DrumBeat: June 2, 2007
Posted by Leanan on June 2, 2007 - 9:04am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Shell Halts Exports of 150,000 bpd Due to Nigerian Unrest
Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC has suspended the export of 150,000 barrels per day of crude oil because of community unrest in southern Nigeria, a company spokesman said."We had to halt production from the Bomu manifold until we are able to resolve our problems with the community," Precious Okolobo told AFP.
Those who see water as a future core commodity – therefore as profitable a prospect as oil – pose the question to create the right market conditions for water trade. Those who see the potential for conflict arising from scarcity compare diminishing freshwater to oil’s depleting reserves. Those who see an environmental threat from mismanagement of water see parallels with the abuse and waste of oil.
Indian energy firms lay out big plans
India's state and private firms have chalked out big-ticket investment plans - both in the upstream and downstream segments - to meet the country's growing demand for energy.Its main competitor, China, has been aggressively scouting for energy sources worldwide, as well as beating Indian firms in their own back yard - Myanmar and now, reportedly, Bangladesh.
India's energy companies have their work cut out for them.
Oil companies endorse Global Warming to support new drilling opportunities
Warmer temperatures would make it easier to drill and ship oil from the Arctic, the report said. It did not attempt to quantify the costs of drilling and shipping Arctic oil and gas, or estimate how high energy prices would have to be to justify drilling in the region.
Corn for Biofuel Puts Food Reserves at Risk
The Netherlands-based magazine Oil World warned that the increase in the use of corn in the US to produce ethanol will cause a reduction in US and world food reserves.
Soils offer new hope as carbon sink
The huge potential of agricultural soils to reduce greenhouse gases and increase production at the same time has been reinforced by new research findings at NSW Department of Primary Industries' (DPI) Wollongbar Agricultural Institute.Trials of agrichar - a product hailed as a saviour of Australia's carbon-depleted soils and the environment - have doubled and, in one case, tripled crop growth when applied at the rate of 10 tonnes per hectare.
Bush’s Greenhouse Gas Plan Throws Europe Off Guard
For six years, Europeans have pleaded with President Bush to seize the initiative in the campaign against global warming. Now that he has, many here are even more frustrated.
Mexico Pemex Sees $2B-$2.2B Annual Investment in Exploration
The chief executive of Mexican state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said Thursday that the company expects to invest between $2 billion and $2.2 billion a year in exploration in its efforts to increase reserves.
Hero or villain? A carbon critic relies on coal
But at least as important is the direction in which Josefsson has taken Vattenfall since he became chief executive in 2000. Revenue at the state-owned company has more than quadrupled, to 145 billion kronor, or $20.9 billion, from 32 billion kronor, mainly through huge investment in coal-fired power plants and lignite mines in Germany.From a business point of view, these acquisitions have made clear sense. With rising oil prices and the closure of several nuclear power plants, coal has become more important for the German energy supply. Coal is also, as Josefsson points out, a cheap source of energy, which means that it is highly profitable.
The Price of Oil in the Amazon
For almost three decades, Occidental Petroleum has pumped oil out of the ground from hundreds of wells in the Peruvian Amazon. The company sold the drilling rights in 1999 but eight years later, the indigenous Achuar people from the area are suing Occidental in the United States for harming their health and poisoning their water and land.
Indonesia: Govt slammed for choosing coal
Greenpeace has berated the government for replacing petroleum with coal to meet the nation's energy needs, highlighting that carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants are one of the main contributors to human-induced global climate change.
Kenya: Oil prices to remain high, says Shell
Oil prices are expected to remain high despite the recent call by the government call, urging local oil dealers to reduce pump prices.Shell Company Managing Director Patrick Obath yesterday said that oil companies were making marginal prices from the sale of the product due to heavy taxation, making further price reduction non viable.
India: State to buy power from naphtha-run plants
A programme has been chalked out by the Government to purchase power to the extent of 1,962 million units this year from private plants run on naphtha, the costliest fuel.
