The grid-reliant lifestyles of about 300 million Americans is a wide path, indeed.

Americans are the most invested in the three most popular doomsday machines of our time: resource wars, on-grid homes and fiat currency collapse. All three systems are sure to lead us along the wide path of destruction, which may be described more accurately as a marginally harder and steeper Peak Oil cliff than would otherwise be the case if we had any sense.

Amazingly, the whole world is willingly following us on our doomed path towards ever more oil-reliant lifestyles, grid-reliant homes, petroleum-based mining and fabrication of automobiles and heavy capital equipment, plastics, and food... Oh the food. All of that food made by so few people using nothing but oil and gas to plant, fertilize, irrigate, harvest, store, process, package, retrieve and prepare... then haul away in the form of waste.


And Look at us all, humming and buzzing and droning out on the grid like electric zombie slaves, far removed from anything natural. Industrial agriculture has long ago pushed almost all 6.5 billion of us off the land and into our cubicle homes and cubicle working places.

And for what? For the most of us, our "work" is nothing more than a PC and a cubicle and the harnessing of petroleum energy slaves to do work more efficiently. From our cubicles we enter into electronic warfare on the grid and the one who wins the most credits on our plastic cards wins. We all want to be lords of petroleum and we are wiling slaves of the grid that petroleum feeds. Nobody wants to imagine a world without the power of grid-lordship because that means breaking a sweat, getting back to family, thinking in terms of seasons, etc...

You want an example of insanity? Check this out, from today's edition of the "Daily Mail": 19 minutes - how long working parents give their children.

Ha! 19 minutes... let's read the first two sentences of that story...

A typical working parent spends just 19 minutes a day looking after their children, official figures revealed yesterday.

The startling research shows the devastating impact that working full-time has on children who hardly see their parents.

...and we wonder about all of the psychological problems, like, where did that come from? Parents make their kids into zombies right from birth... and then they throw their parents into the nursing homes, the kids to daycare, the spouses to divorce court... and the rest of the free time is spent receiving signals from electronic gadgets to the suggestable alpha brainwaves. That's the life of the grid addict. "I didn't mean to do it, the grid life forced me. I'm a victim of the grid."

And the number of grid zombies only increase as time goes on and populations grow and as demand for more finite petroleum resources (grid enablers) grows even as supply flows now are finally threatening to shrink... and all we want is another quarter of profits. To hell with our own children, right? And forget about the increasing numbers of extinct species that we are slashing and burning and burping up from our Mac bellies. We are a patriotic people, waving plastic American flags made in China, saying "Support the troops and keep the oil flowing into our grid. Our grid-life is not negotiable".

It is like we are all competing in our own version of The Lemming Olympics, a race to the rocky bottom of the fjord with our doomed lifestyles and overextended crowds.


Why? I don't know. "That's just the way things have always been done around here", they say. Insanity. We are all relying upon industrial agriculture, which relies upon oil and gas, which are peaked in terms of supply flow even as demand rises.

If the path to destruction is wide, then truth is the path less traveled. If we live in truth we can avoid the life of a lemming. From that analysis, our job in life becomes very simple. All we have to do is seek and speak the truth at every possible corner to anyone who will listen.

I used to get frustrated when people wouldn't listen to me about fiat currency or peak oil. But that isn't so much the case anymore. Why should I take responsibility for their actions? It is difficult enough already to take responsibility for my own.

But you know? Something amazing happens when you just tell the truth: You learn more and you grow in wisdom and your skills of communication increase and you gain understanding of the human condition. When I empty out everything I know about Peak Oil and what I think people can do to prepare for the coming crash and post-oil age, I suddenly have a whole lot of room in my head to learn more. It is like I have just written one chapter and am ready to move on to the next.

On the other end of that experience, people stunt their growth if they withhold telling the truth.

I am not talking about telling the kind of truth like "Mom, I don’t like your necklace." I am talking about "Mom, your lifestyle is doomed! Sell your home and stocks. Buy silver. Run for the hills!"

Neither truth goes over well, but the first one is more easily forgiven... even if both are true, which surprises me still because the second one can save your life. Oh, but the worst kind of truth is the one that forces fundamental change and a total re-think of decade issues like "retirement" and "vacation home" and "financial planning"... all of it going to the post-oil dust bin.

I was just re-explaining to a relative recently (not my Mom, that was just an example) about the coming crash of the housing market and dollar and, well, industrial civilization eventually. The person in question wants to buy a house. Now you and I know, at least we should by now, that an on-grid house in the middle of mega-city sprawl is not the best way to prepare for the coming events that are currently underway even right now.

And this person already has known about peak oil for years. So none of this makes any sense. The disconnect happens like this: Person realizes Peak Oil. Person wants a house. Person willingly forgets about Peak Oil because person wants house. Person won’t talk about Peak Oil anymore because person wants house.

