DrumBeat: August 7, 2006
Posted by threadbot on August 7, 2006 - 9:10am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Rising oil price has wider impact
(CNN) -- Higher oil prices are starting to cause havoc far beyond the petrol bowser. Slowly but surely, the rise in the price of oil is pushing up inflation and interest rates and affecting people's spending habits and share markets.
How power-hungry cities drive projects like NYRI. Goal: Move excess energy to coasts.
Energy-efficient homes the wave of the future
Oil's twilight: The Chicago Tribune reflects on the meaning of Paul Salopek's special report on peak oil.
PTT Exploration Finds `Significant' Energy Reserves in Myanmar
U.K.: British high street targets energy-conscious consumers
Eco-friendly Britons seeking relief from soaring domestic energy bills can now pop down the high street and pick up solar panels for their homes.Electrical goods group Currys became the first major retailer in Britain to sell the power panels after Britain experienced its hottest month on record in July.
Japan checking disputed oil production
TOKYO: Japan is checking whether China has started production at a disputed gas field in the East China Sea that Tokyo says may extend into its territory, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said.The stated-owned parent of China's CNOOC Ltd. said on its Web site on Friday that the firm had begun production at the Chunxiao field in the East China Sea.
Dubai to take control of offshore oil resources
In planning energy future, think local, small and clean
OVERSHADOWED by the expanding debate over global warming, another environmental issue is heating up: the grim prospects that Appalachia and the other coal-rich areas of America face as energy companies plan a series of some 150 major new coal-burning plants.[Update by Yankee on 08/07/06 at 1:22 PM EDT]Already, reports Joe Lovett of the Lewisburg, W.Va.-based Appalachian Center, the brutal mountaintop removal that operators currently favor as the fastest way to extract Appalachian coal has buried more than 1,200 miles of previously free-flowing streams and caused the loss of more than 1 million acres of the world's most productive hardwood forests.
William Saletan reflects on why air conditioning is destroying the world
That's the problem in Washington today. Policymakers aren't facing global warming, because they aren't feeling it. They gave themselves air conditioning in the 1920s and '30s, long before the public got it. White House meetings and congressional hearings on climate change are doomed hours beforehand, when the thermostats are set. One minute, you're watching video of people sweltering in New Orleans. The next minute, you're watching senators dispute the significance of greenhouse gases. Don't ask whether these people are living on the same planet. In effect, they aren't.
Isolated Americans trying to connect
Among the causes: ever longer commutes, and the Internet, which gives people the illusion of intimacy. You may have 1,000 "friends" on Facebook, but if you're arrested for DWI at 3am, will any of them go to the ATM for $200 and come bail you out?
I was particularly surprised to learn that many college students are spending all their time in their rooms, chatting online with their high school friends rather than meeting people in person. I really enjoyed the campus social life when I was in college. I'm an introvert, but in college, it was easy to make friends. Hundreds of kids torn away from their old connections, eager to make new ones. Not any more, I guess.
Our local radio host went to lunch two weeks ago at Big Sky Cafe and a dad and son sat down next to him. The son was listening to tunes on his ipod, all plugged in so to speak, and the two did not have a conversation with each other through the entire lunch.
A. The sound of her cellphone hitting the floor.
But then, back then there was no TV, internet, or stereo systems.
http://home.discovery.com/tuneins/flipthathouse/flipthathouse.htmlFlipping real estate by John T. Reed
My how things have changed since then in the housing market.
And that's the problem. The suburbs are about like a lunar colony where the homes serve as habitats and the cars as the spacecraft. You can't walk anywhere in the suburbs any more than you can walk on the moon without a spacesuit. That's becuse everything in the asphalt desert is too bloody far away. I lived briefly in the suburbs before what seemed to be a mass extinction of bars. Now, it would be some lonely stuff out there.
Why the mass extinction of bars? The automobile is a good suspect. With DUI being dangerous, and fiercer crackdowns to get these morons off the road, people gave up on going to the local bar. So, they close up.
It's little wonder the coffee shop cropped up. But people are too busy to socialise there thanks to laptops. Also, if you're already an insomniac, a coffee shop is a poor choice anyways even without laptop proliferation.
I wish I could find this..... in the 70s they had a 2nd version of The Mickey Mouse Club show on TV, with some neat re-runs of some of the funkiest Disney cartoons, one was about cars, and was from a sort of "space alien visiting Earth" perspective, it was eerie, the space alien's conclusion was that cars were the dominent life form and humans seemed to be a sort of parasite on the cars.....
However, there is a reason for it. The garage is put between the house and the street in order to shelter the living space from street noise.
The actual human-occupied portion appears increasingly secondary, little more than an add on in the back. An architectural nightmare.
The importance of the automobile in US culture cannot be overstated.
Personally, I'm fond of the "breezeway." A little screened or windowed porch that connects the garage to the house. You can sit out there in summer, and put the beer there to keep cold in winter. :)
My parents' garage is in back of the house, connected to the kitchen. But I think that's partly because of the association rules of the subdivision they live in. You cannot leave your garage door open if it can be seen from the street. So people turn the garage sideways and put it in the backyard.
Chris Alexander in "A Pattern Language" makes a strong case about doorways, transitions and entrances. No, the garage is there first and foremost because that is how people come into their home. It IS the front door. It's not there to block noise from the street. I'm one of those Mainers with a garage too useful to park a car in - in other words it's full of trash and treasure. My ex lives in one of those developments where cars have to sleep in the garage. That's her front door, an oil-stained concrete slab. I have to walk outside past the roses, peony and herbs. Sometimes in the rain.
My bike, OTOH, lives in the house, in the front entryway. Hers is hanging up with flat tires in the garage.
cfm
Its quite common that a door closer to the kitchen is the most used door even if it isent the front door.
Cultural difference?
And I prefer insomnia before alcoholism any day even if both are realy bad for your driving.
Most important thing. Even for hermits like myself.
It is one of the few US cities (are there others ?) where being a "good guy" is randomly but consistently rewarded. Free Jazz Fest tickets last two years, people recognize me and compliment me and ask if there is anything they can do to help.
The volunteers from outside (God Bless Them) are consistently amazed at how easy it is to talk to strangers (my guess, 10% to 15% move here, mentioning that you are a volunteer gets all sorts of extras in our disaster zone).
Have been also making my old 5500 generator run, stocking up on water, fuel and non-perishables. drive an '83 BMW that get 31 mpg. Am also attending a local zoning hearing tomorrow and urging for more infill/density (less Suburbia) Just little things but trying to be ready.
I'm not a cornucopioan or a doomer, just an average person looking at a harsh reality and wanting to make the best of it.
Connecting with other people may be the hardest but most rewarding aspect of this process. I have noticed the more I try to say hello or strike up conversations the easier and more frequent it becomes. People do seem ready to re-connect.
We are undoubtedly facing some tough times ahead, but it will have some benefits. I am urging my daughters to study/work toward energy related fields.
Good luck all!
I now live in a new city, working at a new company for the last year. In that time, I have been invited by only one individual to a social function.
Further, as a single, middle-aged, divorced man with no children, I find that there is no social network in which I fit. Too old for the younger single crowd; too different for the middle-aged family crowd: too young for the geriatric crowd. Translation: social outcast.
Additionally, in the 12 years since my divorce, I have yet to meet a suitable woman to date. When I lived in Dallas, all the woman commented that I did not meet their standards because of low job status or low income. In other words, I did not rate.
As a consequence of the above, I spend my free time ambling around my apartment and reading theoildrum instead of engaging with people. It seems that people can't be bothered anymore.
Many a young girl are taught to hold out until their prince in a shining castle shows up. Some grow up and figure out it was another lie-of-the-elites.
If you give up and mope in your apartment, then the outcome is guaranteed. If you go out to some PO or other conferences you might meet somebody of like mind. Don't give up. All you got to do is meet one, even if there are a lot of toad princesses along the journey. Good luck mate ... and God speed.
Also, take community education classes--great way to meet people and learn new skills.
Religion is great at this, and one of the biggest things we have lost in realising its evil side. But times are a changing. Some are very accepting of atheists. Assuming you don't already have a faith, try a Buddhist group (particularly Zen) or the Society of Friends. If you look at it from an evolutionarily point of view, we evolved religion to bring us together, to unite us. You don't have to abandon your beliefs to utilise the parts of our wet-ware that were made for this purpose.
Alternatively get involved in some kind of sustainable group building straw bale houses or such like. That will get you involved in just the right kind of people.
Fitness things are great as well. you don't even need to be supper fit, just making some effort.
But the sort of social isolation described in this thread that I can also relate to is much less rampant. Places like Peru and Colombia are also dating nirvanas for a decent single north-american or european guy who speaks a little Spanish. Nothing I know of compares to the friendliness and passion of a true (unamericanized) latina woman!
Go to the places you often visit, like the grocery store, with the object of being friendly and pleasant to any attractive female you encounter. Of course she will turn out to be married (all the good ones are already married). Be friendly anyway because the married ones have unmarried or newly single friends. There's no better way to a woman's heart than through the good graces of her closest friends.
You don't have to be overwhelmingly suave and smooth, just pleasant.
And never forget the bumper sticker:
"Librarians do it by the book."
Personally, I've had a lot of guys hit on me at the Barnes & Noble superstore. It's kind of an interesting way to meet people, because you can tell a lot about them by what section of the bookstore they're lurking in. You meet a lot of guys in the science fiction section. They may be dressed in Star Trek costumes and speaking Klingon, though. ;-)
I have not had much luck at libraries (aside from my college library). Public libraries, IME, tend to discourage socializing. It makes noise, y'know.
