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New Open thread
Posted by Heading Out on March 16, 2006 - 6:10pm
For those excited about the other great TV event premiering this weekend, and other issues (grin)
“Pessimism of the Intellect; Optimism of the Will.”
—Antonio Gramsci
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Did anyone besides Odo & Stuart follow the Econbrowser thread on ExxonMobil and PO? Tough sledding against those attitudes.
The Doctor had a number of hot companions over the years. There was something intriguing about Leela. Ace was kind of fun too - who can't like a girl that likes to play with dynamite :-). I kind of liked Peri too (despite the fact that the actress was nervous and flubbed her lines), but I couldn't stand the jerk who played the Doctor opposite her.
I don't know if I can bring myself to watch the new one. I am sure that it will be loaded up with special effects crap and have an absolutely inane plot. Then again, the plotlines in the original series were kind of inane as well, but they all had a quirky charm to them.
If you had to ask me who my favorite Doctor was, it would have to be Tom Baker, with John Pertwee as my second choice.
I'm also partial to Pertwee and Baker.
Best villain(s)?
I liked Tom Baker the best, there was a cute girl that was a fellow time lord trainee or something that tagged alone with him for a while and in the real world Married Tom Baker. But my brother is the expert in the family over Doctor Who.
I hope they don't screw it up any, but I guess the jury will be out till it hits the mass media.
Seems I read somewhere that oil could not exist in
a liquid state much below 15,000 and if hydrocarbons s
are found would be natural gas and NGL. If this
deposit is at 13,120 ft. below the earth's surface
and 3,117 ft. below the ocean surface, would this
not be well below 15,000 ft.? I seem to recall
that saltwater adds approx. .45 psi per foot of depth.
Analysts Skeptical of Claims of a Large Mexican Oil Find
Sounds like "political barrels" to me.
has this been factored into the equations or is it just a bs claim?
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1501AP_Oil_Afghanistan.html
Always consider the source and the hopeful language.
Nowadays, that would be considered a pretty big find if any of this could be believed. Karzai is under big pressure to find some alternative to opium, which is Afghanistan's largest cash crop. Announcements like this should be taken with a big grain of salt.
just trying to help keep everyone on top of the information.
I think it's probably a bullshit claim.
It's also important to know that this area has very little infrastructure and it will be many, many years before these resources can be developed - if ever. For example, Bamiyan Province has one of the largest iron ore deposits in Asia, but no one (to my knowledge) has ever proposed developing it. Why? No decent paved roads to Bamiyan and the area has never had electricity other than that supplied by generators. To illustrate the problem, it's about 100 miles from Kabul to Bamiyan - about 8 hours of dust and bone jarring bumps
Even if it's little more than Symbolic, I planted my first 3watts of solar generating capacity in a window this week, charging 9.6v makita batteries and old 2.3ah Camcorder batts. Then again, Symbolism is the essence of important changes, isn't it?
What's in your tank?
Yes, by itself only it will hardly make any difference compared to our current appetite for oil. But first the accumulative result from several such finds will make a difference, and second - sooner or later we will have to get used to live with much less. When that time comes such discoveries will look to us almost like we look at Ghawar today.
The easiest and deadliest mistake to make when looking at something as complex as worldwide energy supply and demand is to assume things will continue the way they are now. I see this mistake countless times in energy issues (and economics in general), often when I'm sure the people doin' the assumin' are unaware of it.
This is why I keep stressing how uncertain the future is. All it will take is one breakthrough in the right place to completely change the rules of the game. I'm not suggesting that "technology will save us", but that technology will throw us more than a few curve balls in the next 20 years. We're definitely in for some very rough times and major challenges, but they and our responses to them will take shape in ways that are less than completely predictable.
But we have had 30 years to get our house in order, and we didn't do it. We kept looking for the next oil field. We continued to consume. If we have another 20 years we, as a society, will not make any changes. We will continue to consume.
I think there are too many people that make decisions based on what is best for them now, not what is best into the future. Politicians do not put together 20 year projects. They try to cut taxes now to make the voters happy for the next election cycle. The most forsight a politician has is about 3 years (maybe 5 for senators).
Even if PO was proven scientic fact that even the general populace could understand, and it was proven that it will happen in 2025, the general populace would make little to no changes in their lifestyle until then. It won't be until the effects of PO are being felt and can be directly linked by Joe Blow to PO before he will start to change his lifestyle.
I would much rather have PO now with a 2%-3% decline vs 20 more years of increasing damage to the environment, 20 more years of ramping up consumption, 20 more years of population growth, and then a sharper drop off.
Kevin
There is no reason this pattern of boom and bust in oil prices will not repeat to some extent, which would further bankrupt any risky government or private schemes.
I imagine this means that many technological fixes will be in the form of dual use technologies- like extra power plants that can charge electric cars OR houses OR trains, rather than coal-to-oil synfuels.
Hedge those bets...
Now they are paying 60$ a barrel, until, and if, they get more natural gas to run the Methanex plant, or build a coal syngas/power plant right next to it to make power and gasoline.
Another way to look at these new oil finds is not that they will postpone peak production (although they might), but that they will reduce the rate of decline post-peak. This will buy time and lessen the economic dislocation while we are transitioning to a post-fossil fuel society.
Stern Review.
In these documents are calls for developing new economic paradigms to deal with the global externalities as it is stated that current economic theory doesn't handle these well (not being an economist, I'm not judging the veracity of this). For a quick overview, see the bottom of page 5 in the pdf of Nick Stern´s Oxonia lecture at Oxford on 31 Jan 2006, the third PDF file listed.