I just described “compartmentalization”, which is a human condition when people disassociate themselves from one kind of truth for a while, suspending belief in order to avoid living incongruently… or to put it another way, to avoid feeling or looking like a hypocrite. That word might be a bit strong but you get the idea.

It makes no sense to jump on the grid in the middle of mega-city sprawl right at the very peak oil energy output. It is like investing in the titanic AFTER it has hit the iceberg.

The big picture is crash in the grid-reliant US housing market for two reasons:

1. Housing valuation crash
2. Grid-reliant housing crash

It doesn’t matter whether we are talking about a house in NY, Las Vegas, LA, Minneapolis, Austin, Dallas, Orlando, St. Louis… and smaller towns too. And I realize that in some localities, housing prices continue to go up even now. Neither you nor I need to be interested in which housing locality peaks last. The big picture is nationwide collapse.

Here is what we will see Nationwide...

First we will see bankruptcies and then we will see a glut of homes on sale and then we will see sale prices go down and then more bankruptcies and people get "upside down" against their mortgages. The term upside down happens when someone's house is worth less than the amount due from the mortgage.

So what, right? Bankruptcies don't hurt me.

Well, when a lot of people go bankrupt. housing values go down. That's what happens when more people want to sell and less can afford to buy.

But the price going down is just the small story. The bigger story is that all of this grid-reliant stuff is the wrong direction because, as you and I might already know, civilization is in the beginning stages of collapse due to a phenomenon called peak oil. That means, whatever kinds of housing and lifestyles and business require cheap and abundant oil in order to function are danger zones.

That means -

• cities and suburbs are danger zones.
• relying upon industrial agriculture is a danger zone.
• even holding dollars or dollar denominated paper (stocks, etc...)is a danger zone because the dollar is tied to no asset but is justa reflection of people's confidence in the US market health.

.... all about to change or in process of changing.

There is no other way for grid-reliant homes to go except down. Grid costs rise when energy costs rise. All this is due to less energy available related to demand. Saving on heating and cooling costs won’t help at all, it is all about the grocery store becoming empty and the car rusting in your riot-zone neighborhood. The whole way of grid reliant living is about to hit the panic button.

Even the mass media can’t hide what is happening economically to the US housing market.

Housing US -

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=housing+US&btnG=Search+News

So I can’t decide anyone’s strategy but I can speak truth.

Grid-reliant housing near big-city / big-sprawl is a danger zone right now. We need to be thinking in a totally different way. When we make a decision, whatever it is, then we automatically at that moment cut off a bunch of other possible decisions, like getting into a sustainable lifestyle and living arrangement that suits what will be in the future. So any big-city / big-sprawl housing purchase will, in the best case, delay other, more suitable efforts that greatly benefit you down the road 5, 10, 20 years and beyond.

I know that it isn't common opinion and I know some may think I have wacky ideas about what causes peak oil will bring. And that is OK. I just speak truth as I know it and let God show who in
foolish in His own way.

So far, I have been right about silver vs the dollar or stocks. And I believe that silver will continue to appreciate better than stocks or the dollar, both of which I believe are doomed to endure

Unprecedented crash before this is over. And even there, it is not about the money but it is about getting out of a doomed and stupid system that is bound to fail utterly and getting into something that makes more sense. Dollars benefit the printers and the printers steal from me if I hold dollars by the simple act of printing more dollars, which devalues my wealth. By me holding dollars, our government is empowered to hit foreign countries with depleted uranium munitions. It is a good thing when we decrease the power of corrupt governments by trading their fiat paper confetti for the world’s only 5,000 year storage of wealth, gold and silver.

Same idea with housing. It is a good thing to get out of a doomed grid-reliant style of life before being forced out.

The housing thing is just now starting to peak and will crash along with the general economy. Everything is tied together. This is a time to think differently.

Be ready, my friends and fellow ArkBuilders... some people are thinking that the US economy will hit a brick wall at about 5 dollars a gallon. That might have been Kunstler but I don’t remember. I don't know when the point is, but I know that we can't have gas push us forever in our current direction.

OK, I just found this from peakoil.com –

“I think Kunster is on to something regarding our suburbian society. In the reader's digest version of the reader's digest version of his book the Long Emergency, he states that our economy is now built on the continued expansion of the suburbs. When gas hits $5 a gallon, the suburbs will hit a break wall. Probably before that price, but $5 is a nice number, right? Once it costs $30 to feed your car to drive to your $120/day (gross) job, most people won't be able to afford it. Sure the middle managers can, but most of America makes far less than a middle manager.” http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic7929.html

Clearly, we don’t have decades. We may not even have years. What we do now will determine how we live in the post crash world.

Figure 4. The Olduvai Theory: 1930-2030

- Tate Ulsaker

The Wall Street Journal
All the disinfo that's fit to print about Peak Oil.
- a Tate Ulsaker commentary

My favorite intellectual, Richard Heinberg, said recently, to disinformed anti Peak Oiler Greg Palast: "One of the problems with argument by innuendo is that it often requires us to speculate about other people’s motives. The only question that really matters here is, which line of argument is correct? And the only way to make an informed judgment in that regard is to examine and weigh the evidence and the quality of reasoning on each side."

