DrumBeat: October 3, 2006
Posted by threadbot on October 3, 2006 - 9:27am
Topic: Miscellaneous
U.S. to delay buying emergency oil through winter
The Energy Department said Monday it will hold off buying replacement oil for the nation's emergency petroleum stockpile through the winter heating season in order to keep more supplies on the market.To help make more oil available for producing gasoline over the summer and help lower then-soaring pump prices, President Bush in April ordered the Energy Department to delay deliveries and purchases of oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve until this autumn, which began Sept. 22.
...However, the department expects to delay buying that replacement oil during the winter, when demand for heating oil is strong, according to department spokesman Craig Stevens.
Price of gas is cheapest since February
WASHINGTON - Drivers continued to find more savings at the pump, as the price for gasoline fell for the eighth week in a row to the lowest level since February, the government said on Monday.
Oil Analysts Raise 2007 Forecasts as Demand May Outpace Supply
U.K.: Gas traders start giving it away
A glut of natural gas supplies in Britain has seen prices collapse and left traders having to pay for it to be taken off their hands.
UK To Be Permanent Net Oil Importer In 2007
The U.K. is set to become a permanent net importer of crude oil and refined products in 2007 - three years earlier than the U.K.'s Department of Trade and Industry expects, according to the U.K.-based Oil Depletion Analysis Centre Monday.Depletion rates of the U.K.'s oil and gas reserves in the North Sea are occurring faster than expected and production coming onstream in the next few years from new fields won't be enough to compensate, said ODAC director Douglas Low.
5 killed, 9 missing in Nigeria attack
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria - Dozens of militants sank two military patrol boats in Nigeria's oil-rich, southern delta Monday in an attack that killed five soldiers and left nine others missing, an army spokesman said.
Cameroon: Gov't Wants Order in Energy Consumption
Ecuador oil policy upsets private firms
As campaigning for general elections in Ecuador gathers momentum, issues relating to the oil sector, which has for long had a dominant role in the country's politics and economy, are more to the fore than ever before.
Malaysia: Shell positions itself for future demand
New Zealand: Feedback wanted on oil emergency response strategy
The government is seeking feedback on what it proposes to do in the event of an emergency disruption to oil supplies.
China Jockeys For South American Oil
China, Hungry for Fuel, Keeps Daqing's Old Oil Pumps Kowtowing
A strategic thinker who called all the correct diplomatic and military plays preceding Operation Iraqi Freedom now sees diplomatic failure and air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities.
Political Tectonic Shift: Energy Policy under the North American Union
Montana to Build Coal-To-Liquid Fuel Plant
Texas in $10 billion partnership for more wind power
Silicon vs. CIGS: With solar energy, the issue is material
The population bomb is ticking again: Scenarios are dire, but solutions may be surprisingly easy.
Sometime on Sun/Monday there was a break in and a bike of mine got swiped. After doing the police report, I thought "I'll get over to the local schools and see if my bike is in the rack."
At the high school - 3 bikes, one with disk brakes (better than mine) At the grade schools - not a single bike rack, let alone bikes.
Remind me how this transportation/energy thing will all work out fine?
I'm not registered as a Republican, so I'm safe.
Thnking about getting the dog to put in papers to run for office as a Republican however. She likes pork and has been known to lick boys.
Rather in the last week or two, there have been 3 seperate gunman attacks on schools through out the US, and security has been stepped up in a number districts to be watchful of strange people hanging around schools.
At one time I saw a bloody body in a fed building, men in body armor and guns standing all about, film crews for the local TV channels were there, yet not a peep from the media. So I'm a little more willing to believe the position of attackes not reported, based on my own lying eyes.
Pheeeer of the Eeeeevil gunman and me being a threat implys the use of obeservation of the outside of the school AND people who cared enough to to be doing a job to call in my walking about on land my tax dollars pay for. Rather over the top if one feels one has to call in someone walking around the back of a school or driving about a school.
I just would have wipped out the incident report number, explained why I was there, then bitched aobut the lack of bicycle racks.
Has the hyprocracy of Mr. Foley hit a nerve with you? Did you believe he cared? Did you believe that he had the interest of childern at heart when he was drafting laws to 'protect the childern'?
Pehaps you thought when Mr. Foley said "it's vile" you felt the older man in power - younger woman dynamic was vile, not the male-female dynamic.
"It's vile," said Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach. "It's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction."
http://www.sptimes.com/Worldandnation/91298/Congress_sees_through.html
For you to even CLAIM "ridiculous R-D frame." shows your filter on the world needs adjusting. If I thought spending any more time on you would adjust your filter, I would bother.