South Africa: Consumers face cash squeeze as prices rise - Good time to pay off debt as fast as possible
Consumers will be feeling a drastic cash squeeze by the end of the year from rising inflation and interest rates, economists warned this week.
Nigeria: FHA Lugbe Residents Protest 5-Month Power Outage
OVER 200 residents of Phase II of the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), Lugbe, Abuja yesterday besieged the Lugbe office of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) for the company's failure to provide them with electricity for the past five months....According to the protesters, PHCN staff had consistently been collecting bills from them amounting to almost N4million (N750,000/month) even without light for this period.
Petrobras Plans Output Start at Maromba Field in 2012
Weinhardt didn't have an exact reserves estimate for the Maromba field. When declaring it commercially viable together with seven other fields in the Campos Basin in December, Petrobras said it estimated the eight new fields combined have "recoverable volumes" of about 1.37 billion barrels of oil equivalent, or BOE.
My, my, my. High gasoline prices sure do have a way of bringing out the stupid in people.I nearly lost track of it all this past week.
First, we had a Democratic-sponsored bill in the U.S. Congress that would allow the government to sue OPEC for price manipulation.
Fuel prices impact Gassing up, cutting back
Rising gas prices have caused some consumers to cut back on their discretionary spending. Cafe patrons are not going for that extra scone with their lattes and shoe lovers are skipping that desired--but not needed extra pair of sandals.
Slam the brakes on gas tax hike
New Jersey has the lowest gasoline prices in the nation and the third lowest state gasoline tax. It's about the only tax in New Jersey that isn't the highest, or among the highest, in the country. Gov. Corzine this week hinted that may change. Our hint to the governor: Don't even think about it.
Residents struggle to live with mounting energy bills
Karen Parashis has grandchildren graduating in Illinois this month, but she won't be there to see it.Between high fuel prices and increases in her electric bill, along with vehicle and home insurance, the 66-year-old simply can't afford to make the trip.
40% efficient solar cells to be used for solar electricity
Scientists from Spectrolab, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing, have recently published their research on the fabrication of solar cells that surpass the 40% efficiency milestone—the highest efficiency achieved for any photovoltaic device. Their results appear in a recent edition of Applied Physics Letters.
Toyota’s gas-electric hybrid gets sales boost from $3 gasoline - Orders for Prius nearly tripled in May
Nearly 15 percent of Toyota’s sales were hybrids, which has the company convinced that their appeal has moved beyond buyers wishing to make a statement about global warming.But some buyers in May didn’t seem to be affected by fuel prices, with pickup truck sales rising 3.5 percent.
Of all the errors Jimmy Carter committed, none has earned him more well-justified scorn than his handling of the 1970s energy crisis. True enough, he didn't cause it. But he did make it much, much worse.
Dr Ali Samsam Bakhtiari had told a conference of Antarctic experts in Hobart, Australia that was held mid-July 2006 that the polar continent would need greater protection to save it from exploitation by increasingly desperate oil-hungry nations.
Experts: Energy deregulation holds major pitfalls
California's first foray into deregulation in 1996 sparked a massive statewide electricity crisis in 2000 and 2001 and the bankruptcy of the Bay Area's major utility, Pacific Gas & Electric. PG&E has since emerged from bankruptcy, and deregulation was suspended in 2001.
Gas prices lead city to shorten workweek
Mayor Bobby Bright hopes adapting the workweek for some employees will save money and improve productivity. If the 90-day experiment works, city maintenance crews will work four 10-hour days each week. The move will keep the equivalent of 98 city vehicles off the road two days each week.
Indiana Governor says no to nixing state gas tax
Daniels said lifting the gasoline tax wouldn't be a responsible thing to do.“We worked very hard to get this state black and a couple of months of doing this would put us back in the red,” Gov. Daniels said.
Hydro storage can boost value of wind energy
Most people think about St Mary's canal as a water project for irrigators and municipalities. But there are other potential benefits.The St. Mary's project could expand wind power production and help control rates in Montana. We ought to take advantage of that opportunity.
