Today U.S. Energy secretary Sam Bodman said on Meet The Press that high gasoline prices were a result of the rising cost of a barrel of oil.
huh. who'd a thunk that. Isn't that amazing? I wonder why no one else has made that connection? Aren't those Bush people smart?
Fox News has spoken the unspeakable. They have posted an article on peak oil. When the Senate and House and Pres. stop blathering on pointlessly - maybe they will get around to reading it.
Peak Oil prophet and all around curmudgeon has a new post up that hits the perfect note during this week of gas price hysteria. We are deep into the blame game. As I said below I do think big oil is gouging. A windfall profit tax will not produce more oil, though. We need clarity and action now. Supply and demand have met. High prices and price spikes are the natural result. Nibbling around edges is just that - nibbling around the edges.
One other comment - CNN is running a promo tonight for Anderson Cooper's show in which an angry consumer (since we are not really people anymore - just pass through agents for dollars) outside a gas station. There is a shot of the prices and she says with pique "This is not normal."
Yes. It is. Given the amount of oil we use, the amount we have used, the amount left and our denial of the reality of all of it - the prices we have now are, in fact, the new normal.
W - now at 32% approval - in trying to explain his Iraq debacle anew stated that he believed in the "almighty" and that the "almighty" wants people to be free. I guess that's why we invaded. Who knows? Another day another excuse. Bush's belief in God has not done much to spread democracy in Iraq.
Meanwhile, on Sunday one of the free people here on planet earth - a bloke named Bin Laden - also invoked his version of the "almighty" to rally his troops in direct opposition to ours.
Maybe we need to talk a little less about God's will and use the brain God (or Darwin) gave us to develop sane policy. Just a thought.
great video here. We are all monkeys, after all. Who ever made this video is okay by me.
Major General Batiste was on Face the Nation this morning. He was amazing. A couple of weeks ago when the generals first started speaking out my friend, John, wrote a post that what they were talking about was Iran, not Iraq. He was right. This is what Maj. Gen. Batiste said this morning:
We need to hold the current secretary of defense accountable for some very bad strategic decisions. Just around the corner there are some huge decisions this country will have to make. And we need senior leadership at the Department of Defense who's instinct and judgment trust.
It's time for a shake up not just at the Defense Department but in Congress. We need to hold these people accountable.
Robert Kiyosaki, author of the wildly popular Rich Dad, Poor Dad financial advise books has become a peak oil theory convert. Here is what he wrote. Here is why it matters. Glad to have him aboard - though the Peak Oil train has left the station.
Many thanks to an old friend in New Mexico for forwarding me this - you know who you are.
In order to protect and defend their drinking most real alcoholics will go to great lengths to rationalize the gravity of their situation. There is a list in the book Alcoholics Anonymous (know as the "big book" to members of A.A.) that illustrates this denial nicely:
"Despite all we can say, many who are real alcoholics are not going to believe they are in that class. By every form of self-deception...they will prove themselves the exceptions...some of the methods we have tried: Drinking beer only, limiting the number of drinks, never drinking alone, never drinking in the morning, drinking only at home...taking a trip, not taking a trip..."
The same sort of list holds true for Americans and the oil situation. The real problem (a situation that is not curable but treatable - though the longer one waits the more painful the treatment ) is difficult for the ego to handle. But the reality of high gasoline prices makes complete denial that something is wrong impossible. This oil dependency denial mechanism is ramping up again in America. A short list of signs:
1. An email will make the rounds. The email blames Big Oil and either A. insists we buy gas only on certain days or only buy from certain companies. This, it is believed, with force prices down. The one I received Monday stated that gas would cost $1.35 a gallon if we all did this - an extraordinary delusion.
2. We will hear a lot of chatter about the "switch over" from winter to summer grades of gasoline, and the "driving season". This chatter usually happens in May. In started in February this year. Global warming, maybe?
3. Lack of refining capacity will be blamed for high prices. This excuse usually comes from the Right, as it blames over regulation and environmental laws. If only it wasn't so difficult for big oil, they would refine more etc. etc. But, as we know, oil companies rarely do not get what they want from politicians. If they wanted more refineries, they could get them. Katrina was a real problem. However, if anything it showed just how tight the supply/demand ratio is in America
4. Congress will take symbolic action to deflect any anger. By Wednesday Senator Schumer had made the requisite "demand" that Big Oil's profits be investigated. President Oil expressed his "concern" as well.
