ojai news at The Ojai Post :: blog, newspaper, events in Ojai, California

Evan, I commend you for driving around with this information on your car. I know that you probably get a great deal of hateful feedback and possibly risk your life too. I had to laugh out loud when you wrote, "shouldnt we be sinning so that Jesus had a reason for dying?" Wow, I had never heard that before and the analogy seems applicable.

Keep up the good work.

evan - I find that your visibility on Iraq, be it your car or organizing peace gatherings, is far more courageous than the "Fighting Keyboardists," the right-wing bloggers that sit back in air-conditioned houses with their Tahoe in the driveway, goading America into military confrontation as a first resort, while having never served in the military themselves.

The cost of this ill-advised, illegal war has been incalculable and continues to mushroom. And by the way, where's Osama?

Dear Evan,

Your car is a great reminder of the real cost of war, and your action is an inspiration to others.

Speaking of inspirational people, Molly Ivins died today. In her honor, I will be 'banging a pot' at the peace vigil this Friday. I hope you, the members of the Ojai Peace Coalition, Code Pink and anyone else who wants an end to the war to join me. Please pass this message on:

"BANG A POT FOR PEACE AND MOLLY" AT THE PEACE VIGIL, FRIDAY EVENING (5:00) AT THE PERGOLA

In peace,

Peggy La Cerra

*Her last column ("Enough is Enough") was printed in the Texas Observer on January 26th. With her final words to us, she asked that we take action against the war: We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, "Stop it, now!"

The Crime of the Century

thanks for your support, friends! the greatest insight i've received over this multi-year social experiment (for that is one thing that it is) is that your response/reaction to my car says infinitely more about you and your sensibilities than it does about the message (or, for that matter, about me).

GREAT suggestion, Peggy! i'll add my voice to yours in encouraging support for tonight's vigil...let's make it a noisy one for Molly!

Michael et al,
i'm scared to death that we're going to attack Iran. i dont think i have the energy to up the ante on my activism without sacrificing major portions of my lifeplan.

I've always admired your efforts Evan. Don't let the note you got bug you. She is part of the minority. In fact, she's part of only about 27% that think the war is okay and that support Bush. That percentage is probably about rock bottom. These are the same people who used to wear pointy hoods.

http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/waragainstwest.htm

What we have to look forward to if we lose.

There's two things I like about your car: 1) the numbers. Each number represents a horrible tragedy, senseless and useless, except in the larger karmic picture which we really know next to nothing about. Imagine that one bloody death. Jesus didn't die for us. That's a made up myth, a story to describe then what you're describing now by your car. Each human life and death affects every other human life and death. If we didn't sin, that one death in Iraq wouldn't be happening, nor would our literary sisters two thousands years ago have made up the Jesus (means savior) story to wake up the Roman world to the tragedies that empire was causing, as the Bushan empire is now. An ancient blogger said it well: "What you do to the least of these, you do to ME!" That "me" is an archetype "Jesus" which stands for all of us as individuals, especially victims of war, and there are all kinds of varieties of war.

2) Your car is small, relatively speaking. It irritates me to ride around Ojai on my bike, and see all the huge vehicles, and wanna-be-rich-as-the-Jones's, who don't connect the dots between the gas guzzler, oil, the war, war profiteers, and the deaths discussed above.

What is needed most of all is the raising of consciousness. I thought Ojai had a lot of enlightened people, but sometimes I wonder. Maybe we're just lucky to live in this protected haven.

I hate to be judgemental but there is a place for judgement, and I add this disclaimer: I include myself in all my judgements.

Anyway, I like your car and what it stands for. Keep up the good work.

Brian, i enjoy that you never let up. seriously.

Sean, the note doesnt bug me..but i value your concern. i have a whole shoebox full of notes, and some are much more violent than that. i get flipped off all the time. i just felt like sharing this one because i thought it was an intriguing enough idea that it might generate some conversation.

Tonight on KGO radio out of San Francisco, 810 on your radio dial ( we can here it here in Ojai at night because of the skip off the atmosphere) Clint Eastwood will be interviewed by Bill Watenburg about Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iow Jima. Very relevent to current events. Dr. Bill comes on at 10:00 PM you can listen on AM or you can tune in on the internet at:
http://www.kgoam810.com/djadditionalinformation.asp?djid=3552
Just click on listen live then go to whatever player you use. The internet is usally a few minutes behind the live brodcast.

The film that Brian linked to is a total joke. It carries a laurel from the Liberty Film Festival which is an even worse joke.

