Pushing The Oil Depletion Protocol  

The local Green party has released a policy document calling for a cut in greenhouse gas emissions of 80 per cent by 2050.

A policy document released on Tuesday commits the Greens to the target of a 30 per cent cut by 2020 to rise to 80 per cent 30 years later. The paper, Re-energising Australia, says the targets are needed to bring Australia's emissions into line with those of other nations. But Greens senator Christine Milne says the party has not done any official figures on the strategy. ...

"I think we certainly need to make very significant changes but rather than seeing it in terms of costs, there are enormous opportunities in moving to a low carbon economy," Senator Milne said. Senator Milne said the Greens are trying to generate a national debate about climate change to reduce Australia's "addiction" to imported oil. California, Germany and Japan have all demonstrated that moving from traditional energy into renewable energies creates jobs, significant investment and innovators, she said.

The Labor Party has set a reduction target of 60 per cent by 2050, with no commitments for 2020, while the federal government has so far refused to set specific goals.

The Australian has an obscure note that seems to indicate that the Greens have also adopted the Oil Depletion Protocol. Personally I can't see this ever working in the real world, but its interesting that they've adopted it. A quick google on the subject shows that they have actually passed this one at at least one local council.

As well as ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, the Greens want Australia to adopt legally binding post-2012 targets through a global emissions reduction treaty negotiated with other nations. The party also set a renewable energy target of 15 per cent of national electricity demand by 2012 and 25 per cent by 2020. "Australia's current target of an additional 9500 gigawatt hours of renewable energy - roughly equivalent to two per cent of current national electricity demand - is very low by global standards," it said. "(It) has already been reached, resulting in the drying up of investment in renewable energy technologies."

The document calls for a global oil depletion protocol in which nations would reduce their oil imports each year at the same rate at which the world's oil reserves are being depleted. Countries would also reduce oil exports at a rate reflecting the drop in their national reserves. "Oil depletion threatens not only (Australia's) trade balance but also its general economic well-being, because much of our domestic and foreign economic activity depends on oil-powered transport," the paper said.

The Australian also reports that any additional costs added by adopting green energy can be offset with energy efficiency measures.

CONSUMERS will pay more for renewable energy, but the cost increases will be kept to a minimum if more energy-saving measures are introduced. ... But advocates argue that renewable energy can be competitive if governments encourage the consumers to use less electricity overall. If measures to reduce total consumption were introduced -- ranging from better building standards for new homes to the use of more efficient machines in industry -- power could be $84 a year cheaper than would otherwise be the case in 2020, even with the mandatory contribution to renewable energy.

The study by the Australian Conservation Foundation and Greenpeace, to be released today, argues that an increased target would give developers and firms certainty for investment. They argue the technology could be in place to provide one-quarter of energy from renewable sources, such as wind, biological material, water and solar, by 2020. This would create 16,000 jobs from an investment of $33billion.

The Australian also has an article on the evolving battle in the Labor party on uranium mining and the nuclear fuel cycle. AGL Energy is saying that nuclear power won't ever happen in Australia anyway, as nuclear reactors are uninsurable.

KEVIN Rudd will offer to block any move to develop a uranium enrichment industry in Australia as part of his pitch to win Labor Party support for an expansion of uranium ore exports. draft policy amendment, which will be put to the weekend's Labor conference by either the Opposition Leader or resources spokesman Chris Evans, seeks to strengthen the party's position on nuclear waste and proliferation in a bid to win over waverers concerned about uranium mining.

As well as seeking to revive and strengthen international nuclear non-proliferation treaties, Labor would vigorously oppose ocean dumping of waste and the importation of waste from overseas. The amendment bans nuclear power stations, in line with Mr Rudd's declared policy, but includes a ban on "all other stages of the nuclear fuel cycle". The ban will be a blow to those in Labor who think Australia could develop a lucrative export industry developing nuclear rods for power stations, particularly for energy-hungry China and India.

The restriction comes amid intense lobbying by factional brokers to shore up the numbers to overturn Labor's 1982 compromise platform, which banned new uranium mines. ...

The Left, led by frontbencher Anthony Albanese, who learned the craft of gathering numbers in the cauldron of NSW state conferences, says Labor must improve protections before overturning the existing Labor ban on new mines. Mr Albanese is supported by environment spokesman Peter Garrett, who said yesterday he did not believe there was a case for a significant expansion of Australia's involvement in uranium.