And an awful lot of the people I have met in public libraries have been genuine, card-carrying nutburgers. There was the guy who used to hold up his pencil and talk to it like it was a person. The guy who came to the library to read their newspapers and would get so worked up he'd start swearing and spitting on the articles. (Kinda discouraged anyone else from reading the papers.) The guy who had Vietnam flashbacks whenever someone of Asian descent came in. The man who seemed like a friendly, intelligent, normal guy, until he asked me if I'd seen any CIA agents (they were following him, you know).
And best of all, the handsome young man who followed me around in the library with his hand in his pants, jerking off. I complained to the police, and they said as long as he kept it in his pants, it wasn't illegal. They also said this type of guy wasn't dangerous, so I shouldn't worry. Two weeks later, he raped and sodomized a 14-year-old girl in a laundromat.
When I referred to libraries, it was in my college days, and yes, college libraries are a different animals than public libraries.
So the morale of the story is "stay away from Leanan's library and laundromat.
The book store route (Borders, Barnes & Noble) is probably the best idea if you are not at a university.
At the main downtown branch of our library, they're better equiped to deal with homeless and as a result, they are better behaved. But walking around you can tell who is there for the air conditioning and security of an indoor space. Barnes & Nobles can ask anyone they don't want there to leave whereas the public library has to pretty much wait for the person to do something that will involve the police.
There is a rule in our library against putting your head down on the tables, so you'll often see people sleeping sitting up with a book in their hands.
As a culture, rather than trying to deal with the problem, our solution has been to abandon public libraries in favor of private bookstores (normally of the corporate chain variety). It reminds me a lot of how the problems of the inner city were "solved" by moving the middle and upper classes to the suburbs/exurbs.
I do not shun our local public libraries even if there are a few people that are a bit unkept in there. I would not look for someone to date there, however, which was the topic of discussion.
There are still some great kids reading and craft programs at our public libraries and make for a cheap entertaining day trip in the summertime.
Wear a carnation in that buittonhole in the lapel. As you walk down the street everyone will smile. People will come up and talk to you. They will think you are fascinating, a real character. If you can't keep up your side of the conversation they will think it's their fault.
You will get a date. Since you have a flower in your buttonhole you are absolutely obligated to bring the young lady a bouquet. She will accept it and then accept everything else.
Very seriously, doing something outward and visible that denotes a high level of self-regard and self-confidence - wearing a carnation - will transform the way everyome you meet behaves towards you and will lift your spirits. As the ladies see how well-treated and well received you are they will gravitate towards you
IMHO, if you want to meet people turn off the TV and leave the house. You'd be amazed. Churches are an excellent place to meet people and, as mentioned above, there are numerous different faiths in LA. I'm surprised there isn't a Peak Oil church here yet!
I know another middle-aged loser er grown up single person like me, he plays the guitar and plays around downtown, not for tips but just for fun, it's a safety valve from his soul-killing military industrial complex job and he has a whole network of friends.
Hanging out in community places like the independent coffee shop, the funky downtown if you have one (if not, better move) and getting into something you really like, from sailing to rockhounding, should result in a good crop of real friends after the required number of years. Things where you need friends like sailing, hiking, rockhounding, etc may be especially good since it's kind of known at any time you may really need each other for help while out on the water, our in the desert, etc.
A case in point. We have a variety of battery-electric vehicles in the building and all too often people use a vehicle until it dies. Now, it must be pushed with the helpful person to steer - or I bring a fresh battery on a cart and a "jumper cable", attach the cart and vehicle to pull it, and the cable. The result is that the vehicle is like the old locomotive with tender car and I drive it to the room with the battery chargers, and charge it. With the jumper cable, the forklift can carry its external battery back! It takes less time to do it this way than to find someone to help!
We have on occasion been too helpful. For example, the time someone stole the soda vending machine. Several of my coworkers helped the thief load it onto his truck, not realizing he was a thief and not from the vending company.
It shows a man standing in front of an oncoming train. The narrator says something about global warming not being a serious problem for 30 years, so "It won't affect me." The man steps out of the path of the train, and you see that standing behind him, hidden from view until then, is a little girl, with the train bearing down on her.
This link is given at the end of the ad.
It's not funded by Pat Robertson. (I think his conversion was too recent to have already funded commercials.)
Rather it is partly funded by the Robertson Foundation, controlled by Julian Robertson who ran a hedge fund (the Tiger Fund) for about 30 years with success similar to that of George Soros.
Pat Robertson was paid $2 billion for his Christian broacasting network -- so maybe he'll decide to throw some money at it as well in the future.
Unfortunately the ad is misleading. The changes are looking to be much more sudden than conventional wisdom considers reasonable. Methane hydrates, for instance, already thawing and bubbling up off the coast of California (watch the video):
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=2274439&page=1
and the Amazon forest could be essentially gone within a handful of years:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10392615
Grain shortages are already showing up (7 of the last 8 years, there has been a global deficit and global grain stocks are now at their lowest point in more than a generation).
Climate change needs to be discussed as immediate and unprecedented crisis. No more of this "think of you children" stuff. More like: think of saving your own ass in the next few years. It should have the same personal urgency as a cancer diagnosis.
Amazonian drought
Filed under:
* Climate Science
* Greenhouse gases
-- gavin @ 10:51 am
There has been a flurry of recent commentary concerning Amazon drought - some of it good, some of it not so good. The good stuff has revolved around a recently-completed interesting field experiment that was run out of the Woods Hole Research Center (not to be confused with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), where they have been examining rainforest responses to drought - basically by using a very large rainproof tent to divert precipitation at ground level (the trees don't get covered up). As one might expect, a rainforest without rain does not do well! But exactly what happens when and how the biosphere responds are poorly understood. This 6 year long field experiment may provide a lot of good new data on plant strategies for dealing with drought which will be used to improve the models and our understanding of the system.
The not-so-good part comes when this experiment is linked too directly to the ongoing drought in the southern Amazon. In the experiment, older tree mortality increased markedly after the third year of no rain at all (with around 1 in 10 trees dying). Since parts of the Amazon are now entering a second year of drought (possibly related to a persistent northward excursion of the ITCZ), the assumption in the Independent story (with the headline 'One year to save the Amazon') was that trees will start dying forest-wide next year should the drought continue.
This is incorrect for a number of reasons. Firstly, drought conditions are not the same as no rain at all - the rainfall deficit in the middle of the Amazon is significant, but not close to 100%! Secondly, the rainfall deficits are quite regionally variable, so a forest-wide response is highly unlikely. Also, the trees won't all die in just one more year and could recover, depending on yearly variation in climate.
While this particular article is exaggerated, there are, however, some issues that should provoke genuine concern. Worries about the effects of the prolonged drought (and other natural and human-related disturbances) in the Amazon are indeed widespread and are partly related to the idea that there may be a 'tipping point' for the rainforest (see this recent article for some background). This idea is exemplified in a study last year (Hutrya et al, 2005) which looked at the sharp transition between forest and savannah and related that to the coupling of drought incidence and wild fires with the forest ecosystem. Modelling work has suggested that the Amazon may have two vegetation/regional climate equilibria due to vegetation and climate tending to reinforce each other if one is pushed in a particular direction (Oyama and Nobre, 2003). The two alternative states could be one rainforested and wet like today, the other mainly savannah and dry in the Eastern Amazon. Thus there is a fear that too much drought or disturbance could flip parts of the forest into a more savannah-like state. However, there is a great deal of uncertainty in where these thresholds may lie and how likely they are to be crossed, and the rate at which change will occur. Models go from predicting severe and rapid change (Cox et al, 2004), to relatively mild changes (Friedlingstein et al (2003)). Locally these responses can be dramatic, but of course, these changes also have big implications for total carbon cycle feedback and so have global consequences as well.
Part of that uncertainty is related to the very responses that are being monitored in the WHRC experiment and so while I would hesitate to make a direct link, indirectly these results may have big consequences for what we think may happen to the Amazon in the future.
(it's named after monster cable lol!)
There was actually a discussion at the time that the ads were out of line. Denial runs deep.
Close call for nuclear meltdown?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Scale
IMO, comparing this incident to Chernobyl or even TMI is like comparing that infamous role model Twinky Winky to Al Capone.
English summary incident Forsmark 1
FORSMARK BWR/NPP UNIT 1 - Safety analysis report (reference
F1-2006 - 0699)
Loss of external power and loss of power supply from 2 of 4 diesel generators
Summary
On July 25 a two phase short occurred during ongoing operations in a 400 kV power grid switch yard. The opening of a section disconnector under full load caused an electric arc and a short circuit. The unit line breakers disconnected the plant generators and the plant automatically inserted selected control rods, initiated recirculation pump run-back and switched over to house load turbine power supply. Shortly after the initial event the plant was scrammed and the containment was isolated. Two of four divisions in the internal grid (500 V) were out of power supply for approximately 22 minutes. When the two 500 Volt diesel bus bars was connected manually to the 6 kilovolt system, the main internal grid on all divisions regained the power supply and the plant could go safely to a safe state.
Shortly after the initial event, before the scram, one turbine tripped due to low hydraulic pressure in the control valve system. The turbine speed decreased to 2820 rpm which should have opened the generator circuit breaker due to low frequency (47.5 Hz). The generator breaker did however never open causing the main power supply net, supported by diesel generators (500 V) to disconnect. During the electrical transient two UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) units faulted. The UPS units supported, among many other things, the speed measurement control logics to the diesel engines who accordingly failed to start. The loss of power resulted in loss of two auxiliary feed water pumps.
