European Delegates Preparing for Sustainable Cities
Comment on Above from Oilempire.us
More Realistic Efforts on State/Local Level
Peak Oil Challenges for Local Governments
A How-To Book on Everything from Fly Traps to Water Filters
Khurais Oil Field Journal Brings Doubts on Saudi Reserves to Surface
"...It was impossible to know if the site had been prepared for the journalists’ tour.
...microscopic robots swimming through rock pores deep underground..."
What will that do to the EROEI?
Lieberman: US May Be Attacked on 2009
Military Exercise in Pacific Targets China
Russia Presses New York Bank Over Money Laundering
No Ice at the North Pole
The National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility: Issues for Congress
Using Cops, Paramedics and Civilians to Gather Intelligence
It moves the police officer away from his core function, to enforce the law, into being an intelligence officer gathering information about people," said Mike German, a 16-year FBI agent now advising the American Civil Liberties Union.
Mike's Letter in Salon

J.O.

Oil Price Drops

Michael C. Ruppert

I did some searching around the net today for explanations about oilprice drops and found a striking theme: Oil prices are dropping because all of the forecasters -- especially after the airlines Wachovia, Fannie and Freddie -- see the economy continuing a major downslide and they know that demand is going to continue to fall because more are unemployed or broke. Now we've known about demand destruction for years since we started pulling it from Goldman Sachs, Merril Lynch and others. We have been on the bumpy plateau for more than two years where spikes slow demand and oil prices easing after that encourages everyone to drive and spend more; the vicious short-lived cycle. So what seems clear from this is that no matter howfar oil prices drop (and I can't see it being more than another $10 for a few months), there isn't going to be any relief at the pump. That would only lead gullible Americans to drive more which would increase demand again. But I'll bet you the airlines and major industry will benefit from the price slack until the next big shock ina few weeks or months.

I don't think Joe Consumer is going to be too happy because he or shewill be expecting relief that isn't going to come.-- MCR

Blackouts Spread in 110 Countries
Right on cue.
Questions on Science/Technology/Energy for the 2008 Congressional candidates.
Nigeria and Venezuela to Meet on Oil Prices
Together, a force for the U.S. to reckon with.
Lester Brown on Ethanol Shock
"Consider the grain required to fill one SUV tank with ethanol would feed one person for a year."
Yergin Says Don't Blame the Speculators
Iraq's Oil Fields Open to Bidders
Effect of Wind Farms on Radar
Bill to Ban Nutritional Supplements in Canada
Ruff Times
Interesting insights into economics (including helpful links) coupled with retro views on women.
Govt Says FBI Agents Can't Testify About 9/11
"the government urged a judge to block aviation companies from interviewing five FBI employees who the companies say will help them prove the government withheld key information before the 2001 attacks."
Waxman Says U.S. Embassy in Albania Concealed Info on Arms Shipments
A Quarter of Adults to Face Anti-Pedophile Tests

J.O.

A Kinder, Gentler Holocaust

Peak Oil and the Rebuilding (Or Not) of Ground Zero

Jenna Orkin


"The consequences of Peak Oil - a cascade of bankruptcies including trucking companies which will cease delivering food to the supermarket; riots and looting; every man for himself - are unprecedented. 9/11 was unprecedented, too, until it happened. History repeats itself, but never verbatim.

The match has been struck for the burning of 'Rome' but this time Nero isn't playing the fiddle; he's talking about A-Rod and Madonna. Fascism is on its way only this time with more polish, at least so far; instead of goose-stepping in jackboots, it walks softly and wears a nicely cut suit. The gas chambers are subtler too: The fires that burned the toxic debris at Ground Zero for over three months; the formaldehyde-contaminated trailers that were provided for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, are doing the same job only over a more extended time. And we 'Jews' are swallowing the sweet pablum that the nice man on T.V. is offering (uptick in the stock market today!) Because this new kind of Holocaust 'could never happen.'"
*************************************************************************************


Battles to publicize unpopular issues such as the lethal air quality following 9/11 or the arrival of Peak Oil in 2006 have two phases. The first consists of sailing against the wind. The mainstream press ignore the issue or repeat the government's lies. This is unpleasant but after the arrival of Phase Two, one looks back at it with some nostalgia. For the second phase occurs when the problem has grown so big and ugly, it can no longer be ignored.

Legend has it that Joseph Kennedy knew the stock market was about to crash in 1929 when his shoeshine boy gave him a tip on what to buy. Kennedy sold. The story is no doubt apocryphal (Kennedy was surely planning to sell anyway; the shoeshine boy, if there was one, was just the last straw) but it makes the point: When everyone knows something, it's too late.

So it's with some ambivalence that we note the growing acceptance of earth-changing upheavals ahead. 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the "Shock and Awe" campaign that morphed into a living example of "the war that will not end in our lifetimes..." One disaster after another has ended not in abatement but in simply being supplanted by a new disaster. Obama's catchword is Change and many will vote for it but how many really expect it? When AOL, not normally considered a tinfoil hat website, publishes a story on people preparing for Apocalypse in 2012, you know The Powers That Be are psyching you for something even if the story, with its Nostradamus-like allusions to the Mayan calendar, has a New Agey tinge, (or should I say "aura?")

