But remember, the US is still trying to get the Iraqi government to approve laws favorable to "Production Sharing Agreements" with big oil companies-- http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2005/crudedesigns.htm

The other thing the US got was a defense of the value of the dollar against the Euro:
http://www.thinkandask.com/news/thedollar.html

I think the incandescent bulb ban *is* a good thing, as it only troubles the maker of the EasyBake stove ...

Places around my house where I don't use CFL bulbs:

- Inside my kitchen stove (gas): Too hot

- Inside my fridge and freezer: Too cold

- In the motion sensor controlled security lights outside the house: Too cold in winter to provide enough light quickly

- In my photographic darkroom: They give off enough light to fog film for 3-5 minutes after you switch them off due to residual glow from the phosphor

- In various task lamps that right now use 12 Volt halogen bulbs: Not available in that size or brightness

- In dimmer equipped fixtures: even the "dimmable" CFL's don't work as promised; lifespan of less than a dozen hours in some cases, audible buzzing, non-smooth dimming and unequal brightness in multi-bulb fixtures

- In my workshop: they have a strobe effect which sometimes makes things like spinning saw blades and grinder wheels seem stationary or slow moving when in fact they are not. Very unsafe!

Please just tax them lots to discourage use where they are not needed but don't ban them outright. All lighting methods are not yet equal in ways that do matter

Won't they have to be ethanol-filled space heaters?
/sarcanol

Hi SCT,

Just a note, since I didn't see an address for you. You asked a question on Nov. 27, and I just offered a reply this evening (Dec. 2). (I say this because I took it as a sincere question, and I had some thoughts.) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3293#comment-272124

Some very good points, Expat (as usual)

Here in Portland, we've had, for December 1, an exceptionally cold (20f), Windy and Sunny day, where my house could have been entirely Heated by any of a number of Solar Heating options, like these Solar Hot Air Panels that are under construction in the basement.. as well as a good amount of Windpower, which certainly could have just been directly wired to Incandescents inside, producing both heat and light without the losses of batteries and related circuitry. Even the food we are cooking on our electric range is using the heat twice during this season, making the stove a good bit more economical in wintertime.

Of course, the use of Electric Lighting AT ALL during a bright sunny day is a bit of legacy foolishness that I also aim to dismantle with a system that starts with a Tracked-Mirror atop each of my Three Disused ChimneyShafts, providing a constant beam of nearly full sunlight down through the entire depth of the 3story, 3-Apartment building, wherein each floor can 'dip' a mirror into a designated pie-slice of that light, to be directed into the room along the ceiling to where-ever it is needed, diffused, split, filtered, lensed or reflected into useful forms..

I'm not all that impressed by the light that comes from these solar 'light-tubes' that I see installed here and there. As a Lighting Cameraman, I can safely say that diffusing your light source too early in its path will cost you a LOT of lightcandles down the line, and the Light tubes are often difuse both at the roof as well as at the outlet.. (Don't even talk to me about rediffusing difuse sources, you get bupkiss out the back end!) Tracking a mirror barely takes any energy, and the complexity is pretty low. Like most Alt-energy, just takes initial investment and design-time.. climbing on my roof is gravy. It's as close to an extreme sport as I've got.

http://www.redrok.com/electron.htm#led3x

Bob Fiske

(oops.. sun is down! Gotta get the insulated shades pulled)

Aaargh,#$%@*&!!!, This is a perfect example of the the kind of (take your pick) arrogant ostentation or clueless ignorance that is so prevalent among the citizens of this me, me, me society. I no longer have the link but someone once sent me a series of photos titled "Only in America" one of them happened to be of a gym somewhere in LA with two escalators going up on either side of the stairs to the front entrance. Of course there was no one on the stairs and both escalators had people on them with their gym bags!!!??? BTW I'm 54 years old and actually am able to speed walk 3 miles in about 40 minutes if I run I can do it in a little over 30 mins. you can estimate my 5 mile speed. Ok, I have a girl friend who is in training for a half marathon and she regularly runs 5ks (3 miles) and I often accompany her during training. We also do 15 mile bike rides. There is absolutely no excuse for someone to buy and drive a Hummer for trips to the gym or anywhere else for that matter unless, they have their cephalus inserted really far up their anus.