As the two UPS-units failed, two divisions of the internal 220 V grid failed. Components supported by the 220 V grid in two out of four divisions failed due to the loss of power:
- Sensors, transmitters, controllers and event registrations
- Indicators and supervision possibilities in the control room
- Fine motion control rod drives (all rods were inserted by the hydraulic scram system)
- Motorized isolation and pressure relief valves had extended operation times
- The motor drives of four recirculation pumps tripped
AnalysisThe protection system in the 400 kV switchyard, did not work as specified. As a result of that, the magnitude of the electrical transient was higher the expected. If the line breakers had opened earlier as expected, the short circuit would have been disconnected in approximately 100 milliseconds, and the behaviour would have been "normal". The transient would in that case not have affect the two UPS units. As the magnitude of the electrical transient was higher that expected the set-point values for the component protections were exceeded in both the rectifiers and the inverters of the standard UPS-units.
The generator frequency protection breakers (< 47.5 Hz) failed due to a design error 2005. Two phases were shifted erroneously. The importance of the phase dependency in the frequency protection equipment was unknown, neither in the design nor the installation nor at the component test. Normally (for other components) phase testing is a part of the routine. If this frequency protection system had worked properly the power supply from the external 70 kV grid would have been connected automatically to the internal power supply system earlier. The loss of power would have been limited to seconds instead of minutes.
During the initial event, four recirculation pumps tripped. Even so, the transient was mild. No dry-out occurred during the transient. The behaviour of the pump drives is understood and is caused by the loss of the 220 V grid.
During the transient the pressure in the reactor vessel decreased to 6 bars over a period of 30 minutes. The level in the vessel was stabilized on +1.9 m over the core. With the pressure, the saturation temperature decreases and affects the temperature transient budget for the vessel and internal components. The temperature transient is calculated to occur not more than 25 times in the reactor vessel life time.
Actions and assessments prior to restart of Unit 1 and prior to start-up after yearly out-age of Unit 2
- A design change of the protection units in or above the rectifier (in the UPS units) will be carried out.
- Installation of the frequency protection unit of the generator breaker will be corrected. If the problem exists at Forsmark unit 2, it will be corrected there as well.
- The issue of selectivity in protective equipment for electric systems will be assessed in a broader perspective.
- Install parallel power supply of the speed measurement device on the diesel generators in two divisions.
Long term actionsAbove is the link to my post. Sorry.
http://online.barrons.com/public/article/SB115473726554127607-Z0aqTzshYopyAcR7cKdW0tcPvxI_20060906.h tml?mod=9_0002_b_free_features
On a similar note, Vinod Khosla is preparing an essay for The Oil Drum. I have read the first draft, and it is sure to elicit a lot of comments. I have responded to his draft, and as soon as he has it in a final form, I will post it here as a story. He read through all of the comments in the other stories I have written, so consider this a chance to influence someone who is influencing our energy policy.
Now I need to rest my brain. I spent the weekend with Nate "thelastsasquatch" Hagens, Jay Hanson, and some like-minded folks off the grid in a nearly sustainable living arrangement. Quite a lot of Peak Oil discussion over the last few days.
RR, sure wish I was a fly on the wall for your weekend. Love to hear whatever you can tell us about what transpired. It sure is good to see Jay Hanson back in the game, we all owe him a huge debt of gratitude. Humans who truly care about all of humanity seem to be in short supply these days...
The weekend was a trip. We had some mind-blowing discussions. We spent a lot of time looking into the crystal ball to get a grasp on where this is all headed. I may write up a bit about it at some point.
Robert, please do write up what you can remember of these discussions you had with Jay. I am sure we would all enjoy reading them.
Ron Patterson
-When will it crash? Will it be slow or fast?
-How many will die?
-How much natural environment will be left? (And accordingly, how many people will the world be able to support?)
-How much knowledge (and technology) can be saved?
-How much knowledge can be recovered?
My thinking is that we don't need much of what passes for knowledge that is linked to modern day life. We do need to relearn many of the techniques our ancestors had for surviving in a local, sustainable economy/polity.
At the same time, I really love the fantastic things we have discovered in science. I've always been curious about how the world works since I was a little kid. Why do boats float? Why is the sky blue? That's why got my degree in physics. I find the world is a more beautiful place when I can envision the very smallest inner workings (atomic and molecular interactions) to the very largest (planetary geology, cosmology) and then see how the two are intimately connected. Here's an example: the weakest force in the universe (gravity) is able to control the strongest (the strong force) and enables the thermonuclear fusion that lights the universe. Awesome!
Now if only we could use our scientific understanding to honor and enhance the natural world, rather than dominate and destroy it. We need new paradigms for thinking, teaching, and living. This is my hope for the future. Out of the ashes rises the Phoenix.
Good suggestion! Also recall that theLastSasquatch earlier promised a keythread posting after his meeting with Jay too. I am hoping TLS follows through--I am always interested in what Jay Hanson has to say!
Sadly, I was a latecomer to Dieoff_Q&A-- never got the chance to fully quiz Jay on the potential of Asimov's Foundation before he withdrew to put his PV panels on his house.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
-- Matthew Ch 25 verse 44.
Then add the amount of land that goes to produce sugar, corn syrup, tobacco, etc. It seems pretty clear that a huge amount of land is wasted and using for fuel doesn't need to be a competition with food.
I envy you your weekend. Wish I could have been there, but I'm down in the heat, humidity and hurricane territory at the moment.
I don't know about peak production, but current prices ($74/bbl) are spurring exploration to a frantic level. The current US rig count (actively exploring rigs) is over 1700 this week (http://www.mywesttexas.com/site/news.cfm?brd=2288&pag=460&dept_id=474108&nr=1&nostat =1 ), as opposed to less than 300 about 10 -15 years ago. I have watched workover rigs sprouting like ironweed all over west Texas this last 2 years while anyone with an active stripper well tries to get it producing again. People are pulling 60 year old junk out of storage because they can't get their hands on newer rigs.(I have seen this personally.) Construction company superintendents have told me that they are hiring anyone who can pass a drug test, because the oilpatch is hiring people at better wages than anyone else. There are plans to break ground on a dozen ethanol plants in the Panhandle over the next year. One will start construction next month, about 30 miles west of here.
Oh, and windmill generator towers are sprouting all over the place out here. I am talking about hundreds of them in the last two years. They will be staying online for the next 20 years to pay for themselves. There are also plans to build a privately owned uranium enrichment facility west of Denver City, along the Texas/New Mexico border.
Cut thy spending and get thee to the nondiscretionary side of the economy.
(I've been meeting some highly leveraged people lately, which makes me see debt as the immanent risk ... or amplifier of risk.)
George thinks that the dieoff has already begun in the poorer developing countries, and he is basically making plans to be as self-sufficient as he can on a small tract in East Texas.
Minor correction to his comments on the blog (which he may have corrected by now). I think that the world in 2005 was where the Lower 48 was at in 1970.
You make sure they don't fit other models as well? ;-)
Maybe my problem is that I see both sides of things ... all the time, sometimes to the point of immobility. Maybe for that reason I have a hard time seeing current events as uniquely fitting any one (loosely speaking) model, or future.
I think the answer is to be aware, prepared, responsive. Then you can act if some bad thing looms ... and you don't waste energy preparing for the wrong "bad thing."
What needs to be done is clear to me. What will happen in the future is hazy; with only the broadest outlines visible in the mist.
This visit to Portland has opened possibilities (I will report later) that, *IF* brought forward to fruition, could reduce world greenhouse gases by 0.05% (or more) and world oil consumption by hundred thousand barrels/day, and free up 1+ GW worth of natural gas.
We are all curious monkeys; wanting to know our fate. BUT our time is better spent on improving our chances than finding out exactly what our chances are !!
Best Hopes,
Alan
Or, as Han Solo said, "never tell me the odds!" (while flying through an asteroid field running from the Imperial Star Destroyers who were in hot pursuit, in the Empire Strikes Back -yes, I am a Star Wars nerd)
One of the ideas I've had from time to time is that people on the fringe "test" ideas that the mainstream may adopt later.
Already has a name: Early adopters. Part of the "Technology Lifecycle" that goes from the cutting edge to early adoption to state of the art to mainstream
Maybe it's just that in tech cycles early adopters are more recognized, and in socal movements it's a little less obvious.
This needs to be said more, and louder.
But our chances look pretty good to me, if we take this problem seriously. The USA has a couple terawatts of wind potential, on the order of half a billion tons/year of carbon being captured and mostly discarded, and a host of things which say that a power-UP is quite feasible even without breakthroughs in e.g. solar or fusion. The world as a whole is pretty well-off too. The question is if we will take the resources we have and build the new systems to go forward, or squander them on trivialities like Ford Expeditions, BMW 735's and rolling houses which get 6 MPG.
I just spent the weekend with Jay, talking a lot about all of the important issues. He kept saying that he has given up, but I pointed out that this really isn't true, or he wouldn't be spending time conveying this information to my generation. If he truly thought things were hopeless, he wouldn't bother with the discourse. But he definitely isn't the activist he once was.
I've wondered before if it is time for an organized project to save the literary and scientific works of the world in remote, defensible locations such as we saw with the monasteries that sprang up after the collapse of Rome.
Unlike Bob Shaw, I see zero chance that any biosolar habitats will ever emerge from the current state of affairs. If they do emerge it will only be after a serious collapse and dieoff. Further, some people (like yourself) believe that if we do the correct things right now that there need be no dieoff and we can transition to a sustainable society. I'm sort of in that camp in that I've always believed we have the technology to solve this problem but that we lack the political will to do so.
In any event, Jay does seem to have given up (at least as I interpret his behavior and writings) on saving civilization as we know it. I agree that him remaining somewhat active means something but I don't think he's trying to help you turn the tide, only to survive its coming and going.