That statement comes from this excellent Heinberg article - http://www.energybulletin.net/17914.html

I thank Heinberg for his correct analysis which is easily recognizeable as truth even though I could not articulate it that concisely.

The path of truth is narrow and less travelled. It is uncomfortable at times and people often despise it. But it is the only way. To find the path of truth, we should put less time on guessing the sensational motives of others. They can be neither proven nor disproven. We need to ask "which line of argument is correct?" and we need to examine and weigh the "evidence and quality of reasoning on each side."

While that may seem an arduous task, it is nothing compared to taking the wide, stupid, big, populated road of the masses, the deceived.

Deceived by whom? With what false arguments? With what selfish motives?

Well, let's ask a couple of Wall Street Journal Journalists that question. I welcome to the discussion, Mr. Chip and Bhushan, paid SS corporate disinformationalist specialists, middle-men for the New World Order Prison:


>> Power shifts to countries with oil reserves
>>
>> Wednesday, June 14, 2006
>> By Bhushan Bahree and Chip Cummins, The
>> Wall Street Journal
>>
>> There is more to today's oil crunch than
>> temporary jolts to supply and demand. What is
>> also roiling the energy world is an enduring
>> shift in the balance of power between the fuelguzzling
>> West and oil-rich developing
>> countries.
>>
>> Since World War II, the industrialized world
>> has relied on stable and affordable supplies of
>> crude to fuel economic growth. The U.S.,
>> Europe and Japan together needed more oil
>> than they could produce. The developing
>> world had plenty of oil, but little use for it and
>> few alternative markets. So industrialized
>> countries tapped the cheap resources of poor
>> ones.

No mention here about how the Western countries kept resource-rich countries embroiled in civil wars, brutal dictatorships, etc... No, but fascinating when you look at the world at night you see all of there source USING countries light up and they increasingly rely upon war in resource rich areas to keep what's left coming online cheap.

>> Now this mutual dependency is unraveling and
>> a new order is taking shape, turning the tables
>> on America, its allies and other big energy
>> consumers. Major exporting nations have
>> concluded that they have more leverage than
>> ever before over consuming countries.

Well, Russia says that sure. And now Iran is saying it. But I don't see Iraq yet having a voice on the issue.

>> Two forces are behind this change. The
>> accelerating industrialization of the billionperson
>> economies of China and India means
>> that global energy demand is likely to keep
>> growing rapidly for years to come. And just as
>> important, the world's top crude-producing
>> countries are keeping a tighter grip on their
>> spigots.

Well wait a minute here. You mean to tell me that runaway demand, on the one side is met with suppliers "keeping tighter grip on their spigots".

Whois writing this? Is there no account for finite supply? "Tighter grip", ha. Well, no I won't be buying that yacht from Donald Trump next week, my wife is keeping a tighter grip on the finances these days. What a loony statement.

>> Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich states have
>> balked at making the large investments
>> Western policy makers think are necessary to
>> meet demand in coming decades, although
>> they plan to expand production somewhat in
>> the medium term. Moreover, these nations are
>> using more of their oil at home to meet surging
>> domestic demand, driven in part by new
>> industries that were once the preserve of the
>> developed world.

"Balked at making the large investments... necessary to meet demand" - another good one! Boy these authors, Bhushan and Chip, they must be part of a comedy routine! Good show Wall Street Journal. Nice way to lighten the mood near the Peak Oil collapse. I "Balked" at squeezing blood out of a turnip. I was unwilling to make the investments necessary to meet demand.

By the way, didn't Saudi Arabia already do their part by promising to lift output by 50% at the mere turning of a spigot? Why invest into squeezing blood from a turnip? Just say "I can squeeze blood from that turnip anytime I want". It is much easier to cut out the middle man and just make the claim. Same difference, eh?

>> "The idea is to use (the) advantage of the
>> availability of energy and build industries on
>> that basis," said Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali
>> Naimi in a recent interview in Riyadh, as the
>> sound of jackhammers pounded through the
>> windows of his office overlooking the booming
>> city. "Any industry that requires intensive
>> energy will be welcome in Saudi Arabia."

"availability of energy" Right... and then "build industries on that basis". Right again. And then what about the next statement? Shouldn't it go something like "... and then watch the whole thing collapse from my armed fortress, having consolidated power and implemented a police state."

