Off the chart

Literally! That's the chart for NYMEX unleaded gasoline for the past year. Right now it stands at $1.67 (you pay more at the pump because of taxes and distribution costs). That's a new all-time high. I saw $2.29 for unleaded at gas stations coming to work this morning, the highest I remember seeing around here. They'll be higher tomorrow.

Goldman Sachs released a report today saying that oil has entered a "super-spike" period which could see oil go as high as $105 a barrel. While oil futures are currently slightly below their recent all-time high of $57.60 per barrel ($55.55 at of 1:30 EST), they're headed back that way in a hurry.

Bring 'em on, I say! The economic disruptions caused by high energy prices will be nasty. The damages caused by the continued profligate use of cheap energy would be far worse.

BTW--I just found the chart resource I've been looking for--WTRG Economics.

Here's the chart for NYMEX crude oil futures for the past year:


WTRG also has charts of retail gasoline prices broken down in various ways.

The Long Emergency

James Howard Kunstler writes in Rolling Stone about peak oil and America's prospects for the future. His conclusions are pretty much in line with those of Richard Heinberg, Michael Ruppert, and others. The American economy of the future will be labor-, not energy-intensive; it will be local, not global; and the chance of serious violence is large.

Kunstler says a couple of things I totally agree with:

America is in a special predicament due to a set of unfortunate choices we made as a society in the twentieth century. Perhaps the worst was to let our towns and cities rot away and to replace them with suburbia, which had the additional side effect of trashing a lot of the best farmland in America. Suburbia will come to be regarded as the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world. It has a tragic destiny. The psychology of previous investment suggests that we will defend our drive-in utopia long after it has become a terrible liability.

I totally agree with that. The few serious efforts towards automotive energy conservation in this country in the past 30 years have focused on fuel economy, all while sprawl has relentlessly increased drastically the total number of miles driven. The current American landscape is an energy nightmare.

America today has a railroad system that the Bulgarians would be ashamed of. Neither of the two major presidential candidates in 2004 mentioned railroads, but if we don't refurbish our rail system, then there may be no long-range travel or transport of goods at all a few decades from now. The commercial aviation industry, already on its knees financially, is likely to vanish. The sheer cost of maintaining gigantic airports may not justify the operation of a much-reduced air-travel fleet. Railroads are far more energy efficient than cars, trucks or airplanes, and they can be run on anything from wood to electricity. The rail-bed infrastructure is also far more economical to maintain than our highway network.

I think Kunstler is a bit harsh on the prospects of alternative fuels:

Virtually all "biomass" schemes for using plants to create liquid fuels cannot be scaled up to even a fraction of the level at which things are currently run. What's more, these schemes are predicated on using oil and gas "inputs" (fertilizers, weed-killers) to grow the biomass crops that would be converted into ethanol or bio-diesel fuels. This is a net energy loser -- you might as well just burn the inputs and not bother with the biomass products.

I agree that biofuels probably offer no hope for keeping us driving to the extent we do today. But to say they're "predicated" on using fertilizers and weed-killers isn't quite right. While today most biodiesel probably comes from industrially-grown soybeans and most ethanol from industrially-grown corn, this doesn't have to be the case. Especially in the case of biodiesel, the inputs can come from a wide variety of plants, including weeds and algae. The plants don't have to be fertilized, watered or sprayed. (I hope to learn more about the energy balance and prospects for biodiesel in the upcoming Michigan Biodiesel Bus Tour on April 11, which is FREE, BTW.)

Kunstler's Rolling Stone article is a preview for his soon-to-be-released book, The Long Emergency.

Well, Duh

U.S. Was 'Dead Wrong' in Prewar Assessments, Commission Says.

The nine-member Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction was appointed by President Bush a year ago.

The report puts most of the blame on the CIA, which, as Maureen Dowd points out, is hilarious. George Tenet did exactly what Cheney and Bush wanted him to:



The buck stops with the lying scumbag in chief. His insane little war has already cost us more than the annual GDP's of the world's 65 poorest countries. Of course, it has cost hundreds of thousands of Iraqis much more than that.

Admittedly, I haven't read the text of this latest report, or of the Duelfer report from last fall. But it seems that any attempts to put the blame on the CIA and other intelligence agencies ignore one critical fact, which I have been harping on from time to time for over two years now: In late 2002, UN inspectors returned to Iraq and looked everywhere that US "intelligence" told them to look. For four months. They found NOTHING. The recriminations about the "failure" of US "intelligence" should have started then. Instead, the war started. The blame rests on the head of our idiot president, and eternal shame on him both for having started the war and for not having admitted his guilt and committing hari-kari.

Quote du Jour

From Rahul Mahajan:

In Iraq last April, not only Sunni Arabs but many Shi’a told me that the occupation was worse than Saddam Hussein – and things are even worse now. Somehow, the Bush administration has accomplished the difficult feat of creating a state in Iraq worse than the combination of Saddam and the sanctions. An election wrested unwillingly from that same administration is not enough to make up for that.

From Bruce Beattie.

From Matt Davies.

From Ted Rall.

Discord in the Axis of Evil

A soccer riot broke out in North Korea after the home side lost a World Cup qualifier to Iran. The fans were upset by a red card given to a North Korean defender--by the Syrian referee.

