Here in southwestern Oregon where I live, we are having our own issues with the fossil fuel industry. What follows is the letter I wrote earlier this evening, to our governor and congressmen:

Dear Governor Kitzhaber, Representatives DeFazio and Walden, Senators Merkley and Wyden,

Could you please explain why you are not objecting to the Jordan Cove & Williams' LNG export facility and pipeline projects proposed for Coos County? These people are relentless in their efforts to push LNG down our throats. I hear their come-ons and propaganda on the radio every day, and it truly is nauseating. This is a transnational corporation whose agenda is sharply at odds with the interests of this community. Yet they are on an aggressive publicity campaign, determined to convince us that they have the answers to our problems: jobs for the unemployed, a jumpstart for Coos County's economy ad nauseam; all hogwash. They keep pushing the point about jobs, yet whatever jobs there are to be gotten from this will only be temporary construction jobs with no benefits. Does this sound like a fair trade-off to you?

How will it benefit us to have to pay higher prices for natural gas? How will it benefit us to have a hazardous LNG facility at the end of an active airport runway in a hazardous tsunami zone? How is a 95+ foot clear-cut through private property and public forestland in our best interests?

With due respect I ask, how would you like your home and property threatened with "eminent domain"? Why should our neighbors be forced to slug it out with these transnational invaders, hell-bent on stealing their land?

How does it benefit this community to have the area it resides on converted to an extreme hazard zone? How will it improve our quality of life, having these huge tankers hog our waterways while the habitats of fish and marine wildlife are destroyed? Have you given any thought at all to the negative impacts this will have on tourism, fishing, farming, transportation (land, water & air travel), property values and land use, local homeowners' insurance rates and so on? Where's the public benefit in the loss of income to fishermen, ranchers and farmers?

How do Americans benefit from the poisoning of their water supplies and all the environmental damage caused by the hydraulic fracturing that extracting natural gas entails? Why is someone's for-profit enterprise more important than public health and safety? Please enlighten me.

I await your reply.

Sincerely...

(SIGH...) - Aliceinwonderland

Global, you entire post is a brain fart.

If fracking continues unabated around the entire globe - where will there be enough land for people to live on where there is not a poisoned water supply and the other by-products of this practice?

One comment about Thom's comments at the beginning of Tuesday's show: When he mentioned the NYT's article "blowing up Libertarian Theology, Libertarian Philosophy" - I was thrilled. He was telling it as it is - Libertarian Theology! The same kind of religious fervor as we see in Muslim countries in their dedication to their Mullahs. Tea Party crazies are good examples of that. The only trouble is - that they were born by the accident of birth - with the exception of the Cruz guy - in the US.

Aliceinwonderland ~ An excellent exchange! However, I fail to see what poster #37 meant by a "system that has operated for 280 years" till Obama was elected. Obama was elected in 2008. 2008-280=1728. I'm trying to envision what system started in 1728 that lasted till 2008. It couldn't be our heath care system? In 1728 they treated pneumonia with leeches and used whiskey for anesthesia. The same guy that cut your hair pulled your teeth. Health care insurance didn't exist. Didn't cost that much. How much are you going to pay for such a service when the bartender is you anesthesiologist?

They also allowed people to own each other till 1865. Another very flawed system. Surely, he can't be talking about the slavery system because that ended way before Obama.

Even our system of government didn't last that long. What system is he talking about?

Am I correct in assuming that Der Speigal, like Thom Harmann, though being the very cerebral sources of information that they are, still attract a fair share of retarded nitwits to the comment section of their blogs? If so, which side of the Atlantic is this particular nitwit from? (Please say the other side.)

I hope I'm not being to judgmental. Did I miss something?

More via Der Spiegel:

Post #37: Look no further. The system has operated for 280 years until Obama was elected, need I say more? - "Luling"

My reply: Look no further, see no further. Reagan stuck us with more deficit than all previous presidents COMBINED; his policies set us up for much of the malaise this country suffers today thanks to de-regulation, privatization, etc. Baby Bush furthered the damage by starting wars that have yet to be paid for. Both those presidents, and Clinton, destroyed our system of tariffs and through bad "trade" policies and so forth, all but destroyed manufacturing in a country that was once the manufacturing leader of the world. Yet Post #37 claims everything was fine and dandy before Obama took office. Where've ya been these past several decades; napping? Time to wake up!

