DID THE U.S. JUST FORCE IRAN TO STOP ACCEPTING DOLLARS FOR OIL?
January 24th, 2007Remember all the endless talk about the Iranian Oil Bourse and the shift to the eruo?
It appears that the U.S. just forced the issue and sent Iran down that road!
It’s hard to know if the White House has completely lost it, or if there is actually a forward looking plan. Because, right now, Bush seems determined to deliver a kill shot to the U.S. dollar.
Maybe that’s what they want: National Debt? Here you go. Here’s what we owe you. Print N number of dollars, hand them over. Thanks for doin’ bidness with us!
Meanwhile, it will cost you $500 to fill your moped.
Is it time for the Amero?
I don’t know. I’m at a loss on this one, guys. Help me out here…
Via: Iran Focus/AFP:
TEHRAN, Jan 23, 2007 (AFP) – Iran’s major banks said Tuesday they have halted the transfer of dollars abroad as a result of US financial sanctions and fears the money may be seized by the US authorities.
“On Monday, we received a directive asking us not to make any dollar transfers abroad,” an official in the Export Development Bank of Iran told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“Our customers can have accounts opened up in dollars and receive transfers in dollars. But we do not make any more transfers abroad in dollars,” he added.
The halt on transfers was confirmed by an official in one of the branches of Mellat Bank, one of the largest in the country.
Iran announced in December it would replace the dollar with the euro in foreign transactions and state-held foreign assets, in an apparent response to mounting US pressure on its banks.
The United States has blacklisted at least two Iranian banks amid a mounting standoff between the West and Tehran over its controversial nuclear programme that led to the imposition of UN sanctions last month.
U.S. TO DOUBLE SIZE OF STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE
January 23rd, 2007Well, well, well…
And this is the energy plan for the future…
Via: Bloomberg:
Crude oil surged the most since hurricanes devastated the Gulf of Mexico coast in September 2005 after the U.S. said it will double the size of the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
The reserve will increase from its current capacity of 727 million barrels of oil to 1.5 billion barrels over the next two decades, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said today. Bodman said the U.S. will start buying 100,000 barrels of oil a day this spring to expand the stockpile. Prices rose earlier because cooler U.S. weather will increase fuel use.
“Doubling the size of the SPR would add significant upward pressure on oil prices,” said Jason Schenker, an economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina. “It would remove a significant amount of supply from the market. Refiners will have to spend more to get the available barrels.”
Crude oil for March delivery rose $2.46, or 4.7 percent, to $55.04 a barrel, on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest close since Jan. 9. It was the biggest one-day gain since Sept. 19, 2005. Prices are 19 percent lower than a year ago.
The U.S. reserve and similar stockpiles in Europe and Asia are held to make up for disruptions of global oil supplies. The U.S. tapped reserves in 1991 after Iraq invaded Kuwait and in 2005 after hurricanes disrupted pipelines, refineries and Gulf of Mexico production.
“We will have to fill the reserve at the rate of 100,000 barrels a day for the next 20 years,” said Robert Ebel, chairman of the energy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
China Will Use Cash Reserves to Buy “Strategic Resources”
January 23rd, 2007Via: Bloomberg:
China, the world’s biggest consumer of coal and metals, will use its foreign exchange reserves to buy “strategic” resources, Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan said.
The government will increase the nation’s purchases of resources for strategic stockpiling when there are “plentiful” reserves, Zeng said in a speech carried on the Ministry of Land and Resources Web site today.
China is seeking to boost returns on its $1 trillion of reserves by buying higher yielding assets and diversifying its investment. Premier Wen Jiabao said last week that regulators will consider more ways of using the cash pile. The nation is building an emergency supply of crude oil and plans to expand that to metals to shield the world’s fastest-growing major economy from supply disruptions.
Think Your Doctor Knows Best? Think Medical Science is on Your Side? Think again!
January 23rd, 2007Via: Avanoo:
The average life expectancy in the United States is 77.85 years, which ranks forty-sixth highest in the world. Among the countries with higher life expectancies are Guam and Puerto Rico, both of which are under U.S. control, but don’t have nearly the same “quality†of health care that is provided in U.S. states.