Gannon's Spirit Lives On

From yesterday's White House press briefing:

Q: Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has made some extremely strong anti-American statements. Is there a concern that he could turn into the Saddam Hussein of Latin America and be a haven for al Qaeda in the months or years to come?

MR. McCLELLAN: One of the things that was discussed last week with our partners from Mexico and Canada was the importance of supporting democratic institutions in our own hemisphere. And that's the broader issue here, that all of us in the Americas should work together to support the advance of democratic institutions throughout the region and not take steps back from moving forward on democracy.

We've expressed our concerns when it comes to the situation in Venezuela. Those concerns remain. Those are discussions we discuss with others, as well. And it's important to work through the Organization of American States to address some of those issues, as well.

Scott McLellan, as usual, says basically nothing. But look at the question! Is Jeff Gannon back? (Unfortunately, the White House transcript doesn't identify the reporters asking questions--everybody is "Q.")

Holden at First Draft points out at least three reasons why the question earns his "Jeff Gannon Memorial Question of the Day" award:

1) Saddam Hussein was a totalitarian leader helped to power by the CIA. Hugo Chavez is the popularly-elected democratic leader of Venezuela.

2) Hugo Chavez, to my knowledge, has not threatened either the United States or his neighbors. Saddam Hussein did in fact threaten his neighbors Iran and Kuwait (but of course that was more than a decade ago).

3) There is no evidence that Saddam Hussein ever provided safe haven to al Qaeda. I guess on this point Hugo Chavez is like Saddam, since Chavez has not provided safe haven to al Qaeda either.

Of course, McLellan, by (as usual) saying nothing, tacitly approves the multiple lies inherent in the question. His second sentence is perfectly innocuous, EXCEPT in context where it seems to imply that Venezuela is moving away from democracy, when in fact the opposite is the case.

Eli at Left I on the News points out, so I don't have to, that this question and non-answer are just part of a large smear campaign against Chavez, led by the whores at the Washington Post.

Earth has suffered irreversible damage

From Canada's CTV:

Humans are damaging the Earth at such an unprecedented rate that the strain on the planet may destroy about two-thirds of its ecosystem services, according to a landmark international study.

The consequences of humans' activities are severe and include: new diseases, sudden changes in water quality, creation of "dead zones" along the coasts, the collapse of fisheries, and shifts in regional climate, according to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Report.

"At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning," said the 45-member board.

"Human activity is putting such strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted," it said.

The four-year, 2,500-page assessment was drawn up by 1,300 researchers from 95 nations in an effort to inform global policy initiatives.

Emergency Blog!

Blogger continues to be unreliable. On bad days, rather than arguing with it, I'm going to put my posts on my new Emergency Blog. If you don't see any updates here for a while, check the Emergency Blog. I've put a link to it at the top of the page.

Not Another One!

Just when you thought that maybe the Schiavo feeding-tube controversy might finally reach a resolution, we hear that the Pope now has a feeding tube. So don't expect the press to pay much attention to the fact that the supposed democracy in Iraq is falling apart, or that the top U.S. commander in Iraq authorized harsh interrogation tactics (i.e., torture) and perjured himself about it before Congress, or anything else important. You may hear about Johnnie Cochran, though.

Supremely Stupid

Via WIIIAI, I learn about today's Supreme Court decision not to overturn a lower court decision which said, in essence, that newspapers can be sued for reporting the truth. What happened was that, in a raucous city council meeting in Pennsylvania, one of the council members called the mayor and the council president "liars," "queers" and "child molesters." They sued him for slander, as is their right, but then they also sued the local paper for accurately reporting the incident. Today the Supremes said that that's okay.

A few questions arise:

• What else do newspapers do? Quoting false statements by politicians is their bread and butter.
• Couldn't the LA Times now be sued for repeating the truthful reporting of the false allegations in its story? How about me for linking to it?
• I look forward to some lawyer arranging for Saddam Hussein to sue the entire US establishment media for accurately reporting the WMD lies which came from the Bushies.

Blogger back in major sucky mode

I've had many things to say today, but Blogger is constipated again.

This has to be a setup...

From CNN: Death penalty tossed because jurors discussed Bible. The Colorado Supreme Court overturned a jury's death-penalty sentence because five jurors had looked up bible verses and discussed them during the deliberation.

Now, I oppose the death penalty, and support the separation of church and state. But Christians are going to be on juries, and they'll use their interpretations of the bible, whether sensible or warped, in making their judgments. (Apparently they quoted "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," but not "Thou shalt not kill" or "Judge not" or "We forgive those who trespass against us.") That the religious arguments may have had influence on other jurors seems likely--the ignorant religious were probably happy to have it "explained" to them, while the non-believers and half-believers were probably uncomfortable arguing with the holy rollers. Still, that's really a flaw (and maybe sometimes a strength) in the whole jury system--the aggressive jurors will tend to sway the more timid ones. The Christianity of the five jurors is as much a part of them as any trait of any of the jurors. Having jurors decide cases after removing parts of who they are seems to violate the "jury of peers" idea. The Colorado Supremes have definitely opened a can of worms with this one.