For the first time in history, a renewable fuel will power all vehicles past the checkered flag at the race. It is a tribute to many in the racing industry and in farmlands across this great country.
Impact of ethanol starting to hit home
Pimentel acknowledges he's in the minority among academics arguing that ethanol won't help cure the nation's energy ills: "It takes (43 percent) more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than you get out of it." He claims conventional gasoline is more energy-efficient.Roberts said Pimentel's research is too pessimistic, and shouldn't include certain input costs. He said ethanol actually nets a small energy gain, not a net loss. More meaningful, he said, is that ethanol releases fewer greenhouse gases than gasoline.
GAO: U.S. gives oil firms good deals
When it comes to taking oil and natural gas from government land and waters, the oil companies are getting a good deal, says a congressional report.The Government Accountability Office said Friday that the U.S. government gets less for letting private companies take oil and gas from its land and coastal waters than a half dozen states and many foreign countries.
Iran sees higher oil price, warns on supply
Khatibi also suggested that most Opec members were operating close to capacity. Iran is Opec’s No. 2 producer. “Therefore in the situation of an increase in the demand, there is no other way but to use the reserves,” he said.“In the most optimistic situation, in the future supply and demand will seriously get close to each other and we will not have any additional supply,” he said. “In the pessimistic situation, oil demand in winter will reach an amount which supply can not meet ... “
UK oil production continues decline
The year-on-year decline in oil and gas production in the UK sector of the North Sea is continuing its decline, dropping by a further combined 10 per cent in March, according to the latest monthly report by the Royal Bank of Scotland.
As the historian Daniel Yergin has noted, oil nationalisations are usually creeping seizures. In 1974, Saudi Arabia took 60 per cent of Aramco – by 1976 it insisted on 100 per cent. In 1971, Venezuela committed to maintain foreign concessions until 1983. A year later it moved towards full control.
“Everybody talks about what Hugo Chavez is doing in Venezuela but nobody makes the comparision with Putin. It is basically the same thing,” said Fadel Gheit, an analyst at Oppenheimer in New York.
Cuba, Vietnam sign energy agreement
Vietnam becomes Cuba's latest partner in oil exploration and drilling in the Gulf of Mexico under one of several agreements signed Friday during a visit by Vietnamese Communist Party chief Nong Duc Manh.
4 oil workers kidnapped in Nigeria
A group of gunmen wearing security force uniforms invaded a compound in restive southern Nigeria and kidnapped four foreign oil workers without firing a shot, police said Saturday.The abduction occurred overnight at the U.S.-based oil-services firm Schlumberger Ltd. in Port Harcourt and the kidnapped included one Dutch, one British and one Pakistani citizen, Rivers State Police Commissioner Felix Ogbaudu said.
Alleged oil swindler turns up on MTV show
Not long after entrusting millions to a Kentucky oilman, the investors started asking questions: Where was the oil? Where was their money? And where was the oilman?They think they got at least some answers when they turned on an episode of “My Super Sweet 16,” an MTV reality show about spoiled rich kids and their outrageously opulent birthday parties.
Higher energy use fails to raise greenhouse gas level
Greenhouse gas emissions in the UK have stabilised, official figures reveal.Despite increases in economic activity and energy consumption, emissions for the UK's population stayed at 733.5 million tonnes in 2005, the same as in 2004, the Office for National Statistics confirmed.
Airline sector puts global warming high on meeting agenda
The world's airline industry opens its annual meeting in the Canadian city of Vancouver Sunday with the link between increased air traffic and global warming front and center on its radar screen.
Vancouver city hall concerns shift dramatically
The focus of new urbanists is changing, just as concern for global warming and peak oil is suddenly engulfing public opinion in all circles.New urbanist planners, like Toderian, are leading the way, reminding us that livability may be an important pursuit, but that livability means little if the planet no longer exists as a habitable environment for humans and all other creatures.
