Hossein Turner's Blog

Would Ron Paul save America, even if he was elected?

2012-01-22T15:37:00.000-08:00

"Ron Paul has yet to win a Republican primary or caucus. But his aim is to steadily gain delegates, building a movement and perhaps getting recognition at his party's nominating convention." - The Christian Science Monitor, January 22nd - 2012.

"Dr Ron Paul, who on the issue of money and the Federal Reserve - has been right for 25 years. There is no doubt that his critique of fiat money, of inflation and the Federal Reserve is absolutely in the right direction - and something I can support strongly" - Newt Gingrich

Congressman Ron Paul is running as a Republican Presidential candidate in the current US elections. At the time of writing, he is very much the under-dog in this race. Many see him as merely the head of a symbolic movement, rather than a serious candidate for Presidency. However, his message has been garnering an increasing amount of popular support for some years; particularly with respect to his views on domestic economic policy (as can be seen in the Newt Gingrich quote above). As a politician, he has garnered a reputation as being consistent in both his beliefs and voting record, as well as his personal integrity. He has been portrayed by the mainstream media as somewhat of an outsider, a man representing the "libertarian" niche of the Republican party. Libertarians, in a nutshell - are a group of people who have very strong convictions in limiting the powers of the Federal government and protecting "property rights" and "individual liberty". They often see themselves as champions of "the free market". Ron Paul does somewhat differ from the other candidates in the Republican field; at least..in his rhetoric and voting record. He strongly opposes bills such as The Patriot Act and the more recent National Defence Authorization Act - which seriously impact the liberties and rights of individuals inside the United States. He has vociferously opposed the bailouts of the banks, as well as opposed the wars overseas. His views on the post-9/11 attacks on civil liberties, his pro-drug policy and foreign policy have drawn quite a few "progressives" (essentially the mainstream American left-wing) to supporting him as a candidate for President. At first glance, Ron Paul seems like an attractive choice for people on both sides of the political spectrum, even if he does have a few unpalatable views on the role of social programs such as government healthcare and social security. However, Ron Paul is not as attractive a candidate as many people have been led to believe, and therefore - if he bows out of the Republican race, it may not be that much of a consequence for America or the world.

On an evening in New Hampshire, earlier in January - Ron Paul gave a speech in front of his supporters. Some of his words were particularly revealing:-

Ron Paul: "This is the first presidential campaign that the subject ever came up since the Federal Reserve was started. So we are now -- because of what is happening, it will remain a dominant issue. There’s no way they’re going to put it to bed, because they have destroyed our money. It’s worldwide. There’s a financial crisis going on. And it’s only sound money and personal liberty that can solve the crisis that we have today."

"So just -- just as we have been able to bring to the forefront that most important issue of funny money, fiat money, the paper money system, the Federal Reserve, we have brought to the forefront -- others have tokenly talked about it."

Ron Paul points a straight accusation at the Federal Reserve for destroying the money of the United States. He then points to "sound money" as one of his solutions. The Federal Reserve is certainly a questionnable institution, and is not really worthy of defending (but I'll get to that later). The words "sound money" are an allusion to gold-backed or silver-backed money (which will also be explored later). Ron Paul mentions "paper money", but one should ask the question: - Isn't most of the money in the United States (if not, the world) created on computer in the form of credit? Why place the sole blame on the Fed? Why not blame the regulators and their delegators who failed to do their jobs?

Ron Paul: "They -- they -- they argue that that is the case. But the thing of it is, the people, the bleeding hearts -- and I understand them and I recognize them, and I believe most of them are well intended -- but it doesn’t work, is the problem. All that good intentions, of saying, we’re going to give everybody a free house and have no loans and then they can borrow against, you know, the equity, and look what happened. It was a bubble. It burst. And they lost their houses."

While it is sensible and logical to criticise such a scenario of lending that Ron Paul depicts.....in reality; there is more to this. Ron Paul's statements miss the cruel reality of leverage-fraud (criminal actions) committed by the banking institutions.

On the 18th of November, Ron Paul gave a speech at a Town Hall meeting in Anamosa, Iowa. His official website labels the speech with the title "Ron Paul explains the economic crisis". Again, I have extracted some of the more notable parts of his speech for critical commentary:-

Ron Paul: "We’re seeing the consequence of many, many, decades of spending too much, allowing our government to grow, allowing our liberties to be undermined, allowing our military to do so many things it shouldn’t be doing and neglecting the things it should be doing."

Ron Paul: "way back after World War II was over and they devised a monetary system called the Bretton-Woods Agreement; nobody was to have a true gold standard, but we would have a partial gold standard. And our country was the wealthiest and we had some 700 million ounces of gold, more than any other country ever held. So they said, “Well, the dollar will be as good as the gold, so all the other currencies will be connected to the dollar”. And they thought that meant that it would be as good as gold forever. But there was one man by the name of Henry Hazlitt who, in 1944 when they set this up, said, “It won’t work, the governments will be tempted, and particularly our government, to print too much money”, and they did that. So more dollars were printed, we gave a lot of money away as foreign aid, the money went overseas, and the commitment was that anybody that turned in $35 could get an ounce of gold, if you were a foreigner. If you were an American, you weren’t even allowed to own gold. So anyway, that happened, and our gold supply went from over 700 million ounces of gold down to under 300 million ounces of gold. And that happened in 1971, Richard Nixon said, “No more gold standard”, he eliminated the gold standard with an executive order, and it was on that day that it dawned on me what age we were ushering in"

One of the key questions to ask here is whether the government is actually printing too much money? Or is it printing too much debt-based money (i.e. credit) at the behest of the privately-owned Federal Reserve? The answer to this question is really the latter:-

"A United States Note, also known as a Legal Tender Note, is a type of paper money that was issued from 1862 to 1971 in the U.S. Having been current for over 100 years, they were issued for longer than any other form of U.S. paper money. They were known popularly as "greenbacks" in their heyday, a name inherited from the Demand Notes that they replaced in 1862. Often called Legal Tender Notes, they were called United States Notes by the First Legal Tender Act, which authorized them as a form of fiat currency" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Note

Is the Federal Reserve a government institution? No. But that will be explored later.

Another question to ask of Ron Paul's speech is -: What makes gold and silver so special? Is it really the only thing that deserves to be fit into the category of "sound money"? England had a system where the majority of the money in circulation was in the form of tally-sticks for over 700 years. I produced a blogpost about this here. Gold is a product of the wealthy, and has been historically controlled by the wealthy. Should the wealthy owners of gold and silver control the quantity of money in circulation? These are serious questions to ponder. Wouldn't it be better to have a monetary system that meets the needs of those who are most in need? That meets the need of infrastructure? That is backed-up not only by real physical resources, but also by the willingness of people to labor for the purpose of creating a happier work-life balance?

Ron Paul: "You take the housing crisis that we have, people really wanted people to have a house, which is a good incentive. I happen to believe that if you want the maximum number of people to have a house, you ought to do it the old fashioned way: hard work, effort, pay, save your money, and build and pay for your house. I think that’s the way we get the best. But no, we wanted an easy ride, so the Fed said, “We’ll create the money that you need, we’ll pass out the money to the banks and they can make these loans. And the loans will be guaranteed”. Then it got out of control, the banks started speculating, they had derivatives and there was gambling going on and they created the housing bubble. But when you pump a lot of money into an industry, people may get houses, but also the prices go up. Initially people say, “Well, that’s wonderful, my $100,000 house is worth a $150,000, so I’ll go out and borrow more money”. So the whole thing went on for 20 years or so, so there was an obvious bubble there. So the bubble burst, as was predicted,"

Ron Paul lays the blame at the Federal Reserve's door. While the Fed shares the blame, it did NOT simply "create the money" that the banksters needed. Many derivatives are simply created out of thin air by private banks all the time, there is a lot of global interbank lending going on and a lot of this activity was fraudulent:-

"As a white-collar criminologist and former financial regulator much of my research studies what causes financial markets to become profoundly dysfunctional. The FBI has been warning of an "epidemic" of mortgage fraud since September 2004. It also reports that lenders initiated 80% of these frauds.1 When the person that controls a seemingly legitimate business or government agency uses it as a "weapon" to defraud we categorize it as a "control fraud" ("The Organization as 'Weapon' in White Collar Crime." Wheeler & Rothman 1982; The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. Black 2005). Financial control frauds' "weapon of choice" is accounting. Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime -- combined. Control fraud epidemics can arise when financial deregulation and desupervision and perverse compensation systems create a "criminogenic environment" (Big Money Crime. Calavita, Pontell & Tillman 1997.)"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/the-two-documents-everyon_b_169813.html

William K.Black is a former regulator. He does not mince his words. Here he is on PBS, effectively accusing the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations of criminal negligence:-

Ron Paul is saying the Fed controls the banks, whereas - in reality, the Fed is controlled by the banks (look at the sort of people who sit on the Board of the NY Fed for example):-

http://www.ny.frb.org/aboutthefed/orgchart/board/dimon.html

Ron Paul does not mention the word "criminal" at all. He uses the word "speculation", which is not inherently criminal given the fact it is a function of a typical market economy. Why is Ron Paul not demanding an end to the blatant protection of criminals in the Obama administration?

Ron Paul: "Congress created a trillion dollars and spent a trillion dollars bailing out the special interests. But the Fed created 15 trillion dollars, 5 of which went to overseas banks. Just the other day, when Bernanke had his press conference where they talk a lot about the debt crisis in Europe, he said, “We’ll stand by, we’re keeping an eye on it and, if necessary, to keep the banks solvent, we’re going to do it.” The only tool they have is to print more money. But now the confidence has been lost, the credit rating has been downgraded once recently, and it’s about to be downgraded again because our debt is too big. So, in the summertime, people are starting to realize the crisis."

Yes, it was blatantly wrong to bail-out the banking criminals who created the crisis - with all the fall-out of unemployment and wage-cuts that entails. The Fed should be brought to heel. The criminals should be punished, and seignority of debt and some form of monetary reform should occur. But Ron, who controls the rating agencies? (again - let us refer back to William K. Black who stated that the ratings agencies were complicit in the fraud due to their refusal to review loan files they were tasked with rating. They even gave triple-A ratings to cases that were saturated with fraud).

Ron Paul: "The truth is that we’re bankrupt and this can’t continue and, therefore, we have to cut spending. And this is why A. J. mentioned my program is asking for a modest cut in the first year; cut 1 trillion dollars, show the people we’re serious, and we need to cut spending."

How about - WE NEED TO STOP BORROWING FROM LEVERAGE-FRAUDSTERS, WHEN WE CAN CREATE MONEY DEBT-FREE! How about this Ron? Why not mention the American Monetary Institutes monetary reform plan? Why sacrifice a decent life and job for everybody for the sake of paying back debts to criminals? Ron Paul's austerity program is very severe. It is the sort of austerity that bankers are pushing for in places like Europe....for example:-
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-13/monti-s-party-of-bankers-prompts-warning

Ron Paul is saying "we need to cut". But there is no such need. A sovereign nation is in charge of its money-supply. It has the power to create money debt-free and spend it on infrastructure repair or on other useful assets and projects. It has this power, just as much as it has the power to prosecute fraudsters in financial institutions and demand compensation for the damage they have wrought worldwide. If there do need to be cuts, it should really be in the form of excess waste of energy and useless production that does little to improve the quality of life for most people (but that's another issue which will be briefly explored later).

Ron Paul: "And under these conditions, it usually ends up with a currency crisis, runaway inflation, and everybody suffers, that means the checks bounce. Yes, the government keeps printing money, the prices soar."

How much money has the government really printed, Mr Paul?

Again - how much government-money is really being printed? Let's look at the ownership of the Federal Reserve:-

"It will be clear from the following points that the Fed is definitely not part of the US Government:
* The Fed is not organized within the Executive, Legislative or Judicial branches of our government.
* Who pays the Fed’s bills and determines its budget? Not any part of our government. The Fed gets its funding from its own specially privileged operations. The Fed Board determines Fed budgets.
* Who monitors and oversees Fed activities? Again the Fed itself. While some important elements of proper auditing have taken place, there has not yet been a comprehensive independent audit, by the Government Accountability Office as proposed in a recent letter from Ralph Nader to new Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, calling for greater monetary transparency.
* Federal Reserve Employees are not part of the US Civil Service System and are not covered by government employees’ health insurance or pension programs. Who does the hiring and firing? Except for the highly publicized Chairman and 7 member Washington Board, this is in private, unelected hands.
* Federal Reserve Banks are not listed as government organizations by the telephone companies, a small but telling fact.
Here is how the Fed describes the Control situation, in the FAQ’s on its website:
“As the nation’s central bank, the Federal Reserve derives its authority from the U.S. Congress. It is considered an independent central bank because its decisions do not have to be ratified by the President or anyone else in the executive or legislative branch of government, it does not receive funding appropriated by Congress, and the terms of the members of the Board of Governors span multiple presidential and congressional terms. However, the Federal Reserve is subject to oversight by Congress, which periodically reviews its activities and can alter its responsibilities by statute. Also, the Federal Reserve must work within the framework of the overall objectives of economic and financial policy established by the government. Therefore, the Federal Reserve can be more accurately described as “independent within the government.”
http://www.monetary.org/is-the-federal-reserve-system-a-governmental-or-a-privately-controlled-organization/2008/02

Federal Reserve notes are not United States Notes. The Fed is a private body operating under a government facade.

Ron Paul: "Even today, those on retirement, fixed incomes, and Social Security, are not keeping up with the cost of living. So their income is actually going down. Well, if we don’t do something about it, that will be accelerated, it will be massive. And the more people need something, and the more the government tries to give it to them, the worse the problem will get. That is why I think it’s so important that, we as a people, come together and say, “The problem is too much government, too much spending, too much special interests, we have to cut something”. So where are we going to start to cut? Well, I have a list of the priorities, and I think at the top of the priority on where I would cut, is all the overseas spending and welfare and foreign aid and all the activities. We should have a government designed to take care of us here at home, that is where I think we should start."

Do people not deserve decent lives Mr Paul? Why should their living standards come down, while the super-rich continue to run away with hordes of money?

Economic researcher David DeGraw (and founder of the 99% movement) wrote the following:-

"Just look at the bailout of Wall Street: trillions of dollars in national wealth were given to the people who engaged in fraudulent activity and crashed the economy. They then used the public’s wealth to give themselves all-time record-breaking bonuses. And now, while the rich people who caused this crisis have never been richer, the government is giving them tax breaks and cutting vital programs that we need to keep our society functioning. To say that America has descended into a neo-feudal banana republic is not using bombastic rhetoric or hyperbole, it is a technical fact to anyone who spends time analyzing our current economic and socio-political condition."
http://ampedstatus.org/the-richest-0-1-have-launched-a-war-on-us-its-time-to-fight-back-and-hold-these-400-billionaires-personally-responsible-for-our-economic-crisis/

No chance of getting these people to give the money back to the people, Mr Paul? Are the multi-billionaires in the US angrily marching in the streets over the actions of the tiny percentage of bankers who have bankrupted their own institutions and the country? Are they offering to invest their money into protecting the poor or creating decent jobs for the needy? Or offering training schemes to help people into decent jobs? No! The unemployment situation remains, and politicians seem to be offering nothing more than austerity.

Cuts to domestic spending
---------------------------------------

On Ron Paul's Presidential campaign website, you can find a document titled "Plan To Restore America". In this ambitious document, Ron Paul and his team set out their aims to cut $1 trillion out of the budget in one year. Most of the cuts come out of programs such as Medicaid and nutritional programs for pregnant mothers (domestic programs), rather than the majority of cuts coming from defence and military spending. This goes directly against Ron Paul's statement above where he said:-

"Well, I have a list of the priorities, and I think at the top of the priority on where I would cut, is all the overseas spending and welfare and foreign aid and all the activities. We should have a government designed to take care of us here at home, that is where I think we should start."

One of the more concerning cuts in this programme, are the cuts to foreign aid. In theory, the consequences of such cuts could result in more deaths than all of those in the post-9/11 wars put together. Ron Paul proposes cutting ALL US foreign aid. Some of this aid is very bad - i.e. it goes to corrupt groups around the world, and food aid is often used as an economic weapon. However, there are situations where natural disasters do occur and there are serious questions as to whether charity donations from most citizens will be sufficient. Will the rich members of society donate generously? Which charities can be trusted? Before all government emergency aid programmes are scrapped - there should be serious contemplation as to the consequences. Given that the US provides the majority of all the emergency food aid on the planet (originally started as a result of JFK's "Food for Peace" programme), this COULD amount to a lot of potential deaths as a result of such cuts. It could shock the world. Cutting Aid to 0% does not sound very humanitarian.

It is actually impossible for Ron Paul to cut $1 trillion out of the US budget (in one year) without cutting more domestic spending than military spending. This makes it odd for a "progressive" or "left-wing" person to support him as a person with the right priorities. The sheer amount of domestic cuts he makes, have no justification - when prosecuting the banksters (who caused the debt-crisis in the first place) and enacting monetary reform (debt-free money) would make far more sense. Again, there has been no word from Ron Paul about the criminal leverage-fraudsters in Wall-Street. Instead, he continues to push the traditional conservative-libertarian line of "too much government printing" as causing the crisis. But the government borrows from fraudsters and bankers - it doesn't create its own debt-free money (except for coinage - which makes up a tiny fraction of the money supply).

Ron Paul voted for Ronald Reagan to be President (even though he later berated Reagan for being a defecit-spending failure), and then - in the recent 2012 election campaign; USED Ronald Reagan in political adverts for his campaign. He clearly wants to attract the hard-right element of the Republican base - nevermind the fact that most Americans are far to the left of that position (some say that it was apathy that gave the US Ronald Reagan). This Pew Research survey yielded some interesting results as to the political positions of the US public:-

http://www.people-press.org/2011/12/28/little-change-in-publics-response-to-capitalism-socialism/

It is possible to criticize Ron Paul from a libertarian "free-market" position. For example, Ron Paul publically defended Romney's exploits with Bain capital:-

“I think they’re wrong. I think they’re totally misunderstanding the way the market works,” Paul told me. “They are either just demagoguing or they don’t have the vaguest idea how the market works.”
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/abc-exclusive-ron-paul-defends-romney-lashes-out-at-his-critics/

“You know, they come in and say, look, restructuring in the free market is a good idea, and I don’t know anything about Bain, so I’m not taking a position on that, and I haven’t looked at it and I have no idea what he did or didn’t do, but the principle of restructuring is a good thing in the marketplace,” he said.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/203419-ron-paul-defends-romney-against-bain-attacks

Perhaps Ron Paul should've bothered to do research before commenting. Or maybe he could've just said "I don't know anything about Bain, so I'm not taking a position on that".

While Romney was at Bain, he took over a South Carolina steel company, screwed it up and then dumped the pensions obligations onto the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. The taxpayer had to pay $44 million, rather than the seignority of debt process via the asset-stripping parasites from Romney et al. This is not the behaviour of "the free market".

Ron Paul's intention of ending the Fed (even though it is not stated in his "Plan To Restore America") will not fix the economy. Ron Paul needs to have a program for government revenue, WITHOUT causing huge amounts of pain for everybody else - or making people work 12+ hours a day at even lower wages.

Ron Paul also has problems with "regulating" the financial sector. A sector that is barely even regulated already! The "regulators" are brought in by the same criminals who caused the crisis! Regulation is needed to ensure that these CEO's (whom former regulators like William K. Black have mentioned) don't get away with flooding the market with liars loans like they did to produce this crisis. In essence, regulation is just a means of enforcing existing fraud laws via the mandating of specified protocols.

The man on the left is known as "Chainsaw Gilleran". In 2003, he was the head of the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). A regulatory agency. Rather than promote good oversight of the banking institutions, he shows up at a press conference with a chainsaw pointed towards a pile of papers that symbolically depict "regulations" or "red-tape":-

Are these the sort of people that Ron Paul agrees with?

Does RP want to outlaw derivatives and CDS instruments? After all, that would make the job of banking regulation far easier and less laborious. I haven't heard him demand an end to them or any form of leverage fraud. Indeed, it was the Ronald Reagan admin that gutted regulation so that it would be much easier for fraud to go undetected. This deregulation continued under Clinton, then Bush and onto Obama. But sure - the "market" can regulate itself right? What is this "market"? And can it be trusted in the hands of financial predators? Former regulator William K. Black (who dealt with the SNL's) says that the Federal Reserve had the power to deal with the CEO's of these banks that had been involved in control fraud and liar's loans. But they never used it. Here he is testifying in front of the House Financial Services Committee:-

It my opinion, that the Federal Reserve should be nationalized and put under control of an independent body within the US government (rather than its current private Wall-Street control). Ron Paul would have the Fed abolished, regulations gutted and the bankers allowed to produce all sorts of "competing currencies". There is no evidence that this "free banking" experiment would work well, particularly if it allowed for the same sort of complex derivatives within an environment of lax regulation. Ron Paul has often promoted the idea of "gold"-backed money. The head of the World Bank called for a form of that two years ago (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/nov/08/world-bank-new-gold-standard), albeit Ron Paul followers would probably criticise it for being a half-baked gold-standard that is little different to Bretton Woods.

Ron Paul was clearly right to oppose the taxpayer bailing out the banks (while the other candidates did not). However, who did the majority of the bailouts? The privately-owned Federal Reserve. Again. How does that work? The Fed gets the Treasury to print "Federal Reserve" notes, but only for a tiny proportion of the economy. Most of the money is simply created on computer - and sent around the world. Ron Paul wants to end the Fed and would stop this bail-out process. But what is to stop the bankers from simply bailing themselves out via a central chamber of commerce in the private marketplace? They could simply create money out of thin air and then use it to buy various assets and debt-instruments (think of this as a privatised equivalent of the Quantitative Easing programmes that Central Banks have engaged in). The Federal Reserve has engaged in Quantitative Easing; and crucially - it is a privately-owned institution. It is beyond the oversight of the US Congress and other democratically elected people. But then again - so is "the market". Can the "market" be reformed to work for the people? And is Ron Paul offering such reforms?

Ron Paul claims to be a "champion of the Constitution" (his words from the 2008 elections). He even recently mentioned the Constitution in the same vein as the "The Ten Commandments":-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5NnPoH7HbI

Ron Paul often repeats the phrase from the US constitution "No State shall ... coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts". He has often used this to claim that the US government cannot print money. However, the provision cited in quotations above - is about the payment of debts with respect to individual states. The constitution also explicitly gives the Federal government the power to coin its own money.

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution states:

"To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;"

Paulites will use the word "coin" to tell you that this is referring to "gold" or "silver". However, as monetary researcher Bill Still said recently:-

"Coin" could be money made of leather according to the English usage of the day according to Professor Robert G. Natelson of Harvard (see my book, "No More National Debt"). Also, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that "coin" is, in essence a verb, thereby authorizing the issuance of paper money for the United States in Gulliard v. Greenman, 1884.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgn8_wRpUHA&feature=channel_video_title

Paulites may claim that Article 1, Section 8 only refers to regulation of government-created money, and not private money in circulation and thus, the government can allow the marketplace to produce competing currencies. This is possible. However, Ron Paul would damage the sovereignty of the United States government in the process. Libertarians are not interested in government sovereignty, of course. They're believers in a deregulated market-place.

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Joseph Story (and famed defender of conservative "property rights") commented on this section of the Constitution by saying:-

"The power to coin money is one of the ordinary prerogatives of sovereignty, and is almost universally exercised in order to preserve a proper circulation of good coin of a known value in the home market. In order to secure it from debasement it is necessary, that it should be exclusively under the control and regulation of the government; for if every individual were permitted to make and circulate, what coin he should please, there would be an opening to the grossest frauds and impositions upon the public, by the use of base and false coin."
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_5s10.html

Let us look at Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution again (with the issue of monetary sovereignty in mind):-

"To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;"

The most important phrase here is "regulate the Value thereof". Ron Paul created a Bill that would repeal legal tender laws and push for competing currencies:-

"On March 15, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) introduced H.R. 1098, better known as the “Free Competition in Currency Act of 2011,” which would repeal the legal tender laws in the United States Code (Section 5103 of Title 31). In its elegant simplicity (the bill is only three pages), it would be the first step to restoring a sound currency by allowing American citizens to choose which currency among competing currencies works best for them."
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/congress/8972-ron-paul-wants-competing-currencies

This directly affects the ability of the Federal government in regulating "the Value thereof" with respect to money created inside the United States. The Constitution requires the government to regulate the quantity of money in circulation. Some people would argue that this only applies to government-created money, and again - their argument could be valid. However, it can also be argued that it could both erode monetary sovereignty and invite unregulated fraud and debt-deflation in the process. It is very important to state, that the US government does NOT regulate the quantity of money in circulation at this present time. The regulation is done by the privately-owned Federal Reserve and the big banks (such as JP Morgan Chase) that influence it directly. The criminals in a highly dysfunctional "market-place" are in control of the money-supply, and not a democratically elect. Ron Paul would simply allow for the existing big banks to continue creating new money as debt or new money claiming to be backed by assets. At the same time, he would prevent the government from creating money - unless it is "backed" by gold and silver. A very controversial move, to say the least.

In essence, he seems to want unregulated banking institutions to control the quantity of money. And what happens when the CEO's of banks cause another crash? Even, after the Federal Reserve stops existing? The fraudsters at these banking institutions could simply start purchasing gold and silver and other high-value assets and then the bankers and mining-company oligarchs could (in theory) have total control over everybody in the country. And what about loans to businesses? If there is not enough gold or silver or copper to back what they loan to you; then will people get a loan? Libertarian economist Murray Rothbard has written that the quantity or weight of gold is not a problem. But are there reliable empirical historical examples to support his views? It is very easy for economists to spin things so that the idea of expensive-money becomes attractive.

And once the "market" controls the power to create money - then they will control the State governments and the Federal government. They will most likely push for a regressive taxation system. Does this mean that people will have to rely on charity for decent schools, hospitals, infrastructure, social security, wage protections, etc. Why would gold-investors, silver-investors and unregulated bankers invest in your business unless they were convinced that you would make a profit within a decent time-frame? Why do that when your rivals are investing in global businesses or ventures with a high-velocity turn-over, hot-money speculation, and so forth? There are so many difficulties and dangers with a free "competing currency" system that Ron Paul is pushing for. The biggest danger comes with Ron Paul's idea of selling off government assets to private companies. If a debt-free currency (generated via a democratically-accountable elect) is maintained in order to give the people a decent safety-net, whilst improving their lives and prospects - then there could be a reasonable place for competing private currencies alongside a government one. Progressives pushing for Ron Paul, really need to contemplate these sort of things.

Ron Paul's domestic budgetary spending freezes and cuts are a very legitimate concern. Programmes offering high-protein meals to pregnant mothers, dental-health subsidies and general freezes to Medicaid are worrying. There is no evidence that private charity will fill the gap to a sufficient degree. Some may argue that this is only a spending freeze. However, the economic situation WILL continue to worsen and this will mean more people unemployed, and thus more people requiring the Federal and State governments' to assist them under programs such as Medicaid and S-CHIP. Who will these people turn to? Private charity? There WILL be a big shortfall and people will suffer needlessly as a result of these spending freezes. Rather than prosecuting the banksters and enacting fundamental monetary reform (that opposes the debt-based monetary system), Ron Paul is simply promoting austerity. The same austerity-programme that the political elite are pushing on Europe (albeit much harsher). Thankfully, Ron Paul does spare Medicare and Social Security from spending freezes - so his austerity could have been worse.

Cuts to Defense Spending
--------------------------------------

Ron Paul's proposed Pentagon budget is very much within the post-9/11 world of global military spending. For example, his 2013 projection in the "Plan To Restore America" exceeds the spending for 2005. RP's plan shows Pentagon spending then INCREASING (very gradually) from 2013 to 2016.

From that chart you can see a $200 billion increase in military spending if you compare 2001 with RP's spending plans. What sort of significance does that have?

The POGO group (Project on Government Oversight) was quoted in the following Washington Spectator article as having discovered some interesting stats:-

"Since 2000, the Defense Department has spent more than $1.5 trillion on service contractors, with the contractors’ cost to taxpayers almost tripling each year. (Do names like Halliburton and Blackwater ring a bell?) POGO reports that the $200 billion the DOD spends on contractors each year is $50 billion more than what is spent on all uniformed personnel in the service branches. That is $50 billion more than was spent on all active duty, reserve, and national guard employed by the DOD." http://www.washingtonspectatorblog.org/home/2011/11/21/how-to-cut-445-billion-without-a-supercommittee-2/

In perspective, we can look at SOCOM (who are involved in over 75 countries) and look at their budget since 2001:-

"From a force of about 37,000 in the early 1990s, Special Operations Command personnel have grown to almost 60,000, about a third of whom are career members of SOCOM; the rest have other military occupational specialties, but periodically cycle through the command.
Growth has been exponential since September 11, 2001, as SOCOM's baseline budget almost tripled from $2.3 billion to $6.3 billion. If you add in funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has actually more than quadrupled to $9.8 billion in these years. Not surprisingly, the number of its personnel deployed abroad has also jumped four-fold."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/south_asia/mh05df01.htm

By 2006, we had significant US troop and private contractor movements in Afghanistan and Iraq. If RP wants to bring troops home from Afghanistan and the Gulf regions and around the world - why does his budget projection show the same spending signature as the 2006 period? This is a crucial question. Somebody told me on a forum that Ron Paul's "Defence Spending" projections are down to the costs of treating veterans from the Iraq and Afghan wars. But this is blatantly untrue, as you can see here:-

"In a hearing before the panel on Wednesday, Heidi Golding, an analyst with the Congressional Budget Office, testified that the annual cost of caring for veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would nearly triple or more in the next decade, rising to $5.5 billion to $8.4 billion in 2020, from $1.9 billion in 2010.
In that hearing, Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, also raised concerns that veterans’ disability checks might not be paid if Congress fails to raise the debt limit next week.
With an annual budget of more than $125 billion, the Department of Veterans Affairs runs a nationwide health care system that cares for more than eight million people who have left military service, of which about 700,000 are from the current wars. The agency also administers disability compensation for millions of veterans wounded in service."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/us/28veterans.html

There is, technically, nothing stopping RP from getting back down to 2001 levels. So why does his spending reflect 2006 levels with gradual increasing increments? Does Ron Paul and his team have a good excuse here? Or maybe they will change their defense-spending projections in another manifesto release? And if they do - can their integrity and consistency be trusted?