>> In addition, petro-states from Iran to Ecuador
>> are flexing their muscles, brandishing fossilfuel
>> supplies as a weapon in diplomatic
>> disputes, or tearing up contracts with foreign
>> companies.
>>
>> Major importing nations are scrambling to
>> adapt. Energy security has emerged as a
>> central foreign-policy concern from
>> Washington to Beijing. Last month, a U.S.
>> House of Representatives subcommittee held
>> hearings on how to cope with nations that use
>> oil as a weapon. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer,
>> secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty
>> Organization, said last month that the alliance
>> would consider using force if energy-supply
>> lines were threatened, a major broadening of
>> the group's mandate. "As far as oil and gas is
>> concerned, I think NATO could play a role to
>> defend the sea lanes," he told European
>> parliamentarians.

Nice analysis when it comes to demand-side. But their supply-side analysis is real comedy. Oh the mass media struggles to keep a straight face on the supply issue. Why is that? HMMmmm... it wouldn't play too well with the whole geopolitical paradigm of us being the good guys if we just look at energy supply very closely now would it?

>> Major Western oil companies are also
>> struggling to adjust. Ninety percent of the
>> world's untapped conventional oil reserves are
>> in the hands of governments or state-owned
>> oil companies, far more than was the case
>> several decades ago. It doesn't appear that
>> the planet is running out of crude, as
>> proponents of the "peak oil" theory have
>> argued. But some oil experts foresee the big
>> Western oil companies running out of easy-totap
>> oil, and most of them are already turning to
>> harder-to-recover reserves.

I can see the Authors of this article talking to each other:

Chip - Well, those "Peak Oil" guys are all wrong. We aren't even close to "running out" are we? Well, by golly, we at least got about half left. And that's a lot, ain't it Bhushan?

Bhushan - Yes, our kind and honorable corporations have been losing ground to nationalization of oil. The experts say we have harder-to-recover reserves. Chip, do you see a trend here? We have seen "easy to-tap" become now "harder-to-recover"... maybe we will see "difficult-as-all-hell-to-pump" next?

Chip - Aw Bhushan, that isn't proper analysis. We're writn' for the Wall Street Journal here. What we need to do is focus on how to get money through the corporations and into the stock market. Get it? WALL STREET Journal Bhushan... Jeez!

>> Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Exxon Mobil Corp.
>> are making gargantuan bets on liquid fuels
>> derived from natural gas. Shell and Total SA
>> of France are extracting fuel from the gooey
>> tar sands of Canada. ENI SpA, the Italian oil
>> major, this month paid $900 million for the
>> right to explore for oil off the shores of Angola.
>> The search for new reserves has become "a
>> nightmare," says Paolo Scaroni, ENI's chief
>> executive officer.

What's that? Chip and Bhushan knock the Peak Oil movement in a way that makes no sense and then they quote a guy who gives solid evidence of the whole Peak Oil position: "The search for new reserves has become 'a nightmare'".

Indeed. That is kinda what happens when we get to peak production. Not that we "run out". but getting new reserves online is a "nightmare". Ha ha... but Chip and Bhushan will keep pretending that supply is no problem I suppose... let's see...

>> Oil accounts for 98 percent of the fuel used by
>> the world's cars, trucks and planes. With new
>> crude supplies lagging behind demand growth,
>> a new energy economy is emerging in which a
>> mosaic of other fuels will supplement crude,
>> some energy experts contend. "Bio-diesel," a
>> specially processed vegetable oil that is often
>> mixed with petroleum, and clean-burning
>> liquids squeezed from natural gas are among
>> the resources that will become essential for
>> keeping the world humming, they argue.

A ha... so we are to believe that Oil today accounts for 98 percent of the fuel used in transport, but we can somehow put something other than oil into the transport industry? Like what? Mac Donald's vegetable waste and natural gas liquids? Where does one start ripping into these clowns? "... essential for keeping the world humming". Who could say such a thing? Are we in the twilight zone now?

Does bio diesel come from industrial farming or no? Does industrial farming have a prayer with bio-diesel? Are we going to mine, fabricate, assemble, transport and service all of that capital equipment on the power of squeezed soybeans? And then still have enough left over to plant, spray, irrigate, harvest, store, process, transport, cook and eat? Ha ha ha... Chip and Bhushan aren't only clowns, they are magicians too! Soybeans for "keeping the world humming". I like that.

>> "The transition away from oil may take 20 or
>> 30 years, but it has to start now," says Joseph
>> Stanislaw, an energy adviser at Deloitte &
>> Touche USA LLP.

Brilliant! Now that we are at Peak Production, it takes an energy adviser at Deloitte & Touche to tell us that we gotta "start now" in our transition away from oil. Great! How much did he get paid to figure that oneout?