Iowa mayors to meet this month on going "green"
Mayors across Iowa will gather in June to discuss ways to combat global warming.The Energy Futures Conference will be held June 15-16 in Des Moines and will focus on expanding renewable energy and reducing dangerous emissions.
Even the driving test has climate worries
Now, the driver's test is going "green," moving beyond rules of the road to address the energy crisis and gas-pump sticker shock. A bill to make fuel-efficient driving techniques part of the Oregon driver's test cleared the Legislature on Friday, and Gov. Ted Kulongoski said through a spokesman that he will sign it into law.
Meanwhile, back in the "real world," I was listening to the local cornucopian on his car show radio broadcast in the Dallas area, and he was talking about car sales being up over a year ago, gasoline prices down slightly, and how Boone Pickens is just trying to drive the price oil up talking nonsense about Peak Oil.
As I have said before, isn't it ironic that those of us who believe that a finite world has finite limits are considered to be the "cultists," while those who, in effect, believe that we can have an infinite growth rate against a finite resource base are considered "mainstream."
In order to continue to clarify one point about my ELP recomendations, I am not advocating cutting consumption for the general good. The only thing that is going to reduce energy consumption is people's physical inabilty to pay for it. I am advocating reducing your overall consumption--especially your energy consumption--now, because, IMO, energy, and food, will become increasingly expensive in the months and years ahead.
But how do you communicate that Westexas?
In my lab everyone looks at me as a goofball even though they have not won one argument with me on the topic. The more I try the more retarded these people act. FRankly I am starting to get really upset.
Fireangle,
Come here to get upset and have arguments, go there and make the future look like more fun and excitement than jumping into a barrel of cats and monkeys.
If the above makes any sense to you let me know, if it doesn't, let me know.
Your compadre in disaster,
CR
fireangel, you might tell them that oil is going to keep getting more expensive, rather than focusing on running out. The tar and bitumen (Canadian Tar sands and Oil shale) cost a heck of a lot more than light sweet crude to mine and process. Not even the most extreme Cornucopian can argue with that one.
Another good angle is ask them how long we are going to keep sending 60% of our energy dollars to people that hate us? In other word, out-conservative them. Its a national security thing.
Hi Bob,
I know I shouldn't let myself be drawn in to this, but oh well, just call me irresponsible, but I find that part of your statement rather offensive.
First, most people are trying their damnedest not to hate the American people, but the effing elite run thing you have been sold as a democratic government has been dropping bombs on people's heads without stint or reservation and that is a problem. People just don't like having friends and relatives blown to little bits, fact.
Canada has been drawn into this blowing people to bits business lately and I can see how your feeling of being hated arises. Next time I leave my country I will not be taking anything that indicates I am a proud Canadian, no little flags or buttons, no patriotic B.S. I will wave a flag when there is something worth waving it about. Actually maybe I will put a flag on the car, but upside down to indicate distress.
You can go back to before the industrial revolution or the very beginning of it when Jefferson had to send marines to the Pirate Coast to rescue US sailors who had been taken as slaves. And that is not an isolated event either. These cultures clash because they have fundamentally differing belief systems. That doesn't make either culture "right" or "wrong" but they do not get along and have never gotten along very well.
I am the first to admit that the US is in the wrong this time but that doesn't mean that the US or the west was always in the wrong in each prior event. Anyone who believes that is a damned fool.
They may not hate us but they do a really good impression of it.
P.S. Remember that the vast majority of those people of color sold into slavery in the new world were first captured and sold by these same Islamic pirates from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripoli.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
"Remember that the vast majority of those people of color sold into slavery in the new world were first captured and sold by these same Islamic pirates from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripoli."
And who was it that eagerly bought and paid for them?
Remember that the vast majority of those people of color sold into slavery in the new world were first captured and sold by these same Islamic pirates from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripoli.