There is zero debate, except in the now discredited extreme right wing circles, that the Iraq war was a hideous mistake. It is very likely one of the largest strategic blunders in the history of US foreign policy. The invasion itself was illegal and very probably a war crime, and the subsequent mishandling of the "peace" would be laughable if it weren't so tragic. To seek cover in a trumped up lie about how we'll all be overrun by Islamic Fundamentalists is either willfully ignorant or aggressively, and cynically, fascistic.

Here's some links to just who and what the Libert Film Festival is and who their backers are:

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=16220

http://www.errvideo.com/Press/liberty%20merges.html

http://www.nndb.com/org/492/000051339/

http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=136

If it's a joke and crimes have been comitted why don't the democrates start the impeachment proceedings then? If you can get impeached over a BJ I'm sure war crimes would suffice for an impeachment.

Yeh, all those Islamic terrorist are really just CGI characters, it amazing what computers can do these days, like we never really landed on the moon either.

It's really amazing and sad to me how those who hold your position actually hope that we lose this war.

Mistakes were definately made but we are in this thing now and we have to see it through. The consequences of cutting and running would be dire by most estimates.

On impeachment:

From your mouth to the Democrats ears Brian. Of course, they'll need to have investigations to gather evidence before they can proceed, and that is exactly what they are doing. Don't forget that they have only had subpoena power for one month.

Islamic terrorists?:

What islamic terrorists exactly? To whom are you referring: the Sunni insurgents in Iraq? the Sh'ia insurgents in Iraq? the Iranian (mostly Sh'ia) Insurgents in Iraq? The Iranians (mostly Sh'ia) in Iran? The majority population of mostly peaceful Sh'ia in Saudi Arabia? The minority Sunni Wahabbists that are very closely linked and entirely funded by our pals the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia; al Qaeda is a Wahabbist group. How 'bout the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni organization largely based in Egypt and supported by our "allies" there. The Muslim Brotherhood is credited with high level links to al Qaeda including the 2nd in command Ayman al-Zawahiri. What about the Afghan Taliban(Sunni) or Pakistan's ISI(majority Sunni) for that matter. Hell, we haven't even talked about Hamas(Sunni) or Hezbolla(Sh'ia) yet.

To simply use a term like Islamic Terrorist is intellectually bankrupt. It reflects the same sort of ill conceived strategy that has gotten us into this adventure in the first place. That level of understanding in unworthy of serious debate about the war in Iraq and the degree to which the Bush administration has fucked up.

Liberals want us to lose in Iraq:

This is an outrageous insult! How dare you claim that I want us to "lose" in Iraq. What's the next step, calling me un-American? That certainly seems to be the usual tactic of the Bush Administration. The cold hard fact of the matter is that we lost in Iraq the minute that idiot Bush unilaterally, preemptively invaded. The invasion was stupid enough, but then the way the country was subsequently handled is nothing short of criminal negligence.

Cut and Run:

Please, not even Rush Limbaugh is still using cut and run. It's all just more lame-assed, politically motivated bullshit from Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. The fact of the matter is that our presence in Iraq as occupiers is extremely disruptive. Even Bush's dad's buddy James A. Baker recognizes that truth. Diplomacy and talks with the surrounding countries are the only way we can begin to deal with this conflagration. If we stay and try killing more people and risk the lives of more of our troops in a civil war, we'll end up starting a region wide war with the Sh'ia majority in Iraq being supported by Iran and the Sunni minority being supported by Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Perhaps a war of these proportions between the two sects of Islam, who happen to be sitting on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd largest oil reserves on the planet, was the goal all along. Of course that would mean that Bush had some sort of ulterior, long-term strategy. I just don't think they're capable of tactical thinking except when it comes to stealing elections.

By the way, of course we landed on the Moon.

SPK,
Thanks for buying that jar of honey BTW !

"Diplomacy and talks with the surrounding countries are the only way we can begin to deal with this conflagration."

Talking to a country like Iran who have proclaimed that they would like to "wipe Israel of the map" what are you going to talk about? The absurdity of it all is when Democrates like Lois Capps votes down drilling off our coast which only keeps use dependent on mideast oil.

Brian - that statement to "wipe Israel of the map" was made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who does not hold the power in the government you are attributing to him. Furthermore, you used an incorrect translation to serve your needs - it actually translates to "the occupying regime must be wiped off the map," which is considerably different.

Our rhetoric towards Iran is not much different than theirs, what with talk of Axis of Evil and evildoers.

Are you suggesting we not talk to them, in lieu of going to WAR? Perhaps pre-emptive nuclear war? War is NOT the last resort? That, my bee-keeping friend, is insane.

And to equate Lois Capps' NIMBY-ism to nuclear brinkmanship on the part of the Bush-Cheney administration is absurd.

Come on Brian. That can't be your response. I think maybe you don't believe this stuff, you just like to wind people up.

