Protectionism spreads. It is rising in the US, as it is always seemingly a simple solution to complex problems. I suppose enough has been posted about US-China currency / trade relations. This link from Morgan Stanley may have been (I haven’t had tine to follow everything.)

View points on immigration, same story, Julian Delasantellis in the Asia Times:

Exurbia: Built on paradox and hypocrisy

Now, the slaves should go home.

on edit, addition: the article makes links between energy, exurbia, labor, sociology and politics, though it is only a newspaper article, and a short read.

How good are these West African fields? Do you have any data on them? Can we get an article? How much time would they buy us?

Maybe, but if you sell your 10mpg SUV and buy a 40mpg diesel car (eg VW Jetta) your fuel bill will be cut by 3/4. You still get around just as much in the same level of comfort and safety. So where is the deprivation? Unless, that is, you count not having an SUV as deprivation.

Golly, I sure hope your correct about Peak Oil being as much of an opportunity as a curse. I'm not trying to be ironic of sarcastic here. Maybe we could think of Peak Oil as a "challange" too? You may be right. If we get through the "challange" period; and enter another, better and more sustainable socio-economic paradigme, then maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to look back on the Peak Oil period with stoicism. With a knowing smile, nodding sage-like, maybe we'll realize that it was precisley the impetus we needed to propel us on our route to the establishment of an eco-friendly, alternative society?

Personally I'm not down on conservation. I'm just not sure what it means. I'm also not convinced that Matt Simmons is using the right word here. Does conservation imply actually cutting consumption or not? Or does conservation mean more efficient use of the same ammount of energy? Does conservation mean more than substitution of one method of consumption for a more efficient technology? If conservation is merely a synonym for "tech-fix" then I'm not so sure it's an adequate policy.

One of the problems I have with Al Gore is that his plan for mitigating global warming seems to skirt around the need for, in my opinion, real and substantial sacrifice by the rich, consuming nations. I'm aware that this is highly controversial and I'm not advocating cutting our consumption per se. It's not something I really want to see happening. There are massive problems connected with us cutting consumption, too many to go into here in detail.

Only I believe if we are going to stick with the economic growth paradigme going forward, all of the growth will have to occure in the developing nations and not with us. We have more than had our share. I think Gore ducks the really hard choices we face, cutting consumption and a transferance of global wealth, which I think may prove inevitable. I'm not sure how we can deny the Chinese and Indians their rightful share of the pie, bigger slices.

Well, no, neutrino. You may be saving yourself some money, but you are not "conserving" energy.

I've done all the above, and more, for myself, period, not because I'm under any illusions of having virtuously "conserved" energy. That energy just winds up getting used somewhere else down the line.

There is no "conservation" in a growth-dependent system. Energy use is always increasing--until it can't anymore.

Therefore, it behooves everyone to learn to live with less NOW.

Actually, Kunstler would be best as VP. First, I would bet that he does not want the job as president. As VP, who has nothing to do, he could run around ranting at people to shape up and what gluttonous slobs they've become. Like Cheney, people would be so terrified of a Kunstler presidency that it would be built-in protection for the prez.

Lemmy, as in Motorhead? Sweet!

I forgot about the magazine article. I guess I should say we had no MSM TV/newspaper coverage. It was quite an experience driving JHK and the reporter around the suburban wasteland in North Dallas.

Isn't the reality no petroleum no chainsaw?

Because
1) the chainsaw runs on it (fuel, lube and chain oil)
2) the truck that you use to gather the wood
runs on it

Also I've noticed shiny SUVs with trailers and new K-Mart chainsaws coming from town to local back roads to scavenge for wood. Maybe an axe and wheelbarrow is all we'll have one day.

I used to own an Outdoor Power Equipment business. I had a Stihl,Echo,Sachs Dolmar ,Lawnboy and other dealerships.

I hardly ever allowed a Poulan into the shop.

Test: Take a brand new Poulan clutch/sprocket and lay in on your workbench.Lay beside it a brand new Stihl clutch/sprocket.Observe the enormous differences in the quality. You will keep the Stihl part and throw the Poulan in the ditch. Metamorphically speaking of course but the differnces are extremely obvious. And as the sprocket goes...so goes the chain and bar.That said I have seen an ocassional Poulan that seems to run and cut rather well. An oddity I assume since a blind pig ocassionally finds an acorn.

Husky? Far as I recall was a newcomer on the market. I repaired them using Jonserd parts and therefore asssumed they brought out Jonsred and then could claim to have many years in the market when they were actually new.

To become a Husky dealer you had to stock and enormous amount of their inventory so I decided NO WAY. Besides I thought the saw to be rather worthless.

