...and why do people hurt small children. I just read the story about the little girl found dead in a creek, still in her car seat; and presumably murdered by her father.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/nj-todd...

These stories rip my heart out yet I can't stop reading them and wishing I could have somehow helped. I just fail to understand what can make a person do these kinds of things.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40674270/ns/us... /

A terrible and desperate act. I am thankful that he was unable to injure anyone. As people become more desperate, you will see more things of this sort I fear.

He left this message:

My testament: Some people (the government sponsored media) will say I was evil, a monster (V) ... no ... I was just born poor in a country where the Wealthy manipulate, use, abuse, and economically enslave 95 percent of the population. Rich Republicans, Rich Democrats ... same-same ... rich ... they take turns fleecing us ... our few dollars ... pyramiding the wealth for themselves."

Congress is broken.

This Country is broken.

60 seats in the senate and we can accomplish nothing.

I don't think all the king's horses and all the king's men can put us together again.

So sad. So weak. So depressing.

Nordmadr

Seems appropriate for all of us.

"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at
last!"

Olafr

Dear Senator Clinton,

There seems to be a ripple, or perhaps a convulsion of sorts passing through the American People right now. We are uncertain. The public is hurting, and the government continues to ask more from us to help those that have often lived with a silver spoon. Many have smugly played the system to their direct advantage, often illegally and unscrupulously. How we seem to have lost our way as a society. Can we no longer be honorable? Were we ever? Our forefathers must weep.

I write to you to implore that you not support a government Wall St. subsidy without finding a way to help everyday working class people. I ask that you not allow these institutions to continue to run amok without regulation and oversight. Over and over again they prove that they can not handle the responsibility.

As a society, we live far more comfortably than most, but I think we can sense things may not be staying that way. We anticipate pain to come; but make no mistake, we are angry, and if things are to be painful, they should be equally painful. Those that helped organize this mess should also share in it. Large numbers of very real and ordinary people are paying for all of these mistakes.


The financial numbers being talked about are simply staggering. Most of us are not experts on the economy, but it seems striking to us that money could come so quickly for this yet education, health care, and a whole list of important things are left to limp along.

Let this be a defining moment. Draw a line and say, 'no more'. Let it be the beginning of something new.

I was sitting here doing what I always do, even when I don't really seem to want to, reading through the political news. I stumbled across this article over at the CNN Blogs talking about Edwards suggesting Hillary was pretty much out of the race.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/... /

Now in my opinion, that is not really what he is doing, but I nitpick. The reason I AM posting about this article though is this quote from Hillary regarding the Iowa results and the primary in New Hampshire:

"Iowa does not have best track record in determining who the parties nominate, everybody knows that," she said at an event in Manchester. "You know, New Hampshire is famously independent, it is a place where people want to make up their own minds — they're not interested in what anybody else has decided.

"They want to look us up and down, make that judgment, and I welcome that," She added. "I think that's exactly what the New Hampshire process should be about."

Now, I KNOW there is tons of stuff around critical of candidates and so forth on this site, but in all fairness, that is sort of what this is all about. By examining our candidates closely we expose their various flaws and allow ourselves to make the best informed decisions we can about them. Now, the problem comes in to play when people start taking it all personal. What I am about to say is not a personal attack on any Clinton supporter, so please, calm your political anxieties. It is however a critique that highlights one of the reasons she is not my third choice (neither my first choice or second choice are even running). At this point in time, I am leaning towards John Edwards but I mention it only for full disclosure purposes. I'm critical of him too.

Ok, finally, here is my point. This quote strikes me as particularly critical of the people of Iowa. Perhaps I read too much into it, but by attempting to diminish the importance of her loss, she comes across as insulting to Iowans. She insinuates that they aren't good at picking the winner (stupid?) and that, you know, in OTHER places like New Hampshire, people are independent and make up their own minds (NOT lemmings like those folks in Iowa?)

Now, this all strikes me in the following ways (again, admitting I'm looking through my olafvikingr thought process filter):

1) Elitist - I don't need you Iowa people anyway. I am so tired of elitism. Well, I'm tired of a lot of things, but this one is big.

