This movie, a movie starring a man in a chair, reaches out to the collective paranoia that is held within us all. The man in the chair is none other than Michael Rupert, the man who uncovered the CIA’s drug scandal and single handedly predicted the financial collapse in all it’s details only one year off of the actual date. This movie, to me personally, starts to lay the pavement in your mind about our world economy. It lays down solid facts as the brick and the effects as the mortar that holds it all together. By the end of the movie you have a brick road that can only be described as an economy solely dependent on an energy source. Mr. Rupert failed to mention algae based biofuels as an nonviable source of alternative fuels, this backs up my the claim in the movie Fuel.

I kept the main focus of what I learned on the world economy and the crude oil dependency. This film could have had a bigger impact had it been more visually entertaining. Pertaining to the solid layer of facts that this movie encompasses on your mind, I give it four stars out of five.

What I Learned

• The world uses 85,000,000 barrels of oil a day
• Everyday items like toothpaste is made from oil
• The US doesn’t have enough oil in Alaska to last more than 6 months
• Saudi Arabia has hit peak oil production and is looking to off shore drilling
• The polar ice cap shifts and we can’t drill for oil there
• That’s why conservatives cheer for the melting of the ice caps
• It takes more energy to make ethanol than you get from burning it
• We have the largest embassy in the world in Iraq
• Saudi Arabia has 25% of the world’s oil
• When we moved in we stopped Saddam from shifting over to the Euro from the US Dollar
• It takes 7 gallons of oil to make a tire
• There is no such thing as clean coal
• It takes enormous amounts of energy to compress coal to get the CO2 to burn
• Nobody knows what to do with the greenhouse gas
• It takes more energy to produce nuclear energy than you get out of energy
• Tidal energy requires a coast line, many places don’t have coasts and we wouldn’t be able to produce enough energy
• It takes oil to produce pesticides
• The feed stock for ammonia is natural
• The higher the interest the more money you’re creating by not paying cash every month.
• When credit cards do this it’s known as a pyramid theme
• This causes the halt in infinite growth and causes the world economy to become a  pyramid theme
• Our population boomed during the Renaissance
• This boom was caused by early technology
• This rate of population increase depends on oil
• Take away the oil and you’ll see a sharp drop, it’s a law
• You don’t see a large population boom that wasn’t followed by a sharp drop, it’s a fundamental law

This is the second installment in my movie reviews and this time I chose to watch the movie Restrepo. This movie follows a platoon of marines who have been deployed to the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan. While in the Korengal Valley they encounter more Taliban resistance than any other platoon in the war.

What I Learned

• The Korengal Valley is the most dangerous area in the world
• 70% of the ordinance dropped during this war was dropped on the Korengal Valley
• There was an outpost named after the first soldier to die – Restrepo
• It’s illegal to kill a cow in the Afghani Korengal Valley
• They’re stranded in the middle of nowhere
• Operation Rock Avalanche was the hardest mission for the soldiers to carry out

What I Didn’t Anticipate

• The look in the eyes of a soldier as he describes how his friend died
• How hard it would be to watch a soldier cry after his friend dies

I starting a new column in my blog to ver reviews of movies. Most movies I cover will educate me and the people who read the reviews. The movie I’ll cover this week is called Fuel. It’s about the use of petroleum products and how they effect our economy. The film is split 50/50 on the economical and ecological impact it has on our earth. Below are facts that really stuck out to me. To be honest, I probably didn’t remember even half of them because of how much information was presented to me. I definitely have to say I have a better understanding of why we have limited drilling in our country, because of  how disastrous it is on our citizens and our climate. Overall I give this movie 5 stars out of 5, it was terrific, informative and groundbreaking. The main thing that stuck out to me is the tremendous human cost that petroleum oil has.

http://thefuelfilm.com/

What I Learned

• We can use algae based biofuels to power our diesel engines
• We can make enough algae to power our country in three days
• It takes more energy than a gallon of oil holds to produce that gallon of oil
• It takes as much energy as a gallon of ethanol holds to produce that gallon
• Germany’s citizens demanded biofuel powered cars and their government gave it to them
• Sweden will be petroleum free by 2020
• The American government offered subsidies to citizens who bought bigger cars and hummers that used more gasoline
• The war in Iraq costs $300,000,000.00 dollars a day
• Reagan took the solar panels off of the white house
• If the government didn’t give out subsidies to oil companies they could afford a government healthcare plan that covered every citizen
• The CO2 in our atmosphere lets solar light in but traps the solar radiation which is the same as trapping the heat
• Coal produces as much CO2 as crude oil
• Saudi Arabia is the number 1 oil producer in the world
• Iraq ranks in number 2 in the world
• America holds 2% of the world’s oil but uses 25%
• You can produce the same petroleum products with biofuel (plastic, PVC)
• The areas where we produce oil in America have a higher cancerous rate, these areas are called “Cancer Alleys”
• America contains 4% of the auto fleet of the world but produces 50% of the carbon emissions by the world’s auto fleets.

Last night was the first lunar eclipse to occur on the winter solstice in over 400 years. Below are the pictures I got:

Here’s some new photography from the past few days:

Watch this, it’s dark and amazing, it’s directed by Niles Atallah:

Like Whoopi Goldberg I’m straight but feel that gays should have the right to marry. The ninth circuit of California is discussing allowing prop-8 to stand in their county. Don’t let California fall back into the dark ages again, if you live or know somebody who lives in the ninth district then tell them to call in and make sure prop-8 stays out of marriage!

Leave it to me to get my ass banned from the Bronze Group on Flickr. I posted without giving out five awards; got in a hurry. I’m such an idiot sometimes.

Here’s some photography I took this afternoon. I’ve maxed out the bronze group so I’m deciding what my next move will be. Some of the photographs are macro and some are normal.

My Cat

Antique Hinge

Hand of God

Brick or the Moon Surface?