Ron Paul has given many public statements that oppose militarism. Here are some examples from a speech he gave at the University of Iowa back in October:-

"Buying weapons we don't need.and enriching the military-industrial complex. But that is complicated by people being talked into for patriotic reasons that
you can't resist any military spending and you have to endlessly fight wars - if not, you're not patriotic".

"We have no moral authority to force ourselves on other people, and we have no moral authority to accept this notion of pre-emptive war."

"I have argued for many years about a non-interventionist foreign policy and I've always been convinced I will win this argument. We will win this argument."

"The sooner we bring all our troops home, the better it will be for our economy"

"And this is not just bringing them home from the wars, we're bringing home from the leftovers from the old wars. Why are we in Japan? Korea? Germany?"

"We can immediately bring the troops home. Instead of building more and more bases overseas like we're doing now, we have 900 bases,. we're building
more of these drone bases - just aggravating the people of the world - I would say bring the troops home."

"They claim that we're in war against terrorism, and they use that term rather loosely because terrorism of course isn't a country - how can you declare
wars against terrorism. Terrorism is a tactic, it's a wicked mean tactic."

"This whole idea that we have to have a perpetual war going on is only there to make sure that we're intimidated and that if you don't obey exactly what
they want, you're unpatriotic"
http://www.ronpaul.com/2011-10-21/ron-paul-as-president-ill-bring-the-troops-home-immediately/

While Ron Paul opposed the Iraq war, he did vote for military action against "Al Qaeda" in 2001:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/27/afghanistan-congress

As soon as this started to turn into a prolonged war; Ron Paul criticised the intervention as being a distraction from going after Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. The intervention in Afghanistan turned into an occupation. The important question to ask here, is - does Ron Paul know about the 9/11 cover-up? Is he aware that 9/11 is an unsolved crime (rather than an act of war)? Is he aware of government lies and treason? If so, why doesn't he speak out?

Have a watch of this video:-

Ron Paul was very defensive in his reaction to the question put by the ABC newsreader. He completely ridicules the idea "that the Bush administration might have known about the attacks ahead of time". But is it rediculous?

This is a compilation of mainstream news sources:-
http://www.buzzflash.com/perspectives/911bush.html

Has Ron Paul bothered to talk to 9/11 Family Steering Committee members about this important issue? Here is Jersey Girl Mindy Kleinberg speaking in 2004:-

And with regard to the question of "blowback" - is this really the whole story? Or is there something more nefarious? Researcher Nafeez Mosadeq Ahmed writes:-

"From the mid-1990s, bin Laden funded Chechen guerrilla leaders Shamil Basayev and Omar ibn al-Khattab to the tune of several millions of dollars per month, sidelining the moderate Chechen majority.21 US intelligence remained deeply involved until the end of the decade. According to Yossef Bodanksy, then-Director of the US Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Washington was actively involved in ‘yet another anti-Russian jihad, ‘seeking to support and empower the most virulent anti-Western Islamist forces’. US Government officials participated in ‘a formal meeting in Azerbaijan’ in December 1999 ‘in which specific programmes for the training and equipping of mujahidin from the Caucasus, Central/South Asia and the Arab world were discussed and agreed upon’, culminating in ‘Washington’s tacit encouragement of both Muslim allies (mainly Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia) and US “private security companies”… to assist the Chechens and their Islamist allies to surge in the spring of 2000 and sustain the ensuing jihad for a long time.’ The US saw the sponsorship of ‘Islamist jihad in the Caucasus’ as a way to ‘deprive Russia of a viable pipeline route through spiralling violence and terrorism’."
http://www.newint.org/features/2009/10/01/blowback-extended-version/

There is much more to the 9/11 cover-up, of course. For those who want to learn more, I suggest watching the documentary 9/11 Press For Truth - as it details the story of the victims' families who spear-headed the fight for the creation of the 9/11 Commission - in the face of resistance from the Bush administration. Perhaps Ron Paul is too scared to mention the more concerning aspects of the cover-up. However, if he had any integrity - the LEAST he could do would be to refer to the Family Steering Committee members who have demanded a new investigation, or do what Senator Bob Graham did and start talking about the need for accountability with regard to Saudi governmental involvement in the attacks. Why would the US government protect terrorist suspects? Is George W Bush judge, jury and executioner in these matters?

Since Ron Paul's "Plan To Restore America" has a post-9/11 defence-spending signature, there are real questions to whether he supports all the covert military interventions being conducted in over 100 countries that are being fought against "Al Qaeda" terrorists around the globe:-

http://www.thenation.com/article/162566/secret-war-120-countries

His record so far shows that he does not support such actions. However, his policy proposals suggest otherwise.

Having said all this - is Ron Paul the man who can save America? Don't buy the hype. However, despite some serious flaws in his ideology and intentions - there are clear indications that his record on the protections of domestic civil liberties outshines all the other well-known candidates. While he has consistently criticised the Federal Reserve, this economic criticism should really be launched at the debt-based money system generally (and his solutions in the form of private "free banking" are unpalatable and poorly marketed to the general public). His criticism of the major foreign military intereventions is strong and consistent, albeit there is legitimate concern as to whether he will even follow through with this. It's important to remember that George W. Bush spoke against the United States having so many military bases around the world and "nation-building" when he was campaigning in 2000. Then, of course - 9/11 happened. Choose your leaders carefully.

-UPDATE-

Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The Pentagon will seek a $525 billion budget for fiscal 2013 and ask Congress for authority to close domestic military bases, according to a person familiar with plans to be announced today. In addition to the base-closing authority, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will propose reducing military personnel and canceling the U.S. Army's C-27J transport plane. Hans Nichols reports on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop." (Source: Bloomberg) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MAbF5-X_TA

Ron Paul's 2013 Pentagon budget is $500 billion. He has clearly restricted himself to a particular libertarian-bent caucus and Republican debates. He should've stood as an Independent. Someone told me that his Pentagon spending plans are out of fear that the public will not vote for him if they perceive he will be "weak" on defence. But that's nonsense. The majority of the electorate are very much in favour of cutting back the military by a big amount (i.e. bringing troops and contractors home from Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East). If there are sooo many progressives or independents wanting to vote for RP...why should they be unhappy about the Pentagon being cut to pre-9/11 levels? Clearly, either RP is not reaching these sorts of people or his campaign team are scared of Pentagon-lobbyists.

Tally Sticks - part of a monetary reform solution?

2012-01-17T12:26:00.000-08:00

This is an interesting video by monetary researcher Bill Still. In it, he briefly covers the history and usage of Tally Sticks in England by King Henry the 1st - as a means of trying to wrest the monetary power away from the goldsmiths. Interestingly, King Henry also laid some foundations for de-centralizing power, even though he was unelected as King. The tally stick system lasted for over 700 years, and it was also counterfeit proof because only the grain from the same stick would match the other half of the stick - obtained from when it was split to provide as a transactional record. Eventually, however, the bankers and owners of gold greatly increased their influence over the government via the Bank Of England and the tally-sticks were no longer accepted as money.

A good question to ask "free market" ideologues -: Why should people trust the owners of precious metals to invest money towards good employment opportunities or public infrastructure? Why should we trust a "free market" of unregulated wildcat bankers? Democratic institutions are far from perfect. They're flawed, but like Bill Still says - they're the best we've got. We either democratize our banks, or we get government to do its job and start issuing debt-free money. We need to become candidates ourselves, in order to transform our society.

About time - Examining the case for a shorter working week

2012-01-14T05:59:00.000-08:00

Speaker(s): Professor Juliet Schor, Professor Lord Skidelsky, Professor Tim JacksonChair: Anna Coote

Recorded on 11 January 2012 in Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building.
As the economic crisis deepens, this is the moment to consider moving towards much shorter, more flexible paid working hours -- sharing out jobs and unpaid time more fairly across the population. The new economics foundation (nef) set out the case in its report 21 Hours: Why a shorter working week can help us all to flourish in the 21st century.

Now, in partnership with CASE (Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion) at the London School of Economics, this event brings together a panel of experts to examine the social, environmental and economic implications. They will consider how far a shorter working week can help to address a range of urgent social, economic and environmental problems: unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being and entrenched inequalities.

Juliet Schor is Professor of Sociology at Boston College, and author of Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth, and The Overworked American.

Professor Lord Skidelsky is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick and biographer of J. M. Keynes. He is the co-author, with Dr Edward Skidelsky, of the forthcoming book, How Much is Enough? Economics and the Good Life.

Tim Jackson is Professor of Sustainable Development at Surrey University, and author of Prosperity without Growth.

The CIA has dug itself a big hole....

2011-09-12T07:38:00.000-07:00

The recent release of the 2009 interview with former Bush Counter-Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke includes his speculation that the CIA were trying to "flip" Al-Midhar and Al-Hazmih inside the US. It is the only reason he can come up with - concerning the behaviour of the CIA in keeping information about the hijackers' presence in the US for over a year:-

His theory that the CIA were trying to get a source inside the Al-Midhar\Al-Hazmih cell is not really plausible to me. These suspects were well-known to intelligence agencies, they had sworn allegiance to Bin Laden in 1998, and in 1998 Bin Laden had declared war against the West. These hijackers were among those being monitored at the January 2000 Malaysia summit - which was a sort of all-star event for Al Qaeda. Then it seems that the CIA purposefully kept the visa information for Al-Midhar from the FBI. When they arrived in Los Angeles, an FBI officer on loan to the CIA asked if he could inform his superiors but the CIA head-officer said that he could not. WHY? These were high-value terrorists who had been involved in actions against US interests abroad. To add insult to injury, the WhiteHouse had been warned over 40 times about Bin Laden's determination to strike targets inside the United States. Let us not forget the infamous August 2001 PDB "Bin Laden Determined To Strike The US" - that Condi Rice lied about being "old information". So, if the heads of the administration knew that Bin Laden and his top henchmen were a threat, and more importantly - since the CIA knew about the threat, why on earth were they letting these two terrorists wander around the United States for over 14 months??!

Richard Clarke thinks that the CIA may have been trying to "flip" them so that they could become infiltrated. But this is hard to believe. Firstly, this action for the CIA to "flip" them inside the US is illegal. Secondly, the CIA told some lower-level FBI agents about the hijackers but gave them very limited information so they ended up in a failed search for the two men in August. Why did they do this? Why did they send those FBI on a wild goose chase with the excuse that the CIA is trying to "flip" the hijackers? And let us say that they did penetrate this Al Qaeda cell in the US - there was an important Principles Meeting with George Tenet, Whitehouse Staff and Richard Clarke on September 4th. And during that meeting, the threat-level and risk from Al Qaeda was discussed. Yet - the existence of those two Al Qaeda terrorists was not brought up at all. The terrorists then hijacked the planes on the 11th of September. Now - is it plausible that the CIA's insider who had "infilitrated" that Al Qaeda cell was unaware of the fact that the terrorists had plane tickets for the 11th of September or were preparing for an operation very soon? If they were "playing" him - then clearly he should have realised that his attempt to get them to leave the United States had long failed given the amount of time he had to gain influence on the cell? The hijackers were using their own names, staying in hotels, and leaving very open paper trails as late as that date. And what about the hijackers' perception of the person/people who had attempted to infiltrate them? Did they not have any fears that the (hypothetical) CIA informant would realise that he was being played - especially given the time that had passed....? Wouldn't the hijackers then change their behaviour and stop living so openly or just abandon the plot?

Either way you cut it - the CIA are in deep trouble for allowing these men to even enter the United States without the FBI being informed. They are in deep trouble for having one of their officers claim her boss Richard Blee (at Alec Station) wanted to hold off on informing the FBI about Al-Midhar's visa - but then having her go and lie to her fellow CIA officers that the FBI had been informed of the visa, when it had not. Another CIA officer was also responsible for briefing the FBI about these two men - but without mentioning the visa and then telling his fellow CIA officers that there was no need to inform the FBI, because he had already informed them. Kevin Fenton writes in his article:-

"On the same day Miller’s cable was blocked, a CIA officer on loan to the FBI who we will call “Robert” briefed two FBI colleagues on what the CIA knew about the Malaysia meeting. Robert told the two FBI agents pretty much everything the CIA knew except the one key thing the Bureau needed to make it sit up and take notice—that Almihdhar had a US visa. Robert then told another CIA officer on loan to the Bureau there was no need to brief the FBI about Malaysia because he had already done so, ensuring this officer would not let slip the Almihdhar visa information."
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/09/09/the-cia-911-part-i-a-meeting-in-malaysia/

So...there seemed to be an effort to prevent the FBI from knowing that the hijackers were planning to enter the country, and they were also not informed during their presence inside the US for over a year. The idea that they were trying to "flip" the hijackers inside the US, is simply not defensible given the numerous domestic and international warnings that existed at the time and the opportunities that the CIA had to infiltrate Al Qaeda before these men even entered the country. These Al Qaeda suspects were highly connected to the Yemen Hub that had been monitored independently by the CIA and NSA in the years prior to 9/11. Phone calls were monitored, the actual place in Yemen was bugged, comings and goings were very heavily monitored, etc. The idea that Cofer Black had no actual "source" inside Al Qaeda prior to 9/11, is just very hard to believe. This gets more incredible given that the hijackers were being monitored by the Saudi intelligence agencies as well as the numerous and disturbing Saudi connections to Al Qaeda at the time. Again, given the "close working relationship" between Tenet and the Saudi intelligence agencies (that Richard Clarke mentions in his 2009 interview) - and given that Tenet had allegedly been following Al Qaeda in "microscopic detail" - how could he not be aware of how much these terrorists had been monitored prior to 9/11?

A very interesting summary of the Saudi connection by the journalist, Julia Davis can be found here:-
http://www.examiner.com/homeland-security-in-los-angeles/911-troubling-facts-about-9-11

As former federal crimes prosecutor John Loftus said “the information provided by European intelligence services prior to 9/11 was so extensive that it is no longer possible for either the CIA or FBI to assert a defence of incompetence”.
http://web.archive.org/web/20030206033530/http://www2.john-loftus.com/enron3.asp

We are looking at gross criminal negligence at the very least, concerning the behaviour of US intelligence agencies prior to 9/11. I don't think a rivalry outside the US with the FBI is relevant (as some have been suggesting). The CIA had one duty - to inform either the FBI, the Counter-Terrorism Czar's office, or the DoD - among others. They were not competing with the FBI here before the terrorists entered the US. There are suggestions that they were competing with the NSA. However, as 9/11 researcher Paul Thompson mentioned in an interview with BoilingFrogsPost recently - the CIA and NSA each independently had sufficient information so that they didn't need to access each other's data prior to 9/11 (particularly with the monitoring of the Yemen Hub).

The ugly truth of the Libyan war

2011-09-09T17:47:00.000-07:00

The British Foreign Secretary William Hague came in front of the worlds' press last week to call Colonel Gaddafi "delusional" for wanting to be involved in talks about Libya's future. Hague was particularly dismissive of the regime and said that "we are way past that point" and that Gadaffi should insist that all his supporters give up possession of all weapons and turn their leader in to face justice. Hague was hopeful that the National Transitional Council would include members of the old regime and thus try to be as "inclusive" as possible. He stated that the recent events have "strongly vindicated Britain's policy of promoting intervention in the North African country". Hague's words essentially represent a carefully packaged representation of the true reality and context of the Libyan intervention. There is no convincing evidence that the motive for the intervention was humanitarian, and there are serious questions that should be addressed to Hague and his colleagues concerning the legality of the intervention.

Some political commentators have been particularly sharp in their observation of NATO's questionnable actions in Libya since March of this year. Craig Murray is the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan and a human rights activist who has come to understand the murky world of political deception and crimes. His public exposure of British complicity in aiding Uzbek leader Islam Karimov's horrific torture of innocent Muslims - deserves far more mention in the mainstream press. In recent articles on his website, Craig has harshly criticised NATO for violating UNSCR 1973 - the UN resolution which was drawn to enable NATO countries to intervene to protect civilians. The resolution established a no-fly zone and had "the aim of facilitating dialogue to lead to the political reforms necessary to find a peaceful and sustainable solution". However, Craig has pointed out that the citizens of a Libyan town called Sirte are genuine Gadaffi supporters and that the NATO-supported rebels have bombarded the towns' citizens for simply holding a different view as to who should run the country. Craig stated that "NATO have in effect declared being in Gadaffi's political camp a political offence". Craig observes that NATO is violating UNSCR 1973 which explicitly aims in "facilitating dialogue". How is killing people who don't hold the same opinion as the rebels - "facilitating dialogue"? Craig Murray also rightly points out that NATO has chosen not to intervene in places such as Dubai, Bahrain, Syria, Burma, Zimbabwe or Uzbekistan - all places which suffer from oppressive governance.

Who are the rebels that Western nations are supporting to overthrow Colonel Gaddaffi? There are disturbing signs that a large proportion of them are hardline Islamists with an intention to implement oppressive interpretations of Sharia law in a future Libyan government. Whether these hardliners actually manage to have such an influence on the future government, remains to be seen. It does seem that the rebel movement is actually a mixture of influences - including moderate Libyan civilians, former Gadaffi supporters, affluent Libyan exiles living in the West, and the hardline Islamists of the eastern portion of the country. However, there are considerable concerns now as to who is really in control of the rebel power-base. Asia Times journalist Pepe Escobar recently reported that a man called Abdelhakim Belhadj has become the de facto commander of the Tripoli armed forces. Escobar describes how Belahdj was trained and mentored in Afghanistan by a "very hardcore Islamist Libyan group". After 9/11, Belhadj was tortured in Bangkok by the CIA and then later returned to Libya and became imprisoned by the Gadaffi regime. However, he and some other Islamists made a deal with Gadaffi to moderate their ideology and were released in 2009. Belhadj was a member of a group known as the LIFG (the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group) which was founded in 1995 as part of the Mujahideen campaigns against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The aim of the LIFG was to establish an Islamic state in Libya and to work in overthrowing the regime of Colonel Gaddafi; which was regarded as deviant, oppressive and overly secular. The United Kingdom Home Office banned LIFG in October 2005 under the Terrorism Act and thus made it clear that the country regarded such a group as nothing more than violent terrorists. Earlier this March, The Telegraph newspaper reported that while the LIFG has never officially regarded itself as part of Al Qaeda - the two groups have still shared very similar philosophies and methods. A US military academy called West Point did a study on global Islamist activities and found that the LIFG and Al Qaeda share an "increasingly co-operative relationship". Libya was also the second largest contributor of foreign fighters in post-Saddam Iraq (after Saudi Arabia) who were determined to kill American soldiers and influence internal politics. The Telegraph newspaper also reported that Al Qaeda called on all its supporters to support the Libyan rebels for the purpose of establishing "the stage of Islam" in the country. It is thus rather concerning that NATO has allied itself with terrorists. This policy of course, is nothing new. In 1996, British intelligence paid a man called Anas Al-Liby to assassinate Colonel Ghadaffi. Al-Liby was in an Al Qaeda affiliated group called Al-Muqatila and he was also linked to the US embassy bombings in Africa in 1998. Strangely, Anas Al-Liby was allowed to live in the UK up until the year 2000. Have his handlers ever been held accountable? What seems even worse is the story of the murdered British policewoman Yvonne Fletcher. There was a documentary several years on mainstream television titled Murder In St. James's. The website WikiSpooks lays out the summary of the documentary:-

"The film went on to allege that the anti-Gaddafi organisation Al Burkan, which was allegedly funded by the Reagan White House, had obtained a gun from the Hein terrorist group in West Berlin, and used it to kill Fletcher with a single shot from the sixth floor penthouse at 3 St James's Square - the building adjacent to the embassy. According to the film, the head of Al Burkan, Ragab Zatout, planned to overthrow Gaddafi and seize control of Libya's oil wealth after the severing of diplomatic relations, but his coup attempt on 8 May 1984 was thwarted by the Libyan army. ^[9] ^[10]

Her murder would later become a major factor in Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's decision to allow U.S. President Ronald Reagan to launch the USAF bombing raid on Libya in 1986 from American bases in Britain."^[11]

The question remains, why does the West now insist on overthrowing his regime and how long has this intention prevailed? Is this a final implementation of a previous failed attempt of his removal?

In 2003, the US lifted sanctions on Libya in order to allow several large oil companies into the country. Major investments were made by companies such as ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil, Occidental Petroleum, Amerada Hess and Royal Dutch Shell. The oil reserves of the country stood at over 40 billion barrels according to a 2007 estimate by the Oil and Gas Journal. In 2009, Gaddafi addressed students from Georgetown University via a satellite link and lamented that oil prices were "unbearable" and that Libya's oil "maybe should be owned by national companies or the public sector at this point, in order to control the oil prices, the oil production or maybe to stop it". He said the same thing to King Juan Carlos of Spain and a Spanish business delegation; telling them that Libya could improve its production and improve prices by nationalizing its energy assets. In the same year, a state-owned oil company in Libya threatened to nationalize the operations of the Canadian company Petro-Canada if the Canadians did not apologize for their criticisms of Gadaffi giving a heroes welcome to the convicted Lockerbie bomber (Abdelbaset al-Megrahi). Gadaffi's regime actually threatened the UK if the Lockerbie bomber was left to die in a Scottish prison, according to confidential Wikileaks cables. Britain and the US warned Gadaffi that "it is not good for Libya to threaten existing and potential investors and violate the sanctity of contracts with such abandon". This motive for securing oil deals and energy infrastructure needs to be taken seriously as a possible motive for the NATO intervention.

Another reason for the NATO intervention could've been precipitated by the fact Gadaffi met with Venezeulan President Hugo Chavez in 2009 and signed a document which was strongly critical of Western foreign policy and its "war on terror". Gadaffi visited Latin America for the first time in 2009 and said that the two regions should form a defense alliance, a "NATO for the South" - or what Gadaffi liked to refer as "SATO". Gadaffi said, "Those who were betting on NATO, we now say to them that we're going to bet on SATO. We're going to have our treaty, too". Clearly this would not have been met with approval by Western interests who have always been opposed to Hugo Chavez's regime and thus found a new concern in the behaviour of a North African dictator trying to cement alliances with an increasingly powerful bloc of non-Western interests. An interesting Wikileaks cable from 2008 describes Gadaffi's meetings with Russian officials and their mutual agenda of strengthening economic and military ties. The cables also mention Gadaffi's interest in purchasing Russian military equipment as well as his support of Russia's military intervention in Georgia.

It seems that the West has pursued the policy of "keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer" with regard to Ghadaffi. He was courted by Tony Blair as well as various American and Canadian corporate interests when he announced the discontinuation of his WMD program. It appears that the CIA and MI5 were trying to rehabilitate Ghadaffi to keep him under their thumb, and make last minute offers to get him to change his position. However, Ghadaffi was not exactly being co-operative and thus the old Reagan-era plans for his removal may well have been started up again.

It is deeply unfortunate that the West has pursued another military intervention in the Arab world that almost echoes the highly questionnable policy of the Iraqi intervention. The Western media is rather one-sided in its representation of the intervention, and there appears to be a deliberate obfuscation of the truth. An article in The Boston Globe earlier this April was a refreshingly honest analysis of the actual context of the Libyan intervention by a Western media outlet. The article effectively dismissed claims that Gadaffi was committing genocide against his own people or deliberately targeting them. Gadaffi offered an amnesty for rebels “who throw their weapons away”, and the group Human Rights Watch found that Misurata, the next-biggest city in Libya – was not the scene of a civilian massacre by the Gadaffi regime. Instead, Gadaffi was narrowly targeting the armed rebels who were fighting against his government. While Libyan forces did kill hundreds as they regained control of certain cities, and while innocents have died – this was a far-cry from the claims that the regime was pursuing a policy of deliberately targeting civilians. The Boston Globe reported that “Libya’s air force, prior to imposition of a UN-authorized no-fly zone, targeted rebel positions, not civilian concentrations. Despite ubiquitous cellphones equipped with cameras and video, there is no graphic evidence of deliberate massacre. Images abound of victims killed or wounded in crossfire — each one a tragedy — but that is urban warfare, not genocide”. It seems clear that both NATO and Gadaffi have killed hundreds of civilians as a result of their decisions to choose a particular side in the civil war that rages across the country. It is also clear that Gadaffi is a deeply corrupt and tyrannical ruler who deserves to be replaced. Regardless, the West has engaged in a very unpalatable policy of regime change and Gadaffi's replacement could potentially be even worse.

Special thanks goes to Jonathon Reynolds for providing some of the sourcing for this piece. His summary of the Libyan invasion motivations can be found here:-
http://jonrevere.blogspot.com/2011/08/six-reasons-west-wants-gaddafi-to-gtfo.html

The internet model vs News International

2011-07-13T16:14:00.000-07:00

The whole issue of one small clique (in this case, the Murdoch Empire) owning a large share of tabloids and thus influencing public opinion....is quite an interesting topic for debate. And the recent crisis with respect to Murdoch's newspapers' underhand and criminal tactics; has certainly helped to reignite the debate in certain quarters.

Some people argue that it's just the "free market" at work, and if people don't like it - then don't buy it. But we need to look at how information is controlled and disseminated in society. Edward Bernays was arguably the father of "public relations" and he helped to change public opinions and attitudes with regard to women smoking cigarettes. Capitalist owners and inventors can ensure that a two-way process occurs. Firstly, you sell a product in order to address the needs and desires of consumers. And in the process of doing this - you achieve the second process; you start to SHAPE the needs and desires of the consumer. You help to cultivate different niches of public consumption and realms of knowledge. Thus, gradually - you also start to shape the very parameters in which public debates actually occur too.

This is a process that Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman elaborated on in their seminal work "Manufacturing Consent", and a synopsis can be found on Wiki..excerpt:-

Using the propaganda model, Manufacturing Consent posits that corporate - owned news mass communication media — print, radio, television — are businesses subject to commercial competition for advertising revenue and profit. As such, their distortion (editorial bias) of news reportage — i.e. what types of news, which items, and how they are reported — is a consequence of the profit motive that requires establishing a stable, profitable business; therefore, news businesses favoring profit over the public interest succeed, while those favoring reportorial accuracy over profits fail, and are relegated to the margins of their markets (low sales and ratings).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_The_Political_Economy_of_the_Mass_Media

Now, in my own humble opinion....we need to think about the issue of responsibility. True, the people who buy these newspapers share some responsibility in terms of feeding the NI beast. However, you could also argue that the NI beast has helped to shape the peoples' opinions over time. The working and lower middle-class portion of the population generally have been cultured to see news as more of an infotainment or titillating experience. Mind you, the general standard of all print media has declined over the years. Ultimately, how do we REACH these NI readers with better and more factual information, or more balanced articles which also cater to their current desire for titillating stories in-between? Sure, they could go on the internet...but then a lot of people also just refer to their known brands on the internet too. And the news on captive-market sites such as Yahoo (with it's email market) and MSN (Hotmail, etc) is often only from a small assortment of corporate-owned outlets. And when sifting through Google News; people are confronted with a variety of stories from various sources - often with half-truths and bits and pieces of a story that require quite a bit of work sometimes to piece a more cogent and sensible narrative together. Even on Google News - some things just get buried fast. In my experience as a journalist (writing for Today's Zaman newspaper) I have often had to source things from news reports rather than direct individual sources (people, institutions, etc). In the case of news reports, I often find that specific newspapers report something very interesting and important in a brief article and then no longer report on it ever again (only for the story to be picked-up, elaborated on, etc by another newspaper - sometimes across the world).

The internet has certainly offered a lot of potential for a more informed public - but there is a lot of crap out there, and a lot of good stuff too. The tyranny of vast information (and agendas)...and a lack of enough knowledge. Perhaps the best place really is for people to simply contribute news articles on internet fora dedicated to journalism, and then free-lancers or professionals can go over them as objectively as possible (and post very brief synopses\key-points distinguishing each article) and the person can just make their mind-up when they want. A tool that managers or participants in such fora could use is that of Google trackers that email you new web-page creations under the name of whatever topic you choose to keep track of. Perhaps even a small subscription fee could be employed by such a website...Hmm...

There is one website that offers timelines of events pieced together by dedicated researchers for free:-
http://www.historycommons.org/

It is a good research tool, given that the authors basically write timelines sourced with claims taken directly from mainstream news articles and books, rather than the authors inserting their own opinions or analysis. However, the main problem is that it is a bit too verbose and the topic-list focuses on history. A version that keeps up with daily news would really need to be a large project, and also financed by a donation-based system. However, the History Commons website does allow you to view news-stories within a specific timeline topic as it appears per month. Ideally, my proposed site would have an RSS feed which people could check everyday and thus get updated synopses of news articles from around the world on very specific topics of interest to the users of the site (which could be very broad indeed in range). People could see synopses and thus get as broad a range of perspectives on a news-topic as possible, but they could also click on any article to read more if they chose to.

Mind you, there still needs to be a way to popularise such fora. Sadly, I lack the capital to do so such a thing.

Heck...maybe such a fora\website already exists...but, thanks to the excellent marketing control of information; I have not heard of it yet.

"There is a lot of explosive information that has come out in the main stream press but it comes out buried. As a casual observer of the news I'd never have noticed any of this stuff. You might find one important bit of information in a newspaper and another bit of information off the news shelf. Then if you start to put all those obscure stories together you end up with an almost completely different narrative for just about any area relating to 9/11" - Paul Thompson, researcher at HistoryCommons.org and author of The Terror Timeline book.

As the Kyoto Protocol falls apart...can the same be also said for Climate Change science?

2011-05-31T09:24:00.000-07:00

I have already covered some of the problems with climate change science in my Venus article (available here), but really - there is quite a bit more to say on this topic...

Last week, European diplomats told the worlds' press that Russia, Japan and Canada have decided to drop out of the Kyoto treaty before the end of the year. The Kyoto treaty was first formed in 1997, where the vast majority of world nations agreed to a protocol of legally-binding pledges to reduce their annual greenhouse gas emissions. The United States attracted considerable controversy for refusing to join the treaty and it now seems that Russia, Japan and Canada are likely to initiate a bigger controversy and a potential dead-end for Kyoto with their refusal to join the latest round of carbon cuts. These developments are yet another slap in the face to climate change campaigners who saw both non-binding Copenhagen and Cancun climate summit agreements as being clearly insufficient to curb global warming. The climate change movement now seems at a dead-end and there is a palpable sense of negativity amongst the activist community as many seem resigned to a perceived terrible fate for the earth. But is such an attitude justified? Indeed, there may be some good news to come out of this whole charade. That good news may lie in the possibility that climate change science has led a lot of people along for a ride for quite some years.