Which, of course, makes me very suspicious. The Repugs get great political mileage out of these controversial court cases--the pledge of allegiance, gay marriages, and Terri Schiavo, for instance. Get the brain-addled cable-news watchers all riled up over some relatively insignificant social issue while sending their jobs and their children overseas and robbing them blind on behalf of the corporations.

Some day we'll probably find out that one or more of the Colorado Supreme Court judges was offered a deal by Karl Rove to support this ruling. His plan? Let's mobilize the base and befuddle the opposition one more time--pretty soon we'll be rid of the filibuster rule and all other obstacles to complete dictatorship.

On this case, my opinion is that juries should probably have access to any material they want except for outside stories about the current case (of course, they already have access to the court transcripts). If they want to refresh their memories about something they read in the bible or the constitution or Hamlet or Field & Stream or Hustler, the bailiff should run to the library or the adult bookstore and get it for them.

From Ed Stein.

Crime Pays

From BartCop.

From Torturing in Iraq to Crying Over a Vegetable

Read Billmon's post about one guy who is trying to encompass the entirety of right-wing lunacy inside his tiny little brain.

Burger King's Answer to the Obesity Epidemic

A new 730-calorie, 47 grams-of-fat breakfast sandwich. They're calling it "The Enormous Omelet Sandwich." The critics are raving:



Well, okay, those critics are ALWAYS raving.

Holy Crap!

Another tsunami?

(CNN) -- U.S. officials were urging residents to evacuate coastal regions in the Indian Ocean after a earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 8.2 struck off the coast of Indonesia Monday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration urged residents within 1,000 kilometers of the epicenter to evacuate coastal regions.

The quake was centered on the same fault line where a December 26 earthquake launched a tsunami that killed at least 175,000 people.

The director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said scientists there feared another tsunami might hit the area.

Charles McCreary said he could not be certain that the quake, which was 203 kilometers (126 miles) from Sibolga on Sumatra Island, would cause a tsunami.

Experts agreed the quake was massive.

"This earthquake has the potential to generate a widely destructive tsunami in the ocean or seas near the earthquake," NOAA said in a statement on its Web site. "Authorities in those regions should be aware of this possibility and take immediate action."

Two peas in a pod

From PERRspectives Blog.

How can we tell the Dumocrats...

That ALL pro-war candidates are UNACCEPTABLE in 2008? Matt Taibi summarizes the stupidity of the "national security democrats," a category which includes almost no actual Democrats, but unbelievably includes the six supposedly leading candidates for the 2008 nomination: John Kerry, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Evan Bayh, and Bill Richardson. Excerpts:

"Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror. I would say to John, 'Let me put it to you this way. The Lord Almighty, or Allah, whoever, if he came to every kitchen table in America and said, "Look, I have a Faustian bargain for you, you choose. I will guarantee to you that I will end all terror threats against the United States within the year, but in return for that there will be no help for education, no help for Social Security, no help for health care." What do you do?' My answer is that seventy-five per cent of the American people would buy that bargain." — Joe Biden, in The New Yorker, on what he would say to John Kerry
...
In the midst of all of this, the Democratic Party is preparing its shiny new 2008 position on Iraq and terror. Described in Goldberg's New Yorker article, the political plan is centered around a new faction that calls itself the "National Security Democrats" (a term coined by that famous liberal, Richard Holbrooke) and is led by revolting hair-plug survivor Joe Biden. The position of the "National Security Democrats" is that the party should be "more open to the idea of military action, and even preemption" and that the Democrats should "try to distance themselves from the Party's Post-Vietnam ambivalence about the projection of American power." Additionally, the Democrats ought to reconsider their traditional stance as an opposition party and learn to embrace Republican heroes like Ronald Reagan.

"Everyone knew 'Reagan is dangerous,' remember?" Biden says. "He talked about freedom, and what do we do? We say it's bad speech, dangerous speech." Democrats, he says, "are making the same mistakes again."

It would be easy to dismiss the Biden revival as a cheap stunt by a discredited party hack with all the national appeal of the streptococcus virus, except for one thing. Biden's "national security" camp includes all four of the expected main contenders for the Democratic nomination—Biden himself, Hillary Clinton, Indiana senator Evan Bayh, and John Edwards. New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, another outside contender, is also a member of this camp. We are going to be hearing a lot about "National Security Democrats" in the next three years.
...
The Democratic party leadership's persistent and bizarre campaign of self-condemnation and Republican bootlicking is one of those things that, on its face, makes very little logical sense. It makes cultural sense; we have come to expect that the cultural figures we call the Democrats will respond to electoral failure first by sniveling and finger-pointing, and then by puffing up their chests and telling their dates they know how to handle themselves in a bar fight. From the Republicans we expect just the opposite; beaten at the polls, they immediately start cozying up to snake-handlers and gun freaks and denouncing school lunches as socialism. It is impossible to imagine a Newt Gingrich responding, say, to LBJ's Great Society by concocting its own expensive plan to feed the poor black man—but we fully expect that a Democrat who loses an election will suddenly start to reconsider his opposition to preemtpive invasion and Reaganomics.

