Destroying the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia Caused the Nairobi Mall Attack

Couldn’t agree more with your post/thread Ian.
Blowback; duh?
America should be very proud; they have single handidly created the largest terrorist network the world has ever known; USA!, USA!,USA! Fuck yeah!

The ICU established some level of stability in Somalia.

“The West wouldn’t have it, it got” Kenya (among which other Somali neighborS) to oust the ICU.

The Kenya mall attack was in retaliation for Kenyan soldiers on Somali soil.

So is the ICU is responsible for the mall attack in Kenya?

Move the economy away from petroleum carbon based fuels to electrical generation using LFTR, wind & solar and all this shit goes away…the only thing that requires petroleum is aviation*, everything else can be done by electricity. And no**, wind and solar won’t cut it when it comes to constant high load industrial processes***. Plus, we have a near endless supply of spent rods to reprocess, or dispose of in catacombs that have to last 100,000 years.

These endless wars are the result of the US “elite” power structure’s refusal to consider the needs of any other industry before Oil. And please spare me the “oath of poverty” spiel that well to do “environmentalist” always try, I am willing to change to something better, but not regress into the some dark “randian utopia” of independent homesteads for those wealthy enough to shell out $25,000 – 35,000 to have their large lot homes make their own electricity during peak usage****.

*And much of aviation can be replaced with high speed trains.

**Sure, Germany got rid of it’s Nuclear overnight, which increased it’s carbon footprint by 13% in one year…and requires the purchase of France’s Nuclear generated electricity…and increased it’s rates, already highest in Europe.

*** – “okay boys, the winds up, let’s get down to the plant and get a melt going before the wind dies on us…you know what happen last time…it will be decades of steel making before we make enough money to pay for that mess”

**** – “sorry kids, no air conditioning tonight, it’s too hot, maybe it’ll cool down soon and we can get some sleep”

Hey – there are cheaper, safer forms of nuclear energy than we are using. But switching would be expensive so we don’t do it.

The reason we are mucking in the mid east isn’t exactly energy anyway. It’s the way we decided decades ago to prop up the dollar – using petrol and our reserve currency status. It was a bad idea from the start. But changing such a longstanding policy requires thinking and a plan, not an emotional response.

I also agree that the US should mind its own business internationally. But we have to elect differently to get people who will know how to run a Constitutional government and not the one we have.

@s brennan

I have no disagreement with your political outlook, highly favor it even. But I meant keeping the lights on 24/7 more as a metaphor for resource consumption at our current level. We have poisoned so much of our environment, and collapsed so many of its ecosystems, I just don’t see how it’s possible. Not that we should necessarily eat fish, but I stopped altogether because it’s impossible to tell what might have shipped from the Gulf, which we have all but killed. Plastics have disrupted the endocrine systems of nearly every species on the planet, and the list goes on and on. I don’t want to regress to a neo-feudalistic society, but neither do I believe that we can long keep open all night 7/11s. Also let us not forget that much of glory days FDR to LBJ were still built on the war economy and the ruthless subjugation of the third world. Distribution may have been better in the US and Europe, and to a degree in the oil-archies. But my premise is, if we want a more equitable and sustainable distribution of resources GLOBALLY, then the West is going to have cut back, pure and simple. CREE LEDs may move us in that direction, but they aren’t a solution. They aren’t, to the best of my knowledge, making windmills and solar panels with wind and solar energy yet, which means a lot more fossil fuel to accelerate climate change, and manufacturing in general still consumes a tremendous amount of water.

EJ, under the current construct of the USA’s socioeconomic structure a 20% reduction of consumer spending would be accomplished through the bottom 3/4ths doing 98% of the sacrificing… just as it has been with war, “belt tightening”, and job loss, so too it will be with such a protocol of enforced poverty.

As we have recently seen displayed in public, the dark, invisible hand of the secret state works to profit the powerful. The US “colonization’s” are without exception, net losses to the USA as a whole, only a small, concentrated group takes profits, while the public pays the tab. And so it goes. My point being, we are in possession of an entire continent, we NEED little, but are elite lacks the ability to conceive of a world where resources were created through scientific and engineering endeavors rather than being stolen by brute force…during the 40 year period I mentioned above, that was not a universally held belief of our rulers. The infrastructure we now possess was built with American hands

In your mentioned example of plastics, is one the “unmentionable” goblins of globalism. The vast majority of plastic found in the environment is direct result. Big box stores [which wouldn’t exist without foreign slave labor] demand that their products be packaged in plastic shells that regularly injure consumers, are hated by customers and clog land fills.

Another goblin of globalism [to which I have personal experience] is the pollution created by the ships burning bunker oil, British officials estimate several thousand deaths per year, “this pollution could kill as many as a million more people in the coming decade-UK-DailyMail”. 16 ships produce more pollution than all the worlds cars together…and their are about 100,000 “trade” ships at sea at any given moment. Still, barriers to “free” trade and the protections that tariffs afford must be eliminated. And to whose benefit? Surely, not the lower 95% who have lost their livelihood and are covered daily with a fine film of Thorium and Mercury from China’s UNREGULATED coal burning power generation. Not to mention, all the plastic trash that these ships leave in their wake intentionally and an estimated 10,000 containers per year lost overboard. Those containers are kept afloat by the plastic containers within…hidden steel icebergs that sink smaller vessels in the middle of the night…only to eventually breakdown to release their contents.

