Wednesday, March 31, 2010

PIGS JUST GREW FUCKING WINGS

http://www.postcarbon.org/press-release/85743-obama-administration-cops-to-likelihood-of

Damn, we did it.

"This may not be the beginning of the end. It is not even the end of the middle... But it is the end of the beginning."

My guess is that there will be real congressional hearings in the summer or fall. This is a great moment for the Peak Oil movement. Post Carbon is calling for what I wrote in Points Two and Four of "Confronting Collapse". We all did this. Big eyes read this blog and the Facebook page for the movie. Our movement needs to prepare to take center stage PDQ. Collapsenet will be there. The world will be looking to all of us soon, so brush your teeth.

MCR
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From Jenna Orkin

...and here's Obama's answer to the problem (along with nukes:)
Obama to Allow Oil Exploration Off US East Coast as Part of Energy Plan

Headlines
Jeff Rubin: Oil To Triple Digits By The End Of This Year, And New All-Time Highs During Next Year
Here's What The Oil Drilling Really Means: Obama Is About To Bring Back Cap & Trade
Several hours later: Obama opens new oil drilling offshore in climate drive
Steel Set to Soar
US Navy plane crashes in Arabian Sea

Economy/US
Goodbye, Federal Reserve
Hello Fannie and Freddie. The Fed ends its $1.25 trillion mortgage bond buying binge, but there's good news for the housing market.
Rising Rates, The End Of Fed Mortgage Buying, And Fannie Mae's Stinginess Stoke Fears Of A NYC Real Estate Double Dip
ADP Says U.S. Companies Unexpectedly Cut Payrolls
States have $5.17 Trillion in Pension Obligations, Gap is $3.23 Trillion; State Debt as Share of GDP
The 12 Markets Already In A Housing Double Dip
Mich. neighborhood complains it is overrun with rats - from Rice Farmer

Europe
They Thought Europe's Unemployment Had Stabilized... But Now It's Soaring Again
Irish Banks Need $43 Billion on ‘Appalling’ Lending
Greece Plans to Sell Global Dollar Bond by Early May
Greek Debt Chief: EU Deal Talk Hurt More than Helped
Jarvis axes 1,100 jobs after rescue hopes fade
Unions ask the Government to save staff, arguing that a deal would cost a fraction of the billions used to bail out banks

Asia
U.S., India agree on nuclear-fuel reprocessing Nuclear Liability Bill will compromise on right to life & health
"(Prakash Karat, General Secretary of the Marxist Communist Party of India) said the bill favoured American nuclear companies as it fixes no responsibility on the foreign suppliers who would be providing the reactors."

This is coming two weeks before a Washington nuclear summit, aimed at reducing nuclear proliferation.
Can nuclear summit ease security concerns?
The result of the talks is likely to be announced in a communique, which will not be that "exciting," said Collina, adding his expectations are somewhat limited. "Whenever you bring that many nations together and try to get them to agree on a common agenda, that's what you end up with -- the lowest common denominator," he said. "It doesn't have to push the envelope very far."

Pakistan: "On Wednesday evening, Swiss prosecutor Daniel Zappelli told the Associated Press that Zardari cannot be prosecuted in Switzerland because Pakistan's constitution grants him immunity as a head of state.
"Zardari, husband of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, has seen his stature within Pakistan erode considerably over the last year as pressure has mounted against him from an alliance that includes the country's military, opposition parties and vocal media critics."
10 Signs of Speculative Mania in China
Chinese Farmer And Son Light Themselves on Fire To Protest Land Sale
A Blueprint for Malaysia
"Malaysian companies don't repatriate capital because they see fewer decent investment opportunities at home. The same goes for foreign investors.

The only way to change this trend is to roll back Malaysia's overweening public sector and open space for competition and creative destruction. Mr. Najib acknowledged this Tuesday, saying 'we need a new way of doing things.' He laid out a plan for privatization of state-owned companies, sales of government land, a reassessment of subsidies and a review of restrictions on foreign investment in services."
Report warns on US’ Myanmar strategy
The report by the Asia Society, a leading think tank, supports US efforts to press the generals who have ruled Myanmar for decades to hold credible elections and to give more rights to minorities and activists…. “It is quite possible that the leadership’s primary objective in engaging with the United States is to demonstrate to its own population that the United States endorses” the junta’s “road map to democracy” and a constitution that enshrines the military’s leading role in politics, it said.

Terror/Intelligence
Assassination Attempt at Silver Market Manipulation Whistleblower?
Al Qaeda operative: Osama bin Laden healthy, calling the shots
Osama bin Laden, in tape, threatens to kill Americans
CIA given details of UK Muslim students
Darpa Chief: Fix America’s Critical Geek Shortage

Environment/Health
Toads 'can detect earthquakes'
Organic farmers paid for measures they already have in place
Cigarettes might contain pig blood
That's good news, right?