Brian is beginning to sound like a "Little Leland," somebody who would go thru immense and illogical pseudo-intellectual hoops just to try to prove yet another ultra right wing or libertarian premise.

The only thing these folks really know how to do is slur those that defend democracy.

Few of these hoopsters can actually understand that a small oligarchy of immensely powerful and rich people comprising less than 1/2 of one percent of all Americans control over 80% of wealth in this country...

And that with those resources that have campaigned for years to convine the rest of Americans that they have all of our best interests in mind as they exploit labor and roll up astronomical profits at the expense of the Aemrican public.

When the history of the 21st century is finally written, maybe even these intellectual contortionists will finally come to understand that first country the Bush administration illegally invaded and took control of was America...

And these moronic dupes of the ruling class helped pave the way.

The problem with you lefties is that you have the mistaken idea that solar and wind will be able to supply our energy needs. You all simply do not comprehend how much our society is dependant on oil. The amount of energy contained in a barrel of oil is staggering (nuclear more so). It's not that the oil companies are so conniving and evil, it's that they have the ultimate product! The reason we can feed so many people, in this day in age, and support vast citys with large populations is due to oil. Oil also accounts for countless other products which further creates new businesses and moves the economy forward.

You are correct in what you say about oil Brian. It has become the driving force of our over-indulgent society and it is packed with levels of possibility.
But the problem with you right-wingers is that you see everything in black and white. I'm pretty sure that none of us ever professed that wind and solar will supply all of our energy needs!
Wind and solar certainly will offset our dependence on oil, and if we start to educate people not to buy shit at Walmart (I don't know if they have a single product that isn't born in the tar laden pits of oil) then maybe we can begin to pay off this high interest mortage we've taken out on the environment.

Brian we are not "lefties;" we are hard core American centrists who learned something about economics, energy and power in school. The problem with you rightists is that you name call anyone who disagrees with the propaganda you are spoon fed by your Fox Fascists.

Oil is a great source of energy but not the only one. It is the oil companies along with the Big 3 auto makers however who have conspired to use their wealth to block for over 35 years all over developments in the alternative field, fuel conservation, etc. etc., and who demand that wil shed our blood to fight for the their oil profits.

Even the VP's advisors are getting sick over his policies:

Cheney's Fund Manager Attacks ... Cheney
By Brett Arends
Mutual Funds Columnist
2/5/2007 7:57 AM EST
URL: http://www.thestreet.com/funds/fundmorning/10336832.html

The oil-based energy policies usually associated with Vice President Dick Cheney have just come under scathing attack. There's nothing remarkable about that, of course -- except the person doing the attacking.

Step forward, Jeremy Grantham -- Cheney's own investment manager. "What were we thinking?' Grantham demands in a four-page assault on U.S. energy policy mailed last week to all his clients, including the vice president.

Titled "While America Slept, 1982-2006: A Rant on Oil Dependency, Global Warming, and a Love of Feel-Good Data," Grantham's philippic adds up to an extraordinary critique of U.S. energy policy over the past two decades.

What Cheney makes of it can only be imagined.
"Successive U.S. administrations have taken little interest in either oil substitution or climate change," he writes, "and the current one has even seemed to have a vested interest in the idea that the science of climate change is uncertain."

Yet "there is now nearly universal scientific agreement that fossil fuel use is causing a rise in global temperatures," he writes. "The U.S. is the only country in which environmental data is steadily attacked in a well-funded campaign of disinformation (funded mainly by one large oil company)."

That's Exxon Mobil (XOM) .
As for Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Richard Lindzen, who appears everywhere to question global warming, Grantham mocks him as "the solitary plausible academic [the skeptics] can dig up, out of hundreds working in the field."

And for those nonscientists who are still undecided about the issue, Grantham reminds them of an old logical principle known as Pascal's Paradox. It may be better known as the "what if we're wrong?" argument. If we act to stop global warming and we're wrong, well, we could waste some money. If we don't act, and we're wrong ... you get the picture.

As for the alleged economic costs of going "green," Grantham says that industrialized countries with better fuel efficiency have, on average, enjoyed faster economic growth over the past 50 years than the U.S.

Grantham says that other industrialized countries have far better energy productivity than the U.S. The GDP produced per unit of energy in Italy is 50% higher. Fifty percent. Japan: 60%.

And China "already has auto fuel efficiency standards well ahead of the U.S.!" he adds. You've probably heard about China's slow economic growth.

Grantham adds that past U.S. steps in this area, like sulfur dioxide caps adopted by the late President Gerald Ford, have done far more and cost far less than predicted. "Ingenuity sprung out of the woodwork when it was correctly motivated," he writes.

