Drone On ‘Heroes’
Filed Under War & Politics | Leave a Comment
We can all rest much, much easier as Jackboot John McCain has his slippers fast on the ground in Libya: Aljazeera ‘s Sue Turton, reporting from Benghazi, said McCain told reporters he was there to meet the Transitional National Council and members of the military to assess the situation on the ground.
He also denied concerns about the possibility of extremist or al-Qaeda elements fighting alongside the rebel forces, saying “they [rebel fighters] are my heroes”.
(Illustration found here).
President Obama okayed on Thursday the use of unmanned drone strikes in Libya, but he surely couldn’t have meant Jackboot John — one asshole of a drone if there’s ever been one (and don’t call him Shirley).
Just ask the Foo Fighters, they don’t much care for McCain as their ‘Hero.’
Jackboot John aside (who, however, can possibly forget his blubbering ‘we are all Georgians‘), the dust-up in Libya has indeed mission creeped its way into a full-blown military operation as Obama has green-lighted the use of those nefarious predator drones in combating Muammar Gaddafi’s forces — the shit will hit the oil-stained fan now.
Defense Secretary Bob Gates made the drone announcement at a Pentagon briefing, but it was Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who blubbered the biggest pile of bullshit.
From the Washington Post:
“What they will bring that is unique to the conflict is their ability to get down lower, therefore to be able to get better visibility on targets that have started to dig themselves into defensive positions,” Cartwright said. “They are uniquely suited for urban areas.”
He added, “It’s very difficult to pick friend from foe. So a vehicle like the Predator that can get down lower and can get IDs better helps us.”
Yeah, right — just as the military talking heads went silent, came this report of 25 killed (including three women) this morning in Pakistan from at least two drone strikes, and last week, drones are suspected in the killing of two US servicemen in Afghanistan — oops, my bad — in a case of so-called ‘friendly fire:’ One official stressed that at this point the incident is being treated as a suspected fratricide.
Pakistan has continued to blast the US over the drone strikes, calling them a “core irritant” in keeping a happy working relationship going between the two countries.
The US apparently just replied F**k you, or words to that effect.
Or just deny shit.
Using the US playbook — In a NATO air-strike (of regular manned jet aircraft) yesterday on a Tripoli suburb that reportedly killed seven civilians and wounded some 18 others, NATO was at first denying the reports, claiming there was “no indication” any of the people were civilians and ruled out any investigation into the matter, but then later said something like this: In spite of the denial, NATO Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard issued a statement in the wake of the attacks urging Libyan civilians to “distance themselves from Gadhafi regime forces and equipment whenever possible.”
(from antiwar.com).
Maybe when the whirl of the drone is heard, just bend over and kiss your ass bye-bye.
Faster, Uglier
Filed Under Cloud gazing, Economy, Energy, Environment | Leave a Comment
(Illustration found here).
As 2011 marches right along, and even as we celebrate the one-year anniversary of the BP oil spill (BP high-fived the celebration by doling out big bucks to Republican ass-kissers), and try not to become too emotionally involved with Japan’s increasingly-ominous nuclear nightmare, and try not to think about air traffic controllers asleep at the wheel, and don’t even want to consider the 3,000-square-mile fires in Texas still raging with no end in sight, and we sure as shit don’t feel weepy about the UK’s royal wedding this weekend as that’s so pretentious.
There’s bigger, uglier fish to fry.
Closer to the vest, gas prices at the pump keep moving upward — here in northern California it’s at $4.40 a gallon for regular, up four cents (the last time I fueled my Jeep the price was at $4.35) and it appears we’re the highest in a state of high prices.
From the LA Times: In California, the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline climbed 4.4 cents to $4.205. That was $1.115 a gallon higher than a year earlier, but still considerably short of the record $4.588 set in June 2008, according to the Energy Department’s weekly survey of fuel retailers, which was released Monday.
However, this time the scenario might get uglier.
In that LA Times piece: “A lot of people are saying that it feels like we’re back in 2008. But this is different,” said Phil Flynn, an analyst at PFGBest Research. “Now, we see oil doesn’t have to be near the high mark of $147 or $148 a barrel for gasoline to be closing in on a new record, and we’re going to come close to new records.”