But Senator Evans said the Left amendment avoided the main issue: that a 25-year-old policy designed to limit uranium exports had failed. ...

Senator Evans said there were now four mines operating in Australia - there were three in place in 1982 - and a proposed expansion of BHP's Olympic Dam would create a single mine bigger than all of Canada's industry. ...

But Mr Albanese said he was seeking a sensible balance between existing contracts and the intractable problems of the uranium industry. He said his amendment to the party platform, which he would put up as a compromise after Mr Rudd's proposal was put forward, was ultimately practical, not ideological. "Waste is the elephant in the room," he said. "It is not a responsible thing to do to expand further when there are still problems to be dealt with."

The Australian also quotes Peter Garrett commenting on the Rodent's myopic view that global warming isn't a serious problem (except in areas where the federal government wants to achieve centralised control of water supplies).

FEDERAL Labor says Prime Minister John Howard is wrong to suggest that climate change is not the overwhelming moral challenge facing Australians. ... Labor environment spokesman Peter Garrett said the Prime Minister's comments again show that he is out of touch on the significance of global warming. "There is significant consensus across the political spectrum internationally that climate change is the most significant environment issue we face and that it has a clear moral challenge to this generation," Mr Garrett said.

Mr Howard also said that renewable energy has only a minor contribution to make towards meeting the nation's power needs. "The Prime Minister remains caught in an ideological cul-de-sac where clean energy is something he believes can only make a minor contribution," Mr Garrett said.

One last article from The Australian - a good one on Clive Hamilton's new book "Scorcher" on Australian global warming policy and the greenhouse mafia.

NOT only does the federal Government want to avoid significant greenhouse gas emission cuts, it's also trying to stop the giants fuelling Australia's resources boom from doing the same. ... Dr Hamilton, executive director of thinktank The Australia Institute, also asserts that a “greenhouse mafia” of fossil-fuel lobbyists has largely dictated the Government's climate change policies.

In its concluding chapter, he writes that Australia actively set out to sabotage the Kyoto Protocol to protect its energy exports to the likes of China and continues to play a spoiling role in international talks.

The Prime Minister has attracted heavy criticism at home and abroad by refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which exempts developing nations from cutting emissions. “The Howard Government's claim that Kyoto is flawed because China does not have emission reduction obligations is cynical because the last thing it wants is for China to have any such obligations,” Dr Hamilton writes.

He said a commitment from China to future emission reductions would choke off a lucrative, growing market for Australian coal. “The prospect of China taking on such obligations in the second or subsequent commitment periods is the Government's worst nightmare. Instead of sitting back and watching a future market evaporate, the Howard Government has developed a strategy to cultivate that market by sustaining the growth of coal-fired power in China. It believes that the best way to do this is to urge on the world an alternative to Kyoto that incorporates China, asks only for voluntary measures and places all emphasis on a `technological approach' focused on `clean coal' solutions.”

The driving force behind the Government's stance, Dr Hamilton believes, is the greenhouse mafia - lobbyists representing mining and energy companies who are former public servants. He says these powerful corporations have managed to shut out more moderate voices in the business community as well as the environmental movement. ... “While the Howard Government claims to be concerned about climate change on behalf of all Australians, the truth revealed by its own words and actions is that it wants only to protect export revenue and the interests of a handful of corporations.”

Energy Bulletin points to a pair of British articles on the Australian drought. ODAC comments (somewhat hyperbolically - most wine isn't grown using irrigation):

The conversion of corn to ethanol in the USA is not the only thing sending corn, wheat and soya prices up. Australia, normally a wheat exporter, is currently experiencing the worst drought in its history, and it looks like food production there is about to nose dive.

If the Australian government had planned properly years ago and treated its water as a scarce and valuable resource, it would not be in such dire trouble now. It, and most of the rest of the world, seems to be following the same example for Peak Oil. Ignore the problem, then when things come to a head, hope and pray. If you like Australian wine, buy it now whilst you still can.

Jeff Vail has a look at Five Geopolitical Feedback-Loops in Peak Oil.

It is quite common to hear “experts” explain that the current tight oil markets are due to “above-ground factors,” and not a result of a global peaking in oil production. In reality, geological peaking is driving the geopolitical events that constitute the most significant “above-ground factors” such as the chaos in Iraq and Nigeria, the nationalization in Venezuela and Bolivia, etc. Geological peaking spawns positive feedback loops within the geopolitical system. Critically, these loops are not separable from the geological events—they are part of the broader “system” of Peak Oil.

