DrumBeat: June 23, 2006
Posted by threadbot on June 23, 2006 - 9:15am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Iran to halt gasoline imports, impose rationing
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran will halt gasoline imports from September 23 and start rationing gasoline supplies to motorists because of budget constraints, Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said on Friday.Parliamentarians in the OPEC producer approved a budget for the year to March 2007 that cut the amount to be spent on gasoline imports to $2.5 billion from $4 billion.
This meant President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's populist government, which draws its support from the poor, was faced with an unappetising choice of hiking petrol prices or rationing, both potential sources of social discontent.
Perhaps a diesel hybrid, fuel cell or industrial-sized popcorn popper
One thing is for certain, though, the next 10 years to 15 years will change what we drive more dramatically than anything we have experienced during the past 50 years of automotive history.Update [2006-6-23 9:36:19 by Leanan]: Ukraine Scrambling To Crisis Over Gas Supplies
MOSCOW — Ukraine is scurrying to form a government coalition and head off a gas crisis that could hit July 1, when its controversial supply deal with Russia expires.On the U.S. political front...Leaders of Orange Revolution factions announced Wednesday they had reached a last-minute coalition deal. But with just two days left to collect signatures before parliament must be dissolved, Turkmenistan announced it could cut off gas supplies.
3 Oil Firms May Alter Gulf Leases
Facing angry lawmakers from both political parties, executives from three major oil companies — Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and ConocoPhillips — indicated on Wednesday that they might be willing to give up sizable taxpayer subsidies for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.Maybe that Cape Cod windfarm will be built after all: Lawmakers reach compromise on wind farm.But one of the most active players in the gulf, the Kerr-McGee Corporation, showed no signs of compromise and told a House hearing that it was entitled to the subsidies — known as royalty relief — even if oil prices remained above $70 a barrel. And Exxon Mobil said it saw no reason for the subsidies to be changed.
World Cup, Al Gore, go "carbon neutral."
Speaking of carbon... A Torrent of Darkness
“THE AIR WAS SO THICK that I thought I was choking,” she said. “The pollution was just unbelievable. All the locals wore surgical masks, and so did almost everyone in our group. I would get back to the hotel room and I had black lines of soot all over my face. I would cough up black phlegm all evening. I grew up in Pittsburgh in the 1950s and 1960s and I never saw anything like it before.” The speaker was a close acquaintance who visited China about two months ago.
And you can see streaming video of T. Boone Pickens on The Charlie Rose Show here.
Lehman Brothers says Oil and gas firms' spending accelerating. They were expecting it to increase 14.7%; instead, it's 21.3%. Not including Aramco.
The Saudis say they have foiled another attack: Saudi forces shoot dead six al-Qaida men.
Update [2006-6-23 12:58:47 by Leanan]: EPA report concludes 'boutique' fuels not the culprit in high gas prices.
"Boutique" gasoline blends to help states meet clean air rules are not a factor in higher prices as President Bush has suggested, says a draft of a study ordered by the White House.It's not just gasoline: rising electricity rates are becoming an issue. In Maryland, the governor vetoed a utility relief plan. Consumers are facing a 72% rise in rates. In Pennsylvania, they are trying to deregulate without the price spikes Maryland is facing....Facing growing public outrage over soaring gasoline prices, Bush ordered the study on April 25 in a speech in which he attributed high gas prices in part to the growth of special fuels.
The interesting part is that an enbargo of gasoline exports to Iran has often been mentioned as a possible sanction if Iran does not stop enrichment. Instead of a budget issue, a suspension of gasoline imports may be Iran's way to prepare for forced lower domestic consumption and a way to neutralize the threat as a negotiating tactic.
Who knows? Maybe they might see the light in that just you wait for Mohommed to return but he will not. Kind of like Melanesians who set up airports waiting for us Americans to come back not understanding our logistical/economic system. (Melanesians are prone to "cargo cults" due to WW v.2.0)
Here is a reply I sent to a reply I received from Grey Zone on a different thread here...
My point is that we need a plan. The graphs and all are depressing. Here is how depressing PO is as people I don't know decide that threats will help things. I love debates but threatening to PURG me is not a plan. I read back over my posts to look at how I used "purge" and this is what I said...
No death threats at all. I called being lazy a lifestyle that would be purged. I didn't say or imply how. I simply assumed the lazy behavior would go away. I might be lazy today but tomorrow that feeling is replaced by the desire for a new pair of shoes... Cha ching PURGED
Grey Zone is frustrated. He does not like learning that we are like rats or mice on a wheel. He has become a doomer. There are many doomers these days...
- Weather Doomers
- PO Doomers
- Bible Doomers
- Disease Doomers
- Magnetic Reversal Doomers
- And on and on and on...
What is the point of worrying about spilled milk? If I want to survive I need hope. I need to see the threats. I need to make plans. I need to make alliances. I need to laugh, etc.Come on in the sky is falling! Holly shit we are all gonna die... Well yea we are so what is your plan till we do? Will you purge me? Will you purge hope? We happen to be on a journey and we don't know exactly what will happen. As I said several times in that thread, "Tell me your plan or help me with mine!"
