Are the Dark Ages upon us?

To The Eagle:

The Dark Ages are upon us. Not quite here yet, but you can see the lengthening shadows approaching just as depicted in a Harry Potter movie. Using tactics of demonization, our leaders have created apocryphal shortages of energy and resources, bringing the wheels of industry and finance to a grinding halt. Let's take it from the top:

Ninety four percent of global trade depends on diesel and gas turbine engines and internal combustion engines allow us commoners to participate in both the production and consumption of this global cornucopia. Our leaders' latest moves include exaggeration and hindrance during the gulf oil spill, subsequent moratorium on offshore drilling (effectively exporting these jobs to Africa and South America), cancellation of many oil leases, and harassment of the oil industry, thus denying us the use of a virtually unlimited supply of carbon based fuel lying beneath the U.S., and forcing us to deal with middle-eastern tyrants who are happily scheming to blast us back to the Stone Age without even a rest stop at the Dark Ages. The byproduct of these fuels, carbon dioxide, is known to enhance the growth of biomass (that's plant life for we rustics) and may extend human life as well. But hysteria over the fabricated phenomena of man-made global warming has our few surviving industries going through contortions to try to stuff CO2 back in the ground (sequestration), fearing taxation of any that escapes burial.

They have spread fear and loathing of nuclear power, our safest and cheapest source of electricity, derailing our 1976 plans for more than 500 nuclear power plants. We have built none. The Yucca Mountain repository for spent fuel has recently been killed (again) by Harry Reid and wouldn't be needed at all if we were recycling nuclear fuel as is commonly done in Europe. And they've demonized another beneficial byproduct of this industry, ionizing radiation, which is effective in preventing cancer and bacterial disease. We are truly being run by the Dementors and that's just the high-level stuff that we serfs can't do much about.

Look at the local picture. Inundated with trillions of gallons of pure, drinkable rainwater, we are forced by archaic regulations to let the water hit the ground, run through fish, nutria, and rotted vegetation, filter it, run through miles of pipe, drink some, pollute the rest, run ti through more miles of pipe, treat it, and dump it back in a river, while paying several levels of government to participate in this primitive process. Technology exists allowing us to catch, use, and dispose of water on our own homesteads but the agencies that should be helping us to do this (Health and Human Services and the public utility district) are also shackled by nutty regulations.

There is hope! Forced to build an upside-sown sewer system, our town has been fairly adroit at minimizing the damage to ratepayers and the trade of sewer lagoon for marina expansion has merit. And our county commissioners have shown courage in taking on the state regulatory Dementors over the biosolid issue. Win or lose, we hope that they will continue the battle against imbecilic regulation. It appears that real solutions will have to wait until 2012. At this writing, our child-president has just thrown a temper tantrum over his desire to heap more taxes on the only people that can get our industrial machinery running again (the so-called rich) and is going to cut off social security payments if he doesn't get his way. That's OK, Mister President. I regret that I have but one geezer to give for my country.

Howard Brawn,

Puget Island