That doesn't sound right - and Wikipedia disagrees with you too...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade#Slave_Market_Regions
Can you link to something that supports your assertion? I'm not denying that some type of slavery has existed within the Muslim world - in fact some forms of slavery still exist there (and elsewhere). But most of the North American, Caribbean and Latin American slave populations came from the Bight of Benin.
The industrial-scale transport of human chattels across the ocean, to work on plantations producing cash crops for export, was invented by people who called themselves Christians. And it was abolished by their coreligionists.
The industrial scale transportation of slaves predates Christianity. The ancient Romans captured people to work their grainfields in North Africa, and quarries throughout their empire. The Egyptians enslaved people from Africa and used them on their building projects. The Letters of St. Peter were used to justify slavery, but the institution was very well established before Christianity or Islam.
But historical accuracy aside, I was trying to point out that you can sometimes establish a rapport with people by appealing to their mindset, or prejudices. I know, its shitty, but it works. And remember about 1/6th of the worlds exported oil originates in the KSA, and about 1/2 from OPEC. 15 out of 19 hijackers that flew into the World Trade Center came from the KSA. The main funding for the Sunni militias causing 80% of the casulties on American troops comes from the KSA. They are not our friends, and as Arianna Huffington succinctly noted, every dollar you spend putting gas in your tank puts money in the hands of terrorists. So if you care anything about the USA, conserve! If you want to end this pointless and evil war, conserve! If you want to keep money and jobs in the US, buy renewables and conserve!
http://africanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa101101a.htm
Wikipedia disagrees with Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade
And they still do it (even in that liberal do-no-wrong fascist state called Iran):
http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/iran_sex_slave_trade
10 centuries purely for Muslim countries then 4 more centuries for the rest of the world:
http://mondediplo.com/1998/04/02africa
MIT documents the extent of slave trade by western nations in conjunction with Arab slavers.
http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/History/21H-912The-World-Since-1492Sprin...
Of course you are free to believe whatever you choose to believe. Facts rarely change minds around here.
I am not saying that Muslims were the sole source of slavery but those of you who keep holding up the Islamic nations as some sort of utopian do-gooders need to study your history. The history does not and has never supported that notion. The Islamic states have a history as contorted and ugly as any of the west. And given sufficient time and resources, they will assert their own version of Iraq and its horrors somewhere.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
A link with detailed description of Slave trading by Sultan's from Afganistan.
http://voi.org/books/mssmi/ch10.htm
An excerpt
"Alauddin Khalji�s Market Control has become famous in medieval Indian history. He fixed the price of every commodity, including slaves. The sale price of slaves was like this. The standard price of a working girl was fixed at from 5 to 12 tankahs, and that of a good looking girl suitable for concubinage from 20 to 30 and even 40 tankahs. The price of a man slave (ghulam) usually did not exceed 100 to 200 tankahs. The prices of handsome boys were fixed from 20 to 30 tankahs; the ill-favoured could be obtained for 7 to 8. The price of a child slave (ghulam bachchgan naukari) was fixed at 70 to 80 tankahs. The slaves were classified according to their looks and working capacity. In the case of bulk purchases by traders who had ready money and who had the means to carry their flock for sale to other cities,19 prices were fixed accordingly."
Another excerpt
"Low Price of Indian Slaves
Ziyauddin Barani reckons regulations regarding sale of �horses, slaves and quadrupeds� under one category. T.P. Hughes quoting the Hidayah says that slaves, male and female, are treated merely as articles of merchandise, and �very similar rules apply both to the sale of animals and bondsmen.�29 A milch buffalo cost 10-12 tankahs., a working girl was cheaper. The price of a good quality horse was 90-120 tankahs, that of a ghulam was 100 on an average. A handsome boy could be had for 20 to 30 tankahs.30 .."
Wooooah there GZ!
