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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (3822)	4/7/2006 1:01:37 AM
From: Bill on the Hill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24213

LOL! can you imagine everyone reading this? ps: glad ur back. really folks. i am just a kind little man that would not hurt a flea. unless it bit me. then i would kill the sonofabitch. then apologize.

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (3822)	4/7/2006 1:01:49 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24213

Powering down in rural Alaska: The new dark ages Alex Demarban, Anchorage Daily News Rationing electricity becomes common in the Bush as fuel costs soar ------------ When a planeload of diesel fuel touched down in the far-flung Interior village of Venetie on Friday, it meant the end, for now, to a string of dark nights and long days without electricity. The village electric company, unable to afford the diesel fuel that powers the community, stretched supplies this winter by rationing power to homes and businesses. To save fuel in February, electricity was shut off completely some evenings and during the days on weekends. For Danny Sam, the power clicked on in time to watch the NCAA basketball tournament Saturday afternoon. He curled up in front of the TV with his girlfriend and a bag of popcorn to soak in March Madness. The high price of diesel fuel this winter has hit village Alaska hard, said First Chief Eddie Frank. In the Gwich'in village of Venetie, population 203, bulk purchases of fuel cost $3.21 a gallon. To make matters worse, Venetie Village Electric is short on money because many residents can't, or won't, pay their bills, he said. Cash-strapped village-government facilities also can't pay, he said. Power in Venetie costs 51 cents a kilowatt hour, more than five times what Anchorage residents pay. "It's expensive," he said. Venetie isn't alone. Villages around Alaska, faced with small customer bases and soaring costs, are struggling to keep the lights on. In some areas, diesel fuel prices have nearly doubled in two years, and some villages are paying more than $6 a gallon, said Mike Harper with the Alaska Energy Authority, the state agency that, among other things, tries to reduce electricity costs in the Bush. (4 April 2006) Kunstler on growth James Howard Kunstler, Clusterf*ck Nation Americans ought to regard the word "growth" with trepidation. When invoked by presidents and economists, it is meant to imply ideas like "more" or "better." It's a habit of thinking left over from the exuberant phase of the industrial age, when there was always more of everything to get. Nowadays, though, as we enter terminal years of cheap energy, the word "growth" invokes a new set ideas. For instance, "impossible." With the price of oil edging toward $70-a-barrel now, and likely to flirt with $100 by the end of the year, the effect will be higher costs for virtually all products and services, and tremendous stress on every socioeconomic organism from the family to government at all levels to the Ford Motor Car Corporation. The only "growth" we might expect under these conditions is the growth in our exertions to stay where we are, and the truth is that many of the weak will simply fall behind. Another idea that "growth" might invoke would be a fear of an unstoppable rising population competing for scarcer resources: incomes, energy, food, shelter. Surely this is one of the specters behind the illegal immigration issue, a dawning recognition that the American cornucopia is becoming an emptier basket, with fewer fruits, less energy, and not many gold nuggets left in it. (3 April 2006) energybulletin.net