We expect these things, so they strike us as logical when we see them happen. But they make no sense. A merely cynical opposition party would be emboldened by poll numbers showing majority opposition to the war to court those votes. And a moral one would seize upon news of the sort coming out of Britain to argue to not only to their own voters (who would unanimously support them in this aim), but to the country at large, that the invasion of Iraq was based upon a fallacy, illegal and impeachable.

But the Democratic leaders do neither. Instead, they tell 53 percent of the country that they are mistaken, and throw their chips in with the other 47 percent, who incidentally support the other party and are not likely to ever budge. They then go further and try to argue that fighting the war on terror requires abandoning health care, education and Social Security—an idea that, let's face it, makes no f***ing sense at all.

A vote for the Iraq war should be an immediate disqualifier for any Democrat thinking of running for president--and that rules out the five Senate cretins listed above (and Richardson, too, although he didn't actually vote on it). If they're not going to run against the criminal Republican agenda, they shouldn't run at all. Selling out didn't work in 2004, and it won't work in 2008.

From Christo Komarnitski.

From Ted Rall.

Bush's first criminal war still kills

In Afghanistan, troops are still dying. Four US soldiers were killed by a land mine south of Kabul today.

Solar Project Progressing!

We made a lot of progress on my solar-power project today. Check it out on my solar project blog!

From Mark Streeter.

From Kirk Waters.

From David Horsey.

From Jim Morin.

While one woman slowly dies here...

People continue to die by the dozens in Iraq. A series of attacks killed 23 on Thursday and Friday, and three more US soldiers were killed today.

Venezuelan VP responds to Rummy's lack of imagination

Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel issued a statement in response to Dumbsfiend's complaints about Venezuela's purchasing of 100,000 AK-47 rifles from Russia. An excerpt:

The Lord of War, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense of the United States made some statements following the same line of repeating the usual impertinences about Venezuela. These impertinences inspired by the goal of getting involved in the internal politics of other nations and violate our sovereignty, continue being utilized systematically by U.S. officials.

In Venezuela we are worried about the elevated military spending by the United States, which stands around 450 billion dollars, representing a spending that surpasses that of the 18 other military powers that follow them. The U.S. alone absorbs 36% of the world's military spending. This has generated great preoccupation in the majority of the countries around the world, since there is no justification for the building of so many devices for war.

As the government of that country has said in repeated opportunities, they are the greatest military power in history, and its objectives are to control and assure its hegemony over the rest of the world. What are they fearing in order to justify such increase in military spending? Can anybody believe such country could be invaded by a foreign power? What is really happening is that the U.S. has developed a very new doctrine through which they justify their arms buildups. This is the frequently mentioned preventive war. For them it is not about peace, but about preventive war. This is the doctrine that has the whole world worried because, as we all know, it has already been put into practice.

The Bushies have restarted the arms race by claiming the right to attack any nation at any time without reason, but choosing only to attack the weakest and most defenseless (and oil-soaked) among them. Compare the treatment of Afghanistan to that of Pakistan, or Iraq to North Korea. Like all bullies, the Bushies pick on the weak. Rangel has clearly spelled out to Rummy what the world thinks.

I Can't Imagine What India and Pakistan Might Do With F-16's

The Bushies have okayed the sale of F-16 fighter planes to both India and Pakistan, bitter nuclear rivals which go to or beyond the brink of war every five years or so. Rummy can't imagine why Venezuela would need 100,000 rifles--can he possibly guess what rival nuclear powers might do with jets capable of delivering nukes?

Our government is so completely corrupt and evil, it's almost beyond belief. Reagan/Bush Sr. armed BOTH SIDES of the bitter Iran-Iraq war in the 1980's, supplying the excuse for attacking Iraq TWICE after they decided they didn't like Saddam anymore.

The government claims that supplying Pakistan with F-16's is its reward for supporting the criminal "war on terror." Pakistan, who supported al Qaeda, nurtured the Taliban, and supplied nuclear technology to several countries we're supposed not to like. If the F-16's aren't used to nuke India, they'll probably be used to put down any opposition to Mushareff's dictatorship, making sure that freedom doesn't try to march in there.

Bloody, horrible, criminal hypocrites.

BP Plant has long history of safety violations

WSWS provides the history of problems at the Texas City refinery where an explosion on Wednesday killed 15 and injured over 100.

I can't imagine why Donald Rumsfeld hasn't been fired

From CNN:

Rumsfeld, during a four-day trip to Latin America, raised concerns about the reports of Venezuela's rifle purchases Wednesday.

"I can't imagine what's going to happen to 100,000 AK-47s," Rumsfeld said at a news conference in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, which shares a border with Venezuela.

"I can't understand why Venezuela needs 100,000 AK-47s. I personally hope it doesn't happen. I can't imagine, if it did happen, it would be good for the hemisphere," the defense secretary said.

Look in the mirror, jerkwad. You lose more weaponry than that every morning before you have your All-Bran. Over $400 billion is being wasted on weaponry for your Pentagon every friggin' year, NOT counting the money spent on your insane wars. Your boss has been rattling swords at Venezuela ever since he got appointed, and has tried various times to overthrow Venezuela's democratically-elected government (jealous, I guess). Venezuela needs 100,000 AK-47's to defend itself from you, Dumbsfiend.

