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Great nickname for Benedict XVI by an Irish scribe: Notorious B16.
I give it my imprimatur.
Gotta love Gary Brecher! Onward Christian Soldiers!
| Amin was a noisy killer, feeding people to the crocs, beating them to death, eating their flesh. Dictators like him and Bokassa never last. It's the "moderates" who do the really large-scale, efficient slaughtering. That's the lesson of the 20th century: if you want to kill a few people and get bad press, then go ahead: dress in black, drink blood and talk about how you love torture like Amin, Bokassa and Hitler. But if you're serious about wiping out whole populations, wear a dove of peace and talk about progress and love. That's what Stalin and the US did, and between them they killed a dozen for every one Hitler got. |
Iraq, then and now!
Ted Rall: Cold War Corpse Comics!
2005 April 15, Friday
Check out the right-wing noise machine!
Kunstler's article in Rolling Stone magazine seems to have stirred interest in the oil topic. Kunstler seems to have a great talent for pissing people off - which may be a good thing. Boingboing.net, one of the bigger blogs, has posted a large number of links on the issue.
Many of the linked stories take differing attitudes to the crisis. Slow Crash is a bit more optimistic on the adaptation of America to the change to low-energy.
Whether or not oil will peak soon, the idea that humans (or their economic activity) can continue to expand exponentially on a finite planet is mathematically impossible. We're running out of water and SUNLIGHT, for criminey's sake. The only way to continue to build Wal-Marts and Starbucks is to colonise the Solar System, and I'm not optimistic on that front.
Whether or not we're going to end up like Mad Max in that Mad Max movie, it's a good idea to get off your arse and walk more, eat less, consume less, switch off lights when you leave a room (duh), try to cut out red meat (your fart-stench will decrease by 5000%), buy food grown closer to home (no more wines from Chile, unless you live in Chile), grow some veggies if you can, etc. etc. etc. I'm healthier and happier since I began doing more and eating less - my 34 inch lardo waistline is now a hunkerific 32, I've lost 25 lbs in 2 months, never felt better. I no longer need to "wash mahself with a rag on a stick". I'm having to take a baseball bat to work in the morning, to beat away the hordes of women.
Ok - so that last bit was a lie. A cruel, left-wing lie worthy of Michael Moore.
I know I'm not going to save the world. There are way too many selfish, ignorant assholes for me to counter their gaping maws. I'm doing all this because it's a better way to live, and I enjoy it. I see no need to be another ailimentary canal in the consumer economy.
2005 April 13, Wednesday
The world's biggest oilfield, Saudi's huge Ghawar has reportedly peaked. This is not good. Of course, all this ''peak'' nonsense may just be a huge conspiracy by the Oil industry, the arabs, the jews, the freemasons...take your pick.
Denial about Peak Oil isn't restricted to the right-wingers who believe exponential growth can go on forever - it's also rooted on the left, many of whom believe we can solar and bio-diesel our way out of the problem. Short of a man in a lab discovering zero point energy, we're screwed. Here's a nice new Clusterfuck Nation Column on said topic.
| I asked if it had ever occurred to them that bio-diesel crops would have to compete for farmland that would be needed otherwise to grow feed crops for working animals. No, it hadn't. (And it seemed like a far-out suggestion to them.) |
| Repetition is key to successful advertising. The American media uses repeated arbitrary labeling in its supposedly impartial coverage in a deliberate campaign to alter public perception. Americans were meant to feel less sympathy for an kidnapped Italian woman shot by U.S. soldiers manning a checkpoint in Iraq after the talking heads repeatedly referred to her as a "communist journalist." |
It takes real talent to be worse than Saddam, but George and Tony are up to the task!
| A report to the UN human rights commission in Geneva has concluded that Iraqi children were actually better off under Saddam Hussein than they are now. This, of course, comes as a bitter blow for all those of us who, like George Bush and Tony Blair, honestly believe that children thrive best when we drop bombs on them from a great height, destroy their cities and blow up hospitals, schools and power stations. It now appears that, far from improving the quality of life for Iraqi youngsters, the US-led military assault on Iraq has inexplicably doubled the number of children under five suffering from malnutrition. Under Saddam, about 4% of children under five were going hungry, whereas by the end of last year almost 8% were suffering. |
Ward Sutton: Pope Still Dead.
Some cool ideas for your house and garden: Do it yourself resources
Audio interview about Peak Oil with Matt Savinar.
Here's why Juan Cole is a must read.
| What the Muslims think is Really Happening in Jerusalem The far-right Israeli extremists who demonstrated in Jerusalem were not just protesting the plan to remove Israeli colonists from Gaza, as was reported in the Western press... ...The Los Angeles Times reported that some Palestinians pledged violence against the Revava members if they came into the Aqsa Mosque. But the paper never explained why the Palestinians might have been that exercised. They thought Revava was coming in with sticks of dynamite. Now, maybe Revava never threatened to destroy the mosque. I don't know. They don't appear to be humane, level-headed people, so maybe they did make the threat. But it is a gross dereliction of duty for the US press to neglect to even report that this threat is what had alarmed the Muslims around the world. Rather, they were threatening to invade the al-Aqsa Mosque. The Muslim world understood this threat as an intention to destroy the third-holiest shrine in the Islamic world. |
Smuckers tries to patent peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. With a name like Smuckers, you've got to be an Ass.