Economics is not just the study of exchange rates and taxation policy. Fundamentally, economics is a way of looking at problems that focuses on questions of what people value, what their costs are, and how they can use their resources to achieve their goals. It is this kind of thinking that seems to be absent in these papers.
The economic approach to global warming should focus on cost tradeoffs. How much does it cost to reduce carbon emissions to a certain level, and how much benefit do we get by those reductions? The most fundamental question is this: what is the optimal CO2 level we should aim to target?
I don't see any analysis of this question. Instead, the analyst pulls a CO2 level out of his hat. 450 ppm, or 500, or 550. The only thing these have in common is that they are multiples of 50 and are higher than where we are today (almost at 400, higher if we consider the contributions of other gasses). Then he talks about how we can get there.
But nowhere does he discuss how much more it will cost if the number turns out to be 550 over 500. Or if the number turns out to be 600, or whatever. We have to have estimates of these costs! Then we can compare the short-term cost of achieving a more stringent target with the long-term cost of letting the number get higher.
That is the fundamental economic question of global warming! It is the first question we must ask to even begin to decide what strategy to adopt. And yet we have hundreds of pages of economic analysis, and I haven't yet seen someone try to do this calculation, or even admit that this question exists.
Now, granted, this is an enormously difficult question to answer. At a minimum we must estimate the technological and economic capabilities of year 2100 Earth. Do they have starships and robots? Or are they back to horses and donkeys for transport? It's a ridiculously hard question. Certainly nobody in 1900 foresaw the world of 2000 in even the dimmest terms. Everything that happened was a total, complete and utter surprise.
Nevertheless this is the first step that must be accomplished to begin to estimate the costs of global warming. And that calculation is crucial to achieve a reasonable estimate of what CO2 level will minimize costs.
This is the economic way of thinking, and as I said it is spectacularly absent from the papers I have seen so far. Probably the reason is that it reveals the near-absurdity of the process of what we have to go through - guessing at inventions not yet invented, evaluating the creativity of generations yet unborn. Yet it has to be done.
I'll tell you how I would do it. I would curve-fit. I would extrapolate economic growth and technological improvements forward based on the record of the past few centuries. And since that record reveals ever-faster growth of technological capability, I would predict that late 21st century science and technology will be as far beyond our own as we are beyond the stone age:
http://hanson.gmu.edu/longgrow.html
In such a world, global warming can be dealt with as easily as we build an aquaduct today to bring water from a source hundreds of miles away. It is a modest engineering project, and the main difficulty is acquiring the legal rights-of-way. But the capability will be there, if we apply the simplest possible curve-fitting extrapolations.
So this is the other way that economic analyses of global warning are noticeably bereft of economic thinking: because thinking logically about the problem makes it go away. Dumb, curve-fitting based extrapolations from the past are the most unbiased method of predicting the future, and they predict that global warming will not be a major problem 50 or 100 years from now.
http://www.w3ar.com/a.php?k=548
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020801plankton.html
http://www.truehealth.org/oxydecl.html
These sources of life and breath are already dying. This says nothing of the loss of terrestrial carbon sinks, "food factories" and oxygen sources - i.e. forests. Price 'em out if you like. But when we're starving and gasping for breath, I'd guess the price would be about, oh, infinity.
As far as food, globally we do not depend on the sea for the majority of our food supply, so even if that is impaired I don't think we will be starving to death.
And as far as running out of oxygen, hopefully this article will set your mind at ease:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/21stC/issue-2.1/broecker.htm
You obviously know nothing about biology and yet blithely spout off on the topic. That prokaryotes (the bacteria in your text) have mechanisms to adapt to antibiotics - is not an argument that can then be applied to all the other "microscopic sea life" - the algal contingent of which are eukaryotes.
Evolution is a random process - it is not directed. There is no guarantee that a species will be able to adapt. As oceanic conditions change, selection of tolerant species will occur - and the less tolerant become extinct. The restructuring of metabolic processes is a far more complex thing than 'simple' resistance to antibiotics.
But you are right, we won't "run out" of oxygen. But what is the effect of all that CO2? Do you know how many different types of carbon fixation cycles there are? Do you know the effect on each of different levels of CO2? Do you further know the interactive effects of water stress, nutrient stress and temperature? OR are they all just plants to you?
You know, Hubberts critics dissmissed him because "they imagined" that there was a lot more oil.
Robin Hanson assumes that ever increasing sources of energy are available to continue this growth. That's a pretty bad assumption to be making right now. Work requires energy - basic physics whether economics like it or not. And planetary engineering projects will require massive energy. I guess this puts you in the believer-in-technological-miracles camp. Don't do anything because something magic HAS to happen because the alternative is not what we want. That's not science. It's religion.
I've been thinking about money lately: how it works, the reality (and otherwise) of its value, the robustness of that, should it be re-instituted if it breaks, should there be controls on the 'scope' of money if so. Too soon for conclusions but my possibly perverse prejudices are forming some tentative conclusions.
For now I would suggest a few links if you are interested. My best guess is that the money system is more likely to break than not in the next 10 years. If so there may be some choice about how it is reformulated (the utility of a money system is probably beyond doubt, but the way it currently functions may be maladaptive).
