I have seen the future of roads in the US: made out of sand (glass) not oil, generates enough excess electricity to power the country, and economically feasible now.

I’ve also seen the resistance: BP, Exxon, and the continuous-war Military Industrial Complex ain’t gonna like losing the profits from our nation’s addiction to oil.

Watch the video at the link: YERT Conversation 19.1: Solar Roadways.

Watch the video at the link: Solar Roadways: The Prototype.

Watch the video at the link: TEDxSacramento - Scott Brusaw - Solar Roadways (1of2) .

More at: www.solarroadways.com.

The United States is not only broke, but $13 trillion in debt. And the elephant in the room? Military spending.

Of course we need to support the troops, secure our country, prepare for defense, but give me a break — how many freakin’ aircraft carriers do we need? Our friends in the United Kingdom have 4. Our old nemesis Russia has 1. India, Spain, France, Brazil — they each have 1, too.

So, again, how many aircraft carriers does the U.S really need to fund?

I don’t know the answer to that question, but this I can say without a doubt: We don’t need 22!

That’s right, the United States blows billions keeping 22 aircraft carriers afloat:

America has about twice as many aircraft carriers as the rest of humanity combined, and America’s aircraft carriers are substantially larger than almost all the other’s aircraft carriers. The Navy likes to call the big Nimitz class carriers “4.5 acres of sovereign and mobile American territory” — all two dozen American carriers of all classes add up to about 70 acres of deck space. Deckspace is probably a good measure of combat power. The rest of the world’s carriers have about 15 acres of deck space, one fifth that of America’s.

(Be sure to check out the graphic deck size comparison graphic at the bottom of the link above…sometimes words are not enough.)

Seventy acres of deckspace compared to the rest of the world’s fifteen acres…I’d say we won. Game over. Quit playing already.

So, how much could we save if we got rid of half of those carriers and cut back to, you know, only a little over twice the total aircraft-carrier deck space of every other nation on earth combined?

First find the cost of one aircraft carrier:

•Construction Costs - $4.5 billion
•Mid life overhaul Costs - $2.3 billion
•Operating and Support Costs - $14 billion
•Other Costs - $1 billion
•Total Average Cost - $22 billion each

Multiply by eleven: $242 billion.

But that’s peanuts. The next generation of U.S. carriers already being built have a construction cost alone of $14 billion.

Because four and a half times the deck space of the rest of the world’s aircraft carriers is not enough.

Because, for these U.S. defense contractors a trillion dollars a year isn’t enough.

Because the peasants in your country who don’t make bullets aren’t broke enough.

Today I just felt like saying thanks to the many Muslims who’ve paid the ultimate sacrifice defending Sarah Palin’s right to spew hate.

When pressed by the newly disillusioned or the obstinate superpatriots at the water cooler, there’s often too little time or patience from either party to explain a tiny fraction of my world view without failing miserably.

That’s why I appreciate the following video: an animated interview with John Perkins. The naration sticks to the high points, the graphics supply what a thousand words can’t — adds weight to, perhaps, too-general conclusions, and it gets some wide-ranging, eye-opening concepts across in a short time. (More about John Perkins below the fold.)

Video Link: Economic Hitmen.

More about John Perkins.

John Perkins (b. January 28, 1945 in Hanover, New Hampshire) is an economist and author. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador from 1968–1970 and this experience launched him in the world of economics and writing.

His best known book is Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2004), an insider’s account of the exploitation or neo-colonization of Third World countries by what Perkins describes as a cabal of corporations, banks, and the United States government.

His 2007 book, The Secret History of the American Empire, provides more evidence of the negative impact of global corporations on the economies and ecologies of poor countries, as well as offering suggestions for making corporations behave more like good citizens.

Visit John Perkin’s website: http://www.johnperkins.org/.

Hot enough for you? There’s a good thread going on over at Reddit: Obama needs to do something about this heat!

“I don’t think Obama has shown sufficient outrage over it being hot outside.”

“We did not have heat like this under Bush. There were some warm spells, but we all know that was due to policies established by the Clinton administration.”

“Leave it to Obama to “redistribute” temperatures from the socialist, Islamic third world, forcing all of us to endure terrorist-producing temperatures here in the homeland. Personally, I heard it’s a plot to undermine Christmas this winter - no snow, no Santa. Look it up.”

LMAO ~JoeC