Contrary to most press accounts, there was a decisive winner in the Iowa caucuses last night, and it was neither Rick Santorum nor Mitt Romney. The "winner" was the so-called "Super" PACs (political action committees), the mutant front groups for political candidates that were "created" in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 decision that unleashed corporations and billionaires to spend unlimited money influencing elections.

The corporations pushing for expanded "hydraulic fracturing" ("fracking") for "natural gas" are putting big money into PR campaigns due to growing citizen concerns about this damaging drilling process. At a "Media and Stakeholder Relations: Hydraulic Fracturing Initiative 2011" meeting this winter, an industry representative went so far as to suggest that industry public relations agents download the U.S. Army/Marine Corps' "Counterinsurgency Field Manual." He noted that it would be helpful because the industry is "dealing with an insurgency."

Recently, a group of farmers and neighbors in Salmon Valley, near Prince George, British Columbia, successfully blockaded Wright Creek Road and turned back a truck full of sewage sludge headed for a 117 acre parcel of farm land contracted as a dump site by the City of Prince George. One neighbor brought a snowmobile towing a portable fire pit on a sled so that they were able to keep warm while they blocked the road. As of this writing, the trucks have not returned.