Sense and Reality on Energy

Floyd Norris in the NYTimes;

High oil prices have helped to bring down the American economy and to devastate Detroit. Politicians are talking about energy policy, although they seem to be talking past each other.

So it is now, and so it was in 1974, after the price shock that arrived after the Arab oil exporters started an embargo in retaliation for America’s support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War, and learned that they could sell oil for a lot more than they had thought.

From the perspective of 2008, what is most remarkable is that in 1975, the country had a president who actually wanted to confront the issue. The answers he proposed seem highly relevant now, even if the steps needed are much larger than would have been necessary if action had been taken back then.

Can you imagine hearing the following statements from either Senator John McCain or Senator Barack Obama?

“To provide the critical stability for our domestic energy production in the face of world price uncertainty, I will request legislation to authorize and require tariffs, import quotas or price floors to protect our energy prices at levels which will achieve energy independence.”

“Increasing energy supplies is not enough. We must take additional steps to cut long-term consumption.”

“Obviously, voluntary conservation continues to be essential, but tougher programs are needed, and needed now.”

Those are excerpts from President Ford’s State of the Union address in 1975.

Jimmy Carter, great as he was, was NOT the only president who attempted to grab this bull by its horns. Over, and over, and over again, the American people have been exhorted by sensible leadership to do better. Sadly, these exhortations have all fallen on deaf ears. They threaten to do so again.

Medvedev outlines five main points of future foreign policy

SOCHI, August 31 (RIA Novosti)

Speaking near the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Medvedev also said that Russia would not alter its decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia. He also said that Moscow's agreements with them envisaged military as well as economic support.

The five points, Medvedev said, were firstly, the superiority of the fundamental principles of international law.

The second point was that the world must be multipolar.

"A uni-polar world is unacceptable," said Medvedev, adding that Russia could "not accept a world order where all decisions are made by one side, even such a powerful one as the U.S."

"Such a world is unstable and threatened by conflicts," he added.

Thirdly, he said, Russia does not seek confrontation with any other country.

"Russia is not looking for isolation," he said. "We will develop, in as much as is possible, friendly ties with Europe, the U.S., and other countries in the world."

Fourthly, Russia will protect the lives of its citizens, "wherever they are."

The fifth point was that Moscow would seek to develop ties in friendly regions.

On the topic of Moscow introducing sanctions against other states, he said that these would be unproductive, adding that sanctions should only be used in "extreme situations."

Medvedev was speaking the day before an EU emergency meeting on Georgia. The 27-nation organization is expected to discuss future relations with Russia. A number of member states, including Britain and Poland, have called for sanctions against Moscow, as well as the postponement of talks on a new partnership and cooperation agreement with Russia. - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev outlined on Sunday the five points upon which Moscow's future foreign policy will be based, and also said that it could if necessary introduce sanctions against other states.

Russia 'could destroy NATO ships in Black Sea within 20 minutes'

MOSCOW, August 29 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Black Sea Fleet is capable of destroying NATO's naval strike group currently deployed in the sea within 20 minutes, a former fleet commander said on Friday. (Russian Navy modernized - Image gallery)

Russia's General Staff said on Tuesday there were 10 NATO ships in the Black Sea - three U.S. warships, the Polish frigate General Pulaski, the German frigate FGS Lubeck, and the Spanish guided missile frigate Admiral Juan de Borbon, as well as four Turkish vessels. Eight more warships are expected to join the group.

"Despite the apparent strength, the NATO naval group in the Black Sea is not battle-worthy," Admiral Eduard Baltin said. "If necessary, a single missile salvo from the Moskva missile cruiser and two or three missile boats would be enough to annihilate the entire group."

"Within 20 minutes the waters would be clear," he said, stressing that despite major reductions, the Black Sea Fleet still has a formidable missile arsenal.

However, Baltin said the chances of a military confrontation between NATO and Russia in the Black Sea are negligible.

"We will not strike first, and they do not look like people with suicidal tendencies," he said.

In addition to its flagship, the Moskva guided missile cruiser, Russia's Black Sea Fleet includes at least three destroyers, two guided missile frigates, four guided missile corvettes and six missile boats.