Reminds me of a story...
I'm no peak oil expert, but I've known about it for a long time. Credit the geology department at the University of Toledo for that.
I just returned from the Midwest, which featured a visit with my old geology professor, Craig Bond Hatfield, who is now retired and living in Toledo. He was an early "prophet" of the coming crash. In fact, when I read his article "How Long Can Oil Supply Grow?" (PDF), I really sat up and paid attention. It's worth a read to see an early template of the warnings going around now.
Anyway, my chat with Professor Hatfield was sobering. He, too, has "given up" trying to warn of the crash. He handed me an envelope of his writings going back to the early 80s. He has been in The Wash Post, NYT, Chicago Tribune, Nature magazine, and other places, warning of peak oil. A career highpoint for him was a talk he gave on oil depletion in the 90s at the Gordon Research Conference. He retired in 1999 and has not written about oil since then.
"It's time to have fun," he told me. He says he became angry and disheartened in the late 80s, when "TPTB" didn't take his warnings to heart.
Professor Hatfield is by no means a morbid, morose man. During our chat, he still had that infectious friendliness I remember from class back in 1979. It's just plain too late to do anything about a supply shortfall.
He would not make predictions about our future, but only said there might be time to requisition all recreational gasoline usage for agricultural use and to enact a voluntary, worldwide population reduction program. This does not hearten me.
I take the warnings of westexas, Jay Hanson and others very, very seriously, given how they confirm what my dear old professor has been warning about for years.
Todd and myself are of the same mindset. Personally, I've grown weary of trying to convince the passengers that the ship is not unsinkable, and that maybe, just maybe, they should consider putting on a lifejacket and heading for the lifeboats. One reason I don't post here much anymore, and have taken to bouts of lurking instead.
There are other residents of TOD I've noticed who also follow a similar pattern (Bubba and Subkommander Dred come immediately to mind). Endless arguing is tiring and draining.
Civilization, at least as "we" know it, probably cannot be saved. But perhaps some of it can.
It's time for triage. Save who you can.
The case would be stronger for me that "nothing can be done" if Barrons didn't publish that ethanol story, or if they just pretended (along with GM) that everything was going to be fine on E85.
We are not perfect at planning for our far future, but neither are we completely awful. So we're left figuring out what a messy response brings.
All I can say is, welcome to the dark side.
It is your destiny.
(kssssh....kssssssh.....ksssssh)
But I do think the probability of doom is non-negligible.
The author suggests that the internal logic in the Whitehouse was that WMDs (esp. nuclear) were so bad, that even a 1% probability had to be met with full force. X thousand US troops and Y thousand civilians killed become acceptable under that logical framework:
Compare and contrast to a high level of commitment to other low probability (but also horrible) outcomes.
... it's tricky, because if we apply The One Percent Doctrine to all low probability (but horrible) risks, we might become a bit overcommited ... and we might even miss some higher probability (but less horrible) dangers (Katrina?).
(I think that IS the story of Homeland Security and Katrina!)
the other problem is that to execute the 1% doctrine correctly, you need a tax base that's a lot bigger than the one we have now...
in other words, terrorism/oil is doing to us what we did to the Russians: making us spend until we fall apart.
- hurricanes
- bird flu
- global warming
- earthquakes
- floods (our levies in California)
- nuclear accident
- etc.
... as you might guess, I think Cheney used a "one percent" argument to obscure the fact that he didn't have a hard probability, and just want to tackle his hot project."Unfortunately, he contends, their meticulous intelligence-sifting went unappreciated by administration policymakers ..."
Isn't the possibility of oil peaking in 2006 greater than 1%. Is our government launching hundreds of billions of dollars to address that threat? Sadly (and I say this as an ex-hyperconservative, ex-military, ex-Republican), the 1% doctrine is merely Bush and Cheney's way to justify doing whatever they want.
As you and I know, NO ONE CHOSES TO BE A DOOMER in the sense that, gee, ain't it great to consider the collpase of society. But, like Jay (and I hope I'm correct in this), the reality becomes overwhelming.
Living in the boondocks as I do forces "reality" on you. Right now, I have a big problem with wild pigs destroying our garden and a bear came in last night and pushed over a 25 year old pear tree to shake off any ripe pears. I mention this soley because I cannot escape reality in my daily life. I have to confront it. I confront the future the same way.
Todd
Found a guinea dead this morning, think a horse may have stepped on it. Always had trouble with the chickens getting into the garden...they have a radar for ripe tomotoes. Had two (old) great producing apple trees go belly-up in the past five years. Last year had one horse die of old age, and a foal die from a T-post to the chest. The "back to the Earth" crowd just doesn't know what they're asking for.
Agree. I posted over 1000 times on PO.com before quitting. Some of the posts were extremely technical and required hours to draft. (for example, detailed analyses of why fusion can't replace oil even if all technical problems are solved and why space solar power could never have positive EROEI unless a space elevator existed) I would never waste that much time that way now. Instead I spend most of my spare time managing my investments and looking for the right bush tract/farm.
He has always professed that there must be a dieoff. In fact, that's what he named his web site way back in the 90s. Of course one might say he wanted to save technology, or a bit of the arts and sciences as we know them today. I too hope that a little can be saved. But not much I fear. But as far as the population goes, it is going to crash, and much of civilization as we know it will go down the drain with it.
Now my impressions could be wrong but I got the definite sense that even in the yahoo groups he was trying to bring about change - until he just walked away suddenly realizing that this civilization truly is doomed. I could certainly be mistaken but those are my impressions.
That is the twenty-gazillion dollar social evolutionary question.
Congratulations!!!
A failed paradigm that can never work for many reasons is not one anyone who can think would want to save.
People who sit around and try to work out a way to keep the autos running is performing exactly the same way as the Nazis would: Keep them ovens running!!
Yep. The automobile is the kissing cousin to the Nazi showers. Trouble is most people are too ignorant to notice.
"The Specter of Hannibal Lecter - At this juncture, the entire planet is locked, figuratively, in a room with the sociocultural equivalent of Hannibel Lecter. An individual of consumnate taste and refinement, inbued with indelible grace and charm, he distracts his victems with the brilliance of his intellect, even while honing his blade. He is thus able to dine alone upon their livers, accompanied by lofty music and fine wine. Over and over the ritual is repeated, always hidden, always denied in order that it may be continued. So perfect is Lecter's pathology that, from the depts of his scorn for the inferiors upon whom he feeds, he advocates himself as their sage and therapist, he who is incomparably endowed with the ability to explain their innermost meanings, he professes to be their savior. His success depends on being embraced and exalted by those upon whom he preys.Ultimately, so long as Lecter is able to retain his mask of omnipotent gentility, he can never be stopped. The spirit of Hannibal Lecter is thus at the core of an expansionist European "civilization" which has reached out to engulf the planet."
"A Little Matter of Genocide" page 93, ISBN-0-87286-323-9
When he says "European" he does not necessarily mean "white" since this is the same monster-civ that ate up the Picts, the Druids, the "heathen" - those who run around wild on the heath, etc.
Yes, this is the writer who described the office workers in the Twin Towers as "little Eichmanns" and once you understand that Eichmann was one of those in the Nuremburg trials who leaned most heavily on the defense that "I just went along, I just followed orders, I was unaware of what was 'really going on'" you have to agree.
I offer the following evidence from an incident this morning. As a result of the females of my clan being very very busy preparing for a wedding, I had the job of taking two little grandkids to their swimming lesson. After the little ones were in the pool, I sat under a tree to wait the end of the lessons. Beside me in the parking lot were a row of cars with people in them. All the cars were running to keep the people in them cool. All cars and the people in them were obese. The day was warm but not excessively so- except when a shift of the breeze brought over my head the stink of exhaust and the fetid breath of the cooling systems of said obese cars.
Parking lot warming. Global warming. For what? People cooling. Out with it. All of it. say I. Back to sloshing water down the open front of my overalls. Ah! Cool!
http://www.slate.com/id/2147167/nav/tap1/
However, the truth may be different than we guess in terms of efficiency, and the dieoff may be inevitable depending how far into overshoot we are.
I really think it's the humanitarian spirit, fleam, of not wanting others (or yourself) to experience something so potentially bad. Sadly, we really cannot know because we lack the precision in our sciences to let us truly discern maximum sustainable population from current population.
Nonetheless, I realised how we won the Cold War. We had help from the Soviet oil peak. I titled a posting "a 'peak' into the X Files". Believe it or not, a CIA document was declassified in year 2001 describing the prediction of the Soviet oil peak!
For some time, based on what I have read about these two fields, I have been noting that the basic problem is one of simple physics. The remaining oil is between an advancing water leg and an expanding gas cap. The rock is more permeable to water and to gas than to oil. So, the faster that the oil is pulled out of the rock, the easier it is for water and gas to bypass the oil.
Note that Pemex blamed the Cantarell decline on well shut-ins due to high levels of water and gas production.
Lots of people would like to see some confirmation of Dr. Heinberg's report that a source says that Ghawar is down to about 3 mbpd. IMO, the reported decline in total Saudi oil production of about 7% (from the EIA report last year to the recent Petrologistics report) is more than sufficient confirmation. I realize that people would like something better than Petrologistics, but they were right about the April/May decline.
Let's look at the two great hopes for heavy oil/bitumen production--Canada and Venezuela. According to the EIA, the most recent report shows that Canadian crude + condensate production is down by 11% since December. I'm sure that it will rebound, but the bottom line is that the tar sands production is having trouble offsetting just the local decline in Canadian conventional production.
The EIA is reporting flat production for Venezuela, but the WSJ reports that their production is falling.
