email archives Support the site by shopping through these amazon links: amazon.com amazon.co.uk amazon.de		2008, May 29, Thussday. Bioscientists fake their results in Photoshop! Children in Katria FEMA trailers to face lifelong illnesses. What a peculiar story: Beijing suspends subway line.       Crazy video of two impatient kittens. Why UK PM Gordon Brown doesn't get it. Even by the low standards if his government, Gordon Brown’s recent pronouncements on oil have been shockingly ignorant. Writing in a national newspaper yesterday he argued the price has soared to $135 because of barriers to production that are “technical, financial and political”. There are problems here sure enough, but the word he left out was “geological”, and the omission is crucial. It means he really doesn’t understand the profundity of the current crisis, and explains why his panicky but vapid initiatives are bound to fail. Brown and his chancellor Alistair Darling can implore North Sea oil producers to pump harder all they like, they can even finagle the tax regime to raise the incentives, but it will make very little difference. North Sea oil production peaked in 1999 at 2.9 million barrels per day and has now fallen by more than half to around 1.4 mb/d. This happened, as in all mature oil producing regions, because of two simple facts of life. First, oil is produced from deeply buried, highly pressurized reservoirs. This is great news to start with; the pressure forces the oil up the pipe of its own accord. But as the oil is produced the pressure is relieved, so the oil inevitably comes out more and more slowly as time goes on. Second, in any given region, oil companies usually find and exploit the biggest oil fields first. So as time goes on they are forced to scrabble around for ever smaller deposits. I keep wondering if our "leaders" are evil, or just stupid. Chalk one up for stupid. My valueweb/hostway email account dermot at idleworm.com continues to come and go (nice work guys!) - so if you need to contact me, use dermotmoconnor at yahoo.com. Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2008, May 29, Thussday. Amazing photos of Mars - first from the Phoenix lander at the Martian North Pole: And here's the lander, as photographed from orbit by the MRO spacecraft. Note the solar panels on either side: DOOM! Russia worried as oil production slides. ...experts have long pointed out that Russia's petroleum industry is working with outdated technology, many of its main fields are old and depleted, and the private tycoons who acquired most of the assets after the collapse of the Soviet Union made almost no fresh investments... ...Russia's oil output fell in the first quarter of this year, causing some experts to warn that the country has reached the limits of supply and will not be able to continue meeting deliveries to oil-thirsty consumers in Europe and Asia. "Russian oil production has peaked and may never return to current levels," Leonid Fedun, vice president of Russia's largest private oil company Lukoil, told journalists recently. Oil news: Indonesia to withdraw from OPEC. Not exactly a surprise to those of us who follow energy matters: Opec's sole member in South East Asia, Indonesia became a net importer of oil in recent times after production fell and it struggled to find new reserves. Soaring oil prices have pushed up inflation in Indonesia and a recent cut to fuel subsidies prompted protests. Indonesia will leave the 13-member organisation when its membership expires later this year... ...the decision is not unexpected, since Indonesia's production - largely concentrated in northern Sumatra - has stagnated and it has precious few sources of proven new reserves. Mish Shedlock on Oil Speculation. This is the best description that I've read yet. I almost understand what he's saying (that's a comment on my denseness). Mish doesn't mention geology (peaking) in his article, which is a shame. More Mish: Too late to stop bank failures. The Oil Speculation debate. Some funny fails:       The money spent on the Iraq war could have sent 510 astronauts to Mars, or made America energy independent (though not in a green way): ...by building nuclear reactors. Westinghouse AP1000 PWRs cost roughly $2Bn a pop and have a net output of 1117Mw (1.12Gw). For $513Bn we could probably negotiate a bulk discount of, say, 20%, in which case we're good for 320 reactors, or about 375Gw of output. Our entire planetary civilization consumes about 16Tw, but the USA accounts for about 40% of that, so we could buy, outright, the equivalent of 6% of the US's energy budget. But this stuff pays for itself (it's producing electricity, a fungible commodity) and in actual fact, 50% of the USA's energy budget is coal, burned for juice. So we could cut 12% of the USA's coal-sourced carbon emissions, enabling the USA to not only meet but exceed the Kyoto protocol requirements using a single, fiendishly expensive gambit (and treating it not as capital investment but as expenditure). For $6Tn we could buy a lot of juice — a quarter of our global civilization's energy budget would go carbon-neutral at a stroke. (Yes, we just solved our carbon dioxide emissions problem by switching to a nuclear economy.) This probably isn't the ideal way of dealing with our environmental problems, and it's a naive treatment of the costs (has anyone done a proper treatment of the economic implications of shifting the planet over to a nuclear economy, say to the same extent as France?) but it's thought-provoking. Silly monkey, George. Silly monkey. Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2008, May 28, Wednesday. IMPORTANT: DO NOT USE HOSTWAY/VALUEWEB TO HOST YOUR WEBSITE! Idleworm has been hosted by Valueweb since 2000. Last year, Valueweb was acquired by Hostway. The final "merger" is happening now. What this means, in reality, is that servers are being dismantled, tech support is being fired, and my email has been dead for over 24 hours. I use that email for my work contacts. The Valueweb tech support number just rings - apparently nobody's there any more. Getting a human on Hostway is close to impossible. Did I mention that they had the gall to email me 2 months ago, assuring me that we would be warned of any possible interruptions in service? LIARS. This awful company had a similar outage in November 2007 that lasted for FIVE days. If anyone wants to start a class action suit, count me in. Needless to say, I'll be bailing on these clowns at the first opportunity. In the meantime, you may see the site appear and disappear as unqualified techies pull cables out willy nilly. "Uh, dude, what does this one do?" "Huh, huh huh..." Nice one, Beavis. Meanwhile, my email better be on a HD somewhere, and not deleted by your cack-handed monkeys. Please Hostway, if you have a SHRED of decency, GIVE ME BACK MY F*CKING EMAIL. Those who want to contact me in the meantime can do so through dermotmoconnor@yahoo.com. HOSTWAY/VALUEWEB - BURN IN HELL. Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2008, May 27, Tuesday. Oil: Much higher prices ahead. Oil: The coming collapse of oil prices. Take your pick! Monbiot to the King of Saudi Arabia: We have gone mad... Low prices at the beginning of this decade discouraged oil companies from investing in future capacity. There is a global shortage of skilled labour, steel and equipment. The weak dollar means that the price of oil is higher than it would have been if denominated in another currency. While your government says that financial speculation is an important factor, the Bank of England says it is not, so I don't know what to believe. The major oil producers have also become major consumers; in some cases their exports are falling even as their production has risen, because they are consuming more of their own output. But what you know and I do not is the extent to which the price of oil might reflect an absolute shortage of global reserves...Your published reserves are, of course, a political artefact unconnected to geological reality. The production quotas assigned to its members by Opec, the oil exporters' cartel, reflect the size of their stated reserves, which means that you have an incentive to exaggerate them. How else could we explain the fact that, despite two decades of furious pumping, your kingdom posts the same reserves as it did in 1988? An analysis of Saudi Arabia's oil by The Oil Drum. Claimed OPEC reserves are overstated by approximately 340 Gb. They are, with a high degree of certainty, rather much closer to 570 billion barrels than the 904 claimed. Combining this with the Oil and Gas Journal's non-OPEC conventional oil reserves estimate of 280 Gb9, yields a global reserves base of 846 billion barrels, well short of the 1140 level assumed. The implications of this circa 340 billion barrel reserves shortfall for global forecasts of petroleum supply cannot be overstated. With cumulative consumption at 1180 Gb10 and reserves of less than 850 Gb, we have consumed well over half our conventional oil reserves base. With those kinds of numbers, peak oil cannot be far away, and exploration and 'reserves growth' will not be enough to get us out of the woods. I have no expectations about the price of oil, up or down. As Monbiot says in his letter to the Saudi "King", there are many factors. It bugs me that so many people are taking the high oil price as de facto proof of Peak Oil - it is not. We'll have a better idea of that event when shortages appear. Nathan Lewis: The Axes of Energy. Lewis is a Caltech chemist - and doesn't believe in a shortage of fossil fuels. Read through his piece though, and you'll see that he's still very pessimistic about our energy predicament. Whether or not the current run-up in the oil price is "The Big One", it's fascinating to watch the psychology of the people: Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of what we are witnessing-and there are oh so many, is the ubiquitousness of blame. Attending almost every report on skyrocketing gas prices is the question: "So whose fault is it?" I certainly am not surprised by this, but I find it unsettling to say the least. Because Americans in particular have been absolutely recalcitrant and incapable of looking at collapse, they are being and will continue to be increasingly blindsided by it. Sadly, when humans are traumatized, their functioning becomes progressively more primal and animal-like, and their capacity for taking in and assimilating new information is markedly reduced. Halting methane squanderlust. Your tax dollars at work, as The UN rapes children. A 13-year-old girl described to the BBC how 10 UN peacekeepers gang-raped her in a field near her Ivory Coast home, and left her bleeding, trembling and vomiting on the ground. No action has been taken against the soldiers. The report also found that aid workers have been sexually abusing boys and girls. Crisis talks on soaring food prices. (Hosted by the angels at the UN). The world's urban poor have been hit hardest, sending a wave of unrest and instability around the world. Thirty-seven countries have been hit by food riots so far this year, including Cameroon, Niger, Egypt and Haiti. If the oil executives really are responsible for an artificial spike in the oil price (or even a fraction of it), then they shouldn't be at Congressional hearings - they should be in Federal Prison, enjoying the tender caress of Bed Dover. Neatorama: What happened to the food? From 2001 an Onion solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict. A breath-taking photo of NASA's Phoenix spacecraft descending to the surface of Mars. You can see the parachute, and even the lines connecting it to the lander! Photo was taken by the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter. Hm. What would Jesus Drive? Not a FORD, of that we can be assured. Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2008, May 26, Monday. The Onion: Women choosing dead-end careers over dead-end relationships! Growabrain: The Do-Nothing Grinder. Lifehacker: Get started with composting. Kunstler: Anxious Hiatus. Olbermann tears Hilary a new orifice. It's a new soul she needs. Good news: 16 year old isolates microbes to digest plastic. One downside - the microbes in question don't like people very much, and I doubt that they could be released into the oceans (where the real trouble is), but it would allow for a more efficient destruction of waste plastics on land. More good news: N. Pacific Humpback Whale population rises. Exellent cartoon about The Public Domain. Bad: Methane rise is due to wetlands warming. A potential turning point in Iraq: Ayatollah Sistani endorses armed resistance. I've been reading a lot of conflicting articles and analyses about oil, energy, and commodities. Frankly, it's confusing. There is credible evidence of speculation driving at least some of the oil price, although clearly geological factors are still a major driver. Peak Oil has finally begun to spill into the mainstream media, with front page stories on AP. At this point, take your pick: Indpendent: Oil: a global crisis. Cryptogon: Downward oil correction likely. 