There is also a political and economic cost to our oil dependency, Grantham notes. Yet America could have eliminated its oil dependency on the Middle East years ago with just a "reasonable set of increased efficiencies." All it would take is 10% fewer vehicles, each driving 10% fewer miles and getting 50% more miles per gallon. Under that "sensible but still only moderately aggressive policy," he writes, "not one single barrel would have been needed from the Middle East." Not one.

I repeat: This is not some rainbow coalition. This is not even Al Gore. Grantham is the chairman of Boston-based fund management company Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo. He is British-born but has lived here since the early 1960s.

Grantham is, like most fund managers, prudent, conservative and inclined to favor the free market and smaller government. He has even said he supported Bush-Cheney in 2000. That doesn't make him particularly political. He also manages a portion of the Heinz-Kerry fortune, as well as those of many other wealthy types.

But he's certainly a man Cheney respects highly. According to the vice president's last personal financial disclosure form, filed with the Federal Election Commission, Cheney has somewhere between $1.6 million and $6 million of his family's money invested in four of Grantham's funds. These aren't even index funds. These are discretionary funds, where you trust the manager to look at the landscape, analyze all the data, and make the best investments. Cheney must have a lot of faith in Grantham's judgement and analytical skills.

When I met Grantham last autumn he, quite rightly, refused to confirm that the vice president was a client. But you can see the evidence in Cheney's own personal financial disclosure.

There is an investment angle to Grantham's argument. He says he is "certain" that "oil substitution, energy conservation, and related environment issues will be the biggest investment issue of at last the next several decades." He adds: "It is clear there is no single solution so investment opportunities will be spread very broadly, especially in energy conservation."

He believes we will need more nuclear power.
But he calls corn-based ethanol "more or less a hoax" when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. "U.S. corn-based ethanol, as opposed to efficient, Brazilian sugar-based ethanol, is merely another U.S. farmer-protection program, made very expensive both directly and indirectly by inflating real agricultural prices."

Tell that to the presidential candidates currently stumping the Iowa caucus. (Incidentally, three MIT scientists told me the same thing about corn ethanol more than a year ago when I interviewed them on the subject. After my article appeared in the Boston Herald, I received a snotty letter denying there was any such thing as "an Iowa corn growers' racket." It was from the "chairman of the Iowa Corn Growers' Association.")

Grantham's full letter can be seen on his company Web site [www.gmo.com] , though you will need to register. It appears as the second half of the investment missive "Goldilocks Rules."

Grantham blames three decades of political cowardice for America's backward energy policy. As he dryly notes, "U.S. drivers -- the world's richest and some of the best behaved -- would, it was said, never accept increased taxes, where Italian drivers would! Even tax-neutral policies, such as taxing high mileage cars at purchase and subsidizing efficient cars, were never seriously considered."

The result: the fuel efficiency of U.S. cars has actually gone backward since 1982.
The irony is that this isn't, or shouldn't be, a partisan issue. Grantham singles out the Ford administration for his strongest praise on environmental matters. Everyone since, of both parties, has been a failure, he concludes. "The past 26 years have been such a wasted opportunity," Grantham writes. "This country had previously shown leadership in this field. President Ford got us off to a running start in energy efficiency... With a succession of President Fords, we would have ended up as an environmental leader and a great model."

I would love to know what President Ford's former chief of staff thinks of that.
His name? Richard B. Cheney.

In keeping with TSC's editorial policy, Brett Arends doesn't own or short individual stocks. He also doesn't invest in hedge funds or other private investment partnerships. Arends takes a critical look inside mutual funds and the personal finance industry in a twice-weekly column that ranges from investment advice for the general reader to the industry's latest scoop. Prior to joining TheStreet.com in 2006, he worked for more than two years at the Boston Herald, where he revived the paper's well-known 'On State Street' finance column and was part of a team that won two SABEW awards in 2005. He had previously written for the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail newspapers in London, the magazine Private Eye, and for Global Agenda, the official magazine of the World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland. Arends has also written a book on sports 'futures' betting

I agree with what he says about nuclear power and the fact that ethanol is a hoax. Check out my post of the tortilla crisis under the electric car post. Rising corn prices are now making tortilla more expensive in Mexico. I don't think taxing the working people who drive their cars is the answer.

Corn-based ethanol is a bridge to switchgrass and other highly-renewable biomass-based fuels. You just dismissed ethanol as a hoax, but the guy was specifically referring to corn-based ethanol, which is NOT viewed as a long-term solution, but rather transitory.

today, we each have 3,115 glorious reasons to be thankful for our freedoms, and all at the bargain price of $365 THOUSAND MILLION.