>> Crude has tripled in price since 2002 due to
>> swelling demand, supply outages and slow
>> growth in output. Oil hit a record of $75.17 a
>> barrel in April, and Tuesday settled at $68.56,
>> down $1.80.
>>
>> Wealthy industrial nations have weathered oil
>> crises before. A wave of shocks in the 1970s
>> and 1980s, including oil-field nationalizations
>> and the 1973 Arab oil embargo, sent prices
>> soaring and tilted power toward exporting
>> nations. But rich Western nations stayed in the
>> driver's seat because they were the main
>> consumers of exports. And the U.S. and
>> Europe had vast and proven oil reserves in
>> Alaska and the North Sea, which they
>> exploited when developing-world suppliers
>> refused to cooperate.
>>
>> Three decades later, the Western world no
>> longer has such leverage. Crude-oil
>> production by nations who aren't members of
>> the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
>> Countries is widely expected to peak around
>> 2010. Outside of Russia and the Middle East,
>> the biggest opportunities today are in deep
>> waters off politically volatile Africa and in the
>> Caspian Sea, not in the West.
>>
>> The International Energy Agency, the
>> industrialized world's energy-market
>> watchdog, has forecast that world oil demand
>> will rise 37 percent by 2030, to 115 million
>> barrels a day from about 85 million today. But
>> the oil-producing nations with the greatest
>> pumping potential either will not or cannot tap
>> their resources sufficiently to meet those
>> projections.

Ah, interesting question - "...will not or cannot tap their
resources sufficiently to meet [demand."]

So which is it, "will not" or "cannot"? Hmmm? Any guesses out there?

Hint #1 - Oil is finite or infinite?

Hint #2 - Earth is a closed system or open?

Hint #3 - Oh nevermind. Just keep writing for your corporate overlords and enjoy your meaningless lives. Idiots, all of them! Is there a grownup in the house please? We on earth need a grownup over here. Please send one quickly, thank you.

>> The Paris-based IEA has long expected the
>> Saudis, who now supply about nine million
>> barrels a day, to contribute 18 million to 20
>> million barrels a day toward that figure. In an
>> interview, however, Mr. Naimi suggested that
>> the Saudis are unlikely to go much beyond 15
>> million barrels due to concerns about depleting
>> reserves too fast and damaging fields by
>> pumping too quickly. Other suppliers, including
>> Mexico and Kuwait, also appear unwilling or
>> unable to meet the expectations of Western
>> planners.

But, but... I don't understand. Mr. Naimi sir, I grew up being fed by the forever growth idea that we will just let the market handle stuff like this. Isn't that your understanding out there at the good 'ol IEA? I mean, surely with oil jumping beyond 70 to 100 dollars a barrel at the supply-demand gap, there will be plenty of innovations out there in the marketplace right? Can't we just let the market deliver us alternatives and let this whole Peak Oil misunderstanding take care of itself?

>> OPEC members have expressed concern that
>> demand projections such as the IEA's may be
>> overstated. The IEA has concluded that
>> because OPEC does not appear to be
>> investing as much in production as expected,
>> global oil supplies probably won't reach the
>> agency's 115-million-barrel target for 2030.
>> "We are likely to see higher prices for years to
>> come," says Fatih Birol, the IEA's chief
>> economist.

Ha, so the poor guys are OPEC led by Saudi Arabia are out there with spigots full blast, but that's not enough. They also have to be made stooges in front of the western cameras to help "calm the markets" with absurdities. Then, when that's all done, the IEA starts asking them to meet their promised quota by, now get this, investing money. Yeah, into western raider corporations. Go get em IEA! Loot, pillage, burn. Send out the Viking IEA warships to pick up some more energy slaves. We are thirsty out here.

Oh no. I just had a thought. Again, I am reminded that this ain't gonna end good. All the focus is on human conflict issues, a total denial of supply issues. Wall Street Journal, I think you are winning prizes in Hell right now. All the news that's fit to print for the devil's best endgame. The real "ragheads" are the publishers of the Wall Street Journal, because it is a rag of a paper.

>> Demand patterns have also changed
>> markedly. During the 1970s oil crisis, oil
>> consumption was still concentrated in the
>> industrialized West and in the Soviet Union,
>> which produced more than enough for itself
>> and its satellites. Today, the Saudis and their
>> OPEC allies have many more big, attractive
>> markets, starting with India and China.

Well, demand growth is a good thing. That's one way to look at it.I might also say: Demand patterns have changed with the lack of rain in the ancient tropical zone where the Gobi Desert now exists. There are many attractive markets for water in the desert as humans and hoofed animals hover on the edge of existence.

>> Producing nations also face booming demand
>> at home. Gasoline use in Iran, where the
>> capital city is clogged with cars, is rising by 10
>> percent a year. Oil demand in the Middle East
>> has risen by 13 percent since 2003, a growth
>> rate nearly as high as China's. The Middle
>> East was consuming 6.1 million barrels a day
>> at the end of 2005, compared with 6.6 million
>> barrels for China. This soaring demand
>> equaled about one-third of the increase in
>> global crude supplies, including from OPEC.
>>
>> Saudi Arabia, which sits on a quarter of the
>> world's oil reserves, also intends to consume
>> more crude at home. The world's largest oil
>> exporter is building new industries that rely on
>> petroleum in an effort to leverage its primary
>> resource, much as China did when it
>> harnessed its vast labor supply to become a
>> global manufacturing power. Mr. Naimi says
>> one of his biggest goals is to create exportoriented
>> fertilizer and aluminum industries.