321 gold: Gold increase likely. Platinum set to rise 50%. CNN: Bad news for Detroit is spelled MPG. The Oil Drum: Peak Oil overview. Abiotic Oil and Speculation. William Engdahl, once a proponent of Peak Oil, now claims that it's a hoax - by "Big Oil", Opec, and the New World Order. Engdahl now believes that oil is a renewable resource - that it is created inside the earth by non-biological, or "abiotic" means. The alleged evidence for this comes from some Russian wells, which appear to have refilled. Engdahl's credibility falls sharply when he claims that oil is alleged by orthodox theory to have formed from dinosaurs. This is a common misconception. It formed from algae and other tiny organisms, not dinosaurs. He insinuates that the biological oil formation theory is an Anglo-American plot, as opposed to the "true" theory as expounded by his Russian and Ukrainian friends. I guess that petrogeologists from France, Germany, Italy and the rest of the world do what they're told by their overlords in London and New York. Very, very odd. Engdahl also denies that American oil production peaked in 1970, alleging that the wells were capped, in a massive global conspiracy involving the New World Order and OPEC. Such a conspiracy would involve tens of thousands of oil workers at all levels; frankly, I think he's completely lost the plot. If the Americans did in fact manage to leave their oil in the ground and burn the oil of other nations, then I salute their foresight. Such a scheme would be one of the greatest masterstrokes in world history - worthy of Machiavelli. If abiotic believers put their money where their mouths are, they should buy up the abandoned wells that litter the landscape. They'd make a fortune, surely? Engdahl is one of the big proponents of the "speculative bubble" explanation of the oil price spike. The fact that he's not a credible source doesn't invalidate that idea, of course...speculation in commodities appears to be rampant. In any event, here are some of his recent columns: Russia is far from Oil's Peak. The real reason behind high oil prices. Make a point of remembering his name, the next time you see a column expounding on the "Peak Oil Hoax". Peak may yet be a ways off, as in 2020, or it might have happened last week. It's not sexy, but the only way to know for sure is to wait and see. From 2005, the Oil Drum on abiotic snake oil. Here, from the comments section, is a rundown of why the biological model is the correct one: The fact remains that the abiotic theory of petroleum genesis has zero credibility for economically interesting accumulations. 99.9999% of the world's liquid hydrocarbons are produced by maturation of organic matter derived from organisms. To deny this means you have to come up with good explanations for the following observations. The almost universal association of petroleum with sedimentary rocks. The close link between petroleum reservoirs and source rocks as shown by biomarkers (the source rocks contain the same organic markers as the petroleum, essentially chemically fingerprinting the two). The consistent variation of biomarkers in petroleum in accordance with the history of life on earth (biomarkers indicative of land plants are found only in Devonian and younger rocks, that formed by marine plankton only in Neoproterozoic and younger rocks, the oldest oils containing only biomarkers of bacteria). The close link between the biomarkers in source rock and depositional environment (source rocks containing biomarkers of land plants are found only in terrestrial and shallow marine sediments, those indicating marine conditions only in marine sediments, those from hypersaline lakes containing only bacterial biomarkers). Progressive destruction of oil when heated to over 100 degrees (precluding formation and/or migration at high temperatures as implied by the abiogenic postulate). The generation of petroleum from kerogen on heating in the laboratory (complete with biomarkers), as suggested by the biogenic theory. The strong enrichment in C12 of petroleum indicative of biological fractionation (no inorganic process can cause anything like the fractionation of light carbon that is seen in petroleum). The location of petroleum reservoirs down the hydraulic gradient from the source rocks in many cases (those which are not are in areas where there is clear evidence of post migration tectonism). The almost complete absence of significant petroleum occurrences in igneous and metamorphic rocks (the rare exceptions discussed below). The evidence usually cited in favour of abiogenic petroleum can all be better explained by the biogenic hypothesis e.g.: Rare traces of cooked pyrobitumens in igneous rocks (better explained by reaction with organic rich country rocks, with which the pyrobitumens can usually be tied). Rare traces of cooked pyrobitumens in metamorphic rocks (better explained by metamorphism of residual hydrocarbons in the protolith). The very rare occurrence of small hydrocarbon accumulations in igneous or metamorphic rocks (in every case these are adjacent to organic rich sedimentary rocks to which the hydrocarbons can be tied via biomarkers). The presence of undoubted mantle derived gases (such as He and some CO2) in some natural gas (there is no reason why gas accumulations must be all from one source, given that some petroleum fields are of mixed provenance it is inevitable that some mantle gas contamination of biogenic hydrocarbons will occur under some circumstances). The presence of traces of hydrocarbons in deep wells in crystalline rock (these can be formed by a range of processes, including metamorphic synthesis by the fischer-tropsch reaction, or from residual organic matter as in 10). Traces of hydrocarbon gases in magma volatiles (in most cases magmas ascend through sedimentary succession, any organic matter present will be thermally cracked and some will be incorporated into the volatile phase, some fischer-tropsch synthesis can also occur). Traces of hydrocarbon gases at mid ocean ridges (such traces are not surprising given that the upper mantle has been contaminated with biogenic organic matter through several billion years of subduction, the answer to 14 may be applicable also). The geological evidence is utterly against the abiogenic postulate. Q.E.D., I'd say. Enough of this flat-earth nonsense. Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2008, May 24, Saturday. Today's post: "DARWINISTS" AREN'T ALWAYS RIGHT. Take a moment to pity these little-trafficked right-wing "darwinists" who take some time out of their busy schedules to critique yours truly (instead of pursuing Hitler-loving creationists who support Republican presidential candidates, or learning basic html). Apparently I'm "stupid" and "goofy", to name but two of their sixth-grade insults. (NOTE TO DARWINISTAS: THESAURUS). The darwincentral.org chaps think that Dailykos.com is the fountainhead of left-wing craziness! Dear non-existant God, that's as sad and myopic as one can get...a group of pantywaist Democrat "KOS" fanboys are the next coming of Leon Trotsky! (NOTE TO DARWINISTAS: NEVER LEAVE AMURKA!) What mystified me about their rant was the printing - a very shabby cut-and-paste - of my links page - with the comment "No one can possibly be this stupid. Can they?" My links page? The Oil Drum? Fred Reed? ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS? Ah, the sweet stench of the Opium den! (NOTE TO DARWINISTAS: GET OUT MORE! B3waRe The FumEs!) Being accused of stupidity by people who haven't quite mastered the art of CTRL+C, CTRL+V is ironic, and merely serves to reinforce my pessimism about the future of the species. (NOTE TO DARWINISTAS: USE YOUR FINGERS WHEN TYPING, NOT YOUR FOREHEAD!) Synchronicty soon struck, as moments after reading the darwinites, one of my readers emailed to inform me that my worst wing cartoon comparing Bush with Caligula had just been used in "A conference sponsored by University College London, the Classical Reception Studies Network and the Institute of Classical Studies". Link. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! I does gud for a stupid goon, wouldn't you say, darwincentral? Why, it's almost enough to restore my faith in an old bearded white guy sitting on a cloud. Dermot, Just wanted to let you know that the conference I'd told you about was held today. It was like a lot of classics-related conference - swarms of pseudo-intellectuals using lots of syllables to say not very much and everyone trying to pretend they're not posh even though they're close personal friends of Boris Johnson. However without a doubt the hit of the show was The Worst Wing. My paper (which was shite - as all my work is) was preceded by some good stuff on the movie and comic book 300 and why Frank Miller is a psychopathic bigot bastard who hates black people and Muslims and there was also a fair bit of snarking at Victor David Hanson (the neo-cons' pet classicist). A lot of laughs were had but it really was "Veni, Vidi, Vitiavi" that brought the house down. But it isn't just about the laughs - it is actually incredibly useful for professional classicists to see how people in the real world approach ancient history and how artists, satirists and commentators like yourself can employ these old classical themes in new, interesting and topical (and hilarious) ways. For all these reasons, I'm very grateful that you allowed me to use TWW. Cheers, L. "Veni Vidi Vitiavi" was my version of "I came, I saw, I conquered" - in Bush/Caligula's case, it's "I came, I saw, I screwed up". Many thanks to the idlewormers who helped me with the translation a couple of years ago. I emailed "L." a reply: Hi L., Nice timing; I just found a conservative Darwinian forum that was bad mouthing idleworm - not much traffic on it, but an odd feeling to see oneself mischaracteristed as "crazy" and "stupid". Nice to see that my work was well received by an audience of Classicists! Yah-boo!!! In any event, how in the name of (DEITY) can anyone STILL be conservative, given what's gone on over the last few years? I never cease to be amazed at the power of denial in the human mind. I say this as a person who has made several ideological shifts over the course of his 38 years on Earth. Anyhow, glad that the WW was useful - and nobody nit-picked the "Veni, Vidi, Vitiavi" quote. I had lots of help on that one! cheers, Dermot. His reply: It was very well attended for a classics conference - about seventy people and some of them very big names in the subject. Nice timing; I just found a conservative Darwinian forum that was bad mouthing idleworm - not much traffic on it, but an odd feeling to see oneself mischaracteristed as "crazy" and "stupid". These people have drunk the Kool-Aid in an absolute and all-encompassing way. These are the ones for whom "You're with us or agin us" was made. You disagree with them, ergo you *must* be crazy and also stupid and probably a Muslim too. Once upon a time, it was possible to disagree with someone's politics - even in very fundamental ways - and still come away feeling that the other guy was well-intentioned, decent and honourable and you simply happened to disagree with him. Now, though, it's all black and white - you either agree with me 100% or you're a dolt and/or evil. Nice to see that my work was well received by an audience of Classicists! For us, it's nice to see that satirists are still able to make classics topical and relevant. Fundamentally, classics needs the talented commentators to take the old motifs and stretch them and re-work them So long as artists are interested in using and adapting classical motifs to modern setting, I think our subject has a future. And work like TWW is really following in a very, very rich tradition going back to the middle ages of using the very ancient past to highlight the ills of the present. So, anyway, we love you even if the wingnuts don't. :) In any event, how in the name of (DEITY) can anyone STILL be conservative, given what's gone on over the last few years? Ah, but the modern Republican Party isn't conservative. They're Fascists - and I'm not just throwing that out as an insult; I mean it in the purest sense of the word. I never cease to be amazed the power of denial in the human mind. I say this as a person who has made several ideological shifts over the course of his 38 years on Earth. I'm going to generalise really unforgivably, but I think a lot of modern Americans simply aren't mentally equipped to question their own beliefs. They don't question things - they certainly don't question authority - and they seem to get angry and confused when other people question things. They seem to have lost any pretension to objectivity; it's been replaced by this slave-like fundamentalist loyalty to the party line. There again, maybe some of it's to do with insecurity. It's possible these people see the shortcomings in their own ideology but they're too insecure to leave their baggage behind, so they respond by digging their heels in and screaming even more slogans and yelling even more abuse. When in doubt, clap harder. Thanks again "L". Perfect timing with the email! For the record, let me say this: I know I spout a lot of doom/conspiracy stuff, and I know that a lot of people are skeptical about that. YOU SHOULD BE. I am. I wake up every day and ask myself "What if it's all built on a false assumption?" It might be. I read techno sites (there's still a space cadet buried deep inside here somewhere). I just keep seeing more evidence of bad things coming down the pipe. I've gone from Left, to Right to Left to Green. My mind will change if/when new evidence presents itself. At the moment, I'm not seeing much. And let me just say one more thing to the wingnuts: taking Darwin's face (or Einstein's face, or whoever your chosen expert is) and shlapping it on your piss-poor site