Existing peaking models are based on the logistics curves demonstrated by past peaking in individual fields or oil producing regions. Global peaking is an entirely different phenomenon—the geology behind the logistics curves is the same, but global peaking will create far greater geopolitical side-effects, even in regions with stable or rising oil production. As a result, these geopolitical side-effects of peaking global production will accelerate the rate of production decline, as well as increase the impact of that production decline by simultaneously increasing marginal demand pressures. The result: the right side of the global oil production curve will not look like the left…whatever logistics curve is fit to the left side of the curve (where historical production increased), actual declines in the future will be sharper than that curve would predict.

Here are five geopolitical processes, each a positive-feedback loop, and each an accelerant of declining oil production:

1. Return on Investment: Increased scarcity of energy, as well as increased prices, increase the return on investment for attacks that target energy infrastructure. Whether the actor is an ideologically driven group (al-Qa’ida), or a privateer (youth gangs in the Niger Delta), the geologically-driven declines increase the ROI for attacks on energy, which will drive both decisions to act, as well as targeting decisions for that action. This is a positive feedback-loop because attacks on energy infrastructure and supply drive up the price, which further increases the ROI for such attacks.

2. Mercantilism: To avoid the dawning “bidding cycles” between crude oil price increases and demand destruction, Nation-States are increasingly returning to a mercantilist paradigm on energy. This is the attitude of “there isn’t enough of it to go around, and we can’t afford to pay the market price, so we need to lock up our own supply.” Whether it’s the direction of a pipeline flow out of Central Asia, defending only specified sea lanes, or influencing an occupied nation’s laws on Production Sharing Agreements, there are signs of a “new energy mercantilism” all around us. ...

3. “Export-Land” Model: Jeffrey Brown, a commentator at The Oil Drum, has proposed a geopolitical feedback loop that he calls the “export-land” model. In a regime of high or rising prices, a state’s existing oil exports brings in great revenues, which trickles into the state’s economy, and leads to increasing domestic oil consumption. This is exactly what is happening in most oil exporting states. The result, however, is that growth in domestic consumption reduces oil available for export. ...

4. Nationalism: Because our Westphalian system is fundamentally broken, the territories of nations and states are rarely contiguous. As a result, it is often the case that a nation is cut out of the benefits from its host state’s oil exports. ...

5. Privateering: Nationalist insurgencies and economies ruined by the downslide of the “export-land” effect will leave huge populations with no conventional economic prospects. High oil prices, and the willingness to make high protection payments, will drive those people to become energy privateers. ...

We may see some or all of these effects in any given area, and are already seeing this in some trouble spots. Some states, like Iraq, have been thrown into full-fledged “Nationalism” and “Privateering”-driven geopolitical disruption by the actions of an outside power—in this case, the US invasion was itself largely the byproduct of a shift towards energy mercantilism. This is just one illustration of the synergistic interrelationship of these processes. The important take-aways are these: so-called “above-ground factors” are driven by the geological reality, these geopolitical processes are positive feedback-loops, and they will accelerate the decline in global oil production beyond that predicted by models derived from logistics curves.

Meanwhile oil prices are headed back towards $70 a barrel - with neither US driving season nor hurricane season in sight.

OIL prices advanced overnight as concerns lingered over production in Nigeria, the world's sixth biggest oil exporter, following elections in the country.

New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in June, rose 44 cents to $US64.55 per barrel in floor trading. "Crude futures were higher (on Monday) with investors concentrating on Nigeria's elections held over the weekend," said analyst Michael Davies at the Sucden brokerage in London. "There were some local civil disturbances, with reports of fighting, but oil production has not been affected so far. ... Just minutes after the announcement of Mr Yar'Adua's victory, the United States voiced deep concern at the violence and voting irregularities that accompanied the election.

Meanwhile, further supply fears were stoked in the Middle East by Iran's rejection yesterday of Western demands that the country suspend its uranium enrichment program, which is a long-running source of tension. The latest development in the standoff has re-ignited fears that Iran could use its status as the Middle East's second-largest oil producer as leverage in the debate.

EcoGeek has a post on a Russian ultracapacitor called the star battery.