With the advent of a recent spate of deadly tornado outbreaks in the US; several media outlets and thinktanks reacted by insinuating perceived linkages between the destructive tornadic events and anthropogenic climate change. One thinktank even went as far as to suggest that the "climate pollution deniers" in the effected states were to blame for the deaths as a result of their stance on climate-related legislation. This was a politically left of centre thinktank called "Think Progress" and it included a statement from the climate scientist Kevin Trenberth which was made earlier in January about how all weather events are affected by global warming. In reality, the public data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows no sign of an increase in strong to violent tornadoes in the US from 1950 onwards. The data also shows a gradual decline in the number of deaths from such events from 1950 up to the present. In the light of this information, one wonders why some were so quick to assume a correlation with global warming - especially when it is reasonable to expect a decent scientist to check public data before making statements or insinuations. Sadly, there have been a number of inaccurate correlations made between a variety of severe weather events and anthropogenic climate change. An example can be found in the presumptions that global heat waves and extremes have increased in frequency as a result of global warming. Statistical records from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center show that continental temperature extremes have mostly occurred in the late 19th century and early 1900's with only Antarctica showing a post 1950's positive temperature anamoly. Therefore, this contradicts the perceived correlation with anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Paradoxically, some climate scientists and climate bloggers had suggested that the powerful US snow storms earlier this year were another symptom of AGW. But then later, an investigation by NOAA's Climate Scene Investigators found no such correlation, writing in their report "If global warming was the culprit, the team would have expected to find a gradual increase in heavy snowstorms in the mid-Atlantic region as temperatures rose during the past century. But historical analysis revealed no such increase in snowfall". The same unproven correlation with AGW can be found in the case of the Russian Droughts last summer - which caused dangerous wildfires and exerted a considerable toll on global wheat exports as a result.

There are legitimate questions concerning the causative arguments posited by climate scientists. For example, while CO2 levels have increased from approximately 280 parts per million (ppm) to 390ppm over the last 150 years; this has not necessarily caused the 0.8 Celcius increase in global temperatures that has occurred during that same period. It is generally proven that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that a doubling of its concentration will result in at least a 1 Celcius temperature increase. Yet, the vast majority of climate scientists are arguing that temperatures can increase by much greater than 1 Celcius from CO2 increases that constitute far less than a relative doubling. For example, they suggest that an increase in CO2 concentration from 390ppm to under 500ppm could cause a global average temperature rise of anywhere between 4-8C (according to the Met Office Hadley Centre). This is achieved by proposed feedback mechanisms that are referred to collectively as "climate sensitivity". One single example of "climate sensitivity" theory is that a small increase in global average temperature can lead to the melting of ice in certain regions, which reduces the reflectivity of the Earth's surface which results in more solar radiation being absorbed by the Earth and hence more warming which then melts more ice, releases more water vapour and causes more rain, and so forth. These chain events are perceived to amplify the effects of the initial warming said to be caused by CO2 trapping the sun's heat in the atmosphere. Yet, there is data that suggests the power of these proposed feedback mechanisms is considerably weaker than what climate scientists and their computer models suggest. Ice-cores mined from deep under the ground of Antarctica can be forensically measured in order to determine past temperature records. This is done by measuring levels of heavy oxygen isotopes that were present in the atmosphere at the time. Climate scientists also use ice-cores (as well as other material) to determine past global climate records. However, data from the Vostok research station pours considerable doubt on the factuality of the "climate sensitivity" feedbacks proposed by the majority of climate scientists. The data shows that in the last half million years - there have been a considerable amount of temperature increases of 1 Celcius or more that have not been followed by the amplified temperature increases suggested by the "climate sensitivity" feedbacks of current climate change theory. These temperature increases have occurred on intervals that are similar to the 0.8 Celcius increase that has taken place in the last 150 years. This analysis has been done by Frank Lansner on the What's Up With That webblog and it includes the following clarifications:-

"Below I have identified all temperature rises of the Vostok data fulfilling the following criterion: “Temperature at the beginning of temperature rise must be at most 1 K below today’s temperatures indicated by -1K anomaly in the Vostok data. Next, the examined periods must be at most 300 years in length (we want to focus on the warming effect of one century time intervals) and finally, the initial temperature increase from glacial to interglacial is not included”:
Cont.http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/09/is-the-warming-in-the-20th-century-extraordinary/

If temperatures rose by 1C or more during conditions very close to that of today, then this raises doubts about the claims of Hansen et al with regard to climate sensitivity resulting from 1C or more temperature rises. Indeed, Hansen claims that a rise of 1C or more from the "Holocene" average would be dangerous:-
http://climatecodered.blogspot.com/2011/01/rethinking-safe-climate-have-we-already.html

The chart in the above blog link shows the period of perceived "climatic stability" to be ranging between 0 and 0.5C above or below the Holocene period.

Climate scientist Michael Mann writes that a theoretical 1C increase from CO2 forcing can result in a temperature increase of over 3C as a result of a variety of feedback mechanisms:-

"For example, if a warming of 1C due just to CO2 doubling alone causes an increase in water vapor content that adds an additional equilibrium warming of 2C, so that the net warming is 3C, the water vapor feedback factor would be two. Feedback factors can be specified for a particular feedback (e.g. the water vapor feedback), or for the sum over all feedbacks under consideration (e.g. water vapor feedback, ice albedo feedback, and cloud feedback). For example, suppose that the initial 1C warming also led to an increase primarily in low cloud cover which added arelative cooling of -0.5C, and a melting of ice which added an additional relative warming of 1C. Then the cloud feedback factor would be -0.5, the ice albedo feedback factor would be 1.0, and the net feedback factor would be 2-0.5+1 = 2.5! Alternatively, we could compute the overall feedback factor by taking the total warming (initial 1C warming + 2C -0.5C + 1C = 3.5C) divided by the initial warming, minus one, i.e. 3.5C/1C - 1 = 2.5. The equilibrium climate sensitivity in this case would 3.5. "
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/meteo469/node/198

The Vostok record shows these computer model feedback scenarios to be rather questionnable at the very least, and downright dishonest and pathological at the worst.

To make matters worse for Mann et al; a scientific paper published in last year's Quaternary Science Reviews journal casts further doubt onto the "climate sensitivity" theory. The authors of the paper found that there were apparent periods of ice-free summers in the central Arctic ocean over 10,000 years ago. This suggests that the Earth's climate can recover from such episodes at a quicker rate than has been suggested by mainstream climate scientists and that there be no need to fear global catastrophe from any ice-free Arctic summers in the near future.

A challenge to the notion of "climatic stability" can also be garnered from a recent BBC documentary by Adam Curtis; which looks at evidence that casts doubt on the popularised notion that the natural world is a self-regulating ecosystem. While it does not specifically mention anthropogenic climate change, the documentary does analyse the shortcomings of such notions that regard nature as tending towards equilibrium. The documentary also analyses the historical roots and origins of these ideas as well as the interface between the environmental movement, political power and the world of computing (where computer models have been used to simulate some idealised form of self-regulation):-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq0xVuRG4ng

While the computer models used by climate scientists to posit "climate sensitivity" feedbacks can be called into question for their poor reflection of historical reality - they can also be called into question when it comes to predicting the future. A peer-reviewed paper published in last year's Hydrological Sciences Journal found that both temperature and precipitation forecasts by climate models turned out to be erroneous. As a result, the authors questionned the very idea that climate models can be a reliable method of long-term predictions. They concluded by writing that "we think that the most important question is not whether GCMs (General Circulation Models) can produce credible estimates of future climate, but whether climate is at all predictable in deterministic terms". One of the biggest controversies of contemporary climate science has been the issue of Michael Mann's "hockey stick" graph. The graph shows a sudden anamolous temperature rise from the 20th century onwards which stands out against a less variable and more lower average temperature period spanning back further than the middle ages. Sceptics of this temperature record claim that Michael Mann and his colleagues committed fraud by removing the "Medieval Warm Period" and thus making the 20th century period look warmer than it really is in the historical context. Interestingly, the first IPCC report published in 1990 featured a distinctive Medieval warm period with temperatures slightly warmer than today but this was removed from subsequent IPCC reports. It is not possible to prove that Michael Mann did anything wrong, but it is possible to challenge the mainstream idea that the Medieval Warm Period was not a global event. While the mainstream scientists claim that the warm period was only expressed in certain regions of the Northern Hemisphere - there is evidence suggesting that it was also present in the Southern Hemisphere. A paper published in the 2000 issue of the South African Journal of Science shows data from paleoclimatic records illustrating a Medieval Warm Period that exhibited mean temperatures 6 to 7°F warmer than today. The paper also stated that "Extreme events in the record show distinct teleconnections with similar events in other parts of the world, in both the northern and southern hemispheres". Some mainstream climate scientists try to discredit these studies by claiming that areas in the Southern Hemisphere during the Medieval period had lower average temperatures than they do today. But the presence of cooler temperatures is actually expected by climate scientists in their contemporary predictions. Some areas may well indeed get even cooler and wetter as a result of an increase in global average temperature. But there is considerable uncertainty with regard to spatial temperature distribution. Indeed, a 2003 report by the Sustainable Energy Institute commissioned for the Pentagon in the United States stated the following:-

"There is considerable uncertainty about the climate dynamics of the Southern Hemisphere, mainly due to less paleoclimatic data being available than for the Northern Hemisphere. Weather patterns in key regions in the Southern Hemisphere could mimic those of the Northern Hemisphere, becoming colder, drier, and more severe as heat flows from the tropics to the Northern Hemisphere, trying to thermodynamically balance the climatic system. Alternatively, the cooling of the Northern Hemisphere may lead to increased warmth, precipitation, and storms in the south, as the heat normally transported away from equatorial regions by the ocean currents becomes trapped and as greenhouse gas warming continues to accelerate."
http://www.s-e-i.org/pentagon_climate_change.pdf

All of this seems to suggest that climate science is in complete dissarray, despite the fact that there is an oft-touted "consensus" supporting anthropogenic climate change. But does it really matter if there is a "consensus" amongst professional climate scientists? After all, science should not be judged by consensus or even if over 99% of scientists claim one thing to be true. Science should be judged by empirical facts and experiments; regardless of whether they come from individuals, minorities or majorities. There have been great scientists in the past who were laughed at by the majority scientific community at the time, only to be vindicated years later. When it comes to the issue of climate science (and many theoretical sciences in general - including the problems of mainstream cosmology) there is a large degree of hierarchical institutionalization, professionalization and inertia at work. Bodies of work build up and scientists tend to become more resistant to criticism from outside their peers or collective. The peer-review process may indeed be problematic given the nature of control that certain people with certain biases may hold. The pressures of governments and political activists most likely have an impact on decisions at scientific or university institutions that influence the work of climate scientists and the admission of papers at journals. Biologist Rupert Sheldrake has summed up the sorry situation of contemporary science in the following revealing quotes:-

"In the Nineteenth Century, Darwin, for example, put forward radical ideas. He didn't have to deal with the science establishment because at that time amateurs like him worked independently in whatever area interested them. He never had an academic post. He didn't have a government grant. He worked as an independent scientist from his country home in Kent, and he could say what he liked. Nowadays very few scientists have that independence. Younger ones are dependent on short-term contracts and on the patronage of their superiors, which makes them very frightened - very conservative - very afraid to step out of line. More senior scientists are dependent on the flow of grants and funds which depends on yet higher-up people in the science establishment approving their work and thinking they are good chaps and so on. And the effect of all this is to make people extraordinarily frightened of stepping out of line. Science, in its ideology, sees itself as doing fearless exploration of the unknown. Most of the time it's a fearful exploration of the almost known."

He also said that "science has a kind of Stalinist mentality - a kind of central committee, planning out research strategies and awarding grants in an atmosphere of fear throughout the scientific community. People don't dare step out of line"
(Above quotes sourced from Don Scott's book "The Electric Sky", 2006, p. 222 - Published by Mikamar).

It may be tempting to dismiss people who criticise mainstream climate scientists as having a dishonest or nefarious agenda. Indeed, sceptics have been compartmentalized with the fossil-fuel industry because they dare to question climate scientists. But this sort of compartmentalization is unhelpful. The health of our environment is clearly paramount, and there needs to be a reduction in waste, pollution, and the overall use of fossil-fuel energy. Indeed, the issue of Peak Oil and energy security requires that we must act to reduce our dependence on fossil-fuels regardless of what we think of climate change. Sadly, it seems that climate change has been publically promoted to a much greater degree than the issue of Peak Oil. The sheer complexity of climate change science has caused divisions and a demoralized and often sceptical attitude amongst the public. When climate change is used to enact legislation to reduce fossil-fuel usage, this has often been met with anger by people who are not happy with the science or perceive some agenda. It is not possible to prove such an agenda amongst climate scientists except that their methods are questionnable and that their funding should be redirected to public awareness initiatives focussed on less contentious issues, such as energy security and Peak Oil. With this new approach, perhaps the promotion of less wasteful lifestyles can be more fruitful.

New method 'confirms dark energy'......or does it?

2011-05-21T14:33:00.000-07:00

This article has recently been updated to include an important caveat about the subject of "redshift".
-09/06/2011-

A science article recently featured on the BBC trumpeted the claims of a team of international scientists regarding the apparent confirmation of "dark energy". The entity was most popularised by Albert Einstein's contribution to the General Relativity model that still forms an important part of the fundamental bedrock of mainstream astrophysics. It goes along with concepts such as "dark matter", "black holes", and the "big bang" which currently exist as seemingly reified mathematical hypotheticals.

Some quotes from the BBC article:-

Dark energy makes up some 74% of the Universe and its existence would explain why the Universe appears to be expanding at an accelerating rate.

Perhaps the authors should replace the word "would" with "could". Is it not pertinent for mainstream astrophysicists or mainstream journalists to look at other proposed mechanisms of apparent acceleration? Indeed...can we trust all of the apparent findings that purport an expanding universe? No (more on that later).

The second type of observation involves measuring how quickly clusters of galaxies have formed over time. Both of these techniques confirmed the existence of dark energy and the acceleration in the expansion of the Universe.

The hypothetical entity has been "confirmed" only if one depends on an interpretation within a framework that ignores the possible dominance of electro-magnetism. More on that later.

"The action of dark energy is as if you threw a ball up in the air, and it kept speeding upward into the sky faster and faster," said co-author Dr Chris Blake of the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia.

Dr Chris Blake is effectively describing particle acceleration. It is ironic indeed that the people at CERN are relying on electrical power to accelerate and collide particles in order to discover more about the nature of matter and energy in the universe. Have they not thought about the possibility that inter-galactic electric currents may be responsible for the majority of the energetic characteristics in the universe?

However, despite scientists being able to infer the existence of dark energy and dark matter, these phenomena still elude a full explanation.

Have they harnessed the power of dark energy in a laboratory? Or does it merely remain as a hypothetical?

And what of the notion of the "big bang" and expanding universe with respect to the "red shift" phenomena? The research cited in the BBC article has referred to the notion of "redshifts" correlating with recessional velocities of objects linked to the force of dark-energy (http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.2948). But, can we challenge such notions?

From Dr. Donald E. Scott's book "The Electric Sky":-

"In 1929 Hubble announced that there was a linear relationship between redshift and the galactic distances he had measured. The dimmer a galaxy was, the more its light was shifted toward the red end of the spectrum - the higher its "redshift" was." (Scott, D. 2006, p. 198)

Donald E. Scott then went on to point out that the distance-dependent notion of redshift ignores the possibility that small and weak galaxies close to our region of space could also possibly display redshift. Objects with a high red-shift value have also been implied to be a result of them accelerating away from the observer. Dr. Scott wrote that while such recessional velocities may well be explained by careful analysis of redshifts (analogous to the Doppler effect), they are not the only way to explain the cause of redshifts. Dr. Scott then discussed the fact that Edwin Hubble himself suggested that while recessional velocity might theoretically be correlated with redshifts - it had not been confidently proven by observation. Indeed, Hubble used the cautionary "if" with regard to the theoretical idea of redshifts being Doppler shifts (as Scott cites in the book). Dr. Scott then goes on to write:-

"But the analogy between the Doppler effect in sound waves and the observed redshift in light was so compelling to astronomers that they quickly dropped Hubble's cautionary 'if'. The directly measured value of redshift, z, was routinely converted to a Doppler velocity. Astronomers reported redshift values of observations in terms of recessional velocities as though they had measured them with a speedometer instead of a theory. (Scott, D. 2006, p. 199)

This framing of the redshift phenomenon depends on a "Big Bang" expanding universe concept. This has been challenged by a variety of people (such as Eric J. Lerner) albeit one of the most prominent opponents is Dr. Halton C. Arp who was once Edwin Hubble's assistant. Dr Scott writes:-

"While compiling his catalog, Arp discovered that many pairs of quasars ("quasi-stellar objects," or QSOs), which have enormously high redshift values, are physically associated with galaxies that have low redshift values." (Scott, D. 2006, p. 200)

Do objects with high-redshifts have to be far away? Dr. Scott presented an interesting example (from Arp's observations) that challenges this notion. A photograph of a quasar (Mrk 205) apparently connected to the spiral galaxy NGC 4319 (of the constellation Draco) was obtained by an amateur astronomer who handed it to Dr. Scott to quantize the levels of light "to show isophote (similar brightness) contours":-

Credit: John Smith - Hidden Loft Observatory
(Image taken from "The Electric Sky", with permission from Don Scott and Mikamar Publishing)

"In processing this image, I used level quantization (staircase gray curves in the Picture Window Pro 3.1 software package) followed by the 'Edge tool'. Notice that, of all the small objects surrounding the main galaxy, only Mrk 205's shape is stretched back toward NGC 4319. None of the other objects in close proximity to 4319 is extended in this manner." (Scott, D. 2006, p. 201)

In 2002, a Hubble Space Telescope image of the same objects was published by NASA. Don Scott also processed this image in the same way as above. It is important to note that Dr. Scott used a standard technique which adds nothing to the image that was not there originally. It simply emphasizes what is already present in the image.

Credit Original Image: R.Knacke (Penn State Erie) at al., Hubble Heritage Team, NASA
(Image taken from "The Electric Sky", with permission from Don Scott and Mikamar Publishing)

There is a clear physical connection between the galaxy and the quasar. Yet, these are two objects that have vastly different redshift values. This poses a serious challenge to the use of "redshift" to help argue for the existence of an expanding universe (originating from a "Big Bang") powered by "dark energy".

Another example that contradicts the current argument used for Big Bang inflationary universe theory can be found in galaxy NGC 7603:-

(Source: http://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full/2002/30/aaea241/img22.gif)

If the quasar (Object 1) is physically connected to the parent galaxy then this falsifies the notion that the quasar is twice as far away as the main galaxy (a notion which its redshift value would erroneously dictate). Amazingly, the two quasars (Object 2 and Object 3) are supposed to be more than ten times away from the main galaxy (NGC 7603) according to their redshift values. But clearly, they are part of the connected bridge.

Halton Arp has collected hundreds of examples of high-redshift quasars that are closely associated with low-redshift galaxies. One of the most compelling examples can be found in galaxy NGC 7319:-

"The picture showed a galaxy (NGC 7319) known for its dense clouds that obstruct all objects behind its core. In front of the galaxy's core is a strongly redshifted quasar. In fact, under the prevailing assumptions, the redshift of the quasar would put it more than 90 times farther away from us than the big galaxy behind it."
(Source: http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch06/060831picture.htm)

Arp produced a paper to show that the quasar was energetically interacting with the material very close to the nucleus of galaxy NGC 7319:-
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0409215

Yet, it seems the mainstream astronomical community still remains in denial of such cases that appear to falsify their theories. Interestingly, one of the favourite methods that mainstream astrophysicists employ to dismiss the above examples; is the apparent phenomena known as "gravitational lensing" or "microlensing". Donald Scott describes the phenomena in his book:-

"If a far distant object lines up precisely with Earth and a mid-distance object that has enough mass, then Einstein's theory of General Relativity predicts that the light from the farther object will be bent - producing two symmetrically placed images of that distant object when it is observed from Earth. Gravitational lensing is now a customary explanation used by astronomers to discredit any observations of quasar pairs situated very near their parent galaxies. We are told that any images of this sort are 'mirages' due to gravitational lensing. Once this explanation is accepted, the way is cleared for its continued use, no matter how improbable its repeated occurrence is"
(Scott, D. 2006, p. 33)

Dr. Scott then goes on to state that observations of the movements of stars in galaxies challenge the perceived observed behaviour of the mass of galaxies within the "lensing" framework:-

"They claim that widely separated multiple images of single background objects (hidden behind those objects) can and do occur. But that would require that the entire mass of the galaxy act as if it were concentrated in a single point - and that single point has to be exactly in line between Earth and the far distant object. But the observations of the movement of stars in galaxies indicate that the total mass does not act as if it were concentrated at a single point"
(Scott, D. 2006, p. 34)

A notable challenge to the lensing hypothesis lies in a group of four quasars known as the "Einstein Cross":-
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch06/061006einsteincross.htm

It is important to remind readers of this article, that while there is in fact a correlative relationship between redshift and distance - the mainstream astronomers have downplayed or ignored observational evidence that shows that there is far more to redshift than meets the eye. It simply cannot be used to argue for an overall inflationary universe in the way it has been thus far. Regardless, the issue of "redshift" is more complicated than this article is making out, especially when the subject of intrinsic redshift is brought into the picture. The visual examples given above; suggest that the high redshift of the quasars relative to the galaxies is an intrinsic phenonema; and it is this aspect that is being overlooked by the mainstream. An important discussion about the mainstream treatment of redshift vs Electric Universe perceptions of the phenonema can be found here.

Mainstream astronomers and cosmologists also seem to be in denial about the potential power of inter-galactic electric currents to dominate the morphology and dynamics of galaxies. One recent example can be found in an article published on the website Universe Today on May the 11th this year:-
http://www.universetoday.com/85551/energizing-the-filaments-of-ngc-1275/

The author describes how a massive elliptical galaxy (NGC 1275) exhibits very narrow and long tendrils of glowing ionized gas and dust which seem hard to explain by conventional theory. One of the reasons that mainstream theory finds it hard to explain is that the tendrils are far removed from the areas closer to the galaxy which are associated with regions of star-formation (and subsequent heating of adjacent gas). The author ponders about what energy source could animate the tendrils and goes on to admit that the tendrils or filaments "exhibit an anomalous amount of X-ray flux" which is yet to be explained. It is unfortunate that the author goes on to attack Electric Universe theorists even while admitting that this case generally "agrees with their claims". He creates a strawman argument by stating that "astronomers don’t argue that electromagnetic effects don’t exist (like EU supporters frequently claim)". EU supporters and theorists do not generally claim that mainstream astronomers negate electromagnetic effects. EU theorists simply point out that mainstream astronomers and cosmologists make erroneous claims about the behavior of electromagnetic phenomena. An example of such erroneous claims is the idea of "magnetic re-connection" as well as the mainstream fragmentation of magnetic field-behavior into isolated zones in space (i.e. "frozen-in" magnetic fields in inter-stellar clouds). Both such concepts (among others) have been analyzed and critiqued in an article I wrote earlier. The Universe Today article author also claims that Electric Universe theorists "consistently refuse to provide any quantitative models which could provide true discriminating tests for their propositions". While it may be true that EU/Plasma Cosmology theorists have not produced anywhere near as much quantitative analyses as the mainstream - it does not mean that the theory should simply be rejected or dismissed. It is the qualitative evidence that should lead the way. Unfortunately, the mainstream is stubbornly rooted in a deep pool of quantitative data that is based on certain qualitative assumptions that is entirely questionable within reason. Yet, the arrogance of these scientists seems as high as ever. The Universe Today article author linked to the website of a scientist called Tom Bridgman who has been a vocal and active skeptic of Electric Universe theory. One of the comments that he made on his website is as follows:-

"Electric stars fails on basic conservation constraints. Peratt and Alfven's models fail on numerous other observational constraints. Increased computational power solves problems in smaller-scale details of a process - it cannot fix model failures on a global scale. Considering how EU routinely dismisses mathematical models, how will computational power solve their problems?"
(http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2010/07/electric-universe-everything-i-needed.html)

Perhaps Mr. Bridgman would care to read this extract from Wallace Thornhill's website (concerning Herschel discoveries of filamentary star-formation):-

"The European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory (formerly called Far Infrared and Sub-millimetre Telescope or FIRST) has the largest single mirror, at 3.5-metres in diameter, ever built for a space telescope. It is an infrared telescope, named after Sir William Herschel, the discoverer of the infrared spectrum. The telescope has been giving astronomers an unprecedented look inside the cosmic womb of stars, known as molecular clouds, to find (surprise, surprise) that stars are formed in “an incredible network of filamentary structures, and features indicating a chain of near-simultaneous star-formation events, glittering like strings of pearls deep in our Galaxy.” Although described as “incredible” by astronomers, this description precisely matches the decades-old expectations of plasma cosmologists!"
(http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=4eefp0kj)

An expectation of the plasma model, but a "surprise" to the mainstream model. This is something that Bridgman should take seriously and open his mind more to alternative explanations. If he won't take plasma/EU cosmology seriously, then why should the mainstream be taken seriously? Should plasma cosmologists take things like "dark energy", "dark matter", "black holes" and "the big bang" seriously? Why? Have they actually been measured or harnessed in a laboratory? Perhaps Mr. Bridgman should explain how a nuclear-fusion theory of stellar energy and gravitational-collapse can explain such phenonema as the "solar wind"? The "wind" is basically a stream of accelerating charged particles. Perhaps he can explain how a nuclear-core stellar theory can account for the existence of a corona (and its great heat anomaly), sun-spots, sunspot cycles, differential rotations by depth and latitude, neutrino variability and deficiency, uniform solar density, changing size and so on whilst the mainstream fusion-core theory fails to predict such phenomena.

How about Mr Bridgman and other critics look at some of the successful predictions of the Electric Universe model?

http://www.mikamar.biz/predictions.htm

It is time that mainstream scientists started considering other qualitative and empirical assumptions about the nature of our universe. There may be a reason why so many are dismissive of ideas that go against the foundations of the current Einsteinian and largely gravity-dependent paradigm. The late Dr. William Birenbaum
(former President of Staten Island Community College) summed it up well:-

"The problem is the extreme professionalisation and rigidification of institutions through which thought is supposed to occur. Extreme to the point where it begins to contaminate the fluidity and looseness; the freedom to think. Fluidity and looseness of ideas, of having ideas and the freedom to think."
(Quote sourced from the documentary "Immanuel Velikovsky The Bonds of the Past").

Recent discoveries challenge the mainstream understanding of the universe

2011-05-12T09:01:00.000-07:00

First published in Weekly Zaman newspaper, May 2011.

The current delayed mission of NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour constitutes the penultimate launch for the Space Shuttle program. It comes at an end of an era, with over thirty years of Space Shuttle flights contributing to the launch of satellites, space telescopes and astronaut missions. The end of the Shuttle program will come at the loss of several thousand jobs and an increasing privatization of space missions thanks to the policies of the Obama administration. The increased focus on profit-based space excursions may well be to the detriment of scientific research into the nature of our universe. While we have learned a considerable amount of information about the environment outside our planet; there are clearly more things to learn and discover. We could also go as far as to entirely question our current understanding of the universe. Indeed, as the era of the Space Shuttle comes to a close, perhaps this could help direct resources to help herald the dawn of a new era in the sciences of astronomy and cosmology.

The delayed Space Shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to launch on the 8th of May at the earliest, and will carry several items to the International Space Station. Among them is an instrument called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 which has been designed to measure a phenonema known as "cosmic rays" - which are basically a collection of charged particles flowing from outer space. NASA have also stated that the instrument may help scientists learn more about the nature of "dark matter" and perhaps unveil some of the mysteries surrounding this hypothetical form of matter that allegedly constitutes the majority of the mass of the universe. The mentioning of such a phenonema like "dark matter" has been accepted as a credible possibility among the majority of the astronomical community. Indeed, it forms part of a panoply of weird and exotic phenonema such as "black holes", "dark energy", "gravitons", "WIMPS" and "MACHOS" (among others) that mainstream astrophysicsts have added to the consensus vocabulary and which continue to be repeated on popular science websites and news articles. But what if such phenonema are merely misleading entities created to fit the holes in an erroneous mainstream view of the universe? How much of our current gravity-dependent understanding of the universe is actually correct? A small group of scientists have long held an understanding of our universe that flys in the face of the mainstream consensus, and recent discoveries have helped bolster their theory.

On the 13th of April, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that its Herschel space observatory discovered "networks of tangled gaseous filaments" in the clouds between stars. These filaments have been imaged in unprecedented detail; spanning distances of many light years, and in places crossing and apparently entangling with other filaments. Interestingly the densest regions of these filament networks are said to contain "newly-born stars", according to the ESA press release. Göran Pilbratt (the head of the Herschel project) stated that "we can actually see stars forming like beads on strings in some of these filaments”. Herschel has also discovered that the width of each individual filament is approximately the same. The discovery of the equal widths of each filament has come as a "very big surprise" to the researchers involved. The lead author, Doris Arzoumanian, measured 90 filaments within the gas cloud known as IC5146 and found that each one measured 0.3 light years across. Such a consistent width prompted a need for an explanation, and this was met by computer models based on a hypothesis that dissipating "sonic booms" from exploding stars manifest as shockwaves in these clouds, and form the filaments. The project authors have stated that such an explanation does not constitute direct proof, but they do claim that these "sonic booms" are strong evidence for the formation of the filaments and that this also has implications for the conventional understanding of star formation. Indeed, one of the Herschel scientists stated that the filament-forming shockwaves “provides a very strong constraint on theories of star formation”. Conventional theories of star formation rely on theories such as “gravitational collapse” or “accretion disks” of interstellar clouds. Such theories, however, have been challenged by the ESA Herschel discovery as well as a small group of scientists that follow a cosmological model known as Plasma Cosmology.