for Ersatz gravitas is lame. Seriously, profoundly, depressingly lame. The same goes with hiding behind a Classical pseudonym like "Tacitus" or "Phallus Maximus". Stick YOUR face, and YOUR name on YOUR website, and let YOUR reputation take the knocks, and stop hiding behind a shell. That's what I do, and I've got the hate mail from your vicious and stupid fellow-travelers to prove it. Cowards...every last one of you. P.S. Bobbleheads: I'm a happy guy. It's facetious fools like you that make me fear for the future of this fragile planet. We now return to our regular programming: Vast cracks appear in Arctic ice Spain's drought: a glimpse of our future? Peak Oil wears down the Wall Street Journal. Is the world running out of oil? How Japan helped ease the rice crisis. RFID tags in your luggage. The other road. (Bitter doom cartoon). Flip this house, please! End women's suffrage (Thanks Apwall) I promised myself that I wouldn't give a damn who wins the ritualised Presidential election - but the undiluted sliminess of Clinton/McCain is just wearing me down. No, I'm not going to join the Obama cult, but the freak factor is now just off the Richter Scale. As if McCain's pal "Hitler" Hagee wasn't bad enough, we have the bitch from Hell invoking a Kennedy style assassination! If you or I did that, there'd be a knock on the door, and two nice agents, all dressed in black. With tasers. Clinton expresses regret after assassination remark "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right?" Clinton said. "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it."... A furore erupted soon after videotape of her remarks became public, with Obama spokesman Bill Burton decrying the assassination reference as "unfortunate" and inappropriate for the campaign. Clinton released a statement attributing her Kennedy reference to this week's brain cancer diagnosis of Democratic senator Edward Kennedy, the youngest of the US dynasty's three iconic brothers. OK. But wait: She said it back on March 6th as well! I think people have short memories. Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn't wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual. Poor Hilary - under sniper fire again. Is she a lunatic? A liar? Or just plain evil? Speaking of evil, how about that Hitler-loving, pope-bashing nutjob Hagee? McCain took his sweet time before repudiating Hagee: In March, McCain drew fire over Hagee’s statements calling the Catholic Church “the great whore” and a “false cult system.” McCain said he disagreed with any comments “if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics,” but thought they were “taken out of context.” A McCain spokeswoman clarified: “While we welcome his support, it shouldn't be seen as a wholesale endorsement of all of Mr. Hagee's views.” But McCain did not reject his endorsement until now. Psycho Christians and the media John McCain has some seriously screwed-up holy men surrounding him. First, there's the Rev. John Hagee, a hate-monger and certifiable loon who believes that Hurricane Katrina was God's judgment on New Orleans for planning a gay parade, calls Catholicism a "false cult system" that conspired with Hitler to exterminate the Jews, and believes that America's divine duty is to destroy Iran. Then there's the Rev. Rod Parsley, who garnishes his bigoted theology by calling Islam "the greatest religious enemy of our civilization and the world" and saying that Muhammad was "a mouthpiece of a conspiracy of spiritual evil." These psycho Christians ... are undiluted bigots who espouse beliefs just as twisted as those promulgated by the Rev. Louis Farrakhan -- and far more toxic and extreme than those held by Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Yet, as many media critics have noted, no major-network interviewer is demanding that McCain denounce Hagee or Parsley, as Tim Russert infamously demanded again and again that Obama do of Farrakhan during a prime-time debate. No cable channel is ranting 24/7 about McCain's failure to disavow these extremist bigots, and speculating that his ties to Hagee and Parsley could cost him the election. Considering that McCain desperately needs Hagee and Parsley to deliver votes in key states like Ohio, this is no small matter. Video: The Fabulous Life of John McCain. Video: The Real McCain. I need to add some sick-bags to my emergency supply kit. Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2008, May 23, Friday. Wired: Brain scans = mindreaders? Hardly. The FBI is looking for terrorists at Vegan Potlucks. But not on airport runways... CNN is trying real hard to jump on the energy bandwagon! The SUV graveyard. Yes! Do it! Senate discusses a military draft. The new Irish PM drops the F*** bomb in parliament. At least he didn't describe Adolf Hitler as the angel of God. Speaking of Hitler, it's rich when George Bush lectures us on appeasement. Here's another big word for you W: Profiteer. Here's another: Collaborator. Soon the last shark will die so some fat f*** can have a bowl of shark-fin soup. There's a species on this planet that fully deserves to go extinct, and we all know what that species is. Hello Papua New Guinea. Goodbye, Papua New Guinea. Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2008, May 22, Thursday. I've been doing some quick sketches about a new cartoon series about Doom. These are not finished pieces - just quick doodles to establish composition, content and tone. Click the image below for all seven: CNN is getting to the spirit of things nicely! Brace yourself for barbecue shock A 1996 Geo Metro gets better mileage than a Prius. Hybrids are a poor joke. Texan man makes electic car for $4750. Ouch: White folks are nuts about my balls! More race-riot mayhem from South Africa. Power is South Africa still vulnerable. English schoolboy arrested for calling Scientology a cult. Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2008, May 21, Wednesday. Oh, to live in Shitterton... Scroll to the bottom of the article for an amazing list of rude placenames in Britain. Shitterton isn't the only place in the UK where residents have turned against their addresses, in spite of having decided to move there in the first place. Ed Hurst...recalls visiting a street in Lincolnshire called Fanny Hands Lane and knocking on a few doors to uncover some history. "I wasn't prepared for the sheer hostility that I encountered," he says. "They were sick of having their road sign pinched, they were sick of pizza not being delivered because the restaurant thought it was a hoax call. As it turned out, it was just named after a woman called Fanny Hands." Campaigns by residents to effect name-changes that might give the area a bit more class are, by and large, destined to fail, according to Hurst. "There's a Slutshole Lane in Norfolk that is still called Slutshole Lane, despite residents' best efforts," he recalls. "And there's a Butthole Road, which they're trying to change to – wait for it – Buttonhole Road. Weaseldog on the real reason why Bush gave up golf. I went to the toilet for a dump, but it was just a Tony Blair... Some links of Mystery:       40% of Tokyoites don't give a rat's ass about the planet. More than four in 10 Tokyo residents -- 41.6 percent -- said they "don't want to sacrifice a convenient lifestyle to prevent global warming," according to the poll results published recently by Japanese advertising agency Hakuhodo. The percentage was the highest among the residents of Tokyo, New York, Paris, London, Milan, Moscow, Toronto and Frankfurt, and well above the average of 29.7 percent, according to the survey of 2,600 people. Parisians and Milanese were the happiest to change their lifestyles to save the planet, it said. Well, given that the global average of people who don't give a damn is 29.7%, they're not that atypical. Oil is at $129 a barrel. Don't worry though - the new MSM meme is SPECULATION. No mention of the decline in supply due to geology - the collapse of Mexico's giant Cantarell field, for example. Oh, MSM, will you never learn? Hirsch: Oil to reach $12 to $15 a gallon, followed by rationing. Mineweb: Cheap coal fast becoming history. Shell removes 1.2 billion barrels of reserves. Nanotubes might be as dangerous as asbestos. Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2008, May 20, Tuesday. Winsor McCay: the true father of animation, created this astounding animation of the sinking of the Lusitania in 1918. It was the first time that he used cels (I don't know if anyone else had done so before him). The last time I saw this piece was about 1987, shortly before I began to work for Don Bluth's studio in Dublin. What a contrast between this work of art, and those purely commerical films! NOTE: the audio track that's been added to this work is a later mutilation - it sounds like a Looney Tunes score. Be sure to turn your volume off when you watch the clip! http://animation.wikia.com/wiki/Winsor_McCay The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918) marks McCays path away from radicalism in many ways. Lusitania was the next film after Gertie, and there weren’t any others in that four year period because William Randolph Hearst at The American was restricting McCay from producing animation, performing on vaudeville, and creating comics. Hearst was focusing McCay on creating editorial cartoons. [Burn in Hell, Hearst!] This greatly depressed McCay, as he was not able to animate or perform, his true love. So when the opportunity to create an animated film arose, he jumped on it. He was commissioned to produce an animated version of the sinking of the ship “The Lusitania”. McCay produced this somber animation using cels for the first time. His drawings were more realistic because of their detail and the use of washes and shading. This created a more documentary feel, which he furthered by using cinematic camera angles, which also enhanced the drama of the animation. This film is much different from his previous work, but in many ways quite similar as well. Lusitania still focuses on an event which no one actually saw (thus making the event “fantastic”) and McCay pushes the boundaries of animation in the film by employing cinematic camera angles, realistic drawings, and cels. The radical changes McCay presented to animation revolutionized the field to such a great magnitude that McCay himself was not able to handle it. After Lusitania, McCay fell away from the spotlight, producing smaller more conservative animations. At a dinner in his honor McCay addressed fellow animators; he concluded his speech with “Animation should be art. That is how I conceived it. But as I see what you fellows have done with it, is making it into a trade. Not an art, but a trade. Bad Luck!” (McCay quoted in Canemaker 159). Here's a forum discussion about McCay. Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2008, May 20, Tuesday. We are all Termites now. Here's a thread where you can express your outrage. The real estate crash now spreads to commerical properties, as predicted weeks ago by Mish Shedlock, among others. British slimeball Conservative leader David Cameron says the UK scumbag labour Prime Minister is "an analogue man in a digital age". Way to go David - stealing a quip that Bush applied to Gore in 2000. It was a stupid, meaningless line then, and it's a stupid meaningless line now. Yet more bad news about mobile phones - this time, the effects on the unborn. Mystery Meat, fail style:       Here's an excellent article about psycopaths, which is ruined in the last two paragraphs with the formulaic American-lefty-wimp-tactic of "non-violent resistance". Are you Sh*itting me? Non-violent resistance to PSYCOPATHS? Dear God, and to think that people wonder why I despair for the species! There's only one fate that's deserved by psycopaths - and that's an early grave. Drumming circles and group hugs just aren't going to cut it. Grow up. While many adults need to grow up, many kids need to do the opposite. I have nothing but contempt for the "Bratz" dolls, a truly vile company, which is now peddling push-up bras to six year olds. Since when did the promotion of pederasty become a legitimate business model? This BBC page about the Nasa Mars Phoenix Lander has a must-see animtion of the landing sequence. Fingers crossed that all goes as planned. Very dramatic! If there's one thing that might make me root for the creepy Barack Obama, it's the racist KKK fellow-travelers who hate him just for being half-black. And yet more mystery-meat:       Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2008, May 19, Monday. I'M BAAAACK!!!! What happens when you buy a new PC with MICROSOFT VISTA pre-installed? You endure several days of PAIN, thanks to the unadulterated cynicism of Ba'al Gates (proof that the free market does NOT favour the best product). After TWO reinstalls, the system finally seems to be stable. The situation wasn't helped by the fact that DELL's driver reinstallation disc DIDN'T WORK. This has been like a bad acid flashback to Windows 98. Anyhow, the past few days have driven me to drink (temporarily), and reminded me of why I began this site in the first place - to MOCK BILL GATES. Here are some of the first items I made for idleworm, back in the heady days of 2000. George Bush was just a faint stink wafting in on the news wires, and the worst the American people had to worry about was whether or not Clinton cheated on his wife. (Wouldn't you?) Oh Omnipotent Lucifer, has it been eight years already?       