If the Repugs really want to promote a culture of life, they should disconnect Rummy's feeding tube.

It really is amazing how frequently Rummy and Condiliar openly state how clueless they are, and they don't get called on it.

Refinery Explosion

Last year, when a series of explosions rocked the BP refinery in Texas City, Texas, I suggested that the hasty elimination of terrorism as a possible cause by the FBI was suspicious. A reader familiar with the oil industry e-mailed me to tell how common refinery fires and explosions really are, so I shouldn't be too suspicious.

Nevertheless--that same refinery was hit with a huge explosion yesterday, killing at least 14 and injuring 100. And, just like last year, the spokesmodels are quickly saying they don't know what it was, but they sure know what it wasn't:

Mr. Parus said that the cause was not yet determined but that the explosion occurred in an isomerization unit, which raises the octane level of gasoline. Camille Dass, a BP spokeswoman, said foul play was not suspected.

The explosion caused oil prices to rise a little, but it had a bigger impact on gasoline, which hit a new record high. As my brother pointed out, a damaged refinery actually reduces demand for crude oil while reducing the supply of gasoline and other refined products.

From Lalo Alcaraz.

From J.D. Crowe.

Ha ha!

Roger Clemens' Hummer was stolen. His kid had driven it to high school.

Sorry. That's my schadenfreude for the day. I hope the thieves sold the parts and gave the money to poor people. Then again, maybe Mike Piazza stole it.

"Peak Oil" and "Half the Oil is Gone" are not the same thing

Sorry--this is a relatively new pet peeve of mine. I first learned of the concept of peak oil last June from Richard Heinberg, speaking at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair. I read his book and a couple of others on the subject, and it has become a frequent topic on this blog. As Heinberg explained it, and the name implies, peak oil describes the time of maximum oil production for a well, a field, a nation or a planet. Since the production curves for these entities frequently resemble bell curves, some suggest that peak oil occurs when half of the oil is gone. This is certainly possible in some cases, but there is no reason whatsoever that it has to be the case (nor could we ever really know even if it was). So it really bugs me when so-called experts on the subject claim that "peak production" and "half gone" are identical. The latest culprit is Michael Klare, author of Resource Wars, one of the first books I read after 9/11 to try and figure out what was really happening. Here's a paragraph from Klare's recent article on TomDispatch:

Where one stands on this critical issue depends on one's estimate of how much petroleum the Earth originally possessed. Those like Deffeyes, who contend that peak oil will arrive soon, believe that our petroleum inheritance amounted to roughly 2,000 billion barrels when commercial oil drilling first commenced in 1859. Since we have already consumed approximately 950 billion barrels and are now burning some 30 billion barrels each year, in this scenario the halfway point of total world extraction -- and so the moment of peak production -- should be just a year or two away. By contrast, those who hold that peak oil is safely in the distance claim that the world's total inheritance is closer to 3,000 billion barrels. This more optimistic figure would include the 950 billion barrels already consumed, "proven" reserves of approximately 1,150 billion barrels, and as-yet-undiscovered fields believed to hold another 900 billion barrels. This latter amount, it should be noted, represents the equivalent of all the known oil in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa combined.

To be fair, Klare does say earlier in the article that peak oil occurs "usually when half of the total amount of oil has been extracted," so at least he's hinting that they're not identical concepts. But to claim that the halfway point of total world extraction will be (has been?) the "moment" of peak production pretty clearly indicates that he believes they are identical concepts.

But they aren't. The total amount of oil that existed in the world before commercial drilling began in 1859 was strictly a matter of two things--geology and definitions (sweet crude, sour crude, oil sands, etc.--how much counts as "oil?"). While impossible to accurately estimate, the actual amount according to any particular definition was fixed and finite. Peak oil, however, depends on geology, definitions, technology, economics, politics and probably lots of other things. Where is the oil located, who controls it, how hard is it to get, how much money will they get for it? The interaction of all of these things and more will determine how much oil gets pumped out of the ground in a given year, and will also determine in which year the most oil gets pumped. The fact that the amount of oil is finite guarantees that there will be a peak year, but there is no reason at all that it has to coincide with the "half-gone" date, even if we had a clue as to when that would be, which we don't.

If I had to, I would guess that we'll reach peak oil any day now, but that probably well under half of the oil will be gone by then. It's just that most of what's left is too hard to get, or of too poor quality, ever to justify its extraction economically. There is an absolute limit--if oil takes more energy to get than it has in it, it won't be extracted.

PS: Here are a couple of analogies to explain why "peak extraction" and "half gone" are different. Consider a bowl of spaghetti sitting in front of me when I'm hungry. Peak extraction will occur almost immediately, but it will be a little while before the spaghetti is half gone. Or consider manned planetary exploration. This activity, like US oil production, peaked in the early 1970's (counting the moon as a planet). New technology may someday create a new peak when other planets and moons in the solar system are explored, and possibly even a planet or two outside the solar system. Unless Einstein was wrong, however, peak planetary exploration will occur long before half of all planets in the universe, or even the Milky Way, are explored.