Refrigerators have come a long way recently on energy efficiency, thus they generate a lot less heat. I contend that with much more efficient household appliances and lighting we will have to rethink our heating degree day formula of the average daily temperature from 65 degrees F. When doing energy calculations for my own house I use 68 F as the working number because of cfl's and energy star appliances.

Payback on CFL's is 1 year IIRC.

You are correct with insulation however, it is the biggest saver.

The payback time on these expensive lamps and heat pumps is years and years.

Try "months and months".

The energy savings over the course of one year with a CFL vs. regular is around $30. At roughly $3 for a bulb, the payback time for compact fluorescent is only a month or two.

Heat pumps take longer, but based on this analysis, an air-source heat pump added to either an oil furnace or electrical resistance will take 2-7 years to pay back across a wide range of climatic conditions.

it's much better to spend the limited money available on better insulation

Often true, yes. Both is even better, though, and the economics seems fairly favourable.

We don't need to reduce electrical use, we need to reduce all fossil fuel use - oil, coal, and gas - this is the government's mistake, they wrongly think electricity is the total energy.

True, but converting to electricity can be an effective way to do that, since electricity can be generated from non-fossil sources. That's especially valid in countries where most electricity is non-fossil-derived (e.g., Canada, France).

With heating oil currently selling at $0.889 per litre, the pay back on my ductless heat pump is 3.5 years and if my home's thermal losses were higher, the pay back would be even shorter (i.e., higher heat demand would mean my heat pump would offset even more fuel oil).

Even here in Canada, a conventional air-source heat pump will provide two to three times more heat, per kWh, than a standard incandescent lamp. And if the heat generated from the operation of incandescent lamps reduces the run time of my heat pump, my heating costs go up, not down.

Cheers,
Paul

Right Ho River, and isn't black such a delicious colour?! But where oh where are the Lenny Bruces of yesteryear? ... Maybe in Iraq on burial duty and doing some graveyard shtick or other?

yes, how can one look at our country, see the leader of the free world wearing a bozo wig, surounded by a troupe of bozo syncophants, and fail to have a sense of humor

It is not China's choice. If China bids more for the oil, they can get all the oil they desire. Oil if fungible. Whoever has the money gets the oil. It is as simple as that.

It costs Russia very little to ship oil to china because China is one of its closest customers. It would cost Venezuela a whole lot more to ship oil to China because it is so far. The difference in shipping costs between Venezuela and the US verses Venezuela to China would be a lot. Oil from Venezuela to China would have to go all the way around the horn. Why would China pay Venezuela more when it would pay Russia?

Oil is fungible people. If China wishes to absorbe all Venezuela's oil without giving up any of its other imports, that will cost China dearly, not to mention the extra storage they would have to build. Now just why in the hell would China do that?

Ron Patterson

Military tension heats up between US, China

A spat over China's denial of port calls to U.S. naval vessels has led the Pentagon to deploy an increasing number of large ships to transit the Taiwan Strait in some of the most sensitive waters in East Asia.

The Taiwan Strait, barely 100 miles wide at its narrowest, is a potential military flashpoint. Mainland China claims Taiwan as a renegade province, and says it has the right to seize control of the independently governed island with its military. It aims more than 900 short-range ballistic missiles across the Strait.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20071201/wl_mcclatchy/2770712_1

Thanks for those Cid.

Glad to see you sill posting.

I seem to remember reading that Hugo has a financial interest in a US voting machine company.

man what a wizard’s brew, sounds like some 14 year old playing king in the attic ;-)

I’m not buying this ¤##£??)& , although these ways would definitely promote the ideas of democracy – which is held so dear by both CIA and the Bush

It's what you get in a society where everything is a commodity. Everything.

Not a single drop of oil for the United States - Chavez

Chavez told supports at a rally that the state oil company will halt sales to the United States on Monday if Washington interferes with the vote.

"There will not be a single drop of oil for the United States," Chavez told hundreds of thousands of cheering supporters in downtown Caracas. "And if they want to come and take our oil they will face 100 years of war in Venezuela."

"Whoever votes 'Yes' is voting for Chavez, and whoever votes 'No' is voting for George W. Bush, president of the United States," he said.