NATO announced its decision to deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia after the conclusion of hostilities between Tbilisi and Moscow over breakaway South Ossetia on August 12. Moscow recognized on Tuesday both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway Georgia republic, despite being urged by Western leaders not to do so.

Russia's General Staff later said the alliance's naval deployment in the Black Sea "cannot fail to provoke concern", with unidentified sources in the Russian military saying a surface strike group was being gathered there.

According to Russian military intelligence sources, the NATO warships that have entered the Black Sea are between them carrying over 100 Tomahawk cruise missiles and Harpoon anti-ship missiles.

Two-Fisted Tales of British Woe....,

The British chin is falling and that traditionally stiff upper lip is starting to quiver just a little bit. Should be very interesting to see how our traditional alliances hold up in the face of the massive operational failures the U.K. has bound itself to under the rubric of Bushco's middle-eastern misadventure.

"The era of cheap energy is well and truly dead and therefore Britain would do well to get its energy from sensible places and think imaginatively about where those places might be," Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks told BBC's Newsnight.

"There is a huge global grab for energy going on. We've got to make sure that Britain is protected; that we have the energy we need."

Thanks to my man RC who placed this little Guardian bon mot in my inbox;

Britain is facing "arguably the worst" economic downturn in 60 years which will be "more profound and long-lasting" than people had expected, Alistair Darling, the chancellor, tells the Guardian today.

In the government's gravest assessment of the economy, which follows a warning from a Bank of England policymaker that 2 million people could be out of work by Christmas, Darling admits he had no idea how serious the credit crunch would become.

The Peak Oil Crisis: Summer's End

The Falls Church News Press summarizes very nicely;

In the meantime, the geological peaking of world oil production is coming along right on schedule. Last week the Mexicans announced a major drop in output from their flagship Cantarell oil field. Russian production is stagnant and world exports are slowly starting to fall. Unless a major economic crash intervenes to muddy the waters, it should soon be obvious to all but the most biased observers that world oil production will peak within the next few years.

There is a world wide race going to between contracting economies and world oil production, the score of which will be kept in the price of oil. In the last few months OPEC production has increased a bit due to a more stable Iraq, increased Saudi production and scattered increases elsewhere. However, we are likely getting close to the last feasible increase in world oil production. Some OPEC members are already muttering that they deserve prices closer to $150 a barrel than $100 for their oil and hinting that if prices fall much further there will be production cuts.

Those who follow the status of new oil production projects say that if demand holds up, we might see some increases in production for another 24 to 36 months, but then depletion of existing fields will overtake production from new projects, shortages will develop, and prices will rise precipitously.

Starting with the current hurricane, it is going to be an interesting ride.

Sarah Palin "What Does a VP Do?"

Sarah Palin has no idea what a vice-president of the U.S. does......,

Let's talk about World War III

It is time to seriously contemplate World War III. The most important elements are already in place. Just as so many experts on the Caucasus have predicted, the region has become a power keg and the main source of great-power rivalry.

Obviously, disagreements between great powers go far beyond this region and, in fact, conflicts and war in the Caucasus are rather insignificant in their grand games and calculations. Yet the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and Russia all have important symbolic stakes there - there are promises to local players and fears that abandoning them might hurt reputation and global standing.

Paradoxically, the chances of a major, global armed conflict have increased since the probability of a large-scale nuclear war has declined to zero, in all practical terms. No one fears that the world will be annihilated, and thus the world is now deemed reasonably safe for a conventional war.

Let us try to imagine how World War III might start. Dr Nikolai Sokov in AsiaTimes online.

The Oil Weapon

Fears are mounting that Russia may restrict oil deliveries to Western Europe over coming days, in response to the threat of EU sanctions and Nato naval actions in the Black Sea.

Any such move would be a dramatic escalation of the Georgia crisis and play havoc with the oil markets.

Reports have begun to circulate in Moscow that Russian oil companies are under orders from the Kremlin to prepare for a supply cut to Germany and Poland through the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline. It is believed that executives from lead-producer LUKoil have been put on weekend alert.

