Sunday, March 18, 2007

Solar; Iran Bourse: Chief/ Currency; Biofuels; Venezuela: Iran/Vienna; Greenspan

Anatomy of a Solar Community
Iran to Appoint Oil Bourse Chief
Iran's Eurobased Bourse Underway
Iran to Sell Oil in "Every Currency"
As Biofuels Boom, Will More Go Hungry?
Venezuela, Iran, Cuba Alliance Extended
Venezuela Opens Oil Intelligence Office in Vienna
Greenspan Warns Subprime Woes Could Spread

24 comments:

Rice Farmer said...

Will sub-primes get a bailout?
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/03-16-2007/0004547776&EDATE=

More alchemy to keep the economy going a little longer?

Rice Farmer said...

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/15/news/web-0315clintontext.php

In explaining why she will keep US troops in Iraq if elected, Clinton says, "It is right in the heart of the oil region."

You bet!

Akshay Tandon said...

I am a student in Boston from India. I try and read and inform myself about the situation of the world financial and economic systems, as I had intended on cashing in on the get rich fast strategies.

By the end of 2006. People such as Mike Ruppert had influenced me deeply but this influence made me dumb-struck.

I am 20. Blessed with an inquisitive mind I find myself more stressed with each day and with each news paper I pick up. Thanks to the re-wiring by the "truth" movements, I am able to see the gray between the black and white of the articles. The gray, as we all know, is corrupt, far from the truth and deceiving.


But I have started to believe in the coming of a 'golden age'. Man has been fooling the world long enough and fortunately for the world to be enlightened. Till now we have been TOLD that money is power. Soon we will understand that knowledge is power. And that the knowledge kept from us was the power that the men had against us.

Astrologically speaking, we are lucky. We are moving into an era of light from one of darkness. We are suppose to already have amongst us people tagged with the title of 'Children of the Light', or 'Indigo Children' that will seek answers and lead the masses into this golden age.


On a lighter note its nice to hear that Buddha is having an influence on the UN in helping determine the economic policies of the future.."It embraces the three pillars of Buddhism - dana (giving), sila (morality) and bhavana (meditation) - and is based on the Buddhist principle of the 'Middle Path', that is avoidance of extremes (of greed)."

HERE IS THE LINK


http://www.dailynews.lk/2007/03/20/fea03.asp

Rice Farmer said...

The new Seven Sisters: oil and gas giants dwarf western rivals

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/471ae1b8-d001-11db-94cb-000b5df10621.html

Rice Farmer said...

Welcome Akshay. I hope you're right about the coming golden age, but I have a "no regrets" policy, so I'm going to continue preparations for global meltdown and energy fascism.

As far as knowledge being power, I don't think that is a new idea or has ever been lost on anyone. That's why spying is one of the world's oldest professions along with prostitution.

Akshay Tandon said...

I realize that I wasn't very clear in my note. I failed to mention that the golden age would only come about after global meltdown and energy fascism and we all have to prepare ourselves for that.

I have decided to take the initiative to dedicate time and effort to come up with more material on related issued.

Will keep you posted. Also just started my blog.

akshaytandon.blogspot.com

Rice Farmer said...

Hurry to 'The End', for the end is nigh
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/IC20Aa01.html

This is some really scary stuff. As described here, the "Anglosphere" concept seems to be a "master race" ideology -- just right for the age of energy fascism. So perhaps Anglos are supposed to be the new Aryans. It's some pretty chilling reading, so don't dive into this mentally unprepared.

Devlin Buckley said...

Blackstone & Carlyle Bid $32 Billion For Texas's Largest Power Company

"The Blackstone Group LP is teaming up with The Carlyle Group and Riverstone Holdings LLC to put up a rival bid for TXU Corp. in a move that could surpass the $32 billion bid for the Texas power company that is currently on the table, according to published reports. ..."

Read on...

Rice Farmer said...

Houses cheaper than cars in Detroit
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070319/ts_nm/usa_subprime_detroit_dc;_ylt=Aov5dA96IapEm53NtFaK6N0EtbAF

Actually, this news has been making the rounds, and I'm sure everyone here has heard it. I wanted to say that what struck me most in this article was this one sentence:

"With large swaths of the city now abandoned, banks are reclaiming and reselling Detroit homes from buyers who can no longer afford payments at seven times the national rate."

I think this is just a preview of what will happen nationwide. Once the economy crashes, virtually all the people who don't own their homes outright (which of course excludes the rich) will find themselves pressured to give up their homes. Into the vacuum will step the banks, of course, but also the rich, who will have repatriated fabulous wealth from abroad and made a killing on the exchange rate because the dollar will be nearly worthless. They can then use their wealth to buy up mortgages for pennies on the dollar. The filthy rich will literally be able to buy up whole towns. Now you can see the neo-feudal structure taking shape. They will be the landholding aristocracy, while the rest of us will be landless peasants and disposable labor, desperate to do anything for a few cents. Need food? Beg at the doorstep of the local feudal lord. Need medical care? Call a witch doctor.

Rice Farmer said...

Former CIA Director Wants U.S. To Develop Common Energy Market, More Nuclear Power
http://www.inteldaily.com/?c=152&a=1417

Bonus: Includes photo of Mike Ruppert giving John Deutch a drubbing.

Rice Farmer said...

THE COVERT DRIVE FOR MORE SECURITY AND LESS HOMELAND
http://prorev.com/2007/03/last-years-of-united-states.htm

A collection of items put together by Sam Smith on the "North American Union" initiative.

Colleen Carroll said...