2) Petty - Why don't you stick your tongue out at them too?

3) Undignified - For someone that wants to be POTUS, I'd not make a habit of talking down an entire state of people. Ones that you want to represent, and you know, ones that have a right to make up their own mind. I'm sure I've read that somewhere.

Additionally, it is such clear sucking up to New Hampshire that it makes me slightly queasy. Being the best suck up does not make one the best President.

Her inevitability is chinked, and I think that has gotten to her, rattled her even.

Thoughts?

Olafr

I appear to have been the topic of discussion at a certain conservative message board regarding a post I mad quite a while ago here in which I referenced an encounter I had with someone that did not like my bumper stickers. These individuals questoned my military service, my courage, and my integrity in their postings.

Here was my response:


I have registered to this message board for one reason, and one reason only. I am the "olafvikingr" being attacked in this thread. I would like to ask the moderators for a little leeway while I take the opportunity to defend myself. I am not here to talk about my politics or yours. I am certain we are very unlikely to sway each other either way. I do believe I am entitled to offer up some truths however. I will do my best to be civil. Please, before you ban me, at least let people read the truth.

First and foremost, everything I stated in my post that has been discussed here is true, with one minor modification. I can not be certain as to whether or not when we were off the coast of Somailia specifically if we were in the Red Sea, or if we were in the larger body of water, the Indian Ocean.

Several individuals in this thread have outright called me a liar, questioned my patriotism, and even in one instance, strongly insinuated that I was a coward. It is my intent to address all of these issues.

I did get spit at. As I addressed in my post, I was in a vehicle, so I was not directly spit upon, but it was aimed clearly and with intent, directly at me. I also readily acknowledge that the individual that disagreed with my bumper sticker had no way of knowing that I was a veteran, of not one, but two branches of the service; but I'll cover that more next. I obviously can not verify whether or not Vietnam Veterans were spit on, I was simply making the association that I understood how it would have felt.

A typical Army National Guard contract is in fact longer than 1 year. In fact, it is 6 years. I was released from my Guard service in order to serve active duty. I went to Basic Combat Training in Ft. Dix, NJ. When I enlisted my MOS was a 63T10. For the non-military folks, that is a tank mechanic. I never went to the AIT for that, becasue I was doing my 2nd basic training for the Navy at that time. In th ARNG I served with Co. C 1/108th Mechanized Infantry. In the Navy I attended basic training in Great Lakes, Illinois, and chose my duty staton of Pear Harbor as part of the commissioning crew for the USS Lake Erie (CG-70), and AEGIS class cruiser. I am a plankowner and shellback, other squids will know what that means.

txradioguy, I was there too. I never touched land, but I was there. I never made any claim to have been part of the "Black Hawk Down". engagements. I never tried to glorify my service beyond what it was. I was off the Coast of Somalia early in 1995 (probably March or April). To the best of my knowledge our activites were to provide NGFS (that's Naval Gunfire Support) for the Marines. We never had to shoot. I know, I spent several days in my gun mount. I did not go into full detal of my activities and such in my post, because it was not the focus of discussion and it was originally written as a letter to the editor, so extra detail was not necesarry. I was on deployment to enforce sanctions on Iraq at the time in the Gulf and perform VBSS (Visit, Board, Search and Seizure) activies. Somalia was a detour for us on the way back.

Speed_Addiction, sorry you got shot in the face, but you may want to think twice before questioning another man's service. That is about the nicest way I can say what I want to say.


Adam Wood, I made no attempt to describe action I saw or didn't see, because it was not the purpose of the letter. I had no intent to make someone think I was some kind of war hero. I made clear that I was on ship. How much glory could I have been seeking to garner for myself on a mesage board full of people I do not know? No bullshit.