This is a neat tropical island way of explaining money, its dynamics and imbalances (with relevence to current situation) from first principles:
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/2006/0205.html
Perhaps a more pointed view in a narrower scenario:
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/schiff/2006/0316.html
Going back to economic theories of money as it currently functions:
http://www.benbest.com/polecon/monetary.html
http://landru.i-link-2.net/monques/mmm2.html#MODERN
(there may be some interesting stuff on it's parent site but I haven't had time to read there yet:
http://landru.i-link-2.net/monques/ )
Much older, more land wealth based, still interesting:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/trgRfl1.html
More recent, von Mises:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Mises/msT1.html
http://www.benbest.com/polecon/monetary.html
It will do you no harm (in the sense of wasting your time) to think about money - how and what it is, and is not. You may be surprised if you do, perhaps you will begin to see answers that are different from those constrained by the present 'economic solution space' ;)
Pre-Katrina, there was talk about a prototype barge tugboat running off of bunker fuels (like ocean going ships) rather than diesel. Bunker fuels are readily available in seaports (New Orleans & Chicago for example) and the tugboat would carry it's fuel between them.
BTW< good news for island generators liek Hawaii & Puerto Rico that get electricity from bunker fuels.
From memory, #6 bunker needs heating to become liquid, #5 bunker is liquid at about 50 F (10 C) and #4 bunker is liquid to a lower temperature. (anyone have better #s ?)
Most diesel is called #2.
lots of roads to cycle along, unless they invent an asphalt fueled car
Also, people are still protesting about Gaz de France merging with Suez.
"Chile's production slipped about 2% last year, and meantime, new mines aren't being discovered or exploited quickly enough to make up the shortfall". The CEO of Phelps Dodge Corp. is quoted as saying that the mining industry is "living off the fruits of...prospectors of a hundred years ago". Elsewhere, "Concerns extend to zinc, aluminum and other resources important to the world economy". More, "Most of the large, known copper deposits that remain untapped are in regions that have unstable governments or are hard to reach, such as Central Africa or Mongolia".
Of course none of this necessarily means peak anything - but we do need a metals version of Campbell, Deffeyes, etc. to explore this for us - or do they already exist?
And copper refining seems, where have we heard this before?, huge amounts of water.
Anyway, maybe someone can find and post a link to this article?
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06075/671509.stm
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette often has the WSJ pay-only articles for free.
Personally, I don't think peak natural resources is a problem...as long as you have enough energy. Given enough energy, you can make or make substitutes for just about anything.
OTOH...given very expensive energy, there may be shortages of commodities even though they are not scarce.
What would you substitute for copper, just for example?
Thanks for link.
Copper,Zinc and Nickel have all tripled off their 5 year lows; Lead and Aluminium have doubled.
Graphs are from Kitco Metals
Large graphs summarized here
Wall St. types rightly point out that commodity shortages have never been anything but a temporary problem. The market always adjusts somehow. They are expecting the same thing to happen with oil - but energy is fundamentally different from other commodities.
Leanan, maybe you're right, the graph for oil looks very similar, also having tripled off its 5 year low...
Can save us? Jeez. Define Save please. Methinks renewables are pretty much all we'll have left in a hundred years.
From my window just now I can see 3 pickups, and 2 SUVs*, only one of which is actually a working truck. I don't think there will be room in the renewable lifeboats to save the other four.
*Strangely enough, when I looked out the window, there were no passenger cars to be seen.
I am not sure we will have renewables in 100 years. I think we may find the technology is too expensive to support in the post-carbon age.
My point is this. Once we have used up the hydrocarbons which have a positive EROEI, all we will have left is renewables. Peak oil, whether it was December 16, 2006, or twenty years from now, still means that we have about half of it left.
I'm still enough of an optomist to think that with about as much hydrocarbon energy left as we have ever used, we can use some of what's left to construct a self-sustaining, renewable, energy infrastructure.
Not necessarily. There's nuclear. It's not renewable.
I'm a realist. I think we can...but we won't. We won't get serious about it until it's too late.
To really research these prices, you should look at them over 40 years, to see how low they've been recently, and how little they've risen in inflation adjusted, historical terms.
"To really research copper prices"
The price of tungsten went up ten times after the Chinese noticed that they controlled most of the rest of the tungsten production capability. Now the mine has reopened and should be at capacity soon.
Also, the iron ore producing countries like Australia have jacked up the price of iron ore far more than the Chinese jacked up the price of tungsten. Not as much per ton, but far more in total because iron ore production is so huge.
Silver is too expensive for wire, maybe aluminium - as long as smelted with hydroelectric, but more expensive.
The truth is: many natural resources are inter-related - run short on one, substitute another, and soon enough the other runs short.
Copper is interesting and perhaps somewhat parallel to oil. As recent as 6 months ago 'experts' were predicting an imminent surplus and price drop. The last couple of months their tune has changed and many seem to now fear a shortage. As with all such things realistic data and projections seem hard to come buy ;)
There certainly seems to be sufficient supply but the price persists in hovering near its all time high. Likewise: oil, aluminium, zinc, uranium, silver, gold (for 20 year price, anyhow). I fancy a pattern emerging but, ssshh, don't tell anyone.
Assuming the human race mastered free/unlimited energy sources, the long term solution would probably have to be either extra-terrestial mining or some form of Universal Assemblers that could fabricate anything at a nanotechnology level from just about anything else. (I am not making this up. Google Universal Assembler) Assuming we dont destroy planetary life from the introduction of alien species from somewhere else or turn ourselves into mush courtesy of the gray goo scenario, peak metals probably could be overcome in both the near and long terms.