Anyhow, I've got my Dell laptop and Cintiq just how I like them. My old laptop is wiped and reinstalled - dual-booting to WinXP pro and Ubuntu 8.04, and running both very well! I've actually installed software on Ubuntu ... not as easy as it sounds. I'm sure I'm one bad move away from screwing it up, but it's fun to poke around in Linux. Congress halts refilling of the Stratgic Petroleum Reserve in a desperate attempt to keep prices down. Good luck with that...give India and China a chance to fill their SPRs on the cheap! Biofuels: Manufacturing a food crisis. Long predicted by Peak Oil "doomers", the event itself is of no surprise. Greenhouse gases are highest in 800,000 years. I blame Al Gore and his liberal nazi compadres, and their Illuminati plan to control the world via the UN. DAMN these mad scientists and their FACTS! American soldier buffoon uses Koran as target practice. Heads will roll. American soldier hero refuses to serve in "illegal war". Say hello to the kangaroo. Gary Brecher (War Nerd): We're in deep Shia now. Five pages of Hezbollah goodness. More Brownshirt tactics in the "Land of the Free." The victim (black, of course) was drugged, (in essense) raped anally, and then sent a bill for ~$7,000 by the medical facility that helped in the procedure! Now STAND AND SALUTE THE FLAG! Some hysterical - and vicious - video comedy from The Onion:       These Onion vids remind me of the Daily show, before Jon Stewart arrived and made it cute. The show used to be quite bitter - and I liked it that way. Oh well, all good things... Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2008, May 13, Tuesday. This sums up Tony Blair: Playing politics with his wife's miscarriage. Woo-woo: Pentagon plans golf course in Baghdad. It appears to be a legit story; at this point nothing would surprise me. Heh: Hydrogen cars? Not for 40 years. Interesting footnote: in ancient cultures, the number 40 signified "a lot" - it was used to denote an indefinite period...the number recurs in multiple cultures (Jesus's 40 days and 40 nights in the desert, Buddha's 40 days under the Bodhi tree, etc). I find it humourous to see the custom alive and well, even in the light of delusional technofix fantasies. A nice analysis of Shell's Shale Shite. Pin your hopes on this technology at your peril. It won't be ready for 40 years! The Etymology of "Pharmacy": c.1386, "a medicine," from O.Fr. farmacie, from M.L. pharmacia, from Gk. pharmakeia "use of drugs or medicines," from pharmakeus "preparer of drugs," from pharmakon "drug, poison, philter, charm, spell, enchantment." Meaning "use or administration of drugs" is attested from c.1400; that of "place where drugs are prepared and dispensed" is first recorded 1833. Pharmacist coined in Eng. 1834. This poor schmuck spends 100 hours a month commuting. Bloody hell: Citigroup to shed $500 Billion in assets. Story is from a few days ago, so nobody seems to be too bothered! CNN: Get ready for more bank failures. Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2008, May 12, Monday. Yay! Idleworm is on the atheist media site blogroll! (On the right side of the page). The US military were within a whisker of cremating dead US soldiers in a facility that also cremates pets. 2004 Repost: Rumsfeld uses autograph machine to sign Killed in action letters. Thank you God: Anne Coulter hangs out with Gay Porn Stud. Link is a little NSFW - but no full nudity or suchlike, just low grade sleaze. The tacky sites I crawl through so you people can get your cheap laughs... I hope the Olympics will have a gold medal for coughing up blood.       Illegal immigrants are being arrested when they try to LEAVE the US! My plan is for a nun to take me across the border into Switzerland. The hills are alive, with the sound of credit card losers... (you try rhyming with "music", smartass. The US has Nelson Mandela on a terror watchlist! This electric car is a sick joke. 30 miles to a charge, only one passenger, top speed an iffy 75mph (doubtful), and all for the bargain price of $35,000! Oh, it's YELLOW. China claims to have sufficient grain reserves. Communist tyrannies never lie, so I have no choice but to take their word. How to feel the world, but don't mention the population problem! More on mobile phones altering brain behaviour. This would explain a LOT. As a non-phone user, indeed, as a person who eats a diet that's very untypical of most westerners, I have to wonder if their lifestyle (food, phones, tv) is slowly driving them bonkers... A simple way to detect pinhole cameras. Disgusting - the amount of food that people throw away. Great! Melting glaciers release DDT! Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2008, May 8, Thursday. What happens when you take a Polish TV Soap Opera, and have Irish actors re-dub it? The end result is Soupy Norman! A BBC show from 2031 looks back on the early 21st century: Time Trumpet.       Some weeks ago I tried to talk a friend of a friend out of buying a house in Portland. The guy's a firefighter, and his fiancee wants The House Thing. Poor guy went ahead and bought a place for a ridiculous amount of money. Oh well. "...but you can never tell any body anything I've learned that..." Now China is outsourcing to America. Don't forget to take off your shoes in the airport citizen, so that the convicts can smell your feet. UK wastes 10 billion pounds sterling of food a year. UK to build a 50M tall white horse for £2,000,000! That's right - waste and burn the energy, while we still can! Monbiot: Can we fly on Zeppelins? I've long been an admirer of lighter than air travel - it's the most energy efficient mode of air travel - if not the fastest. Before it can return, the big dumb jet industry will have to collapse. Speed the day. Make a Master Information Document for worst case scenarios. The Washington Post is attacked for posting the photo of a dying Iraqi child being lifted from rubble following a US airstrike. SO publishing the photo is wrong, as opposed the act of child-murder. These people are monsters... Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2008, May 7, Wednesday. Via Ran Prieur, the ironic observation that Hilary Clinton's horse comes in second, and is euthanised. You see, God is a Cosmic Joker after all. OK, it's a bit too long and overwrought, but The Empire Strikes Barack did make me laugh a few times. A nicely written piece by John Feeney in the Guardian on The Population Timebomb. Reading the comments that follow might give you some idea as to why I've given up hope for salvaging this stupid species. Which leads nicely to: Surplus food supplies dry up. Wheat crop failures could be total. Jeremy Leggett: Dawn of an Energy Famine. Kunstler: We're in a strange collective psychic bubble. Yeah, let's keep breeding. 