If you take these four examples together, IMO we have four warning beacons burning brightly, warning us that we are at the start of the Post-Peak Oil Age.
Just curious as it is well known that extraction rate of tar sands is so low it will never ever offset any conventional production decline.
So George Ure thinks the die-off has started? I tend to agree; look at the countries around Lake Victoria for example. Look at Somalia, at Sudan. At Nigeria, or Niger. Look at the daily influx of refugees from Africa arriving at the Canarian Islands in leaking boats.
If all else fails, they will increase their use of bitumen/oil as a source of heat. I think that the biggest problems they have right now are the shortage of equipment and personnel, causing costs to skyrocket--up to the range of $100,000 in capital costs per bpd of production.
But thirty dollars a barrel is way too low. Make it sixty for the next five years, then have the price floor go up at the rate of inflation. There would indeed be an immense flow of financial capital into investments with little risk attached.
Government can always create a surplus by providing a price floor above the equilibrium price--works every time.
Zimbabwe is in a horrible state as well:
I disagree. With low fuel costs, Zimbabwe would be in much better shape today. Much of the current crop of problems are political in nature, but widespread fuel shortages -- due to astronomically high costs -- have been instrumental in collapsing the economy.
I don't think its well known that Zimbabwe was a country that several years ago was selling up to 500,000 metric tons of surplus food to the WFP for distribution to starving people elsewhere, and was considered a "breadbasket for southern Africa."
When the starving turn to cannibalism, let's hope Mugabe and his well-fed cronies are on the menu.
Let's hope it doesn't come to that, but if it does I doubt that Mugabe would be at risk.
He could have been a Nelson Mandela. He could have brought his whole country generations of wealth and hapiness. He could have retired in pease as an icon of good statemanship. He had every opportunity and the resources but decided to destroy it all for some feeling of immediate absolute power. Shame on him and his cronies!
If we're going to start hanging dictators, Mugabe shouldn't be the only one swinging from a lamppost. He isn't the only one who's been corrupted by the prospect of holding absolute power.
Having said that, his regime has brought tremendous suffering to his people -- not to mention the loss the freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and on and on. It could have been different there, and I wish that it was. Unfortunately, those in power who are responsible for such actions very rarely pay for their crimes.
the difference in GDP per capita between Morocco and Spain is the biggest (16 times) between two neighbouring countries besides the one beteen North and South Korea. Imagine the migratory pressures that brings.
Let us see how do the migratory flows respond to peak oil.
There are several facts, which taken together with some suppositions, make me think that some decline at Ghawar is taking place now, and that we could be facing a short-term price spike for light sweet crude. Here are my facts/suppositions;
- During last year's hurricane season, SA sells out a major portion of its European and Carribean storage tanks, to make up for lost production in the GOM. This is light sweet crude, easy to refine, to allow the Europeans to replenish their stockpiles while shipppig so much to the US. Half fact/half supposition.
- SA keeps pumping its lesser fields at their max, and replacing the sweet stuff in storage with the sour stuff. Sort of like replacing the sirloin in your freezer with haggis. All supposition here.
- SA complains that it can't find any buyers for the sour stuff. All fact.
- This allows production figures to remain high, without an immediate impact on refineries, tanker traffic, or anything else that could be measured by someone outside the friendly confines of Aramco. Half fact/half supposition.
- Ghawar continues to slide, and SA has now depleted its freezer of sirloin, and will be offering haggis this winter. All supposition.
Just trying to string some things together to make sense of all the facts. The future will, of course, prove this out (or not).http://www.energybulletin.net/18904.html
"At the ASPO conference a well-connected industry insider who wishes not to be directly quoted told me that his own sources inside Saudi Arabia insist that production from Ghawar is now down to less than three million barrels per day, and that the Saudis are maintaining total production at only slowly dwindling levels by producing other fields at maximum rates. This, if true, would be a bombshell: most estimates give production from Ghawar at 5.5 Mb/d."
If I had a dollar for every annoucement like this, I'd could retire. I wonder what the actual recoverable reserves will be.
A geologist, a petroleum engineer, and a geophysicist are being interviewed for a job. In each case, the interview goes along famously until the last question is asked: "How much is one plus one?" Each of them suspects a trap, and is hesitant to answer. The geologist thinks for a moment, and says "I'm not sure, but I think it converges". The geophysicist says "I'm not sure, but I think it's on the order of two". The petroleum engineer gets up, closes the door to the office, and says "How much do you want it to be?"
I'm probably behind the curve on this, but still: I was in Salzburg the other day and saw these puppies:
I thought they were kind of cool. The overhead wiring was ugly in places, but at least they don't require in-street rails like streetcars, which makes it easier for bike riders other regular drivers.
American culture is simply not prepared for non-suburban, expensive-motoring life. It's alien.
Some major cities that are building more Urban Rail with just 50% fed funding (we built interstates with 90% fed matching):
Miami, Salt Lake City, Denver, Seattle, San Diego, Phoenix, Charlotte, Portland OR, St. Louis, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, Washington DC, Austin, Minneapolis
Not as unAmerican as it once was!
The war on terror is over, and we've lost.....
We're all quite terrorized.
Electric transportation combined with wind makes so much sense.
You data is based on the most recent #s i.e. 2004. The ridership gains reported since then will give higher efficiency for Urban Rail for 2006. When an oil emergency comes to pass, Urban Rail efficiency will spike upwards as load factors increase. Not true for Prius.
Urban rail was NOT designed to minimize electrical consumption . BART with it´s aluminum cars is a possible exception. IMHO, electrical efficiency gains of 50% to 100% for Urban Rail are quite achievable IF higher capital expensitures are made (aluminum, titanium, carbon fiber vehicles) thicker conductors, more DC rectifiers, more private ROW, etc.)
A car based Urban fabric will not result in any indirect savings. Urban Rail will. Postal workers and police walk or bicycle, UPS can deliver several packages close together, the plumber puts far fewer miles on his truck.
I disagree that private EVs are a good substitute for Urban Rail. They are a poor substitute but better than ICEs.
However, I think many people think that rail uses power at a rate that is an order of magnitude lower than cars, and that's not true. Despite efficiencies of scale, rail isn't dramatically more efficient than cars, and is not a silver bullet. There may be good reasons to move from cars to rail, but it look to me like saving energy really isn't the main one.
I respectfully disagree.
Take the real world fleet economy (EPA -15%) with 1.05 to 1.1 per car/SUV and NOT some very high efficiency car that is in the 99 percentile. Compare to what Urban Rail saves directly and the even larger indirect savings.
If you believe in Peak Oil, increase load factors (i.e. efficiency) for Urban Rail going forward; and increase the rate of TOD and indirect savings.
I believe that ~20:1 fuel savings are quite possible by building Urban Rail vs. not building.
We will have to have EVs, I agree that smaller EVs are a major step up from ICE SUVs. Easily a 5:1 efficiency gain I suspect.
The core of our disagreement is, I believe, in the fuzzy and highly variable area of indirect savings. And I add extra efficiency going forward vs. 2004 data (2006 will have more pax-miles/kWh. Monthly reports on ridership in different systems clearly show this). Extrapolate to ~2010.
If electricity were more expensive, agencies would take steps to reduce use (in Portland, run one LRV instead of two cars off peak on Red & Yellow Lines as one easy example). This "too cheap to save" factor affects the reported efficiency #s. Higher cost electicity will result in savings & better effiency.
Our differences seem to revolve around how wide a net each of us use to calculate savings.
For example, I might look at Honolulu or Phoenix in 2020 & 2025 with light rail vs. Honolulu or Phoenix in 2020 & 2025 with only buses.
Do you mean 1.05 to 1.1 kwhrs/per mile?
"and NOT some very high efficiency car that is in the 99 percentile."
Sorry for my lack of clarity. I agree that rail is much more efficient than ICE's. I'm comparing EV/PHEV's to rail.
From a previous post, I understand that per APTA's 2006 Public Transportation Fact Book, Table 55, "Bus and Trolleybus National Totals, Fiscal Year 2004", that Heavy Rail (e.g. New York subway, Washington Metro, BART -- Table 81) carried 14,354,281,000 passenger miles or 3,683,674,000 kWh, for a whrs/mile of 257 (light rail and trolleys were higher, but accounted for only 11% of "rail" miles).
257 whrs/miles is about (or a little higher than) what the Prius and Tesla use. That's what I'm thinking about.
I agree that TOD, growing usage, lighter chassis's, better scheduling etc, will increase efficiency. OTOH, EV/PHEV efficiency is also a moving target: Toyota intends to make the next Prius roughly 25% more efficient, with more efficient batteries and other stuff.
I just don't see an energy efficiency rationale for promoting rail over EV/PHEV's. Now, I see a lot of other reasons: congestion, speed & convenience (for SOME uses, though definitely not for some others), safety, lower stress, etc. are all good reasons to like rail over personal vehicles. Just not energy.
Finally, I think marginal electrical efficiency as not that big a deal, as I don't see an electricity shortage. Peak oil is really just a liquid fuels problem, at least in the US. GW is a factor, but EV/PHEV's work really well with wind, in fact they support wind with a multiplier effect, so that as you add more EV/PHEV's you decrease BOTH liquid fuel usage AND coal usage.
When I was a kid growing up in Cambridge, MA (approximately 28 years ago) these types of electric buses were everywhere. The overhead lines snaked across street after street. I always thought they were really cool.
They're all gone now. (In Cambridge and Boston) What a shame.
The MBTA (Mass Bay Transit Authority) is 8 BILLION dollars in debt. It's crazy!!!
