"The State Department is expected to decide later this year whether the pipeline can go forward". Don't fall for the con, folks! The State Department has already decided that the pipeline must go forward.

The pipeline threatens crucial migration habitat for the sandhill cranes, one of the most ancient and beautiful of birds. A 2.5 million-year-old fossil of the crane has been found. Hearing their wild cries is an awesome experience that transports one back in imagination millions of years into the Pliocene Epoch. All this beauty and evolutionary history is now being endangered for a few years of dirty oil, and a few more bucks in the Koch brothers' pockets.

As resource demand increases with population, competition and overconsumption, natural resources are depleted, pollution controls are eliminated and environmental problems are exacerbated.

The environment is becoming the cause celebre now and promises to be the major one in the future. As we run out of technological fixes and the quality of life suffers, how can people remain blind to its root causes? Oligarchs in their yachts will have to plow through the plastic wastes in a polluted, lifeless ocean, breathe and eat the chemical cocktails they produce, and hire mercenaries armies to keep the public from invading their domain.

Don't bother looking for a justification for a transcontinental tar-sand pipeline. There simply isn't one. But do notice any tendency in yourself to go along with it. If you find such a tendency, that's very important. It's evidence of kapitalist indoctrination and it must be purged, if you are to thrive. Figure out how to do it, and then do it. Remember that the pipeline, along with 75% of the rest of Merkan ideas put into production, is absolutely unnecessary, even by the standards set forth in das kapitalist bible, The Wealth of Nations, where Smith insisted that production serve the better interests of the people. That das modern kapitalists violate the fundamentals of their most cherished theory is no surprise. Human nature requires that we believe we're doing good. Never mind that under such delusions sociopathic actions still take place. And das kapitalists can claim that we their opponents are engaged in the same practice, believing we're doing good while doing just the opposite.

So who's right, who's wrong? Liberals will have you believe it's neither or both, but never one or the other. Which explains how liberals have managed to enslave themselves to das kapital. In fact, we on the far left have consciously chosen universal equity/justice and have identified localism as the path to achieve that. Localism sets an effective limit on production, so we don't do stupid things like build trans-continental pipelines for tar sands oil. We know that we will still prosper without it, and without any of das kapitalist production, because we know all we need to prosper is production that serves our better interests, and in an amount that's about 1/4 of current Merkan production. In other words, if our economic activity is set at 1/4 the current volume, and performed locally, face to face, we will reach economic nirvana, with social nirvana infinitely easier to achieve. Do you want to reach nirvana?

The article states that the pipeline is needed to drain the glut in Cushing, OK hub. According to DOE data on oil stocks reported on Bloomberg, stocks have been dropping precipitously since mid April. They started rising in November of 2010. The rise and fall can be explained by QE2 which put a lot of cash into the financial institutions in an economy already overproducing and underemployed. What are they going to do with the cash? Build housing and commercial space? No they speculated or lent it to speculators. That drove the prices up and in mid April when they were predicting gas prices at over $5/gal Venezuela imposed a tax on any oil over $4 /bl.(http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/28-4) and the price of oil immediately declined as did the supply stock of oil in Cushing. In "The Asylum:The Renegades Who Hijacked the Worlds Oil Market" by Leah McGrath Goodman, Cushing is described as a vast landscape of tank farms once used by the prolific OK and TX producers now mainly used as a stock pile for traders and speculators. When Venezuela imposed the tax, even tho Venezuela's share of world oil production is small, it meant that any trade involving Venezuela would tend to drive the price toward $40 just to avoid the tax and therefore the profit from speculation and would require an even greater fool than usual to drive the price up. So the speculators unloaded their stocks which means that Cushing hub is no longer in glut. Also what takes the wind out of speculators sails is the idea that other govts., in this time of lagging revenues might, impose their own taxes.
Why $40/bl? A couple of years ago I read that Venezuela was making contracts for delivery of oil with a bottom price of $50/bl. The price at the time was over $75/bl and in the article it was stated the $40/bl was the minimum price needed for Venezuela to make a profit on their super heavy crude.
I could go on that all of this is theft of the public wealth on a disastrous scale on several levels through several avenues, govt. and financial, and is causing deprivation and starvation for the mass of the world's population as well as general hardship for the poor and middle class, but I've said enough.