The Plasma Cosmology model was originally conceived in the mid 1960's by the physicist Hannes Alfvén - who won the Nobel Prize as a result of his studies on plasmas. Since then, his work has been expanded on by a variety of scientists primarily working in the field of Electrical Engineering, particularly since the nature of plasma is essentially electrical. It can be regarded as a state of matter composed of charged particles (such as atoms that have gained or lost electrons) that can often be diffusely mixed with free floating electrons and neutral atoms. It is the behaviour of such matter in outer space that Plasma Cosmologists (sometimes also known as Electric Universe theorists) claim can explain how stars are actually formed. An important mechanism that is used by plasma theorists to explain much of the phenonema in space is collectively known as Birkeland Currents. The currents are named after the pioneering Norwegian physicist Kristian Birkeland, who predicted them as part of the behaviour of the polar auroras which he studied in the 1900's. These interesting magnetic-field aligned currents were among a variety of phenonema that was discussed by electrical engineer Dr. Donald Scott in a presentation at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in March 2009. While being only an amateur astronomer, Dr. Scott's knowledge of electrodynamic plasma warranted an invitation to speak at the Goddard institute particularly since the publication of his book “The Electric Sky”. While Dr. Scott's talk has been met with skepticism amongst the mainstream astrophysical community, his analyses and observations should not be dismissed without serious investigation. In his talk, he mentioned how the vast majority of space contains charged particles which produce electric currents that are often manifested as Birkeland Currents. These currents often manifest in the form of pairs of conducting plasma filaments wrapped around each other almost like a double-helix. In areas where the current-density is weaker, the filaments are invisible and are in the “dark mode” of plasma. He mentioned that plasma tends to also have a cellular structure, with regions of sufficiently large charge differentials being surrounded by an entity known as a “double layer”. Most importantly, he stated that the force and energy created by the behaviour of inter-stellar space plasmas vastly exceeds the strength of gravity. This challenges the mainstream consensus viewpoint that has restricted the role of electrodynamic plasma to specific regions where the magnetic field-lines are “frozen-in”. Dr. Scott challenges the notion of “frozen-in” magnetic “field lines” by stating that they do not have distinct countable identities. In a 2007 paper published in an IEEE journal Dr. Scott stated that "When, in his acceptance speech of the 1970 Nobel Prize in physics, Alfvén pointed out that this frozen-in idea, which he had earlier endorsed, was false, many astrophysicists chose not to listen”. Thus, Plasma and Electric Universe cosmologists state that the space between stars and the entire environment of space can be said to be full of flowing electromagnetic currents which manifest the varied phenonema that can be observed in the sky.

The recent ESA Herschel discovery of “tangled gaseous filaments” in interstellar clouds may well be little to do with “sonic booms” and very much to do with the behaviour of Birkeland Currents in plasma. The stars that have been observed “forming like beads on strings” by the Herschel researchers could really be a cosmic equivalent of bead lightning. In an article on his website in 2008; Australian physicist Wallace Thornhill wrote that stars are formed by the stellar equivalent of lightning bolts in clouds of plasma. He wrote that matter is scavenged, heated and squeezed along the discharge channels with the current being “pinched” off where the squeeze is most intense – forming plasma beads. He talked about laboratory experiments conducted with high-energy plasma discharges which yielded hot plasma beads (also known as 'plasmoids') forming along the axis of the discharge and scattering after the discharge dissipates. The ESA Herschel scientists discovered that the densest regions of the gaseous filaments were forming stars; and this correllates with the behaviour of magnetic field-aligned Birkeland Currents producing periodic magnetic forces that compress currents into a phenonema known as "Bennett pinches". The ESA scientists also stated that the consistent width of the gaseous filaments was a “very big surprise”, but yet – they were able to hypothesize an explanation without resorting to inter-stellar electricity. The Plasma Cosmologists, on the other hand, claim that electric discharge channels in high-energy space plasmas can be constrained to constant widths over vast distances. Indeed, such discoveries are not a "very big surprise" for plasma cosmologists. No "dark matter", "black holes", "sonic booms" or "gravitational collapse" mechanisms are required to explain such phenonema. Perhaps it is time that mainstream scientists approached the work of Plasma theorists (such as Dr. Donald Scott and Wallace Thornhill) with a more open-mind. As the pioneering scientist Hannes Alfvén once said about the need for more dialogue between different scientific disciplines (and which Dr.Scott mentioned at the end of his NASA lecture): “It often happened that one group reported that in their field they had a special problem which they could not possibly understand. I told them that if they cared to open the door to the next room, it was not locked. Just this special problem had been solved half a year ago, and that if they injected the solution into their own field – it would take a great leap forward. Often they were not at all happy for this suggestion”.

~Hossein Turner.

Newspaper article about Plasma Cosmology/Electric Universe

2011-05-07T05:46:00.000-07:00

I recently had an article published about Plasma Cosmology/Electric Universe theory on the English edition of the Turkish newspaper "Zaman".

Here are two pictures:-

You can read the newspaper article here:-
http://hozturner.blogspot.com/2011/05/recent-discoveries-challenge-mainstream.html

You can also read my much longer blog article on the subject:-
http://hozturner.blogspot.com/2011/03/challenging-group-think-of-mainstream.html

The killing of Bin Laden resolves nothing

2011-05-03T08:24:00.000-07:00

"But conspiracy theories aside. Really, let's give the US government the benefit of the doubt. Let us assume that they are not lying, and that Bin Laden was really killed in that compound."

This article has been recently updated 6th May 2011.

The US authorities have trumpeted the death of Osama Bin Laden after a recent successful US military operation in Pakistan. Questions have been raised over the release of a fake photo of his death (above image) that was used by several mainstream newspapers until the fakery was reported, and the image pulled. However, that is only the beginning of the story...

9/11 activist Jon Gold wrote an excellent piece titled "The Facts Speak For Themselves" which he has added to over the years. In the article, there is an interesting chronology of the various reports over the years concerning Bin Laden's state of health or death:-

Over the years, there have been several reports indicating that Osama Bin Laden is dead.

On 12/26/2001, Fox News reported that “Usama bin Laden has died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication.”

On 1/18/2002, President Pervez Musharraf says, “I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason he is a … kidney patient.”

On 7/18/2002, the FBI’s counter-terroism chief Dale Watson says, “I am not really sure of the answer… I personally think he is probably not with us anymore but I have no evidence to support that.”

On 10/7/2002, President Hamid Karzai says that Bin Laden is probably dead.

On 10/16/2002, Israeli intelligence sources report that Osama is dead.

On 10/23/2005, a Multan newspaper reports that Osama Bin Laden, “died four months ago in a village near Kandahar of severe illness.”

On 3/15/2006, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports about a claim by then Rep. Curt Weldon that Osama Bin Laden died in Iran.

On 9/23/2006, it is reported that “a French regional newspaper quoted a French secret service report on Saturday as saying that Saudi Arabia is convinced that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan last month.” President Chirac said this was “in no way whatsoever confirmed.”

Recently, former CIA official Robert Baer said that he thinks Osama is dead.

On 6/30/2008, Time released an article entitled, “Is Osama bin Laden Dying … Again?”
(http://911truthnews.com/the-facts-speak-for-themselves/#fact42)

Bare in mind - that some of the links in the above quote may no longer work. So I suggest that readers enter them into the http://web.archive.org/ machine for retrieval.

Does the above chronology constitute proof of prior death? No, it doesn't. But it's something to keep in mind.

The alleged DNA test of Bin Laden's body (occurring within 24 hours) and the alleged wife of Bin Laden confirming the body - doesn't neccessarily constitute cast-iron proof that Bin Laden was killed in the recent operation. These claims do come from a government that lied its way into several wars (including concocting evidence about WMD's). Some people are making very speculative claims that the DNA test could have been from Bin Laden's body which may have been lying in a morgue somewhere in Pakistan. Really?

I would argue that it is not wise to start arguing about the credibility of the DNA issue. It seems he could well have been identified within a short time:-
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=how-do-you-id-a-dead-osama-anyway-2011-05-02&WT.mc_id=SA_WR_20110504

I suppose conspiracy theorists could have a laugh and take a look at how Pope John Paul II died in 2005 as well as point fingers at the timing in which he was recently dragged out for his somewhat morbid "beatification" ceremony. For all we know, they could've done the same with Osama? Really? Yes, it does make for an amusing conspiracy theory...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gIVVoMGbCxUv4YdZNnlu_SGMGprA?docId=CNG.f330bf79cb1a8819bbcd05c6144f6673.701

But conspiracy theories aside. Really, let's give the US government the benefit of the doubt. Let us assume that they are not lying, and that Bin Laden was really killed in that compound. Congratulations - it has been a decade and trillions of dollars and many lives that have been lost in order to hunt down and kill one man. One man who allegedly had a Pakistani ISI "handling officer":-

On 10/19/2007, B. Raman reported that “Brig Ejaz Shah, a former officer of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence” [...] “used to be the handling officer of Osama bin Laden and Mulla Omar, the amir of the Taliban.” When I asked Mr. Raman “What does it mean to be Osama Bin Laden’s “Handling Officer” for the Pakistani ISI? What is the responsibility of the person that has this particular job?” his response was, “The handling officer of a source in Indian and Pakistani intelligence agencies is the person who looks after the welfare of the source, keeps him motivated and uses him as needed. The source cannot meet anybody else other than his handling officer except the head of the agency. One source–one handling officer is the general rule. This is to prevent the exposure of the operation and maintain its deniability. I understand in the CIA they call him the Running Officer of a source.”
Source: - (http://911truthnews.com/the-facts-speak-for-themselves/#fact36)

There is more information on Ejaz Shah here - including sources that point to him working with ISI officers (even though he was no longer a member of the ISI) as well as protecting the terrorist Saeed Sheikh:-
http://visibility911.com/jongold/?p=317

There are some important and basic facts to summarise about Osama Bin Laden:-

* Bin Laden has never been indicted for the 9/11 attacks.

* Bin Laden has released contradictory statements about his involvement in the attacks - most of them being denials.

* Bin Laden has not been regarded by the US authorites as the 9/11 mastermind (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has been alleged to be the mastermind, but he has been tortured and admitted making up stories - albeit one should not assume he is innocent either).

* Bin Laden was found to be residing close to an important Pakistani military facility.

(All those facts - and more - are listed in Jon Gold's article "The Facts Speak For Themselves" which was recently updated http://911truthnews.com/the-facts-speak-for-themselves/).

US Sen. Carl Levin stated that the Pakistani military and ISI have lots of explaining to do:-

"I think the Pakistani army and intelligence have a lot of questions to answer, given the location, the length of time and the apparent fact that this facility was actually built for bin Laden and its closeness to the central location of the Pakistani army," Levin said. "So I think the army and the intelligence of Pakistan have plenty of questions that they should be answering and hopefully they are being asked by the Pakistani government."
(http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/02/how-did-bin-laden-hide-just-yards-from-pakistan-military-academy/)

Obama's counterterrorism adviser John Brennan told CBS News that Bin Laden had apparently been living in that secure facility "for the past five or six years". Mr Brennan also stated that "we know that he had released videos and audios. We know that he was in contact with some senior al Qaeda officials.."
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110503/wl_nm/us_binladen_usa_residence_3)

And then this from Democracy Now:-

The Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail is reporting a local police source in Abbottabad said bin Laden’s compound was also used by Hizbul Mujahideen, a Pakistani militant group active in Kashmir that many believe has the support of Pakistani security services.Meanwhile, the Pakistani government is claiming it warned U.S. intelligence two years ago about the compound where bin Laden was killed.
(http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/5/pakistani_military_faces_scrutiny_as_unfolding)

So if the Pakistani authorities were likely aware of his presence there for so long.....why take Bin Laden out now?

Stefan Molyneux has a theory......

Here are what I regard as the most important questions here:-

Why is the US government confronting the Pakistani ISI when the US government worked closely with the Pakistani ISI before and after 9/11 and even allegedly worked with people who had close ties to Al Qaeda.

9/11 activist Jon Gold writes:-

The planning of the recent Mumbai "terrorist attacks" are said to have originated in Pakistan. There are allegations that Pakistan was involved in the 9/11 attacks as well. Since 9/11, Pakistan has been considered to be an ally, or partner in the "War On Terror." Why would the U.S. become an ally with, and reward a country that was allegedly involved in the 9/11 attacks? Wasn't it Bush who said, "we will make no distinction between those who committed these acts and those who harbor them?" Could it be because during the Bush Administration, Pakistan policy was "essentially being run from Cheney's office?"
(http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showpost.php?p=95738&postcount=1)

Here are some unanswered questions raised by the Family Steering Committee of the 9/11 Commission (i.e. the people who spear-headed the fight for the creation of the Commission and who were regarded as "essential" by the Commission staffers):-

On the issue of state sponsored terrorism:

· Why did Mahmood Ahmed, Director of Pakistan's secret service, the (ISI) order Saeed Sheikh to wire $100,000 to hijacker Mohamed Atta?

· What was Mahmood Ahmed's relationship with Al Qaeda?

· Where did the money come from?

· Did officials in Pakistan know in advance about the terrorist attack?

· On September 11 th , Mahmood Ahmed had a breakfast meeting in Washington, D.C., with House and Senate Intelligence Committee chairmen, Rep. Porter Goss and Senator Bob Graham. What were they discussing?
(http://www.911independentcommission.org/questions.html)

The following is a video that I created a while ago that briefly explores the close ties between the Pakistani ISI and CIA before and after 9/11:-

Why did the 9/11 Commission refuse to even mention allegations against members of the Pakistani ISI, especially that of General Mahmoud Ahmed and Saeed Sheikh? Is General Mahmoud Ahmed still in Rawalpindi, or is he in Lahore? Why did the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission also try and create a false link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda? Why did he shy people away from the NSA? Why did he write a complete outline of the final report before the commissioners even started their work? Why did he prevent commission staffers from seeing the 28 redacted pages that allegedly talked about Saudi Arabian government connections to the attacks? Why is Obama still refusing to unclassify those pages? Why wasn't there follow-up reports concerning allegations that Pakistani lobbies gave money to 9/11 Commission staff in order that they be nice to Pakistan? Lots of questions remain unanswered - but the most disturbing story of 9/11 comes from the way the American (and British) government protected and covered-up information that suggested Saeed Sheikh and Mahmoud Ahmed were involved in the 9/11 plot - much to the ire of members of the Family Steering Committee of the 9/11 Commission. The idea that the US intelligence agencies were not aware of Saeed Sheikh's activities before 9/11 and in the months after 9/11 - is not credible. If he was in close touch with Al Qaeda, and if he indeed wired money from the Pakistani ISI to an Al Qaeda member and suspect (Mohammed Atta) via an alias - then this may well have been discovered upon a basic intelligence liason with the Pakistani ISI. Why was this not done? Why did the US government not bring up the topic of alleged 9/11-funding by Saeed Sheikh (as well as Mahmoud Ahmed) after Daniel Pearl was murdered?

There are a lot of leads that imply that Saeed Sheikh wired money to 9/11 hijackers, and History Commons is an excellent resource that covers the reporting:-
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a0801ransommoney#a0801ransommoney

One of the entries is particularly revealing:-

September 24, 2001: Newsweek reports that the paymaster for the 9/11 attacks is someone named “Mustafa Ahmed.” [Newsweek, 10/1/2001] This refers to Mustafa Mahmoud Said Ahmed, an Egyptian al-Qaeda banker who was captured in Tanzania in 1998 then later released. [Sydney Morning Herald, 9/28/2001; Newsday, 10/3/2001]
October 1, 2001: The Guardian reports that the real name of “Mustafa Mohamed Ahmad” is “Sheikh Saeed.” [Guardian, 10/1/2001] A few days later, CNN confirms from a “senior-level US government source” that this “Sheik Syed” is the British man Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh rescued from an Indian prison in 1999. [CNN, 10/6/2001; CNN, 10/8/2001] However, starting on October 8, the story that ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed ordered Saeed to give Mohamed Atta $100,000 begins to break. References to the 9/11 paymaster being the British Saeed Sheikh (and the connections to the ISI Director) suddenly disappear from the Western media (with one exception [CNN, 10/28/2001] ).
October 2001: Other articles continue to use “Mustafa Mohammed Ahmad” or “Shaykh Saiid” with no details of his identity, except for suggestions that he is Egyptian. There are numerous spelling variations and conflicting accounts over which name is the alias. There is an Egyptian al-Qaeda financier leader named Mustafa Abu al-Yazid who uses some variant of Saeed Sheikh as an alias. [Evening Standard, 10/1/2001; BBC, 10/1/2001; Newsday, 10/3/2001; Associated Press, 10/6/2001; Washington Post, 10/7/2001; Sunday Times (London), 10/7/2001; Knight Ridder, 10/9/2001; New York Times, 10/15/2001; Los Angeles Times, 10/20/2001]

Lots of leads talk about Omar Saeed Sheikh...then the trail gets obfuscated, mixed up with other names and aliases, and finally runs cold.

There is an interesting report in January 2002 by the Press Trust Of India that talks about a criminal known as Aftab Ansari and his alleged connections to Omar Saeed Sheikh:-

Linking Tuesday's shootout at American Centre in eastern Indian metropolis, Kolkata, with September 11 US strikes, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) informed FBI that the ransom money taken by Dubai underworld don Aftab Ansari to release a Kolkata shoe baron was used to finance Mohammed Atta, leader of the hijackers who rammed planes into buildings in Washington and New York.

CBI Director P C Sharma told visiting FBI Chief Robert S Mueller that Ansari, who claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack, had taken a ransom of Rs 37.5 million to free shoe baron Parthapratim Roy Burman through hawala channels to Dubai, CBI sources said.

Out of this amount, Omar Sheikh, one of the three militants released by India for the safety of hostages on board the hijacked Indian Airlines plane in Kandahar, had sent 100,000 US Dollars to Atta through telegraphic transfer, CBI sources said. Sheikh, a British national, was an important leader of Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islamia (HuJI).

The sources said Ansari had been directed by Sheikh in August last year to establish a network to have covert operations launched through Bangladesh besides carrying out kidnappings to secure release of some hardcore militants from jails.

Ansari was cultivated by Pakistan's ISI in early 2000 for supporting covert operations in India, sources said, adding, shootout was a clear indication that some Pakistan-supported groups were targeting India through third countries.
(Continued here:- http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/2002/pti012202.html)

An article in India Today on 25th February 2002 was titled "Ansari Had Pakistani Patronage and Sheikh is Linked To Al Qaida". The article also references Omar Saeed Sheikh's alleged connections to Ansari:-
(http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a1194saeedprison#a1194saeedprison)

A clip from an NBC report on the murder of Daniel Pearl mentions the fact that the US government secretly indicted Omar Saeed Sheikh for the kidnapping of another American in 1994. There was no official mention by the Justice Department about arresting him for suspicion of involvement in the 9/11 plot, although some US intelligence officials were inquiring about any connections that he may have had with Al Qaeda (and that is mentioned at the end of this brief report:-)

Regardless of any investigations....US authorities very likely already knew about Saeed Sheikh's ties with Al Qaeda. This, and the allegations against General Mahmoud Ahmed and the ISI involvement in 9/11 funding - were basically covered-up and left unaddressed. There were never calls for the arrests of Mahmoud Ahmed and Omar Saeed Sheikh based on this alleged involvement. Why?

Such issues of Pakistani ISI and CIA connections are part of some core questions when it comes to the unsolved crime of 9/11. And it seems that people want to ignore them and instead focus on whether Bin Laden was killed recently or not. Who cares when Bin Laden was killed? Ultimately, the time or nature of his death is not important and may well get pigeon-holed as an easy way to attack people who question the official account of 9/11. The real questions are the ones that are being ignored.

The looming silver shortage is yet another symptom of peak debt

2011-04-26T09:28:00.000-07:00

"Apmex Starts Reverse Inquiry: Seeks To Buy "Any Quantity" Of Silver From Clients At $3 Over Spot"
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/apmex-starts-reverse-inquiry-seeks-buy-any-quantity-silver-clients-3-over-spot

The above story is quite some news. The collateral on the worlds' huge debt bubble that is so highly washed in dollar-based interest rate derivatives is dissapering fast. The growth potential of collateral reached an all-time peak in 2006 (as the IEA admitted in its 2010 report that conventional oil reached an "all-time peak"). This is the start of a long contraction. There has been much touted allegations by the IMF filtering into the news about China apparently set to exceed the US GDP output in a few years. This won't happen through growth alone. This will happen because the US will likely contract at a faster pace than China, while China continues to contract more slowly (there are some government policies there that have enacted some limited controls on the degree of hot money and price inflation, as well as greater investment in renewables and in land-based assets around the world without military expenditure). The real test now is....can the rich countries deal with the constant circle of debt that is pretty much playing like a game of "pass the parcel" throughout all the sovereign debt nations in Europe to America and back again and beyond. The debt cannot be paid back in a world that has past peak growth and peak oil - especially when the notional value of interest-rate derivatives exceeds that of over 20 planet earths. Again, think about it. 20 planet earths worth of debt. Most of this "wealth" does not even exist, yet many people are being made to pay for this leverage-fraud. No prosecutions are forthcoming and as the people remain apathetic, there doesn't seem to be much prospect for that.

In the light of this insane mess, and in a global system that remains highly-interdependent, that moves rapidly with considerable complexity - what is to be done? Many nations from the Latin American Bolivarian states (with their Sucre Nova asset-based proposals) want to throw off the shackles of the influence of the fraudulent dollar contagion in order to achieve more economic security and stability in this post-peak oil world. There are issues about control over the remaining oil and many other resources - and that ties in with US operations and policies after 9/11. Just look at Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, East Africa, Yemen and now North Africa. Oil is indeed, liquid-hegemonic power and whoever sits on it will call the shots in a world where few nations want to default on all their debt. If they refuse to pay it back or refuse to follow austerity plans or even threaten to enact monetary reform altogether then this could be one of many triggers that could ignite conflict or the rupturing of existing treaties.

Ultimately, we are in a situation where energy security, food security and resource-security matters most. We could well be entering an era of asset-based money as opposed to debt-based money (credit-controlled economy). Will people be able to handle this?

This situation in the near-future (nobody knows when) is something that I would also regard as a test for the Austrian-economic thesis on precious metals price mechanics in a future asset-based economy. Murray Rothbard often asserted that the amount of silver or gold should not have any neccessary deflationary impact on the general economy, he stated:-

"Money performs its function by being a medium of exchange; any change in its supply, therefore, will simply adjust itself in the purchasing power of the money unit, that is, in the amount of other goods that money will be able to buy. An increase in the supply of money means merely that more units of money are doing the social work of exchange and therefore that the purchasing power of each unit will decline."
http://mises.org/daily/1829

My critique of this statement is that while it may be true that the purchasing power is greater in such a situation - there will be far less holders of gold and the capital will likely circulate in fewer hands. The result is a situation where the nations' wealth becomes far too locked-up amongst networks of gold investors. For more on the issue of metals currencies, I refer readers to a blogpost I wrote back in 2009 (http://hozturner.blogspot.com/2009/09/ron-paul-and-misguided-push-for-gold.html).

A real free-market solution would advocate a mixed basket of currencies that don't stick to a rigid metals paradigm. Things like agricultural goods as an example represent easily produced assets that can become a vital part of a range of asset-based currencies. A mixture of voluntary democratic credit institutions could manage the flow of a variety of currencies that are not so much pegged to the dollar. Money really should actually represent real wealth, rather than just speculative debt. However, true wealth is not simply found in heavy metals. Wealth is represented in a whole variety of things we take for granted and in my view - the best wealth lies in voluntary community interactions and connections. People really do matter.

Climate Science and intellectual integrity - Updated

2011-04-24T04:36:00.000-07:00

I want to alert readers to a recent amendment I have made to an earlier blog post. The amended article can be found here:-

http://hozturner.blogspot.com/2011/02/climate-science-and-intellectual.html

Arab revolutions co-opted into the game of post-9/11 energy hegemony

2011-04-20T04:53:00.000-07:00

The recent confirmation that the US was funding money to opposition groups in Syria since 2006; suggests that civil unrest in the region has long been anticipated by the major powers and thus attempts to co-opt them have been in-place from day one. An article by Al Jazeera details the following on the Syria revelations:-

The US government has secretly funded Syrian opposition groups, including a London-based television station, according to diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks to The Washington Post.

The newspaper reported on Monday that the US state department has channelled up to $6m since 2006 to a group of Syrian exiles to operate Barada TV, and to finance activities inside Syria.

The television station is closely affiliated with the Movement for Justice and Development, a London-based network of Syrian exiles, the paper said, and has ramped up operations to cover the mass protests in Syria.
It added that US money for Syrian opposition groups began under George Bush, the former US president, after ties with Damascus were frozen in 2005.

The financial backing has continued under Barack Obama, the current president, despite an attempt by his administration to rebuild relations with the Middle Eastern nation.
(http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/04/2011418114117731717.html)

The pre-emptive intervention doesn't just apply to Syria. An article by Professor Michel Chossudovsky details that the military intervention in Libya was probably planned months in advance (a month before the uprisings in Tunisia):-
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24351

"While war games are not uncommon, the similarities between ‘Southern Mistral’ and ‘Operation Odyssey Dawn’ highlight just how many unanswered questions remain regarding our own military planning for Libya.

The ‘Southern Mistral’ war games called for Great Britain-French air strikes against an unnamed dictator of a fictional country, “Southland.” The pretend attack was authorized by a pretend United Nations Security Council Resolution. The ‘Southern Mistral’ war games were set for March 21-25, 2011.

On March 19, 2011, the United States joined France and Great Britain in an air attack against Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1973.

Scheduling a joint military exercise that ends up resembling real military action could be seen as remarkable planning by the French and British, but it also highlights questions regarding the United States’ role in planning for the war. We don’t know how long the attack on Libya has been in preparation, but Congress must find out. We don’t know who the rebels really represent and how they became armed, but Congress must find out. (Denis Kucinich, Kucinich: President Had Time to Consult with International Community, Not Congress? | Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich, Press Release, March 29, 2011)

Clearly disturbing, but this is most likely all part of a plan to pre-empt further Chinese and Russian influence in North Africa (over oil and gas contracts and transit-routes) as well as to ensure that dictators don't have too much control over their own energy wealth. In an interview with PressTV, the award-winning journalist and former Reagan administration official Paul Craig Roberts - voiced similar concerns about Western intentions with respect to the Libya intervention and how they impact the interests of China and Russia (http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts300.html). This all ties in with recurring British government policy directives of course, such as here:-
http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/siteinfo/newsround/FCOStrategyFullFinal.pdf
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.mod.uk/publications/whitepaper2003/chapter1.htm

The usual rhetoric is "humanitarian intervention", "preventing conflict" (i.e. really pre-emptive war) which is part of protecting UK strategic interests (such as energy supply security) which usually converge with that of the US.

And why have we gone against our old friend Ghadaffi? What happened to the deals in the desert with Blair in 2007? Hmm....

In 2009, Ghadaffi threatened to nationalise the oil reserves in Libya, and he made this threat on more than one occasion:-
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/daf1303c-eb1a-11dd-bb6e-0000779fd2ac.html#axzz1K3K9pc1t

Another article reported that Libyan government officials were behaving erratically in 2009 in response to rhetoric aimed against Ghadaffi by the Canadian government:-

The erratic behaviour of Libyan government officials and that of Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi is well known. In 2009, Libya threatened to nationalise the Libyan operations of PetroCanada, a Canadian oil and gas company, after Canada’s foreign minister said he would give Gaddafi a “public tongue-lashing” over Libya’s decision to greet the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi as a hero on his release.

The situation was made worse when Col Gaddafi and his 130-strong delegation were handed tourist visas by Canada for a stopover in Newfoundland on a return flight from addressing the United Nations in New York.

Within days, the head of Libya’s state-owned National Oil Company had contacted the chairman of PetroCanada “with a threat to nationalise the company’s operations in Libya if the Canadian Government did not offer a formal apology”.(http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/gaddafi-threatens-seizure-of-foreign-businesses-as-grtu-appeals-for-loan-guarantees-on)

Clearly such erratic behaviour would not be met with approval in Washington either.

In response to the recent military intervention, Ghadaffi has threatened to cut-off oil to Europe and open contracts with Russia, China and India:-
http://www.businessinsider.com/qaddafi-threatens-european-oil-interests-in-libya-2011-3

While we can argue about percentages (Libyan oil being in the single % figures when it comes to imports into Europe) - it really is about investment and ownership of the oil in Libya which is sold globally, as well as the fact that many of the oil and gas fields remain undeveloped (http://www.nubianconsulting.co.uk/oil_reserves_libya.html).

Rather disturbingly, a US Joint Forces Command report last year stated that such military interventions could result in an "arc of chaos" involving the military force of many nations:-

OPEC nations will remain a focal point of great-power interest. These nations may have a vested interest in inhibiting production increases, both to conserve finite supplies and to keep prices high. Should one of the consumer nations choose to intervene forcefully, the “arc of instability” running from North Africa through to Southeast Asia easily could become an “arc of chaos,” involving the military forces of several nations.
(http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2010/JOE_2010_o.pdf)

The fact that energy-security is at the heart of these post-9/11 military interventions was further confirmed by the leak of government documents that were recently sent to The Independent newspaper:-

"Five months before the March 2003 invasion, Baroness Symons, then the Trade Minister, told BP that the Government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraq's enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Tony Blair's military commitment to US plans for regime change."
(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/secret-memos-expose-link-between-oil-firms-and-invasion-of-iraq-2269610.html)

In the case of the intervention in Afghanistan, we have the TAPI pipeline which the US has lobbied for in opposition to the rival Iranian-backed IPI pipeline:-

The TAPI project looks to have a better chance of feeding the huge South Asian gas market than Iran's rival pipeline, as it has the support of the U.S. as well as the Asian Development Bank.
(http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110303-701229.html)

An article by the BBC in 1999 stated that:-

Iran has stirred up the fighting in order to make sure an international oil pipeline went through its territory and not through Afghanistan.
(http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a122099iran#a122099iran)

The post-9/11 world may not simply be just a normal continuation of US hegemony in the world, as political analyst Nafeez Ahmed writes:-

But the post-9/11 era was not simply a continuation of historic US imperialism. President George W. Bush's new National Security Strategy represented a departure, emphasizing a new doctrine of power projection based on unilateral US power at the expense of multilateralism; the primacy of pre-emptive warfare; the need for long-term US state-building projects in strategic regions; and overall, all this is part of a drive to reconfigure the entire defence system to sustain US pre-eminence in the face of a potentially rapidly changing world order. The Strategy brought together pre-existing US military trends and practices into a coherent policy package. This was a regressive intensification of US security policy, a strategic response to the perception of an unprecedented crisis for US hegemony.
(Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, "A Users Guide To The Crisis Of Civilization" - 2010, p.166)

Some may argue that the fact that Britain and France were solely involved in the Libyan "Southern Mistral" war-games (months in advance of the real invasion) means that somehow the unilateral Bush-era policy no longer applies under Obama. But they would be wrong. Libya was added to the "axis of evil" nations in 2002 by the US authorities (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/1971852.stm) although the relations were restored in 2006 as a result of agreements by Ghadaffi to co-operate with weapons inspectors (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4773617.stm). It also opened up the way for British PM Tony Blair to make oil deals with Ghadaffi which have become to be known as the "deal in the desert" and which were also suspected by the US to be tied to the release of alleged Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/07/wikileaks-gaddafi-britain-lockerbie-bomber). The fact that there were some diplomatic squabbles between the UK and the US with respect to the Megrahi affair and US suspicions about lobbying from the oil company BP - suggest maybe the US would've liked to have controlled the way in which business was done with the reformed "former terrorist" Colonel Ghadaffi. We don't know the real reason for such apparent public disagreements, albeit it could also have just been a case of political theatre designed to hide the fact that the US has also heavily invested and lobbied for oil in Libya. An article by the Sunlight Foundation reported:-

On October 5, 2008 U.S. and Libyan business leaders met with Department of Commerce Assistant Secretary Israel Hernandez as he opened a new Foreign Commercial Service office in Tripoli. In the same year, more companies and trade associations than ever before disclosed that they were lobbying the U.S. government in Washington to keep the newly opened African nation open for business. Much of that lobbying aided in the growing U.S.-Libyan business connection that led to the opening of the office.(http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2011/02/23/u-s-companies-lobbied-to-keep-libyan-market-open-for-business-2/)

Clearly, the threats by Ghadaffi to nationalise his oil reserves have gone down with considerable frustration in the various quarters of the Western military-industrial complex.

