All Fracked Up

• The red house is ours.  This photo was taken last week after a snow storm - we had more snow last night so it is fairly accurate view of our neighborhood right now.  I am in bed sick in an upstairs room looking out over this very street.  I must have caught a bug on my way home from Missouri.  A good day to stay in bed and write a blog post.

• Obama is now preparing his nomination for new Secretary of Defense and it looks like Ashton Carter will be the pick.  Most know little about him but here is a note from renowned anti-nuclear activist Jackie Cabasso about Carter:

I am horrified that Ashton Carter has been nominated as Secretary of Defense. On June 22, 2006, Ashton Carter and William Perry co-authored an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for the US to threaten a pre-emptive strike to take out a planned North Korean missile test, even at the risk of igniting a war on the Korean Peninsula. This proposal was so extreme that it was rejected out of hand by then VP Dick Cheney in favor of diplomacy!  It should be noted that less than two weeks earlier, the US conducted a successful routine test of a Minuteman III ICBM from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

• My latest interview on Iran's PressTV was about how the US is using ISIS to create more fear back in the US making Homeland Security and local police stronger as the public turns to them for "more protection" while giving up our civil liberties.  You can listen here

• Efforts to reach a negotiated settlement with Iran over their nuclear program are being undermined in the US Senate by Republicans and Democrats alike.  Essentially carrying water for Israel (which wants to take out Iran so bad they can taste it) these members of the Senate should be questioned about whose interests they actually represent - US or Israeli?

• Some time ago I recall reading that Iran really wants nuclear power so they can use their existing fossil fuel supplies as their primary cash cow for their national economy.  They understand that fossil fuels are on the decline and hope to extend their profit potential by using nuclear for domestic power.  The US and Israel though are not interested in a stable and thriving Iranian economy and thus continue to work hard to destabilize that nation.

• The European Union (EU) and the US have forced Bulgaria and Serbia to deny Russia's plan to transport natural gas via pipeline (South Stream) through their countries to European markets.  They will lose lots of money as a result.  Russia turned around and made a deal with Turkey and the pipeline will pass through that nation and end in Greece for transport to markets.  The US-EU sanctions on Moscow appear to be continually harming Europe more than Russia - but that is what happens when the EU lap dog follows orders from Washington.

• Gas prices at the pump in the US are lower than they have been for quite a while.  Americans love it but few really know why the prices have dropped.  It was ultimately a deal between the US and Saudi Arabia to lower world oil prices so that Russian and Venezuelan oil profits are reduced thus helping to destabilize those economies.  One US domestic consequence is the fracking industry is hurting because they only make money when fossil fuel prices are sky high since it takes so much capital to successfully drill for fracked gas.  You can bet there is some clamor going on inside the mahogany walled offices on Wall Street about all of this.