We’re getting there, though.
This morning in London (from liveoilprices), Brent crude oil futures for June 2011 delivery was trading at $124.64 a barrel, while WTI (West Texas Intermediate) was up to $112.24 a barrel — the WTI up more than $2 since Monday.
Our entire world is oil-based and that base is about to bust.
Peak oil is no longer a fringe item, or a joke (or a joke with a really, really bad punchline), but an ugly slice of reality.
U.S. geologist M. King Hubbert predicted in 1956 the US would peak in its oil production between 1965 and 1970 — he was right — and the entire planet would run out of oil by 2000 — he was near right.
Hubbert’s big problem, however, was that he was way-too optimistic.
He’d figured other forms of energy would be found, the population would rise and everything would turn out somewhat peachy.
Wrong.
Gail Tverberg at The Oil Drum had a most-excellent post up this week explaining why Hubbert was not fatalistic enough, mainly to circumstances beyond oil, like wars, technology, and the like.
Tverberg (also with the Oil Drum blog handle of ‘Gail the Actuary‘) uses charts, graphs and all kinds of informational sources to show how the oil supply will quickly descend into the bowels of history.
A couple of money quotes:
EROEI means Energy Returned on Energy Invested.
It can be defined as the ratio of the amount of usable energy acquired from a particular energy resource to the amount of energy expended to obtain that energy resource.
Wikipedia says: ‘When the EROEI of a resource is equal to or lower than 1, that energy source becomes an “energy sink”, and can no longer be used as a primary source of energy.’
The situation is really worse than Wikipedia suggests.
An economy needs a certain level of energy just to keep its infrastructure (roads, bridges, schools, medical system, etc.) repaired and working, and citizens educated.
So energy resources, to really be useful, need an EROEI significantly higher than 1 to maintain the system at its current level of functioning.
How much higher than 1.0 the EROEI needs to be on average will depend on the economy.
An economy such as that of China, with relatively fewer paved roads and less expensive schools and healthcare system can probably get along with a much average lower EROEI (perhaps 4.0?) than an economy like the United States (perhaps 8.0), because of lesser infrastructure demands.
If the average EROEI available to society is falling because oil is becoming more and more difficult to extract, an economy with a high standard of living such as the US would seem likely to be affected before an economy with a lower standard of living, such as China or India or Bangladesh, because of the higher EROEI needs of the more extensive infrastructure.
Ultimately, though, the world is one economy, so problems in one country are likely to affect the economies of other countries as well.
…
The downslope of oil production can be expected to reflect a combination of different impacts.
Unless technology improvements truly have a huge impact, it would seem to me that the overall direction of the downslope is likely to be faster than Hubbert’s Curve would predict.
Read the whole post and marvel at the illustrations.
And read the comments section, too, because always at The Oil Drum much information passed amongst the readers as post authors (Gail the Actuary in this case) answers questions.
Stay away from the gas pump and life may not be so ugly — right now.
If Looks Could Laugh
Filed Under Musings | Leave a Comment
WTF — Sonofabitchin’ asshole of a shithead!
Researchers found that the students were able to keep their hands submerged in the icy water for longer when repeating the swear word — establishing a link between swearing and an increase in pain tolerance.
They also found that the pain-numbing effect was four times more likely to work in the volunteers who did not normally use bad language.
So, don’t work if you cuss a lot, huh?
Illustration found here).
Also from the abstract of the report, via UK’s The Independent:
Swearing increased pain tolerance, increased heart rate and decreased perceived pain compared with not swearing.
However, swearing did not increase pain tolerance in males with a tendency to catastrophise.
The observed pain-lessening (hypoalgesic) effect may occur because swearing induces a fight-or-flight response and nullifies the link between fear of pain and pain perception.
But, hey, cussing won’t help if some of us boys are drama queens, regarding every a bad, or not-so-good situation as if it were highly disastrous or completely catastrophic.
