Aime,

You might like to view/circulate some of these peak oil educational resources:

Audio of Ian Dunlop's recent appearance on ABC Ockham's Razor - http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2008/2313512.htm#transcript

My recent presentation to Engineers Australia - http://eaq.mediavisionz.com.au/080520-P34/fHI.htm

A new Australian documentary "Australia Pumping Empty: The Looming Peak Oil Crisis" - http://www.aquilaproductions.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=27

Many more at the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO-Australia) website - http://www.aspo-australia.org.au/

ASPO-Australia members (whose contact details are available at the website) can be invited to conduct presentations almost anywhere in the country. All you need to do is ask.

Regards,

Stuart

COG - Part 1

Pete - in the Timeline, you will notice more recent additions to what is known as Continuity Of Government (COG).

Thanks to COG, People like Rumsfeld, Cheney, and his legal strongman David Addison have effectively NEVER BEEN OUT of government since the Ford administration.

We almost had a glimpse of COG during the interrogation of Oliver North (yes, he is a member) in the Iran Contra hearings, but the questions were instantly disallowed.

COG is at the heart of the surveillance network which now monitors vast amounts of domestic intelligence in America (the old KGB would die with envy). Worse, members of "the people's government" can't even take a dump in the Congressional Lavatories without being monitored (in a manner of speaking).

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-368745798563225089

Maybe like me, you are dissatisfied with Democrat excuses for not moving more strongly against Cheney / Bush. There is obviously more to this than feeble excuses based on some sort of political chess game. I think the Obama team are trying to function within this pathological framework. I think any serious Presidential contender must make a play to inherit, or live with COG, without being burned by it. Not easy, because COG hold most of the cards where lethal dirty tricks are concerned.

COG - Part 2

I think 9-11 was a sort of coup by elements of COG. Having inserted the Vulcans into "the people's government" in the stolen US election of 2000, the knobs and levers of the whole judicial and legislative machinery fell fatally under their influence thanks to 9-11. Cui bono.

The anthrax threat came straight from the US military's own labs - and recalcitrant congresspeople were stampeded into submitting those levers - to pass the Patriot Act which had been waiting in readiness for years. Even as I write, one of the anthrax creeps has (been?) suicided, so he has joined the ranks of the "lone nutters" and the trail can be left to grow safely cold.

I would love to submit an article about this, if only I had the intellectual and journalistic talent required. But these boys are so bizarre, that the very act of trying to write about them puts one in the running for the Tinfoil Hat Award.

- as you can see - I rest my case - :)

*

Closer to home, the establishment spooks are still trying to make the world a better place for the energy corporations and entrenched financiers. Scan down this page and tell me what you see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakluyt_&_Company

- probably nothing, unless you are a Victorian with an eye on the future of public transport, given the limitations of future liquid energy supplies.

Cheers -

(BTW - Nice one Stuart)

I have appreciated the informative posts presented thus far by everyone here. Some of the best links I have seen on OLO.

Happened across this neat little video, which I personally call:

The Big Picture for Dummies

"If we're addicted to oil, our twelve-step program should begin with admitting that we have a problem. As the price of oil creeps higher, finding new energy sources is more important than ever. But the search for alternatives, combined with environmental disruptions, is putting new pressures on other essentials like food. There are some things that are going well in the world. Right now, the economy is not one of them."

http://littlurl.com/itwtv

Little G Junior sure has a lot of explaining to do.

Hi Chris

Thanks for those references.

Believe me they are not at all tinfoil or delusional compared to much of the Secret Men's Business [aka warped intelligence] that circulates around hallowed halls of Government. WMDs anyone?

It is interesting how concern about rendition/Guantanamo were considered nutcase, lefty stuff for years, but now the failings of the gaolers and US Government has been exposed.

Times change.

I think that oil scarcity/rising prices will make "Energy Security" a concept that we can again dare spaeak of (after Cheney suppressed it from official Western discourse in 1999).

If Obama gets in - US industry and the military will persuade hime that a sizable force (say 50 to 100,000) will need to remain in Iraq to protect America's hard won oil interests.

Rudd's declarations about Iraq can't hide the fact that around 1,000 Australians are still involved in defending that country one way or another (mainly to back our claim to some of its oil in future).

A little advert - on China's energy security see my OLO Article probably out today (Monday).

Regards

and

zzzzzzzzz time

Pete

Secrets, lies and big oil
By Will Hardiker - posted Thursday, 31 July 2008

DavidJS comment: re oil companies and including pharmaceuticals.

These industries, plus chemical industry are tied together.

Many pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, agriculture and chemical weapons derive from petro chemicals.

Each industry will support the other, fiercely lobbying governments to protect their interests, regardless of environmental or public health damage.

The Victorian government initially encouraged Community Consultation between industries. Both working together to seek alternatives to some of the chemicals produced, ensuring world best practices were used and ensuring the protection of the environment and public health.

Instead of enshrining this policy in legislation it chose to encourage it approved it as a voluntary agreement. When the public insisted on compliance with agreements, industry walked away, arguing that as a voluntary agreement there was no legal requirement to comply with any community agreement.

The Victorian EPA, I believe, due to heavy lobbying, has now backed away from the concept of community consultation. Even the Authority itself no longer holds community consultation meetings or limits to vested interests.

Government policy appears to be changing to a policy of denying the public the right to know; refusing to provide information that is in the interests of the public and modifying sections of its own Act in an attempt to deny third party appeals.

Instead it has chosen a path that appears to support Industry to the extent of breaching its own Act and regulations and SEPPs policies, e.g. changes that allow developers to bury toxic waste on site, possibly setting up a time bomb for future generations.

An example from the past shows how one manufacturing site with a high level of lead, was allowed to be developed for residential use. The effect on children of the families who lived there was disastrous.

Perhaps Government policy has chosen to consider it an acceptable risk in order to allow residential development as a means to reduce the demand on land.

Acceptable Risk to our children? I think not!

Alternatively is it to ensure more investment in the State?

professori_au