"They have been told to be ready to cut off supplies as soon as Monday," claimed a high-level business source, speaking to The Daily Telegraph. Any move would be timed to coincide with an emergency EU summit in Brussels, where possible sanctions against Russia are on the agenda.

Any evidence that the Kremlin is planning to use the oil weapon to intimidate the West could inflame global energy markets. US crude prices jumped to $119 a barrel yesterday on reports of hurricane warnings in the Gulf of Mexico, before falling back slightly.

Global supplies remain tight despite the economic downturn engulfing North America, Europe and Japan. A supply cut at this delicate juncture could drive crude prices much higher, possibly to record levels of $150 or even $200 a barrel.

With US and European credit spreads already trading at levels of extreme stress, a fresh oil spike would rock financial markets. The Kremlin is undoubtedly aware that it exercises extraordinary leverage, if it strikes right now.

Such action would be seen as economic warfare but Russia has been infuriated by Nato meddling in its "backyard" and threats of punitive measures by the EU. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday accused EU diplomats of a "sick imagination".

Armed with $580bn of foreign reserves (the world's third largest), Russia appears willing to risk its reputation as a reliable actor on the international stage in order to pursue geo-strategic ambitions.

"We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a Cold War," said President Dmitry Medvedev. UK Telegraph - Russia may cut off oil flow to the West

Pure Identity Politics

Three and a half years ago, I anticipated and wrote about what's now unfolding in the presidential election. Over the next few weeks, there'll be a lot of mendacious talk about everything on the periphery of what just happened. But let me spell out the truth of the matter very simply and directly here and now.

John McCain's campaign has just dropped an immense turd into the American political punchbowl. (no offense intended to Sarah Palin who is just being ruthlessly exploited for GOP political gain) So how do I know this? Up until a couple days ago, McCain had only ever had one telephone conversation with Palin over the prior 18 months! It's not as if he even knows her or cares to - instead - Palin is merely a convenient cog in the bottom-scraping GOP political calculus.

The McCain campaign is categorically NOT about issues anymore, at all. Instead, it is a desperate and impulsive fin d'siecle crapshoot rooted in pure identity politics. The writing has been on the wall for a minute concerning the GOP endgame, starting with McCain's attack on Obama's "celebrity". Here now is the gist of what I wrote few years ago, and a couple of very important links that may serve to better illuminate EXACTLY what the GOP strategists are attempting to do with the selection of Palin as McCain's running mate.

First, everyone should read A Guide to the White Trash Planet for Urban Liberals. It is an eye-opening view into the next big job for Americans of good faith. Not only must we Work hard on increasing and enriching the level of interpersonal engagement within our own communities, the next evolutionary push will have to involve education, outreach, and socialization - interpersonal communion - with and among the masses of the poor, white, and pissed. This will not be easy. But it is most definitely necessary.

Not only will this enrich both our respective communities, it will comprise a bulwark against the genuinely evil predations that the backers of the present administration have in store for America. Second, folks need to read The Full Blown Oprah Effect, Reflections on Color, Class, and New Age Racism. This article drives home the necessity of enlarged, renewed, and full engagement on multiple fronts for any genuinely interested in seeing America politically work its way back out of the regressive nosedive engineered by the GOP.

Bottomline - we have all GOT to Work toward being on the same side, or, we will all surely lose in ways and to an extent never previously imagined.

Diddy "Gas Prices are Too High"

High oil prices are hitting everyone, including hip-hop moguls forced to ground their private jets to save on fuel.

After revealing on his video blog (contains profanity) that two round trips from Los Angeles to New York on the his private jet cost him $200,000, the rap star, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, who came in third on a Forbes list of top hip-hop earners, revealed he was grounding his private jet.

“Gas prices is too motherf---ing high. As you know, I do own my own jet and I have been having flying back and forth to Los Angeles pursuing my acting career,” he said. “Now, if I’m flying back and forth like twice in a month that’s like $200,000 or $250,000 round trip. F--- that. I’m back on American Airlines right now, okay.”