9 billion people? 90 billion people? It'll all work out. After all, humans are intelligent and resourceful, right? RIGHT? Florida teacher accused of "Wizardry" after performing a magic trick with a toothpick. UK: Billions of dollars wasted on Big Brother spy cameras. Anti-psychotic drug use soars among US and UK children. I know what to do - let's build more roads! US: 120 war vets commit suicide weekly. According to "Christians", they go to hell. RedStateSon: Burma: this season's atrocity. But what if these enlightened celebs were asked to promote human rights in, say, the Occupied Territories? How many would rush forward, photos of Israeli tanks demolishing Palestinian homes in hand, and denounce starvation and death in Gaza? I'll crawl out on a frail limb here and guess zero. Okay, maybe Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, and I'll toss in Danny Glover as well. But I can't think of many more who would dare portray Palestinians as human rights victims worthy of immediate support and solidarity, while excoriating the Israeli state for its ongoing strangulation of Gaza and continued building of West Bank settlements. There's also the minor fact that as American taxpayers, Hollywood celebs directly finance these atrocities, and so are more responsible for what they subsidize than what is fashionable in a PSA. I know -- pie in the exploding sky. Wake me when George Clooney narrates a documentary about the reality of Palestinian suffering. As to Israeli atrocities, I'm guessing he's talking about ones like this, courtesy of the US taxpayer. Sure Cletus, they hate us because we're free. Criminey - according to the "Mogambo Guru", the derivatives bubble is now close to 700 Trillion dollars. Another 300 Trillion and we get to use the word "Quadrillion" for the first time. Then we die. I wonder what would have happened if this guy had pulled the trigger... Asia Times: How under the gun Iran plays it cool. Under such conditions, what if there were an American air attack on Iran? The Supreme Leader, on the record, offered his own version of threats in 2006. If Iran were attacked, he said, the retaliation would be doubly powerful against US interests elsewhere in the world. From American supply lines and bases in southern Iraq to the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranians, though no military powerhouse, do have the ability to cause real damage to American forces and interests - and certainly to drive the price of oil into the stratosphere. Such a "war" would clearly be a disaster for everyone. The Iranian theocratic leadership, however, seems to doubt that the Bush administration and the US military, exhausted by their wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will attack. They feel a tide at their backs. Meanwhile the "Look East" strategy, driven by soaring energy prices, is bearing fruit. Ahmadinejad has just concluded a tour of South Asia and, to the despair of American neo-cons, the Asian energy security grid is quickly becoming a reality. Two years ago, at the Petroleum Ministry in Tehran, I was told Iran is betting on the total "interdependence of Asia and Persian Gulf geo-economic politics". This year, Iran finally becomes a natural gas-exporting country. The framework for the $7.6 billion Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, also known as the "peace" pipeline, is a go. Both these key South Asian US allies are ignoring Bush administration desires and rapidly bolstering their economic, political, cultural, and - crucially - geostrategic connections with Iran. An attack on Iran would now inevitably be viewed as an attack against Asia. What a disaster in the making, and yet, now more than ever, Cheney's faction in Washington (not to mention possible future president John McCain) seems ready to bomb. Perhaps the Mahdi himself - in his occult wisdom - is betting on a US war against Asia to slouch towards Qom to be reborn. Iran drops US dollar. US draws up plans to attack. Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2008, May 6, Tuesday. Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2008, May 5, Moonday. Damn this effing Toshiba Laptop. I try to reinstall Windows with the recovery disks (with a 2003 date on them; they're supposed to be XP). For some reason it attempts to install windoze 98 (WTF?), then tells me that I've got the wrong machine. I check the labels, and, um, no - I do have the right machine. Toshiba's website is a joke - they don't even have this model listed on the US site. Thanks to Microsoft's abysmal TOS, it's not possible to buy replacement install disks (not that I would). I'll say it again: don't buy Toshiba. Enough on that topic. Time for a new laptop soon...then I'll wipe this brick and install Ubuntu on it for jollies. I've already booted it from CD, and it works like a champ. And, it's FREE. Lovely photos of a storm on Saturn. Some lovelies my lovelies:       Taking a laptop across the border, citizen? Take precautions. Hey, even if it's as simple as compressing your data into a big zip file, changing the extension to .tmp, then burying it deep in a windows folder...do you think the incompetent apes in DHS will find that? Speaking of...Air marshals grounded in list mix-ups Yes, America's descent into international laughing stock continues unabated. Ben Stein compares scientists to Nazis. Until he needs a hip replacement, the fundamentalist boob. Sad and amazing: Civil war cannonball kills relic collector. Think about this: a civil war weapon kills a man 150 years after it was fired. Now think of all the clusterbombs and landmines that our taxmoney has dropped on Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon over the last four years alone. Nice to know that some poor bastard will be eviscerated centuries after we're all dead.       The Coal Crunch is materialising. The Vice-President of the State Electric Power Supervisory Commission, Wang Yeping, said that in Hebei, Anhui, and Chongqing, the stockpile of coal for power generation was not even enough to last 7 days. This situation is quite similar to the one that existed in January 2008. Theoretically, a stockpile that is smaller than 7 days supply has reached an “urgent level”. Julian Darley: The day the gas dried up. John Michael Greer: Not the end of the world. A different perspective on collapse. The most polluted cities in the US. LA, you'll always be my number 1! Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. 2008, May 2, Friday. Some advice for you guys: don't buy a Toshiba Laptop. Now, to reformat my HD, and reinstall Windows. "I am just going outside and may be some time." Permalink--- Discuss this post in the idleworm forum. previous posts - about us - contact