Per capita, more centenarians (people 100 or over) live in Dominica, a small third-world Caribbean island, than anywhere else. Most of them live active, rural lifestyles and have little or no access to Western medicine or health care.
How is it that the United States, which spends more money on health care than any other country, isn’t able to compete with third world countries and territories that don’t have nearly the same access to modern conveniences, modern medicines, or modern treatments?
Perhaps my own life experience can help us to better understand what’s going on here.
Corruption: Police in Tijuana Issued Sling Shots
January 23rd, 2007Uhhhh…
Via: Yahoo/AP:
TIJUANA, Mexico – The police department has issued about 60 slingshots to officers in the violent border city of Tijuana, where soldiers confiscated police weapons two weeks ago on allegations of collusion with drug traffickers.
Municipal police spokesman Fernando Bojorquez said Monday that the slingshots, along with bags of ballbearings, were given to officers patrolling areas of the city visited by tourists.
Tijuana’s police force of 2,000 officers has been without guns since Jan. 5, but some patrol alongside armed state police.
President Felipe Calderon sent 3,300 soldiers and federal police to Tijuana at the beginning of January to hunt down drug gangs. The soldiers swept police stations and took officers’ guns for inspection amid allegations by federal investigators that a corrupt network of officers supports smugglers who traffic drugs into the U.S. The weapons are still being checked.
EEstor: More Clues Emerge
January 23rd, 2007In Pay No Attention to the General as “Liberals” Launch Green Energy Fund, I attempted to show that EEstor is a “connected” front for the release of military technology into the private sector. Now, in the following MIT Technology Review article, we learn that EEstor’s CEO previously worked for TRW. Although TRW has been sold off into several companies, for decades TRW served as one of the main vectors for delivering military technology to the private sector (automotive, electronics, telecom); that is, privatizing innovations that had been developed in secret, with public funds.
To sum up: We have a company developing the “holy grail” of energy storage devices, with a CEO who formerly worked for TRW, with the financial backing of a venture capital firm that has Colin Powell, a former four star U.S. Army general and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on its board. In Texas.
Richard Weir, EEStor’s cofounder and chief executive, says he would prefer to keep a low profile and let the results of his company’s innovation speak for themselves.
No shit.
Indeed, people might be so dazzled by the black box that they won’t bother to look into the black bag ops that got the thing built.
And why now? So you and I can drive our electric cars around? Right?
Let’s look at couple of quotes from the article. You’ll love this:
“It’s really tuned to the electronics we attach to it,” explains Weir. “We can go all the way down from pacemakers to locomotives and direct-energy weapons.”
and…
“I have no doubt you can develop that kind of [ceramic] material, and the mechanism that gives you the energy storage is clear, but the first question is whether it’s truly applicable to vehicle applications,” Burke says, pointing out that the technology seems more appropriate for utility-scale storage and military “ray guns,” for which high voltage is an advantage.
Well, well, well… We already know that Americans will soon be saying hello to the goodbye weapon, and who wouldn’t enjoy a missile punch at bullet prices?
In other words, the touchy-feely, clean green electric Hummers of the future are going to be spunoff from Pentagon death ray and super cannon projects. (Same as it ever was.) The military needs the energy density that this EEstor thing provides for weapon systems. Weirdly, there was no mention of the autonomous hunter/killer robots. Oh yes, those projects need power too…
What else is there to learn about EEstor? (Yep, that’s the right page. They just don’t have a site up.)
Via: MIT Technology Review:
A secretive Texas startup developing what some are calling a “game changing” energy-storage technology broke its silence this week. It announced that it has reached two production milestones and is on track to ship systems this year for use in electric vehicles.
EEStor’s ambitious goal, according to patent documents, is to “replace the electrochemical battery” in almost every application, from hybrid-electric and pure-electric vehicles to laptop computers to utility-scale electricity storage.