As to those that would insinuate that I joined the Navy to avoid any real service. That above all makes my blood boil. In essence, you call me a coward without having any idea what you ar talking about. Does it matter to you that I joined the Navy to be an EOD Diver (that's Explosive Ordinance Disposal)? Clearly a job for cowards. Does the fact that I was unable to attain that goal make me a coward? I think not. Does the fact that I then served out the remainder of my serivce on board a combatant ship as a Gunners Mate (aft gun mount 5" 54 Mk 45 Mod 2 Light Weight Gun System) make me a coward, or that I deployed to what was essentialy a war zone where I received hazardous duty pay because we were in an area of high risk? Does that make me a coward? I readily admit that I saw no combat action. But do not question my integrity, courage or honor. I served. I served honorably. Our politics may differ. While I diagree with many of the things conservatives may stand for, I would, and did, defend the right for you to have those opinions.


Here are the service awards I received while in the Navy and on deployment:

National Defense Serivce Medal
Sea Service Deployment (2 awards)
Southwest Asia Service Medal with Bronze Star
Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal
Good Conduct Medal
Expert Rifle
Expert Pistol


Thank you for your patience and time. I wish all of you a safe and Merry Christmas.

Nation's No. 1 automaker posts much stronger than expected earnings as revenue tops forecasts on improved North American sales.
October 25 2006: 8:27 AM EDT


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- General Motors posted third quarter operating profit that nearly doubled Wall Street's earnings expectations as its turnaround efforts continued to show results.

The nation's No. 1 automaker earned $529 million, or 93 cents a share excluding special items, compared with a loss of $1.1 billion, or $1.92 a share on that basis a year earlier.

Analysts surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast earnings of only 49 cents a share in the period.

Shares of GM (Charts), a Dow component, gained 1.4 percent in pre-market trading following the report, helping to to lift stock futures towards a higher open for U.S. markets.


http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/25/news/compa...

Does it occur to anyone else, that the only reason these copmpaines such as GM are recovering is at thet total expense of their work force? I find it disturbing and sad that the rich people running these businesses (also airline industry) can return to profitability after delcaring bankruptcy and voiding responsibilities to pesnions on folks that have often worked for these companies most of their lives. So some rich folks can ow gt richer, and the average worker is left either without a nest egg they had planned on, or looking for another job. Perhaps I'm wrong about my interpretation, and I'm happy to be corrected, but it just seems like a totally broken system to me. An individual or family can have a hell of a time declaring bankruptcy, yet corporations can do it like no tomorrow. How much more do we have to favor the rich over the regular Joe? Good for GM, but what about the thousands of people they've f*cked?

Cranky Olafr

The Archdruid Report: John Michael Greer


Of the four aspects of our deindustrial predicament I outlined in a previous post – fossil fuel depletion, economic contraction, declining public health, and political dysfunction – public health has received far and away the least attention from the peak oil community. This is ironic, to use no stronger word. I’ve argued at length elsewhere that the energy shortages and economic breakdowns sometimes claimed as causes of imminent industrial collapse will play out instead over decades of unsteady decline, and taken a certain amount of heat from apocalyptically minded peak oil theorists for that. Here, though, the shoe is on the other foot. Though it’s all but unnoticed outside of a small cadre of worried professionals, the disintegration of public health in coming decades promises a disaster in slow motion.

It’s not surprising that this particular crisis has gotten so little air time. Public health is one of the least regarded, though among the most necessary, of the basic services industrial society provides its citizens. It’s not exciting stuff. Sanitation, pest control, water treatment, food safety regulations, and the like are exactly the sort of humdrum bureaucratic activities that today’s popular culture ignores most readily. Even infectious disease control rarely achieves the level of intensity chronicled, say, in Randy Shilts’ history of the AIDS epidemic, And The Band Played On; more often it’s a matter of collecting statistics, tracing contacts, and sending emails to local officials and hospitals in the certain knowledge that most of the recipients will just hit the delete button. On these pedestrian activities, though, rests the industrial world’s relative freedom from the plagues that visited previous societies so regularly and killed so many of our ancestors.