Ah Iran, Georgie boy wants your sweet, nourishing oil.... Mmm. Hydro-carbons.
2005 April 12, Tuesday
I've had some hate-mail wackos, but "Gabe Cantu" takes the cake. "Oh, I'm so glad you're posting again! I love your site! Please do more animation!" - then, when I post about a topic that he disagrees with, decides that I'm an "idiot". Read and laugh as I disect his insectile ramblings!
Who's the idiot? The idiot, or the idiot who reads the idiot's website?
I don't know what to make about this - it's pretty apocalyptic stuff. The Venezuelan air force armed to the teeth with US carrier busting missiles? We'll have to see what Gary Brecher says...
2005 April 11, Monday
I'm dedicating myself to the issue of Peak Oil. I'll still link to and talk about other issues in the news, but as far as I can see, everything revolves around the decline of hydrocarbon supplies and the collapse of our economies. I'm hoping to create a short animated film on the subject over the next few months. If you're interested the welfare of you and your family in the decades to come, I can't recomment the subject matter strongly enough.
I've been spending many hours in the garden, preparing to grow my own food this year. My own small gesture to some degree of self sufficiency. Odd how I'm happier working in the yard than I used to be watching TV and playing computer games.
I just finished reading Richard Heinberg's THE PARTY'S OVER (Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies). Go. Get. Read.
| The oil peak will also impact international relations. Resource conflicts are nothing new: pre-state societies often fought over agricultural land, fishing or hunting grounds, horses, cattle, waterways, and other resources. Most of the wars of the twentieth century were also fought over resources - in many cases, oil. But those wars took place during a period of expanding resource extraction; the coming decades of heightened competition for fading energy resources will likely see even more frequent and deadly conflicts. The US - as the world's largest energy consumer, the center of global industrial empire, and the holder of the most powerful store of weaponry in world history - will play a pivotal role in shaping the geopolitics of the new century. To many observers, it appears that oil interests are already at the heart of the present administration's geopolitical strategy. |
| CalEarth is a non-profit foundation dedicated to research and public education on "environmentally oriented arts and architecture." Which is a fancy way of saying they invent and refine ways to build houses out of dirt! Based on ancient techniques these methods have much to offer the 21st century. They offer cheap and beautiful solutions to housing shortages, deforestation, the need for energy conservation, and the toxic off-gases of modern building materials. They meet all building codes and are so solid they passed the most gruelling stress tests. Nader Khalili was recently featured on PBS's "Life and Times" and was interviewed several times this winter on NPR, following the Tsunami in Asia. His architecture is, as the LA Weekly states "cool in the summer, warm in the winter, water-and fireproof, and beautiful." It is also a simple and cheap solution to emergency housing in refugee situations. |
Lots of great links about the coming liquid-energy crash at deconsumption
How to Survive the Crash and Save the Earth
| In the next five or ten years, the US military will be humiliated, the dollar will collapse, the housing bubble will burst, tens of millions of Americans will be destitute, food, fuel, and manufactured items will get really expensive, and most of us will begin withdrawal from the industrial lifestyle. SUV's will change their function from transportation to shelter. We will not be able to imagine how we ever thought calories were bad. Smart people will stop exterminating the dandelions in their yard and start eating them. Ornamental gardens will go the way of fruit hats and bloomers. In the cities, pigeon populations will decline. |
2005 April 6, Wednesday
Mystery meat:
I've been burying myself in Peak Oil for the last few weeks - I may attempt an animated cartoon on the subject. A LOT of work, but it would be useful. The story won't go away, as much as some would like it to. Life is going to get ugly over the next few decades, fast...
| Last week, the International Energy Agency, after years of dithering, warned of an imminent global oil shortage and made a list of surprisingly draconian recommendations, from lowering speed limits in all the advanced industrial nations, to a reduced work week, to a ban on using privately-owned vehicles (!). Nobody in the American government dared comment on that because it might unravel the web of delusion that we can continue living as a nation of tanning hut managers who qualify to buy 3000 square foot suburban McHouses (while making monthly payments on GMC Yukons). But those rising prices at the gasoline pump send a message that is cutting through all the static of American Idol, Fox TV News, and the attempted panderings of vindictive little pricks such as Tom DeLay. Message: our standard of living is headed down. Fast. Now, there is every reason to believe that the public will come to misinterpret that message, too, because the whole nation -- including many enviro-progressives, by the way -- have bought into the notion that, whatever else reality offers, we are entitled to a life of easy motoring and Ditech Miracle Mortgages, and an awful lot of people are going to lose their personal revenue streams when that illusion falls away. |
2005 April 1, Friday
It's April 1, so be on the lookout for witless news April Fool news ''stories''. I detest them, not because I get fooled by them, but because they're dumb. Anyhow, I don't think this is a joke:
| The cost of crude oil approached record levels today as markets were unnerved by a Goldman Sachs report predicting a "super spike" in oil prices to $105 (£55.66) a barrel... ...According to the FT, a warning to set up "demand restraint policies" in the transport sector, such as driving bans or shorter working weeks, is contained in a study to be published next month during the annual IEA meeting of energy ministers. |
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