interlocking directorships are a major factor in deciding what we will see, hear and read.

And there is move toward a "national ID card". No, it isn't going to stop illegal aliens from coming here. It's a method to track everything you do. And where you go. And read. And buy. And spend your money on. And where you live. And anything and everything about you. The book 1984 wasn't written about America (it took place in England) but its premise is knocking on America's door right now. In fact, it already has more than a foot in your door.

The newer RFID chips can be placed on anything you buy. The best of them can be the size of a period in a sentence. Those new tires you bought? The RFID tells the manufacturer where you are, when you are, how long it took you to get there and how many times you stopped on the way there. The jar of peanut butter? It tells them when you bought it, how often it is being used where it is located (exactly). The new CD? They know how many times you use it, where it is, if you try to make a copy of it, where you live.

We all know about the Florida voting fiasco at election times. So now the "powers" are talking about computer voting. Sounds easy to us users, doesn't it? But there are a couple of major drawbacks. You see, there is no paper trail when they are used. Results cannot be checked against anything. And according to reports from the hackers, they can enter the voting computer's programs and change the results at their will. I spoke to a local about this. She smiled, said, "No problem. Tell me what program it is and I am into it faster than you can download the new Vista package. And change the vote to whatever you'd like. And no one will ever know." Computer voting is not something we want in America.

Is this scaring you, too? Go visit Aaron Russo's site.

A VAST WASTELAND LOOMS

According to some recent research, it looks like New Mexico is going to become a huge desert. If you believe. If you don't know that vast chunks of it already is a huge desert. Richard Seager of Columbia University Earth Observatory says we're likely to see a new kind of drought. We'll have a climate that is dry all the time. And we probably won't think very kindly of it. That sign may not be so funny after all.

Of course, New Mexico has been plagued by droughts of varying severity going back to at least the 1930s. That was the drought that created the word "Okies" for migrant Oklahomans and Steinbeck's book The Grapes Of Wrath.

It would be difficult to believe that anyone living here now is not aware of our on going problems concerning our water supply. We regularly have to restrict water usage in the summer, use alternate sprinkling days, have special hours of use that help save water. We even have people who are referred to as the "Water Police". They can give you a ticket if you waste water while sprinkling your lawn. Albuquerque and some other cities here will even pay you to get rid of your lawn and replace it with rocks.

But instead of our Governator Bill Richardson and State Senators like William Payne and Tim Jennings concerning themselves with the fact that we may not have any water to drink, they seem to be more concerned about getting caught by speeding (and red light running) cameras.

Apparently these guardians of the public welfare are unfamiliar with certain water saving devices that have been in use in Europe for decades. And they seem to work well. And they are available in the US. And they are made in the US. And their cost is not that much more than a standard item.

And they are called Dual Flush Toilets.

Sound funny? It shouldn't if you use the men's restrooms at your favorite casinos. The urinals are clearly marked. They dispense only ONE gallon of water per flush. The commodes use TWO. The home use toilets are easy to use. Two buttons. Pick the one you need.

All of us are aware that there are certain bodily wastes that go away with only one gallon. More serious stuff takes two. But the toilets in your home and many, many office buildings seem to feel that you need two gallons for anything. Ladies may, men don't. Pretty obvious we are wasting our precious water. Like it's going out of style.

Dual flush toilets should have entered the buildings codes, as mandatory, many years ago. All new construction needs to have these water savers. There is no excuse, other than laziness on the part of the people we elect to office, that we are forced to waste our precious water.

I'd sure like to hear from some of our representatives about this.

WE'RE GOING TO BE A DESERT?

Big article in the paper yesterday about how New Mexico (and probably a number of other western states) will turn into dust bowls because we haven't been able to hold on to the record breaking rains and snows we had this past winter. So today we got some snow. It's been in the 70's all week, but today it snowed. The newspaper article didn't explain how we were supposed to retain all that water. I've always thought it seeped through the earth and helped fill our water table. Seems I'd heard that somewhere before. So much for a leaky memory. (groan-ed.) On the other hand, it might be that global warming is setting in with a vengeance. And no, global warming does not mean neccessarily that it will heat up where you live. Terry Tamminen can define it for you in his fine book, Lives Per Gallon.

Bower's Blog (The Oceans Geography 2305): Global Warming - Solar power

Bower's Blog (The Oceans Geography 2305): Global Warming - Solar power