Combs pleaded with his “brothers and sisters” in oil producing countries to send him oil for his private jet. “I want to give a shout out to all my Saudi Arabian brothers and sisters and all my brothers and sisters from all the countries that have oil. If you could all please send me some oil for my jet I would truly appreciate it,” he added. “But right now I am actually – can you believe it, I am actually flying commercial. That’s how high gas prices are, okay, so I feel you.”

Hotter'n a $2.00 Pistol....,

rotflmbao.....,

Of Psychopaths and Sycophants

Expounding on Barrett's most interesting notion about the true nature of civilization;

Sycophants revel in their programming. The brainwashing the psychopathic entities have administered to American sycophants since a very young age, has them proudly waving the flag of their nation as "the greatest country on Earth," while vociferously avoiding real world facts: Theirs is a nation built on corruption at all levels.

• Mass-murder is our international policy.

• Enforcement of psychopathic edicts by gun and incarceration are standard procedures at home.

• Endless taxation and regulation are the benevolent side of the U.S. psychopathocracy.

The sycophants kiss up to the images the psychopaths have planted in their minds. With servile devotion, sycophants reach for the handouts from their masters, oblivious to the source of the presumed benefits.

As an example, the sycophants have dutifully filed tax returns to receive their economic stimulus tax rebate. Unbeknownst to them, this is just one of the techniques FED Chairman Bernanke will use to dump created-from-nothing cash from his "helicopter." The end result is that the new cash waters down the value of the already existing "dollars" in circulation and causes a devaluing inflation. The FED will then recover this cash drop with the hidden inflation tax: A closed circuit loop designed by psychopaths for psychopaths to extract servile deference from sycophants who are ignorant of the real nature of a fiat economy.

The modern formula for sycophant management is simple: Build roads, manufacture employment, extend credit, provide shopping opportunities, blast them with entertainment, maintain a welfare net, create the semblance of a justice system, pretend to have an election from time to time, provide grants for science, industry, arts "and other purposes" and the sycophants will grovel before the all-powerful psychopathocracy. If all this abundant benevolence fails to entrance and entrain the sycophants to the will of the psychopaths then fear, terror, wars and rumors of wars are the fallback policies of the ages.

This exceedingly bleak synopsis of the underlying nature of things coincides with much of the data tracked hereabouts.

Twilight of the Psychopaths

A most interesting notion;

Civilization, as we know it, is largely the creation of psychopaths. All civilizations, our own included, have been based on slavery and “warfare.” Incidentally, the latter term is a euphemism for mass murder.

The prevailing recipe for civilization is simple:

1) Use lies and brainwashing to create an army of controlled, systematic mass murderers;

2) Use that army to enslave large numbers of people (i.e. seize control of their labour power and its fruits);

3) Use that slave labour power to improve the brainwashing process (by using the economic surplus to employ scribes, priests, and PR men). Then go back to step one and repeat the process.

Psychopaths have played a disproportionate role in the development of civilization, because they are hard-wired to lie, kill, injure, and generally inflict great suffering on other humans without feeling any remorse. The inventor of civilization — the first tribal chieftain who successfully brainwashed an army of controlled mass murderers—was almost certainly a genetic psychopath. Since that momentous discovery, psychopaths have enjoyed a significant advantage over non-psychopaths in the struggle for power in civilizational hierarchies — especially military hierarchies.

Which coincides with a very great deal of the data tracked hereabouts.

10 Cents on the Dollar....,

Is what Fannie and Freddie stock has fallen to. Lots of investors worldwide must be mighty, mighty displeased.

Fannie Mae’s workers had $116 million in the employee stock ownership plan at the end of 2006. Today, it’s more like $17.5 million. Ouch.

The employees of Fannie Mae, and those of its counterpart Freddie Mac, are reeling from financial blows themselves as the mortgage finance companies lurch toward what could be a government bailout. Both firms ladled out hefty servings of stocks and options to reward and compensate employees — making them popular employers for years.

The top executive of Freddie Mac, Richard F. Syron, for instance, made about $18.3 million last year, two-thirds of that in stock and options that are worth a lot less today. His counterpart at Fannie Mae, Daniel H. Mudd, made $11.6 million, also much of it in stock.