Good comment rtdrury, Yo posted yours while I was writing mine so I hadn't read it. If my analysis is correct then the fact that a tax could actually result in a reduction of consumer prices is going to short cicuit the mind and stick in the craw of neoliberals.

This pipeline is way past approved; the powers that be know it and they're just stringing us along with false hope that "democracy" will take place and our voices heard. Too bad nothing besides anarchy will stop this travesty, because it will destroy this planet

....and notice, they say about it will not destroy the environment...... how to hell can they get away with that......this is ssssssosooooooooodiscusting I want to puck....sorry....but I am getting angrier every day........ We are truly doing NOTHING to change our world.....at least not the people with the power ......they think we have time to dilly dally along, work with the free market, do a slow "progressive" change over........ they are not facing the fact.....and probably on purpose.....because the only people that will make it for now...and the near future are the rich.....eventually they'll crash too..... we are going to on our own soon people.....the problem is that in the mean time.... those who fall by the way side are blamed for there own lack of discipline...responsibility etc..... I'm sick of all of this.... I work my a** off and still get asked to fork over more and more money for health care, even though I have insurance... I don't understand why we are told, that if you have a family and you make anything less than.....I don't know, 80.00 a year and up..... you can live a middle class life style...... even lower middle class we make about 50,000 for the last two to three years for a family of four......we can barely survive..... medical bills add up, co pays, left over payments..... a loan that i had to take to pay old medical bills and a left over electric bill because of a place I lived with 300-400 dollar a month electric.......then I got my house.....the mortgage is okay for now....but it is adjustable and they won't "fix" it..... but with all the expenses.... in th old days, our parents did not pay for tv and phone was cheap enough without needing long distance. Now, you are expected to have that, internet and your kids expect you to drive them all over kingdom come.. for all kinds of things... sorry but I am not in a good mood tonight and it all has to do with the money I don't have and the money I need. However, debt forgiveness would do a lot to get this country on the road to healing.......forget the banks.....help the people who go to work everyday...... everyday...my husband just started his second job. I SAY WE GO BACK TO COTTAGE INDUSTRY AND DIVIDE UP LAND AND MONEY FROM THE RICH AND LET PEOPLE GROW THEIR OWN FOOD AND WE ALL WORK TOGETHER FOR A LOCAL LIFE..... A HAPPY LIFE AND LIVE CLOSE TO NATURE.....HECK i'M ALMOST INTO GOING BACK TO HUNTER GATHER DAYS... Those of you who think I am nuts...... don't have any thing to say to you........ we need to stop stop stop stop living this destrucive life..... one that is killing the planet from under our feet.

"Backers of the pipeline say it will provide jobs and reduce U.S. dependence on oil from countries that are unfriendly to Washington."

As the lust for oil turns my country into a petro-pimp and a petro-pusher this Canadian is becoming extremely unfriendly to Washington.

Love the Folk, hate the Folk-ers in Washington.

This technology is horrible. Some people don't realize how much fucking fresh water you have to use to "clean" the sands. If they were going to clear grassland and wack out a few endangered species for an energy investment that was sustainable then that'd be another story.

Build the pipeline now. We need the jobs and the oil.

Why don't they mention that the pipeline will carry oil that is exported, that will delay production of domestic refined crude and thus raise U.S. prices? And that the jobs dollars will be offset with the first major oil spill from the pipeline and this company was the worst pipeline spill history in the U.S.? It's a loser for all in the long run. We don't need THOSE jobs and we certainly don't need the oil. There is a world-wide glut of oil right now and it will continue to be that way in the foreseeable future, which is why Canada is so desperate to get this line built now. They are a criminal enterprise already breaking U.S. laws. Should we expect them to change if the pipeline is approved? Are we really that stupid?