The same neo-conservative lobby behind the Bush-era policies have continued their pressure and influence over Obama's foreign policies (a damning laundry list of Obama's neo-con agenda can be found here http://stpeteforpeace.org/obama.html).. Several foreign policy experts (including former members of the PNAC think-tank http://www.newamericancentury.org/) pushed for military intervention in Libya earlier in March of this year:-

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Forty-six former U.S. government officials, human rights and democracy advocates, and foreign policy experts expressed concern Tuesday regarding the ongoing crisis in Libya, urging President Obama to: urgently institute a no fly zone over key Libyan cities and towns, recognize the Libyan National Transitional Council, and explore the possibility of targeted strikes against Qaddafi regime assets.(http://www.foreignpolicyi.org/content/foreign-policy-experts-again-urge-president-take-action-halt-violence-libya)

Even as the US has recently relaxed its military role in Libya and as the mainstream media claims that the Obama administration is taking a back-seat approach - one can see a continuation of the post-9/11 Bush-era policy of unilateralism. Despite the fact that the invasion of Iraq was supported by a coalition of over 40 countries, which Bush described as the "coalition of the willing" (http://www.clinecenter.illinois.edu/research/airbrushing_history/) - it was still effectively unilateral in terms of the chief architects. The war was basically pre-emptive, led by US interests (with countries such as Britain following at the heel) and most importantly - it was illegal. Obama has continued the illegal occupation. The same illegality also applies to the Libya intervention which has gone way past the original UN resolution, as former British diplomat Craig Murray writes on his blog:-

Nowhere does UNSCR 1973 mandate regime change or insist that Gadaffi must go as the end result of negotiations. If Gadaffi has accepted an AU-brokered ceasfire, then he is in compliance with the UN Resolution. If the rebels have refused such a ceasefire, then they are in breach of UNSCR 1973 and it is they who are endangering civilians.(http://craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2011/04/cameron-and-sarkozys-libyan-debacle/)

President Obama has stated that 'It is US policy that Gaddafi needs to go'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/mar/22/barack-obama-gaddafi-video

This is a blatant declaration and admission of criminality on the part of the US president. The post-9/11 world continues to further isolate the United States and its European co-horts as their thirst for hegemonic leverage in a world of post-peak oil (http://hozturner.blogspot.com/2010/12/misleading-information-in-post-peak.html) threatens to take humanity off a cliff. While the protest movements in the Arab world contain many genuine movements and calls for real reform - it is of great concern that such unrest and agitations have been anticipated in advance by nefarious powers who wish to exploit them and steer them into pieces of the great chess-board of power rivalries. The people in the Arab world are caught between a rock and a hard place.

Questions To The Astronomical Community

2011-04-05T08:09:00.000-07:00

This is a very interesting video produced by computer scientist Michael Suede, who hosts a website titled "Cosmology Quest". Now, I don't neccessarily agree with Mr. Suede's political views on his blogsite, but he has done some interesting and thought-provoking digging with respect to the issue of cosmology and the shortcomings of mainstream theory. In this video, he discusses questions surrounding the concepts of "dark matter", radio waves, big bang and red-shift, magnetic re-connection, cometary tails, and a host of other interesting issues of contention:-

BTW - I have recently updated my previous blogpost "Challenging the group-think of mainstream cosmology" to include more detail than before.

Challenging the group-think of mainstream cosmology

2011-03-31T15:44:00.000-07:00

This article has been revised on 04/05/2011

The main problem with conventional gravity-based cosmology that recently persuaded me towards plasma- cosmology theory was the issue of the sun - and firstly, it was the existence of the corona and it's high temperature. While the temperature of the photosphere is only a few thousand degrees, the corona (which lies above it) is several millions of degrees in temperature. Mainstream theory seems unable to elegantly explain this coronal heating. The Electric Sun model, however, seems able to explain it without having to invent exotic mathematical hypotheticals that go against established laws of thermodynamics. William Of Occam would indeed, be satisfied.

Dr.Donald Scott, an expert in electrical engineering writes this with respect to the existence of the solar corona:-

"The Sun's corona is visible only during solar eclipses (or via sophisticated instruments developed for that specific purpose). It is a vast luminous plasma glow that changes shape with time - always remaining fairly smooth and distributed in its inner regions, and showing filamentary spikes and points in its outer fringes. It is a "normal glow" mode plasma discharge. If the Sun were not electrical in nature this corona would not exist. If the Sun is simply a (non-electrical) nuclear furnace, the corona has no business being there at all. So one of the most basic questions that ought to arise in any discussion of the Sun is: Why does our Sun have a corona? Why is it there?"
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/sun.htm

Delving further into plasma cosmology, one notes that the flow of electrical currents into the sun - more elegantly explains the existence of the corona. After all, how and why would a turbulent nuclear furnace under the forces of gravity be producing such a phenonema? How would the heat radiate outwards, cool and then massively heat up exponentially without resorting to exotic physics that violate known physical laws?

A recent attempt to explain coronal heating was produced by a team using NASA's SDO telescope. They found that small-scale jets (from the solar surface) called "spicules" seemed to inject high-temperature plasma at very high-speed into the lower corona and this approached millions of degrees. However, this does not solve the issue of coronal heating, as NASA's James Klimchuck stated thus:-

“It is very nice work, but it is absolutely not the final story on the origin of hot coronal plasma..."
“Based on some simple calculations I have done, spicules account for only a small fraction of the hot plasma.”
(http://www.astroengine.com/2011/01/can-spicules-explain-the-mysteries-of-coronal-heating/)

Klimchuck favours a theoretical coronal heating mechanism that depends on a concept known as "magnetic re-connection". This concept is highly misleading, as I will highlight later in this article.

The sun produces a variety of interesting phenonema - such as sun spots, sun-spot migrations and cycles, differential solar rotations, equatorial plasma torus, accelerating solar winds and various other dynamics that are hard to explain when one relies on a nuclear-fusion model. Indeed, what if another model can explain these features (in a more cogent way) without the need for nuclear fusion at the solar core?

"In ultraviolet light the Sun features a hot plasma 'donut' encircling its equator. The same phenomenon occurs in laboratory plasma discharges to a positively charged, magnetized sphere. Electrical energy is stored in the 'donut' and occasionally released in powerful flares and coronal mass ejections. This also implies that the currents flowing in the solar torus couple with the surface plasma to drive the 'anomalous' equatorial rotation"
(Thornhill W. & Talbott D. "The Electric Universe" 2007, p.71)

The above images from the NASA SOHO spacecraft show the concentration of electromagnetic energy in the equatorial regions of the sun as the sun-spot cycle approaches its peak.

The Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland's "terella" experiments directed electrons towards a magnetized sphere (with varying amount of current input), with this interesting image showing bright electro-magnetic spots of energy considerably north and south of the equatorial region:-

However, the bright spots of electromagnetic energy starts to concentrate towards the equatorial region (similar to the phenomena present on our sun), as shown in the images below:-

(Further information on Birkeland can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristian_Birkeland)

If you observe the image of the sun's corona (top of this article) you can see crowning filamentary spikes above the north and south poles of the sun. The same features can be seen developing in Birkeland's terella experiment on the above image (the left photo), as well as here:-

Mainstream cosmology depends on nuclear-fusion at the solar core in order to explain such visual phenomena, and one of those is the intriguing problem of sunspot formation and dynamics as shown below:-

Notice the filamentary twist of the plasma along the periphery of the black centre (or "umbra")? The magnetic plasma characteristics of the glowing gas here (as well as in other regions of the sun) strongly indicate the existence of electric currents - because only electric currents produce magnetic fields. The dark nature of the sunspot is also problematic for a fusion-based theory of the sun, especially since you'd expect radiant energy to be escaping from a turbulent and extremely hot core. Yet here, we can peer further into the heart of the sun and see that it is dark and comparatively cool. Mainstream theory states that apparent "convection columns" below the dark regions of sunspots have their heat suppressed or diverted by strong magnetic fields that originate from "the solar dynamo" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_dynamo). However, the mechanism of this apparent "solar dynamo" is not fully understood or explained. The picture above shows no evidence of diverted heat from rising convection of hot gases under the dark sunspot umbra. Obviously, there is still energy in the dark regions (it appears dark because of the relative temperature contrast with the surrounding photosphere) but if sunspot umbrae constitute holes or depressions in the photosphere; then they should really be hotter than the outer layers of the photosphere (rather than cooler). Dr Donald E. Scott mentions this fact in his book "The Electric Sky"; as well as stating that mainstream theory posits "strange magnetic waves" and "tangled" magnetic fields below the surface somehow preventing convective transfer below the sunspots. Instead, Dr. Scott describes sunspots as being present within a region of lower incoming electron current-density (from space) and thus increasing the outflow of positive ions from the anode surface (underneath the photospheric tufts/granules) and resulting in a strong local electro-magnetic field. The steep voltage gradient between the dark sunspot umbra and the bright anode tufts/granules also contributes to the intense electro-magnetic field of the twisting penumbrae filaments (http://www.electric-cosmos.org/sun.htm). Wal Thornhill is a physicist who has also explained that incoming electrical currents (from space) manifest themselves in the cyclic sunspot phenonema (http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=s9ke93mf).

                    “Exactly what happens and why these kind of structures are formed, we don't know“
                                      Dan Kiselman, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm.
                                    (Source: http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch06/060414sunspots.htm)

The twisting penumbrae filaments observed in the above picture resemble a high-current density form of Birkeland Currents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkeland_current). Birkeland Currents were predicted and studied back at the start of the 20th century by physicist Kristian Birkeland in his study of the auroras on planet earth. In the above picture; the twisting currents crossing the umbra of the black hole suggest that these are solar tornado features. A dark-mode plasma form of these electro-magnetic tornadic features also seem to be present above the ionosphere of planet Earth and produce the beautiful auroras (and associated Birkeland currents). Indeed, a space probe discovered more about this phenonema a few years ago (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090424-space-tornadoes-auroras.html). These space tornado's are intermittant in their presence, forming roughly every three hours. Could it be that incoming electric currents and charged particles from the surrounding galaxy are powering similar intermittant (but much more energetic) electro-magnetic phenomena in certain regions of the sun? Do we really need an internal "solar dynamo" if such phenonema can possibly be explained by incoming (and varying) currents manifesting plasma instabilities and occasional large voltage differences on the surface of the sun?

The beautiful twisting curvature of the electric currents from the sun manifesting themselves
in the Northern Lights.

The twisting filamentary structure of the auroras as seen above the Earth.

"Convection remains the outstanding unsolved problem in photospheric physics" - (L.S. Anderson & E.H. Avrett "The Photosphere as a Radiative Boundary", Solar Interior and Atmosphere, ed. Cox, Livingston & Matthews, p.671).

The image above shows the granules appearing on the sun's photosphere - a phenomenon that makes-up the majority of discernible visible structure on the sun's surface. Mainstream theory regards the cause of such granulation to originate from convection columns emanating from the solar interior. However, the quote just beneath the above picture - demonstrates that such granules are a problematic thing to explain if one is relying on convectional models of heat-transfer to explain the dynamics of these structures. Indeed, one can notice glowing bright discharge structures that appear to be arcing their way through the granules. These structures are known as faculae and form interesting groove-like features in the "canyons" between solar granules. They are clear signs of electromagnetic activity (and hence, electric currents) which mainstream theory simply refers to as "concentrations of magnetic field lines" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facula). Faculae also appear to be associated with depressions in the photosphere (often seen as very small "sunspots") where the groove-like features are more pronounced and from which glowing discharge currents could be spreading out across the voltage gradients. The photospheric granules (which the faculae form adjacent to) could also likely be explained by electro-magnetic plasma. One explanation was offered in 1979, by the electrical engineer Ralph Juergens who stated that:-

"a [photospheric] granule may be viewed as a relatively dense, highly luminous, secondary plasma that springs into being in the embrace of a thinner, less luminous, primary plasma...we are led directly to ask whether the granules might not be akin to certain highly luminous tufts of discharge plasma variously described in the literature as anode glows, anode tufts, and anode arcs"
http://www.kronos-press.com/juergens/k0404-photosphere.htm

Maybe these granules (i.e. "anode tufts") are really just a manifestation of high-voltage, highly current-dense electric-arc discharges from energy produced at the solar surface (rather than deep inside the core):-

"When the current density is too high for the anode surface to accommodate, a bright secondary plasma forms within the primary plasma. It is termed “anode tufting.” On the Sun, the tufts are packed together tightly so that their tops give the appearance of “granulation.” "
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=x49g6gsf

While the dominant visible phenonema on the solar surface is manifested by the interesting movements of anode-tufts (or "granules") - there are occasional highly energetic and violent phenonema that appear in the form of "solar flares" and "prominences" which happen to be strongly correllated with sunspots (http://solar-center.stanford.edu/magnetism/magnetismsun.html). The mainstream theory regards the cause of this to be associated with a phenomena known as "magnetic re-connection". The notion that some mysterious solar dynamo produces "tangled magnetic fields" which open up and then "re-connect" - is a concept which is tantamount to reinventing the wheel.

In a paper published in an August 2007 issue of the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Dr. Donald Scott summarises the problems surrounding the theory of "magnetic reconnection":-

"A majority of baryons in the cosmos are in the plasma state. However, fundamental disagreements about the properties and behavior of electromagnetic ﬁelds in these plasmas exist between the science of modern astronomy/astrophysics and the experimentally veriﬁed laws of electrical engineering and plasma physics. Many helioastronomers claim that magnetic ﬁelds can be open ended. Astrophysicists have claimed that galactic magnetic ﬁelds begin and end on molecular clouds. Most electrical engineers, physicists, and pioneers in the electromagnetic ﬁeld theory disagree, i.e., magnetic ﬁelds have no beginning or end. Many astrophysicists still claim that magnetic ﬁelds are “frozen into” electric plasma. The “magnetic merging” (reconnection) mechanism is also falsiﬁed by both theoretical and experimental investigations."
http://members.cox.net/dascott3/IEEE-TransPlasmaSci-Scott-Aug2007.pdf

In his paper, Dr.Scott also states that the notion that magnetic field-lines can be "open" and hence at some point "re-connect"; fundamentally violates Maxwell's equations.

He also states:-

"Every magnetic ﬁeld is a continuum, i.e., a vector ﬁeld. Each of the inﬁnite and uncountable points in this continuum has a magnitude and a direction that is associated with it. This continuum is not composed of (does not contain) a set of discrete lines."

During his NASA Goddard presentation, Dr.Scott also states that "A magnetic field is a vector-field, it's a continuum, it's a fog, it's an uncountable number of points in a set; each point has a direction and a magnitude":-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dCJJj2u3NE&feature=related

In a paper published by the IEEE; Hannes Alfven (the Nobel-prize winner and father of plasma cosmology) - stated that the concept of magnetic "merging" or "reconnection" was a pseudo-science which was infecting cosmology and even plasma science at the time:-
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/freesrchabstract.jsp?tp=&arnumber=4316626&queryText%3Dhannes+alfven%26openedRefinements%3D*%26searchField%3DSearch+All

Clearly, times have not changed.

One of the statements from the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory websites argues that "reconnecting" magnetic "field lines" occur in plasmas that have a perfect conductivity.
http://mrx.pppl.gov/Physics/physics.html

However, Dr. Scott counters this by stating that magnetic fields are not frozen into plasmas and that plasmas are NOT perfect conductors (as implied by those who argue for the concept of "re-connection"). Referring back to Dr.Scott's 2007 IEEE paper, he states that the existence of weak longitudinal electric fields within plasmas falsifies the notion of "frozen-in" fields that are broken and at some point "re-connect". Indeed, nature is not known to make perfect conductors - nevermind violate the fundamental laws of Maxwell's equations.

There is a lot of dismissive rhetoric targeted at people who critique the concept of "magnetic-reconnection", and this is particularly notable in the case of a Wikipedia article that was written on the subject. An advocate of plasma cosmology wrote a "Criticism" section which challenged the mainstream acceptance of "magnetic reconnection", only for this section to be removed by editors who hold the mainstream position. The editor in question stated:-

"Wikipedia policy states: "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article." I am a researcher in the field of plasma physics and astronomy. I have studied magnetic reconnection in detail for the last seven years. I can attest that the viewpoint in the section I am trying to delete is held by an extremely small minority."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Magnetic_reconnection#Attempts_To_Delete_Criticism_Section

However, is this really a fair policy to have? Why not accept dissenting views - however small? Should we really conduct our scientific investigations via consensus or majority? Isn't that simply pandering to pressures of conformity? It really is dissapointing to see this mentality pervade the institutions of science, as there is some evidence that the pressure to conform to the group pervades other areas of society (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrNIuFrso8I). We cannot allow such scientific criticism to be censored, especially given that these allegedly "fringe" views are backed-up by peer-reviewed science in respective journals such as the IEEE. This indeed may well be a different scientific field to that of mainstream cosmology, but it is still credible and contains contributors who have a lot to offer. Could it be that mainstream cosmology is attempting to sideline or marginalise these criticisms in attempt to keep their jobs or maintain their cosmological models which are threatened with redundancy from a competing view? Are they scared that they would have to accustom themselves with principles in electrical engineering or electro-dynamics at places such as the IEEE? The editor who opposes such criticism has cited many papers that apparently "prove" the existence of "magnetic re-connection"; yet even as these papers often refer to Alfven's theories - they go against his words which explicitly criticised the notion of "re-connection". Indeed, as Dr.Scott stated in his 2007 paper, "When, in his acceptance speech of the 1970 Nobel Prize in physics, Alfvén pointed out that this frozen-in idea, which he had earlier endorsed, was false, many astrophysicists chose not to listen."

The original criticism section on the Wikipedia page has been archived here:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Magnetic_reconnection&oldid=419843114#Criticism_of_the_reconnection_concept

In his book "The Electric Sky", Donald Scott describes the divergence between electrical engineers and mainstream astrophysicists with regard to the issue of magnetic field behaviour, and how the concept of "open field-lines" cannot be utilised to explain the energetic behaviour of phenomena such as those observed on our sun. Dr.Scott writes:-

"When challenged that open-ended magnetic fields are a violation of Maxwell's equation (that states the net inward and outward magnetic fluxes are equal for any closed surface) they quibble that Maxwell is not actually violated because a magnetic field line, being an imaginary construct, does not have any magnetic flux associated with it. But if there is no flux, there can be no energy transfer. They want things both ways - they claim lines are either real or they are imaginary, depending on the need of the moment to 'save the theory'" (Scott D. "The Electric Sky", p.119).

Donald Scott is not some lone crank. After all, he was given a voice to speak at a NASA institute and he cites criticisms from people such as Hannes Alfven and uses cogent arguments (based on established principles such as Maxwell's equations) that deserve the ears of more people. However, he is not a lone contemporary voice when it comes to airing criticisms of the "magnetic re-connection" concept.

In a 2007 paper produced by Carl-Gunne Fälthammar (of the Alfvén Laboratory in Stockholm, Sweden) and Forrest S. Mozer (of the Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley) the pitfalls of describing "frozen-in" or open magnetic-field lines that move and "re-connect" were summarised thus:-

"At a fixed time, one may trace a field line from any given point in space. But that field line has no identity, and
in a time-dependent magnetic field it cannot be identified with any field line at a different time, except by one convention or another. As we have seen, such conventions are fraught with pitfalls and should only be used
with utmost care lest they lead to erroneous conclusions. To paraphrase Ralph Nader, moving magnetic field lines are “unsafe at any speed."
http://plasma.colorado.edu/phys7810/articles/Falthammar_MovingFieldLines_2007.pdf

The above video of a powerful solar flare resembles an electrical arc discharge not too dissimilar
from the video below:-

"This video clip shows you an extreme electrical arc. It was captured by Neil Brady, the maintenance foreman of the 500 kV Eldorado Substation near Boulder City, Nevada in the US. Due to a faulty switcher which failed to interrupt when the isolation switched open, it created the huge arc. The arc stretches upward, driven by rising hot gases and writhing from small air currents, until it easily exceeds 100 feet in length. The arc continues to elongate until the voltage was not sufficient to support the resulting arc impedance due to the arc length." (from http://www.arcflashprotection.co.uk/arc1.html)

Mainstream astronomy also makes certain claims about how our sun (along with all other stars) evolves as part of a transition within the proposed nuclear fusion process. However, human beings have not been around for long enough to observe these processes at any significant level that can prove such a hypothesis. Interestingly, there have been a few examples that disprove the current stellar evolution hypothesis. Dr Donald Scott lists four examples on his website (as well as mentioning them in his book "The Electric Sky"):-

http://www.electric-cosmos.org/hrdiagr.htm

It is not just the behaviour of solar phenomena which mainstream theory has trouble explaining; it also seems to have problems with the behaviour of galaxies - particularly with regard to their rotational structure and profile. Mainstream cosmology has recently resorted to mysterious electromagnetic forces in order to try and explain galaxies without so much reliance on dark energy and dark matter:-
http://www.universetoday.com/61676/magnetic-fields-in-spiral-galaxies-%E2%80%93-explained-at-last/

But how is the structural and rotational profile of galaxies organised? One fairly elegant explanation was produced by Anthony L. Peratt, a plasma physicist at Los Alamos Laboratory. He used the principles of interacting field-aligned electric currents (called "Birkeland Currents" after the scientist Kristian Birkeland) to simulate the formation of galaxies without the need for "dark matter", "dark energy" or "gravity" as the dominating force:-

"In the early 1980s Anthony L. Peratt, a student of Alfvén's, used supercomputer facilities at Maxwell Laboratories and later at Los Alamos National Laboratory to simulate Alfvén and Fälthammar's concept of galaxies being formed by primordial clouds of plasma spinning in a magnetic filament.[3]"
http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/Galaxy_formation

Anthony L. Peratt's spiral galaxies

"The results of these simulations fit perfectly with the observed values of the velocity contours in galaxies. No missing matter is needed - and Newton can rest easy in his grave." (Donald E. Scott - http://www.electric-cosmos.org/darkmatter.htm)

The structural profile of galaxies produced by electro-magnetic plasma (and simulated by Anthony Peratt) was produced in the laboratory back in the 1950's by American physicist Winston H. Bostick:-
http://www.plasma-universe.com/Winston_H._Bostick/Newspaper_clippings

Birkeland currents may also be directly involved in star formation, as ESA’s Herschel space observatory recently discovered:-

The discovery of these types of filamentary structures in interstellar clouds have come as a "very big surprise" to mainstream cosmologists. Particularly because the width of the individual filaments have always been found to be the same (regardless of length or collective density), as well as the fact that newly-born stars "are often found in the densest parts of them". However, the mainstream cosmologists have theorised that "interstellar sonic booms" may be responsible for the formation of these filaments (http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Herschel/SEMK0H7S9MG_0.html).

However, plasma and electric cosmologists have had another view of stellar formation for some time now. An example of which was explained by Wal Thornhill on his Holoscience website:-

"An electric star is formed by the equivalent of a lightning bolt in a molecular (plasma) cloud. Just like earthly lightning, cosmic lightning scavenges, squeezes and heats matter along the discharge channel. Where the squeeze is most intense, the current may ‘pinch off’ to give the effect of ‘bead lightning.’ In high-energy plasma lab discharges researchers have found that hot plasma ‘beads’ (known as plasmoids) form along the discharge axis before “scattering like buckshot” when the discharge quenches."
(Source: http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=x49g6gsf)

"In a high-energy plasma discharge, a powerful electromagnetic “pinch” effect can constrain the discharge channel to a constant width over vast distances."
(Source: http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/050203venusriver.htm)

Indeed, such discoveries (as highlighted in the above ESA picture) are not a "very big surprise" for plasma cosmologists. No "dark matter", "black holes", "strange magnetic fields" or "gravitational collapse" mechanisms are required.

The mainstream model of galaxies posits the existence of "black holes" existing at their centre, dominated by seemingly infinite mass and gravity. However, recent observations of an area adjacent to an alleged black hole (Cygnus X-1) outside the centre of a galaxy suggests that electro-magnetism may well dominate. An article in ScienceDaily states that "this chaotic region is threaded by magnetic fields" and "This is the first time that magnetic fields have been identified so close to a black hole. Most importantly, Integral shows they are highly structured magnetic fields that are forming an escape tunnel for some of the doomed particles" (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110324153753.htm).

It is important to remember that electromagnetic forces both attract and repel (whereas gravity simply attracts). This may account for the both the ejection and "sucking-in" of matter in different parts of galaxies.

As for black holes at the centre of galaxies, a particular problem with mainstream theory has been the ejection of jets of matter from "black holes". This is famously known as Hawking Radiation - but it is tied within a paradigm dominated by gravity and strange, exotic matter. Physicist Wallace Thornhill describes this phenomena as being connected to a "plasmoid", which "is well known in the plasma laboratory as a high-density energy storage phenomenon that produces well-collimated jets after a time that depends upon particle collisions within the plasmoid":-
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=7qqsr17q

To sum it up, there is no proof that black holes actually exist (or even need to).

Given that plasma cosmology regards the phenomena of Birkeland Currents as important manifestations of electricity in space, perhaps this can describe the rather filamentary nature of the universe, as in images such as this?

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Planck/SEMMN9CKP6G_1.html

This image of the Orion Nebula shows a twisting filament with stars possibly forming along its spiraling structure, and a phenomenon which can more easily be explained by electro-dynamics (than gravity or "dark matter/energy"):-

Credit: ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA & R. Gendler. Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit.

In conclusion, if Electro-Magnetism explains the behaviour of our sun; and if the gravity of the sun is causing the rotation of planetary bodies around it - then this raises questions concerning the origin and nature of gravity. It's really a question of trying to understand where domains of validity begin and end. It may well be that gravity is a symptom of EM. It could be that electrons and associated charged particles are the fundamental force that drive all other things in the universe - that cause nuclear fission/fusion and the creation of new matter in areas of hot accelerated plasma-fields (and hence influences the 'strong'-'weak' nuclear forces), etc. We don't really have the answer, but there is a compelling argument against the overly mathematical and unwiedly character of the current mainstream gravity-dominated theory.

The Plasma Universe (or Electric Universe) model has implications at all scales. For example, when we see that gaseous plasma exhibits certain life-like qualities (which Irving Langmuir observed); then one really starts to think about the microcosmic/macro-cosmic unity that exists between the organic and inorganic:-

"# Bio-physical analogy: A model of plasma double layers has been used to investigate their applicability to understanding ion transport across biological cell membranes.[46] Brazilian researchers have note that "Concepts like charge neutrality, Debye length, and double layer are very useful to explain the electrical properties of a cellular membrane.".[47] Plasma physicist Hannes Alfvén also noted that association of double layers with cellular structure,[48] as had Irving Langmuir before him, who coined the named "plasma" after its resemblance to blood cells.[49] "
http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/Double_layer

Maybe we are all connected and wired-up into one grand circuit. Maybe all of the universe results from the attraction of pairs of charged particles, which produce electric currents. Yet, the existence of particles of separate charge, implies that these are being constantly created in order to maintain these inter-galactic electric currents (as opposed to instant neutralization of separated charged particles in a gas). However, the nature of space plasmas cannot be explained by electrostatic analysis alone or the simple positioning of positive charges on one side, or negative charges on the other. The plasma is a mixture of free electrons, positive ions and neutral atoms that are considerably diffuse. Importantly, space plasmas are not perfect conductors and there are weak electric fields within them as well as very powerful electric fields concentrated in certain regions and with unique internal characteristics separated by "double layers" (http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/Double_layer). Plasma can be a very dynamic electrical phenonema and sometimes, seemingly life-like. The question remains however, where do the electric currents and associated charged particles ultimately come from to sustain our plasma universe?

Climate Science and intellectual integrity

2011-02-09T10:34:00.000-08:00

--Blogpost amended on 25th April 2011--

Readers of my blog may already know my position on athropogenic global warming. Thus far I have not questionned the fundamental tenets of the science - i.e. that CO2 increases cause higher temperatures and (more importantly) that human CO2 output has dramatically contributed to background levels.

The following chart shows CO2 increases starting to shoot up since around the mid 1800's (just after the emergence of the industrial revolution):-

http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/files/2009/03/stuart2.png

This chart shows the increase from below the 0C mean occurring from around the mid 1920's. Bare in mind that our climate-system is not a linear-one, so the increases come in stepped-phases...albeit we can clearly see the upward trend:-

http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/files/2009/03/stuart3.gif

Climate scientists say that this 0.6C+ increase is a result of human-increases in CO2 (and that CO2 in turn has resulted in feedback mechanisms on water, cryosphere, biosphere, lithosphere,etc systems to further amplify the effect of CO2 on warming).

All this may well be true (albeit some skeptics may well still try to dispute it). However, there is one single problematic issue that I have lately found concerning a certain 'fact' about "runaway-greenhouse" warming promoted by climate scientists. It is problematic because it serves to undermine public confidence in the intellectual integrity of climate scientists. It is problematic when people find out that climate scientists have grossly exaggerated certain facts. When people find out that prominent climate scientists grossly exaggerate certain facts (repeatedly) - then how can they maintain confidence in other information/facts that climate scientists propagate?