Even still - I think Boston is a pretty good city. It's hub layout and relatively compact design should lend it's self well to public transport as energy gets more expensive. Even as it stands now I know lots of people who live in the city that don't have cars. My girlfriend is one of them. There's no need.
I don't. Even electric, they are still busses which get stuck in traffic.
Mass transit by bus is not the way to go. I take the trolley to work, and the fact that I don't get stuck in traffic is at least as important as the cost savings. Many people would take a trolley or subway if available, but would never step on a bus. Maybe much higher prices would change this attitude, but I think it will have to be much higher than current.
That being said, at my old apartment, If I wanted to take the T to Harvard Square, I had to take the green line all the way downtown, then connect to the redline and ride that all the way back out. It was 30-40 minutes minimum.
Or I could take a 10 minute bus ride down Mass Ave.
I'm no fool - I took the bus.
The power source for the cable cars is also electric.
http://tinyurl.com/r77h3
The truth shall set you free!!
Hm, does that mean the U.S. transgressed against Japan before Peral Harbor by telling them to get out of China????
And all those cities over-run by Ghengis Khan, um, how exactly did they "trangress"?
History is filled with examples of wars where one party is entirely at fault and the other side is 100% wrong. Many times one party is guilty and the other innocent--purely black and white. Most history is shades of gray, but by no means is that true in every case.
Well Don, Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum laid out an eight step plan in order to provoke Japan into attacking the United States. I would say Pearl Harbor wasn't a surprise at the top of the food chain:
http://tinyurl.com/c5mhz
Looks like the plan worked huh?
Of course part of the plan was to cut off all US oil exports to Japan. What would happen if someone did that to the US?
All these so called "conspiracy" theories are just standard operation procedure for the Military Industrial Complex. One in awhile they screw up and lets us see inside "their" world such as the declassified Nothwoods Documents:
http://tinyurl.com/64r7m
"In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.
Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities."
Sound familiar? They ran with the script when Johnson had Israel attack the USS Liberty and they were planning to blame it on Egypt so the US could enter the war on Israel's side. When a Russian ship showed up and observed the attack it was time to do what they do best, cover it up;
http://www.hnn.us/articles/191.html
I suggest you get Bamford's book "Body of Secrets" and read it:
http://tinyurl.com/mhred
It might give you a welcome break from all the oil hysteria...
==AC
http://tinyurl.com/letyk
9. It is not believed that in the present state of
political opinion the United States government is capable of
declaring war against Japan without more ado; and it is barely
possible that vigorous action on our part might lead the
Japanese to modify their attitude. Therefore, the following
course of action is suggested:
A. Make an arrangement with Britain for the use of
British bases in the Pacific, particularly
Singapore.
B. Make an arrangement with Holland for the use of
base facilities and acquisition of supplies
in the Dutch East Indies.
C. Give all possible aid to the Chinese government
of Chiang-Kai-Shek.
D. Send a division of long range heavy cruisers to
the Orient, Philippines, or Singapore.
E. Send two divisions of submarines to the Orient.
F. Keep the main strength of the U.S. fleet now in
the Pacific in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands.
G. Insist that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese
demands for undue economic concessions,
particularly oil.
H. Completely embargo all U.S. trade with Japan,
in collaboration with a similar embargo imposed
by the British Empire.
10. If by these means Japan could be led to commit an
overt act of war, so much the better. At all events we must be fully
prepared to accept the threat of war.
A. H. McCollum
CC-0p-16
0p-16-F
File
http://tinyurl.com/c5mhz
There are literally hundreds or thousands (depending on how you count them) examples of unprovoked aggression. My point is that the naive, "Both sides are always somewhat at fault." position is flat-out unambiguously 100% wrong.
Much as I believe in peace as our best policy, I cannot avoid the fears which Wilson emphasized more than once in conversations with me, August 15, 1915 and later: the breakdown of democracy in all Europe will be a disaster to the people. But what can you do? At the present moment more than a hundred American corporations have subsidiaries here or cooperative understandings. The DuPonts have three allies in Germany that are aiding in the armament business. Their chief ally is the I. G. Farben Company, a part of the Government which gives 200,000 marks a year to one propaganda organization operating on American opinion. Standard Oil Company (New York sub-company) sent $2,000,000 here in December 1933 and has made $500,000 a year helping Germans make Ersatz gas for war purposes; but Standard Oil cannot take any of its earnings out of the country except in goods. They do little of this, report their earnings at home, but do not explain the facts. The International Harvester Company president told me their business here rose 33% a year (arms manufacture, I believe), but they could take nothing out. Even our airplanes people have secret arrangement with Krupps. General Motor Company and Ford do enormous businesses/sic] here through their subsidiaries and take no profits out. I mention these facts because they complicate things and add to war dangers"
http://tinyurl.com/n94h8
WALL STREET AND THE RISE OF HITLER by Anthony Sutton
Believe me Don I understand your point.
One could say, and there is ample evidence to back it up, that Hitler was nothing without the financing of Wall Street. If you give a madman the means and money the madman will likely do what madmen do. For the Wall Street financers to claim ignorance is a joke. They knew exactly what Hitler was going to do but I think it took them by surprise how successful he was. Especially with families like the Bushs continuing to finance Hitler after the US entered the war.
"Bush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951" - Federal Documents
http://tinyurl.com/ukdq
Apologist for the elites, like Quigley, always try to sugar coat what these men are attempting to accomplish;
These organizations and their financial backers were in no sense reactionary or Fascistic persons, as Communist propaganda would like to depict them. Quite the contrary. They were gracious and cultured gentlemen of somewhat limited social experience who were much concerned with the freedom of expression of minorities and the rule of law for all, who constantly thought in terms of Anglo-American solidarity, of political partition and federation, and who were convinced that they could gracefully civilize the Boers of South Africa, the Irish, the Arabs, and the Hindus, and who are largely responsible for the partitions of Ireland, Palestine, and India, as well as the federations of South Africa, Central Africa, and the West Indies. Their desire to win over the opposition by cooperation worked with Smuts but failed with Hertzog, worked with Gandhi but failed with Menon, worked with Stresemann but failed with Hitler, and has shown little chance of working with any Soviet leader. If their failures now loom larger than their successes, this should not be allowed to conceal the high motives with which they attempted both.
It was this group of people, whose wealth and influence so exceeded their experience and understanding, who provided much of the framework of influence which the Communist sympathizers and fellow travelers took over in the United States in the 1930's. It must be recognized that the power that these energetic Left-wingers exercised was never their own power or Communist power but was ultimately the power of the international financial coterie, and, once the anger and suspicions of the American people were aroused, as they were by 1950, it was a fairly simple matter to get rid of the Red sympathizers. Before this could be done, however, a congressional committee, following backward to their source the threads which led from admitted Communists like Whittaker
{p. 955} Chambers, through Alger Hiss, and the Carnegie Endowment to Thomas Lamont and the Morgan Bank, fell into the whole complicated network of the interlocking tax-exempt foundations. The Eighty-third Congress in July 1953 set up a Special Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations with Representative B. Carroll Reece, of Tennessee, as chairman. It soon became clear that people of immense wealth would be unhappy if the investigation went too far and that the "most respected" newspapers in the country, closely allied with these men of wealth, would not get excited enough about any relevations to make the publicity worth while, in terms of votes or campaign contributions. An interesting report showing the Left-wing associations of the interlocking nexus of tax-exempt foundations was issued in 1954 rather quietly. Four years later, the Reece committee's general counsel, Rene A. Wormser, wrote a shocked, but not shocking, book on the subject called Foundations: Their Power and Influence.
~ Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in our Time, Macmillan New York 1966
==AC
Plenty of countries and peoples are innocent victims.
The idea that "everyone is responsible" quickly collapses into: "Nobody is responsible."
Poland not what you are choosing to call "transgressor"
Neither was Siam. Or Illyria. Or Erewhon.
Moral calculus should be indulged in rarely and with great restraint.
Current historical thinking largely makes WWI and WWII a single war, with intermission. A twenty year timeout but a single war with single cause. A resource and market war.
What Americans like to argue about, or preen about, are quidditiea. It behooves one not to be serious about history when American history is merely hagiography, mythologizing, and raw jingo propaganda.
But no, folks like you have to sex it up by claiming Pearl Harbor was a setup.
Secondly, that still does not make the US a transgressor. Japan never declared a vital interest in oil before the embargo. Under international law (especially as laid out in the 1930's), vital interests have to be declared overtly. Look it up.
Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor
http://tinyurl.com/kwhl3
by Robert Stinnett
People like me huh. I'm not about to dive into the facts that show the men at Pearl Harbor were sacrificed to cause a wave of indignation that would hurl US citizens into war hysteria. It would be a waste of time. It would like trying to tell a devout Christian god and the bible are nothing more than an adult version of "Santa Clause" and the "Tooth fairy".
Would it be asking too much to ask people like you to give up on you relished beliefs on how this government operates? Could you wrap your mind around the fact that you are cattle to be slaughtered whenever the ruling elite deem it necessary? No I doubt it. To you, that "evil doer" Osama bin Laden was the master mind behind the attacks on 9/11. That's all you know and all you need to know because the truth is so monstrous you cannot face it. Your life is ruled by "The Big Lie"...
"All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes."
~Adolf Hitler "Mon Kempf"
Read that quote several times. Maybe it'll sink in. Just maybe...
==AC
To believe the Roosevelt set up Pearl Harbor requires believing not only that he wanted to enter the war (which is true) but that he was willing to lose it (which is ridiculous). If the Japanese had had better intel they would have won the war on December 7th, so concentrated was the Navy in PH. Dumb luck made their attack less of a success and thereby enabled American victory.