Of course this is pure speculation, part conjecture of actual research underway, part sci-fi reading. The last time I checked, we still haven't mastered the "unlimited" energy source yet...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5159755
About 9 months ago pundits were saying it was overpriced (at about $1.60 / lb) and that there would be an excess of supply in 2006, so the price would probably drop back to around $1.20. Now they are beginning to say that production will be short of demand. Unless the chinese economy takes a serious nosedive the price of copper will probably continue to increase at 50% each year.
The US can generate more copper in scrap than we consume, if we are in a severe recession and the copper price is high.
Thanks for that tip on free versions of WSJ articles. I have a subscription but I realize that many TOD readers probably don't. It looks like you can peruse http://www.post-gazette.com/businessnews for articles.
Tuesday's and Wednesday's WSJ had interesting articles as well. The daily quirky article in the center of Tuesday's front page is about the recent rise in scrap metal theft:
Metal Is So Precious That Scrap Thieves Now Tap Beer Kegs
The lead front-page story in Wednesday's paper is about a bottleneck in U.S. railroads' ability to deliver coal to electric power generation plants:
As Utilities Seek More Coal, Railroads Struggle to Deliver
The WSJ actually runs a pretty consistent trickle of energy-related articles. Granted, very few of these use the words "peak oil," but the articles are generally interesting and topical. I did a couple of searches in their archives and found this article, published on September 21, 2004:
As Prices Soar, Doomsayers Provoke Debate on Oil's Future
Leanan, you post comments consistently with such great insight into the importance of "external" factors to Peak Oil that I can't believe you wrote this. Do you not consider such things as water and topsoil, to name but two, natural resources?
Indeed, we already are. Desalination plants provide water for Saudi Arabia and Israel. And chemical fertilizers make up for our exhauted topsoil.
The problem, of course, is that we won't have enough energy to keep doing this once the cheap oil is gone.
China & India have joint ventures in oil, why not copper ?
This makes for interesting eeading and makes the point Mutineer in Western Australia has peaked and declined in matter of 11 months by nearly half.
http://today.reuters.com/business/newsarticle.aspx?type=reutersEdge&storyID=2006-03-15T154043Z_0 1_SP158456_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENERGY-AUSTRALIA-UPSTREAM.xml
Australia peaked in 2000 at over 800K bpd and it is now around 550K.
No wonder we have this enquiry into Peak oil
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/rrat_ctte/oil_supply/index.htm
There is a submissions page for you all to browse 156 and they are still taking them. ASPO is well represented.
So if you are interested in giving them your views please send them your thoughts.
Kind Regards
BB
In a Dramatic Shift Of Policy, Iran Says Ready To Direct Talks With US Over Iraq
By Safa Haeri
Posted Thursday, March 16, 2006
PARIS, 16 Mar. (IPS) Iran exploded a diplomatic bombshell announcing on Thursday that it would meet the United States directly for the first time in decades.
"We will accept the request by Ayatollah Abdol Aziz Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SAIRI) about talking to the Americans on Iraqi problems", Mr. Ali Larijani, the Secretary of Iran's Supreme Council on National Security (SCNS) told a closed door, unscheduled meeting of the Majles, or the Iranian Parliament.
We will accept the request by Ayatollah Abdol Aziz Hakim about talking to the Americans on Iraqi problems.
"No matter of the subject and no matter who initiated it, that Iran accepts to meet Americans directly at this juncture is important, for it shows that the clerical-led political establishment has realised the dangers it faces. It is also very important because such decisions can not be taken without prior approval by Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, who, as the absolute leader of the regime has the last word on any major domestic or foreign policy", one political analyst commented.
"Considering that the request emanates from one of the most distinguished Islamic leaders of Iraq, therefore, the Islamic Republic, in order to help resolve the problems in Iraq and the realisation of an independent government and real freedom there would accept and would appoint people to carry out discussions about Iraq", he pointed out.
Though Mr. Larijani named no one in particular, but informed Iranian diplomatic sources said it is highly probable that the Iranian delegation for talks with the Americans be led by Mr. Mehdi Safari, a former ambassador to Moscow who is the Foreign Affairs Minister's Special Envoy for Iraq.
Washington cut all ties with the Islamic Republic and imposed unilateral sanctions on the new regime after Islamic-revolutionary students stormed the huge American embassy in Tehran early November 1979 and took 55 American diplomats and staff as hostage for 444 days.
There was no immediate reaction from Washington to the Iranian conciliatory decision, but some Western diplomats said it is a "great opportunity Washington should not drop".
"We want the wise and learned Iranian leadership to open a clear and direct dialogue with America for the sake of interests of Iraqi people and government and we demand them to give a positive answer to the proposal of the American Ambassador (in Iraq), Mr. Aziz, -- a close friend of Iranian clerical leaders, including Mr. Khameneh'i --told the opening session of the Iraqi Parliament reported by "Eufrat", a Shi'ite television channel.
Tehran accepts the painful U-turn from its basic diplomacy sat by Mr. Khameneh'i on "no to dialogue with the Great Satan on any circumstance" at a time that Washington increases pressures on the Iranian theocratic regime over its controversial nuclear activities.
"We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran," the White House said in a 49-page blueprint called the "National Security Strategy" of the United States, a copy of which was obtained by the French news agency AFP.
The place of pre-emption in our national security strategy remains the same", it said. "We do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack".