Good, Mr. Naimi. Good goal you have. More industrial consumers of oil right there in Saudi Arabia. And what better industrial demand than more fertilizer? That will keep the people numbers rising a bit longer. And then, as Chip and Bhushan have already indicated, we will live on soybean oil for replacement...

Hey wait a minute. Mr. Naimi, will soybean oil get sent to Saudi Arabian fertilizer production facilities when the oil is dry? Let's run this through some calculations Mr. Naimi. Your goal seems a bit Malthusian in the long term, wouldn't you say? Are you ready to explain to your great grandchildren just what your goals are today Mr. Naimi? Hmmmm?

>> At Turaif Camp in the Arabian Peninsula's
>> northern desert, state-owned metals giant
>> Ma'aden has dug an open-pit test mine for
>> phosphates, an ingredient in fertilizer. Piles of
>> the white mineral glitter in the sun, sprinkled
>> with tiny fossilized sea creatures. Nearby,
>> workers are digging another mine to excavate
>> bauxite, the raw material of aluminum. These
>> mines are part of a $10 billion project that will
>> include a new coastal city with aluminum and
>> fertilizer factories -- all powered by Saudi's
>> huge reservoirs of heavy crude.
>>
>> Other oil exporters are using their oil
>> resources in more belligerent ways. Last
>> month, Ecuador expelled Occidental
>> Petroleum Corp. over a contract dispute.
>> Bolivia's president nationalized his country's
>> gas fields, dispatching troops to 53 fields and
>> ordering foreign firms to renegotiate contracts.
>> In April, Venezuela seized fields from Total
>> and ENI.

OK, now it is time to take the gloves off figurativelyspeaking.

Chip and Bhushan should be investigated for criminalnegligence and crimes against humanity.

How can they advocate using oil for the developmen tof new industrial demand at peak supply? OK, Iunderstand that they write for the Wall Street Journal,and as intellectual prostitutes. that is the term used byJournalist insider John Swinton in New York in 1890to describe people like Chip and Bhushan... and we need to start holding these guys accountable.

All the more these guys need to be accountable whenthey start accusing oil exporters of being "belligerent"when they resist the corporate doomsday machine bynationalizing reserves, ripping up contracts andthumbing their noses at exploitation. In the end, doesn't slowing down the tappers give a marginaladditional buffer to the eminent Peak Oil collapse? History will show soon, because we are at Peakproduction now. Several quotes in thisdisinformational piece alrady indicate that quitestrongly.

>> The new supply-demand landscape has left
>> the West increasingly vulnerable. The IEA
>> estimates that the 26 industrial countries that
>> are members of that organization will need to
>> import 85 percent of their oil by 2030,
>> compared to 63 percent today.

Well, are we to assume that the top 26 industrialcountries automatically have a right to get that 85 percent? Chip and Bhushan, you are dangerously close to advocating a prison planet and global enslaving system. And if you do advocate that, do you think you will benefit from such a system? Will therebe a bigger demand for disinfo journalist sycophants in that age? You are probably right if you think so. But you won't be paid for exploiting little people because you will always be little people to your masters. Disposable go-betweens. Nice career prospects for you then, eh? Slave decievers. Like the German prisoners at Soviet gulags used to exploit their own people, they all thought that they could win the respect of their overlords. Ha, expendable they were! All of them. The only ones that held respect were the prisoners that kept a solid ground in truth. Far from your minds right now, eh? Good luck to you then in your bright future if that's the case.

>> This is forcing a rethink of U.S. and European
>> diplomatic and military strategy. For half a
>> century, the energy-security formula had been
>> simple: Protect the oil-supply lines from the
>> Middle East, and the industrialized world
>> would be safe. President Carter codified that
>> thinking in the Carter Doctrine of 1980, which
>> declared Persian Gulf oil a vital national
>> interest and vowed to use military might to
>> defend the region from attack.
>>
>> When Arab members of OPEC embargoed oil
>> exports in 1973, the West responded by
>> squirreling away strategic stocks of oil for dire
>> emergencies. The oil embargo ultimately
>> fizzled, and the U.S. re-established close ties
>> with Saudi Arabia. After Iraq invaded Kuwait in
>> 1990, the Saudis swiftly increased production
>> to make up for almost all the oil lost in Iraq and
>> Kuwait. They did the same before and during
>> the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
>>
>> But the Middle East is no longer the shock
>> absorber it once was. Last fall, when
>> hurricanes devastated U.S. oil facilities in the
>> Gulf of Mexico, the Saudis already were
>> pumping about as much as they could. The
>> U.S. and its allies orchestrated a release of
>> strategic stockpiles to stave off shortages.
>>
>> Regions outside the Persian Gulf now are
>> capable of supplementing Western supplies.
>> But that means the West must build alliances
>> and deploy ships and troops to protect modest
>> supply routes as far afield as the Caspian Sea,
>> the Andean region of South America and West
>> Africa. Now every oil field matters.