I was rebutting your original point about the New World slave trade. As oilmanbob points out, industrial-scale slavery wasn't invented in 18th-Century Benin, nor was it invented in 6th-Century Hejaz - the Prophet's family owned slaves before he became the Prophet. Placing the blame for Dixie on Islam is a breathtaking example of historical revisionism (chutzpah). Nevertheless, I'll concede that the Berber Muslim-syncretist slave traders of the Maghreb were probably quite capable of spotting a profitable market and selling to the white middleman when he was offering a competitive price for their dark-skinned merchandise.
In any case, when the poor wretches got to their final destination, I suspect they found that their new owners went to Church on Sunday rather than Mosque on Friday. Though in that shadowy alternative timeline, maybe we would have been spared the unbearable torture of Whitney Houston's choral vibrato. Win some, lose some.
A word of advice: get a grip on that childish compulsion to Wikibomb any poster who points out that Islam isn't the only source of all the evil that there has ever been or ever will be in the world. Get some historical perspective; Islam (a certain recently-invented aspect of) is merely a convenient label for the Imperium's enemy du jour. Remember who sponsored the Talibs back in the 1980s. And remember who the Talib were fighting against, and what they could have done to the United States in the course of a few hours. And lighten up, for Clapton's sake.
Gotta go and do some of that oil-field stuff now. Isn't that what we were originally discussing? And not a slave in sight. Lots of crop-top blondies on the other side of that chainlink fence down at the airport, though.
Aleikum as'Salam,
PUD.
Um yeah right, your choice of an example to demonstrate the moral superiority of the West, and of the USA in particular, is spot on, eh Greyzone. It's all black and white.
I mean it's not as if Jefferson owned any slaves himself or anything.
You know nor care nothing about the history of slaving. Nothing. This is just an occasion for you to throw some racist venom around.
Ah, I said something bad about oldhippie's "good guys" - the Iranians. Too bad, so sad.
You are the one who is grossly ignorant of history if you believe that ANY major culture was free of the taint of slavery. But go on believing in stuff and nonsense, old hippie. Facts have never stopped you from spouting nonsense before.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
Sure the Iranians are my special friends and my good guys 'cause I've said a few times here it would be exceptionally dumb for the current US administration to start a war of choice in Iran. That follows. Very logical. You are astute.
You think the clash of cultures is so bloody important, you think that loaded phrase describes anything real, you got such a bee in your bonnet over the Ayrabs, tell you what: There are plenty of wars in progress right now where you could go and kill Arabs to your heart's content. Pick one. Go. Kill.
So now we get from my pointing out Islamic involvement in slave trade to you implying that I am a racist who wants to kill "Ayrabs" (YOUR phrase, not mine). Project much, jackass?
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
CrystalRadio, you misunderstood me. I apparently wasn't clear enough. The arguements are for hopefully changing the minds of people who deny cheap oil, at least enough change to begin to analise the situation.
I certainly agree with you about the current regime, I'm a committed peacenik. I was at eight demonstrations before the invasion of Iraq by the United States, and many more since. I voted against them twice, and think that GWB is the worst president since Franklin Pierce (1856-1860), who was the president who allowed militas to form and battle it out in Kansas, the biggest cause of the American Civil War.
In the US we've allowed the mainstream media to divide us into camps, Liberal/Conservative, Peak Cultist/Cornucopian Evangelical Christian/secular humanist. And its been incredibly divise and is blocking the truth in many areas, because most people don't fit 100% in any camp. But they use certain code words and topics to identify each other.
So what I tried to say is couch your arguements in such a manner as to appeal to others in the group you want to communicate with. Its an old revolutionary communist trick. So if your friend is concerned about national security, talk about how our national security is threatened by the huge level of oil imports; conservation is our patriotic duty. If your friend is a committed christian, talk about the concept of stewardship, a duty to pass on the world in as good a condition as you received it by cutting carbon emmissions. None of this is a lie, its just good salesmanship. Agree with them first, then educate them to agree with you because of what they already believe.
Its not possible to win an arguement, but it is possible to change someones point of view by coming to a concensus.