BTW and for the record I have always supported the Democrats and I don't see that changing.
When Susan Smith confessed to drowning her two children in a South Carolina lake, Congressman Newt Gingrich was quick to blame the Democrats. Campaigning Saturday, November 5, 1994 in his home state of Georgia he said:
"I think that the mother killing the two children in South Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we have to have change. I think people want to change and the only way you get change is to vote Republican. That's the message for the last three days."
His statement was quickly picked up and repeatedly replayed by the national media. See here and here.
In May, 1955 on Meet the Press host Tim Russert asked Gingrich to defend his statements linking Susan Smiths's actions to the Democrats. Gingrich refused to back down. "Why do we have all these problems we didn't have in 1955?" he asked Russert. Gingrich then went on to blame America's post-1955 social decay on "a long pattern of counterculture belief . . . deep in the Democratic Party" that had "undervalued the family" and "consistently favored alternative life styles."
Full text link is here.
Somehow, the old adage about reaping what you sow keeps coming to mind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn7qCzV5sNM
Fox labeling Foley a Democrat
It appears briefly at the start of this YouTube video.
Plus, most school zones extend far beyond the range at which even high schoolers can ride to and from the school. Do you want to ride 10 miles or more one way?
I have 2 elem. schools, and a middle and high school within about a mile of my house. Actually the elem. and high school is within a half mile.
About 4 hours ago.
"I wouldn't let my kids do it if I had any. (Not just for traffic -you know how nuts people are these days.)"
They walk to the elementary school. I plan to bike with them to middle school, since the school's on one of my two routes to work. They'll probably bus to high school, though, unless TSHTF. In that case, the city will put in the planned bike path after all, and they can bike to school on that (4 miles each way).
Kids these days.. so tame. Not like in my day./
NAACP members are livid over a Yale Police
e-mail they claim unfairly pegs all black
youths on bicycles in the city as criminals.
The e-mail was sent to the Yale community
by university Police Chief James A.Perrotti
last week after an alleged incident involving
youths on bicycles.....
peace
I'm sure thievery will proliferate if economic times get extremely rough.
So I wouldn't want to say that I weight the following too strongly. It ain't my social movement, but the fact that it exists with its own self-binding gravity, is not really enough to disprove it either:
The End of the World As They Know It
(I think that's similar to past article, but this one seems to be dated September 2nd)
I may be going to hell in a bucket, babe,
But at least I'm enjoying the ride. ..
Ship of fools
on a cruel sea
Ship of fools
sail away from me...
It's three AM in the combat zone.
Gentlemen start your engines!..
Help on the way
I know only this
I've got you today
Don't fly away
'cause I love what I love
and I want it that way...
Sugar magnolia
Ringin' that blue bell
Caught up in sunlight
Come on out singing
I'll walk you in the sunshine
Come on honey, come along with me
...Sunshine daydream
Walk you the tall trees
Going where the wind goes
Blooming like a red rose
Breathing more freely
Light out singing
I'll walk you in the morning sunshine
Sunshine daydream
Walk you in the sunshine
What a long strange trip it's been.
Or else
I wonder about the fashionableness aspect that this Anderson fella is trying to push though. Wasn't there a similar undercurrent in the 50's (from Toynbee's History and nuclear obsessions)? And Oswald Spengler was pushing the Rome similarities back in the 20s with his "Decline of the West."
It comes to mind that possibly, just possibly, the widespread willingness to entertain such notions might be suggesting an underlying discontent with the direction we're headed in?
The idea that these various (unfriendly) groups could share a lot of unconscious social messaging is interesting, and IMO not out of the question.
While I know its considered fashionable to bash the Christians on these forums, could we at least try to play fair. People at the ToD don't like to be compared to Greenpeace, or militant eco movements, so don't try to broadbrush all Christians with the same stroke.
Firstly, nowhere in the bible does it specify a time when the return of Christ (and thus "end of times") will occur.
Secondly not all Christians are waiting with baited breath for the end to come so He can return. While in one sense we look forward toward that moment because of what it will mean for us and God's kingdom, there are quite a few of us who also know what it means for everyone else, and despite your depictions, quite a few of us are not in a hurry to see that fate come to pass for Earth. I have a lot of non-Christian friends and family which I have no desire to see them in suffering.
And lastly, who is to say that humanity is going to end in one apocalypse? I wouldn't be surprised in the least if Earth fries itself up crispy via nuclear war and we go on for another couple of thousand years before the "end of times".