The impending collapse of public health, like most aspects of our current predicament, has an abundance of causes. One is the failure of government at all levels to maintain even the very modest support public health once received. Lacking an influential constituency in the political class, public health departments far more often than not came out the losers in the tax and budget struggles that dominated American state and local politics in the last quarter of the 20th century. Worse, food safety regulations were among the consumer protections gutted by business-friendly politicians, with results that make the headlines tolerably often these days.

A second factor in collapsing public health is the end of the antibiotic age. Starting in the early years of the 20th century, when penicillin revolutionized the treatment of bacterial infections, antibiotics transformed medical practice. Dozens of once-lethal diseases – diphtheria, tuberculosis, bubonic plague, and many others – became treatable conditions. A few prescient researchers cautioned that microbes could evolve resistance to the new “wonder drugs” if the latter were used too indiscriminately, but their warnings went unheard amid the cheerleading of a pharmaceutical industry concerned only with increasing sales and profits, and a medical system that became little more than the pharmaceutical industry’s marketing arm. The result has been an explosion of antibiotic-resistant microbes. The media not long ago announced the emergence of XDR (extreme drug resistant) tuberculosis in Africa and Asia, adding to the list of microbes even the best modern antibiotics won’t treat.


http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/200...

Economics: The Sound of Aunt Edna's Knitting
by John Michael Greer


If the economic landscape beyond Hubbert’s peak proves to be the sort of rough terrain outlined in my last two Archdruid Report posts, how can individuals, families, and communities deal with it? On the large scale, opportunities for action are limited at best, not least because the noise of volatility can too easily hide the signal of decline. Just as recent plunges in the price of oil and natural gas have encouraged the delusion that we no longer have to worry about energy, the upside of the post-peak economy – the fortunes made, the speculative gambles that pay off, the boomtimes when demand destruction crashes energy prices and all seems right with the world – will make it easy for people to convince themselves that industrial society is still on track.

It’s easy to understand this sort of thinking, since the alternative is to accept the unacceptable: to admit that the industrial age is ending, and the luxuries, conveniences, and standard of living that define ordinary lifestyles in the modern world are going away, not just for a little while, but forever. That the unacceptable is also inevitable makes it no easier to cope with. Still, accepting the unacceptable is the crucial step in dealing with the economic impact of peak oil. Every assumption about the future has to be reassessed in the light of a contracting economy in which money and other forms of abstract wealth no longer guarantee access to goods and services.

Not that long ago in historical terms, it's worth recalling, money actually played a fairly small role in the overall economic picture. Until well after 1700, more than half of all goods and services in the western world were produced and consumed in household and community economies, and exchanged in customary networks governed by obligation and reciprocity, not supply and demand. Most households produced the great majority of their own food, clothing, and other necessities, and used surpluses to barter for specialty goods with other local producers. Cash served as a means of exchange for things produced so far away that transport costs and spoilage made barter unworkable. It took cheap, abundant fossil fuel energy to make transportation so cheap that centralized production and distribution of commodities could take the place of local production for local use.

In the aftermath of peak oil, such local economies are the wave of the future, and the money economy of the present and recent past is an anachronism. Since fossil fuel depletion is a gradual process, though, the changeover won’t happen all at once. This is a good thing, since the vast majority of people in the industrial world today lack the skills and tools to function in a local economy. Their jobs – from executives and consultants through salespeople, office staff, and all the other cubicle-shaped pigeonholes in the corporate caste system – serve functions internal to the industrial economy instead of producing goods and services people want or need.


http://www.energybulletin.net/21327.html


Got skills?

Olafr

Proposing Plan C: Report on the Third U.S. Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions

By Megan Quinn



Yellow Springs, Ohio – Participants at the Third U.S. Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions learned how they must use less energy, save and share resources and grow food in their communities.

This response to the coming peak and permanent decline of global oil production, dubbed "Plan C: Curtailment, Cooperation, and Community," was a major theme at the conference last month in this small southwestern Ohio town, the epicenter for a growing national movement.

More than 300 activists, educators and others from 33 states attended the three-day conference at Antioch College to hear from nationally-known experts on ways to meet food, housing, transportation and other needs in an energy-starved world through lifestyle changes –not promised technologies...