Yeah, but what if reality shit is real-bad shit?
Kelly B. Vlahos explains at antiwar.com:
But when was the last time Americans “felt safe,” really?
September 10, 2001? Haven’t the last ten years conspired to make us uneasy and pessimistic enough to go along — in quite large numbers — with an endless War on Terror, including two major military operations overseas, and a host of expanded police powers here at home that everyday denigrate our constitutional rights to privacy and freedom just a little more?
Certainly, we have borne witness to more dramatic natural disasters in recent times than seems, well, natural.
Before Japan, there was the 2004 earthquake and tsunami that killed over 230,000 in 14 South Asian countries; the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan that killed over 80,000 and left 3.5 million homeless; the 2010 earthquake in Haiti that left over 310,000 and 1 million (still) homeless; and the Chilean quake in 2010 (the country suffered two huge “aftershock” almost a year later in January, and then again in February).
…
Popular programming also reflects the corporate media’s key mission — making money — which fits quite well into Fear Inc.’s business model, and conveniently into any apocalyptic predictions to come down the great fire and brimstone way.
As a result, cable networks like the so-called History and Discovery Channels don’t care if people hit the panic button — just don’t grab for the remote control.
There appears to be no other explanation for the rise in graphic documentaries like Day After Disaster, Life After People, and Apocalypse Now.
Politics, government and corporations, all working together for a better End of the World.
As Discovery Channel asks, “Is the end of life on earth lurking just around the corner?”
And to just be on the safe side, f**k the Discovery Channel!
End Cycle
Filed Under Cloud gazing, Economy, Environment, Everything, War & Politics | Leave a Comment
Human life does indeed travel in cycles — spring, summer, fall and winter — with birth, youth, middle age and the final and abrupt circuit, death.
History also appears to move in cycles and the one we’re in right now ain’t pretty, portending a future of a poorly-dressed weird.
(Illustration found here).
In 1997, generational sociologists William Strauss and Neil Howe published “The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy – What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny,” which although written nearly 15 years ago describes the current US/world situation to a T.
According to the Strauss and Howe precept, history goes through an big change every 20 years or so, when all living generations enter a new phase, “turnings,” and apparently the process has four parts: First, there’s ‘the high;’ then followed by an ‘awakening,’ when new values assert themselves; third, an ‘unraveling,’ and fourth, logically, is the ‘crisis.’
Supposedly, we’re in the fourth right now.
James Howard Kunstler made indirect note of it in his post yesterday at Clusterfuck Nation.
Money bit:
To me, the outcome of all this was clear a while ago: a world made by hand.
Incidentally, watch Japan lead the way, as they give up on the industrial meth trip and return to a traditional society.
Readers think I’m kidding about this.
We’re heading there, too.
The signs are unmistakable.
It’s not as bad you think, either.
We’ll become reacquainted with that fugitive experience, reality.
Disillusion is not the worst thing that can happen to people.
We can re-direct all the effort that we put into gaming our own asses and cast off the awful weight of pretending to be what we no longer are.
Despite this era of clusterfucked reality, Kunstler is optimistic so long as the US can turn the corner.
But can it?
The US has endured three Fourth Turnings — the American Revolution, the Civil War era, the 1929 stock market crash and WWII — and now we’re in the fourth of the Four Turnings (a mouthful), supposedly starting with the Wall Street induced housing/financial system collapse in 2007-2009.
Libertarian Jim Quinn examined the Strauss and Howe plot in a post Sunday at Nolan Chart.
The US and the world is currently in the spring-load of a big event with Quinn writing the problem appears much heavier than in the past.
A few nuggets:
The catalyst for the American Revolution was the Boston Tea Party.
The catalyst for the Civil War was the election of Abraham Lincoln.
The catalyst for the Great Depression was the 1929Stock market crash.
The catalyst for the current Crisis was the housing/financial system collapse.
The catalyst is an event that terminates the brooding mood of the Unraveling and unleashes the fury of a Crisis.
The three previous Crisis periods in American history were driven by different events, but similar generational dynamics.