The fact that oil plays into our bleak zeitgeist is also accepted even as people sputter in protest, "But what about wind/geothermal/solar/Brazil/hybrids/algae/electricity/bikes/some-genius-coming-along-with-something?" Pick your 'solution' which may be a wonderful thing in itself but will not replace oil in our autophagous economy that depends on infinite growth in a finite world. Nor will it replace those oil and gas products, pesticides and fertilizers, which account for the astronomical spike in population since oil's discovery in 1859 to 6.5 billion.

However, the worst is yet to come. Despite Congress' clueless scolding of "speculators," those speculators are not the main source of the current oil dilemma. Unlike the Hunt brothers in the seventies, oil speculators do not take delivery of, much less horde, oil. Few speculators have tankers of the stuff in the back yard. But when did reality ever trump a populist, vote-gleaning stand?

The country's fast heading into what we'll euphemistically call a 'recession,' interrupted only by speed bumps like the "economic stimulus package" of a few hundred dollars that many of us received several months ago. The Bush administration's Energy Advisor Matthew Simmons maintains that oil could easily hit $300 p.b. On the financial front, we have the collapse of stalwart institutions like Bear Stearns Bank, sold off at a fire sale price to J.P. Morgan/Chase via a "non-recourse loan," aka "gift," of 30 billion dollars courtesy of the American public. And that was just for starters. Now Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac seem to be following suit.

Yet everyone's still going about their business, if they can afford the gas to get there. And here in New York City, the rebuilding of Ground Zero has been moving right along.

Up until a couple of weeks ago, that is, when the Port Authority's Christopher Ward took a deep breath, quoted the philosopher George Santayana (the thinking man's equivalent of saying a prayer) and announced that the goal of a grand opening by the tenth anniversary of the attacks was... fuggedaboudit.

Maybe all the squabbling parties downtown should just learn to play better together. Or maybe someone with his/her ear to the ground is getting, if we may mix metaphors, cold feet.

For ignore it or not, Peak Oil is here and about those gas prices, you ain't seen nuthin' yet.
Writing for The Energy Bulletin, Jerome a Paris informs us that the relentlessly upbeat International Energy Agency has sobering data it's anxious to release. But they have been told by the Bush administration to withhold the bitter truth until after the election.

The Powers That Be at Ground Zero may not know that precise fact. But they probably have a more acute sense than most of where things are heading. And while it's in their interest to keep up the front as long as possible, they must surely recognize that it's not in their interest to invest in a project whose future is iffy.

The consequences of Peak Oil - a cascade of bankruptcies including trucking companies which will cease delivering food to the supermarket; riots and looting; every man for himself - are unprecedented. 9/11 was unprecedented, too, until it happened. History repeats itself, but never verbatim.

The match has been struck for the burning of "Rome" but this time Nero isn't playing the fiddle; he's talking about A-Rod and Madonna. Fascism is on its way only this time with more polish, at least so far; instead of goose-stepping in jackboots it walks softly and wears a nicely cut suit. The gas chambers are subtler too: The fires that burned the toxic debris at Ground Zero for over three months; the formaldehyde-contaminated trailers provided to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, are doing the same job, only over a more extended time. And we "Jews" are swallowing the sweet pablum that the nice man on T.V. is offering (uptick in the stock market today!) Because this new kind of Holocaust "could never happen."

Iran Ready to Discuss EU's Nuclear Offer
Note Iran's statement that it would never attack Israel.
Does Gold, Commodities Surge Signal Impending War?
How Iran Has Bush Over a Barrel

Russia Presses US Bank Over Money Laundering

FTW Milestones

Sept. 1999 – FTW breaks an exclusive story tying the Bank of New York(BoNY) to the laundering of up to $15 billion in stolen IMF funds and organized crime proceeds from Russia. This cash flow nearly quadrupled the Bank's share prices and resulted in three successive 2:1 stock splits. In a prelude to the Enron scandal FTW also shows how the compensation packages for BoNY execs increased by 600%.

Beginning in 1999 FTW began a series of what would be three stories detailing how the U.S. looted Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mike's reporting was so accurate that it got him invited to an economic conference in Moscow in March of 2001. Compare what Mike wrote nine years ago with these recent developments in U.S. courts.

Presidential Directive Orders Sharing of Biometric Data
Defense Intelligence Agency Reports Loss of Padilla Video
Southern Californian Residents Gear Up to Fight Secretive Expansion of Blackwater
Willard Report
On Unauthorized Disclosure of Classified Information
Fade to Black: Is This the End of Oil?
the last year has seen major oil companies begin to make more noises about potential problems ahead. Foremost among them has been head of the French oil company Total, Christophe de Margerie, who has declared that world production will never exceed 100 billion barrels a day, a level of demand expected in less than a decade. "The oil companies are changing their tune," says Campbell. "They can't quite say 'peak' in so many words. They don't want to rock the boat."

Mumia Abu Jamal Recognizes Peak Oil
Michael Kane's blog.
The Word "Rape" Banned at Rape Trial
BBC Uncovers Lost Iraq Billions

Internet Attacked as Tool of Terror
Bird Flu Archive
Open Source Center Views Animal Pox Research
Army Interest in Sleep Research
US Has No Remaining Grain/Dairy Reserves
Obama, Israel's New Best Friend
Microchip FAQ
By the authors of Spychips

New Sources Fraying Saudi/US Oil Ties
Saudi/France Military Links
Saudi/Spain Military Links
Saudi/China Military Links
Saudi Arabia must be worried about something.

JO