Roger Bourke White Jr. is a former rocket scientist working on the Space Shuttle, as well as an MIT educated chemical engineer. He has produced a very interesting and intellectually sound article on the temperature of Venus, and has stated that:-

"It turns out that most of Venus' "extra" surface heat is due to the adiabatic compression caused by the high pressure, the next most is caused by extra solar radiation, and Greenhouse Effect is a distant third."

and

"Venus' atmosphere is hotter than Earth's, but it is also thicker and composed mostly of carbon dioxide rather than nitrogen (the pressure of nitrogen in both atmospheres is close to the same). Being mostly carbon dioxide has little direct effect on the temperature, but being thick has a lot of effect."
http://www.whiteworld.com/technoland/stories-nonfic/2008-stories/Venus-temp.htm

Roger gives a video presentation about Venus here:-
http://vimeo.com/2319974

This is in stark contrast from the claims of the people at RealClimate. Quoting one article;-

"Venus offers scientists the chance to see how the same basic physics used to study Earth’s climate operates under a very different set of circumstances. In one sense, Venus is rather similar to Earth: it has nearly the same mass as Earth, and while its orbit is somewhat closer to the Sun, that effect is more than made up for by the sunlight reflected from Venus’ thick cloud cover. Because of the cloud cover, the surface temperature of Venus would be a chilly -42C if were not for the greenhouse effect of its atmosphere. In reality, the surface of Venus, at 740K (467C) is even hotter than the surface of Mercury, which is a (relatively!) pleasant 440K. Per unit of surface area, the atmosphere of Venus has as much mass as about 100 Earth atmospheres, and it is almost pure CO2. This accounts for its very strong greenhouse effect."
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/04/lessons-from-venus/

In another piece we have the claim:-

"The fact that we can put together the same bits of physics we use to understand global warming on Earth in order to understand the interplay of the carbon dioxide greenhouse with sulfuric acid clouds on Venus is a testament to the fundamental power of climate science,"

and

"Most of the greenhouse effect comes from the carbon dioxide, however, which by itself is sufficient to raise the surface temperature most of the way toward its observed value of around 470C."
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/03/venus-unveiled/

Notice how adiabatic compression of the atmosphere is not mentioned at all?

To add to the counter-argument against the climate scientists at RealClimate - I want to point to a section from a book by Dr. Donald Scott:-

"To explain the unexpectedly high surface temperature of Venus, Carl Sagan, S.I. Rasool, and C. de Bergh proposed what is now called the "runaway greenhouse" effect. Certain gases, primarily water vapour but also carbon dioxide and a few others, transmit sunlight and absorb infrared (heat) energy. Glass has this same property, and scientists once thought it was the cause of heat retention in greenhouses: Supposedly the glass let sunlight in, the plants and soil absorbed it and reradiated it as infrared energy, and the glass prevented the infrared from radiating back into space. By analogy, "greenhouse gases" could trap heat near a planet's surface. Presumably a sufficient density of such gases could trap more heat than was radiated away, and the surface would get increasingly hotter.

But if sunlight entrapment in a mixture of gases can indeed cause the temperature to rise to 800 or 900 degrees F, then it should be possible to build an actual greenhouse here on earth, fill it with a gaseous mixture identical to Venus's atmosphere, and sit back and watch the temperature rise. This would be a marvelously non-polluting energy source. This experiment was never undertaken."
(From page 20 of Don Scott's plasma cosmology book "The Electric Sky - A Challenge To The Myths Of Modern Astronomy")

Physicist Wallace Thornhill also remarks that

"carbon dioxide is insufficient to create a greenhouse effect that will raise the surface temperature of Venus to that of molten lead. This argument cannot be used to suggest an impending climate crisis on Earth."
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=9aqt6cz5

So what if the pressure of the atmosphere was the same of planet Earth? Would we still be seeing such high temperatures being brought "most of the way" to 470C as a result of the parts per million concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere? This seems highly questionnable. It seems that the atmospheric pressure would have to be tremendously increased overall for such heating to take place - and that says little about the innate properties of CO2. An experiment using a variety of traditionally non-greenhouse gases in different combinations under pressure and combined with the scaled-down equivalent of solar heating should put the "runaway greenhouse" theory to a real test.

In the case of the climate history of the Earth - we have interesting assertions from climate scientists (with clear liaison with NASA) claiming that the thermonuclear model of the sun explains cooler temperatures millions of years ago when CO2 levels were much higher than today:-

"Another important factor is the sun. During the Ordovician, it would have been several percent dimmer according to established nuclear models of main sequence stars. Surprisingly, this raises the CO2 threshold for glaciation to a staggering 3000 ppmv or so."
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-higher-in-past.htm

But is the thermonuclear theory actually credible?
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=ah63dzac
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/hrdiagr.htm

Referring back to the issue of Venus; I would like to point readers to the following extract from an article by Michael Goodspeed on the controversial writer Immanuel Velikovsky. It is important to note that the plasma cosmologists at sites like Thunderbolts.info and Holoscience.com (particularly Dave Talbott and Wallace Thornhill) criticise a considerable amount of Velikovsky's claims, but they do credit him for some of his other predictions:-

"For many years after publication of Worlds in Collision, Velikovsky was persona non grata on college campuses. He was denied the opportunity to publish articles in scientific journals. When he attempted to respond to critical articles in such journals, they rejected these responses. The attitude of established science was typified by the reactions of astronomers. Michigan astronomer Dean McLaughlin exclaimed, "Lies -- yes lies." In response to a correspondent, astronomer Harold Urey, wrote: "My advice to you is to shut the book and never look at it again in your lifetime."

For Velikovsky, this was the beginning of a personal "dark age". But remarkably, his friendship with Albert Einstein was unaffected, and Einstein met with him often, maintaining an extended correspondence as well, encouraging Velikovksy to look past the misbehavior of the scientific elite. In discussion with Einstein, Velikovsky predicted that Jupiter would be found to emit radio noises, and he urged Einstein to use his influence to have Jupiter surveyed for radio emission, though Einstein himself disputed Velikovsky's reasoning. But in April 1955 radio noises were discovered from Jupiter, much to the surprise of scientists who had thought Jupiter was too cold and inactive to emit radio waves. That discovery led Einstein to agree to assist in developing other tests of Velikovsky's thesis. But the world's most prominent scientist died only a few weeks later.

Velikovsky expected other discoveries through space exploration. He claimed that the planet Venus would be found to be extremely hot, since in his reconstruction, the planet was "candescent" in historical times. His thesis also implied the likelihood of a massive Venusian atmosphere, residue of its former "cometary" tail. And he claimed that the Earth would be found to have a magnetosphere reaching at least to the moon, because he was convinced that in historical times the Earth exchanged electrical charge with other planetary bodies.
Arrival of the space age was a critical juncture for Velikovsky, as data returned from the Moon, from Mars, and from Venus begin to recast our views of these celestial bodies. In 1959, Dr. Van Allen discovered that the Earth has a magnetosphere. In the early sixties, scientists realized, much to their surprise, that the planet Venus has a surface temperature as high as 900 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to melt lead."
(Source: http://www.thunderbolts.info/velikovsky-ghost.htm)

In 1940, the German-American astronomer Rupert Wildt claimed that a greenhouse effect on Venus could produce a surface temperature of up to 400 Kelvin which is 27C hotter than the boiling point of water (Source: Encyclopedia of the solar system - Lucy-Ann Adams McFadden, Paul Robert Weissman, Torrence V. Johnson - 2007).

When later measurements showed surface temperatures at 740K (467C), this was regarded as a surprise to most scientists who then developed the "enhanced" and "runaway" greenhouse effects in order to try and save the theory. But the high temperature (more than hot enough to melt lead) was not a surprise to Velikovsky who predicted a very thick atmosphere which he claimed would be hotter than anybody expected. This atmosphere is of notable contrast to the planet Mercury which is closer to the sun, but has a thinner atmosphere with a considerably lower mean temperature (only 440K). Interestingly, if one subtracted the effect of extra solar radiation on Venus (using methods used by Roger Bourke White Jr.) - the mean temperature of Mercury (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(planet) would be not too far from the expected mean temperature of Venus if one followed the "green-house effect" predictions of Rupert Wildt. The "green-house effect", whether it is in a standard or theoretical "enhanced" or "runaway" manifestation can not explain the high temperature all over Venus. Importantly, it could possibly be that Venus has been very slowly cooling from its formerly "candescent" history as a blazing cometary body traversing a different orbit than it does today. It's slow cooling could be because of the thick high-pressure atmosphere (releasing heat very very slowly) that was predicted by Velikovsky (rather than heating being neccessarily from adiabatic compression as implied by Roger Bourke White Jr).

Interestingly, an article in the New Scientist in 1997 detailed the discovery of a "magnetotail" of Venus that stretched more than 600 times as far as anyone had expected or realized. Rens Van der Sluijs elaborates further in this 2009 article:-
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2009/arch09/090108venus.htm

This only further helps to solidify the predictions of Velikovsky with regard to the cometary history of Venus. A cometary tail which was apparently seen as a huge and dazzling hair-like display in the sky and witnessed by many cultures worldwide. A fascinating short video summary of the cultural mythological interpretations of Venus' behaviour, can be viewed here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Clq-GiqvL9o)

Another interesting discovery on the equatorial region of Venus has been patterns of surface scarring which have puzzled some mainstream scientists:-

The filamentary structure of the scarring can be seen as well as interesting connected ring-structures.
Electric Universe theory offers a potential explanation (http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2007/arch07 /070626venusscarring.htm). Mainstream theory claims that vulcanism can most likely explain many surface patterns on Venus - although some of these explanations have even assumed that the channels would have to defy gravity and hence must have been altered by changes in terrain height over time. However, this claim has also been challenged by Electric Universe theory (http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/050203venusriver.htm). And even more convincing evidence of interplanetary electrical discharge machining has been presented in this fascinating two-part documentary show-case by Dave Talbott in the case of the planet Mars (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_T6__JDeyw). It is important to remember that it was Velikovsky who popularised the idea of inter-planetary electrical discharge, and he mentioned Venus as being part of this electrodynamic framework (and particularly with its historical manifestation of a bright cometary tail...effectively a form of plasma discharge).

When it comes to people like Velikovsky, it is easy to throw the baby out with the bath water - just because he made a considerable amount of erroneous claims. People should be given credit for where they have made accurate claims and predictions. It is also important to note that the likes of Carl Sagan (who attacked Velikovsky along with the majority of the scientific community) have failed to make such predictions, and instead he and a few others promoted a "runaway greenhouse effect" that ignores things such as adiabatic heating of the atmosphere (which does not depend on the specific thermal capacity of CO2) or even internal heat produced by electrical plasma discharge. Additionally, such a "runaway greenhouse effect" has never been tested in a laboratory and perhaps it may not even be reproducable. Neither have the features of the sun been reproduced in a laboratory via internal nuclear fusion; yet over a century ago we have had scientists such as Kristian Birkeland produce solar features with his "terella" experiments. For more on plasma and electric cosmology, I invite readers to see my article "Challenging the groupthink of mainstream cosmology".

I think such a cosmology has implications for climate-science as well as other earth sciences. There is a lot that we need to learn, and we should always leave our assumptions under constant re-evaluation and scrutiny. I also want to state that there are a lot of internet websites that are full of spin when it comes to the issue of global warming/climate change (whether they are for the theory, or against the theory). In my experience (from researching in the 9/11 truth movement) - we have enough outspoken talking-heads who claim to represent skepticism but in fact end up exaggerating or mixing truth with blatant sensationalism, lies and spin. We live in a world of grey and obfuscation on BOTH sides of the argument. The waters seem to be muddied almost everywhere. Be careful out there, but try to be brave too.

Rethinking mainstream cosmology

2011-02-06T14:06:00.000-08:00

I would like to present to you - a tutorial segment from a very interesting documentary titled "Thunderbolts Of The Gods".

The Electric Universe theory seems to make more sense to me than conventional cosmology. Mostly in the sense of the inter-connectedness of all things as well as the mysterious repeated-nature of certain patterns (the filaments, dendrites, etc seen in the human body and then in the planet and then in the universe). Fractal geometry is also mysterious in the sense that fairly simple mathematical formulae essentially describe a large variety of complex patterns. In the midst of this - certain themes seem to repeat themselves from the microcosm and the macrocosm. The idea that planets and stars are isolated bodies - and depend their existence on some purely hypothetical "big bang" - just seems more speculative to me. Currents of energy flowing through the universe, connecting stars, connecting galaxies (and even seemingly at a microscale - connecting human-cells) - just seem to be all part of the unity of creation. Unity that still allows for a great amount of variation in the detail and general theme. And if empirical plasma experiments can demonstrate this; then why do we need to believe in exotic mathematical hypotheticals such as dark matter, black holes, etc?

NASA Goddard presentation by Dr. Donald E. Scott on plasma cosmology (electric cosmology)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOI-X215A8Y

Website on the "Electric Universe":-

http://www.thunderbolts.info/thunderblogs/archives/subject.htm

Another challenge to the "big bang theory" was developed at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. Bare in mind, that the author of the study is not a plasma cosmologist. I just posted this to show that plasma cosmology is not the only model/theory that challenges the "big bang" (and "cosmic background radiation" as bb proof) theory:-
http://www.physorg.com/news199591806.html

9/11 Justice - Unanswered Questions

2011-01-24T06:57:00.000-08:00

I made this video some time ago. I think that the issue still remains very important today. I am not a conspiracy theorist. I just want to show that there are some very important questions concerning 9/11 and the post-9/11 world. There is also a cover-up.

Peak Oil and Peak Debt vs the Climate Change message.

2011-01-10T14:25:00.000-08:00

The Climate Change public relations machine appears to have ran into a brick wall. The attempt to get the public to listen; in a mix of obfuscated and complex science - has failed. The anti-science brigade has muddied the waters so much now that anti-AGW skepticism is more rife than ever. We may need a simpler approach to communicate to the people who don't read the more thorough holistic analyses of the crises of our time.

It is quite clear that the world has hit Peak growth already. This is something that most climate scientists are not really understanding properly. They also seem to misunderstand the fact that it doesn't matter how much oil and coal remains beneath the ground. If it takes MORE energy to get out, than you get from burning - then it's a total waste of time. That applies for remaining coal reserves, oil shale, deep-ocean, tar-sands, etc. And burning these things to "keep warm" or "cook food" is not the sort of usage that has sent this world into crisis. It is the burning of these things for industrial profit, manufacturing, etc that has been the driver.

I had an article published concerning Peak Oil vis a vis climate change, and one commenter wrote the following:-

"It is supremely obvious ANY additional CO2e is not just ill-advised, but supremely dangerous, and this is an obvious conclusion. When we add in the residence time of CO2 being centuries."

It is profound ignorance like that which makes me very irritated. Do they want poor people to starve to death or go cold? Really? Also..maybe they should actually check the figures of the sort of things that overwhelmingly contribute to CO2:-

(In the case of Britain):-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/jul/15/carbon-emissions-carbonfootprints

Now think about what the figures would be if people started growing their own food, burned charcoal or bio-methane to heat and cook their own food, and used only public transport and local materials, etc.

I also get arguments from people saying "well, recent studies on feedback mechanisms mean that we are going to face up to 4C warming from just a 1C rise - and this will happen even if we drastically cut CO2 today". They claim that the feedbacks are all inherently +C in their effects and that there is growing certainty in that +C picture. But there isn't - as this NASA/NOAA study seems to illustrate:-
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101208085145.htm

These feedbacks could end up being adjusted and ending up even worse. My experience in reading the literature of this field is weak - to say the least. But really; does talk of "catastrophic/human extinction" events help us? Do people want to support geo-engineering solutions? I have my doubts.

The world will hardly be a pleasant place as a result of climate change; but scientists such as Romm et al think that stabilizing at or below 450ppm does not neccessarily equate to a catastrophic situation for all of humanity (even if it does exacerbate problems to a large degree). James Hansen also published a paper titled "Implications of “peak oil” for atmospheric CO2 and climate". In it he stated the following:-

"We suggest that, if estimates of oil and gas reserves by the Energy Information Administration are realistic, it is feasible to keep atmospheric CO2 from exceeding approximately 450 ppm, provided that future exploitation of the vast reservoirs of coal and unconventional fossil fuels incorporates carbon capture and sequestration."
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/29109

As my article points out. Unconventionals are not going to fuel the global economy at prices we can afford to burn.

We now have no choice at all - but to change our economic system to one based on a steady-state, non-debt paradigm. We are facing a potential mass-default on the debt in every nation-state up to its heels in toxic derivatives. The collateral on the debt no longer exists in a world where oil has peaked and can no longer meet growing demand. No amount of fossil-fuels remaining on this planet - can replace the current global economic edifice that has been created by oil. Contraction is inevitable, and that threatens very dangerous geopolitical consequences. Oil is liquid hegemonic power. The consequences of global warfare are very great if powers insist on holding onto oil as some form of industrial hegemony.

Climate scientist Kevin Anderson said in Cancun that “the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years". If we are past peak growth and if we are at the point of debt-saturation, please explain to me how these nations can keep growing overall in the next 5 years (never mind the next 20)? And then please explain to me what happens when we go to war with China or Russia over energy-reserves in Eurasia?

We have NO CHOICE but to act now. Our economy is going to shrink regardless, we are going to get poorer and poorer, we are going to get bogged down in wars, rationing is coming and potential mass die-offs of people. Look what happens to a global fossil-fuel economy when oil reaches $300 a barrel. It turns off like a light-switch.

The "end of growth" reality is easier to articulate to people than the more complex issue of anthropogenic global warming. This is because we have zero evidence that oil production is going to regain its all-time peak that it acquired in 2006. Even if "abiotic oil" exists (unlikely) - it doesn't mean much for people if they can't have access to it and companies are unable to harness its apparent existence. I've even heard people on the libertarian right-wing who are contemplating preparing for a massive economic collapse and starting to engage in survivalist movements. They just need to realise that community is more important than rugged individualism in a post-peak world. We have to realise that the elite hold more than enough stolen assets to supply every man, woman and child on this earth with a decent quality of life in a steady-state de-centralized economy.

United we stand, divided we fall. That's the bottomline.

A positive video for 2011 - Thank you Above & Beyond

2010-12-31T19:23:00.000-08:00

This video moved me a great deal. One of the rare examples of a music company giving attention to permaculture co-operatives and grassroots community projects.

All cities need to start doing this now; as the alternative would be to give powers to centralised agriculture which is more dependent on fossil-fuels and could well be controlled by government-corporations.

An uplifting and positive video for 2011.

Misleading Information In A Post-Peak World

2010-12-26T21:09:00.000-08:00

Our world is naturally one of considerable risk. We cannot avoid it; although we can try to minimize it as much as possible. Sadly, it appears that in a world where information is largely under the control of corporations and investors; and where short-termism appears to be the main driver of human affairs – we end up becoming exposed to huge mounting risks.

For the members of working individuals in the industrialised world who do have the privelege of access to the internet – there is the daunting problem of the sheer scale of information on offer via worldwide journalistic sources that can often conflict, obfuscate and spin. The daily flood of information and news really is quite intimidating; and would take dedicated individuals with considerable time-resources to piece-together cogent narratives. In the case of the 9/11 attacks on the United States – there was a detailed mainstream news timeline constructed by researcher Paul Thompson and his colleagues at the website historycommons.org. What they found was that the research conflicted the official narrative concerning the events surrounding 9/11; and many important unanswered questions remain. How many members of the public are aware of credible websites like these? And can we even begin to contemplate the implications of the sort of risks that industrial civilization imposes on the masses - when very important information is buried fast? It really is deeply frustrating. And, if you add in the tendency of ideological biases to become reinforced even in the face of conflicting facts - it makes you wonder if there is any hope for us at all.

I consider myself to be a blogger focussing primarily on macroeconomics and (more recently) the impact of Peak Oil. As a human being, and as someone with my own biases - I am well aware that my work is likely subject to the occasional error. Regardless, I do write opinion-pieces as an unpaid author - so the consequences of my mistakes are considerably less than that of a professional. I do endeavour, however, to be as intellectually honest and as accurate as possible. I'm sure all the other writers and contributors in the Peak Oil and sustainability community are dedicated and careful with their work - although I do feel that the more well-known contributors are also prone to making mistakes. Recognising the implications of potentially inaccurate predictions is something that Peak Oil people and economists need to consider; when trying to spread their main message. We all know how notorious the media can be in terms of obfuscating, attacking or burying the truth about Peak Oil (and a host of other crucial topics).

In terms of media attacks - it has lately come to my attention that peak oil economist Jeff Rubin has received some strong criticism from a journalist at the Canadian National Post. The article describes Rubin's oil price forecast in April 2008 - which predicted crude oil priced as "$130 a barrel in 2009, $150 in 2010, $190 in 2011 and a terrifying $225 in 2012". Of course, these forecasts turned out to be wrong, and the author of the piece points out that Rubin failed to predict that those sorts of prices would be totally unsustainable in a highly globalised economy. This sort of failure suggests that Jeff Rubin was either not aware of the concept of the "bumpy plateau"; or that he just failed to predict a price-collapse even as prices exceeded $140 a barrel. Despite this, Jeff Rubin has regularly produced articles and conference speeches concerning the unfeasibility of triple-digit oil prices being sustained in a global economy. His visions of de-centralisation and local food-growing - are positive and welcoming; although they may ultimately turn out to be naive in a world of increasing political risk.

Nicole M. Foss is a former editor of The Oil Drum in Canada, who now co-edits a blog titled "The Automatic Earth" - which focusses primarily on the global financial crisis as well as connections to energy and a variety of socio-economic variables. She also has some notable disagreements with Jeff Rubin concerning his predictions of triple-digit prices, as well as disagreements with Peak Oil analysts regarding the reasons for the 2008 oil price spike. She discussed her views on the Financial Sense NewsHour - stating that the 2008 price-spike was essentially a speculative bubble created from speculators flooding hot money into the commodities-sector and hence prices had got “ahead of themselves” and the “next move was going to be very sharply down”. Unlike Jeff Rubin, she correctly forecast a price-collapse after the $140 price-spike. However, she went on to state (regarding the price-increase heading into October 2010) that the next move on oil prices would be “down” - and sadly, she has turned out to be incorrect in this regard. Her insights on financial deflation, however; suggest that absolute crude oil prices may well become damaging for the global economy at lower prices than those seen in 2008. She also stated that credit-expansion (via speculation) "brings demand forward" and is followed by a "demand crater" and hence she criticised Jeff Rubin for not realising this back in early 2008. Nicole's view (in that October 2010 interview) was that we will NOT see triple-digit oil prices in the next few months. However, since then - oil prices have risen to $91 a barrel (at the time of writing), and various predictions of triple-digit oil prices have been made by Goldmann Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, as well as some OPEC members. Should we trust these banks? No, we should be cautious of anything they say given their connections to leverage-fraud. Regardless, this sort of agreement from these American banks with OPEC members (as well as with independent traders in Asia and the Gulf countries) is rather interesting to say the least. Are they conspiring? Maybe, maybe not.

One could argue that the issue of price predictions in a post-peak world are all rather petty. After all, we have an admission by the International Energy Agency (via their 2010 report) that conventional oil reached its all-time peak in 2006. The IEA has also stated that the "age of cheap oil is over". It will be hard to predict the specific landscape of volatility in the post-peak world; although I do want to point out that communicating the issue to the general public will require great care. The Canadian National Post article that attacks Jeff Rubin's credibility (concerning his price predictions) does have implications for those in the Peak Oil awareness movement. While Jeff had repeatedly made calls for oil prices to continue rising; there is a credible possibility that his triple-digit call for 2011 may come true. But does that also mean that Peak Oil economists become dismissed by many for crying wolf? After all, there are other arguments out there that muddy the waters by pointing to speculation (rather than demand) causing the price-spike in oil into 2008. This conflicts with a 2008 report by the futures market regulator in the US (i.e. the US Commodity Futures Trading ‎Commission) which stated that there was no evidence that speculative activity had "systematically driven" oil price hikes. Such conflicting information only serves to confuse the public; and confusion is certainly not good for alleviating the great risks of political, financial and social instability (and possible nuclear warfare) that the post-peak world entails. Importantly, predictions concerning price rises need to be done via peer-review amongst energy experts and financial analysts alike (economists and energy experts don't communicate enough); and Nicole M. Foss rightly pointed this out in her October 2010 interview on the Financial Sense Newshour. Unfortunately, however, she did make a prediction concerning a downward movement on oil - and that may have undermined public perception of her credibility. That would be unfortunate, because she is a highly credible and knowledgable analyst in the area of energy and finance and her perspective remains very valid.

The mainstream media continues to muddy the waters surrounding the issue of rising oil prices. Interestingly, we have a piece on the website oilprice.net that acknowledges an impending world oil crisis as well as potentially dire geopolitical implications. Sadly, the article culminates with a dangerous conclusion that invests hope in hydrogen and nuclear as an energy that can somehow replace oil in an industrial society. It is dangerous because the transition to hydrogen could take "several decades to achieve" according to the US government. And what does the world do in the meantime? Also (and most importantly of all) hydrogen is not an energy-source, and has a negative Energy Return On Energy Invested. As for other "solutions" to fuelling our current global industrial society - I have critiqued this at considerable length in the context of the UK government energy policy paper (that was issued before they came to power as a coalition).

The oilprice.net website did subsequently publish a piece titled "Do Rising Oil Prices Predict Another Economic Recession?". The article starts off by saying that economists initially claimed that the 2008 economic crash was caused by the collapse of the subprime and real-estate market. The article specifically states "more and more financial experts came forward with another, more accurate reason for the financial crash. The reason put forward and accepted widely was that the market financial crash was caused by the high oil price rise which shot to an all time high of $147 per barrel in the year 2008". The article sources a study by Professor James Hamilton of the University of California which linked high oil prices (caused by rising demand) to the collapse of the US housing sector, and subsequently - the financial markets. The article also references economist Nouriel Roubini, who went on to state in 2009 that "oil at $100 would have the same negative effects on the global economy as oil did at $145 (in 2008)".

If oil peaked in 2006 (as the IEA now claims and as a German energy-group claimed in 2007) - perhaps this impacted the US real-estate financial markets in 2006 too? Indeed, we had the chief economist and co-founder of Moody's (a credit rating agency) testifying before the US government that "Private bond issuance of residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities, asset-backed securities, and CDOs peaked in 2006 at close to $2 trillion". A 2007 Wall-Street Journal article stated that "By early 2006 it was widely recognized the boom was likely over, and by mid-2006 it was beyond question. In June 2006, sales of existing single-family homes were 9% below their year-earlier level, sales of new homes were down 15% and framing lumber prices were down 19%". In 2006, Nouriel Roubini warned of the impending crisis as well as an oil shock. He was laughed at. However, he has been vindicated. The title of "Dr.Doom" certainly doesn't help the perceived public image of economists - but one could argue that is beyond his control thanks to the media. Additionally, the people in the media who argue about "speculators" being purely behind the oil price-rise need to explain why there wasn't any significant hoarding going on at the time. An article in The Economist at the time stated "inventories are not especially full just now and there are few signs of hoarding". Or, how about the former senior British army official in Iraq claiming in April 2008 that “The reason that oil reached $117 a barrel last week was less to do with security of supply… than World shortage"?

A mere google search using the words "oil price" produces oilprice.net as the first search result; and the articles mentioned are on the frontpage of the site. The general public could well read this and realise that the implications for economic growth are really bad and an oil-supply crisis is coming; however - they may also erroneously invest hope in unlikely solutions (such as nuclear and hydrogen). They may be convinced by claims that unconventional oil can address the peak of conventionals. However, is there enough economically-recoverable deep-ocean, tar-sands or oil-shale out there to meet the shortfall? Indeed, when it comes to economic-recoverability - bitumen or tar-sands oil (such as that in the Venezeulan Orinoco and Alberta region of Canada) are highly dependent on natural-gas supplies and the price of conventional oil. The IEA World Energy Outlook of 2010 seemed to have an overly rosy view of unconventional energy sources to somehow step up and address the peak of conventional oil. However, we have petroleum experts at sites like The Oil Drum telling us that things such as shale gas have "limited commercial value". The same views concerning the cost and net-energy limitations of unconventionals are echoed by both Jeff Rubin and Nicole Foss (despite their other disagreements). The issue concerning deep-ocean oil also has serious cost-issues (with respect to energy return on energy invested). Tom Whipple, a retired 30-year CIA analyst and member of the Post Carbon Institute has written (concerning deepwater oil) that "The industry hype says there is at least 100 billion barrels or even more. Keep in mind that this is only three years of global oil consumption and even in the best of circumstances; it would take decades to extract". Are there any peer-reviewed studies from independent energy experts refuting what the likes of Whipple et al have found about the economic recoverability and net energy issues surrounding unconventionals? I am yet to find any.

Can we trust institutions such as the IEA when whistleblowers have seemingly come forward and claimed that oil reserves were "inflated" as a result of US pressure? If oil reserves are highly politicized; then what sort of implications does this have for global security? And if the former UK Environment Minister linked the post-9/11 "war on terror" as an excuse to fight for the "remaining" hydrocarbon energy reserves on the planet - what does that suggest about our future? An escalation of oil and gas wars? Even senior members of the US Joint Forces Command seem to think so; as they mentioned the potentially dire consequences of energy shortages in their 2010 report. Is most of this information being pieced together and disseminated to the general public? Certainly not. It appears to have been buried under a lot of distractions and misleading statements.

An example of a misleading article lies in a piece published by Reuters on the 23rd December 2010, titled "Oil price rise unlikely to slow developing growth". A paragraph reads "But economists don't expect the rise in oil prices to hit growth in emerging economies, where in the past it sparked inflation spikes and slowed developing economies in oil-importing nations as costs rose". The article does not give any credible reason as to why another triple-digit oil price spike would cause different effects this time round. The article cites an analyst that states that current prices are not restraining "emerging economies in any way". Yet, specific countries are not specified. It can be argued that OPEC countries may well benefit from higher-prices; but non-OPEC countries will likely suffer. The analyst (from IHS Global Insights) claims that emerging economies (presumably including China and India) have fuel subsidies which will ease manufacturing, transportation and consumer costs. Yet, another analyst quoted in this article states that "High oil prices will likely reduce subsidies as governments cannot afford to cover the costs". Yet, that analyst claims that a price exceeding $100 will not be enough to offset internal growth. No reasoning is given to support this assertion. Indeed, there is nothing in the article that talks about the dangers of surplus oil capacity dissapearing entirely by 2012 (as the US Joint Forces Command 2010 report warns).

In terms of the current oil price (at the time of writing on the 27th December 2010); we have reports that market sentiment has driven prices up based on optimistic 2011 growth forecasts (but also down to factors such as cold-weather heating-oil demand and expectation for millions to travel on holiday). The article from "The Star" states that "analysts pointed out that prices could stabilise should Opec members decide to increase production in order to support the still weak global economic growth". Yet, no mention of the supply-constraints affecting production increases as a result of Peak Oil. Also no mention of the fact that unconventionals have failed to step up at affordable levels to meet rising demand.