By closely examining the dynamics and threats that were facing the country during these previous Crisis periods, we may be able to peer into the murky fog of the future and make out the phantoms of events to come.
What we know for sure is every previous Crisis had an economic and fairness dimension that provided the initial spark, triggering a series of events that eventually led to an all encompassing war for survival.
…
Walt Whitman foresaw vast armies on the march and old orders being swept away by the historic denouements that were rapidly approaching.
But even he couldn’t have foreseen the butchery and tragic deaths of over 600,000 men in the next four bloody years.
The economic dimensions of the current Crisis were foreseeable at least a decade before the Crisis arrived. The Federal Reserve, under the wise supervision of former Ayn Rand disciple Alan Greenspan, progressively blew one bubble after another through its easy money policies.
The Greenspan Put allowed the Wall Street vampire squids to suck the life out of the American economic system without fear of being harpooned for taking financial system endangering leveraged bets.
The financial oligarchs used their influence, power and vast wealth to repeal Glass-Steagall, capture and buy off the rating agencies, neuter the SEC and other regulatory agencies and place their executives in high level government positions.
The ruling wealthy elite again matched their peak take of the national income, just as they did in 1928.
…
Amidst the financial chaos will be the ever present peak oil issue.
The increasingly high prices and imminent shortages of supply will exacerbate the pain for the American people.
The current War on Terror is really a cover for keeping American troops in the Middle East as a forward vanguard to keep the oil flowing.
The U.S. consumes 7 billion barrels of oil per year and will use all means necessary to keep it flowing.
With a Boomer Prophet leader invoking American manifest destiny, it is likely we will intervene to protect Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait in the name of democracy.
A terrorist incident in the U.S. would provide convenient cover for further intervention in the Middle East.
As with most wars the unintended consequences will overwhelm the best laid plans of politicians and generals.
Further U.S. intervention into an already exploding Middle East will likely spur a larger conflict between Islam and Christianity.
Ground zero could shift to Europe as millions of Muslims have settled there and will not react positively to western powers siphoning oil from Islamic countries in the name of Christianity.
History has taught us that Fourth Turnings end in all out war.
The outcome of wars is always in doubt.
Quinn, however, does not factor in climate change, a game-breaker, ball-buster of an influence.
Too Much of Everything
Filed Under Cloud gazing, Technology, Weather | Leave a Comment
Peter: Let me ask you something. When you come in on Mondays, and you’re not feeling too well, does anybody ever come up to you and say “sounds like
someone’s got a case of the Mondays”?
Lawrence: No. No, man, shit, no, man. I believe you’d get your ass kicked for
sayin’ something like that, man.
– Office Space
Surfing the Internet news this early morning finds all kinds of shit popping up all over the globe, and most of it horrible — from this weekend’s tornado surge in the US southeast (45 killed, more than 200 twisters in three days) to five US GIs killed in Afghanistan on Saturday to another US air traffic controller caught napping on the job, this time in Miami (that make seven so far caught on the doze) to Brent oil futures near $123 a barrel (West Texas Intermediate nearing $110 a barrel) and crazed Nicolas Cage arrested Saturday on a New Orleans street for public drunkeness while yelling at his old lady — Cage is said to have taunted cops into taking him into custody, repeatedly refusing their request to quietly go home and asking, “Why don’t you just arrest me?” The officers ultimately obliged, charging Cage with disturbing the peace and domestic violence.
(Illustration found here).
Other than that life is just a peach.
And the pit of a peach, Sara Palin, and her blubbering on Saturday while in Wisconsin: “I’m here as a patriot, as a taxpayer, and as a former union member.”
Another weekend heap of bullshit:
Beltrami (Vince Beltrami, president of Alaska AFL-CIO,) was irked by the “utter hypocrisy” of Sarah urging (via Facebook) her “union brothers and sisters” to oppose the protests against Wisconsin Gov. Walker’s signing into law a bill that stripped public employees of union rights.
He wrote, “She belonged to my union, the IBEW, for about a minute, over twenty years ago, one summer, in a temporary position.”
Hello Monday, here we go again!