The Venezuelan leader also said he had ordered the military to protect oil fields and refineries in case of political violence.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2007-12/01/content_6292193.htm

The English WERE the world corporations. Their joint-stock corporations were the first wave of imperial conquest in America, India, China and Africa. In the Middle East, they were called British Petroleum. That's why you can't educate Americans on the crimes of Britain; as their ideological heirs, we are religiously incapable of ascribing monstrous crimes to entrepreneurs as opposed to governments.

A few years ago, the Discovery Channel and the BBC collaborated on a documentary about what Jesus looked like. It was speculative, but based on science. They assumed that Jesus must have looked like an average man of the time and place, or there would have been no need for Judas to point him out by kissing him. He could have just said, "He's the tall, blond, long-haired freak."

So they took an "average" skull from the time and place, and created a forensic likeness. Then they aged the face as you would expect for an area with harsh sun, and gave him the typical hair cut and facial hair shown in art of the time. (Male Jews did not have long hair back then, but they did have short beards.)

It came out like this:

It didn't go over well with some. One woman wrote in to the paper complaining, "He looks like a terrorist!"

Arab socialists like the PLO and Baath were the champions not only of women's rights but of secular cooperation

Oddly true. For example, Saddam Hussein's Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, is Roman Catholic.

It's almost as if our leaders wanted Arab leftists and Christians eradicated so that they wouldn't complicate the story of a clash of religions and civilizations.

There's a much simpler explanation, which is simply "blowback". The dangerous, unstable elements that were armed and supported to weaken an adversary have not stopped being dangerous and unstable, so now they threaten us.

Hello River,

I wonder if postPeak NPK-awareness is growing fast worldwide:

http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2007/11/30/afx4390821.html
-------------------------
Moscow shares rose in afternoon trade on the back of Asia's commodities-fuelled rally this morning, with Uralkali shares surging on rising potash-fertilizer prices.

Uralkali soared 0.649 usd, or 15.45 pct, at 4.85 on the RTS today, as investors bought into the potash-fertilizer producer in expectation of higher prices going forward.

JP Morgan earlier this week forecast that potash prices would rise by 150-160 usd per tonne to 415-425 usd when China negotiates its 2008 annual purchase price later this year.
-----------------------------
If I was a wealthy insider in Putin's circle, and if I knew that Russia's FFs were soon headed into precipitious decline--I would certainly be doing my best Richard Rainwater imitation by buying a farm, stocking it up with biosolar goods, and buying Uralkali 'hen and eggs' for a future guaranteed supply of NPK.

That is a pretty strong % rise in Uralkali stock, especially when you consider that the Russian ruble is rising too.

http://www.bizjournals.com/masshightech/stories/2007/11/12/daily18.html
----------------------
Spire Corp., a Bedford-based maker of photovoltaic manufacturing products, reports it has landed a multimillion dollar contract from Russian solar products maker Ryazan Metal Ceramics Instrumentation Plant Joint Stock Co. for a 12 megawatt module manufacturing line.

The agreement calls for Spire to provide Ryazan with a semi-automated module manufacturing line capable of producing up to 12 megawatts of solar cell modules per year.

With the installation, Ryazan, which produces approximately one megawatt of mono-crystalline solar cells using Spire's equipment, is expected to become the largest module manufacturer in Russia, according to company officials.
------------------------------------
Evidently, some Russians think there is more money to be made in manufacturing PV-panels than investing the same sums in FF-exploration.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

I've been wrangling with the new job or new location issue. I could keep my current underpaid nursing job and move closer to it or change to a better paying job which would be farther than I travel now. Then there's the type of house to get into, the schools for my kids, the preparation. The population in the Inland Empire of Southern California is super dense. I feel like a sitting duck.

Stephanie

what exactly do you think is wrong with "public schooling" ? and what do you propose to fix it ?

As the father of a very bright scientifically and mathematically inclined 12 year old currently enrolled in the Florida public school system I can attest that there isolated islands of excellent schools in the system albeit few and far between.
Re your statement: "I'd be simultaneously rallying for the cause of turning public schools into places of job training and productive businesses." This absolutely should NEVER be the function of public education, that is only good for producing exactly the kind of unthinking brainwashed individuals that will blindly follow the powers that be and end up running off the cliff like a bunch of lemmings.
Education has to be about teaching kids to think critically.
By the time the average kid goes through a typical educational cycle that has focused on being productive in a particular business, given the constantly shifting realities of our business environment you can almost guarantee that those skills will be obsolete. We need to be teaching our students to have a broad range of skills in math and science coupled with critical thinking, I'm sad to report this does not seem to be what is happening. Another of my particular peeves is the enormous amount of time and energy being spent on teaching to a particular assessment test such as the FCAT.