Another goblin of globalism, is unsustainable fisheries, the nets, long lines un-employ thousand of capable fisherman…keep killing long after they have been lost. It has been estimated that in some years, lost nets and lines take more fish than all the worlds fisheries together. Who benefits from these machines? Go talk to the trollers on the west coast of Vancouver Is, small businessmen forced to sell their premium product at world prices…and at a loss. Those same fishermen have been taking in the chops for years as the forest surrounding spawning grounds is clearcut to supply China’s mills, their trees having been denuded to supply products for export in the 17th, 18th & 19th centuries.

That said, I am all for the banning of plastic bags, [I bring my own…and it’s a real time saver…once you make the habit stick], but the individual can not stop the tide of pollution that “globalism”, or do you say slave trade, wreaks. While we are taught mercantilism is bad, the truth is just the opposite, in fact, the first cargo that made “globalism” profitable, was the slaves. None of this can be fixed under the current regime, no petitioning of our rulers will have any effect. Cutting back will have little effect, the things one used to buy once in a lifetime break within days/weeks of actual use. Rakes, shovels, sledges and picks whose premium prices should ensure longevity do not last, the price reflects margin and access to market, not quality. My tools, that I kept from the 70’s are still in good shape, asking me not to buy so much stuff is relatively easy, but it is asking the wrong party.

John,

CO2 emission from a functioning LFTR reactor is 0.0, construction will have an effect, but theses plants will be a fraction of the size of a conventional light water. To reduce the footprint further, we could use the Russian concept of shipborne plants that do not require customization for individual sites…ie, one size fits all

I mention the existing spent rods because they can be consumed in a LFTR thus killing “two birds with one stone”. We could actually start cleaning up our mess…not just bury it for some later generation to deal with.

Additionally, LFTR, because it is high heat, low pressure could easily be employed for desalination of sea-water during non-peak periods…and freshwater is a major issue just in front of us. Solar/wind have only the tiniest BTU capacity of a LFTR.

The answers are out there, no great sacrifice is needed, we need to be clear with our leaders. We may indeed go down, but the only reason we will, is because of our current leaders sociopathic evil.

How did this turn into an energy discussion?

Up thread see: “These endless wars are the result of the US “elite” power structure’s refusal to consider the needs of any other industry before Oil.”

But now, it will either turn into a thread about comments, which will have no relevancy…or perhaps your comment will end further discussion. Either way, you are, what you are complaining about.

“In a commercial setting?”

That’s stupid rhetorical question…no product ever has been “In a commercial setting” before it was introduced. Luddite winning material.

LFTR has been done read the link, the single issue of the time was corrosion, since then, alloys have been produced that handle the reactant liquid.

“I don’t buy the nonsense about The Oil Companies killing new technologies”

Really? Then you also don’t believe companies like Enron engaged in illegal pricing practices either…because that’s like…tin foil huh? That would put you in tiny minority of Americans, even the US Government is conspiracy nut huh? Because the US Government found market manipulation to be the case, look up FERC. My 5 second Google search yielded this:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-29/jpmorgan-accused-of-energy-market-manipulation-by-u-s-agency.html

Predatory pricing has been around for a while, you might want to read up on it, it is the basis for many a monopoly and many a fortune, if you don’t believe in markets and their manipulation you are pretty far around the bend. Look how effectively the Chines government took over the Solar cell industry. The industry is now going through a great consolidation, look for prices to rise as excessive inventory is depleted. Both German and US companies were destroyed by the Chinese Governments policy of direct subsidy…and currency manipulation…oh that’s right you “don’t buy the nonsense about [x] killing new technologies”.

If you take the time to read the Wikipedia article that you cite, all the problems listed have solutions like:

[Problem] We haven’t done it in 40 years!

[Solution] START

[Problem] It needs fissile material to start the reaction!

[Solution] Use up spent fuel rods, rather than burying them in the ground, two birds one stone.

and on and on….

Currently, with coal burning plants, we are putting radioactivity [thorium/uranium & heavy metals [mercury] into the environment at a far greater yearly rate that through any other process …and yet anti-nuclear types shout down…and/or wish for ponies with so much vigor that alternates that can deal with peak demand and industrial needs cannot be discussed in a rational manner. Frankly, I know people in the oil business and they tell me that anti-nukes are big oil/coal’s best friends, they’d fund them if they could.

I do not understand how people [and not just Americans BTW], lose their collective brains when talking about Thorium based reactors…but you did say, you embraced Luddite* sensibility, so you really can’t have an intellectually honest discussion about technology now can you?

Again, we don’t need to have wars to steal resources. We need to “collectively” employ scientists, engineers, machinists and other industrial artists to use scientific principles to solve problems and create wealth. We all still riding on our antecedents efforts, we need to put our shoulder to the wheel, or their will be a great societal collapse that will kill innocents and spare the cruel. Time is short, we must start our march back from the brink within a decade.

*it’s modern definition.

read the link? the wiki one?

NOBODY HAS MADE A COMMERCIALLY VIABLE THORIUM REACTOR…

prick

sorry strike the last comment i am beset by woes and not in a healthy place. apologies.