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently called Iran "the greatest challenge of any single country" facing America and on Wednesday, the House of Representatives pushed forward with a bill to impose sanctions on foreign firms doing business in Iran despite White House concerns it would hinder efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions.
There was evidence the Iranians provided "indirect help" to Sunni Arab insurgents who attack U.S. and Iraqi government troops.
On instructions from the White House, Mr. Zalmay Khalizad, the Afghan-born American ambassador to Baghdad had ten days ago proposed to the Iranians a meeting aimed at discussing ways and means to cooperate about mounting Iraqi difficulties, including averting the dangerous escalation of religious war and the formation of a government representing all ethnic and religious components of the fragmented nation, but Tehran had refused the suggestion.
"When (the now toppled Iraqi dictator) Saddam was in power and the Americans, the Europeans and Arab countries were supporting him, all Iraqi Shi'ites, Kurds and even Sunnis were our guests and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis had found refuge here. This something that the Iraqis never forget", the semi-official Students News Agency ISNA quoted Mr. Larijani as having told reporters on the sideline of the Majles meeting centred on the latest situation over the nuclear standoff.
"It is a long time that the Americans have made this request. Their ambassador has said several times that solving some of Iraqi problems needs talking to Iranians. But we don't trust them. Every time they need us, they make such demands to say other things afterward", he added, reminding that in Iraq, "our natural ally" , Iran has supported the Iraqi Constitution, the elections of the Parliament, the formation of a new government as well as the process of democracy.
"At the same time, we have always said that the troubles in Iraq come from the occupiers", Mr. Larijani, a former revolutionary guard officer and a close advisor to the Iranian fundamentalist and bellicose President Mahmoud Ahmadi Nezhad stressed.
Khalilzad has criticized what he called Iran's "negative role" in Iraqi affairs, saying the country's diplomatic relationship with its neighbor was tainted by a policy "to work with militias, to work with extremist groups, to provide training and weapons."
He added that there was evidence the Iranians provided "indirect help" to Sunni Arab insurgents who attack U.S. and Iraqi government troops.
Iran denies the accusations and says that "based on intelligence reports, CIA and Israel are behind the bombing of religious places", including the shrine of two Shi'ite imams at Samarra last month that triggered a deadly wave on inter-religious killing between the dominant Shi'ites and the minority Sunni Muslims.
This is total BS - if you buy into this, well, go to the outer space alien blog.
The whole of your post? The whole of the reported Iranian position? The recent conciliatory moves you report? Just the last paragraph?
Please be more precise, your meaning is not clear to me.
I would be happy for Iran and the US to talk provided it is constructive and does not further polarize their positions and increase tensions and misunderstanding. With that in mind it might be best if any discussions were managed by a third party like Russia or France, perhaps, which had some understanding and sympathy with both sides.
Personally I find the probable Iranian role in southern Iraq(negative in US perception, validly) totally reasonable and logical given the bellicose utterances from the US regime towards Iran. I also think the Iranian role in fostering violence in Iraq reprehensible. I have always thought the US / UK invasion of Iraq unjustified, illegal and a war crime.
By some accounts there have been over 100,000 Iraqi deaths in the last 3 years. Contemplate the disrupted lives of those left living, the generational impact on the children, the despoilation of the urban centres, the burnt husk of a nation balanced on the edge of a civil war, one which may engulf the entire region and realize that Saddam, for all his madness, achieved nothing the equal of what the Americans have done.
And there is not an American alive who can offer a rational explanation for what has transpired in Iraq, or give a valid accounting for the 2,300 American lives lost there.
I think you will discover in the near future that the top leadership of Iran, being both the President and the Head of State, want to acquire nuclear weapons and break the NPT. I hope the statement by Ayatollah Abdol Aziz Hakim is both correct and followed through on.
You can not have a President of a nation who calls out for the killing and removal of Israel from the map. We tolerated one attempt at that already in the past 70 years.
Under that reasoning, with many of the statements recently uttered by various western leaders and offensive preparations put in place, military action by Iran against the US, France and Britian is long overdue.
With regard to the Israeli situation, the scenes and stories from the Holocaust still have the power to shock one to the very core sixty years on. That the Israelis continue to use them for justification for thier own arrogance and barbarism shocks even more.
Even if talks are held, it will take the Bush administration only a short time to sabotage them. The nuclear weapons issue is a ruse.
While I find Ahmadinejad's intemperate comments stupid and possibly abhorrent, I find the US regime's distortion of them and their bellicose rhetoric just as abhorrent. The US motives are more suspect than Iranian motives IMO.
If I was a senior Iranian politician I would probably argue for withdrawal from the NPT and development of nuclear weapons: US behavior seems to leave little alternative. Iran has called for a nuclear free mid-east, but the chances of that are zero. Apart from some foolish comments, probably misinterpreted, certainly distorted by US regime and media, Iran has done nothing unreasonable.
JG, if you are referring to Hitler and his extermination of Jews I must remind you that Israel did not exist during Hitler's lifetime. Hitler wanted to exterminate a race of people, that is quite different from someone saying they do not want the Israeli state in the mid-east. In case you question my attitude on Israel: I totally support the existence of the Israeli state in the mid-east, I am pro-Jew, pro-jewish state, and have intentionally visited concentration camp memorials and been profoundly sickened by what I saw.
Cole's article has a point of view, though he obviously has done some reading/experiencing. I suggest you read some more of Otto von Bismarck and understand realpolitik. Iran wants the bomb for political reasons.