World oil doesn't match either scenario closely, but I think it is probably closer to the second one than the first. Higher oil prices will make some old fields and some new exploration economical, but they will also make alternatives, including conservation, more attractive. What remains, no matter how much there is, will not be worth getting.

The Culture of Life Lie

Tom Tomorrow completely blows away the hypocrisy coming from the chief sleazebags runningruining our country--Tom DeLay and George W. Bush.

From aWol:

This is a complex case with serious issues, but in extraordinary circumstances like this, it is wisest to always err on the side of life.

After reminding us of W's pitiful record of executions as governor of Texas and how he has obviously erred on the side of death in starting his various wars, Tom Tomorrow quotes Digby:

By now most people who read liberal blogs are aware that George W. Bush signed a law in Texas that expressly gave hospitals the right to remove life support if the patient could not pay and there was no hope of revival, regardless of the patient's family's wishes. It is called the Texas Futile Care Law. Under this law, a baby was removed from life support against his mother's wishes in Texas just this week. A 68 year old man was given a temporary reprieve by the Texas courts just yesterday.

Conservatives join with liberals and ACLU to fight Patriot Act

Led by former Georgia Republican Congressman Bob Barr, the "Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances" aims to get Congress to rescind three of the worst provisions of the Fascism Act of 2001:

The group said it would focus its efforts on urging Congress to scale back three provisions of the law that let federal agents conduct "sneak and peek" searches of a home or business without immediately notifying the subject of such searches; demand records from institutions like libraries and medical offices; and use a broad definition of terrorism in pursuing suspects.
...
Paul Weyrich, who is chairman of the Free Congress Foundation and a prominent conservative who joined the coalition, said he thought the administration, and in particular the former attorney general, John Ashcroft, had adopted an "absolutist" defense of the law.

Mr. Weyrich said he took offense at comments by Mr. Ashcroft suggesting that if people raised concerns about the law, "you were aiding and abetting terrorists. I don't think my colleagues here ought to be put in that position."

Other conservatives who voiced concerns Tuesday included Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Taxpayer Reform; David Keane, chairman of the American Conservative Union, and leaders of the Second Amendment Foundation and other gun-rights groups.

Remember, the Bushies are not "conservative;" they're insane, as are their friends in the "opposition" like the Clintons and John Kerry. Real conservatives, like real liberals, oppose the wars, secrecy and fascism of the current misadministration.

Finally Gettin' Afta CAFTA

Dena has been sending me updates on the anti-CAFTA campaign. CAFTA is the attempt by our corporate criminals to extend the horrors of NAFTA to Central America and the Dominican Republic--more cheap labor, less environmental and worker protection, fewer jobs here, fewer rights there. Check out the CISPES site to see what you can do to stop CAFTA, or just call your Congresscritters and let them know that Bush-Clinton style "free trade" is a crime that is destroying this country AND the rest of the hemisphere.

If you really want to learn about CAFTA, Global Exchange is offering a trip to Nicaragua in May that sounds very interesting. I'm going to wait until I've had a few weeks of intensive Spanish training, probably this August in Mexico, before I go on any more Global Exchange tours to Latin America. Doesn't mean you have to, though!

The U.S. Imperial Project and Venezuela

Mary sent me a link to an Aljazeera article about a new book, El Codigo Chavez, about the many attempts by the U.S. government to overthrow Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. The book is based on Freedom of Information Act requests by author Eva Golinger.

Meanwhile, on Counterpunch, James Petras describes the likely direction the Bushies will take from here to overthrow Chavez and break up the Venezuela-Cuba alliance--using the proxy fascists currently in charge in Colombia.

Are you ready for the crash?

Non-delusional economists from across the political spectrum see massive economic troubles straight ahead for the U.S.--the twin budget and trade deficits combined with increasing oil costs leading to a falling dollar, rising interest rates, and depression. I cited former Reaganite Paul Craig Roberts' column yesterday. Also from the sane segment of the right, Stephen Roach writes for Morgan Stanley about how last Wednesday, March 16, with the announcement of a record current account deficit, a new high for oil prices, and a new low for GM stock, may eventually be seen as a tipping point. And from the left, Stirling Newberry writes for Truthout about how the Bushies are running the federal government exactly like Bernie Ebbers ran WorldCom or Ken Lay ran Enron--into the ground.

From Matt Davies.


From Rob Rogers.

Ann Arbor News on the peace march

The News reports on yesterday's event in Ann Arbor. I am quoted, having been interviewed by a News reporter during the march. I like the quotes from Rep. John Dingell:

Dingell, D-Dearborn, called Iraq a "sorry mess" and said the war was foolish and not necessary. He applauded the protesters for providing "great leadership."

"Public opinion does rule government, even when you have a man like George Bush," said Dingell, whose words were then drowned out by applause and cheers. "I beg you. Persist. We will prevail."

Fantasy Empire

Paul Craig Roberts calls the American delusions about Iraq and outsourcing "a threat greater than terrorism." Excerpt:

Delusion has settled over America. Washington cannot tell fact from fantasy. Neither can sycophantic media nor nothink economists.