I agree the 2K mark has a lot of people in a tizzy, add to that the dating surrounding this death cult Ahmadinejad belongs to and the 2012 mark from some Indian cultures, and we've got quite the ruckus. But end of the world thinking nothing new, nor even specific to a given culture, nor specific to post Christ times.
The only difference with this time, and the other current 20th century episodes of "fashionable" doomsdayness is that perhaps for the first time in mankind's history we truly do have the ability to self-fulfill the prophecies that are running around rampant.
But if you think, that somehow Christians in general are pushing for this because they think it means Christ is returning, I'd strongly recommend you get that stereotype out of your head. For one it does a disservice to those Christians like myself who are in no rush for a return, and secondly does a disservice to you for thinking that the politicos are driven by this, when they are probably driven by a much more fundamental stimuli known as greed.
And if you do find a Christian who is salivating at the coming of the end times, send him to me. I'll remind him that if he is that anxious for the end, what that will mean in regards to his friends, family, and himself, as the Bible doesn't have kind words for the church during the end of times.
Agreed, there are some evangelical movements that put an emphasis on "end of times" messages, but as someone who has been studying the rising numbers of "seeker" churches and strongly dislikes the way they try to reach people for Christ, I can assure you this end of times message is more of a side note to their "feel good" message. (that's not to say Evangelical churches are seeker churches, but certainly a side effect of the Evangelical movement have been seeker churches).
The church (and I mean this amongst all denominations) is at a bit of a crossroads right now. Gaining in popularity are a number of seeker churches, some of which have grown extremely large and extremely decadent, by using a message that is only a half truth of what the Bible teaches. (Primarily the half that says you are forgiven, and that your consequences will be washed away).
A lot of Christians including myself from more traditional beliefs, believe this is a dangerous and really an untruthful way to present the word of God. Yes we believe Christ died for our sins, and that before the judgement of God, the consequences of those sins will be wiped away(namely eternal death/damnation). But the Bible doesn't say the consequences of our actons on Earth will be wiped away, nor does it say that we should continue in our old ways of sin after being saved. Yet the "seeker" churches are conveniently ignoring these more Earthly lessons, and in my opinion setting their followers up for a great fall.
One Christian theologian I heard summed it up by pointing out that in the early church there was a debate about whether we should continue to sin in order to increase the greatness of Christ's deed, or that we should instead live more holy lives as a tribute to the sacrifice Christ made. The debate ended with the latter side winning, but lately a resurgence of the former seems to have crept back up from the dredges of past theologian debate.
When you throw a feel good message into the path of the down trodden(the poor have made up a large number of "new" church goers), you will find listeners. (If anything the lack of political will to address PO re-enforces this notion)
In some cases add to that a message of hellfire on the "world" that ran them over then yes there is some merit to certain factions trumping up an end of times message.
But most moderate and traditional Christians stick the belief that the end times will happen on God's time and that man will not know the hour, and that we need to live our lives on Earth, and not abandon our Earthly duties for a thought of his emminent return. In fact one of the early churches was rebuked for not tending to their duties because thought Christ would return any day.
But then "traditional" moderate Christians don't make good/interesting news pieces, so its unlikely you will hear about their views of the end times, and instead hear about the guy yelling "the end is nigh, the end if nigh" because of the sheer spectacle of it all.
Just as it is true that not all Christians identify themselves as evangelical, it is also true that not all evangelicals are premillenialists. According to Timothy Weber, "They make up about one-third of America's 40 or 50 million evangelical Christians." It should also be added that not all of the premillenialists are whacko, but that's a subjective judgement.
For anyone wanting to gain a deeper understanding of the Dispensational Premillenialists, I highly recommend Weber's "Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American Premillenialism 1875-1982" (unfortunately out of print). More recently, he's written "On the Road to Armageddon: How Evangelicals Became Israel's Best Friend," excerpted here.
I think Kevin Phillips in American Theocracy did a good job of showing where "end times" plays in the various current branches of American Christianity.
FWIW, it wasn't much of a topic in the Lutheran Church of my youth.
What Tainter referred to as "scanning behavior." A sign of a society facing diminishing returns. People become increasingly disatisfied with the way things are, and start casting about for alternatives. Wacky religions or foreign ideologies may become trendy. Partisan strife increases.
This IMHO is a serious obstacle to any meaningful change as Toynbee describes. Why would anyone with this attitude be inclined to deal with the difficult choices rooted in harsh reality (i.e. peak oil) when they have the outlook that they are the $10 million dollar leading role and all the rest of us are just extras. Now consider the fact that the TeeVee has sold a large percentage of the population on this way of looking at life - starting at a younger and younger age - and you see big problems coming as the credits roll at the end...