The company boldly claims that its system, a kind of battery-ultracapacitor hybrid based on barium-titanate powders, will dramatically outperform the best lithium-ion batteries on the market in terms of energy density, price, charge time, and safety. Pound for pound, it will also pack 10 times the punch of lead-acid batteries at half the cost and without the need for toxic materials or chemicals, according to the company.
The implications are enormous and, for many, unbelievable. Such a breakthrough has the potential to radically transform a transportation sector already flirting with an electric renaissance, improve the performance of intermittent energy sources such as wind and sun, and increase the efficiency and stability of power grids–all while fulfilling an oil-addicted America’s quest for energy security.
The breakthrough could also pose a threat to next-generation lithium-ion makers such as Watertown, MA-based A123Systems, which is working on a plug-in hybrid storage system for General Motors, and Reno, NV-based Altair Nanotechnologies, a supplier to all-electric vehicle maker Phoenix Motorcars.
“I get a little skeptical when somebody thinks they’ve got a silver bullet for every application, because that’s just not consistent with reality,” says Andrew Burke, an expert on energy systems for transportation at University of California at Davis.
That said, Burke hopes to be proved wrong. “If [the] technology turns out to be better than I think, that doesn’t make me sad: it makes me happy.”
Richard Weir, EEStor’s cofounder and chief executive, says he would prefer to keep a low profile and let the results of his company’s innovation speak for themselves. “We’re well on our way to doing everything we said,” Weir told Technology Review in a rare interview. He has also worked as an electrical engineer at computing giant IBM and at Michigan-based automotive-systems leader TRW.
Xantrex 852-2000 XPower Powerpack Portable Backup Power Source
January 23rd, 2007A kind reader ordered this Xantrex portable power unit from Amazon via Cryptogon. (Many thanks to whomever you are!) I had never heard about this thing, but as soon as I checked it out, I knew that several of you would like to know about it, too.
Xantrex 852-2000 XPower Powerpack 600HD Portable Backup Power Source
This looks like a great unit, at a weirdly low price, considering what it does. (I’d like to know where it’s made. At this price I have a guess…)
AC and DC out. Recharge on AC or DC. (Solar, wind or hydro, anyone?) If you have modest needs, this should be easily enough power for all of your (LED or fluorescent) lighting and small appliance/electronic needs. Compact. Portable. Multi function… Great stuff.
If you wind up building a weird little power station with this, please send pics!
The XPower Powerpack 600HD provides up to 600 watts of backup power during a power outage and emergency power when you’re in your vehicle or away from home. The XPower Powerpack 600HD will jump-start your vehicle in a roadside emergency. This portable power source will operate a number of AC and DC powered devices such as a cordless phone, TV, radio, fan, computer, laptop, printer, and more. Ideal for power emergencies, the XPower Powerpack 600HD comes with a built-in emergency light to keep you out of the dark and to provide light so others can see you if you’re stranded. It also features an AM/FM radio so you can stay connected to important news and weather updates during a blackout. It even charges mobile phones so you can stay connected to family and friends during a blackout. The XPower Powerpack 600HD also can be used to operate small power tools or at your worksite our outdoors so that you can get the job done even without an outlet nearby.
‘We Will Be Able to Live to 1,000’
January 22nd, 2007Sure, Stupid, will we be able to drink the water? Or, maybe we won’t need any water. Maybe we will just download our consciousness into a computer running Windows version Hell-On-Earth-Meets-the-Matrix.
Where do they find these f*@*&#g lunatics? In universities flush with grant money, that’s where. Clear air, food and water for the people who are alive now? Oh no. F*ck that. There’s much more important work to be done!
Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey is so damn smart that in a serious essay about extending the human lifespan to 1,000 years, using genetic “therapies”, there isn’t one word about resource depletion on this planet!?
Additionally, I’ll sleep well at night knowing that people like Cheney will live forever. Won’t you?
Via: BBC:
Life expectancy is increasing in the developed world. But Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey believes it will soon extend dramatically to 1,000. Here, he explains why.
Ageing is a physical phenomenon happening to our bodies, so at some point in the future, as medicine becomes more and more powerful, we will inevitably be able to address ageing just as effectively as we address many diseases today.