The Bush administration is the first government in history to initiate a war based entirely on fantasy--fantasy about nonexistent "weapons of mass destruction," fantasy about nonexistent "terrorist links," fantasy about "liberating" a people from their culture, fantasy about a "cakewalk" invasion, fantasy about America's omnipotence.
...
The reality is that an ignorant and blundering Bush administration has created a Shi'ite crescent from Iran to Lebanon that is revolutionizing the Middle East. The reality will not penetrate the Bush administration. Reality contradicts Bush fantasy and is "against us." Facts that don't support Bush fantasy are "liberal" and "anti-American." Truth is dismissed as anti-Bush propaganda.

It is America that has undergone regime change. The Bush administration constitutes a Jacobin revolution. Its fanatics have declared world war on political diversity. The first victim of Bush's "war on terror" is the Bill of Rights. In its place we have an incipient police state.

One might easily conclude that Bush is first among the deluded, but the more one observes economists' romance with outsourcing, the more one wonders if economists are not the most deluded of all.

Outsourcing converts domestic supplied goods and services into imports. It divorces Americans from the incomes and careers associated with the production of the goods and services that Americans consume.

WaPo blathers about South America again

WIIIAI very nicely dissects the latest rabid attempt by the Washington Post to put South America back in its place as a colony of the United States, calling for "outside help" for Bolivia to counter the "meddling" by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

From Slowpoke.

1984 continues

From Ted Rall.

How about Henry Kissinger as ambassador to Chile? Ken Lay as chairman of the SEC? Bush Sr. as ambassador to Panama? Actually, none of Rall's suggestions, nor mine, are any more ridiculous than the appointments aWol has already made.

Yesterday's March in Ann Arbor

We had our second-anniversary Iraq war protest yesterday here in Ann Arbor. I haven't seen any estimates yet, but we probably had around 1000 people. The march started with an indoor rally at the Millenium Club on First Street. Various activities like sign making and letter writing preceded the speeches. Speakers included a local high-school activist and a member of Military Families Speak Out, whose son is just about to go to Iraq with the Marines. Also speaking were Ann Arbor Mayor John Hieftje, longtime Congressman John Dingell, and Iraqi-American Dr. Ismat Hamid. Dingell was particularly harsh in his criticism of the non-stop lying which oozes from the Bush administration. After the speeches, the crowd headed for the streets, walking down Liberty Street all the way to the UM diag. Veterans for Peace had set up their Arlington Midwest display to commemorate the lives lost in the war.


Mayor John Hieftje.


Congressman John Dingell.


Dr. Ismat Hamid talked about the plight of Iraqi children.


The march gets started.


On Liberty Street. I'm not sure if the "double plus good" is meant as irony or was just a mistake--saying "Bush is Double Plus Ungood" would have been just as good an Orwellian reference, but with a clearer meaning.


Arlington Midwest on the Diag.

The Crime Continues

Two years later, and the U.S. military continues its brutal occupation of Iraq. The previous dictator has been captured and mock elections staged, but mostly people just continue to die, die, die. By far the biggest criminal of the 21st century so far, George Worthless Bush continues to deny any wrongdoing or errors. Somehow, he and his co-conspirators have been able to spin the long-predicted chaos this war has caused into a hallucinatory "march of freedom," and large parts of the American public have been so brainwashed as to fall for it. Reality approaches quickly, however, and the disgust with the American Imperial Project felt by the rest of the world will likely have a major impact soon, especially in the economic area. Through their reckless wars and tax cuts, the Bushies have put the U.S. basically into bankruptcy, and the rest of the world they have so rudely ignored is likely to treat the Bushies like the Bushies have treated the poor and middle class in this country with the recent bankruptcy bill--like dirt, that is.

There is going to be a rally and protest march here in Ann Arbor today, with activities starting at 1 pm and the march at 2:30. See the Michigan Peaceworks site for details.

From Ed Stein.

Last Things First

From Rob Rogers.

From Jeff Danziger.

Actually, since the World Bank is simply a tool of empire and oppression, we can all HOPE that Wolfowitless will screw it up.

Voodoo Foreign Policy

From Anne Telnaes.

Blogger in major funk

Getting every post online has become a major chore. If this continues much longer I'll have to go back to manual blog mode.

The Cultural Revolution in America

Billmon compares current anti-academic hate campaigns in the U.S. to the bloody cultural revolution in China.

From Ted Rall.

$57.02

Obviously the world's oil traders know that ANWR's trickle won't make any significant difference in the oil supply situation--if it would, yesterday's Senate vote to allow drilling there might have slowed the inevitable rise in oil prices. But as long as they can rape Mother Nature, the Repugs don't care.

Comb-licker to run World Bank

Paul Wolfowitz just moves to a different way to dominate and rob the world's poor.

The man doesn't have any self-awareness at all

I like the idea of people running for office -- a positive effect when you run for office, you know? Maybe some will run office, say, Vote for me -- I look forward to blowing up America -- I don’t know. I don’t know if that’ll be their platform or not. But it’s -- I don’t think so. I think people generally run for office say, Vote for me -- I’m looking forward to fixing your potholes or making sure you’ve got bread on the table.

--W, commenting on "democracy" in Lebanon.

Yeah, George, you ran on fixing potholes and putting bread on the table. Right. You ran on fear and lies, and then had to cheat to win.