Stihl was my favorite along with Echo and Sachs. I had a brand new two cylinder Echo that I took out and admired on ocassion. It was a collectors saw. Very very few made. I sold it for a handsome price when I closed down the business. However it didn't cut or handle any better than a single.

When I quit the business I took 8 saws to my barn , cases of bar and chain oil and a couple reels of chain. I kept my Stihl chain grinder for some years but eventually sold it too, a mistake.

I however have a hand grinder with carbide cutter that does just as good though slower.

To this day I can hear a chain saw being run near a mile away and tell if its sharp or dull. Sometimes I can tell if the operator had sex the night before!!!!!!!and what he had for breakfast!!!!!!

Ahh well all joking aside...the chain saw is a hell of a good product but I can stand and watch and idiot destroy one in less than 30 minutes.

In one of out dealer classes they would take a brand new Stihl(say 028av). Start it up and run it wide open and it would self destruct in less than 10 minutes.

The causes for this could be many but in their demo is was simply stale gas mix. You then got to look at the piston and cylinder after teardown.

Here is my favorite scenario. Guy gets a new chain since he has ruined his old one. He gets a cheapy like maybe Rhino or whatever off a rack at the BigBoxStore. He goes out to the wood pile and cuts with his new chain. In something less than one days cutting he has destroyed the saw.

How? The new chain was not prelubed and he didn't lube it before installing it. Before the oil pump could lube the bar and thus the tiechain internal rivet/bars they were overheated and lost their temper. With temper lost they began to wear quite fast thereby placing slack in the hot chain. He stopped the saw and took the slack out since it might have jumped the rail or just looked saggy. He started back sawing. Maybe stopped to remove slack once more as the tie bar connectors kept wearing away. Finally he turns it off with the chain still tight and quits for the day. The chain begans to contract as it cools and pulls the crankcase bearings and seals. Now you have a leak in the crankcase,ruined seals/bearings and the carb fuel pump which operates on crancase pressure will cause the saw to not start. He has effectively destoryed a fairly new saw in one day. At this point I once saw a neighbor(back in Mo.) take a sledgehammer to his chain saw in anger for not starting.
He beat it into the ground. Some time later he was butchering a goat hanging on a tree and asked to borrow my crosscut hand saw. I didn't lend it to the fool.

If you buy a quality chain it should be in plastic and PRELUBED. Stihl chains usually are. In shops where they make up chains,like in my shop. I would place the pristine chain in a coffee can of bar oil and heat it slightly for an hour or so. Else put the new chain on the bar and drizzle bar oil over it. Run it very slowly and shut down. Repeat until its obvious that all the internal components of the chain are well lubed.

Some customers were such assholes they couldn't wait so they got just what they asked for. A dry chain.

Many assholes thought they were masters at sharpening a chain with a hand file. They were NOT. They then found how much fun it was to cut firewood with slanted sides and then found how great it was to try to stand one on a splitting block!!!...

The idiots of the world do not need to be touching or owning good chain saws. Should be part of the Ten Commandments.

I would buy a locked up chain saw for $25. The parts were worth maybe 10 times that. I had plenty of saws to take parts from . I sold them at reasonable prices to good customers.

I finally sold my inventory and went back to mainframe consulting after 5 years of this and people stopped cutting wood. I refused to work on rusted out lawnmowers and Homelite/WalMart junk so I hung it up. I left with over $150,000 in just Stihl inventory that I could sell to anyone. Overall my father had over $300,000 in inventory. I let it go cheap and walked away.

Bad story. Bad karma. But I still savor my chain saws in the basement. One Sachs has a 33" bar and rip chain with which I filtch cut oak butt logs into planks for myself with a small lumber mill. Alaska Mill III.

Sad to say most of the hardwoods are disappearing around here due to heavy timbering. I have some pecan,walnut , sassafras and cherry stored away that I slabbed out some time back. I love to work in wood.

Airdale--watch that chain,keep it oiled and sharp or you WILL BURN your bar. Those blue lines say you did.

EDITTED : I know this is way way OFF TOPIC. But if I can help one person preserve a good chain saw then it was worth it.

Try a beaver, but I understand they're hard to handle.

Hi Noisette,

For human beings to view children (and people) as what we might term "status objects" - or as any other kind of object - other than human beings is more than sad - it's tragic (esp. for the "human-as-object").

At the same time, I know people who adopt (and/or would adopt if they had the view they could afford it). Not that they are stars. Just to say, it seems to me that some people are particularly inclined towards giving that kind of nurturing - just a talent, perhaps.

I saw part of a documentary on Josephine Baker, where her grown children were interviewed, and what struck me was the way they talked about her. It was obvious she was their mother; they loved her and felt loved. That was my impression, albeit based on my limited information.