Well, we've been keeping our eyes open for more information on this 'stellar battery' that we blogged about last week. Twice as efficient as a solar panel, operates in darkness and low light, cheaper than a solar panel. Lacking details, we were skeptical.

Well, the Russian scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) have given us some more information. They're claiming a 54% efficiency in converting visual light to electricity. They're claiming a system of storing that energy that does not use acid batteries, and they're claiming a 31% efficiency at converting low-light and infrared light to electricity. And, finally, they've actually given us a glimpse of how, exactly, this is supposed to work. Of course, they told the world in Russian, and we don't speak Russian, but we're happy to try and translate the translation / explaination we found at PESN.

Summary:

The Russians said: We have a revolutionary new 'star battery' that is made of heteroelectric matter.

The Russians meant to say: We made an ultra-capacitor and an ultra-efficient photoelement out of a metamaterial. ...

BusinessWire has an ad for bioplastics from a subsidiary of Archer Daniels Midland and Metabolix that reveals an unsurprising ignorance about plastic amongst Americans.

According to a nationwide online survey released today, 72 percent of the American public does not know that conventional plastic is made from petroleum products, primarily oil. The survey was conducted by national online market research firm InsightExpress for TellesTM, a joint venture of Metabolix, Inc. (NASDAQ: MBLX), a company using bioscience to provide clean solutions for plastics, fuels and chemicals, and Archer Daniels Midland (NYSE: ADM), one of the world’s largest agricultural processors and the world leader in BioEnergy.

Plastics are everywhere and most Americans have come to rely on plastics in all aspects of their lives. However, very few people realize that plastics are made from oil, further contributing to the problems of energy dependence, greenhouse gas emissions and depleting resources. In fact, nearly 10 percent of U.S. oil consumption – approximately 2 million barrels a day – is used to make plastic.

The survey also revealed a misunderstanding about another important characteristic of traditional plastic – it never goes away. Despite the fact that petroleum-based plastic will never biodegrade, 40 percent of respondents believe that it will biodegrade underground, in home compost, in landfills, or in the ocean. Plastics will not biodegrade in any of these environments. In fact, the only way to rid the planet of existing plastic is by incineration in those cases where it can be recovered.

"Everyone knows about our country's unhealthy reliance on oil and the impact that petroleum use has on climate change,” said Jim Barber, President and CEO, Metabolix, which has developed a brand of fully biodegradable Natural Plastics. “Similarly, people see a lot of plastic waste in the form of litter. But the fact that so many people are unaware that plastic is made from oil and that it will persist in the environment for thousands of years, shows the need for education about the impact of plastic on the environment and the various alternatives made from renewable resources."

Americans also have a much more optimistic view of the country’s recycling efforts than is supported by the facts. On average, those surveyed believe nearly 40 percent (38.2%) of plastic is recycled, when in fact that figure is less than six percent (5.7%) nationally, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

There is hope, however. When informed that plastic is made from oil and that it never biodegrades, half of Americans indicated they would be willing to pay a premium for natural, biodegradable plastic.

Snapshot of Survey Results:

* 72% of respondents do not know that plastic is made out of oil/petroleum
* On average, respondents estimated 38% of plastic is recycled (the reality is less than 6%, according to the EPA)
* Nearly 40% (38.1%) of respondents said plastic will biodegrade underground, in home compost, in landfills, or in the ocean (plastic will not biodegrade in any of these environments).
* After learning that plastic is made from oil and never biodegrades, half (50.1%) of respondents stated they would be likely or very likely to pay 5-10% more for a natural, biodegradable plastic. Only 24% were unlikely/very unlikely to pay this much more. ...

bout Telles’s Natural Plastics

Telles Natural Plastics are produced from renewable resources such as corn sugar using a fully biological fermentation process, producing a versatile range of biobased natural plastics with excellent durability in use but that also biodegrade benignly in a wide range of environments. Telles is a joint venture or Metabolix and Archer Daniels Midland, which is now building the first commercial scale plant to produce Natural Plastics in Clinton, Iowa. This plant will be starting up in 2008, with a nameplate capacity of 110 million pounds of Natural Plastics per year, which can be used as an alternative to petroleum-based plastics in a wide variety of conversion processes including injection molding, paper coating, sheet, cast film, blown film and thermoforming.