Hi Bob,
Thanks for coming back and explaining your position so nicely with no offense taken on that touchy subject.
I agree you have to talk to others within their frames of reference. As an instance, I really have had a lot of trouble following a lot of the tech talk on oil as that was right out of my range of experiences and even the day to day, off to the job lunch bucket in hand, stuff is nothing I am familiar with other than through movies.
Let us know how the fishing is there. I am feeling the call of the sea these days myself.
Last year when gas hit 3 bucks I noticed a distinct drop in the level of traffic for a while. Lately the traffic has been the worst I've encountered in five years of my NH/Mass commute.
But hey, record Dow, so everything must be just hunky-dory, right? Right???
The deeper we dig the hole, the longer the drop will be when we fall in...
CrystalRadio said,
"I know I shouldn't let myself be drawn in to this, but oh well, just call me irresponsible, but I find that part of your statement rather offensive."
The United States however, can at least enjoy this one aspect of it's very real jeopardy: Since we (whether the bulk of our people know it or not) a nation now facing a threat to it's very existance, as a nation we are starting not to give a fvck who may find our statements or our actions "offensive" (the truth often is).
Your point is well taken Crystal, we may have brought it on ourselves. We may deserve it. Some have even argued that we could have sold survivors of Auschwitz down the river for oil, and wallowed in the black filth.
Too late for all that. All the Saudi boot lickin' for oil now won't help us. You play the ball where it lies.
The Wahhabi Islamists whose pockets we are shoving hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars of oil money too because we refuse to use our own brains and technology would be all the happier to see any American laid out with their guts open to the sun at the first possble opportunity.
The Americans don't want to hear it. They would rather sit around and dream of the great "meltdowns" and "dieoffs" and "catastrophes" based on that glorious day when the oil runs out. Fantasy upon fantasy is built based upon idiotic speculation, while the real threat is watching for the gap, the place we are not looking, the tear in the fence.
If we are ignorant enough to let our guard down, the talons will rip American flesh asunder for sport, the final "victory" of their righteousness. Do you want a preview? Look at the raped and murdered schoolgirls of Beslan.
Oh, yes, we had forgotten them, while we soared to off to new heights of infantile fantacy about "running out of oil" (I thought "peak" wasn't about "running out?"), we had forgotten the real brutality in the world, hadn't we?
And Putin, the fvckin big talker but non doer, like Bush, did nothing to the real slaughterers. The whole gang of useless shitt. They run when the real threat hits. Where is their sacred honor on either side, to protect their own nations?
"to people who hate us?", you ask? You damm right they hate us, they hate humans in general terms, but us more than most.
Make no mistake, let them bastardds get a hold of the U.S., and "Peak Oil" will hold no fear by comparison. And when we buy their oil, waste it away, and make no effort to change, because it's too much work, or because the neo-primitivist propagandists undercut our will to do so, or the anarchist greens threaten every project we propose, we are giving them the sword to finish us off with. How long do you think you Primitive Green tree fairies will survive when they come for you?
You talk "sheepie"? It will more like butchering lambs. And if you wonder how they will treat your daughters, look back at Beslan. If you think your left wing leadership will protect you any better than the cowards we have now, look at Putin.
And should the great Canadian dream of watching the U.S get sliced, diced and dried in the sun ever come true, let's see how long they can hold their own against the murdering sons of the Order of the Raping Killers of Beslan.
OHHH, CANADA....
RC
Hi Out,
Where do you get this juvenile nonsense from? I'd genuinely like to know. Do you actually believe it? If so, you're sadly deluded; if not, you're depraved and corrupt. Which?
Love,
PUD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khobar_Towers_bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_March_2004_Madrid_attacks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:New_York_Times_9-11.jpg
We said, "We will never forget."
We already have, in less than a decade. Before the children of the dead even grew up. Before the Russian children who saw rape and slaughter could even finish school. Before the estates of the dead passengers in London and Spain are even settled.
