Local Action

In my neck of the woods, we finally see staff writers mentioning Peak Oil in the mainstream StarTribune daily. It looks like it took a combination of neocon James Woolsey, pseudo-Republican Matt Simmons, and a bipartisan Senate group to get the story to press. Local homerism dictate that they report on a push to increasing (mindlessly in my opinion) ethanol content to that of Minnesota standards. And this non-sequitur makes it par for the course for car dealership mafia:

Minnesota auto buyers' requests for hybrids such as the Toyota Prius and other fuel-efficient cars have accelerated since hurricanes Katrina and Rita sent gasoline prices temporarily soaring past $3 a gallon, said David Luther, chairman of Rudy Luther Automotive, one of the Twin Cities' largest dealerships. "I wouldn't call it a flood," he said.

Luther said some buyers of low-mileage SUVs seem to have the attitude that "they didn't save any buffalo for me."

? .. if I read that correctly, a most Dominionist attitude .. they didn't save any buffalo for me, God's will I guess, so deal with it. (apologies to Lawton Smalls)

Local weekly CityPages has a story on perhaps the number one science blogger, UM-Morris professor PZ Myers. Apparently number 3 locally behind the PowerLie'n and Captain Edd, Myers dedicates lots of time analyzing the wingnuts as they try to change the scientific landscape. As you can see from the chart that Powerline themselves posted, leading engineers and scientists don't buy the foolishness. Assmissile tries to explain the lopsided opinions on the the fact that these particular scientists and engineers belong to the National Academy of Sciences and Engineering. What do they expect? That they all belong to the Dominionist Union Local #666?

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Stephen Gaghan writer of Syriana in an interview:

SG: ... and, particularly, THE PARALLAX VIEW, where at the end of the day, it's the military-industrial complex, and in CONDOR, Redford's on the steps of The New York Times, and he's going in there, and the guy says, "Y'know, the people that are behind me... do you really think they'll let you..?" And in the '70s, it was always the punchline. The last moment. "Ta-dah! It';s the oil companies and the military-industrial complex! Ta-dah!" And I thought today, with what's happened in the 30 years since then, is... FADE IN: It's the Oil Companies. Now what? The punchline's gone. The punchline's become the starting point. FADE OUT became FADE IN. Okay. Now what? The conspiracies are in broad daylight. Nobody's hiding them. The lingua franca has so changed in terms of what we would consider a conspiracy. I just... I thought, "What an interesting thing for this type of movie.";

The punchline has transformed into the premise of conventional wisdom. No wonder I haven't taken in many movies over the past few years. You can find a specialty blog associated with Syriana here (registration required).