After the First Persian Gulf War there was an Indian general who said, "If you are going to fight the United States you must have an A-bomb." Iran's nuclear power pursuit is not about peaceful nuclear power. This is so Iran can be like North Korea and stare the USA down. The problem is that the leadership of Iran buys into the myth of Zionist domination of stuff from Hollywood to Washington D.C. They might as well believe in UFO's and Frodo & Middle Earth.
Religious fanatics having advanced weaponry is not good by definition.
That is one reason I want Bush out of office!
He gave up drugs and booze for it. . . .
(Powerful substitutes!)
I think we got the true view the Bush administration has of religion when those Abramoff e-mails came out. The ones where religious people were referred to as "wackos," and mocked for being so stupid and easily manipulated.
Unfortunately, Bush sees nothing wrong with putting "wackos" in positions of power. I don't see this as evidence he believes as they do, though. Rather, I see it as evidence of something that has been a trait of his presidency since the very beginning: putting political supporters in positions that really should be held by people who know what they're doing. Bush values loyalty above all, and that can be a weakness as well as a strength.
Maybe I am naive. It is an element of my personality. But I think he gave up everything when he woke up one morning not knowing where he was and went on the wagon after that, some 20-odd years ago.
He buys into the Christian religious aspect of life.
Do not equate Abramoff with Bush. One is a moneylender, the other a true-believer.
I accept the loyalty comment. Right on.
Sometimes when you are in charge you have to cut your losses and cut your people. Bush is bad at that. As Robert E. Lee said, sometimes you have to sacrifice the tool you love - just before Pickett's Charge.
And there are times even now where I wonder if he's drunk or on drugs. (Perhaps prescribed drugs.) Especially last summer, when he had to speak to the press unexpectedly after the hurricane hit. He just didn't seem right. He looked really drugged. Nothing like his usual self.
Then there's that "choking on a pretzel" incident. When people fall over and hit their faces while watching football on TV, it's not usually the pretzels that are to blame.
Having been there myself, the pretzel point is a good point, but having been on the other side, sober people choke/gag sometimes too. Hey, we have odd deaths that way too.
Between Laura Bush and his self-improvement after his early years, I will give Bush the benefit of the doubt.
The main issue is until the 2006 State of the Union address, he was living in the past, and not living in the now, let along the future. Will our USA President go beyond the point we are at now, but in November 2006 and/or 2008 we will go beyond what we have now? Maybe.
This is the only time I wish Carter had a 2nd term.
But let us push this discussion back to March 2006. We use too much oil and we are heating the planet too much, and there are too many of us.
And I really do think he may be drinking again, if he ever quit. There are times when he slurs his words and seems to have trouble walking. The National Enquirer ran a story last fall saying he was back on the bottle. Yes, it's the Enquirer...but they are pretty careful these days. Since they were sued for libel by Carol Burnett they've been pretty careful to be accurate. Lurid, but accurate.
And since his poll numbers started dropping, the emboldened mainstream media has been reporting more on his erratic behavior. CNN confirmed a story reported by Capitol Hill Blue awhile back; they very casually mentioned that Bush was known to fly into obscenity-laced rages and was isolating himself from all his usual advisors.
I don't mean to be picking on Bush in particular. We have long picked our presidents based mostly on their media images. When we pull the lever, we are making our decision on the sizzle, not on the steak. Bush is a very different man from his good-old-boy, born-again public image. But he's not the only one.
Do either of you Live in the US ?
The mess caused in Iraq by the US is a shocker by every possible measure. Unjustified Invasion. Illegal etc.
I believe the current US occupation/Iraq War(whatever you want to call it?) situation is very clear to most international citizens.......classic BS.
What I can't understand is why the good peace loving people of the US allowed their government to:
A) Invade Iraq Illegally
B) Get away with it after finding no WMD etc.
If US just wanted Saddam, should have done it "Special Ops" style at the very least. Killing 100,000 mostly innocent civillians was a very bad move and one that will collectively cost the US much more problems than it solved
Good People of the US, please take control of your Government. Most people around the world, from all walks of life that I have spoken with, find the US to be the biggest known threat to global peace.
Sorry for ranting. I just wanted to get that off my chest.
I doubt global peace can exist. I believe it's just a dream. There will always have to be someone at the top, and right now that is the U.S. But I dread to think of the power vacuum that will be created if we collapse. I'm sure China will be more than happy to take on that role, and considering their Human Rights history, that doesn't sound any better.
I wish I did have more of a say in our foreign policy, but all I can do is vote in elections. And no matter who we put in office our policies won't change very much because of our 2 party system. I think people here are just too afraid of change to vote for a real President that can actually mak a difference. Assuming one will ever run.
Kiwi,
In order to understand the American people, you need to first understand the machineries of porpoganda that have built up in the USA after "America" gloriously (and without any help from the pinko commie Ruskies) defeated the Nazi's in 1945 and saved the world for "Democracy".
Every morning, innocent American boys and girls are commanded to stand up in classroom around the country, place their hands over their little hearts and recite in herd-like unison a blind pledge of allegience to "the flag" of the USA and to "the republic" for which it stands. They repeat to themselves that the USA is "one nation" and that it is under "God", and that it is "indivisble" and that somehow it always delivers "liberty and justice to all".
Then they sit down and learn about how our way of life is a "democracy" where everyone (even those without enough money to buy their own Congressman) has a "voice" in the way the government runs. And of course, this is only the beginning of a long brain washing path. Ultimately, they are convinced that "The Market" and "The Invisible Hand" will fix everything ... but that is a very advanced head spinning class. VV_ellcome to our American Cabaret.