There was an article (from an Arab newspaper) that came out on Christmas day 2010 with the title "World economies can handle $100 a barrel for oil". Yet, in a post-peak world and with compelling evidence of oil-price demand causing the global economic crisis - why should the public trust the words of these political officials? After all, some analysts state that the OPEC nations are likely to benefit from higher prices at the expense of other nations.

Interestingly, there was an article by The Sun newspaper (in Malaysia) that stated that rising oil prices were fuelling inflation worries in Asian economies. This conflicts with the Reuters article quoted above. The lack of credible evidence of capacity-increases (to cushion demand-based price pressure) in the oil market may also add to the very real danger of another triple-digit price-shock, and subsequent price collapse.

In the face of all of this.....what can we expect the general public to do?

Do we expect them to join Transition Towns groups and initiatives and actively take part in securing their economic security? Certainly not. The media has proven that it is incapable of doing its job to present the most credible and consistent narrative concerning the post-peak world and its dangers.

As Peak Oil and sustainability activists; we should try and do our best to reach as many people as possible and to always endeavour to be intellectually honest with our information. We need to sound credible and avoid making specific predictions at the risk of being discredited. Being honest with ourselves also includes a willingness to admit mistakes. The dangers of confirmation bias are always there when it comes to reading behind the news headlines - and so are exaggerations and egoistic claims concerning how "right" we perceive ourselves to be. We also need to try and approach the issues that we care about in a way that sidesteps the traps of "liberal" or "conservative" political ideologies. If people perceive our position as being influenced by any political ideology - they will likely increase their resistance to even the most technically solid and cogent arguments. Hopefully, movements such as Transition Towns and CollapseNet can gain more adoption amongst the general public as people become increasingly angry and disillusioned with governments, economists, bankers and corporate media spin-doctors. Even if some of us have character flaws, egos and moments of blatant inaccuracy - I think there is a compelling case that actions and precautions need to be taken to deal with a world which is addicted to economic growth, debt-based money and insecure fossil-fuel supplies.

Will smaller growth forecasts for next year prevent triple-digit oil?

2010-12-02T05:35:00.000-08:00

A UN report that was recently released shows that expectations of economic growth in 2011 are forecast at only 3.1%. This is a more conservative estimate of growth when compared to an IMF assessment that was released in early October.

Certain banking institutions have been predicting triple-digit oil sometime in 2011, as a result of strong Chinese growth in the transport sector.

The question is; will Chinese (as well as possibly Indian) growth neccessarily have sufficient impact to take us to over $100 a barrel in the fourth quarter of 2011? Will the UN report turn out to be accurate and thus reduce the chances of triple-digit oil next year? Bare in mind, that a 5.2% growth in 2007 was enough to send oil into triple-digit figures that ended up triggering a global crisis. Notably, oil prices were about $70 a barrel at the start of 2007. We're averaging at about $83 a barrel this year, and so it won't take much demand-surge from China and India to get climbing towards the danger zone again. Although you could argue that with a 3.1% rate of growth forecast by the UN - oil prices may well stabilize in the low $90 range for 2011. However, uncertainties do remain and that is expressed by powerful banks such as Goldmann Sachs who still forecast triple-digit oil prices in 2011. NYMEX oil futures show no significant increase; reaching a peak of $90 at the end of 2011.

It could well be that growth in industrial consumption will end up higher than thought in China, India and Latin America - while the derivatives and leverage-fraud crisis continues to dampen the growth of more bubbles in Europe and America.

We shall see.

Only an economic catastrophe will save us from Climate Change catastrophe.

2010-11-30T16:39:00.000-08:00

Updated -30/12/2010-

Having done some research on the relationship between Peak Oil and Climate Change; I've come to learn that the "worst-case scenarios" projected by the UK Hadley Centre are unlikely to come to fruition. This does not mean the outcome for our world will be positive.....read on.

Climate scientists often make assumptions about large-scale growth in resource-extraction without thoroughly consulting relevant studies in other disciplines. This is partially understandable given that these scientists are not economists or political scientists. However, some consultation should be expected. One wonders which institutions or sources they have been consulting; especially when a lot of institutions are guilty of making continuous projections of economic growth. Groups like the New Economics Foundation, have criticised the pervasive obsession with seemingly infinite-growth in our political and economic institutions. It appears that many (albeit not all) climate scientists appear to operate in a vacuum and assume that human ingenuity will somehow substitute declining oil with different forms of natural-gas, liquified-coal, shale gas, and other carbon fuels at prices that can sustain growth. But recent reports refute that idea. For example, the world could face peak coal in 2011 according to this study. It states that after 2011 "the production rates of coal and CO₂ decline, reaching 1990 levels by the year 2037". The reason for the early estimate of the peak (as opposed to other studies predicting peaks in the next few decades) is that the report authors claim that the world will seek to consume the highest-quality and most accessible coal first; and leave the less energy-dense and least accessible coal to burn later (and most likely only for certain crucial economic\military sectors). The crucial point is, that theoretical large supplies will not become economically viable because of a lower energy return over energy invested (or EROEI) with repurcussions for economic growth and affordable prices.

Additionally, a piece written by a physics professor at Uppsala University also criticizes the level of economic-awareness of IPCC climate scientists with respect to coal:-
"Our conclusion is that the assumptions of coal use that the IPCC recommended that climate researchers refer to in calculating their future horror scenarios are completely unrealistic. The question is why at all these gigantic volumes of carbon dioxide emission are to be found among the possible scenarios. The IPCC bears a great responsibility for the fact that thousands of climate researchers around the world have dedicated years of research to calculating temperature increases for scenarios that are completely unrealistic."
Source

The question is; will coal have much impact on CO2 given how dependent the global economy is on oil?

Regarding oil, there was an interesting piece written here on the Energy Bulletin blog of the Post-Carbon Institute; concerning the projected "business as usual" scenario in a world of Peak Oil.

A quote from the piece:-
"In all BAU scenarios, it is presumed that energy technology (coal-to-liquids, biofuels, electric cars, any or all of these) will seamlessly step up to replace oil as the need arises. This assumption is not yet proven, and it appears to be tragically unrealistic."

The piece also mentions how CO2 emissions fell in the USA as a response to the recession, they also fell in many industrialized nations in 2008 (albeit global emissions rose slightly overall due to Chinese and Indian growth), but with a global fall being confirmed for 2009. Importantly; any significant prospect of economic growth is likely to trigger another oil price-hike and another recession with it's associated emissions declines. Obviously though, the emission declines are nowhere near enough to prevent growth in overall CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Regardless, there is a Peak Oil wildcard as I shall subsequently explain:-

In 2010 there was a study by UC Davis which stated that world oil supplies would run out “100 years before replacement energy sources are available”. The study also concluded that world oil would be depleted by 2041 if the 2008 supply-estimates and annual rates of consumption growth were maintained yearly.

Considering that we may well be unable to afford to burn the remaining oil before any depletion; the above study seems rather moot.

If you look back to those Met Office projections of carbon-increase scenarios; they contradict the International Energy Agency 2010 report concerning likely growth. A quote from an Energy Bulletin article on the IEA report states that:-
According to the 25-year forecast in the IEA's latest annual World Energy Outlook, the most likely scenario is for crude oil production to stay on a plateau at about 68 to 69 million barrels per day.

In this scenario, crude oil production "never regains its all-time peak of 70 million barrels per day reached in 2006," said IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2010.
Source

There was also an interesting critique of the IEA outlook written here. The critique examines aspects such as declining energy quality, net energy, politicized OPEC reserves, omission of export analyses and several other shortcomings of the IEA report.

Looking again at the predictions of climate scientists, we see certain assumptions about growth without factoring in the economic feedbacks that occurred as a result of the 2007-08 recession. For example, in this piece by the people at ClimateProgress we see statements like:-
"Consequently, and with tentative signs of global emissions returning to their earlier levels of growth, 2010 represents a political tipping point. "

What would be the consequence of a return to an earlier level of oil demand and growth? What would be the consequence when certain experts state that the worlds' largest OPEC exporter peaked in 2005, and when most independent experts at sites like The Oil Drum agree on the likelihood of a global oil peak in 2008 (which includes "unconventional" oil) and when the price of oil reached $145 barrel on July 3rd 2008? Perhaps yet another economic crash would emerge from a return to this level of growth? I think this is highly likely, and economists such as Jeff Rubin very much agree.

When will such strong growth occur once more? This is hard to tell. But what seems clear, is that any strong demand-increase will quickly tell us that we are at the end of growth - particularly when we have a global derivatives debt that is almost 20 times the size of the world economy. These derivatives are basically a complex form of financial gambling and future risk-taking. They are part of our hugely problematic debt-based money system which seemingly insists on infinite-growth. The concept of infinite-growth is a perverse one, because it violates the limits of our biosphere.

Are most climate scientists aware that the world has likely hit the limits to industrial economic growth already? It seems that the increasing scare-stories of global warming are based around assumptions of continuing emissions growth facilitated by a world where political, monetary, and energy systems are not in a state of turmoil.

The following piece by the ClimateProgress blog makes the following assumptions:-

"We’re at about 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year — and notwithstanding the global economic slowdown, probably poised to rise 2% per year (the exact future growth rate is quite hard to project because it depends so much on what China does and how quickly peak oil kicks in). We have to average below 18 billion tons (below 5 GtC) a year for the entire century if we’re going to stabilize at 450 ppm (see “Nature publishes my climate analysis and solution“). We need to peak around 2015 to 2020 at the latest, then drop at least 60% by 2050 to at most 15 billion tons (4 billion tons of carbon), and then go to near zero net carbon emissions by 2100."

There are indications that we already peaked in 2006, and that the subsequent 2007-08 financial recession was a result of growing demand hitting this peak in production. If so, the Peak Oil studies that support a 2008 peak are rather moot when you notice that they include unconventional oil-sources like Canadian tar-sands. Production of unconventionals clearly failed to step up after the 2006 oil production peak. Importantly, there is no real evidence to suggest that any alternatives can fill the gap at prices that we can afford to burn.

It seems, that the IEA has been putting out overly-optimistic scenarios of supply-growth in the past; as this article in the Guardian reveals US pressure caused the IEA to inflate future reserves. And further relating to the political factor - former UK Environment minister Michael Meacher claimed in 2003 that Peak Oil was the motivation for the post-9/11 "war on terror". If true, then this puts us into a very frightening situation that concords with the United States Joint Forces Command report that was released earlier this year. In it, they stated:-

"OPEC nations will remain a focal point of great-power interest. These nations may have a vested interest in inhibiting production increases, both to conserve finite supplies and to keep prices high. Should one of the consumer nations choose to intervene forcefully, the “arc of instability” running from North Africa through to Southeast Asia easily could become an “arc of chaos,” involving the military forces of several nations."

It may seem very dark of me to say this - but perhaps it will be better off for the future of our planet if military tensions escalated and further disrupted the even more destructive path that carbon-saturated global-industrial civilization threatens to create. An indefinite closure of the strait of Hormuz could do the job; albeit at the cost of global military confrontations for the forseeable future (likely causing oil prices to soar very rapidly). This could be more effective than just allowing the economy to produce emission growth with a growth in oil demand (from economic recovery), followed by much smaller emissions growth in the next year and eventual modest decline in emissions in the following year. The experience from 2007 to 2010 shows that the impact on global warming produced by the Peak Oil bumpy plateau may be insufficient to produce sustained declines. Although, one could also argue that even smaller annual percentage increases in GDP growth (such as projected by the UN for 2011 and 2012) may well be sufficient to produce stronger (more rapid) oil price increases than those realised by the larger GDP gains in 2007 - as production-capacity diminishes. Indeed, the US Joint Forces Command report of 2010 has warned of a possible energy crunch in 2012 because "surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear". Large financial institutions continue to warn of triple-digit oil prices in 2011. Any subsequent price collapse (as part of the aforementioned "bumpy plateau") could be followed by a recovery that has a quicker rate of oil price increase (and subsequent collapse) than the last one. The volatility could be indefinite.

In conclusion, I still think we face a hostile climatic future in the coming decades. Many places are likely to become badly affected by higher temperatures with global average increases of between 2-3C (assuming a decline from 2010). There are some scare-stories concerning catastrophic feedback mechanisms such as methane-hydrate release; but they do not seem to be conclusive at all. Newer studies on the methane-feedbacks have continued the catastrophic theme, although people from other disciplines are still debating the issue. No new study brings new theoretical predictions to the table when concerning methane-hydrates (for example, the 2C projected rise is mentioned in both cited reports above). For further debate on the issue, it will be worth watching conferences such as the 2011 ICGH event in Edinburgh. They may well test the credibility of such catastrophic scenarios that some scientists predict to occur. Such scenarios predict catastrophe even if we reduced emissions yearly from 2010. There are other feedback mechanisms that estimate some very dangerous temperature increases on the back of a 2C rise alone; as some analysts have reported. However, all these depend on human economic activities that are helping to perpetuate these mechanisms; and these activies are dependent on affordable oil prices in a global economy. Perhaps, it is also worth adding a caveat that there is lots of room for error and speculative assumptions when it comes to mathematical modelling of a system that is highly dynamic and/or based on certain unknowns.

Overall - triple-digit oil prices and demand-destruction, political crises and wars, etc will likely contract the GDP of industrial nations by a large amount. Sadly for many of us, the monopoly of carbon may well be in the hands of military powers seeking to fight over the remaining resources (given the weakness of the existing environmental lobbies). Perhaps a (preferably non-nuclear) destruction of our global industrial civilization could give our children a fighting chance to inherit a more liveable future after the dust of instability settles. Wars may end up killing a lot of people; but the brutal reality is that climate change catastrophe could kill every man, woman and child on planet earth. It's that brutal.

I really do hope (totalitarian-resource scenarios aside) that Jeff Rubin's picture of a much smaller (and more pleasant) world for most of humanity comes to fruition. People should also seriously consider getting involved in the Transition movement as a way of empowering themselves in a world where large-scale economies can no longer operate. We need that sane method of thinking in a world obsessed with infinite-growth and power.

9/11 Justice - An end to the post-9/11 world

2010-11-21T15:52:00.000-08:00

I strongly implore everybody to spread this video far and wide.

Thank you.

"Free market capitalism" vs "the state" - An increasingly redundant debate

2010-11-09T10:12:00.000-08:00

Article amended - 22/11/2010.

"The era of big-government is over" - Bill Clinton

"Do we believe in the individual, or do we believe in the State?" - Rand Paul

"government got too big, promised too much and pretended that it had all the answers" - David Cameron

The "free-market" or even the notion of fair competition (i.e. competition unaffected by government) has never really existed. Certainly not the sort of free-market system idealised by Austrian economic theorists (sometimes referred to as "voluntaryists") such as the Murray Rothbards or Ludwig Von Mises' of this world. The rise of economic powers in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries was fuelled partly by imperialism and resource-grabbing. Force and structural hierarchy have been in-place ever since mankind left the days of hunter-gathering and adopted totalitarian agriculture. The often-illegitimate hierarchical and coercive system of economics may well even go back to the development of complex-forager societies. And, for a more thorough empirical analysis of how violence has shaped and laid-fertile the unfair economic structure of our world - one may merely read books about the history of the nation-state. Additionally, it's also important to distinguish the "free market capitalist" ideology promoted by "big government" critics; from the "free market" ideology promoted by certain left-libertarian thinkers. The latter group consistently criticise all economic structures that have been historically influenced by illegitimate hierarchies and violence.

In a previous blogpost I wrote -

"The current system has eco-systems damaged, nearby access of food/fuel/materials/water/ancient knowledge-systems out of the reach of millions of people, etc. How was this structural edifice created? Arguably by a collection of private tyrannies and governments who carved-out a hierarchical resource-landscape where everything is monetized and dictated to by those who own the means of life. The power of force in government -gave birth to capitalism. Those private tyrannies being fewer in number than most people can more easily work together to keep most resources locked-up in the hands of the few (as Adam Smith said) and perpetuate coercive hierarchy across enough of the landscape as to divide groups in wealth."

I've decided to expand upon those same words with the following amendments given the continuing recurrence of the "market" vs "the state" debate:-

Land-tenure and its management has always been a bone of contention in human history, and the use of force has no doubt helped shape how different groups of people interact with the land and each other.Some people argue that removing government and increasing competition will magically correct things. Yet, the edifice of capitalism exists entirely as a result of force and aggression. The structural hierarchy, the locking-up of resources, the monetary control of information-dissemination, exclusivity in large-swathes of land ownership, mass-urban sprawl due to previous governmental (or feudal) re-structuring of the rural landscape, and so forth. We are not at that default state of natural voluntary interaction with nature's default bounty. We are no longer connected to nature, we are not rural home-steaders operating in a political vaccum, or polyculturists or organic communities.We need to get back to our roots of solidarity by questionning the very edifice of land-usearound us. Questionning our priorities of what "wealth" is. This doesn't mean that we return to the days of hunter-gatherers. But it does mean that we should examine our priorities and look at principles that helped us in the past, and adopt them for a less centralised (but sedentary) way of life. This does not mean romanticizing the past (i.e. the "noble savage") - as human societies have always had their problems. But it does mean re-examining where our priorities should be in terms of human mutual-support with respect to material wealth. It also demands that we ask hard questions of the cultural origins of economic and political structures. What in turn, influences these cultures? Cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker has written some very interesting books on the question of mortality-awareness and human culture (with inevitable implications for economic structures).

Source for my original piece quoted (and amended) above concerning "The need for solidarity and sanity":-
http://hozturner.blogspot.com/2010/08/need-for-solidarity-and-sanity.html

As for the view that "competition" is somehow a primary universal truth; my response to that is to insist that it's only part of our existence. It happens to be less important than co-operation, in my opinion. Readers should take a look at Kropotkin's "Mutual Aid: A Factor Of Evolution", as it gives some nice examples of co-operation's importance from the point of a view of an evolutionary biologist.

Adam Curtis produced a great BBC documentary titled "The Trap" which details the problems concerning the formulations of "freedom" and rational self-interest in both the economic and political sphere. A wikipedia article on the documentary states:-

"Curtis's narration concludes with the observation that the game theory/free market model is now undergoing interrogation by economists who suspect a more irrational model of behaviour is appropriate and useful. In fact, in formal experiments the only people who behaved exactly according to the mathematical models created by game theory are economists themselves, or psychopaths."

Market critiques also acknowledge the dangers of mergers and acquisitions. Over time, power tends to concentrate (e.g. the Standard Oil companies in America may have satisfied a lot of consumers but they annihilated competition to the point of anti-trust laws needing to be implemented). Competition has winners and losers. I suppose a more de-centralised economy will probably mean less exploitation, because once you get to larger economies of scale you get more complex production-chains and thus for example, mine workers in Chile end up being exploited by happy consumers in California. And the biggest investors owning the media doesn't really help the flow of information-access as markets mature. I wrote briefly about information and markets here. Markets also tend to be irrational at certain levels. Charles MacKay wrote a book in the early 1800's titled "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds". The same forces of short-term speculative collectivism amongst investors - arguably drove the South Sea bubble, the over-extended railroad bubbles of America, the tulip-mania bubble in Europe, and arguably the Tech/dot-com bubble of the late 90's. When people can make profits from bets of future failure, as much as future-success - you get problems especially in a debt-based money system. Many on the right-wing in America have blamed the "Federal Reserve" for the business-cycle. And while the Fed has clearly greatly exarcebated the problems it cannot be said to solely cause instabilities in markets. Powerful financial and corporate interests can focus mainly on short-termism, control what information reaches consumers, and affect the direction of the market without a powerful central bank or "big government" being the main cause. Notable examples of such market 'panics' can be found here, here and here. When people expect the "market" to regulate itself, you do get problems (as Alan Greenspan admitted before the US Congress). The most powerful banks controlled the Federal Reserve, and thus interest rates set by the Fed and the "cheap money" policies were simply a reflection of the desires of the biggest players in the market. Market players who often collude via "chambers of commerce". The corporations who depend on the banks for money are also interested in strategic partnerships and various forms of collusion.

The myth that an absence of "bailout promises" will cause investors or new competitors to rejuvenate broken economies or alleviate the unemployed - is still perpetuated by certain right-wing thinkers. Former Wall-Street regulator William K.Black has written on how fraud at the top of financial institutions can benefit certain individuals; even if their own bank fails or the overall economy is damaged. Any recovery will depend on those people who have colluded to own the resources (including knowledge-access) and assets so as to keep people and communities divided and dependent on the "market" or "the government". William K.Black also wrote an article titled "Capitalism Would Have Killed the Chilean Miners" - concerning the consequences of lack of regulation in certain industries (that investment banks also have stakeholdership in). And when it comes to regulation; there are essays written by market-anarchists (or Austrian economists) that have defended the unregulated squalor and oppression of factory conditions in 19th century Britain - with the assumption that they would improve over time. These are examples of historical revisionism that can be easily refuted by present day observations of industrialisation in China, exploitation of workers abroad by global companies, etc. Of course, the free-market people would counter with "well, those conditions are down to government force" and thus expose themselves as absurdly assuming that government has always been divorced from the socio-economic systems that created industrialisation (and rural feudalism before it). There is also a mythical promotion of markets and industrial-civilization which presupposes inherent rural poverty and strife before it. This seems to suggest that materialism is a fix for all hardship and suffering. Yet, there are interesting studies of hunter-gatherer life (before the advent of more complex or hierarchical societies) that show short working-hours (3 to 4 hours a day) and healthy conditions. The BBC documentary "Tribe" confirmed the existence of short working hours and long leisure time by observations of existing hunter-gatherer tribes. Of course, these people are poor in "products", and rich in welfare and support - as the writer Daniel Quinn has noted. Regardless, the productive activities of people can easily fall into the trap of power and hierarchy if material-wealth becomes the main focus. We don't have to adopt the the life of hunter-gatherers to learn that working for shelter, food, warmth, and health - need not be brutal or hierarchically coercive at all. Yes, there were hardships that tested our distant ancestors; but thankfully not to the degree experienced by the agricultural peasants and industrial wage-slaves that followed them.

Warfare is another bone of contention when it comes to human political-economy. The notion that war has dominated pre-settlement societies out of biological inevitability (because of neo-Darwinian and Malthusian assumptions) has been refuted by anthropologists such as Margaret Mead.

Coming back to more recent history; and the late-industrial era - we can see that despite all the horrendous actions of corporations since the Industrial Revolution (such as those in mining, cash crops, clothing manufacturing) - the consumers still largely continue to purchase and refuse to call for reforms en mass (even in the age of the internet). The access to the 8 hour day, the rights to sick-pay, etc cannot be divorced from the labour movements that have fought for them (as opposed to some benevolence of the capitalist or insistence of the consumer). Thus, it really comes down to the problem of how markets can become very impersonal and devoid of human connection when they operate at large-scales and in complex production chains.

The question of competition is a paradoxical one when it comes to market systems. Competition can actually lead to co-operation, although only at certain levels and contexts. For example, large companies have been known to collude in certain markets so as to keep a lid on burgeoning competitors and also to screw the consumer. Here is another interesting case study example. Another example was cited by an American friend of mine who lives in San Franciso. He discussed how the big hotels in the city got together in order to increase prices across the board. This is not the co-operative spirit of mutual aid that several left-libertarian thinkers have aimed for.

Granted, there are certainly very large exacerbations of problems when governments give out corporate welfare to the biggest companies, when governments sell land to the highest bidder, when governments borrow from private banks and ramp up the national debt, when governments bail-out banks when they could've just allowed them to fail (as they are supposed to in laissez-faire capitalism), when governments have a monopoly on legal tender laws (as opposed to a more de-centralised market model), when governments go to war for corporations to control certain resources, when governments fail to enforce basic market contract laws and fraud regulation (that are required for capitalism and it's associated contracts to function), when governments support neo-liberal debt-machines like the WTO, IMF, etc. There is certainly a problem with big-government that makes the problems in the market much worse.

Having said that, there are empirical studies of how government interventions (such as the creation of non-debt fiat money by law) have been considerably less damaging than the control of money by precious-metals investors and credit-merchants. Stephen Zarlenga wrote a book titled "The Lost Science of Money: The Mythology of Money - The Story of Power" in which he documented case-study examples of struggles between private and public controls of the "money power". Stephen Zarlenga has also stated:-

"This “private vs. public” battle for the control of the money power is part of a great ongoing social battle recurring throughout history to this day. This factor shapes the most important outcomes determining how well a money system works. A good system functions fairly; helping the society create values for living. A bad one obstructs the creation of values; places special privileges in the hands of some to the disadvantage of others, and promotes unfair concentrations of wealth and power, and disharmony and social strife."

In a memorable exchange with Congressman Ron Paul; former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan revealed that he has a problem defining what money actually is:-

Alan Greenspan, "... We have a problem trying to define exactly what MONEY is...the current definition of MONEY is not sufficient to give us a good means for controlling the Money Supply..."

Congressman Paul asked "Well, if you can't define Money, how can you control the Monetary System?"

Greenspan replied "That's the problem..."
Source

The issue with monetary reform is the requirement that the public remain vigilant about what the politicians in the government treasury do concerning monetary policy. The authority of government powers to create money (as opposed to lending via private banks) have been eroded over the years in both the UK and USA. It can be easily argued that control of the government (as a tool) by corporations is much worse than minimal state-intervention. Ultimately, however - the dominance of the market by private credit (even in 'wildcat banking') can also potentially lead to instabilities, misinformation, irrational behaviour, large job losses and anti-competitive behaviour (as discussed above). Governmental control by corporate powers to promise bailouts, monetization of debt, tax-increases and regulation or lack of it (skewed to corporate interests) - is like pouring fuel on any fire that does erupt from a market environment. A market environment that we must remember - has existed mostly in the context of the nation-state hierarchy.

Today, globalisation itself - is under threat. Perhaps if it wasn't for governmentally-induced political risk, the lack of prosecutions of banking fraudsters and war-criminals, etc - the price-pressures of triple-digit oil prices would naturally lead to a fairly peaceful transition to a more de-centralized economic model for all. That won't neccessarily champion individual liberty, but it would most likely save us from destruction and total chaos. Sadly, governments are likely to collude with corporations and other corrupt institutions to do things like bully the IEA into lying about oil reserves and all sorts of other shenanigans including hoarding oil and fighting to retain economic and military hegemony. Our sorry history of illegitimate-hierarchy and power is coming to a close at the end of the age of cheap oil.

Peak Oil and the collapse of the world economy

2010-10-17T07:27:00.000-07:00

Article revised - 18/10/2010 -

The following is a summary of oil price fluctuations from the tail-end of the 07/08 recession: -

Oil broke through $110 on March 12, 2008^[12], $125 on May 9, 2008^[13], $130 on May 21, 2008 ^[14], $135 on May 22, 2008, $140 on June 26, 2008 and $145 on July 3, 2008^[15]. On July 11, 2008, oil prices rose to a new record of $147.27 following concern over recent Iranian missile tests.^[16]

However, oil prices declined by more than $20 over the next two weeks, settling around $125 a barrel on July 24, 2008.^[17]A strong contributor to this price decline was the drop in demand for oil in the US. Miles driven there in a month were down in March-May 2008 compared to 2007, with the 4% decline in May being the largest drop in history. ^[18] Oil further dropped down to its lowest price in 3 months, at around $112 a barrel, on August 11, 2008^[19], and on September 15, oil price fell below $100 for the first time in seven months.On October 11, oil fell as much as $8.89, or 10.17% to $77.70 per barrel as global equities slide .^[20]

Oil traded below $70 on October 16, 2008. On December 21, 2008, oil was trading at $33.87 a barrel, less than one fourth of the peak price reached four months earlier. Prices did not rebound once 2009 started. Instead, after initially climbing above $48, prices descended by mid-February to below $34, hurt by forecasts for further declines in world demand. Through March and April 2009, oil traded at about $40 per barrel. By August 2009, prices returned to $70 a barrel.^[21]
Source:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_of_petroleum#Recent_price_history

Since early 2009 the price has been very volatile but has now reached back into the $80's. These high-spikes are indicative of an attempt at recovery, but obviously the world-economy cannot produce and consume more at the level it was at when oil hit triple-digit values. We could well see triple-digit values again in the future, followed by various fluctuations depending on political changes and then a big drop as demand falls. This is known as the bumpy plateau: -

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/members/100406_markets_react.shtml

James D.Hamilton wrote a paper that discusses the 2007-08 recession in the context of Peak Oil: -

Whereas historical oil price shocks were primarily caused by physical
disruptions of supply, the price run-up of 2007-08 was caused by strong demand confronting
stagnating world production. Although the causes were different, the consequences for
the economy appear to have been very similar to those observed in earlier episodes, with
significant effects on overall consumption spending and purchases of domestic automobiles in
particular.
http://dss.ucsd.edu/~jhamilto/Hamilton_oil_shock_08.pdf

We can see the energy-inflation trend here quite clearly for pretty much the last decade: -

Some people see Peak Oil as a threat to industrial civilization, and in many ways it is. Although people like Jeff Rubin argue that it is only a threat to our current globalised system. Any large increases in stimulus money may well drive demand to the level of triple-dollar oil prices in the near future - but then the market will find the operating costs too high, and thus drive towards de-centralisation and localisation. Economists believe in the power of prices to determine what the market does. Jeff Rubin suggests high-prices will naturally drive investment towards localised economies, urban farms, alternative energies, etc. But has he really examined the chicken-egg scenario of energy-speculation? And also, has he considered things such as political risk? As summed up by David Nye (a friend of mine in the peak oil community) - "I appreciate Rubin's measured prognosis, but I question whether he is properly accounting for political risk. Alternatively, his dismissal of domestic political risk may be accurate, but political stability may be achieved at the cost of totalitarianism. This would by no means be unprecedented."

Will the worlds' investors and businesses act too late and prevent an affordable transition-period to a low-carbon and more local economy? The short-termism, risk-taking, war-profiteering, outsourcing, bailout lobbying, and speculative behaviour of market-actors is of considerable concern when it comes to price manipulations. All businesses depend on credit in a credit-based economic system. The credit-cavaliers (bankers) have done a lot to destroy the middle-class and we could just maintain the current scenario of energy proxy-wars in Eurasia that show our leaders are more willing to hold onto large oil-guzzling military/industrial power - than to allow a more honest, regulated market dictate.