Yeah, I'm sorry. The solution to Underfunded Public Education that 'Gives us what we've paid for', is not to scrap the idea all together.

I have my issues with some aspects of the public school system, but if you want to see our communities act like villages, one of the BEST places to start is getting the neighbors truly Involved in the schools. They have families from across the spectrum of wealth, race and even local geography, etc.. I think one of the worst outgrowths of 'cheap energy' is that we have been able to indulge that power in order to live in divided little culture-dishes around our communities; and schools have been treated as a place that will 'do the whole job' of education of our kids for us, where instead, the involvement of families would enrich both the school's work, and the community's life.

Hi beggar try this if you haven't already, Michael Parenti.

http://www.workingtv.com/parenti.html

One neat sound bite from the audio: "...it's about Capitalism in your face."

Beggar;
We've been carefully taught that 'only crazy people boil over'.. Dean Scream, 'Nader is Selfish', Kucinich sees UFOs..

We have to take some risks and 'be crazy people' here..

"If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses. "
Lenny Bruce

GM spends $1600 in R&D per vehicle.

Honda spends $3000 per vehicle.

It's all of 8 degrees farenheit in Holland Vt right now and that storm over Iowa and Minnesota is headed this way for tomorrow. But even 8 degrees is not that bad with sufficient clothing. I just finished moving 1.5 cords of wood from my outdoor pile into my basement and at times I was too hot. By the end of the job I had unzipped my over coat and loosened my quilted overalls at the sides. Walking up my road afterwards (for exercise) I saw two of my neighbors out puttering in their yards too. Cold is not that big of a deal if one layers up (and can afford some kind of fuel to keep the house warm).

When I lived in Minnesota a few years back we used to get one freeze every year - it started in November and ended in April.

I'm north of Dallas. Tomorrow's forcast is low-to-mid 70's. We used to get an ice storm by Thanksgiving. Last year was 'the year without a winter'. I'm not complaining, just that global warming has become global roasting in the summer around here. Guess I need a place in Michigan for the summer. The golf is real good up there and the yellow perch is delicious.

Airdale

The "Jesus was a raghead" comment by Alfred was meant to give historical context: most Hebrews in that time and place, wore turbans.

I don't see that -- in any way -- as being a slight to Christians!

Airdale, I think it's fair to say that criticizing a religion is wrong, as people are free to believe whatever they like as long as it does not impose on the freedom of others.

However, I don't think that anybody was criticizing Jesus, merely pointing out the fact that Jesus may have been of middle-eastern ethnicity, contrary to the blue-eyed caucasian that he is widely depicted as. If it were conclusive that this was true and even if it is not, I think you would find that the people who consider this "blasphemy" or insulting are missing the entire point of Jesus' message. It shouldn't make a speck of difference what background he was, if you believe his message that should be all that matters, and that's all he would have wanted.

I would suggest that Jesus would find it more insulting to find out that people actually care what color he was; this was the dude's main message, love your neighbour, and love doesn't mean going halfway across the planet to blow up innocent people. Interesting how both Islamic terrorists and the Neocons fall under this category. Nobody is hating on Jesus, they are just talking about something that should be as benign as talking about the weather.

Point taken about the islamic extremists, however I hope I don't have to point out the many Christain extremists that have also made their mark on history.

Your right though, discussing religion makes a lot of people upset, part of this may be because words and their meanings can be easily misunderstood in the written word. Kind of ironic, don't you think?

hi, airdale:
I hope I didn't come across as disrespectful toward Christians. I think the "Jesus was a raghead" comment is literally true, that's all, and it points up the blatant rascism that's still practiced in this country against Semites, both Arab and Jew.

The antagonism you hear from SCT among others may be triggered by the hypocrisy that's part and parcel of American Exceptionalism. It sure gets my goat to hear hatred spewed in Christ's name.

To be fair, though, it's just as disingenuous to brand Islam the religion of terrorism as it is to tar Christians with the broad brush of End-times Fundamentalism.

After 9/11 Ann Coulter publicly demanded that America enslave the Islamic world and force its individuals to convert to Christianity. Her reward: plenty of broadcasting money and book deals.