Here in New Zealand we are taught in schools to value and celebrate the individual. Their talents, skills, differences uniqueness, their opinion. No matter what differences we encounter. No national theme, no pledge, no dominating superiority speil.
So yeah, it surely doesn't help getting a balanced education and view point, when you have to chant US propaganda etc.
But its also no excuse.
Lets get down on a human level. no politics, just people.
Most people are good. I'd say around 99% of people around the world are good. Meaning that most people are peace loving, and want to live a good life, smile, laugh, eat, drink, sleep, learn, be productive, have a family.
Human beings normally have a default setting to be good. If in doubt just be good. Good is much better for overall population growth and for the success and of our species.
So be good to yourself, your family and your country.
Also treat everyone else in the world with the same approach.
I have dream that one day the world will reflect the true inner human spirit of goodness. Unleash or exercise your good side today! go on TOD readers, do something good for a complete stranger today, help an old lady across the road, give a homeless person a blanket or whatever.
Lets practice creating goodwill internationally by our own individual actions.
I do not doubt that most people see themselves as being "good" and they try to live their lives doing "good" things.
But how "good" can you be if you are trained to see every "towel head" --be they Iraqi or Indian Sihk-- as being a nonhuman?
How "good" can you be if you are trained to pre-emptively kill "them" before "they" get to "us"?
This may sound nuts to you out there under and upside down in NZ, but I swear to you that yesterday I heard a local radio celebrity in the USA (yes Ronn Owens of KGO) saying exactly this and proclaiming that he is a middle of the road reasonable American human being. Our governement has brainwashed him to the point that he cannot see how insane and paranoid schizophrenic his position is.
I'm starting to feel like a last rational German in 1938 writing to the outside world about how our public radio commentators are slipping over to the Nazi side. This is scaring even me.
Critical, rational thinking has come to a stop in America. We are all crazed zombies marching to the orders of Herr Karl Rove. Save yourselves out there in NZ. Cover your ears so you can stop his "mixed messages" from penetrating into your heads.
Global peace can exist if you dont think like a brain washed US war monkey.
"Power Vacum".. dont worry, I think the world will be just fine thanks, without US hegemony etc
No, you can do more than just "vote in elections". Help gather the good people of the USA, seek change, try make it happen. ;)
I have frequently compared Ralph Nader's "political assassination" of Al Gore to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in 1914, which triggered World War I, and indirectly, World War II.
It's amazing what one man can do, which raises an interesting, but now irrelevant, question--why did Ralph run? In any case, each and every Nader voter in Florida can now proudly claim (indirect) credit for at least one fatality in Iraq, with probably a lot more to come.
Bashing Nader just shows that you are stuck in a time warp, and your loose usage of the term "fascism" reflects both your ignorance of history and current political reality.
Had Gore been victorious in year 2000, what exactly do you think he would have been able to accomplish, given the makeup of the Congress at that time and since then? How much power do you think a president has--especially one who is captive of one of the two major parties? Gore was just as much a captive of establishment special-interest groups as Bush.
Why do you think either Democrats or Republicans can implement the kinds of drastic changes that are needed to deal with extreme increases in the price of oil?
And please explain to me what constructive things you expect to result from rehashing old chestnuts? The 2000 election is history. Live with it.
I don't think you should dismiss westexas' comments re Nader, Gore, and Bush so flippantly.
Whether Gore had been President instead of Bush would have made a big difference in ONE very critical respect: if Gore were President, we would not be in Iraq today because a small group of radical neo-cons would not have been able to shanghai American foreign policy.
As such, the US would not have pissed away over $300 billion on a futile military adventure in Iraq, some 3,300 young Americans would have still been alive, and some 15,000 young American troops would have remained whole instead of maimed. Not to mention the fact that the incalculable destruction perpetrated against the people of Iraq that would not have occurred.
But other than that minor point, I'd have to agree with you that there would not have been much difference between the two.
So, in an indirect way, I think it is valid to say that if Nader had not have run, there would have been no Iraq debacle. ( I don't feel too smug about saying this, because I must confess that I made the awful mistake of voting for Bush in 2000.)
Does anyone think that Al Gore would have launched an unprovoked attack on Iraq?
Bush's term in office has been marked by the unification of corporate and state and a suppression of civil liberties. If that is not a definition of fascism, I don't know what is.
Are you saying that the Bush Administration does not have fascist tendencies?
IMO, you are reacting so strongly because you don't like the fact that a group of left leaning environmentalist types delivered the world into Bush's hands--and in all likelihood--into World War III.
As for the statement about "the good peace loving people of the US" - we have never been a peace loving people. As individuals, yes, sure - we just want to be left alone to live our lives in peace and prosperity. If we cannot have peace AND prosperity, well then well take prosperity, thank you. And we do not want to think about what has to be done to get us the stuff we want.
I have loved my country all my life, but look at it with open eyes please! We have been at war almost for our entire existence, and many of these have been "optional", in that we started them for our own perceived gain. If you have something we want, and will not give it to us on our own terms - look out.
In any case, my point is that the people to the left of Gore delivered us to Bush and his cronies.
I agree that Gore would have been the ideal president for our age. As time goes on, Gore looks more and more like a statesman. If only the leftists hadn't delivered Florida to Bush. . .
And is an ideal president somebody who is so delusional that he claims to have invented the Internet?