What constitutes an effective, regulated market is a problematic issue though. It is especially problematic if we consider the potential scenario of civilian-dependency on corporate food such as Monsanto, centralised services, etc in an increasingly centralised and brutal repressive system. Yet, other analysts such as Dimitri Orlov and Mike Ruppert have argued that countries face internal anarchy, internal fragmentation, seccessions, and possible civil wars as the oil-dependent national infrastructure implodes.

The fact is - nobody has certainty as to how each nation will respond to a post-peak world. It could well be that some nations react by letting non-essential economic sectors collapse and then allocating oil-usage to essential services, agriculture, essential food-transport, etc. Such policies could well buy enough time for these nations to enact a transition to a low-carbon, permaculture-based de-centralised economic system without widespread food-riots or wars. This would be the sane option. Indeed, it is important to note that efficiency-savings in fuel-usage may well be bad for energy companies' profits, but potentially very good for energy security as Michael Meacher (former UK Environment Minister) explains here. Regardless, many of these efficiency-directives will require strong government leadership or community-leadership at national or local levels (ideally both). The market may well resist such changes in consumption, as Dutch economist Maarten Van Mourik stated at a 2003 peak oil conference: "I have done a detailed study and I have concluded that it may not be profitable to slow decline". Disturbing words indeed.

Disturbing too; were the words of IEA chief economist Fatih Birol in 2008. The Times reported "Fresh sources of oil equivalent to the output of four Saudi Arabias will have to be found simply to maintain present levels of supply by 2030, one of the world's leading energy experts has said". Now, Saudi Arabia holds 20% of the worlds' proven oil reserves and is the largest petroleum exporter (source: OPEC). Is it no wonder that oil companies are in a desperate bid to head to places like the Arctic in the attempt to meet this seemingly unlikely target of four Saudi Arabias? The Arctic could well have a lot of a lot of oil reserves, although the issue of costs of extraction, refinement and transportation from such a region remain an issue. Indeed, just as in the case of Venezuelan Orinoco Oil, the Arctic may well only have a very limited amount of economically recoverable oil. Thus, it does not seem like the answer to the worlds' energy needs. Unconventional sources, such as the Canada Oil Sands also come with cost-limitations and risks. The post-peak world also spells the end of economic growth for a very long time to come. I say post-peak because, as some people (such as Mike Ruppert) have already claimed the world peaked in oil production in 2006 - others dispute that and claim we arrived at the peak (or plateau) recently and argue about the length of the plateau. Political scientist Nafeez Ahmed has done some good studies on the issue of the energy-crisis, and wrote a good summary here.

China continues to grow, while absorbing a lot of US Treasury debt and also consuming more and more oil and coal. As some say that the world may well reach Peak Coal very soon, China is predicted by some to move more towards natural gas to meet its growing energy-requirements. As discussed above, the central-asian countries are part of this energy market and also part of competing interests from different national-powers. AsiaTimes journalist Pepe Escobar has done an interesting analysis of how he sees this part of the world as a "pipeline-istan" of political instability. The consequences of continued American/European involvement in these energy-motivated conflicts in a post-9/11 world are very dangerous for world security. Such energy proxy-wars are a staple of a reactionary US hegemony in a post-9/11 world with the motive of peak oil in mind. The US-British military intervention in Iraq, for example, was linked to Peak Oil by analysts such as former senior British Army official in Iraq, James Ellery. On 22nd April 2008 he stated that “The reason that oil reached $117 a barrel last week, was less to do with security of supply… than World shortage.”

This just adds on to the dangers of world security that looming currency wars, widescale economic dislocation and increasing unemployment (in a post-peak world) will contribute. As said, every nation may have it's own response - with some being culturally influenced (e.g. Germany seems obsessed with preventing inflation due to memories of pre-war Germany, and the US fearing deflationary crisis from memories of the 1930's).

My own personal view is that there really must be dialogue between the different powers on the energy-issue. This includes sensible agreements between BRIC, G7, SCO, etc to start agreeing to a multi-polar economic and political picture; but with a strong sense of co-operation in helping each other towards internal food and energy-security. Things that the public should pressure world governments to enact could include - permaculture programs as a matter of national security, no-till agriculture to protect threatened soils, special global energy-reserves (to fight the worst-case scenarios of global-warming) could be established to fuel promising geo-engineering technology, non-debt monetary creation backed by fuel from energy-efficiency savings could help revitalize local economies, biomethane from a more de-centralised food-system (with much less waste) and from farms could be used to power essential services, education programs for poor women in developed countries to help reduce population density in politically/environmentally-sensitive locations, etc.

There are many potential options. Sadly, it seems that it will sustained actions to stop traffic and stop business-as-usual in order to MAKE the people in government accept concessions. Protestors and union coalitions in places like France are giving an example of how co-ordinated strikes can be powerful. Obviously, our tactics in the Peak Oil movement should promote civil disobedience but without violence or threats to fuel-security that is required for things like food and medicine. We should be directing our anger at the war-profiteers, energy-companies and the bankers that seem content in enriching the minority and letting the majority suffer. Sadly, we are all encased within this debt-dependent and fossil-fuel dependent system with all it's coercive economic hierarchies. There is a variety of activism that people can partake in to get the ball of resistance rolling - and that includes promoting the most credible information possible, writing to politicians, writing to journalists, sending out emails, talking to people in the street, leafletting, stopping traffic for a few minutes at a time near pedestrian-crossings (while holding placards), etc. What the protests in places like France have demonstrated however - is that the most powerful impact on our stubborn corporate-controlled governments are co-ordinated coalitions of strikes and blocking of traffic in the millions. The mistake of the French protestors, unfortunately, is that their demands lack understanding of real international geopolitical realities that affect us all. They really should be striking over the problems I've discussed in this blogpost - and also constantly pressing for solutions not just for France, but ones that can be pushed all over the world.

For now, the future looks very volatile indeed. God help us all.

Our economic problems - in a nutshell

2010-09-19T08:09:00.001-07:00

Our economic problems are tied into: -

1. Excessive government borrowing (and public debt) from the fractional reserve system, and hardly any new non-debt money creation

2. Excessive private debt from the fractional reserve system - particularly in the United States and thus impacting the dollar

3. Institutional leverage fraud and huge speculative bubbles bursting into a deflationary scenario, but with price inflation on clothes,food, travel etc. It is important to note that the leverage-fraud in the US real-estate sector is only one part of the fraudulent debt-bubble that some have been observing since well before the 07/08 recession. An analysis of the global derivatives problem can be found here.

4. Peak Oil and mounting energy-conflicts for the remaining supplies impacting the 2008 recession and future economic activity

Oil prices are likely to continue to undergo a mixture of the "bumpy plateau" which is basically a cyclical periods of shocks, recessions, recoveries and more shocks. Explained here.

Speculation by hedge-funds within the context of the leverage-fraud could well be impacting the extent of the "bumpy plateau" and of course - oil prices.

All in my opinion, of course.

The need for solidarity and sanity

2010-08-21T15:55:00.001-07:00

It's clear that the corporate/government ruling-class want to use fear (things like 9/11, Islam, etc) in order to keep us all divided and encased within this vicious hierachical slave-farm. They want to worsen the wars, impoverish and imprison rivals into a restricted energy/development paradigm, and make lies and false semantics the main currency and margins of debate. They want to divide people by creating arguments between socialism, capitalism, libertarianism, communism, anarchism, etc. The semantic caging and compartmentalization of political positions allows people to become more controlled and embedded into a divide-and-rule system. Thus, perhaps we all need to step outside of these neat little boxes that are carved for us and which we also carve for ourselves - and reach out to those who do not understand WHY we feel this way?

The post-9/11 world is even more perilous than the pre-9/11 world (albeit it is linked to crimes that go back decades). It includes within it - the last seeming fight for the remaining energy reserves on this planet. Energy reserves to fuel a society and system that ALL political persuasions seem to agree is flawed and draining us of morale and personal liberty. I think an exposure of the central truths regarding the reason for these escalating wars is required - before trying to explain or suggest an alternative societal organisation that one wants to see after the end of these dangerous military interventions. Approaching ordinary people in the street on this issue requires careful and sensitive introduction to the central flaws of the 9/11 story; without creating knee-jerk reactions in people or provoking cognitive dissonance.

Wars for energy continue to try and legitimize the perpetuation of a rat-race world of misery that is worsening and worsening. An attempt to legitimize its existence as somehow worthy of protection - even at the cost of other human lives.

The current system has eco-systems damaged, nearby access of food/fuel/materials/water/ancient knowledge-systems out of the reach of millions of people, etc. How was this structural edifice created? Arguably by a collection of private tyrannies and governments who carved out a hierarchical resource-landscape where everything is monetized and dictated to by those who own the means of life. The power of force in government - gave birth to capitalism. Those private tyrannies being fewer in number than most people; can more easily work together to keep resources locked-up (as Adam Smith said) and perpetuate coercive hierarchy across enough of the landscape as to divide groups in wealth. Some people argue that removing government and increasing competition will magically correct things. Yet, the edifice of capitalism exists entirely as a result of force and aggression. The structural hierarchy, the locking-up of resources, exclusivity in large-swathes of land ownership, and so forth. We are not at that default state of natural voluntary interaction with nature's default bounty. We are no longer connected to nature, we are no longer rural home-steaders or polyculturists or organic communities. We need to get back to our roots of solidarity by questionning the very edifice of land-use around us.

I would like to see a world where people no longer have to work for a boss 8/10/12, etc hours a day just to keep their shelter, food, water and fuel. This requires not only an end to the welfare/warfare state, but it requires an end to the ideology that "only selfishness matters". Like Einstein said; we have two aspects (social and individual) - and I would go further and use Kropotkin's "mutual aid" thesis and say that co-operation is our most important and valuable species driver.

Whilst exposing carefully to people the lies and evils that fuel the wars, terrorism, etc - I'd much prefer to see a world where people voluntarily help to work together (through local communal interaction) to secure basic needs via the minimum labour required; and then voluntarily work for the market. I'd love to see a 20 hour working week too. I think its extremely important that people (who are unable to survive as business people) do NOT have to obey whatever their employers' contract says in order to survive. There should be maximum liberty and more power for individuals to have a say over what their employment contract is going to look like. If they don't like it, then they can fall back on their voluntary community support networks that ensure minimum labour with all needs met, and thus more time to pursue creative and intellectual interests rather than enslaven oneself to the demands of consumers or property owners in the marketplace. True solidarity is about having a say over one's productive life (i.e. the majority of one's life). We should never allow ourselves to become part of a compulsive economic-hierarchical society - with it's property owning class, it's professional class, middle-class and the working class. The solution really is about the liberty for individuals to own property without compelling others to work for them, and without having to work at the monetary dictate of any other class at the expense of their lives/shelter/fuel if they refuse to do so.

And yes, I believe government is like hiring a thug to do your work for you. Government often gives legitimacy to wage-slavery, warfare and other forms of great coercion.

To put it simply: -

People should voluntarily help each other to provide for basic needs - food, water, shelter, fuel and clothing (via collective minimum labour in a communalist de-centralized manner). People should seriously think about and read up on Permaculture, tribal solidarity, non-hierachical voluntaryism, etc. People can also call some of these aspects "socialistic", "anarcho-syndicalist", "mutualist", "capitalist", etc - but I think such terms are highly loaded because of ideological hegemony over the years.

In a sane society based on solidarity (as well as the desire to better oneself rather than promote slothfulness) - such things like luxuries or "wants" should be acquired by working for a market or some voluntary mode of productive interaction. We really do need to break free of old socio-economic paradigms that are too often based on large-scale monolithic blue-prints. We have to keep redefining who we are perceived as by the use of continuous self-examination and justification of our positions, recognition of our mistakes and flaws, where we stand in life, and WHY we take a stand in that particular way.

I hope people understand where I'm coming from, and why I think it's important.

CIA and Pakistan ISI - Close ties before and after 9/11

2010-08-08T09:40:00.001-07:00

My latest 9/11 video: -

LINK

9/11 and the Ground-Zero mosque controversy (VIDEO-INSIDE)

2010-08-02T17:00:00.000-07:00

I produced a video on this subject that should be spread widely: -

Islamophobia is an irrational response to a vocal bigoted minority

2010-07-31T15:16:00.001-07:00

"Do not argue with the followers of earlier revelation other than in a most kindly manner – except those of them who did wrong and are oppressors – and say ‘we believe in that which has been sent down to us and that which has been sent down to you; for our God and your God is one and the same, and it is unto Him that we surrender ourselves.’” - Qur’an 29:46

“Unto every community We appointed (different) ways of worship, which they ought to observe. Hence do not let them dispute with you on the matter, but do call them unto your Lord: for, behold, you are on a straight guidance.”
“And if they argue with you, say (only) ‘Allah knows best what you are doing’” - Qur’an 22:67-68

“Unto every one of you have We appointed a law and way of life. And if Allah had so willed, He could surely have made you one single community; (but He willed it otherwise) in order to test you by means of that which He has vouchsafed unto you. So surpass one another in doing good deeds! Unto God you all must return; and then He will make you truly understand all the differences in which you were engaged in dispute.” - Qur’an 5:48

This suggests tolerance and plurality does it not?

Read more on religious plurality (in Islam) here: -

http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~rtavakol/engineer/plurals.htm
http://www.australiansuficentre.org/article_testhardship.htm

As far as the issue of "Shariah Law" is concerned; it is important to realise that there is a strong elitist and highly corrupt ruling clique (mostly from Saudi Arabian wahabbism) that want to impose their views on others. They are deviants from the true spirit of what Islam preaches.

"Sharia is generally defined as God's eternal and immutable will for humanity. This ideal Islamic law is expressed in the Quran and Mohammad's example (sunna) and developed by jurisprudence. However, numerous interpretations of sharia can be found in laws, scholarly literature, the media and in popular perceptions. In that respect, there are many sharias. In Tunisia, polygamy was formally abolished in 1956, allegedly referring to sharia; in Indonesia, polygamy is limited and controlled by state 'religious courts' taking sharia into account; while in Egypt, women's rights to obtain a divorce have recently been expanded with reference to sharia. Throughout history and through the Muslim world, sharia has been shaped and reshaped, influenced by local customs, reconstructed by colonial law, and more recently by national legislatures, administrators, courts, and international treaties. Due to the extraordinary variety of views on sharia within Muslim countries, the 'rules in use' of sharia differ greatly between these groups. When people refer to the sharia, they are, in fact, referring to 'their' sharia." (Sharia and National Law in Muslim Countries, Jan Michiel Otto 200)

Shariah is an issue of Jurisprudence (or Fiqh). With regard to the issue, I'd read this: -

"There are other aspects of religious freedom and we would like to throw some light on these aspects also. In Islam there is no concept of church. No central body is authorised to control religious doctrines. In fact there is no concept of priesthood in Islam. Every individual is free to, and responsible for, his or her own faith. Allah provides guidance (hidaya) to everyone through His prophets. It is for an individual to accept or reject the guidance. If he accepts, it is for his spiritual good and if he rejects, he will face the consequences thereof in this life and in the life to come (aakhirah). It is individual who will be held accountable before God on the Day of Judgement. His argument that the leader misled him would simply be rejected. This approach of the Qur’an, it will be seen, is also remarkably modern . The very concept of modern secular democracy is based on individual rights and responsibilities. This concept is very central to the Qur’an.

It will be seen that there is no single school of jurisprudence in Islam. There are eight surviving schools – Hanafi, Shafi`I, Hanbali, Maliki and Zahiri in the Sunni Islam and Ja`fari, Zaidi and Isma`ili in the Si`ah Islam. Besides these there were many more schools in early Islam – some think more than hundred. But these schools did nt survive. Every eminent `alim ( who had Islamic learning in Qur’an and Hadith) had his own interpretation of various juristic problems which arose from time to time. And other Muslims wee free to follow one `alim or the other or find his own solution based on Qur’an and hadith. But because Muslims followed these schools in large numbers mentioned above that they became well recognised ones in times to come. But even today a follower of one school of fiqh (jurisprudence) can renounce it and adopt another school without any constraints. Some people even take from one or the other school what suits them although the `Ulama (the learned theologian) do not approve of it. According to them one should follow one or the other school in its entirety. But that is also one opinion among others.

Thus not only that a Muslim is not bound by one school or the other he is not bound by fatwa (legal opinion) issued by any mufti (jurist). He is free to reject it and go to some one else, if he is not satisfied by the fatwa. He has full latitude in the matter. Also, no Muslim is bound even to ask a juriconsult about anything. He might find his/her own answer and be satisfied as long as it is based on authoritative sources and not merely on his convenience. The Qur’an, as pointed out above lays full responsibility on the individual, not on the community or the body of any juriconsults. This does not apply to mere legal questions but to all theological ones. For example there are no fixed dogmas about questions like freedom of will or determination or nature of the Qur’an. In the first century of Islam there were different schools of thought on these questions. One school led by the noted Sufi saint Hasan Basri believed in freedom of will whereas another school believed in determination. This question of freedom of will and determination had political rather than theological overtones. Those who supported the Umayyad rule believed in determination implying thereby that Umayyad rule is result of divine determination and any opposition to it amounts to challenge divine determination.

However, the opponents of the Umayyads thought they were usurpers and one must actively oppose their role and they subscribed to the doctrine of freedom of will. There was a third school called Murjia’who believed that one must postpone any action as Allah will decide who is right or wrong. All three schools existed side by side and people freely subscribed to one or the other. The M`utazila school was a rationalist school and for them reason was primary in deciding what is good and what is evil. They argued that Shari`ah held something to be good because reason held it to be good. The Asha`ira School, on the other held that something is good because Shari`ah held it to be good even if reason contradicted it. Similarly the M`utazila (the rationalists) held that the Qur’an was created by Allah and not co-eternal with Him. The orthodox believed, on the other hand, that it is the speech of Allah and hence co-eternal with Him. There was heated controversy about it in early Islam but there was no church to impose these dogmas on the entire body of Muslims. Different schools of thought contested with each other."

http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~rtavakol/engineer/relfree.htm

The Lockerbie affair - a quick summary

2010-07-25T13:13:00.000-07:00

DOCUMENTS released last night reveal the full extent of BP's lobbying of the British government over the Libyan prisoner transfer deal which included the Lockerbie bomber.

http://news.scotsman.com/news/BP-pushed-for-Megrahi-release.6438561.jp

The oil giant BP faced a new furor on Thursday as it confirmed that it had lobbied the British government to conclude a prisoner-transfer agreement that the Libyan government wanted to secure the release of the only person ever convicted for the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing over Scotland, which killed 270 people, 189 of them Americans.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/world/europe/16britain.html?_r=1

It seems evident that pressure was put on the Scots.

I'd also like to know more about that medical opinion. Where did it come from?

If you read this Daily Mirror article, it shows some Tory MP's shifting around blame to the SNP: -

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/latest/2010/07/25/lockerbie-medical-evidence-pressure-115875-22437754/

However.....

But today The Sunday Telegraph can disclose that the medical evidence was paid for by the Libyan government, which encouraged the doctors to say that Megrahi had only three months to live.

British and Scottish officials appear to have thought that it would be easier to justify Megrahi’s release to the US government if it was done on compassionate grounds.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/6143966/Lockerbie-medical-experts-were-urged-to-predict-bombers-early-death.html

The shifting of blame and denial continues: -

The controversy surrounding the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing reignited yesterday after Britain's ambassador to the US said the government regretted the Scottish decision to free Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and considered it a "mistake".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/16/release-abdelbaset-al-megrahi-mistake?CMP=AFCYAH

Tony Blair visited Libya last month and met Colonel Muammar Gaddafi just days after denying he was an adviser to the country, it was disclosed last night.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7895997/Tony-Blair-met-Colonel-Gaddafi-in-Libya-last-month.html

More on the oil aspect: -

LONDON — Oil giant BP said Thursday that it planned to start drilling off the coast of Libya within weeks despite calls from U.S. senators for a moratorium over the company's alleged links to the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38256677/

Some background to Libya: -

In 1996, British intelligence will pay al-Liby to assassinate Libyan leader Colonel Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi (see 1996), and then will let him live openly in Britain until 2000 (see 1995-May 2000).

Anas al-Liby, member of a Libyan al-Qaeda affiliate group called Al-Muqatila, lives in Britain during this time. He had stayed with bin Laden in Sudan (see May 18, 1996). In 1995, he moves to Britain and applies for political asylum, claiming to be a political enemy of the Libyan government. He is involved in an al-Qaeda plot (see Late 1993-Late 1994) that will result in the bombing of two US embassies in Africa in 1998 (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998).

http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=anas_al-liby

Megrahi was sentenced in 2001: -
http://www.terrorismcentral.com/Library/Legal/HCJ/Lockerbie/LockerbieVerdict.html

In 2002, John Bolton had Libya in the "Axis Of Evil": -

Mr Bolton, speaking to the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing political think-tank, also accused Libya of continuing in its attempts to obtain nuclear weapons.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/1971852.stm

Changes in relations in 2004 meant Libya was a "partner against the war on terror" and with this included: -

As Mr Blair met Mr Gaddafi, it was announced Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell had signed a deal worth up to £550m for gas exploration rights off the Libyan coast.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3566545.stm

BP managed an eventual deal in 2007: -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6700255.stm

British oil interests got its second major boost in Libya - already one of the world's biggest oil and gas producers - when BP won rights for exploration and development work there. Once again that oil deal was signed alongside a second Blair visit, in May 2007.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/aug/30/shell-libyan-gas-oil

Some background on the Lockerbie cover-up: -

Megrahi was convicted by three Scottish judges sitting in a courtroom in “neutral” Holland. There was no jury. One of the few reporters to sit through the long and often farcical proceedings was the late Paul Foot, whose landmark investigation in Private Eye exposed it as a cacophony of blunders, deceptions and lies: a whitewash. The Scottish judges, while admitting a “mass of conflicting evidence” and rejecting the fantasies of the CIA informer, found Megrahi guilty on hearsay and unproven circumstance.
http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=547

The CIA offered $2m (£1m) to the Crown's key witness in the Lockerbie trial and his brother, sources close to the case have told The Herald.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/revealed-cia-offered-2m-to-lockerbie-witness-and-brother-1.866400

Megrahi's conviction was a shocker. No material evidence was presented linking him to the bombing, let alone any evidence that he put the bomb on the plane or that he handled any explosives. Even the prosecution subsequently questioned the credibility of its star witness.

Nevertheless, keen to move on, Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing although it never accepted guilt.

The British Government is preparing for Megrahi to be transferred to Libya for the rest of his sentence. This would eliminate the risk of an acquittal and lessen the chance of a subsequent inquiry.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/hugh-miles-lockerbie-was-it-iran-syria-all-i-know-is-it-wasnt-the-man-in-prison-1206086.html

There is obviously dirt on the Scots, the British, and the Americans at various stages of the entire Lockerbie affair. It stinks of criminal complicity, and of course - oil and gas. Regardless, we do NOT know the full reasons as to why blame seems to have been shifted onto Libya.

In terms of the BP lobbying; Obama and David Cameron are not showing any interest in a thorough inquiry that reveals context and accountability: -

In return, Obama stopped short of calling for an official government inquiry into the affair, stating his own personal anger at the Megrahi release, and placing confidence in Cameron over the fallout.
http://www.france24.com/en/20100721-obama-cameron-navigate-lockerbie-bp-rows

A Suburban Low-Carbon Action Plan

2010-07-18T15:10:00.001-07:00

This is the plan for a food and fuel sustainability program I will be proposing for the sort of suburban/semi-rural area that Durham City is an example of.

As Peak Oil shortages become more of a crisis there should be incentives for local power systems. The exact implementation of this will be discussed in more detail later. Such power generation should be considered in a way as to make the most efficient recycled usage of water possible; and minimize waste.

With regard to food security (the main pressing issue) there needs to be a drive for people to utilise their garden/lawn space to grow food and utilise food waste for biogas generation. Human waste and spare land should also be used to help create energy since gardens in themselves will not be enough. Spare government-owned land should be used for surplus food production where garden-sharing schemes fall short. This spare green local-government space could also be used to provide grass for mulch and compost uses although eventually all the council grassy space should be used solely for food growing. Again, priority should be given and locally managed by those whose gardens or land-sharing schemes are insufficient. The government-land parcel ownership ideally should be mediated by those who need it via mutual agreement. This could comprise of different local forums of which members agree on fixed land-parcel sizes (e.g. land size sufficient for healthy subsistence) for ownership by each individual family. Such ownership should be free of land rents. Thus the ownership model is similar to that of an allotment structure, but the owners do not pay anybody to use the land.

Food waste from homegrown produce (e.g. vegetable peels) could be combined with with energy crops from peripheral farmland to help increase the reserve of biogas derived from energy crops grown on former farmland nearby. Sewage waste can also be used for biogas. More on this will be discussed later.

Garage roofs could be utilised to grow marketable food (e.g. herbs, perennial grains, etc). Road sides and motorway strips could be used to grow rows of sweet-chestnut orchards which (along with the carbohydrate grown in backyards/council land) can help replace grains in the diet. Existing farmland could be used for the growth of energy crops (by planting a variety of hardy grasses) as well as growing hemp (for industrial usage and clothing). The permaculture method of growing will not require pesticides or herbicides or ploughing. Nearby woodlands could be turned into reserve food-forests, and can be coppiced for wood supplies and carefully exploited as a source of leaf mould compost. It is important to understand that any consumption of energy crops from farmland WILL require much less energy consumption than society currently consumes by natural gas, coal and nuclear. Naturally, the biggest impact will be on transport and hence why an economy will have to be much more decentralized. Public transport should be encouraged as much as possible.

Conventional agriculture relies on pesticides and fertilisers from declining fossil fuels . (1) Soils could only last a few more decades as a result of intensive agriculture. (2) If permaculture replaces the land-use currrently used by monoculture then the issue of crop harvesting and transport needs to be addressed by new fuel. Where will this come from? Regardless of where it comes from, it's quite self-evident that the supply must be carefully allocated rather than just sold to any bidders on the market. Electric vehicles based on wind and solar would rely on new vehicles and batteries that have fossil-fuel dependent nodes of production. On the other hand, the usage of biogas or biomethane does not require batteries or expensive new vehicle changes. (3) Could people be paid to grow energy crops in their garden for the local farmer? Most likely, but chances are this will mean less land to address fuel and food needs for residents. This is why my Low-Carbon action plan looks the way it does (in the sense that food-production is de-centralised).

Crucially, there will need to be a transition period before a permaculture and steady-state economy can stand on its own feet. The aim is also to create a form of voluntary community where people no longer have to work for a boss to survive. Once this resource-based system is set up then people will have far more personal freedom to turn down jobs they don't like. They will also have more freedom to create their own markets without feeling like a cog in the capitalist or State machine. Also, people could choose to work for as long as they want to as a result of their new contract negotiation power. It is my hope that people will be incentivized to work together as partners in order to safeguard the production of energy crops on farmland for basic needs (within parameters agreed-upon via mutual contracts). Thus such a resource will become free and thus bare no monetary cost. The same local partnership should apply with water ownership. There is simply no need to charge for water-usage once mutual contracts assure a needs-based agreement in this resource area (via water-meters). Clothing can be made out of a mixture of linen and hemp (grown on farmland and spare private land).

As to the acquisition of existing peripheral farmland for the growth of energy crops and hemp; there will need to be co-operation from the private land-owners of these farms. One way would be to get thousands of people to pool their money by paying the landowner £100 pounds each in order to acquire collective ownership over the amount of farmland require to provide fuel for agreed-upon basic needs. Such parameters can be occasionally negotiated via democratic forums as part of a fuel co-operative structure. Any extra land should be used to sell fuel to businesses or individuals wanting more.

The preservation of energy will be paramount and this needs to be done firstly with assets owned by the public sector (as it is the sector most accountable to tax-payers). Street lights can be amended to be sensitive to human-movement, and other energy-efficiency measures implemented in public sector buildings. Lower priority government programs should be scrapped whilst incorporating people into a new transition economy negotiated at local scales. Energy-usage infrastructure and other essential human supply-lines should be locally negotiated and developed before large-scale job losses occur. The worst situation would arise if government ends up creating more job-dependents whilst keeping people dependent on a centralised energy system and a just-in-time food delivery system (4) for those on social security benefits. If governments do that whilst gambling on risky alternative-energy systems (e.g. carbon-capture coal and nuclear) - the result could be potentially disastrous. (5) This will especially be the case if things are purely left to market supply-chains.

Economic activity will have to rapidly transition to a more geographically scaled down set of production chains. The more advanced the capital a business owns, the more likely it will close or be greatly modified by the more de-centralized (and certainly less globalised) economic paradigm. As the oil supply declines further, there will have to be priorities in terms of protecting some economic sectors and letting others decline. Those which will be allowed to decline will be those that are deemed non-essential for societal stability. For example, supermarkets must reduce the amount of food imports they bring in. This will obviously impact profits and impact jobs very quickly. Hence any scaling down process must happen synchronously with local food growing and energy crop schemes. Businesses could develop that sell a variety of reserve produce, offer industrial hemp services, entertainment or recreation and so forth. Meanwhile non-residential energy usage will have to be rationed or restricted with the expense becoming greater based on periodic fluctations in scarcity. Allocation of essential residential energy should be ring-fenced to protect it.

Materials from non-essential industries can be reserved to assist maintenance of essential infrastructure. Stockpiles of essential electronics should be carefully stored as reserves to replace a more rationed used quota. A new economic ethic, in-line with steady-state economics (6) should focus on constraining where the market begins and ends with regards to ecological and resource security.
One of the likely criticims of this sort of proposal will be that backyard and frontyard gardens will be insufficient for most people to sustain themselves on; thus requiring people to travel everytime they want to harvest their food from garden-sharing schemes. Garden-sharing schemes also have their limitations, and thus this is why I mentioned the existence of plentiful green spaces where land can be allocated on an allotment basis. Given the morphology of Durham City; people need not walk more than 3 miles very occasionally to harvest food and storage could be local. Public transport could also be sustained by the biomethane powered vehicles to assist people. If there ever is a shortage of green-space, then there will have to be sacrifices of road-space in order to allow people to grow food on them. This will obviously mean sacrificing of individual cars, and reliance on more occasional public transport. Regardless, space needs to be utilised in the most efficient way possible.

References

(1) http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html
(2) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/farming/6828878/Britain-facing-food-crisis-as-worlds-soil-vanishes-in-60-years.html
(3) http://www.journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_bate.html
(4) For more on this see http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2008/05/just-in-time-economy-crumbles.html
(5) Please see my PDF document "A critical review of the Conservative Party “Protecting Security Policy Green Paper No.8”.
(6) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_state_economy