Scary Stuff

The stickiness of gas prices above $4/gallon and the proximity of the July4 holiday and peak driving season has sparked a plethora of nonsense from the usual suspects. The clowns in Washington are advocating a policy of drill,drill drill, offering that as a way to gain energy independence. After all, there is so much untapped oil right here in the USA. Combine that lunacy with the usual media blowhards that are hammering "speculators" and the Saudi's and pretty soon it's easy to miss an important story. I found the EIA Net Export #'s inside of a post by Westexas, on TheOildrum.com. Take a look. ( click on chart for sharper image)






Here's the deal. What we are seeing is a net decline in exports over the past couple years. I'm sure the circumstances are different in each particular country, ranging from more domestic use ( maybe Iran and Venezuela) to depletion ala Norway and Mexico. It's interesting that Russia is at the top of the list as far as net positive goes. I see a big comeback for the Russian bear. What is not getting factored into any mainstream conversation is that this decline in net exports might not be a one off event. There is a school of thought that says that as many of these export countries see more and more oil revenue, their societies will grow economically and they will end up using more and more of their crude oil production domestically. If that ends up being the case we here in the US are really up the creek.

The Long Emergency-- American Style

In his book The Long Emergency, James Howard Kunstler paints a picture of what he sees as our societal future post peak-oil. One of his themes is the potential unravelling of the social structure as the have-nots are priced out the gasoline market and now truly face a future on the economic fringes. He believes mob violence is a possibility.

It's funny but because Kunstler offers this vision he is sometimes criticized as an alarmist and a wacko. Well, it was with interest that I read this story this morning in the NY Times Rural U.S. Takes Worst Hit as Gas Tops $4 Average :

"Here in the Mississippi Delta, some farm workers are borrowing money from their bosses so they can fill their tanks and get to work. Some are switching jobs for shorter commutes.
People are giving up meat so they can buy fuel. Gasoline theft is rising. And drivers are running out of gas more often, leaving their cars by the side of the road until they can scrape together gas money.
The disparity between rural America and the rest of the country is a matter of simple home economics. Nationwide, Americans are now spending about 4 percent of their take-home income on gasoline. By contrast, in some counties in the Mississippi Delta, that figure has surpassed 13 percent.
As a result, gasoline expenses are rivaling what families spend on food and housing."

I don't want to be unsympathetic to the economic pain being felt right now, but this is happening at $4 a gallon. What's the story at $5 or $6?

What More Can You Say?

The constant chatter about Iran and a potential war there has not abated much over the past month or so. I stumbled across this today while browsing Juan Cole's site. It leaves me speechless. Here's a takeaway:
( Thanks to Jason Lepold for great work on this)

During a trip to the Middle East in March 1996, Vice President Dick Cheney told a group of mostly U.S. businessmen that Congress should ease sanctions in Iran and Libya to foster better relationships, a statement that, in hindsight, is completely hypocritical considering the Bush administration’s foreign policy.
“Let me make a generalized statement about a trend I see in the U.S. Congress that I find disturbing, that applies not only with respect to the Iranian situation but a number of others as well,” Cheney said. “I think we Americans sometimes make mistakes . . . There seems to be an assumption that somehow we know what’s best for everybody else and that we are going to use our economic clout to get everybody else to live the way we would like.”
Cheney was the chief executive of Halliburton Corporation at the time he uttered those words. It was Cheney who directed Halliburton toward aggressive business dealings with Iran—in violation of U.S. law—in the mid-1990s, which continued through 2005 and is the reason Iran has the capability to enrich weapons-grade uranium.
It was Halliburton’s secret sale of centrifuges to Iran that helped get the uranium enrichment program off the ground, according to a three-year investigation that includes interviews conducted with more than a dozen current and former Halliburton employees.

Peak Oil-- Are We There Yet?

I have to give props to the inimitable James Howard Kunstler who pretty much hit it out of the ball park in his weekly column this week. Classic Kunstler:

What makes matters truly eerie is that the "bubble" in suburban houses has occurred at exactly the moment in history when the chief enabling resource for suburban life -- oil -- has entered its scarcity stage. The logical conclusion of all this is not what the American public wants to hear: we have become a much poorer society and are now faced with the unavoidable task of making major changes in how we live. All the three-card-monte moves at the highest level of finance lately amount to an effort to avoid the unavoidable, acknowledging our losses. Certainly the political fallout of all this will be awesome. But it's not about politics, really. It's about the entire society's inability to form a workable new consensus of reality.

Fellow Colgate alum Kevin Phillips has a new book "Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics & the Crisis of American Capitalism , detailing the various scams the "Powers that Be" have laid on us --oh going back at least to the Kennedy years. It's a sad tale. The Government Numbers racket is the term I believe is used to describe the "Powers That Be" that lead us in America.