Note that in fact in the 2000 election the state of Florida was a tie--i.e., so close that no number of recounts could have determined a "true" winner, because human ability to count accurately is not perfect.
If you flip a coin enough times, it will eventually land on edge, but you may have to do it a few million times. What happened in Florida is analogous to a coin landing on edge.
To blame those who voted for a man of integrity who was not captive to special interestes for the victory of Bush is not only wrong, it is ludicrous and shows the intellectual bankruptcy of those who want to find scapegoats instead of doing some constructive thinking and action.
Isn't this like saying that George Bush is playing a valuable part in combating PO because he said we were addicted to oil in his State of the Union address? Seriously.
In 2005, Al Gore got a lifetime achievement Webby Award, for his three decades of contributions to the development of the Internet.
A) Invade Iraq Illegally
B) Get away with it after finding no WMD etc."
In a word - oil. We in the US are so relatively comfortable thanks to the oil bubble upon which we obliviously float that we care not what our government does, so long as the comfort is protected. "Nuke their ass, I want gas" bumper stickers adorn the trucks of the truly ignorant, but a subtler version of that attitude unfortunately, no, tragically, has a broad tacit acceptance. Of course there are many more of us who believe otherwise, but via corporate dominance of the media, co-option of elections, fearmongering, divisive patriotism (yer with us or yer agin us) etc... the populace is kept in line. Fascism - the control of the government by corporations, allowing for the sole societal goal of profit making - is descended upon our land. It's not just BushCo either. It goes way back, with a significant role played by the use of our 14th Amendment, ostensibly to give black men the right to vote, utilized far more to protect the "personhood" of corporations, which allows them to rape the land, murder the masses with their "externalized" toxins, and do pretty much anything they want to make a buck (or several billion), and there's ultimately no "person" to hold accountable. Sorry, I guess that was more than a word...
"Palingenetic ultranationalism."
Had to go to the dictionary for that first word of that catchy little phrase :-)
You no doubt have in mind Hitler or Mussolini, and all that those two regimes connote. However, that is but one meaning of the word 'fascism.' The other, more general and contemporary meaning of fascism is, "any movement, tendency, or ideology that favors dictatorial government, centralized control over private enterprise, repression of all opposition, and extreme nationalism."
In that regard, the people who run the Bush regime come pretty close to fitting that definition, so I have no problem with referring to them as fascists, or perhaps the milder 'crypto-fascists', as many are not so overt in their true beliefs.
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/bpayne37/index.htm#margolis
I would guess that a plurality of non-US people, possibly a majority thereof, would say the US is the greatest threat to world peace and stability.
I am Homo Sapiens living in Canada.
I cannot agree with Agric's generalization in regard to the American character. The issues are complex and cannot be attributed to ignorance, laziness, or the MSM. I would argue that these are not causes but outcomes. In brief, the American polity is following a socio-economic development model similar to that of Nigeria; the Americans have not yet advanced as far along that trend line as have the Nigerians. Give them time and PO, stand well back, and watch the fireworks.
With regard to the US being the greatest threat to world peace and stability, I believe this threat to be declining.
First, the 3 years of Iraq have demonstrated the utter uselessness of the much vaunted US military. As someone else commented on TOD, after three years the US military remains incapable of controlling the road to Bhagdad airport. The American military has an unparalleled logistics capacity which permits them to deliver AC units and ice cream machines to any war zone anywhere on the globe inside of 30 minutes. But there is a difference between true combat and a Mr Softee; any Iraqui can explain the difference.
Second, American foreign policy is inchoate and incomprehensible. The USA has made forfeit any global leadership role it may once have had. Peak oil, global warming, and the ballooning deficit, all of these represent far greater threats to US security interests then do Iranian possession of a nuclear device.
Third, we do not react to what people do. Instead, we prepare to respond to what we anticipate they might do in the future. This is the secret to markets and marriage and much else. The people of the world have had the opportunity to observe America blowing holes in unarmed civilians and calling this war. The people of the world have listened to an idiot call himself a "war presidente" and conduct a so, so, amusing search for WMD in the Oval Office while young people lie dead in the dirt of Iraq. The people of the world are not stupid. They can be expected to take steps to protect themselves against any future action by heavily armed American clowns.
Iceland has made massive moves abroad, although from a position of strength. The national gov't has almost paid off the national debt, export earnings are strong, 100% renewable electricity and almost 100% renewable (geothermal) heating.
New aluminum smelter (hydro powered) to produce 1.5% of world's Al coming online soon.
Today's (March 17) Morgan Stanley Global Economic Forum includes a piece by Andy Xie, "The Ore War."
http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/latest-digest.html , it's fourth on the list.
Xie is addressing China's demand for iron ore and its ability to negotiate with the largest ore producers, but I wonder if this might not become a model for dealing with oil purchases, too.
Potentially relevant quotes: "China acting as a one buyer could limit price increases. Further, it should establish an international buyers' alliance that negotiates collectively to achieve fair prices." "The ore producers have huge profit margins and have to sell. To whom would they sell without selling to China?" "Chinese producers are not sophisticated in hedging and usually lose to financial speculators."
Note: if you look for Xie's piece after Sunday, March 19, you'll have to click on the Archives and click on the March 17 issue to find his piece, since the Forum is updated every business day.
That is an interesting article. Seems to indicate there is further scope for improvement in China's interaction with global markets for raw materials. A two edged sword, that. The chinese tend to learn fast, and no doubt they will have read Andy's article. Quite significant for the direction of their continued growth and industrial development, too.