Mike Ruppert inspired me to write my book: How We Will Eat In A World Without Petroleum. As a mother of two grown children I fear for their future and thought my knowledge of how we ate before petroleum would be useful. I then got thinking of seniors, like myself who are not young enough to work at getting our own food and have limited incomes. So Mike Ruppert's messages made me think I should write for the old as well. That is when I wrote Cancun City's Best Ever Retirement and Visitors Guide. For those on fixed incomes that have to decide to eat or heat. In Cancun you don't have to pay for heat and you have money to eat.

Rice Farmer said...

Hello Colleen Carroll. I notice you have one blog entry. I encourage you to continue adding entries and go into detail about what you have found. I'm sure we could all benefit from any ideas you have to offer.

gaelicgirl said...

Here's a particularly good (and sobering) piece by Tom Whipple, entitled: "Peak Oil: Situations to Watch":

http://www.fcnp.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1028&Itemid=33

Rice Farmer said...

Thanks to Gaelic Girl for that tip. It's pretty scary to realize how very fragile the system of global trade is. If we don't get the latest fashions, or spices, or hot cars, or other luxury items, no big deal, but we are dependent on supply lines thousands of miles long for essentials like food and fuel. Rational people should realize that this system can't continue. The whole thing is hanging on by a prayer.

Rice Farmer said...

Burning the Furniture
http://globalpublicmedia.com/richard_heinbergs_museletter_179_burning_the_furniture

So, maybe oil has peaked. But there's still lots of coal, right? Richard Heinberg reviews a German report which concludes that "peak coal" could come in as few as 10 to 15 years from now.

veronica said...

Is this blog going to continue? I am distressed to have discovered Mike Ruppert's book just in time to have him, and FTW, fade from the stage. I'm appalled to think that he is suffering these physical setbacks.
We have been concerned about the issues FTW is covering, for many years now, but have only recently been in a position to make real changes ourselves.

Howlin_Dog said...

Most of the co-workers in the place where I work define themselves as conservatives and any attempt to discuss any news subject normally ends up with them replaying the statements from "talk radio". Since we all have to sort data, especially with all the data spin out there, I tend to put most of the stuff I hear from them in the "could be true, but probably biased towards the neocon philosophy."

However, they are worth listening to for several reasons and sometimes I do get actual facts I can use to base decisions.

I have been somewhat following the man-made vs. natural cycles global warming debate. Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" video seemed to be very factual and tied CO2 and temperature together and pretty much convinced me it was a man-made problem.

However, my co-workers provided me with a link to video called "The Great Global Warming Swindle" that now has me questioning all of that.

The Great Global Warming Swindle

It is worth watching and I would like to hear anyones fact-based comments about it.

Jenna Orkin said...

veronica, as you can see, the blog's flag still flies.

howlin' dog: as mark robinowitz of oilempire.us quotes: for every ph.d. there is an equal and opposite ph.d. the point is to get them to debate.

thank you for sending that link. i've watched about a third of the documentary and am not a scientist by training except for a seat-of-the-pants education courtesy of the environmental disaster of 9/11. what i note so far as that some of the scientists in the film are speaking in generalities which do not apply to our current world with a population of six and a half billion and with multiple, critical cities built on coasts.

the devil is in the details and often, in the information that they're NOT saying.

Howlin_Dog said...

Thanks for your reply. Please continue watching it. It does get into some details. Specifically temperature leads CO2 by 800 years in the ice records. This means the "fit" between the two curves in Gore's movie may be due to the wrong reason.

A 2nd one is that solar activity (sunspots) correlates to temperature rises.

In any case we all need to be thinking about conservation because of the peak oil situation. However, there is another humanitarian angle discussed at the end of the movie that means the mommy party (Democrats) may be spinning things even more than the current daddy party.

Rice Farmer said...

Global warming is a sticky wicket. Natural cycles (deviations in the Earth's orbit and the wobble in its axis) could well be playing a big role. Trouble is, those cycles are so long that no one can say for sure if they are involved, and to what extent.

What's more important is to recognize that global warming is happening (whatever the causes) and that many people are going to suffer and die because of it. And something must be done to save as many as possible. Ascribing global warming totally to causes out of our hands can become a handy excuse to take no action to help people, reduce emissions, cut fuel consumption, improve the environment, save species from extinction, and generally make the world a better place.

Pandabonium said...

There is a printed rebuttal to "The Great Global Warming Swindle" in the UK Independent :

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2355956.ece

Also, Carl Wunsch at Real Climate, one of the scientists who appears on the program, says that he was deceived by the producers of the program as to its nature and had his comments edited to make it appear to express the opposite view to his true opinion.

Another, point by point refutation is here:

http://reasic.wordpress.com/2007/03/10/the-great-global-warming-swindle-questions-answered/

Howlin_Dog said...

Thanks for the comments about Global Warming. It is important because decisions will be made based upon these predictions.

The people that initially showed me this video can best be described as: "I will give up my automobile when they pry my cold dead foot off the accelerator". Because of that, I initially viewed the video with some skepticism. I now hink it has a lot to say. While the sunspot cycle may or may not be the cause of global warming, I cannot buy into the CO2 as the main cause.

The main reason I disagree it the "rebuttal". There is a heck of a difference in physical systems between a positive and a negative feedback system. The 800 year lag of CO2 after the temperature increases in the past indicates C02 has not been a "leading indicator". Furthermore, if CO2 is the main greenhouse gas and it did cause more warming, the system would have "locked up" unless there is some other process that caused cooling.

socialscientist said...

http://www.freepublictransit.org