About Telles™

To commercialize Natural Plastics, Metabolix and ADM formed a joint venture, which operates under the name Telles. Telles takes its name from the Roman goddess of the Earth. Telles is responsible for the manufacturing, marketing and sales of Natural Plastics.

Time has an article on the dangers of plastic toys - whether or not some bioplastics are equally harmful isn't discussed.

They line the nursery section children’s toy stores like brightly colored candies: rubber duckies for bathtime, chewable rings for teething, soft-covered books for pawing and mouthing. Parents shopping for their babies can be forgiven if they assume that everything on those shelves is 100% child safe. So why did the city of San Francisco issue a ban last week on the sale of certain plastic toys aimed at children under 3? And why are activists warning holiday shoppers in the most alarming terms against buying them? “Sucking on some of these teethers and toys,” says Rachel Gibson of Environment California, a nonprofit, “is like sucking on a toxic lollipop.”

At issue are contaminants in plastics used to make the toys. Environmentalists have long argued that some of these chemicals can leach out and harm children, pointing to animal studies that link the substances to birth defects, cancer and developmental abnormalities. Those warnings are hotly disputed by the chemical industry and toy manufacturers, which cite stacks of scientific studies that have found the plastics to be safe at federally approved levels. But the issue has gained traction on the strength of new evidence from independent and university-sponsored studies. The European Union has banned some chemicals in toys since 1999, and now half a dozen state legislatures are considering similar laws.

The Iraqi government is complaining about US military building walls around ethnic enclaves in Baghdad. Wasn't there a word for this sort of thing in the past - they are calling them "gated communities" now but I think "ghetto" is a lot more succinct.

THE new US ambassador to Iraq says the American military will "respect the wishes" of the Iraqi Government regarding a barrier being built around a Sunni enclave in Baghdad, but he stopped short of saying construction would be halted.

Ryan Crocker was speaking at a news conference yesterday, a day after the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said he had ordered the building of the barrier in Azamiya to stop after it drew strong criticism from residents and Sunni leaders. "Obviously we will respect the wishes of the Government and the Prime Minister," Mr Crocker said. "I'm not sure where we are right now concerning our discussions on how to move forward on this particular issue." He defended the principle behind the Azamiya barrier, saying it was aimed at protecting the community, not segregating it.

As Mr Crocker spoke, hundreds of Iraqis took to the streets in the area in northern Baghdad to protest at the wall's construction, which residents have complained would isolate them from the rest of the city. In Cairo on Sunday Mr Maliki declared that "I oppose the building of the wall, and its construction will stop". He added: "There are other methods to protect neighbourhoods. The US military plans to wall off at least 10 of Baghdad's most violent areas, and also to use biometric technology to track some residents, creating what officers call "gated communities".

"If we keep the bad guys out, then we win," said First Lieutenant Sean Henley, 24, who works out of an outpost in southern Ghazaliya, a Sunni insurgent stronghold on Baghdad's western edge. The 1.5-square-kilometre neighbourhood of about 15,000 people now has one entrance point for civilian vehicles and three military checkpoints that are closed to the public.

In some sealed-off areas, troops armed with biometric scanning devices will compile a neighbourhood census by recording residents' fingerprints and eye patterns and would perhaps issue them special identification badges, military officials said.

Of course, there are plenty of people who won't end up in some walled ghetto that you need a retina scan to enter or leave - many Iraqis who aren't dead have fled the country. TomDispatch has a report on Iraqi refugees in Syria (bonus points awarded for picking the subtle Salvador Option reference).

Sa'ad Hussein, who arrived in Damascus only three months ago, described the Baghdad he left as a "city of ghosts" where the black banners of death announcements hang on most streets. There is, he claimed (and this was verified by others we spoke to among the more recent refugees), normally only one hour of electricity a day and no jobs to be found.

"I was an ex-captain in the Iraqi Army, and I think that's why I was threatened, in addition to working with the occupation authorities," he explained. When asked how many of his former Sunni army colleagues had also received death threats, he replied, "All of them." It was not safe, he told me, for him to go back to the now largely Shi'ite Iraqi Army because, "I may be killed. This is the new freedom and democracy we have."

On all measurable levels, life in Baghdad, now well into the fifth year of U.S. occupation, has become hellish for Iraqis who have attempted to remain, which, of course, only adds to the burgeoning numbers who daily become part of the exodus to neighboring lands. It is generally agreed that the delivery of security, electricity, potable water, health care, and jobs -- that is, the essentials of modern urban life -- are all significantly worse than during the last years of the reign of Saddam Hussein.