OF COURSE!! DUMB LUCK that is what is was. It was DUMB LUCK!! That's why all the aircraft carriers we called out of Pearl Harbor. Only ships that were not vital to the outcome of the war were struck. Now I see. It makes so much more sense now. Everything is not, as they say a conspiracy, but really just a coincidence. Thank you for setting me straight!!
==AC
11 February 1941 - FDR proposed sacrificing 6 cruisers and 2 carriers at Manila to get into war. Navy Chief Stark objected: "I have previously opposed this and you have concurred as to its unwisdom. Particularly do I recall your remark in a previous conference when Mr. Hull suggested (more forces to Manila) and the question arose as to getting them out and your 100% reply, from my standpoint, was that you might not mind losing one or two cruisers, but that you did not want to take a chance on losing 5 or 6." (Charles Beard PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AND THE COMING OF WAR 1941, p 424)
Washington, in an order of Nov 26 as a result of the "first shot" meeting the day before, ordered both US aircraft carriers, the Enterprise and the Lexington out of Pearl Harbor "as soon as practicable." This order included stripping Pearl of 50 planes or 40 percent of its already inadequate fighter protection. In response to Churchill's message, FDR secretly cabled him that afternoon - "Negotiations off. Services expect action within two weeks." Note that the only way FDR could have linked negotiations with service action, let alone have known the timing of the action, was if he had the message to sail. In other words, the only service action contingent on negotiations was Pearl Harbor.
J. Edgar Hoover told his friends in early 1942 that FDR had known about the Pearl Harbor plan since the early fall. It was totally in character for FDR to concoct such a plan. Not only had the US Senate already censured FDR for utterly lacking moral perspective, but as Walter Lippmann wrote: "his purposes are not simple and his methods are not direct."
WHY SACRIFICE OLD, SLOW SHIPS?
FDR had to do it to get into the war, as he himself later told Stalin. He needed massive public outrage and that required big sacrifice.
Would he do it? Did he "love the Navy too much?" He was sacrificing ships in the Atlantic for the same purpose. Of course he would do it - he was doing it.
He saved all the important elements of the fleet. In the spring he had sent many ships to the Atlantic. He kept the aircraft carrier Saratoga on the West Coast. And his sending of the two carrier groups out of harbor meant that not only they but also their fast escort ships would be saved - all the new ships stationed at Pearl Harbor were saved. Only WWI junk was left in harbor. Here is a list of all the ships saved - Ships saved at Pearl December 7
FDR's attitude is best summed up by co-conspirator Admiral Bloch's testimony to Congress, "The Japanese only destroyed a lot of old hardware. In a sense they did us a favor."
This was obviously FDR's view as well, because on 7 December at 2:15 PM, minutes after hearing of the attack and before any damage reports were in, FDR called Lord Halifax at the British Embassy and told him "Most of the fleet was at sea...none of their newer ships were in harbour." He had protected the new ships, the important elements of the fleet, and that fact was at the forefront of his mind in relation to the attack. First, it means FDR didn't care about the old ships. Secondly, it means he knew before the attack that only old ships were in harbor for the attack. Therefore, Pearl Harbor was "the first shot without too much danger to ourselves" he sought. FDR was the architect of the attack plot from the oil embargo to the ultimatum to the final touches of deciding who would live and who would die.
http://tinyurl.com/6uqcw
Well obviously Peter is being ironic, but he's being accurate; the few do know, and the few do govern. There's a great line by David Hume, the 18th century Scots philosopher. He said, "How is it that the few control the many," because the many are many, and they theoretically would have the power to overthrow the few. And he said the few control the many through opinion. And he meant the churches, the schools, the broadsheets, as they called newspapers then.
When you control opinion, as corporate America controls opinion in the United States, by owning the media, you can make the [many] believe almost anything you want, and you can guide them. Roosevelt had fewer means than people have nowadays, but he was a master of those means. He wanted us virtuously to come to England's aid against Hitler; France had just fallen, this was 1940 where I start the story. France has fallen, England is being blown up by the Nazis. Eighty percent of the American people refuse to go to war on England's side, there's nothing Roosevelt can do, he tried everything, exhortation and threats, and nothing worked ... So he began a series of provocations of the Japanese. So that they would strike at us, and give him a cause for war ... What is still moot is, Did Roosevelt know that they were going to hit Pearl Harbor ...?
So the few run the country their own way and generally they are in agreement. The interesting thing about that period, which is why I set "The Golden Age" in it -- I cover 1940 through 1950, which is the beginning of the global empire of the United States -- is that there was a genuine political debate, the last one we've ever had.
~Gore Vidal
http://tinyurl.com/omvmq
==AC
You are square in the middle of current historiography on Pearl Harbor. You are being guided by good intuition but hitting low quality sources. It hardly matters, these true believers will never be convinced.
Lend lease (the outright arming of one side), the embargos of the Japanese and Germans, the draft (began in 1940), reorganization and rampup of US military forces, redeployments of capital ships, even the approval of the dispatch of the Flying Tigers to China all played a role.
In an effort to circumvent the American public's reluctance to enter the war, Roosevelt took a number of steps, including introduced a massive arms buildup, repeatedly provoked Germany through an undeclared naval war in the Atlantic, applied increasing economic and diplomatic pressure on Japan (reaching a climax in late July, 1941, when the U.S., Britain, and the Netherlands froze Japanese assets. Japan lost 75 per cent of its foreign trade and 90 per cent of its oil supply), promised that any Japanese attack on British or Dutch possessions would bring the United States into the war, had Secretary of State Hull delivered an insulting diplomatic ultimatum to the Japanese government on November 26, 1941, which gave Japan no choice but surrender or war, retained a weak Pacific fleet in Hawaiian waters, despite contrary naval advice, where it served only one diplomatic purpose, an invitation to a Japanese surprise attack, and furthered that surprise by causing the Hawaiian Commanders to be denied invaluable information from decoded Japanese dispatches concerning the rapid approach to the war and the strong probability that the attack would be directed at Pearl Harbor.
The Japanese "purple" (diplomatic) code had been broken by the US, and the British had broken JN-25 years previously. Winston Churchill himself called FDR scarecely a week before Pearl Harbor to warn him of an impending attack in the eastern Pacific against US naval assets.
Former C.I.A. Director William Casey, who was in the OSS in 1941, wrote in his book "The Secret War Against Hitler", that "The British had sent word that a Japanese fleet was steaming east toward Hawaii."
This is no longer the realm of "conspiracy buffs", but near-mainstream viewpoint.
And hardly a new concept, either.
In early 1945, historian William L. Neumann published a brochure, "The Genesis of Pearl Harbor". He reviewed the diplomatic background to the outbreak of the war and pointed out how the Roosevelt Administration had launched an economic war against Japan in the summer and fall of 1941. Neumann concluded that both sides were responsible, but that Washington could not have been surprised by the attack at Pearl Harbor, given FDR's diplomatic activities in the months and days preceding December 7th.
For more info, try any of the following:
"Pearl Harbor: The Facts Behind the Fiction", by James Perloff
"Day of Deceit", by Robert B. Stinnett
"Pearl Harbor, Mother of all Conspiracies", by Mark Willey.
"A Time for War", by Robert Thompson
"Infamy: Pearl Harbor and Its Aftermath", by John Toland
"Betrayal at Pearl Harbor: How Churchill Lured Roosevelt into WW II", by James Rusbridger and Eric Nave
There are others.
This website is a decent (free) crash course, if a bit discombobulated. Still, worth a perusal.
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html
This stuff is completely noncontroversial aside from veterans and a certain type of patriot.
I'll go out of bounds here and cite something which must remain sort of unattributed. I have slept under FDR monogrammed bed linen, the real deal, and I can report that the family does not take the royalist line held by most in this thread.
And I'm the king of Siam.
You are missing the point. The US was manipulated into fighting the war. The War itself was about control. Breaking the world up into blocks so it could be controlled. The Big financers like the Rothschilds financed both sides of the war, Communist and Capitalist. I'm not saying it was not a war that didn't need to be fought but everything about it covers the true meaning of the war.
Modern warfare IS A RACKET my friend always has been and always will be.
Smedley Darlington Butler
WAR IS A RACKET
http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
Butler was the man that prevented the attempted Fascist takeover of FDR in the United States by the finacial cabal.
"During this century, no President had dared to challenge the power of this financial cabal. However, FDR, with his mandate from the American people, is now in a position to do so. As Governor of New York, and during the 1932 Presidential campaign, FDR has made clear his understanding of the use of the power of the executive branch of government to shape policy initiatives, and to mobilize support for them. Should Roosevelt exert the full power of the Presidency, as defined by the U.S. Constitution, including power over financial and economic policy, he could take away power from the financial oligarchy, the Morgan-Mellon led cabal, restoring a balance between financial and industrial capital.
That, for the cabal, would have been bad enough; but as 1932 became 1933, Morgan's spies learned that Roosevelt might be considering more radical measures, ones that could take control of America's most precious commodity--its sovereign credit-- away from Wall Street and the London-based financial oligarchy who controlled the Morgan interests. American credit, and therefore government economic policy, had been held under the thumb of the private financial markets and their banking houses, like Morgan. Should a President Roosevelt seize control of the nation's credit, and deploy it for a recovery program based not upon continued bankers' looting, but on economic development, and should he rally the American people to that program, the power of the London-based financial oligarchs might be broken.
With their power thus threatened, the financial oligarchs were ready to choose radical action: Roosevelt had to be eliminated, and the institution of the Presidency destroyed or weakened. Thus was set in motion here in the U.S. a series of actions paralleling the overthrow of the von Schleicher government in Germany, that would have led to the American equivalent of the Hitler coup."