Good history telling and then we arrive at the phrase: "Now every oil field matters." Kinda like they say today in the once tropical zones where the now Gobi Desert resides: "Now every water well matters." If it isn't Peak Oil, then what is it?

>> The consequences were clear at a recent
>> NATO conference on energy security in
>> Prague. Addressing NATO officials and oil
>> executives, U.S. Air Force Gen. Charles Wald,
>> at the time the U.S. military's deputy
>> commander for Europe and Africa, blasted the
>> industry for what he saw as lax security
>> around the world. He ticked off crucial
>> pipelines and energy-transportation choke
>> points in his theater. Such vulnerable points
>> include the Oresund Strait between Sweden
>> and Denmark and a pipeline running out of
>> Chad, a small producer.

Go get 'em Her General Wald! You go and fix that Oresund Straight between Sweden and Denmark big fella. That's the way to secure our oil from those radical Swedes.

>> The energy-security model laid out by
>> President Carter needs an update, said Gen.
>> Wald, who has since stepped down from his
>> post and is set to retire in July. "You just can't
>> call 1-800-dial-the-military," he said. "The oil
>> companies themselves have to start stepping
>> up." During a break in the session, footage of
>> burning oil facilities flashed across the
>> conference hall's screen as the 1960s tune
>> "Eve of Destruction" blared.

But General Wald, you CAN dial the military. That's just what we do, don't we?

Didn't we dial the military to enter into Iraq, a country with the greatest under-exploited oil reserves in the world? Aren't we spraying depleted uranium with abandon there right now.

And by the way, they call it "depleted" uranium? Sixty percent radiocative uranium is not any more "depleted" than 60% cyanide is depleted. If anyone thinks that 60% is safe, then I welcome them to drink 60% cyanide coffee or spray 60% du on their chicken sandwich... well, that is exactly what we are doing in Iraq right now. Prove me wrong WSJ... I dare you. Chip, Bhushan, you elite sycophant journalists... prove me wrong that 60% less radioactive is a good flavor for your chicken sandwich.

Jeez, what it takes to communicate to these guys!

>> Officials in Iran and Venezuela have warned
>> they could disrupt oil supplies if threatened by
>> the U.S. In January, Russia briefly shut off
>> natural-gas supplies to Ukraine, which many
>> observers read as a political warning to
>> independent-minded Kiev.

Those Bastards! How dare they turn off their spigots just because we threaten to kill their leaders and bomb their countries and forbid them from developing nuclear power and spread depleted uranium dust into their countries from our radioactive munitions. How dare they, slaves of the global elite, resist us! Don't they know who is boss? Go tell it like it is Chip and Bhushan! The natives arerestless, eh? We need to exert a little "attitude adjustment" on those resisters.

>> "The power of (energy) coercion is really
>> equivalent to a military attack," says Richard
>> Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign
>> Relations Committee. The Indiana Republican
>> says his stance on energy security hardened
>> in August after a diplomatic mission to North
>> Africa. He spent a night in Libya at Tripoli's
>> gleaming Corinthia Bab Africa Hotel, where he
>> saw Chinese, Indian and Western oil-company
>> executives vying for business in the country oil
>> fields, which had been closed to U.S.
companies for two decades before the U.S.
>> lifted economic sanctions in 2004.
>>
>> Mr. Lugar is now pushing for a treaty with
>> China and India that would spell out ways for
>> the three nations -- all large consumers of oil --
>> to cooperate rather than compete in the event
>> of a supply shock. In today's energy world, he
>> said, natural resources "are strategic
>> weapons."

That's right Herr Honorable Lugar! And if they attack us first, by not selling us all the oil we want, when we want, at the price we want, and how we want it with the big investments into our stock market and all that, well then we need to retaliate don't we? And what better way to retaliate than to get together all of the top users of energy and spray their whole country with depleted uranium?

Dear Herr Lugar Honorable Sir, can I be your armchair General? I just love to exploit people in the name of honor and justice. And our constituency will believe us to be heroes won't they? Best of both world's isn't it? All the wealth and all the glory, none of the risk. The only problem is that damn conscience. However, I found this great new religion that is helping me a lot with my conscience. "Do as thou wilt" is the only one commandment of Satanism Herr Lugar. Won't you join me at the next sacrifice? I'm just sure that you will like it. You might make Dark Deacon Lordship in a year if you get the US to attack another innocent country.

>> Western oil giants are racing to adjust. Ever
>> since Edwin Drake started drilling for oil in
>> Pennsylvania in 1859, launching the modern
>> petroleum age, oilmen have dreamed up
>> technologies to coax more crude from the
>> ground. Goldman Sachs estimates the
>> industry will spend $660 billion over the next
>> six years on big projects. Just 13 percent of
>> the oil expected from these efforts will come
>> from "traditional" extraction, the firm said. The
>> rest will involve more-complex technology or
>> resources formerly deemed too costly to
>> extract.