$56.59

A new record for oil; not likely to last long.

China, Taiwan, Japan and the U.S.

In a lengthy article, Chalmers Johnson reports on the changing balance of power in Asia (and the world), and how Taiwan and China might well work out their differences if not for belligerent interference from the U.S. and Japan. Perhaps most disgraceful is his summary of neonut pressure to remilitarize Japan in violation of its constitution. This seems to be both a greedy attempt to develop yet another market for America's arms merchants and a way to provoke China. Johnson concludes:

Why should China's emergence as a rich, successful country be to the disadvantage of either Japan or the United States? History teaches us that the least intelligent response to this development would be to try to stop it through military force. As a Hong Kong wisecrack has it, China has just had a couple of bad centuries and now it's back. The world needs to adjust peacefully to its legitimate claims -- one of which is for other nations to stop militarizing the Taiwan problem -- while checking unreasonable Chinese efforts to impose its will on the region. Unfortunately, the trend of events in East Asia suggests we may yet see a repetition of the last Sino-Japanese conflict, only this time the U.S. is unlikely to be on the winning side.

Liberated to Death

Baghdad is now one of the world's most dangerous cities. From AP:

By day or night, Baghdad has become a cacophony of automatic weapons fire, explosions and sudden death, its citizens living in constant fear of being shot by insurgents or the security forces meant to protect them.

Streets are crammed with passenger cars fighting for space with armored vehicles and pickups loaded with hooded and heavily armed Iraqi soldiers.

Hundreds of bombs in recent months have made mosques, public squares, sidewalks and even some central streets extremely dangerous places in Baghdad.

On Haifa Street, rocket-propelled grenades sometimes fly through traffic. Rashid Street is a favorite for roadside bombers near the Tigris River.

And then there's Sadoun Street, once teeming with Western hotels and home to Firdous Square -- the landmark roundabout in central Baghdad where Iraqis toppled a statue of Saddam Hussein.

In the two years since Hussein's ouster, Sadoun Street has become an avenue of blast walls -- thick concrete slabs 6 to 12 feet high -- that protect government buildings and hotels now home to the few Western contractors and journalists who remain.

The Sarajevo of the zeroes, and this time it's entirely the fault of the Americans.

Aaaargh!

If you haven't had your daily dose of outrage yet, read this post by Bob Harris. In the middle of describing the outrage, Bob defines the core of what a corporation actually is: "A fictitious entity created solely to limit liability and accountability, yet mandated by a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit."

Washington Post coming to terms with Hugo Chavez

The Post has been almost uniformly rabid in its criticism of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. But today's article by Kevin Sullivan is much more even-handed than the previous crap. The article focuses on Chavez's efforts to counter US imperialism, making deals with other South American countries, China, Russia, India, Iran, and of course Cuba.

I watched The Revolution Will Not Be Televised again last night, and was reminded of the incredible charisma Chavez possesses. It was certainly a special privilege for me to be in the crowd for one of his speeches in Caracas last April. The electric, rock-concert atmosphere amongst the thousands of Chavistas gathered in the streets was unforgettable. Chavez started his speech by leading the crowd in the interminable Venezuelan national anthem, with a better voice than most rock stars possess.





Chavez is definitely a force to be reckoned with, and the Post seems to be reluctantly coming to that conclusion.

BTW, Jerri sent me links to several articles on Chavez:

• Bush orders policy to 'contain' Chavez
• President Hugo Chavez waiting for USA to announce that Venezuela has WMD
• Who's Afraid Of Venezuela-Cuba Alliance?
• Venezuela: Bush's next oil war?

Washington Post coming to terms with Hugo Chavez

The Post has been almost uniformly rabid in its criticism of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. But today's article by Kevin Sullivan is much more even-handed than the previous crap. The article focuses on Chavez's efforts to counter US imperialism, making deals with other South American countries, China, Russia, India, Iran, and of course Cuba.

I watched The Revolution Will Not Be Televised again last night, and was reminded of the incredible charisma Chavez possesses. It was certainly a special privilege for me to be in the crowd for one of his speeches in Caracas last April. The electric, rock-concert atmosphere amongst the thousands of Chavistas gathered in the streets was unforgettable. Chavez started his speech by leading the crowd in the interminable Venezuelan national anthem, with a better voice than most rock stars possess.





Chavez is definitely a force to be reckoned with, and the Post seems to be reluctantly coming to that conclusion.

BTW, Jerri sent me links to several articles on Chavez:

• Bush orders policy to 'contain' Chavez
• President Hugo Chavez waiting for USA to announce that Venezuela has WMD
• Who's Afraid Of Venezuela-Cuba Alliance?
• Venezuela: Bush's next oil war?

Halliburton

Via Juan Cole: Halliburton charged the Pentagon $27.5 million for $82,100 worth of cooking and heating fuel. The NY Times says that's just one part of a total of $108 million in overcharges by Halliburton.

Everything, EVERYTHING this criminal government does is intended to put money in the pockets of their friends and supporters. Halliburton was a criminal corporation before Dick Cheney ran it, while Dick Cheney ran it, and continues to be one now. But while petty criminals get locked up for years, big time crooks like the people running Halliburton (and our government) stay free and get richer.