==AC
Source link for the coup attempt.
==AC
==AC
It would also be embarassing, because it would show you for a fool. The hysteria that ensued after Pearl Harbor was caused by Japan's having started the attack prior to issuing a declaration of war, and that particular detail was caused by a timing SNAFU at the Japanese embassy to the US, not to anything FDR could have predicted. Furthermore, FDR wanted to concentrate on opposing Germany, and hysteria against Japan put on him pressure to concentrate more resources in the Pacific, when he wanted to get the Mediterrenean front open and heated up ASAP. All FDR wanted was a simple formal entry into the war.
Oh yes of course it would. Why are you so angry. I'm the angry chimp here.
"The hysteria that ensued after Pearl Harbor was caused by Japan's having started the attack prior to issuing a declaration of war, and that particular detail was caused by a timing SNAFU at the Japanese embassy to the US, not to anything FDR could have predicted."
Oh ya. Now why didn't I think of that??
==AC
I'm sure the below video will go up you ass sideways. It will probably throw you into violent seizures of vomiting. But try to watch as much of it as you can. Especially about Germany and state sponsored terrorism. Flip through check out USS Liberty, Gulf of Tonkin, 9/11 etc. You may see a pattern, you may not. Alex is a little aggressive but don't be scared try to stay with the plot line.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7516705476148472744&hl=en
"Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the Field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."
~Woodrow Wilson,The New Freedom (1913)
==AC
Japan drafted a declaration of war and cabled it to DC, scheduling the attack to happen after the declaration was presented.
Why? Because that was the norm under international law at the time, and they wanted to be seen as a formidable foe, not a treacherous one.
The cable took too long to decrypt, and the ambassador was stuck in traffic, resulting in the declaration being presented after the attack was already under way. On finding this out, hours later, the admiral Yamamoto was utterly horrified. He knew the SNAFU would result in hysteria.
Instead of addressing this issue, i.e. your ignorance of this matter and the extent to which it utterly blows your assertions out of the water, you side step by again casting aspersions at me.
Ironically, this is the third time you decline to address facts and yet you have the nerve to call me closed minded.
You're a nut, just like Alex Jones, whom you are using to try to sidestep yet again.
Who the fuck cares you bumbling asshole? So you are saying if they declared war first it wouldn't have caused hysteria? What is your point? Japan attacked and the Next day the Morgan and Rockefeller controlled newspapers began beating the war drums. If they would have got the declaration first it would have been different? The front page of the paper would have said "Maybe it our fault because Japan warned us. Let's have tea". That is like saying if Bin Laden sent a telegram and declared war on the US and then attacked the Twin Towers it would have been OK. If you were in arms length of me I would strangle the life out of you because you are such a fucking idiot. They implement an eight point plan to coax Japan into attacking the US and the largest navel base is never put on alert. Everyone is sunning on the deck and all the weapons are locked up. What would have happened if they placed Pearl Harbor on alert and they stopped the attack with minimal losses and no ships destroyed? You think they would have gotten the war hysteria they needed?
You sound like my Dad. He spent 1966-67 in Vietnam killing VC and watching his friends die for reasons he could never come to grips with. In his 30's he joined the National Guard and went to Air Assault School at 34. When he was done playing solider and had to confront his past in his 40's his life fell apart consumed by PTSD. For years I would listen to him about his war stories. The killing his friends dying the whole fucking deal. The funny thing is he told me he would never trust this government again. Most of his life he was a blaster working with explosive in a quarry. So he knows about explosives. When I show him videos of WTC Tower number 7 coming down he knows it was demolished with explosives. I remember when he saw it for the first time how big his eyes got the look of disbelief. He wouldn't believe it was a WTC tower he though I was trying to trick him. Yet he still can't bring his self to the face the facts about 9/11. He will not address it he won't talk about it. It is like the line from the Big Lie:
"Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation."
The older you are the harder it is to adjust to it. Ya I'm a fucking nut like Alex Jones. I only wish you were standing in front of me when you say it you fucking little coward...
==AC
Anyone who cares about whether or not you are full of sh*t, is going to care about this issue. You evidently don't care, which shows that even you don't care whether or not you are full of sh*t.
Don't worry Mr. Apuleius. We are all adults here. People can choose to label me a lone `nutter and move on. No one will be hurt by seeing an alternate perspective. The education system has done enough to destroy free thought.
"We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought."
~Bertrand Russell
The least we can all do is to try NOT to snuff out free though in the "blogsphere".
I have noticed that most negative responses to my perspective on History are emotional rants on how I'm crazy or as Ron says, a "nutter". Not well reasoned rebuttals but emotional rags. Most likely stemming from this type of conundrum of thought;
"Human beings never think for themselves; they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told--and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings."
~Michael Crichton
Have a good night Mr. Apuleius and please try never to allow yourself to snuff out the process of freedom of thought...
==AC
That's strong evidence that no, we are not in fact all adults here.
==AC
"I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish, every inch but one. An inch, it is small and it is fragile, and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away; we must never let them take it from us. I hope that whoever you are, you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better. But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that even though I do not know you and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you, I love you. With all my heart, I love you."
I love you Ron, I truly do...
==AC
One of the books I've kept (as I divest myself) is "Riding the Tiger" subtitled "An American Newspaper Man in the Orient" by Harry Carr, 1934.
One of the things that was shocking as I read it in my 20's or 30's was how inevitable war between Japan and the US was seen, by both sides, a decade before the attack.
(Japan was already in Manchuria and Korea by then ...)
Both Japan and the U.S. foresaw a future conflict over control of the Pacific, and both the US Navy (War Plan Orange) and the IJN drew up war plans and wargamed various "what if" scenarios premised about this possibiity, which might have happened sooner than it did had the Japanese Army coup of 1929 not failed.
It was this massive blue water surface action that the US Navy had prepared for throughout the 1920's and 30's. Advanced in naval avaition, however, brought obsolescence instead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Orange
It's very hard to dig up anything different, and there will never be anything that isn't the standard line in the MSM.
Certainly accounts from Manchuria played on western minds as accounts from Iraqi Kurdistan have done in more recent years.
The question really is whether the whole history could have been derailed, and at what point. Did expansive Japan simply demand a response?
I find it rather interesting that if the US was so hell-bent on going to war with Japan that it would purposely provoke the attack on Pearl Harbor - that immediately subsequent to December 7th, it would begin sending most of its resources and young men to North Africa to battle the Germans.
Secondly, I am reminded of the story I heard told on a documentary I saw on Pearl Harbor once. A Japanese-American, I believe sometime in the 1990's was near some memorial in Hawaii(probably at Pearl) as a young Japanese couple on their honeymoon came running up to him. They had just read a plaque commemorating World war II and were incredulous. They asked the narrator of the story if it was true that the US and Japan had once fought a war - they had never heard of such a thing.
The Japanese historical cover-up of World War II is well documented. Recently China had a big issue with a certain Japanese textbook, and Korea's grievances are well known.
What exactly are the Japanese trying to hide? I think the answer is rather obvious to those who have studied the Pacific War.
I'm constantly baffled by how conspiracy theorists constantly take a narrower view of reality then their opposites across the table who espouse the dreaded mainstream view.
"In a way, the world-view of the party imposed itself most successfully on the people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding, they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just like a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird."
~George Orwell, 1984
Hello Oil CEO. Of course the same charged of a "narrower view of reality" could be leveled at the, as you term it, "the dreaded mainstream view". IMO the mainstream view has been subjected to "flagrant violations of reality" because followers of that view miss what is trying to be accomplished. In the mainstream view everything just happens by chance and there is a reaction to what happened. Once you study these events, not just Pearl Harbor, you see that they fit a pattern of "Problem Reaction Solution". The ruling elite are attempting to accomplish a goal. They create the problem, draw a reaction from the hapless proles, and then offer the solution they wanted as the "fix".
For example the elite need to gain access to the entire Middle East oil reserves before Peak Oil brings down the United States. Hundreds of thousands of civilians will die. They have a problem that needs a solution. Enter the government sponsored false flag of 9/11. Now they created the problem, America is under attack by Muslim extremist that just happen to live on top of 60% of the proven oil reserves left on the planet. The reaction from the brainwashed proles, with help from the media, is we must go to war with the Muslims and protect ourselves. The solution is unfolding on your TV screen right now....
It is a debate that like every other debate will never end.
Of course I could be entirely wrong and borderline crazy. This I have considered...
"This myth, like all fables, does in fact have a modicum of truth. There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the radical Right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other groups, and frequently does so.
I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years, and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960s, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it, or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments. I have objected, both in the past and recently, to a few of its policies... but in general, my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known."
~Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (New York: Macmillan, 1966) p. 950
==AC
What are people going to remember about Iraq? I'd guess that it will be a simple conceptual history (written by the intellectual winners, if not the battlefield victors), with at most one or two alternate views.
We could probably count up a dozen views of the war held in real-time, but they'll fade ...
==AC
Heck, get a few years out into some futures, and you might see historians calling this the Nth Crusade.
Only traitors try to make us afraid of terrorists
For what it's worth, I accept the "principle facts" of 9/11, but think most people miss the subtext and motivation of the players. OBL and GWB were co-dependent on each other, as they both pursued opposing strategies. Why did GWB leave his "OBL determined to attack" paper on the coffee table and go to chop wood? That might make it as one of the principal alternative histories ... time will tell.
It should be obvious to everyone what Israel is doing now has been in the works for quite some time. It was laid out in a document called "A Clean Break" by The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies.
http://tinyurl.com/pphjz
One should note, with interest, how the US has done some of the work for Israel such as the removal of Saddam Hussein;
"Israel