"The Americans are detaining so many people," Ali Hassan, a 41-year-old from the Hay Jihad area of Baghdad said as we spoke in front of the central UNHCR office in downtown Damascus. "And my brother was killed by Shi'ite militiamen after he refused to give them the keys to empty Sunni houses we were looking after."

As scores of other refugees crowded around photographer Jeff Pflueger and me, wanting to tell their stories, Hassan, a Shi'ite who also fled Baghdad just three months ago, added, "Now I can't go back. I am a refugee and I still don't feel secure because I still fear the Mehdi Army."

"So many Iraqis never leave their homes now because they are too afraid to go out due to the militias," Abdul Abdulla, a 68-year-old who fled Baghdad with his family insisted, having literally grabbed the microphone I was using to tape my interview with Hassan.

From the volatile Yarmouk area of Baghdad, Abdulla, a Sunni, said Shia militia members waited on the outskirts of his neighborhood in order to detain anyone trying to leave. "We stayed in our homes, but even then some people were being detained from their own houses. These death squads started coming after [former U.S. ambassador John] Negroponte arrived. And the Iraqi Government is definitely involved because they depend on [the militias]."

Somewhat bizarrely, its not just the left and cynics like me who are suspicious of Mr Negroponte - the foaming wingnut right are accusing him of being in on the coverup of the transfer of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to Syria by the Russians, Chinese and Iranians (those WMDs really did exist dammit - everyone is out to get us !) - ans what's more, they think he is a Chinese agent. Glenn Greenwald points out that these are the people who have been running the US these past 6 years - while Billmon would have said it a lot better, you can't fault him for effort.

Melanie Phillips is a British neoconservative who has devoted herself to warning England that Muslims are taking over and destroying its culture. Her book, oh-so-cleverly titled Londonistan, warns of "the collapse of traditional British identity and accommodation of a particularly virulent form of multiculturalism."

She has described James Baker and Jimmy Carter as "the kept creatures of the Arab world" who "are intent on smoothing the path to Israel's destruction." She thinks global warming is a "con-trick" because everything is "well within the normal cyclical fluctuations in temperature from century to century." And on and on and on. Needless to say, she is a deeply admired figure in the world of Fox News and right-wing blogs.

But all of that is rendered moderate, restrained, sober and even sane by a new article she wrote for the British magazine, The Spectator (headline: I Found Saddam's WMD Bunkers), which claims that: (a) WMDs really were found in Iraq after the invasion, (b) they were located in vast underground bunkers (c) which contained "nuclear, chemical and biological materials", but (d) the U.S., through negligence, failed to secure those sites and, as a result, (e) the WMDs were stolen by The Terrorists and/or Syrian agents, who now have them and are actively plotting (along with China, Russia and North Korea) to use them against the West, but --

(f) because the Bush administration is so embarrassed by their failure to prevent the theft of all these dastardly weapons, and because Democrats are embarrassed by this discovery because it proves that Saddam really did have WMDs all along, they have all jointly created a vast conspiracy where they conceal the discovery of WMDs in order to cover up for their negligence. ...

Even after George Bush -- George Bush -- expressly admitted that Saddam had no WMD's, many of the "respectable and prominent" right-wing pundits cling steadfastly to the belief -- really a key article of faith -- that Saddam did have those weapons, as illustrated by John Hinderaker's July 2006 remarks about a Washington Times poll asking Americans if they believe that Saddam had WMDs when we invaded: "'Yes' is indisputably the right answer to that question. . . . about the fact that Iraq possessed WMDs, there is no doubt."

But their embrace of Melanie Phillips' theory here is almost alarming, even in light of their past behavior. On her blog today, Phillips expounds on her article by printing a lengthy Memorandum which claims that: (a) John Negroponte is persecuting various groups which are trying to bring the WMD conspiracy to light because (b) Negroponte is part of what they call the "Red Team" in the U.S. government, which is exceedingly loyal to China, which is crucial given that (c) the stolen-WMD-plot involved the subsequent transfer of "Saddam's WMD technology to Syria and Iran" and that all happened (d) "because the Chinese Army created an international consortium of rogue states to develop the Islamic Bomb" (and Negorponte, it implies, is concealing that by persecuting these groups because he is an agent of China).