20 comments:

  1. I find it interesting in reading the actual article in LeMonde linked to from the postcarbon.org article, that it says the following about Glen Sweetnam of the U.S. Department of Energy:

    "In 2008, Glen Sweetnam published for the DoE a long term base case scenario in which the undulating plateau was not to be reached until 2030, and would last until 2090 before world oil production would enter its final fall."

    But then the article also says:

    "Glen Sweetnam, who heads the publication of DoEs annual International Energy Outlook, agrees that what he identifies as a possible decline of liquid fuels production between 2011 and 2015 could be the first stage of the undulating plateau pattern, which will start once maximum world oil production is reached."

    I've gotten so tired of all this B.S./Doubletalk from public officials that I just do my best to try and laugh at all of it.

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  2. Forget nuclear. The "nuclear renaissance" ain't gonna happen. You can quote me on that. The world economy is still in the toilet, worsening day by day, and oil is holding at over $80. Steel is going to get much more expensive. Nuclear construction projects are already known for their massive cost overruns. Hell, some municipalities can't even keep all their streetlights on any more because they can't pay for the electricity. And we need a hundred new nuke plants? Break out the candles!

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  3. Hey Mike,
    Congratulations for the part you played in bringing peak oil out. It must feel really great to be validated/vindicated. Good job!
    I find it ironic that the admission of peak by the administration came out via a French newspaper. I wonder how long it will take the U.S.mainstream media to catch wind of it. It seems like they are always the last to know.:-)

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  4. Mr. Ruppert
    Please don't use the "F" word. It is overused by the little jew ballerina and Joe Biden. You wouldn't want to sound like them, would you? I quit using it for that reason myself.

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  5. "Break out the candles!"

    Can't... Paraffin's made out of oil, and the bees are all dead!

    But seriously folks... One more slight drawback to nuclear is that you can't mine uranium using uranium (at least not yet). Still need oil for that. And how many people even consider the amount of environmental devastation that would occur from having to mine enough uranium to feed 100 nuclear power plants? Nobody talks about that at all.

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  6. President Barack Obama unveiled plans on Wednesday for a limited expansion of U.S. offshore oil and gas drilling in an effort to win Republican support for new proposals to fight climate change.

    You can't make this stuff up, folks!

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  7. Hi Mike !

    My name is Maksim. Im from Moscow.

    First i want to say - you are a great man ! Extremely brave man who I admire.

    I have wathed your 3 videos i could find in Internet. I was surprized by the fact that IT IS NOT translated to russian !

    I'm going to fix it. But it will be my first video-translating job.

    In crossing a rubicon lectures U used a lot of maps but in video it's quite hard to see what it's all about. Can U give me a link to pictures U were using ?

    I'm starting tomorrow translating. I WILL send U a copy when it would be done.

    Thank you greatly for all you've done. It's bad for all of us that U stopped. But personally I can't believe that such kind of a people could be stopped !

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sudden Mass American Enlightenment Puzzles Congress and Causes National Security Alert

    Washington - President Obama, U.S. congressmen and their aides held an emergency four hour-long meeting Wednesday to decide what action to take to stem a sudden and unprecedented mass enlightenment of the US population that threatens to destabilize the Government and create a fiscal crisis.

    Dream on……

    Namaste

    1st April 2010

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  9. "Undulating plateau." That's cute. I suppose now begins the spin. As MCR informed us in Rubicon, administrations dating back to Carter, if not Nixon, have known that it was coming; it happens to fall on the Obama watch. It is over; it is finished. No amount of tea slurping will solve it.

    It gets realer and realer. A social movement that does not go political is a mere flash in the pan. Sorta like the liberal 60's.

    Agreed, Jenna, re release of this article and the "drill, baby, drill" article on the same day.

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  10. Mr Andrew Maguire is on the lamb it seems probably due to getting a whiff of mint sauce.
    Who can blame him.

    http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2010/03/news-coverage-of-maguire-car-accident.html

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  11. P.S. I'm writing here, 'cuz I don't have any other Mike's contacts.

    Please, feel free to email me with any questions and suggestions.

    smart7676@gmail.com

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  12. This quote appears to be coming from the 'making it up on the spot' category.

    "It is believed that just before an earthquake radon gas and gravity waves are released from the earth which are then reflected back by the atmosphere and detected by the toads."

    On nukes.

    It takes 50 nuclear power plants to produce the equivalent BTUs of 1% of the USA's oil consumption.

    So to grow at 3% if oil imports are flat, 150 have to be completed every year.

    If oil imports are declining at 3%, then we need 300 to be completed every year.

    A significant portion of materials an labor would have to be diverted from other projects to do this. Costs would go up significantly.

    I don't see how nukes can make a difference.