PO Graphs are depressing. PO is depressing. Being threatened is depressing. And on and on!
I was wrong and promptly admitted it comes to mind. As per graphs the people here have talents yet the results get more and more depressing. Suppose decline goes over 12% then we are at or off the cliff. Surely most of us will no longer have an internet connection and will not get to see the graphs any more. This is why I want to see plans now since it is all mixed together.
Frankly I have been reading this site for much longer than I have been posting on it. I don't remember my first visit here. PO is peaking frustration since the squeeze is on all of us. If I move too far down the doomer path then the point of attending this site becomes just as meaningless is I go too far down into denial.
My future wife and I sometimes watch the news and the propaganda is thick. Why are gas prices so high? Well it's the war you see. How many doomers does it take to change a light bulb? None, since the light is to blame! I have many doom moments too!
PAX
I can't even have a rational conversation with such a position. You are like a child demanding we all live in a fictional place like Middle Earth, sing kumbayah, and roast marshmallows around the campfire for the next billion years.
You do NOT have a plan. You have an irrational wishlist that has no relationship to reality, what homo sapiens is, and how we have behaved to date. If you think that demanding that we behave differently is going to make us change our behavior then you don't understand natural selection at all.
You are the one that used the word "purge" first. Don't get all sanctimonious with me when you started this. You are a Stalin-lite, full of nonsensical ideas and willing to "purge" people who don't cooperate. Well guess what? The rest of us may not roll over and let you "purge" us at all.
Free energy? Free food? Free healthcare? Who is going to provide all this? Oh... it's not really free is it? In other words, you are incapable of even using the English language clearly. You don't even know what you are saying. What you are really proposing is a system of quotas whereby everyone gets the same amount of such things (and the rich don't get to have more than the poor) but have you looked at history and why such utopian BS never works?
I see you waffling on your use of the word purged too. How are you going to make lazy lifestyles go away if someone else doesn't want to cooperate? What are you going to do, wish them into compliance with your new world order? How are you going to make people stop behaving in a way that you don't like? Answer that please.
Homo sapiens is a nasty species, especially compared to other mammals. It's precisely why we are at the top of the heap on this planet right now. It's why we are capable and willing to go to war and kill one another whereas most other mammals won't do such things. This is how we've been naturally selected, and any "plan" for the future that fails to account for what we are is no plan at all.
Issues? You are the one with issues. You are the one living in a total fantasy world. Good luck with your "plan" because I can guarantee that several billion others are not going to cooperate with such nonsense. Deal with that reality.
And my final comment yesterday still stands. TOD is a community focused on reality not fantasy. Bringing utopian fantasies here doesn't help solve anything.
Back to the point show me the comment that says I will purge anyone who does not agree. Show me how I became a dictator while you're at it. I was under the impression there would be elections. Not only free homes fella homes that are efficient and yours till you die unless relocation becomes necessary as in eminent domain!
Show me the money honey!
Pseudo-mystical nonsense doesn't have a place here, thank you very much. The great strength of TOD has been in facts, data, and clear headed thinking, not in pseudo-mystical nonsense.
But I do know that every time I see two grown up guys getting into an argument here, they must be americans.
Never see a Swede beating up a Chinaman, or vice versa. Or a guy from paris doing a block-block-jab on a guy from Brazil.
This is not high school. You can't bully your way around.
Can you guys go back to the way mom told you? Even in the blog world, it's no good all this shouting. If you would rase your voice to your neighbor like this, he would call the police. Or the Sherif, if you are from Texas ;-)
(The last line is a joke. Don't shoot me, I am unarmed and I have no WMD. No oil either ;-)
To tell you the truth, I don't think anybody has ever treatened me in my whole life.
Do you have to sling playground persiflage back and forth here on the valuable real estate of TOD? Can't you take this somewhere else please?
-C.
Please be kind and rewind.
-C.
Suppose you're online and Greyzone traces your IP and manages to find out information about you (location, time zone, sex, age, name, street address, work address). At some point this person threatens you in such a way that you are not completely sure if you or your family are SAFE any longer. You don't know what Greyzone knows regarding networks, weapons, etc.
What would you do?
And ask yourself if you are really contributing anything to this "thing that you like" by continuing this.
Leanan how is this:
You give me a block/iggy button and that is no issue!
I wish I could. Believe you me, I would be making use of such a function myself, if it existed.
You can try PeakOil.com. They have an Ignore function there.
Are you serious? Seriously, you should just move off topic... post about something else... and get on with your day.
I'm going to lunch, Hey Greyzone, see if you can back trace my IP, I'm spoofing trough 4 IPs right now see if you can geo-target me :)
-C.
(scale of 1-10; 1 not at all and 10 totally)
Pre-2001:
Insane Paranoid
Me - 2 1
Current Day:
Insane Paranoid
Me - 8 3
-C.