We said, "We will never forget". We have forgotten where they even came from. We have forgotten what they told us they would do. We have forgotten that they have told us that "the enemy afar" must be killed. By the way, they named "the enemy afar." That's us, the Americans, and their friends the Jews.
We did not put the words in their mouths, they told us, from the days of "Moslum Brotherhood."
"We will never forget", we said. Now, the ones who have not forgotten will have to protect the ones who have completely forgotten. They do not care who has remembered or forgotten. They have told us. They will gut us for sport, while we pay them to do it.
Roger Conner Jr.
Remember, we are only one cubic mile from freedom
Thanks oilmanbob. Sorry did not reply earlier after asking a qt. I think it is probably a more viable apporach.
Other 'real worldness' -
Will milk become America's new oil?
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/11...
We cannot have ethanol and milk too, at low prices (duh! Bush).
Adding to price presures beyond cow food...
Seems milk prices are rising and global demand is growing. Austrailia is having a drought and New Zealand is maxed out. So they and Asia are looking to the US for milk.
They quote one shopper who has these choices
1)Cheese
2)Gasoline
3)A new pair of shorts for summer
1 and 2 win over 3 for her. Add this "feedback loop" (times millions of americans and millions of products) into the economy along with the subprime mess, lower housing ATM withdrawls, rising electric, nat gas rates.
But wait BC says cow waste will save us....
I wish I could wear rose colored glasses sometimes too.
Re; NZ and milk production
Yes we are pretty maxed out down here in NZ and the diary farmers are having a ball - Fonterra (the milk export monopoly) just announced extra average payouts to farmers of $120,000NZ, and diary farms are sprouting up where ever they can (placing major burdens on aquifers in places like the Canterbury plains).
But just like the US the products are costing us more - prices just up between 6-14% (and thats here in NZ):
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4080583a3600.html
Extra costs coming through in running the machinery and of course feedstock via the biofuel fed inflation.
So even the producer countries are getting whacked by food inflation. The Central Bank here will continue to raise interest rates (base rate stands at a whopping 7.75%) but I really dont see how these can have much effect when its energy and food inflation that are the principle drivers of general inflation here (at least until they go so high that a genuine recession is induced).
"...I really dont see how these can have much effect when its energy and food inflation that are the principle drivers of general inflation here..."
I agree. I know in the US they can/do/will play monetary games to keep things floating. I'm not sure the outcome(s) other than how WT has laid it out.
If you include in that statement that things purchased for a personal good that would result an overall reduction of fossil fuel use are considered a general good, I agree. For example alternative energy products, energy efficiency items, gardening equipment wheelbarrows shovels etc. (in my case a recent purchase of 24 ft* 100ft roll of. greenhouse poly, solid FF there and that is one thing that if it already hasn't done a big jump where you are it likely soon will, 33% jump here as I walked out of the door). I think any use of FF in these directions would be beneficial personally as well as generally.
I have been building a garden because I enjoy gardens and they give me someplace to go that doesn't involve getting in a car. If one has space and time I suggest a garden as a way of reducing consumption. A hive of bees should also be considered for a garden, very nice to listen to the buzzing of the little blighters of an evening, the buzzing goes well with the curses of any neighbours who fear the little critters.
Don't listen to the talk show hosts, its bad for your blood pressure, Jeffry!
If His Idiocy is right about oil being an addiction, then recovery from the addiction may be like recovery from Alcoholism and Drug Addiction. One of the stages identified in coming to acceptance is anger, and identifing us as cultists is a way of cutting us out to persecute, and identifying us as "pointy-headed intellectuals" as Spiro T. Agnew described us. Don't worry, it will get worse.
As far as cutting consumption, we can afford the technology for things like solar, gardening tools, a fishing pole or an electric bike now. In a peak oil depression, many of us will just plain be too broke.
While we're on the subject of talk radio, it's hard to beat good ol' Rush:
He's not addicted to Oxycontin, either. Everybody keeps 3,000 pills around the house of hillbilly heroin.