That's why I think a majority of Americans deserve to be insulted.

Have you ever seen a map of the Middle East in the 1920s? French Syria (France hadn't created the fake country of Lebanon yet), the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Italian Somliland, Italian Libya, and British Palestine. The rest of the Arab states were ruled by British and French puppet monarchs for the benefit of white corporate interests.

When the British Army conquered Jerusalem in 1917, it was proclaimed in the British media as a new Crusade. Then the British betrayed their Arab allies.

Leading GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney says that he can't have a Moslem in a major cabinet post because they're not representative of the country. Yet Saddam Hussein's dictatorship had a Christian as Foreign Minister.

But mostly, Airdale, I have one simple reason to slag Christians here and praise anyone who stands against the American capitalist Christian empire with troops stationed in 130 countries.

Do you even know perhaps a million Iraqis died because of Bush/Clinton sanctions?

Do you know that the increase in the Iraqi death rate SINCE sanctions were replaced by Occupation is so great that perhaps a million more Iraqis have died on top of that?

Do you even care? Or do you spend all your time trying to refute the figures or blame the Moslems for not submitting to our superior civilization?

I am SICK of Christian countries committing mass murder with most of their devout citizens entirely indifferent. Add up all the murders committed by devout Christian monarchs and presidents, from the murderous evangelical Rios Montt in Guatemala, to Indochina/Vietnam (2 million by us, who knows how many by the French), hundreds of thousands by McKinley in the Phillipines, hundreds of thousands by the British in Kenya as recently as the 1950s, God surely knows how many millions more in Africa, Asia and Latin America. And most of Hitler's ordinary supporters thought he was a Christian man whether he was or not. Every damn one of these governments appealed to conservative Christians - "We're spreading the faith!" Every damn one.

A hundred million total dead? Perhaps more? What do Moslems have to offer compared to this record of success? Even when Moslems killed half a million Commies in Indonesia in 1966, it was with full US approval - because the victims were athiests.

Basically wherever Christians have ruled non-Christians, and whites (the official color of Jesus) have ruled non-whites, mass murder has either been the basis for conquest, or it has continued and become the norm.

So I must choose between bias and my own genuine fear that thanks to Christians' infinite ability to lie to themselves in the name of conquest, the one country that has ever used atomic bombs, the one country I know of that has never renounced its right to launch a nuclear first strike, statistically the most Christian country in the world, the United States of America, will commit nuclear genocide to get its bloody hands on the oil that we at The Oil Drum know will be in very short supply in a few years. I choose bias! And slander! What crimes can I commit in good conscience to stop even a tiny chance that fatuous, grinning Christian/conservative/capitalist/neo-Victorian/neo-Confederate/neo-imperialist rednecks will commit a crime so vast that Adolf Hitler will finally be reduced to a footnote? It's worth it. Maybe others at this site fear this event too, and that's why you see so much criticism of Christianity. We are throwing rocks in the path of your idol Juggernaut.

You say Islam is a religion of hate. I guess based on the above examples Christianity is the religion of mass murder with a sincere, open-hearted smile. There's a lot to be said for good honest hate.

P.S. - I was one of you once, until your preachers damned my Japanese relatives to Hell.

Ron Paul believes everything the government has done since Teddy Roosevelt busted up Standard Oil is a mistake. Paul's philosophy makes him a worshipper of the monstrous crimes and injustices of 19th Century laissez-faire. I swore 20 years ago that I would rather destroy America than let it return to its crimes against blacks, workers, the poor, the non-Christian, because if it returned to that awful time it meant that there was no such thing as a better future. Those crimes in every case were enabled by the belief that property rights trumped human equality.

So I want the bastard to win. Because only he is stupid enough to believe that his neo-Victorian policies will cause no harm, and unlike normal hateful bigot conservatives he will make no preparations against a revolution by his victims. It will coincide with Peak Oil, which his theology also deems impossible. It's the only chance we're ever going to get to destroy the feudal corporate empire whose existence is the inevitable consequence of the polarization of wealth.

Bring it on.

we can vote for a candidate all day long that speaks our language, but really Big Business runs this country, (through political action committees) not the politicians or the people.

yes, the people responded to the immigration bill by clogging up the phone lines and writing letters, (which I applaud) as well as the Port Security Deal, Abu Dabai, once again the people responded and persuaded the politicians to stop it. (which I applaud).