These are the people whom the right-wing bloggers are citing as evidence that Saddam's WMDs were stolen by Syria and Iran and other Terrorists. This is the world they inhabit. And these are the people whose worldview has been governing our country for the last six years and who have been treated with the utmost respect, even reverence, by our national media -- the fact which explains, more or less, everything.

Meanwhile the shift of attention away from the "War On Terror" and the terrorist peril in our midst here has obviously annoyed the government enough that they decided its time to get the appropriate fear levels up again - now our jails have become breeding grounds for bearded extremists...

The Sydney Sun-Herald page one ‘exclusive’ yesterday on an alleged Islamic cell in New South Wales' Goulburn Jail has all the hallmarks of a classic Sunday newspaper beat-up.

And if the report is accurate, then the NSW Government and its notoriously harsh corrections regime are heading into dangerous territory in terms of discriminating against prisoners who embrace Islam as opposed to those who find religion through Christianity, Buddhism or any other faith.

According to the report, one in three inmates in the super-max facility at Goulburn, where dangerous prisoners are held, is now a Muslim fundamentalist or a convert to Islam. According to the Sun-Herald, Attorney-General John Hatzistergos wants prison officials to “control every movement and every utterance because of the threat they pose. We don’t want to see any risk to people either inside or outside the system. We simply can't take our eye off them".

And what is it that makes these prisoners so frightening? Has a stash of armaments been discovered in the cells, or plans of prominent Sydney buildings, or, perhaps, instructions on how to make bombs?

None of the above, if the Sun-Herald is to be believed. ...

But should we be surprised that prisoners are converting to Islam? Not if you ask English writer and former prison doctor Theodore Dalyrmple. Writing in The Times on 30 July 30, he observed that one reason Islam is so popular in UK prisons is because "many prisoners prefer life in prison to life outside, which is one motive for recidivism. Prison imposes boundaries on them that they are unable to impose on themselves, and a life without boundaries is a life of torment, it is without form, a void. Islam, with its daily rituals and its list of prohibitions, is ideally suited to those who are seeking to contain their own lives".

No doubt in the case of some of those converting to Islam in the hell-hole that is the Goulburn, this would be the case. That is not to say that any suspicious behaviour by prisoners should not be investigated, but on the evidence presented by the Sun-Herald, it seems there might be a fair bit of jumping at shadows on the part of the NSW Government, and just a touch of paranoia.

The Onion reports that Dick Cheney celebrated Earth Day for the first time on the weekend.

At a special Earth Day event Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney inhaled his first-ever breath of oxygen.

"I am…proud to stand before you today and…breathe in the same gas used by…millions of Americans," said a wheezing and gasping Cheney, whose body is accustomed to compounds of chlorine and sulfur dioxide. "One breath, however, is enough for me. I'm glad the stuff will be out of the atmosphere forever in a few decades."

Cheney then left the press conference to attend a cardiac health awareness dinner, where he feasted on human hearts.

William Gibson also has a little post on Earth Day.

"It's hard to appreciate the Earth when you're down right upon it because it's so huge.

"It gives you in an instant, just at a position 240,000 miles away from it, (an idea of) how insignificant we are, how fragile we are, and how fortunate we are to have a body that will allow us to enjoy the sky and the trees and the water … It's something that many people take for granted when they're born and they grow up within the environment. But they don't realize what they have. And I didn't till I left it."

-Jim Lovell, Apollo 8 and 13.

AV World has a good selection of Kurt Vonnegut quotes (see the original for commentary and context). They also have a Q&A session with Henry Rollins.

1. "I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'"
2. "Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God."
3. "Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand."
4. "There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind."
5. "She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is doing."
6. "Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"
7. "There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too."
8. "Since Alice had never received any religious instruction, and since she had led a blameless life, she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her."
9. "That is my principal objection to life, I think: It's too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes."
10. "Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak."
11. "All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental."
12. "Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?"
13. "So it goes."
14. "I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled 'science fiction' ever since, and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal."
15. "We must be careful about what we pretend to be."

Bonus quote. "The only difference between Bush and Hitler is that Hitler was elected"

MonkeyGrinder also put up a Vonnegut quote to mark his passing.

"The bad news is that the Martians have landed in New York City, and are staying at the Waldorf. The good news is that they only eat homeless men, women and children of all colors, and they pee gasoline."