a change in the weather---man

NOAA is one of the more important agencies of government, like those that feed and heal it has a mission that is fundamental to our survival: the survival of our oceans. These wonders are part of the engine of the planet, holding sun heat, making winds, clouds and rain; feeding a majority of the world from its fish and seafood stocks.

 During the Bush years which is a little like saying the Dark Ages...it was politicized, its thought process co-opted by a ridiculous Party line...no danger to fish stocks from overfishing, the ocean dead zones might be natural and cyclical; the rise in ocean temperatures does not affect climate...and the biggie ...we must wait a few hundred years to be sure of anything.  NOAA was in the pettifog business ---big time, content to confound and confuse the big issues...the ones upon which our fates seem to depend.

Now there is NOAA the foot dragging non-presence while an incredibly bold and reckless corporation acts to damage the oceans in its world-be-damned pursuit of profits.  There are potentials for ruin of the nation's most productive ocean food supplier, irreplaceable estuaries, and a cycle of damage that we cannot yet foresee so powerful and unprecedented is the dump of crude oil into the oceans.
The Obama Administration has not been in Office long enough to have created this inert mass of political denial at NOAA that has displaced the effort--frank and open effort- needed to address the huge footprint of mankind on the oceans and climate of our little world's  eco-system, but they have been in Office long enough to see it.  Now that they have seen it, we will see if they will effect a cure.  The health of our place in the world...depends on things like this...

Election Day is a time to learn

sometimes the lessons are difficult and bitter, sometimes the sweet feeling is a very misleading sugar coating on a hard medicine inside.  This election day is about change and the opposite reaction to change---resistance.  I have read so many( and I think-- wrong headed) reports of the Tea Party movement and its power, I think it will be seen now and in November, that the Tea Party will affect one party more than another, because it borrows from the same bank of resistance as the Republican Party.
American voted for change in the society when electing President Obama, some opposed him then and now.  They have formed and reformed into a movement that is being led by ideals that seem more like a jingo--taking back our Government/ too big government/ socialist government.  They are a grass roots movement and have an internal structure of leadership that seems newly created and genuine.

Yet their spokespersons, the people who stand before the cameras, the candidates-- are people like Sara Palin, or Dr. Paul, the son of a Republican Congressman, who says he is an outsider to Washington... there is every appearance of a hijack of the energy of governmental resistance by people who are traditional, insiders, and have no real connection to reform of government.

I think the Tea Party will grow, gather more funds, and might eventually become allied with the flood of corporation monies that are now allowed by our Supreme Court's incredible decision  in the Citizens v. FEC case.  It may become a 3rd party that will consume a major party at least in some areas of the country and at least in some elections.  It is anathema to modern ideas of government- global government, the corporate world for which national boundaries are merely a fact of doing business.

I think there is a balance that has been lost in America-  so much acceptance of global factors, so much accommodation of external interests.  The Tea Party movement reminds that domestic populations, their aspirations and goals, have a priority at least as important as foreign corporations.  The Obama Administration has taken a quantum leap in that direction, and that...as much as anything... has inspired the strength of dissent, that so much change has come...proves that change can come.

Oil can still ruin the economy...

...even as we sit on the edge of electric cars and vehicles, truly synthesized fuels, the Earth's carbon storage system that we call --oil-- hangs over our heads and threatens once again to ruin our economies and change societies for the worse.  Here in the US let's say disaffection over the Administration's response to the Gulf Spill changes politics and we vote Obama out of office. Replacing him with a man/woman chosen by the War machine...the businesses that finance and equip our massive defense establishment.  Then  we would find a reason to go to war and begin to extinguish hundreds of thousands of lives...sisters, brothere, fathers mothers...loved ones, precious people to many others--and incidentally we terminate a wonderful adventure in this Obama Presidency.

We return our economy to a war footing just when green energy, and improvements in the American way of life...better health maybe, longer life spans; maybe some research that would improve the presently awkward state of medical science---we know so much more than we put into practice these days, and the gap is growing.

Oil--- and the people who would come to power are those who have kept us in the shadow of the Oil cloud, who eschewed or even blocked alternative fuels and hydrogen or electric vehicles. Oil can still ruin an economy because almost every contribution it makes has a damaging side effect- on air, water, even our physical routines of sedentary lifestyles...I walk a lot now and drive little---makes a big difference.
The thing itself is a vast energy source that we use in such a poor way...we burn it and send most of it off into the air, where we wear and breathe it.  I have a strong feeling one day OIL  will be used in many ways- to heal, to nourish, to build things ---and people will wonder of that primitive ritual of burning such a precious thing for a mere momentary pulse of energy.