Again, the trends. Whereas everything used to be traditional extraction, now we have fallen to "just 13 percent".

Anyone over there at the Wall Street Journal Forecasting desk see a trend? Hmmm?

Bozos, all ofthem!

>> Shell, for instance, is spending heavily on
>> projects that have more in common with
>> mining operations than with the exploration
>> efforts of the previous century. It recently paid
>> $400 million for rights to explore for oil buried
>> deep in Alberta. Companies have rushed to
>> the region to mine its oil sands, a tar-like muck
>> that requires expensive excavation and
>> processing. Shell says it doesn't yet have
>> commercially proven technology to get at the
>> sands, but considers it a risk worth taking.
>> "I don't know how long exploration will
>> continue to be a major play" for big oil
>> companies, "but 50 years from now it will be
>> that much more difficult than it is today," says
>> Malcolm Brinded, Shell's head of exploration.
>> "You want to get in there now to get access to
>> the best acreage and drill the best wells. You
>> don't want to hang back in a situation like this."

Well there you go again, another insider spells it all outfor us. "but 50 years from now it will be that much more difficult." Isn't that a kinda significant indicator of Peak Oil right there? But no! Chip and Bhushan advocate the big corporate solution, which is to get into all of those helpless countries that have easy to access reserves and plunder them outright. What is good for Wall Street is good for Chip and Bhushan. Never mind the steeper cliff that would result if the big money get's their way. Chip and Bhushan don't pay any attention to those lowly concerns of "smaller" people, you know, the ones who read and actually believe what they write.

As we lose cheap petroleum, we will switch to that other time tested energy slave - people. My bet is that Chip and Bhushan will be out there telling us about how the stockmarket would be higher if only the little people would cooperate more and give more of their human energy to the big corporations - free, and under threat of death. Isn't that about the only available angle for a corporate shill journalist in the corporate controlled world of our coming post oil collapse?

>> Oil surpassed coal as the dominant source of
>> energy early in the 20th century, and was
>> essential to the development of aviation and
>> motorized transport. The world now appears to
>> be in the first stage of a bumpy transition to a
>> system in which oil, while still the economy's
>> most important fuel, will no longer so
>> thoroughly dominate it.

Very artistically spoken. How about a little adjustment to the last sentence for the sake of clarity. "The world now appears to be in the first stage of a bumpy transition to a system in which oil will be replaced by human slavery, a prospect that might hopefully keep disinfo journalists gainfully employed by their corporate masters."

>> Henry Groppe, the 80-year-old founder of a
>> Houston-based energy-consulting firm, has
>> watched the industry morph for half a century.
>> He divides oil history into three epochs. The
>> first was a 100-year era of plenty and U.S.
>> control that lasted until 1970, when prices
>> averaged $13 a barrel in 2004 dollars. The
>> second, an era of transition and rising OPEC
>> influence, lasted until 2004 and saw prices
>> average $36 a barrel over that period.
>>
>> The current era -- just two years old by Mr.
>> Groppe's reckoning -- looks to be a messy
>> one, with more potential for supply shocks and
>> clashing over resources. Prices are likely to
>> stay volatile as consumers try to outbid each
>> other for constrained and vulnerable flows of
>> crude. Rising prices tend to act as a rationing
>> device, knocking some consumers out of the
>> market altogether.
>>
>> "We have entered the era of scarcity and price
>> rationing," Mr. Groppe says.

Chip, Bhushan, Your article is a mess guys. I kindly draw your attention to your previous statement up top where you say "It doesn't appear that the planet is running out of crude, as proponents of the "peak oil"theory have argued."Then you go on to argue against national ownership of energy supplies, favoring Wall Street Corporation exploitation by any means, even going so far as to quote Herr Lugar's position of naked aggression against any country that doesn't relinquish natural resources on his terms.

Then we arrive here at your conclusion where you quote a Mr. Groppe who basically contradicts what you said about the planet not running out of oil.

All the disinfo that's fit to print, isn't that about the sizeof it guys?

I would like to take you guys on a journey beyond the "current era" described by Mr. Groppe which envisions an "era of scarcity and price rationing" as you quote.

OK, so what is the next era then beyond scarcity then? We will look out for your next excellent article Chip and Bhushan! The next era of human slavery. What willyou call that one? Maybe "Power shifts to Countrieswith human reserves"? Ha ha ha... you sycophant losers!

Original article taken from here -http://www.postgazette.com/pg/06165/698172-28.stm

Tate Ulsaker is a Peak Oil informed jester for peace and humanity. God help us. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ArkBuilders_org/

Anyone may post this article freely anywhere. Ugh... hope it helps somehow but I doubt it.

-Tate, Moscow