Random Words  

Idiot. Liar. Incompetent.

Who do these words bring to mind ?

How about Syphilis ?

SW doesn't seem to like him much either...

Moving on to more pleasant topics, I notice that John from The Real Deal has moved. I don't share his enthusiasm for nuclear power but he does do a great job of tracking the uranium market.

The Australian Senate Enquiry into our future oil supply has received a fairly impressive 156 submissions (the list fo submitters makes interesting reading - and I must admit I'd love to know who all the CONFIDENTIAL submissions are from - oil companies, inteligence agencies or just shy individuals). I only read a couple, but the Institute of Engineers submission looked good, as did David Holmgren's.

Khebab has a ood post on declining Mexican oil production and their ability to continue exporting.



There are some reports around of a very large deepwater find in the GOM that might cause a future bump in Mexican production, though this is probably a heavy grade of crude.

All that being said, this discovery may indicate that Mexico's deep-water exploration has been spottier than previously thought. It's possible they'll find more. Which is good news on the peak oil front (though not wildly good news — as noted above, it just postpones peak by a few months).

But every new find is bad news on the global warming front, and that is likely to turn out to be the bigger problem in the long run. Every new find is that much more carbon that will be pumped into the atmosphere, and it's that much longer that people will delay doing what has to be done to reduce carbon emissions and start to get a handle on the accelerating rate of increase in atmospheric CO2.

People tend to follow the path of least resistance. As long as we've got relatively cheap oil, the path of least resistance will be to continue to burn it.

Defense News (why can't you guys spell properly) has a report on Pentagon energy conservation efforts.

CNN is about to screen a show on the coming oil crisis.

The Oil Drum has a look at the geopolitical situation in the east and south China seas.

Triple Pundit points to Stanford Business School's climate change primer.

Salon has an article in the collapse genre on "The Decline and Fall" of America.

Kevin Phillips, no lefty, says that America -- addicted to oil, strangled by debt and maniacally religious -- is headed for doom.

In 1984, the renowned historian and two-time Pulitzer prize winner Barbara Tuchman published "The March of Folly," a book about how, over and over again, great powers undermine and sabotage themselves. She documented the perverse self-destructiveness of empires that clung to deceptive ideologies in the face of contrary evidence, that spent carelessly and profligately, and that obstinately refused to change course even when impending disaster was obvious to those willing to see it. Such recurrent self-deception, she wrote, "is epitomized in a historian's statement about Philip II of Spain, the surpassing wooden-head of all sovereigns: 'No experience of the failure of his policy could shake his belief in its essential excellence.'"

...

In the days after Sept. 11, 2001, it was clear to everyone that the United States had suffered a hideous blow, but few had any idea just how bad it was. It didn't occur to most people to wonder whether the country's very core had been seriously damaged; if anything, America had never seemed so united and resolute. Almost five years later, with Bush still in the White House, a whole cavalcade of catastrophes bearing down on us and a lack of political will to address any of them, the scope of Osama bin Laden's triumph is coming sickeningly into focus. He didn't start the country on its march of folly, but he spurred America toward bombastic nationalism, military quagmire and escalating debt, all of which have made its access to the oil controlled by the seething countries of the Middle East ever more precarious. Now the United States is careening down a well-worn road faster than anyone could have imagined.

WorldChanging has a post on a cool GreaseMonkey script that converts prices in your browser from $ to barrels of oil (a genuine hard currency).

This is brilliant.

Oil Standard is a Greasemonkey plug-in for Firefox that translates prices from dollars to barrels of oil equivalent, based on current spot prices; this means that the oil equivalent price fluctuates daily. "Networked Performance" art website Turbulence created the script, which works exactly as promised. Hit any web page that shows prices in dollars -- Amazon.com, the New York Times stock pages, even your bank account info -- and Oil Standard will show you how many barrels of oil it would take to match that amount of money.

Why did they do it?

Seeing the cost in oil of a new iPod on Amazon.com, or the balance in your bank account is startling. More than just a play on the concept of the 'Gold Standard,' or the old 'Standard Oil' company, this is a glimpse into the moment when oil will replace (or already replaced) gold as the standard by which we trade all other goods and currencies.

To be clear, this isn't telling you how much oil goes into the production of a given item, although that would be pretty cool. Its goal is something quite different: as a reminder of just how important oil is to our economy. I have just one request, though: I want an option to see the prices in kilowatt-hours of wind power instead.

WorldChanging also has an interesting item on "Collaborative Defense".

Both Stephenson and Robb recognize that the key to an effective response isn't just the technology, but the philosophical model behind it. These kinds of crises are better handled under conditions of transparency and cooperation than in secrecy and specialization. Whether we're talking about disease, or terrorism, or climate disruption, we cannot assume the traditional sources of authority have the knowledge, means or willingness to respond effectively. We will have to work together, and the sooner we recognize this, the better.

And to close, here's a quote via Scrutiny Hooligans:

"The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live, and fear breeds repression. Too often sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind, are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-communism." - Adlai Stevenson, 1952.