...Simplicity movement leader Robin encouraged participants, in the words of Mahatma Ghandi, "to be the change they wish to see in the world."

http://www.communitysolution.org/06pconf1....

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Olafr

That is a poll question being asked on CNN right now. Personally, I'd like to find the answers to the underlying cultural problems that are causing our kids/other adults to commit violence in the schools. I could make any range of arguements for a number of cultural factors that could be contributors.

It's just like giving anti-depressants to someone without trying to figure out WHY they're depressed.

Olafr

From "V For Vendetta"


Interrogator: I am instructed to inform you that you have been convicted by special tribunal and that unless you are ready to offer your cooperation you are to be executed. Do you understand what I'm telling you?

Evey Hammond: Yes.

Interrogator: Are you ready to cooperate?

Evey Hammond: No.

Interrogator: Very well. Escort Ms. Hammond back to her cell. Arrange a detail of six men and take her out behind the chemical shed and shoot her.

Guard: It's time.

Evey Hammond: I'm ready.

Guard: Look all they want is one little piece of information, just give them something, anything.

Evey Hammond: Thank you, but I'd rather die behind the chemical sheds.

Guard: Then you have no fear any more. You're completely free.

Crude prices surge in early trade, hitting a seven and a half month record due to increasing tensions between Iran and the West.

April 17, 2006: 8:07 AM EDT


LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. crude oil prices hit $70 on Monday, the highest level for nearly eight months, as Iran's pursuit of its nuclear program heightened fears the U.S. might take military action against the oil-producing nation.

U.S. light sweet crude was trading 50 cents higher at $69.80, off a session high of $70.

The session peak was the highest since Hurricane Katrina battered oil infrastructure in the U.S. Gulf Coast and drove U.S. crude to a record of $70.85 on August 30 last year.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/04/17/markets/oi...

Now here is what gets me. There seems to be some clear double talk coming out around all of this. Some is blamed on the tension with Iran, and some on shortfalls coming from Nigeria.

The article states:

"Analysts say the loss of high quality Nigerian crude will become more and more of an issue as the U.S. driving season, which begins in May, approaches.

"Light sweet crude is particularly sought after by refiners during the spring and summer as it provides a high yield of gasoline," said Mike Wittner of investment bank Calyon.

He added the Nigerian shortfall could not be made up for by the world's largest oil exporter Saudi Arabia, whose spare capacity is heavy, sour and more difficult to process."



They are talking shortfalls on the supply side, but then OPEC says:

"On production there is nothing we can do. We are already producing at maximum output," Qatar's Oil Minister Abdullah al-Attiyah said. "There is no shortage in supply."

No shortage, producing at maximum? Hmmmmm...

and then to highlight this further, anotehr OPEC official states:

"A senior OPEC delegate also said Monday the producer group was unlikely to change current production levels "as things stand" and that supplies were adequate to cope with unexpected shortages or rising demand."

How could they change current production levels if they are already producing at maximum?

Seems no one wants to indicate there might be an issue with meeting demand. Why that might mean we are peaking in our oil supply.

Olafr

Energy Secretary Quietly Dismantles Independent Science Advisory Board

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has quietly disbanded the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB), the department’s “principal independent advisory board on scientific and technical matters,” reports Nature magazine.

The board, established by President Carter in 1978, is “a mix of distinguished scientists, such as Nobel laureate Burton Richter, and business executives, such as former ExxonMobil chairman Lee Raymond.”

The Energy Department said the board is no longer necessary because Bodman has his own “scientific” background. But Bodman isn’t the first Energy secretary with scientific training. James D. Watkins, President George H.W. Bush’s Energy Secretary who received his masters degree in mechanical engineering and completed a reactor engineering course at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, kept the panel in place during his tenure.

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/04/10/bodman... /

Numerous links in article.

Don't like whatthe advisory board recommends, so just add them to the trash heap. What do those pesky scientists know anyway?

Olafr