On top of all that T. Boone Pickens was on CNBC this am. He pretty much simplifies it all-- the world produces 85 million barrels of oil a day and currently needs 87. Prices are going higher. Worth watching

Appeasement, Diplomacy and 4G Warfare

It's happening again. With W's speech to the Israeli Knesset this week, the mouthpieces on the right are loudly attacking Obama as naive and willing to surrender to our mortal enemies and give up on the war on terrorism (whatever that is). John McCain is predicting victory in Iraq by 2013 if he is elected President. I just wish that someone could explain what victory in Iraq is exactly. What is our objective in Iraq--- and I'm not looking for the answer to be a one word response: Victory.

William Lind pens an interesting article about the delusions held by those in power when it comes to Iraq and "progress in our objectives". As Lind points out, this conflict is a Fourth Generation War:

"One of the most common signs that America's leadership is clueless about Fourth Generation war is the language they use. Fourth Generation war has few if any defining moments. Nor does it have "turning points," another common Bushism. In his testimony to Congress, U.S. Gen. David Petraeus revealed the limits on his own grasp of 4GW when he said, "We've got to continue. We have our teeth into the jugular, and we need to keep it (sic) there."Opponents in 4GW have no jugular. 4GW is war of the capillaries. What U.S. forces have their teeth into in Iraq is a jellyfish."

The hackneyed response by those who support the war in condemning war opponents as surrendering to our mortal enemies is just another political expedient smokescreen that avoids any serious discussion of the issue at hand. I believe the effectiveness of this approach is over. This will become more and more evident as we move into the fall campaign. The American people signed up for "Stay the Course" a couple years ago-- and I think they are finally beginning to look at what is really behind the curtain. One clue, it's certainly no wizard.

A Conversation

Back in my senior year at Colgate I took a Senior level seminar, Philosophy and Faith. Much of the material was centered on Liberation Theology, Feminist Theology and other such theologies. I have to admit, for someone coming from the Orthodox Christian tradition the content was tough for me to embrace. To this day, I believe that the focus of these theologies stray from the"seek ye first the Kingdom" guidance we are given in Matthew. That being said however, my viewpoint was formed growing up white in what would have to described as a "privileged" upbringing. In A Jeremiad for the Reverend Jeremiah I commented on the great disservice rendered to the public by our Media, when discourse is limited to 20-30 second sound bites that lack context and are continually repeated to provoke emotional responses from the audience.



Compare the handling of the Rev Jeremiah Wright story by our major news organizations with the way Bill Moyers conducted his interview with the Reverend last week. I have had several people comment to me recently about how upset they are by the Wright issue and how this somehow reflects poorly on Barrack Obama. It's pretty obvious that there is so much more to Reverend Wright than can be gathered in those 20 second sound -bites. Watch and listen to the interview.

Here's the other sad thing--- the almost total literary and biblical ignorance of the population. I wonder how many people are even vaguely familiar with what Wright is referring to. Here's a little help:

Psalm 137 (Greek Numbering 136)

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.
2 There on the poplars we hung our harps,
3 for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
4 How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.
6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.
7 Remember, LORD, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell. "Tear it down," they cried, "tear it down to its foundations!"
8 Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy are those who repay you according to what you have done to us.
9 Happy are those who seize your infants and dash them against the rocks.

The Heart of the Matter

Once again I have to point to Juan Cole. In one simple paragraph he points out the futility of the matter. I'm willing to bet that 99% of American's wouldn't be able tell who is affiliated with whom in Iraq. Who exactly are we fighting there? Who is our enemy? Is it Alqaeda or the Mahdi army? The sad answer is that we just don't know.So we will continue to spill blood and treasury for what exactly? I'm still looking for an answer.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

McCain, the Retired Military "Analysts" and the Myth of al-Qaeda in Iraq
I am quoted in this NYT piece today on John McCain's allegations that the US is fighting "al-Qaeda" in Iraq and that there is a danger of "al-Qaeda" taking over the country if the US leaves.Those allegations don't make any sense. McCain contradicts himself because he sometimes warns that the Shiites or Iran will take over Iraq. He doesn't seem to realize that the US presided over the ascension to power in Iraq of pro-Iranian Shiite parties like Nuri al-Maliki's Islamic Mission Party and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. So which is it? There is a danger that pro-Iranian Shiites will take over (which is anyway what we have engineered) or that al-Qaeda will? It is not as if they can coexist. Since the Shiites are 60 percent and by now well armed and trained, and since the Sunni Arabs are only 17 percent of the population and since only about 1 percent of them perhaps supports Salafi radicalism--how can the latter hope to take over?Even if McCain only means, as his campaign manager tried to suggest, that "al-Qaeda" could take over the Sunni Arab areas of Iraq, that doesn't make any sense either (McCain has actually alleged that al-Qaeda would take over the whole country.) The Salafi radicals have lost in al-Anbar Province. Diyala Province, one of the other three predominantly Sunni areas, is ruled by pro-Iranian Shiites. That leaves Salahuddin and Ninevah Provinces. Among the major military forces in Ninevah is the Kurdish Peshmerga, some of them integrated e.g. into the Mosul police force. Hint: The Kurds don't like "al-Qaeda", i.e. Salafi radicalism. Jalal Talabani is a socialist.