These 2 occurences are the only ones I know of (off the top of my head) where the american public intercepted a politicians intent!

now if only we could find out which big companies are contibuting to which candidate!

We can vote politicians in and out all the time, and we think we are making a difference, but Big Business runs this country. case in point, subprime mortgage homeower rescue plan!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071202/us_nm/usa_subprime_dc_4;_ylt=Armz6wh...

we the people just need to know who we are actually fighting!

A Ron Paul as the Republicat nominee SHOULD mean a discussion on the US Dollar, the large expansive military base network, presidential signing statements and the executive order.

A national discussion on what goes on with executive orders and presidential signing statements should be worth the price of being labeled a Republican for the primary.

The earth "breathes" in two cycles.

The first is a simple annual process - there is more land in the northern hemisphere, and thusly more room for plants. CO2 goes down during the northern hemisphere summer and up during during the southern hemisphere summer.

The second is a much longer cycle, in which the annual average CO2 concentration moves about 1ppm per thousand years. We have a "normal" CO2 range from between 180ppm and 280ppm with roughly 100k year spans between peaks and valleys.

There are massive clathrate deposits all over the world but the study of them is very new. While their conversion from oceanic solid to atmospheric gas would be truly ugly I consider talk regarding this to be very speculative. We have plenty of trouble coming at us with just the CO2 changes alone.

You are aware that Canadian PM Stephen Harper is a Bush acolyte? He's one of the few left standing. That hasn't stopped him from announcing his own Orwell-inspired "global leadership" role on climate change on the international stage. He and his minority government are an embarrassment to the majority that voted against him.

I think there's a split developing between the official industry apologists and the hardcore fanatic trolls, but it's only part of a strategy. The corporations need to maintain some shred of credibility, so their funded mouthpieces are conceding their positions, one painful piece at a time, without ever admitting they've conceded anything.

But the possibility that right-wing trolls are organized and assigned targets is fascinating, since it sounds like a logical modern act of a totalitarian party.
I wish I had more information.

The other possibility is that the trolls are part of a grass-roots movement to deny reality wherever it conflicts with the privileges and consumption of "ordinary" Americans. Since that's largely what American conservatism and fundamentalist religion now do, you could say these are all one big movement. But it is not ultimately in the interest of big business to have a Talibanized America where superstition and racist myths have supplanted real skills like engineering - is it?

One of the ideas I've considered is that the industry apologists were only set up to play for time - that big business has known all along that disaster is coming. One day when both climate and energy have become undeniably screwed up, the fatcats all turn about on a dime and tell American voters, "So we lied, so we covered up, so what? The blood of millions is now on your hands and you must help us bomb and invade to steal the resources we need to sustain our lifestyle."

This is the acid test. If the trolls sincerely believe their self-serving myths, then they will CONTINUE to deny that warming or oil shortages are happening, and will denounce the capitalist elite for decreeing that we must now steal and murder to survive. If the trolls are a fifth column for big business or the GOP, however, we should expect them to change their tune before the official announcement. They would most logically proceed to spread lies about how the Chinese or liberals or blacks caused global warming, how the Arabs are animals and must be finally Coulterized out of existence, how the victims of climate change and demand destruction deserve to die. All this would be done to prepare the conservative faithful for the sudden swing in the official capitalist position. But since the trolls would change their user IDs, it would appear that a whole new set of trolls had spontaneously replaced the old ones.

Think the Inauguration Day of President Rudolph Giuliani would be a good day to throw the switch? Whether in 2009 or 2013.

"The bombs will be falling in 30 minutes,"
R. Reagan

I am practicing my Canadian accent just in case I ever have to travel internationally

Has it ever occurred to you that that's exactly the kind of selfishness that makes Americans unpopular?

"We've screwed up our own reputation...so I'll just steal someone else's!!"

You're not fooling as many people as you think, and there's few surer ways to mark yourself as deserving of suspicion and contempt than to try pretending you're something you're not.

Plus some Canadians don't take too kindly to liars trampling on their reputations - I know people who've ripped the Canadian flags off of Americans they've come across while overseas. So doing the right thing isn't the only reason not to try this deceit.

Without running water a city must be evacuated. A very real risk in New Orleans until recently. If either of our two dmaged pumps failed (originally 4) mass evacuation would be required.