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  13. Boy, I hope you're right, Rice Farmer. I'd be willing to power down to sandals and moonlight reading if we could solve the nuke problem. But others have different agendas. Just because something is ass-backwards and makes no sense, doesn't mean it won't be done by government and industry. You can quote me on that one, too.

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  14. Jeff Rubin: Oil To Triple Digits By The End Of This Year, And New All-Time Highs During Next Year

    Maybe. But we were at the height of bubble mania then. I'm not so sure that will repeat in the current downturn.

    Those prices were spiking as that All Liquids production passed it's peak. The businesses that were killed off during that demand destruction phase aren't around to help drive prices up again.

    I'm still sticking to my guestimate that we'll have an economic dislocation in May. After that crude prices will decline. We could still see a summer recovery in prices that will prove out his Jeff's prediction. I guess it depends on how severe the correction is.

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  15. Hi MIKE; Are you ever coming to Omaha??? If so, I want to buy you the best lunch in town. ChuckP

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  16. "Blogger Lenny said...

    Mr. Ruppert
    Please don't use the "F" word. It is overused by the little jew ballerina and Joe Biden. You wouldn't want to sound like them, would you? I quit using it for that reason myself."

    I think we do a pretty good job on this blog of being civil to one another even when we disagree upon things. Personal attacks and slurs are refreshingly rare here.
    I for one hope it will stay this way. Lenny's "little jew ballerina" remark is clearly aimed at Jim Kunstler. I admire Jim's work and think he is a good writer. I am sorry to see it appear here. So Lenny, I say, Please don't use the "J" word here.
    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  17. "Crashing Towards a New World Social Order 2012"


    This article expresses what I have intuitively been feeling as this collapse has progressed during the past 10 years. This is the first instance where I've seen it so eloquently and accurately articulated.


    http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article17568.html


    ...The outcome of the trillion-dollar bailouts was easily predictable, although you wouldn't know that from reading the financial pages. National budgets were already stretched, and they certainly did not have reserves available to service the bailouts. Thus the bailouts amounted to nothing more than the taking on of immense new debts by governments. In order to fulfill the bailout commitments, the money would need to be borrowed from the same financial institutions that were being bailed out.

    With the bailouts, Western governments delivered their nations in hock to the bankers. The governments are now in perpetual debt bondage to the bankers. Rather than the banks going into receivership, governments are now in receivership. Obama's cabinet and advisors are nearly all from Wall Street; they are in the White House so they can keep close watch over their new acquisition, the once sovereign USA. Perhaps they will soon be presiding over its liquidation.

    The bankers are now in control of national budgets. They say what can be funded and what can't. When it comes to financing their wars and weapons production, no limits are set. When it comes to public services, then we are told deficits must be held in check. The situation was expressed very well by Brian Cowan, Ireland's government chief. In the very same week that Ireland pledged 200 billion Euro to bailout the banks, he was being asked why he was cutting a few million Euro off of critical service budgets. He replied, "I'm sorry, but the funds just aren't there". Of course they're not there! The treasury was given away. The cupboard is bare.

    As we might expect, the highest priority for budgets is servicing the debt to the banks. Just as most of the third world is in debt slavery to the IMF, so the whole West is now in debt slavery to its own central banks. Greece is the harbinger of what is to happen everywhere...

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  18. Given that everyone and their brother knows about peak-oil (whether they admit to it, or not)... and that every country in the world wants access to that very same oil... and all those countries are going broke, thanks to the efforts of certain banking entities... Don't be surprised if you see all those banksters who walked away with all the bail-out money start to make us "offers we can't refuse". In other words: New World Order by Corporate Takeover. It is, after all, what they excell at.

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  19. What I don't get is this:

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&sid=aEYMnbGEE3NU

    OPEC is expanding it's drilling massively and there are other reports that are saying OPEC projects the price of oil to be stable between 70 & 80 Dollars for the next ten years.
    http://www.boerse-go.de/nachricht/OPEC-sieht-OElpreis-zwischen-70-und-80-Dollar,a2122795,b191.html
    Unfortunately the report is in german, I can't find an article in english at the moment, but it is reporting that OPEC projects the oil price to be stable between 70 and 80 Dollars for the next decade.

    So merely a week later, the oil market expert is saying, he sees the production of oil declining soon, maybe even next year.

    Obviously, there's a disconnect here. What is to make of this? That the US administration doesn't give a rat's ass about official reports from OPEC anymore? That OPEC is blatantly lying? That the Obama administration knows something we don't? That the Obama administration knows something OPEC doesn't?
    That you can't take any of them serious (anymore)?

    Would love some input on this.

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  20. robmac58...I'm on board with your comment. I'd much rather see someone use the "F" word in here than initiate a racial or religious attack against someone. However, I think the attack may have been directed at Jenna, who if I remember correctly attended Juilliard. And with all that Jenna continually does for us, I don't like seeing her attacked by someone in this manner in here.

    ReplyDelete