We have not gotten past #4 yet. Usually gas prices come down just enough at this stage to call off the griping. But high prices will not go down substantially ever again.
These "taking a trip, not taking a trip" rationalizations do not address the root of the problem. At all. The problem we have now is that supply has met demand. There is also a strong belief in many learned corners that we have used half the world's supply of oil. The implications of this, given how the world economy is run now, range from startling to grim. Like the drunk who is charged with looking at his "inner most self" as a prerequisite to change - we are one the verge of having to confront all our basic presumptions about how we live. Will we "sober up" with grace or resentment? I wonder.
* Profits are huge for oil companies and they could pass some along to us, invest in refineries, exploration, more drilling. For the most past they are not. Why? Do Oil companies know the supply problem is real and permanent?
Goodbye Scotty McClellan. I miss you already. Defending stupid guys while condescending to reasonable questions from intelligent people is fascinating to watch. Best quote from W since - uh - Tuesday:
(When he told us he was the "decider" and he had made his decide about Rumsfeld.)
Bush said this of Scotty M today: "One of these days, he and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas and talking about the good old days."
Thursday? Friday? Maybe early next week? I vote Sunday. Leave right after church.
One of these days the rest of us will be sitting in rocking chairs wondering how we survived the worst presidency ever.
WAIT!
Gotta Go! MSNBC has the words "Aruba" and "Duke rape" on screen AT THE SAME TIME. I am getting all tingley. Local News getting all dressed up on National Broadcasts is so much fun.
But I do wonder when Eyewitness 7 here in L.A. will counter program and start covering Iraq, Global Warming, the trade imbalance, and Nigeria?
Imagine: "Chopper 7, L.A.'s eye in the sky, is over Darfur...."
Just a thought.
Right after the 2004 election, my father, who left California a while back for a better position in Texas, called to talk politics. We had an extended and worried conversation. At one point there was an exchange that went something like this:
Dad: We can't afford another 4 years of Bush. Maybe it's time to become an expat, for a while at least. To which I said glibly, snidely, and seriously all at once:
"I already am at expat. I'm in California."
Been thinking about that remark again this week. There is no factual truth in it. But I wonder how much emotional truth I was speaking. The idea of California becoming the Republic of California again is not at all a new idea. We would be just fine as a country. Better than fine, really. A power in our own right. Better suited for nationhood than any other state in the Union. Sorry Texas- it's true. I am deeply loyal to the United States. But how long will it be the country I know and love? Are we in a bad patch of our history? Or have we been poisoned by the fear mongering Right? I have no intention of ever living in a theocracy. Or in a country that goes too long without demanding accountability from its executive. America is an idea much more than a location. How much of the majestic ideas of Jefferson, Paine, Adams, and Lincoln will be chewed away by the petulant, greedy little minds in Bush's world before it's time to leave?
This is the first in what I hope to be an ongoing series. Heterosexuals are out of control and very few are doing anything about it. I don't mind what they do in their bedrooms but the fact is that everyday the evidence mounts that heterosexuals have a corrosive effect on marriage and society as a whole. Examples:
Heterosexual perverts put the nation's security at risk.
Heterosexuality promotes fraud.
Heterosexuals cannot be trusted with our children. After they have them, it may be best to have others raise them.
Something needs to be done to get straight people under control. Anyone have Lou Dobb's cell phone number?
Can we talk about oil yet? It went up again today because someone published something in the New Yorker. I bet it will go down a tad Tuesday. But not much. Oil is the issue that trumps all others. But we are still refusing to see it.
About 60% of the country is on the same page about W - so the polls tell us.
And yet, with all this agreement on Bush's failures, lies, and deceit - we still can't or won't grasp the obvious - it's about oil.
Why won't we talk about oil? The media won't for simple reasons. Money. Ratings. Scaring people a little every day is good for business. Telling people that every single assumption they have about their lives is hanging by a thread is a major media buzz kill.
The national conversation - in so much as it is not dictated by the media - is stilted around oil for the reason stated above. That thing called your "lifestyle" is about to take a serious beating. And who wants to throw that into a perfectly delightful night of Bush bashing?
I urge everyone to get up to speed on oil depletion.
Two sites to get started:
Lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
dieoff.org
Have fun. Resist the temptation to check out. The tipping point in the national conversation on peak oil will be at $5 a gallon. I would say that by then it will be too late. But, actually, it already is too late.
Let's at least understand why and how we got here.
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