Minimal sanitation (Port-a-lets) and no way to fight fires (we used tanker trucks post-K for very low pressure areas, but they filled up in higher pressure areas). Personal hygiene suffers quickly.

Like oil, one cannot use water one does not have.

Let us suppose that the drought continues and very limited rainfall cannot support the population even with conservation measures.

My speculative guess is that wishful thinking will carry Atlanta through the first crisis, using bottom of the lake water with lots of decomposed stuff in it (just triple chlorine treatment). Coca-Cola will do well with any substitute for tap water.

My guess is that when water < 2 weeks, a call for non-essential people to leave (retired, unemployed). Some sort of hotel voucher if GWB agrees.

Water <10 days. Close schools, ask more to leave or take vacation.

Perhaps a light sprinkle and water goes back to 14 days. Much work undone. People come back.

Water railed in using ethanol cars. Supplies 1% or 2% of minimal needs.

Nothing organized as business and GWB resist any efforts out of hope & prayer for rain. (GWB leads National Day of Prayer for Rain),

Isolated areas/suburbs run dry. Hotels with water offer showers for $5 (going rate in New Orleans post-K). Port-a-lets brought out to first areas w/o water.

People begin to head out on their own and services decay, some businesses close even as water < 4 days. Water is power and railed in water & residual reservoir is controlled by gov't (but WHICH gov't).

Lots of backbiting as different areas start coming up dry. Small scale looting. Martial law but minimal enforcement. LOTS of anger !

Fires start-up and cannot be controlled. Lawlessness prevails even as a couple of days of water remain. This triggers massive rush out of town (New Orleans gets 500,000 refugees from Atlanta, our typical Mardi Gras crowd).

Water is cut off except to critical areas with one day left and everyone is ordered to leave. 50,000 troops airlifted straight from Baghdad to Atlanta (takes a week to get them all there) plus all available federal agents, volunteers from other police depts, etc. Fires continue. economy stops.

Massive traffic jams out of town with fuel shortages. ANGER is the order of the day.

Relatively few take free flights or Amtrak out, 90% want to drive out (take cars & more luggage). Most end up in camps here and there. 100s die on the roads. 50,000 abandoned cars.

Good rain gives city two weeks of water. Rush back in. Continued drought, repeat with many relocating permanently.

GWB bombs Iran to distract nation from Atlanta.

Just a guess,

Alan

Hmmm, a long narrow peninsula with 19,000,000 people in an area that will possibly be severely affected by global warming. Imagine trying to fight your way out of that place once the shit hits the fan.

Ron, I have lived in Fl since 1979...How long have you lived here? 'Smith said'...? Well, of course 'Smith said' because Smith has a vested interest in continued growth for Florida. Growth has propelled the economy of Fl for ever...Or at least since the Marx Bros made 'Coconuts'.

Smith also mentioned that 'a number of articles published recently claim that Floridas population is declining'. I agree with those articles because I live here and read those articles often and I see what is going on here. In my community there are twice as many empty homes as there were two years ago. Where are all the new residents moving to in Florida? Not Volusia and Flagler Counties. In addition, Smith is using the time period between 2000-2007...I call bs on that because I am talking about the last three years...Since 2004...The hurricane year. Smith can take his study and put it where the sun dont shine.

'"There have been a number of news articles lately focusing on the idea that population growth has fallen off the tabletop in Florida and practically come to a standstill, and that simply isn't true," said Stan Smith, who led the research.

Florida's population was estimated at 18,680,367 as of April 1. Florida is expected to add about 300,000 residents a year during the next two to three years unless there is a recession, Smith said.

"What is considered a slow year for population growth in Florida would be considered a fast year for most states," he said.

Florida's healthy job market and the continued movement of retirees and foreign immigrants to the state helped boost population growth last year, he said.'

It was oft-discussed here in 2006 how Goldman Sachs reduced its oil exposure in its highly-influential portfolio, causing the price of gas to crash just in time to try to bail out the GOP in the Congressional elections. Goldman Sachs also got its guy into the US Treasury.

So what's nefarious is the possibility that our economy is being manipulated by a private organization. It mixed the kool-aid, then drank just enough to fool everyone else into drinking. It has insiders making our policy, and seems to always know what's coming.

It's simply Enron taken to the highest halls of power.