But midlevel employees were paid in stock, too. Stock and options could account for a fifth of their total compensation, according to former employees and financial planners. Their ability to sell and diversify was often limited by restrictions on the grants, the terms of the specific plans and tighter rules on selling by employees while they addressed years-earlier accounting scandals.

For decades, both companies offered lush benefits, with traditional pension plans, 401(k)s, stock plans and other niceties, like child care plans. That means many employees still have a safety net, though their savings have declined, drastically in some cases.

“If it can happen to Fannie or Freddie, it can happen anywhere,” said Marjorie L. Fox, a certified financial planner in Reston, Va. “This is a cautionary tale you better pay attention to.”

America's Uni-Polar Moment Has Passed

Seumas Milne brings it in this morning's Guardian.

If there were any doubt that the rules of the international game have changed for good, the events of the past few days should have dispelled it. On Monday, President Bush demanded that Russia's leaders reject their parliament's appeal to recognise the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Within 24 hours, Bush had his response: President Medvedev announced Russia's recognition of the two contested Georgian enclaves.

The Russian message was unmistakable: the outcome of the war triggered by Georgia's attack on South Ossetia on August 7 is non-negotiable - and nothing the titans of the US empire do or say is going to reverse it. After that, the British foreign secretary David Miliband's posturing yesterday in Kiev about building a "coalition against Russian aggression" merely looked foolish.

That this month's events in the Caucasus signal an international turning point is no longer in question. The comparisons with August 1914 are of course ridiculous, and even the speculation about a new cold war overdone. For all the manoeuvres in the Black Sea and nuclear-backed threats, the standoff between Russia and the US is not remotely comparable to the events that led up to the first world war. Nor do the current tensions have anything like the ideological and global dimensions that shaped the 40-year confrontation between the west and the Soviet Union.

But what is clear is that America's unipolar moment has passed - and the new world order heralded by Bush's father in the dying days of the Soviet Union in 1991 is no more.

Well fella’s I’m going against the grain. Martin King was correct, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” I plain and simply have faith-- the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen – in justice. How? When? Where—I have no idea[...]

I personally don’t care if Bush is as old as Byron de la Beckwith and Edgar Ray “Preacher” Killen were when they were convicted, justice must be served. - Bro. Makheru.

Peak Credit

One could say all that is happening is that all financial institutions in the world don’t really trust each other, and won’t lend to each other. And that an astounding $50 to $100 billion of weekly infusions from the Fed and the ECB is not fixing the situation, and that we are witnessing the final parabolic peak of the world credit bubble that has built up for the 63 years after WW2 ended. That, and the end of the USD and Yen driven credit/asset/finance bubble which ensued from the early 1970’s.

So, before we continue, it might be said that the present development of the credit crisis, from August 07 to now, is Credit Crisis I. And the present state of affairs is that the Fed and the ECB have to infuse a weekly $50-100 billion plus into their respective financial regions merely to prevent a world finance implosion.

I also have noticed that the Credit Crisis I has had a one year periodicity of major new developments, ie that if one major sector had a problem on a given month, that the next year the same sector seems to reinvent a new worse manifestation. So, when the central banks stop this massive weekly lending, what happens? Massive forced deleveraging and probably world financial Armageddon. This would be Credit Crisis II, or Phase II. We will look into Credit Crisis II in a moment.

This is the conclusion we came to here at PrudentSquirrel, trying to ascertain where we are in the big picture on the Credit Crisis now. It is that the Central Banks are desperately trying to stave off Credit Crisis II, and they are losing, and probably knowing this, they will at some point confer together and pick a time to let the credit system implode, and try to weather the stock/financial crashes that will occur at that time. Likely, some currencies can collapse as well, and a great deal of FX (foreign exchange) chaos and restrictions will ensue for several years after the fatal date.

If it is true, as we suspect, that we are at the peak of a credit/financial bubble that started right after WW2 ended, and it is at a parabolic peak and cannot be sustained, then the world’s central banks already know this too. They probably are trying to decide when to let go…They all don’t have to agree, it only will take one major Central Bank to let go, then the others will be forced to follow. Credit Crisis II…A World Financial Armageddon?

