Somethiing Else Saturday

Busy week and I didn't make notes about the curious things I discovered. So Something Else Saturday, this week. Yesterday I saw a documentary called Fuel, by Josh Tickell. It is a new [2010] film about, as you can guess from the photos, biofeuls. First he made an overlong case about oil as a nonrenewable fuel that will be used up by the middle of century. Various familiar facts that everyone except the oil companies and the US government seem to know. Then he made a very good case for why the US government [unlike the governments of Germany and the Scandinavian countries] can't seem to understand the problems facing us: very early in Bush II's tenure, with much assistance from Cheney, secret meetings were held with the heads all the major oil companies. When a Congressional committee raised questions they were not even allowed to go into an official record and it was arranged that the oil company heads who testified to Congress never had to do so under oath, so when asked if any oil problem was on the horizon they could all say "no," although every single one understood that we would have to invade Iraq to get at a continuing supply. So we had the horrors of the Bush years which still make me almost too angry and ashamed of this country to talk or write coherently.
So, on to diesel fuel -- a lot of information about it that I only partly knew. Biodeisel fuel was beginning to be widely accepted in the US when, a few years ago, a sudden wide-spread fear mongering media campaign hit the American airwaves and newspapers, saying it wasn't really safe, it would use up corn and soybeans needed for people, etc., etc. I expected the film to show that this campaign was masterminded by oil company PR teams -- it didn't. I tend to believe, for lack of solid enough evidence and fear of law suits the film makers can't afford. Probably better to show the film and let people reach their own conclusions about that. I'm not conspiracy seeker, but after the hookwinking of the American people about WMD and Saddam Hussein being the devil incarnate [a title I would give to Dick Cheney], how can we not blame the oil companies.

It's an over-long, rather harranging film but it has many facts about biodeisel people need to know. Even Richard Branson is behind biodeisel and has already prove that he can fly airplanes on it [with much less atomospheric pollution] The DVD is for sale, just Google it: Fuel by Josh Tickell. It's worth the price.