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Post #38: Respectfully THANK YOU for exposing both the flaws of the U.S. system as well as the sinister & seditious acts of a small minority, including the trolls who express the same opinions here; saying that the editorial was heavy handed w/ partisan name calling was the most absurd thing I have read in a while on Spiegel commentary & I felt compelled to say that the majority of Americans who love their country absolutely disagree with danm who clearly has his own agenda- there were no "left talking points" in the editorial, simply a description of the current problem with the U.S. system-- so thank you for an excellent overview. - "bopalog1"

My reply: Thank you for piping in with a voice of sanity here. Your input helps show that there is intelligent life residing on U.S. soil, despite all that Teabagger nonsense. Yes, and some Americans still do believe in democracy. The ACA falls way short of what we need. But with luck, it will open the floodgates for single-payer, universal healthcare in our country. I think perhaps this is why the neo-con fascists and their little trolls are so violently opposed to it. I'm talking about a country where each year, a million families lose their homes, driven into bankruptcy & destitution by our current system; where lack of access to healthcare kills nearly fifty thousand of us each year. What is conspicuously missing from these discussions is any mention of the human consequences of such a murderously cruel and abusive system. What is it going to take to get these parasites - these Welfare Queen Billionaires - off our backs?!

Still sluggin' it out across the Atlantic! - Aliceinwonderland

Does anyone know what the energy tradeoff for solar arrays in space is for both below and above the Van Allen belt? The solar effieciency above the Van Allen belt being 15,000 times more than at the earth's surface is just so seductive.

The responsible thing to do, would recogthere where this is going before we cut down the last tree. Did someone we are down to only 2-percent of un-disturbed land? This is F'n "wildly" irresponsible management of natural resources. Like the Reagan administration running up the national debt; obviously a huge problem later. This was an emergency a generation ago, when it was obvious where deforestation and burning fossil fuel was headed.. Al gore, and a few scientists, as well as hippies have been trying to warn society for generation.. Now, it at be too late.

akunard -- I think it is interesting that you should mention the USPS. The USPS (per Thom) was ready to convert their fleet to all electric until the repugs starting their destructon of the USPS by requiring monstrous contributions to their retirement. Contributions like no other private or public entity.

DAnneMarc: Thanks for those links...I checked them out...some, I had already checked out before. I was trying to find some stories in those web sites that Chuckle8 mentioned but I couldn't find anything from them on that subject.

Chuckle8: Yes, I know those two news sources are more left than most. And I couldn't find anything on that subject at those web sites.

One thing that had me wondering about is that one web site that had Julia Davis' interests....include Fox News. If it wasn't for all of the supporting information...evidence...it would sound almost too incredible to be true...but the Davis' did win their legal suit against the government and they do have a lot of video to back up their stories.

Quote Kend:Alice yes is there is alternatives but they cost a lot more. Why can't we use both.

wind and soar can't make plastic. Try and live a day without it.

DAnne plastic is far from obsolete.

Kend ~ We can't use both because fossil fuels pollute the environment. When you factor in the cost of the pollution into the price of the energy source, fossil fuel actually costs a lot more.

I never said plastic is obsolete--I said Oil is Obsolete. Read my blog:

http://thehempsolution.blogspot.com/

You will learn that ANYTHING YOU CAN MAKE OUT OF OIL YOU CAN MAKE OUT OF HEMP. Not only can you make plastic out of Hemp; but, you can make a completely biodegradable form of plastic out of hemp.

Not only that, you can make medicine, cloth, paper, building products, adhesives, paints, rope, cardboard, insulation, and food

Wake up, buddy, and smell the Hemp. The more we use it, the cleaner the atmosphere will be, and the cheaper it's products will become.

Quote stecoop01:Let them frak in the National Forest...maybe our congressmen will get sick from it and finally decide to outlaw fraking.

stecoop01 ~ Oh, I agree my friend, that is a very tempting idea. Although we might be literally throwing the baby out with the bath water. Remember, along with the congressmen who may deserve to drink from that cup will be the likes of Alan Grayson, Bernie Sanders, Barbara Lee, and of course Thom and Louse Hartmann among many other good servants and citizens. I think these guys belong to a club that deserves clean gourmet drinking water.

Besides, allowing this drilling to happen will set a dangerous precedent for other parks, forests, and natural resources around the country. We need to wean ourselves off fossile fuels. We can't afford to let it happen.