An Overlooked Solution?

MIT's publicly announced energy initiatives glaringly undervalue the thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen and helium, which use the virtually inexhaustible resources of deuterium, lithium, and (lunar) He3. Gram for gram, fusion of plentiful lighter elements releases ten billion times as much energy as combusting gasoline with oxygen, without producing any greenhouse gases. Thermonuclear fusion powers the Sun, and we have already made it work here on Earth, although few people outside the field know about this work. As fossil fuel supplies are obviously limited, we do have a profound need to bring fusion power plants on line ASAP.

Detractors argue that we don't know how to make fusion work on Earth. These folks evidently don't remember that Edward Teller demonstrated deuterium/tritium (D/T) inertial confinement fusion (ICF) via the reaction D + T → He4 + 14.2 MeV neutron here, on Earth, at more than full scale way back in 1952. Many called this ICF demonstration the "hydrogen bomb" because Edward needed a fission device to heat a capsule of D/T to the 200-million-degree ignition temperature. However, laser-initiated ICF research achieved >50x liquid D/T density at temperatures of 200 million degrees more than a decade ago. Although the U.S. is withdrawing (again) from the European Union's magnetic confinement ITER project in France, the single shot/day Nd:glass ICF National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is nearing completion. Design studies funded by the Department of Energy (DoE) for Prometheus ICF with krypton-fluoride (KrF) laser or heavy ion (HI) ignited ICF power plants were completed in 1992 and released in 1994 for international publication.

What Matters: August 2008

Rat Meat in Demand

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - The price of rat meat has quadrupled in Cambodia this year as inflation has put other meat beyond the reach of poor people, officials said on Wednesday.

With consumer price inflation at 37 percent according to the latest central bank estimate, demand has pushed a kilogram of rat meat up to around 5,000 riel ($1.28) from 1,200 riel last year. Spicy field rat dishes with garlic thrown in have become particularly popular at a time when beef costs 20,000 riel a kg.

Officials said rats were fleeing to higher ground from flooded areas of the lower Mekong Delta, making it easier for villagers to catch them.

"Many children are happy making some money from selling the animals to the markets, but they keep some for their family," Ly Marong, an agriculture official, said by telephone from the Koh Thom district on the border with Vietnam.

"Not only are our poor eating it, but there is also demand from Vietnamese living on the border with us."

He estimated that Cambodia supplied more than a tonne of live rats a day to Vietnam.

Rats are also eaten widely in Thailand, while a state government in eastern India this month encouraged its people to eat rats in an effort to battle soaring food prices and save grain stocks.

($1 = 3,900 riel)

Viruses Rule the Deep Sea

In the Scientist newsblog;

Viruses in the deepest ocean environments are unexpectedly strong regulators of the deep sea biosphere, according to a paper published tomorrow (August 28) in Nature.

By infecting and killing bacteria and other prokaryotes viruses are the main producers of the organic matter that sustains life at 1000 meters deep and below. By generating this biomass, viruses also make major contributions to the carbon cycle and other geochemical processes.

"This shows that a very large amount of the carbon that reaches the sea floor is going through pathways that were commonly thought to be relatively minor," said Jed Fuhrman, an ocean biologist at the University of Southern California who was not involved in the study. "The whole idea that viruses have any significance in marine systems is only 15 to 20 years old."

Approximately 65% of the Earth is dominated by deep sea, or benthic, ecosystems. The sea floor is one of the hardest environments for research, Fuhrman explained, because of the distances and logistical challenges involved in conducting experiments.

While I've known for years about the role of viruses in the regulation of the atmosphere (why else you think there's a cold and flu *season*?) It comes as a bit of a surprise to have my mind opened even wider to the fact of deep and profound symbiosis in the ocean depths proceeding even to the extreme ends of biogenesis. Does one even classify virii as living organisms?

Methanogens have existed for billions of years, and according to a living planet climate theory, have modulated climate despite a variety of changing conditions. Biogenesis and nucleotide sorting in cloud parasols is one thing, but to take it from end to end in ocean basins, while not altogether surprising, is nevertheless a surprise.