I claim that we are close to that point because of the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) project to prevent and cure ageing.
It is not just an idea: it’s a very detailed plan to repair all the types of molecular and cellular damage that happen to us over time.
And each method to do this is either already working in a preliminary form (in clinical trials) or is based on technologies that already exist and just need to be combined.
This means that all parts of the project should be fully working in mice within just 10 years and we might take only another 10 years to get them all working in humans.
Staying Off the “Electronic Plantation”
January 22nd, 2007Via: Harper’s:
Dale C. Carson, a former FBI agent and now a criminal defense lawyer in Jacksonville, Florida, authored the new book, Arrest-Proof Yourself. Funny and very politically incorrect, the book is a how-to guide for staying out of jail—which Carson says should be of concern not only to career criminals but to “people with lapses in judgment, bad manners, a taste for marijuana, and no knowledge of how the criminal justice system operates.†Being arrested might not necessarily lead to a prison stretch, but it will lead to permanent placement in the “electronic plantation,†the term Carson uses to describe the growing web of federal and state criminal databases. Once you’re on the plantation, he says, you can look forward to a lifetime of low-wage jobs and trouble with authorities. In the old days, Carson writes, “All anyone had to do to escape youthful indiscretions was blow town. Nowadays, that doesn’t work. Once you’re in the ‘puter, my friend, you’re there for life.†I recently spoke by phone with Carson about the many pearls of wisdom contained in his new book.
Energy Scarcity vs. Cost of the War in Iraq
January 22nd, 2007I built a spreadsheet with functions that break down the cost of the war in Iraq into dollars per minute. According to the Pentagon, the war in Iraq is costing $8.4 billion per month.
Cost of the War in Iraq Per Minute
Cost per month: 8400000000
Cost per week: 2100000000
Cost per day: 300000000
Cost per hour: 12500000
Cost per minute: 208333.33
That war is costing $208,333 per minute!
On the last page of the this Oregon State University story about wave power is the following sentence:
“OSU’s College of Engineering is seeking $3 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to build the national wave energy research center, where the engineers hope to test not only their own designs but those of other researchers and commercial developers.”
I tweaked my widget to allow me to enter an “opportunity cost” element to see how many minutes of war spending would need to pass before the cost of the other thing could be paid for:
OSU’s wave energy research center could be built with what is spent on the war in Iraq in about 14.4 minutes.
I was so shocked by this number that I started thinking bigger. For example, what is the total annual budget of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory?
The annual budget now stands at $210 million. In other words, the U.S. spends more on the war in Iraq in one day (about $300 million) than it does on the ANNUAL BUDGET for the primary government laboratory that is tasked with renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development.
What you have here is a proof, with mathematical certainty, that the U.S. government is engineering energy scarcity issues.
This isn’t even an interesting topic anymore, given these numbers.
The far more interesting question is:
Since they are obviously allowing these energy problems to escalate, what do they have in mind for all of us when the “crisis” finally hits?
Like I said in a recent comment:
“We have a problem with human nature. There is, however, no shortage of readily available energy… Water, top soil loss, copper and wheat issues are going to impact peoples’ reality before any of the energy scarcity issues do.”
Hmm. It’s interesting how the energy scarcity meme drowns out the sound of the wolves barking at the door.
Tell me the shit is hitting the fan because of top soil depletion, or fascists with nuclear weapons, etc. but don’t insult my intelligence by saying that there isn’t easily enough energy available from the oceans, the sun and the wind. And the cost? Do you want me to send you a copy of my handy Iraq War Opportunity Cost In Minutes Calculator?
I don’t like religion. It’s certainty and exclusion of simple, observable data—that don’t fit the dogma—are anathema to my nature. The energy scarcity argument, on its own, is like the American dream: you’d have to be asleep to believe it.
Again: We have a problem with human nature. There is, however, no shortage of readily available energy.
In the end, I guess it doesn’t matter. I’d just prefer to know the real score, rather than some nonsense that doesn’t even stand up to basic arithmetic.
